Australia and New Zealand are British colonies. The government at London sends a governor to Australia and one to New Zealand, but the people elect their own Parliament which makes their laws. For many years women, as -well as men, have voted in both Australia and New Zealand. The British governors have about as much power in the self-governing colonies as the King of Eng land has in Great Britain. About all they do is to attend meetings, make speeches, and be pleasant. The people of Australia and New Zealand have their government do a great many things such as build and operate their railroads, and dig artesian wells in the dry country to get water for sheep to drink. The Australians and New Zealanders are proud to be a part of the British Empire. During the World War, they sent large armies of very brave men to France to help the mother country.
The six states of Australia, called New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, with Tasmania, an island to the south of it, have formed one government, called the Commonwealth of Australia, which is very much 'like that oi Canada. New Zealand is entirely independent of Australia, as Newfoundland is of Canada.
508. lies almost entirely in the region of the southeast winds. These bring heavy rain to the eastern coast, but a mountain range, called the Great Divid ing Range, a short distance inland, shuts off the moist winds from the interior and makes it dry. (Fig. 496.) There is some dairy farming in the moist country between the mountains and the sea, and also beyond the Great Dividing Range. There is a narrow belt of wheat land west of the mountains in Vic toria and New South Wales, and a shorter one along the slopes of the mountains near Spencer Gulf. Wheat is regularly exported to England, but these wheat belts are not wide, because the rainfall becomes less far ther inland. Beyond the wheat belt is a wide belt of country where there is enough grass to make it a good place for sheep. For hundreds of miles, we find the herders with their big flocks, going from place to place as they do in our own Plateau States (Sec. 111), where much of the country is like this part of Australia.
Australia has more sheep than the United States, and also large herds of cattle.
Sheep and cattle are her greatest wealth. The chief exports are wool, skins, meat, butter and cheese. Shiploads of beef and mutton from Australia and New Zealand, frozen hard as bones, go to Great Britain in refrigerator steamships.
One great trouble about raising sheep in Australia is the plague of rabbits. These furry little fellows will eat the grass that sheep need. When the English went to Australia, they took pet rabbits with them. Some of the pets got away, and as there were no wolves or foxes to eat them, and no snow or cold winter to starve them, they increased very rapidly. Every mother rabbit has four or five families a year; so there were soon millions and millions of rabbits eating up the grass, until whole fields were bare, and there was nothing for the sheep to eat. In our own western coun try, the shepherd is busy keeping foxes, wolves, and wildcats from catching little lambs, but the millions of rabbits in Australia run swiftly and hide in their holes, and are harder to kill than wolves.
Wire fences as long as from New York to Cleveland have been built to keep the Australian rabbits away from the sheep pastures. Now that meat is scarce and costly, the people have begun to catch the rabbits and send them to Europe for food. Tons of them were sent to England during the World War, along with the frozen sheep and frozen beef. Canned rabbit is now an export. You may be surprised to knoW that fine felt hats are made of rabbit fur, most of which comes from Australia.
Drought is another trouble for the sheep farmers. At times there are two or three dry years in succes sion. This makes the pastures fail, and sometimes the sheep die by millions.
509. Mining.— Australia has many deep mines, from which gold and zinc are dug. Some of these mines are in places where so little rain falls that drink ing water is very hard to get. Coolgardie, a gold mining town in West Australia, is supplied by a pipe line longer than the distance from New York City to Rich mond, Virginia. This pipe carries water from a stream near the coast, over the coast hills, and far out into the desert. Several large pumping engines along the line lift the water up and keep it moving.
510. Cities.—The chief ports of Australia are Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney. They are prosperous large cities, some thing like San Francisco. Melbourne is at present the capital of the Australian Commonwealth, but a new city called Canberra is being built for the national capital. Sydney, the largest city, is about the size of Boston or Baltimore.