till they reached the Pacific Ocean. In ‘British North America’, Newfoundland now alone remains a Colony separated from the ‘Dominion of Canada’ and with a Parliament of its own.
The Australian Colonies, 1787–1911.The first of the Australian Colonies in point of time was New South Wales, to which, as I told you, our criminals continued to be sent from 1788 till 1840; West Australia dates from 1829, South Australia and Victoria from 1836, and Queensland from 1859. These all soon began to cry out for parliamentary government of their own; and in 1850 a Whig ministry began to give it to them freely. The Australian Federation.Quite in our own days an Act of the British Parliament has made all the Australian Colonies into a single ‘Federation’ of States, with a ‘federal’ or united Parliament for the whole continent. New Zealand, which was first recognized as a colony in 1840, has got her own Parliament and is not included in this Federation. The great wealth of both New Zealand and Australia Consists in their vast flocks of sheep; these colonies are to the British manufacturers of woollen goods what England was to the Flemish weavers in the fourteenth century, namely, the source of the ‘raw material’ of their industry. There are also great gold mines in Australia.
South Africa, 1806–1911.Next in order of importance of our colonies comes South Africa with its wonderful climate. Its great importance to us, when we took it from the Dutch in the Great War, was as a station on the road to India; but, since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, we have now got a shorter road thither.
In Canada we had really little difficulty in making good friends with our new French subjects, for they hated and feared the pushing Americans, whose