Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/606

 258 THE BRITISH EMPIRE :— NEW SOUTH WALES

British New Guinea is treated as a postal district of Queensland, its mails passing through that colony. In 1897-98 the postal movement was : letters, 19,807 ; newspapers, 10,826 ; packets, 746.

Books of Reference.

Annual Report of Adininistrator.

British New Guinea (Queensland) Act of 1887. Brisbane, 1888.

New Guinea, Further Correspondence respecting. London, 1883 and 1890.

Correspondence relating to an Agreement between the Government of British New Guinea and the British New Guinea Syndicate. London, 1898.

Albertis (Jj. M. d'), New Guinea. Tr. from the Italian. 2 vols. London, 1880. Journal of the Expedition on the Fly River. 8. Sydney, 1887.

Bevan (Th. F.), Toil, Travel, and Discovery in British New Guinea. 8. London, 1890.

Chalmers (J.), Pioneer Life and Work in New Guinea, 1877-1894. London, 1896.

Macgregor (Sir W.), Report of Journey across New Guinea. Loudon, 1896.— British New Guinea. London, 1897.

Moresby (Capt. J.), New Guinea and Polynesia. 8. London, 1876.

Nisbet (H.), A Colonial Tramp : Travels in Australia and New Guinea. New edition, London, 1896.

Romilly (H. H.), The Western Pacific and New Guinea. London, 1886.

Romilly (H. H.), From my Verandah in New Guinea. London, 1889.

Webster (H. Cayley), Through New Guinea and other Cannibal Inlands. London, 1S9S.

NEW SOUTH WALES. Constitution and Government.

The constitution of New South Wales, the oldest of the Australasian colonies, is embodied in the Act 18 & 19 Vict, cap. 54, proclaimed in 1855, which established a 'responsible government.' The constitution vests the legislative power in a Parliament of two Houses, the first called the Legislative Council, and the second the Legislative Assembly. The Legislative Council consists of not less than twenty-one members (58 in August, 1898), appointed by the Crown for life, and the Assembly at present has 125 members. An Act, assented to June 13, 1893, provides for the division of the colony into 125 electorates, each with only one member, and abolishes the property qualification and plural voting. Every male subject 21 years of age, having resided one year in the colony and three months in his electoral district, is qualified as an elector. The elections must all take place on one and the same day. The first general election under this act took place on July 17, 1894; the second on July 24, 1895 ; and the third on July 27, 1898. The duration of a parlia- ment is not more than three years. Members of the Legislative Assembly are paid 300^. per annum, in addition to which they are allowed to travel free on government railways and tramways.

In July 1898 there were 324,338 electors enrolled, or 24*28 per cent, of the population. At the general election of 1898, 178,717