West Australia at Port Adelaide. In the following year the numbers rose to 438, and in 1857 to 629; making a total of 1,336, of whom probably one-half were, in colonial phrase, either "conditional pardons" or "expirees."[1] The check administered by the Act was decisive, for in 1858 the number was reduced to 184; in the next year to 156; and the year after to 114. In consequence of the Victorian and South Australian Acts, the captains of traders were unwilling to take passengers to either of these colonies from West Australia, and generally preferred to go to Sydney, at which port no such Act was in operation. The South Australian Act did not, like that of Victoria, extend to expirees, but only to the conditional pardons. The Home Government have intimated, within the present year, that this "conditional pardon" expedient of convict colonies, which has been so vexatious to their neighbours, is to be entirely abrogated.
- ↑ Mr. Newland to Royal Commission, "Minutes of Evidence," p. 223, &c.
Appendix B.
| Colony or Country. | Date of Origin. |
Last Census. |
Total Population. |
Males. | Females. | Females in 100 of Population. |
| New South Wales | 1788 | 1861 | 358,278 | 202,099 | 156,179 | 40·6 |
| Tasmania | 1803 | „ | 90,211 | — | — | — |
| West Australia | '29 | „ | 15,691 | 9,852 | 5,839 | 37·2 |
| New Zealand | '40 | „ | 106,315 | 67,335 | 38,980 | 36·7 |
| South Australia | '36 | „ | 130,627 | 67,254 | 63,373 | 48·4 |
| Victoria | '51 | „ | 541,800 | 321,724 | 220,026 | 40·6 |
| Queensland | '59 | „ | 34,367 | 20,811 | 13,556 | 39·4 |
| Total | — | — | 1,277,289 | — | — | — |
| New Brunswick | — | 1861 | 252,047 | 129,948 | 122,099 | — |
| Nova Scotia | — | „ | 330,145 | 165,233 | 164,912 | — |
| Prince Edward's Island | — | „ | 80,857 | 40,880 | 39,977 | almost equal |
| Newfoundland | — | „ | 122,638 | 64,268 | 58,370 | — |
| England and Wales | — | „ | 20,066,224 | 9,776,259 | 10,289,965 | — |
Note.—Several of the Australian colonies were settled more or less before they became separate Governments; as Victoria, which, as part of New South Wales, was first colonised in 1834-35, and Queensland, another part of the same colony, about 1840. New Zealand also had been partially colonised from Australia before being proclaimed a colony.
The excess of males in our younger colonies and of females in the mother country are mutually explanatory, as resulting from a continuous excess of male emigration from home to these colonies. The males born in England and Wales, as indeed in the world generally, are slightly more in number than the females, emigration in after life being the chief cause of reversing these original proportions.
