Manawatu Dally Times Australia’s Population

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6809, 12 January 1929, Page 8

Manawatu Dally Times Australia’s Population

ACCORDING to a cable published in this issue Australias A population for the ten years ending 1927 showed an increase of 1252791 the total being 6,234,854. The average rate of increase is worked out at 2.27 per cent, per annum. Australian files to hand show that the Statistician estimated the total population of the Commonwealth at the end of September last at 6,310,453, South Wales having the largest quota-more than 2,000,000-and Victoria boasting a population of 1,700,000. Rapid advances in population are now less marked, and it is considered offici circles that the approach to the 7,000,000 will be very slow However, official prognostications are not always reliable, and other authorities consider the advance will continue to be rapid It is pointed out that it is only 140 years since the first fleet reached Svdney, establishing a white population of 1035, therefore it must be concluded that the British race has done well with the great island continent.

The long table which, in the official bulletin, gives the yearly population of Australia and the States since the first colonisation has all the dullness and rigidity of cold type as used by a. Government Printer, but ho who lets his eye rove between the lines will glimpse all the colour and movement of a scattered people struggling into manhood. It is seen, for instance, that for 17 vears New South Wales was Australia. Melbourne comment is that Sydney people think that the position is unchanged.

The table shows that in 1803 Tasmania came into the picture with a population of 177. Western Australia followed in 1829 with 1003, then came South Australia in 1836 with 546. On separation from the Mother State in 1851 Victorians numbered 97,489; and in 1859, when Queensland became entitled to her own supplies of red tape, she had a population of 23,020. With six States thus established, Australia’s population was 1,097,395, made up as follows:—New South Wales, 327,459; Victoria, 521,072; Queensland, 23,520; South Australia, 122,735: Western Australia, 14,837; Tasmania, 87,682.

Then Victoria had a greater population than New South Wales, a fact that surprises many people nowadays. But it was an accepted thing nearly 40 years ago, for such was the power of gold. It was three years after separation, in 1854—the year of the Eureka stockade-that Victoria’s population jumped over 40,000 above that of the parent State, and it was not until 1892 that she yielded the numerical supremacy, after a ncck-and-neck race through the ’eighties.

There has been some discussion lately among scientists as to the number of people which Australia can ultimately support. The United States takes pride in a population of 120,000,000, which provides an enormous home market for primary and secondary industries. Australia, if we are to judge from the consensus of scientific opinion, cannot hope for a population of that size owing to the dryness of its interior. The population which the country can support with the assurance of a comfortable standard has been authoritatively estimated at 20,000,000. But quality, will count before quantity.

It is interesting to note the growth of the population of the United States for the sixty years ending 1920, as showing the possibilities of immigration. Here are the figures: iB6O, 31,443,321; 1870, 38,555,371; 1880, 50,155,783; 1890, 02,947,714; 1900, 75,994,575; 1910, 91,972,206; 1920, 105,710,620. For the hundred years ending 1920 thirty-three and a-half million alien immigrants land in the United States !