said that the Ministry has any particular policy, though it represents the farmers and working-classes rather than the propertied section of the community.  It will probably make use of the recess to find out what proposals are likely to meet with least opposition, and the Opposition will pronounce no definite opinions till the Ministry have made up their minds.  And this is the chronic state of affairs.  On minor differences Governments go in and out, but the broad lines of policy are laid down by the country, and remain the same whoever may be at the head of affairs.  Nowhere is the theory of government by the people more fully and fairly illustrated.

To write with any comprehension on the politics of a country, one should have lived in it and be acquainted with the principal actors on its political stage.  A mere visitor’s impressions must necessarily be superficial, however much they may be backed up by reading.  Hence, I shall only say as much about Queensland as is absolutely necessary to the rest of my subject.  Originally Moreton Bay was a branch penal settlement of New South Wales, and as only the worst and most troublesome characters were sent there, the history of the district up to the cessation of convict immigration in 1839, was none of the brightest.  The discovery of the Darling Downs led to a certain amount of pastoral settlement, but it was not till its separation from New South Wales, in 1859, that, Queensland really began to flourish.  Ever since, with the exception of two short periods of depression in 1866 and 1877-78, the youngest of the Australian provinces has been catching up its elder sisters with rapidity.  The northern half of the colony offers unlimited opportunities for growing sugar, cotton and other semi-tropical products; and the area is so vast that there are not wanting prophets who say that Queensland will, twenty years hence, be the leading colony of the group.  It is more than probable that, long before that period, she will have split up into two provinces—­the older and southern settlement resembling New South Wales in character, and the more recently occupied northern district, with its semi-tropical industries, forming a half-way house between Australia and India.  A country of squatters and planters is naturally Conservative in its politics.  This is the only colony where manhood suffrage does not obtain, the qualification for the franchise being L100 freehold or L1 leasehold.  The members of the Upper House are nominated by the Crown for life.

The political parties of the day may be said to represent the interest of Northern and Southern Queensland respectively.  The Ministry, at the head of which is Sir Thomas McIlwraith, represents the Northern portion.  Hence they have recently signed a contract with an English syndicate for the construction, on the land-grant system, of a trans-continental railway to join Townsville and other north-east coast settlements with the Gulf of Carpentaria.  Reproductive works and free immigration