The ownership of public utilities on the part of the State has incurred heavy debt and a large annual revenue and expenditure. The debt in 1900 was £35,89S,414. In the fiscal year 1000 01 the revenue and receipts amounted to £4,327, 345. Of this, £1,117,472 were collected from taxation, mainly customs, and duties on bank notes, probate and succession duties, and other stamp duties. The land revenue brought in £585.229, the largest item being 'pastoral occu pation.' The income-earning public works, chief ly railways and tramways. had a gross income of £1,481,608. The working expense of the rail ways was £1,056,132. The largest item of ex penditure—the charges upon the public debt— was £1,415,180. The total expenditure was £4,S55,533.
The population increased from 28,056 in 1S60 to 391,080 in 1890, and 503,266 in 1901- In the latter year there were 280.092 males and 223,174 females. The excess of immigration over emigration has become very small in recent years. The white inhabitants arc mainly from the United Kingdom. The aborigines number 3862 males and 2808 females, not including those who live in camps. The population is confined largely to the coast region, and is most numer ous in the south. Brisbane is the capita].
In 1901 there were 185,023 adherents of the Church of England ; 120,663, of the Church of Rome; 57,615 Presbyterians: 29.791 Wesleyans; 25,505 Lutherans. The Mohammedans and Pa gans numbered 19.124. There is no State Church. Education is compulsory between the ages of six and twelve years, but in some parts it is not enforced. Primary education is free and unsec tarian. in 1901 it was estimated that 98 per cent. of the adult white population could read and write. The expenditure of the State for education in 1901 was £299,866.
With the early history of Queensland are associated the Spaniard Torres, whose name is perpetuated in the strait separating that land from New Guinea, and that of the explorer Cook. who, in 1770, coasted from Moreton Bay to Torres Strait and made a chart of the coast. The ex plorations of Lieutenant Flinders, in 1799, opened the way for the settlement of the Moreton Bay district, hut his work seems to have been ne glected, until Queensland was practically redis covered by Oxley in 1823. in 1826 a penal settlement was established on Moreton Bay and the Brisbane River, but the convicts were soon removed and subsequent attempts to introduce a criminal population into the country failed be fore the strong opposition of the free inhabitants. The country was admirably adapted for grazing and drew a large immigration from the southern settlements, the population, in .flay, 1859, when Queensland was set off as a separate colony, being about 25,000. mostly squatters. Brisbane and were the only towns of importance. A severe financial panic in 1866 was followed by the discovery of gold in the years 1897-72, the mining interests henceforth playing a prominent part in the shaping of public policy. The importation of coolies for work on the sugar plantations led to many conflicts in Parliament. The importa tion of Kanaka labor was forbidden in 1890, but was resumed two years later, owing to the alarm ing condition into which the sugar industry had fallen. The Labor Party exercised an important influence on affairs after 1890, though its power was not as fully developed as in the more south ern colonies. In the winter of 1899 Queensland ratified the Constitution for the new Australian Commonwealth. See AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION.