STATE ACTIVITY AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS. Especial interest attaches to Australia because of the wide scope of its State activities. In this respect Australia excels the older countries of the world, a number of its governmental ventures not having been elsewhere attempted, being gen erally held to be without the proper province of the State. It is, therefore, being closely watched, and the results attained are destined to have a far-reaching influence. The most im portant of these activities have been mentioned under the different headings, and they compre hend the construction, ownership. and control of railways and tramways; the construction and maintenance of highways; the surveying of all country roads (and, in Victoria, the maintenance of the same) : the ownership and control of telegraph and telephone lines as a part of the postal system; Government savings banks: irri gation, including the boring of numerous artesian wells; supplying watering-places for cattle, and water to mines; assisting agriculture by grant ing reduced freight rates on Government rail ways in the transportation of seeds and imple ments, or of cattle in time of drought; appro priating large sums for the furthering of agri culture in various other ways. such as the ex termination of injurious animals and insects. (For the extermination of rabbits alone, which at one time became a veritable scourge to the coun try, the State governments have expended more than $10,000,000. ) The States have also advanced loans to farm ers, and granted bounties to producers of but ter and cheese, and to fruit growers, etc. The paying of bounties is not limited to agriculture. They are liberally resorted to in all cases where it is believed that a new industry or a useful departure may be thus established. South Aus tralia manufactures wine, and also runs a cy anide plant. New South Wales. finding her wine industry greatly injured by lack of proper cold storage facilities, erected a Government store house. Tasmania exports timber blocks. The policy of substituting the leasehold for the free hold system of land tenure is being adopted. Old-age pension systems are in force in Victoria and New South Wales. The municipal activities have been very limited compared with those of the States.
The social order which prevails in Australia much resembles that of the United States. No titled aristocracy or hereditary class distinctions are recognized, and perhaps in no place is the feeling of democratic equality and the spirit of hopefulness more widespread. The double ad vantage is enjoyed of high wages and low or moderate prices for necessaries. Many articles, considered as luxuries in Europe, are of common consumption in Australia. The abundance of the meat products (beef and mutton) makes them the staple food. The annual per capita consumption of meat is 264 pounds. as against 150 for the United States and 109 for Great Bri tain—two countries that are in the front rank of meat-consuming nations. The per capita ex penditure is $180, against $100 for the United States. Sixteen out of every 100 people own property, as against only 10 in Great Britain. There are no 'poor rates,' but the Government often finds employment for the able-bodied. Nu merous hospitals are maintained by the Govern ment. State aid is given to private philanthropic institutions, and there are a number of charities wholly supported by private philanthropy.
TuE ABORIGINES. The Australian aborigines, whom some ethnologists would rank as a sepa rate race of mankind, are over, rather than be low, the average stature, less strongly and mas sively built than the European generally, long headed, with depressed nose and wide nostrils, large mouth, thick lips, etc.; features suggest ing now the Negroid. now the Caucasian type. The color of the skin is dark, running all the way from a yellowish to a pronounced black. The hair, with which the Australians are well pro vided on body and face, is black and straight or wavy generally, sometimes curly, but never woolly. Beneath an apparent physical unity all over the island lurks considerable variation, which, like the ensemble of the Australians, may in part be due, as Ratzel holds, to poor nutrition (the common condition of man in this habitat), and in part to prehistoric and historic race-inter mixture with primitive south Asiatics. Malays, Papuans, etc. Caldwell (1856) and Neel: (1872) sought on linguistic grounds (deemed insufficient by Baron F. MUller), to connect the Australian and the Dravidian stocks; while Hale (1891) considers the Australians 'degen erate Dravidians'; and Brinton (1890) groups Australians and Dravidians as one Australic stock. J. Mathew (1899) believes the Austra lians to be a composite people of Papuans, Dravidians, and in the order given, the Tasmanians representing best the Papuan sub stratum. Huxley (1870) believed that one of the earliest races of prehistoric Europe was Aus traloid in type, and other ethnologists down to Keane (1896), Giuffrida-lluggeri. and Schoeten sack (1901) consider the Australians on somatic evidence related to the men of Spy and Neander thal, in Quaternary Europe.
In an interesting article in the Zeitschrift fur Eth»ologie for 1901 Schoetensack argues that Australia was really the area where the precur sor of man first developed the essentially human traits, .spreadin• thence Asiawards over the globe. Linguistically the Australians present great internal variation, with a general unity remarkable in so extensive a habitat. Sociolog ically, the most noteworthy things are the com plicated marriage systems, the numerous and elaborate initiation ceremonies for youth, the corroboree-dance, and the totem system, the re cent study of which has shed much light upon primitive religion. Australian mythology, as the two volumes of Legendary Tales (1890-99) by Mrs. Parker prove, is more extensive than formerly supposed, but is now somewhat influ enced from white quarters. In the way of inven tions, their methods of tree-climbing, the boomer ang and the throwing-stiek, the waddy (club), their message-sticks (with the beginnings of writ ing), and shamans' staffs, are to be mentioned. Their ground and tree drawings, rock-pictures, etc.. are of great interest. Pottery is unknown, and few of the rudiments of agriculture are pres ent. The case against the Australians as a de generate race is not made out. By the census of 1891 the Australian aborigines numbered some what less than 60,000, a fact which indicates that they are not disappearing so fast as is com monly believed. See TASMANIA.