GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.—The economic development of Australia has been, and is likely to be, controlled in a remarkable degree by its geographical position and conditions. The great distance of the continent from Europe, and from lands occupied by people of European stock, naturally tended to restrict immigration, especially at a time when the fertile wheat-fields of North America offered superior advantages in virtue of their easy cultivation and quick returns. If it had not been for the discovery of gold, which to a certain extent acted as a corrective, the process of occupation would have been even slower than was the case. But the mineral wealth of Australia, besides attracting a considerable number of people to its shores, gave it a supply of capital which was of great advantage to its development, when, on the decline of gold pro duction in the eastern states, the inhabitants began to settle down to agriculture and pastoral farming.
The remoteness of Australia, too, from the area of European conflicts has hitherto kept it untouched by the hand of war, the aborigines never having proved more than a passing annoyance.
On the other hand, the fact that some of its most fertile regions, lying well within the tropics, are still practically unoccupied, con stitutes a serious menace in these days when many people in the East are beginning to look for new homes. The Australians are, no doubt, right in attempting to make the whole of their country a white man's land ; but, if they eventually find the tropical districts incapable of close settlement by people of their own race, they would do well to consider the suggestion of Professor Gregory that, in such a case, Indian immigration might be promoted under restric tions that would confine it to regions which would otherwise be vacant. Australia, with its comparatively small population distributed along several thousand miles of coast, already has a strategic position sufficiently weak without offering to alien peoples the inducement of large and fertile unoccupied areas.