Australia

was passed. All helpless over 16 are also pensioned.

The executive consists of the governor-general, representing the crown, and an executive council composed of the ministers of the state. The capital of the new Commonwealth is the Yass-Canberra district in New South Wales.

The total revenue of the Commonwealth for 1907-08 was £15,019,034. Of this, £8,856,905 was the amount of surplus revenue distributed among the states, leaving the balance for the actual expenditure in carrying on the government. The total trade of Australia in 1907 was £124,633,000, of which £51,809,000 was imports and £72,824,000 exports. The more important exports are wool, gold specie and bullion, butter, copper, skins and hides, flour, mutton and tin; the more important imports are ready-made clothing, cotton and linen goods, metal manufactures, iron and steel. The total population of the Commonwealth in 1906 was 4,119,481. The total trade of the U. S. with Australia for the year ending June, 1908, was valued at $39,467,329, of which $11,186,668 were imports from, and $28,280,661 were exports to, Australia. The leading exports were machinery, mineral oil, timber, paper and tobacco. The leading imports were wool, hides and gums. A decline in trade has been caused by the Australian protective tariff.

Education is in the hands of the separate states, and in the primary grades is generally free and compulsory. Some states support a high-school system, and attention is given to agricultural, technical, and normal training for teachers. About twenty thousand boys receive military drill in cadet corps. There are universities at Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Hobart.

Australian Race.-The native race of Australia (aborigines) is rapidly dying out. Ethnographers differ as to its origin, many holding that the numerous tribes scattered over Australia were not originally of common descent. Sir G. Grey, however, believed that, notwithstanding apparent differences between tribes, their common origin and fundamental unity must be admitted (vide Sir G. Grey's Two Expeditions of Discovery in N. W. and W. Australia, 1841). The theory that they are of exclusive Papuan descent is untenable, as they are widely separated from the Papuans of New Guinea by their silky hair, full beards, and contrasted features, no less than by their ignorance of the bow and arrow, the chief weapon of most of the Papuan tribes. But a fundamen

Australia

tal connection with the negro stock, whether Oceanic or African, is shown in the dark color, shape of the skull (highly dolichocepha lic, or long-headed), and several other physical characteristics. The Australian aborigine is about the same height as the average European, but is inferior in muscular development. In complexion, different tribes vary from light coffee color to coal black. Their mental faculties are low, but they have a keen sense of the ridiculous and a great talent for mimicry. Although the native idioms often differ greatly in their vocabulary, the phonetic system, the grammatical structure, and the universal absence of radicals for numerals beyond two or three,

486

tise polygamy, and morality, as understood by Europeans, is unknown. The aboriginal population was shown by the 1901 census to be not over 40,000. The state parliaments have made humane and adequate provision for their protection. They have many curious customs-including, with some tribes, the practice of circumcision-which are fully descr.bed in the numerous works on early Australian exploration. The most accurate and recent information about the aborigines is to be found in the periodical reports on the subject issued by the Australian state governments. These may be obtained by application to the agents-general in London of the several states. See also E. M.

Austria

prepared, if necessary, to undertake its own defence is strong, and is growing. On June 30, 1907, the total available forces amounted to 84,287. The movement for an Australian navy was given a strong impetus by the visit of the American fleet in the summer of 1908.

See Aflalo's Natural Hist. of Australia (1896); Annual Blue Book and Statistical Register for each colony; Barton's Outlines of Australian Physiography (1895); Bentham and Mueller's Flora Australiensis (1863-78); Sir J. A. Cockburn's Australian Federation (1901); Coghlan's Statistical Account of the Seven Colonies of Australasia (1900, annual); Collingridge's Discovery of Australia (1895); Favenc's Hist. of Australian Exploration (1888); F.nchHatton's Advance Australia (1885); Froude's Oceana (1886); Garran's Coming Commonwealth (1897); Gordon and Gotch's Handbook (annual); J. Grattan Grey's Australasia Old and New (1901); E. Jenks's Hist. of Australia (1902); Saville Kent's Great Barrier Reef of Australia (1893); P. LeroyBeaulicu's Les Nouvelles Sociétés Anglo-Saxonnes (1902); Reeves's State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand (1902); Roth's

point to a common origin. The natives cultivate no sort of food crop, and have no domesticated animals except the 'dingo,' or native dog, and have no permanent dwellings but mere hovels of boughs or grass for temporary shelter. In their primitive state the aborigines, male and female, are found entirely naked, or with a tussock of grass, resembling a Scottish sporran, suspended over the loins. In cold weather they sometimes wear a cloak of skins over the shoulders. Cannibalism -formerly, perhaps, universal-is still practised, especially among the Queensland natives. They live ordinarily on roots, herbs, berries, fish, birds (including the emu), kangaroos, iguanas, snakes, rats, and several sorts of grubs found in trees. Their principal weapons are spears (which are sometimes tipped with poison), hatchets with stone heads, nullanullas (clubs made of hard wood), and the boomerang, a weapon peculiarly their own. They prac

77.601 376,170 137,511 98,406 375,586 1,739,858

Curr's The Australian Race (1888); E. Giles's Australia Twice Trav ersed (1890); G. S. Lang's The Aborigines of Australia (1865); C. Lumholtz's Among Cannibals (in Queensland), 1889; W. Brough Smyth's The Aborigines of Victoria (1878); B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen's The Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899).

Australian Forces.-The forces consist generally of a nucleus of permanent troops, mainly artillery, a headquarters staff, and a small permanent staff of all branches of the service. The remainder of the troops are either militia, partially paid volunteers, or ordinary volunteers. The Australian Defence Bill, introduced into the House of Representatives in September, 1908, aims at compulsory service for short periods on all able-bodied males from 12 to 26 years of age, from 12 to 18 as cadets, from 18 to 26 as members of a National Guard. Though the bill failed to pass, the feeling that the Commonwealth should be

1,744,800 87,650,463 10,180,210 1,835,714 754,065

Queensland Aborigines (1897); Rusden's Hist. of Australia (3 vols. 1883); Schmeisser's Gold Fields of Australasia (1890); Silver's Handbook (5th ed. 1888); Alfred Russel Wallace's Rural Economy and Agriculture of Australia and New Zealand (1891), Australia and New Zealand (1893); Wise's The Commonwealth of Australia (1909); Official Year Book, published annually.

Austria. The empire of Austria embraces generally the western half of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy-i.e. the kingdom of Bohemia, the margravate of Moravia, the duchy of Silesia, the archduchies of Upper and Lower Austria, the duchies of Styria, Salzburg, Carinthia, and Carniola, the county of Tyrol, the dependency of Vorarlberg, the county of Gorz and Gradisca, the margravate of Istria, the town of Trieste, and a coast strip of the Adriaticviz. the kingdom of Dalmatia. North and N.E. of Hungary lie the kingdom of Galicia and the