Increase Population by Immigration.

(Emigration being deducted.)

The moat surprising thing about these figures is the extra-ordinary fluctuations they exhibit. The first period showed an aggregate average immigration of 89,453, the second period tin average rose to 54,229, whilst in the third period it dropped to 26,881, Taking the figures for the separate colonies the differences are still more marked. To give the numbers year by year for each of the seven colonies would afford interesting food for thought, but would load this article too heavily with figura It may, however, be said that the increase of population by immigration per year in New South Wales has ranged from 6633 (in 1888) to 27,278 (in 1883); in Victoria from 548 (in 1877) to 26,757 (in 1888); in Queensland from 2678 (in 1879) to 33,656 (in 1883); in South Australia from 186 (in 1882) to 11,622 (in 1831); in Western Australia from 38 (in 1882) to 4208 (in 1886); in Tasmania from 386 (in 1880) to 4016 (in 1891); in New Zealand from 211 (in 1887) to 18,723 (in 1879) The fluctuations extended further than represented by a mere difference in the number of arrivals, for, with the solitary exception of New South Wales, each of the seven colonies, in certain years, lost more by emigration than they gained by immigration. South Australia and New Zealand were the two chief sufferers in this respect. For seven years past South Australia has been a regular loser, whilst New Zealand has lost in five out of the last six years.

The year 1883 recorded the largest total of immigration ever seen in Australasia, with the exception of the gold-few year of 1854, the number being 81,104. Five years later, in 1888, the number fell to 17,580, the smallest immigration of any one of the fifteen years which we are reviewing; indeed, in the last forty-one years—1851-91—there are only four years page 21 when so small a total was recorded. The immigration returns convey a severe rebuke to those people who would close the labor market of the colonies to outside labor, for everyone knows that during the years when the arrivals were exceptionally heavy the unemployed trouble was unknown, and that during the last five years, when the arrivals fell to less than one-half of what they had been, there was a marked increase in the number of men out of employment. In passing it may be noted that the decrease in immigration during the last few years is due less to depression in Australasia than to prosperity in Great Britain.

We fear these figures indicate that the enormous borrowings of late years have tended to bring about an undue, an unusual enlargement of our cities, an enlargement which in the case of Victoria is undoubtedly of a most abnormal character. It is scarcely in young communities that we should look for such concentration of population as we find in the capitals of Australia. So much for the growth of the population as compared with the growth of indebtedness.