Colony. A message of ten words-exclusive of both the addresses, which are sent free-is forwarded to any station in New South Wales for one shilling. The establishment of these lines was soon accomplished, as will be seen from the fact that while in 1871 there were only 89 stations and 5,579 miles of wire, in 1884 there were nearly 400 stations and 18,681 miles of wire. There are open for traffic more than 23,500 miles of common roads, of which about 5,000 miles are macadamised. Mail coaches carrying passengers do a large traffic, and run through every district.

Towns exist all over the country, and the cities of Bathurst and Goulburn are the centres of remarkably fine districts, where farming is carried out on a most extensive scale, with good buildings and homesteads. Villa residences are beautifully dotted about the suburbs, the whole landscape having a permanently settled and prosperous appearance.

The popular ideal of a squatter's life is now only to be found in the back blocks," away in the far western interior. There is a marked difference in the way of living to that which obtained forty years ago. Ladies no longer live at the sheep stations in the rude way they formerly did. They find it is quite as easy to have things comfortable, and a station is rarely found nowadays without its flower gardens and lawn-tennis ground, and a well-furnished house with its piano and pictures. Competency and fortune have induced refinement, and the eternal mutton and damper are things of the past.

I should not be doing justice to New South Wales were I to omit to mention the almost unexplored source of wealth she has in her fisheries. With a coast line of 600 miles, with good feeding and spawning grounds, with rivers and estuaries and inlets along its entire distance—in short, all sorts of favourable conditions—and millions of fish, the fishing industry is simply limited to the catching of a few fresh fish for the Sydney market; and, even as far as this goes, is without the conveniences desirable and necessary to provide one-tenth of the quantity which could be disposed of in Sydney. In a great measure this apathy exists through the cheapness of butcher's meat, for few people of moderate means are willing to give a higher price for fish than they give for beef and mutton. Nevertheless, a large industry could be profitably carried out, if drying, curing, or preserving in tins were instituted on such a scale and in a similar manner to those in approved use in Canada and the United States.

Moreover, there are varieties of fish common to the New South

Wales coast which are far more delicious than cod or ling, or the other dried fish usually brought to English markets. Mr. Oliver says: "A Lake Macquarie smoked mullet does not suffer in comparison with a Finnon haddock, and nothing can surpass a corned moorra nennigai.' Corned king-fish is far better food than half the salt fish which is brought to us from a distance of some 14,000 miles, as though our seas were destitute of fish fit for curing. 'Barracouta,'' schnappers,'' whiting,' and many other descriptions of fish which take the salt well could be named; indeed, it would be difficult to enumerate all the varieties upon which curative processes may be successfully tried. On the whole, it may be confidently predicted that enterprise in this direction will hardly fail to bring about satisfactory results; and it is safe to say that a large home demand for cured fish would reward any well-conducted experiments upon such fish as our lake mullet, herrings, tarwine, whiting, schnapper, king-fish, jew-fish, taraglin, and sea-tailors."

Mr. William Macleay has done good work in writing the history of the fishes common to New South Wales; and Mr. Oliver has ably pointed out what may be done with our fisheries.

No stronger proof can be given of the material progress of any country than that of having a successful commerce and an everincreasing trade. The development of trade in New South Wales, and, indeed, of all the Colonies in the Australasian group, is one of the most remarkable circumstances of modern times. The imports and exports of Australia in the early days of settlement were necessarily of the most limited character. Until the gold discovery, the wealth of the Colony was entirely pastoral; and in 1850, which was previous to the separation of Victoria and Queensland, the former taking place in 1851, and the latter in 1859, the population of the whole of the territory included in the Colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland amounted to only 265,503, exporting a value equal to £2,399,580, and importing a value of £2,078,338, so that the total value of the trade at that period was £4,477,918. This had increased in 1883 to £86,298,843, and at the close of the present year in all probability it will have amounted to over £100,000,000.

It is, however, with New South Wales as it now exists that we have to deal, and while numbering something less in population, it has again gone ahead of its illustrious daughter, Victoria, in its imports and exports, as in 1883 they amounted to £40,846,175 and in 1884 to £41,079,091. The expansion of trade will be best exemplified from the following figures:-From 1852 to 1861 the total

import trade for the ten years was £57,650,053, and the total export trade £43,125,653, together £100,775,706; from 1862 to 1871 the import trade was £84,832,363, and the total export trade £74,148,876, together £158,981,239, and during the last decade, viz., from 1875 to 1884, imports amounted to £167,164,963, and exports to £152,288,164, making a total of £319,448,127. From the ten years ending 1871 to the ten years ending 1881 trade expanded from £158,981,232 in the former period to £262,679,613 in the latter, or equivalent to 65 per cent. About two-thirds of this trade is with Great Britain and her Colonial possessions.

This wondrous expansion of trade necessitated a corresponding increase in shipping. We find in 1871, 1,891 vessels, equal to 706,019 tons, were entered inwards, and 2,133 outwards, equal to 794,460 tons; together, 4,024 vessels, of the aggregate tonnage of 1,500,479 tons. In 1881 there were entered inwards 2,254 vessels, equal to 1,456,239 tons, and outwards 2,203 vessels, equal to 1,330,261 tons; together, 4,357 of the aggregate tonnage of 2,786,500 tons. It will be observed that, while the number of vessels employed has not largely increased, the tonnage shows an increase of 1,286,021 tons, equal to 85 per cent. This is explained by the class of ships now employed to do the trade. Formerly they were the ordinary sailing vessels, but now these have been superseded by large steamers averaging 3,000 tons, making three trips yearly. The following statement shows the amount of shipping entered and cleared in each Australasian Colony during the year 1883 :

Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, is most admirably situated for all purposes of commerce. Her harbour, for facility and safety of access, capacity, depth of water, shelter, and

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conveniences for shipping cannot be surpassed, and in all these qualities it enjoys an undisputed Australian pre-eminence. It is central to the Australasian group of Colonies, and the enterpôt of the South Pacific Islands. Well-built and extensive warehouses and bonded stores front the shores of Sydney Cove and Darling Harbour, which are divided by a long neck of land giving an immense amount of water frontage. The city has attained very considerable dimensions, and extends on both sides of the harbour a considerable distance-about six miles east and west, and four miles north and south. There are 121 miles of streets and nearly 40,000 houses, and its population is about 800,000, or nearly a third of that of the whole Colony. Here, again, I may compare it with the Sydney of the time when Wentworth wrote Colonial history in 1819. Its population then numbered only 7,000 persons, now swollen to the large number I have mentioned.

After much time and research Commissioners appointed for the purpose decided that a water supply, sufficient for a growing city like the New South Wales metropolis, could be best obtained by collecting the head waters of the Nepean River. Their report was most exhaustive and definite, nevertheless a violent opposition was raised against it, and it was only after the various schemes had been reported on by an English hydraulic engineer-expert in such matters, to whom the matter was referred by the Government— that the Commissioners' scheme was adopted and ordered to be carried into effect. These works, which will supply Sdney with an abundant supply of the purest water until the population increases to nearly two millions, are now being rapidly carried out, and will prove invaluable to the metropolitan district not only for drinking, but for sanitary and manufacturing purposes. The long tunnel to connect the waters of the Nepean and Cordeaux Rivers with those of the Cataract will be 4 miles 2,387 feet in length, of which 2,990 yards have been already driven, and it will be capable of discharging 97 million gallons of water daily. The Cataract Tunnel, commencing at the Cataract River at Broughton Pass, will terminate near the road at Brook's Point, and, when completed, will be 9,724 feet in length, and capable of discharging 155 million gallons per day. A sum of £250,000 has been authorised for supplying country towns with water, and about a fifth of this amount has been already expended to meet the pressing requirements of the mining townships in the northern, and of many of the principal towns in the southern and western districts.

The Frozen Meat Trade has already established itself, and, in

my opinion, is destined in the future to become as great a factor in the production of Colonial wealth, as the wool trade is in the present. The English people must be fed, and it is daily becoming less possible that they can find meat for themselves. Population increases, while the supplying power decreases. It remains, therefore, that the countries which have meat in excess of their requirements, or which can produce a practically unlimited quantity, must supply the deficiency. This was fully pointed out to you in a most able manner two years since by Sir Francis Dillon Bell. The industry is comparatively a new one, but it is a great accomplished fact, and simply resolves itself, like a great many more gigantic industries, into the price of coal. It may seem curious that the production of cold should depend upon the great source of heat, but so it is. Steam power is almost indispensable in every industry, and about seventy horse power is equal to the production of sufficient cold to insure the perfect condition of 10,000 carcases of mutton in its transit from Australia to this country. If necessary, Australia and New Zealand could send you a million tons of meat yearly at a price which all could afford to pay. During the early infancy of this great industry, progress must necessarily be slow, experiments have to be made, better methods invented, more economical appliances brought to bear, prejudices to be overcome, with hundreds of other matters which tend to retard such a revolution in the meat supply; but, if slow, it is steadily and surely advancing, and, like the glacier in its sluggish course down the valley, its progress is irresistible.

The religious, moral, and intellectual progress of the people keeps pace with the great interests of the Colony generally, and scarcely any district is now without its church and school. Every religious body has its representative, and all are on equal footing In 1862 all State aid was withdrawn, and the churches of the various denominations had to be maintained by voluntary contributions. The aid to existing incumbents was to be continued, however, during their life. With this exception, no further State assistance to religion has been given. The numbers of the different religious denominations taken at the Census of 1881 were as follows:-Church of England, 342,359; Lutherans, 4,836; Presbyterians, 72,545; Wesleyan Methodists, 57,049; other Methodists, 7,303; Congregationalists, 14,328; Baptists, 7,307; Unitarians, 828; other Protestants, 9,957; total Protestants, 516,512 Roman Catholics, 207,020; Catholics undescribed, 586; total Catholics, 207,603: Hebrews, 3,265: other persuasions,