and has been supplemented or superseded, in the great mines of Western Australia, by engineers of American experience and training, and by mining chemists from Germany. But, both for prospecting for reefs, and for "following the gold" in the earlier stages of a mine's development, it is probable that Victoria is the true home of mining knowledge in the English-speaking world. Cornish and Welsh labour, for reasons which are notorious amongst practical men, requires careful supervision.
Nearly one-third of the world's annual production of gold is raised in the Australasian colonies, and amongst these Victoria is not yet tired of claiming the premier position. The real fact is that Western Australia is easily first, and must remain so, in all human likelihood, for many years to come; while, though the Victorian yield for 1897 was 812,000 ounces (say £3,250,000) as against Queensland's 807,000, the Queensland figures for 1898 overpassed that limit by 100,000 ounces, and left Victoria hopelessly behind. The enthusiasm for gold dredging, which the speculators of Melbourne have caught from New Zealand, is not likely appreciably to swell the gold returns, as many of the claims pegged out are distinctly wild-cat.
It must not be supposed from anything I have said that Victoria has not established manufactures. On the contrary, she has only lately recovered from a craze which was leading her to sacrifice everything to the attempt to acclimatise them. There are in the colony 50,000 people engaged in manufactures: though it is true that New South Wales, the Free-trade Colony, has just about the same number, and that there is a larger proportion of females working in factories in Victoria
