Science of Man Volume 3-4; Journal of the Royal Anthropological Society of Australasia (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...occupied by undesirable people. Whera this has been neglected, the fates of Spanish colonies and South American Republics overtake them rapidly. This subject will be one w hich must soon ocsupy the attention of Federal Australian Statesmen, and to claim from them such action as will lead to a sufficient increase of population to fill up the i-normous areas of now unoccupied and uninhabited wilderness, as thai between southern and northern Australia, where there are thirteen hundred of miles in length and of great width, which is unused and without colonists, and there are 01 her great areas in Western Australia, likewise uninhabited. The birth-rate of New South Wales and other colonies of Australia is far too small to pro vide a sufficient increase of population in any reasonable time, as it will not" do this at the present slow rate of increase by the proportion of legitimate births to each married couple, as this has been so small in number, and has each year decreased, as statisticians have proved. The total population in the whole of Australia in 1891 was 3,109,939, and in 1898 it had only increased to a total of 3,543,755 in all the colonies, or an increase each year for all Australia, both by births and by inauguration, of only 61,973, and for each colony only about 12,394. This is so small and unsatisfactory an increase that the waste places of Australia would never, during many centuries, be filled up or occupied unless a larger increase was established It requires an increase a hundred times as large as this to fill Australia with inhabitants in the next two or three generations. This continent would comfortably maintain as many persons as are now in Europe, and live times as many as are now in the United States of America, which latter nation...