VICTORIA. Constitution and Government. THE constitution of Victoria was established by an Act, passed by the Legislature of the colony, in 1854, to which the assent of the Crown was given, in pursuance of the power granted by the Act of the Imperial Parliament of 18 & 19 Vict. cap. 55. The legislative authority is vested in a Parliament of two Chambers; the Legislative Council, composed of forty-two members, and the Legislative Assembly, composed of eighty-six members. A property qualification is required both for members and electors of the Legislative Council. According to an Act which came into force in 1881 members must be in the possession of an estate of the annual value of 100l.; and electors must be in the possession or occupancy of property of the rateable value of 10l. per annum if derived from freehold, or of 251. if derived from leasehold or the occupation of rented property. No electoral property qualification is required for graduates of British universities, matriculated students of the Melbourne university, ministers of religion of all denominations, certificated schoolmasters, lawyers, medical practitioners, and officers of the army and navy. One-third of the Legislative Council must retire every two years, so that a total change is effected in six years. The members of the Legislative Assembly are elected by universal suffrage, for the term of three years. Clergymen of any religious denomination, and persons convicted of felony, are excluded from both the Legislative Council and the Assembly. The number of electors on the roll of the Legislative Council was increased by the action of the Bill of 1881 from 31,858 to 98,735 (1883); the number of electors for the Legislative Assembly was 196,611 in 1883. Of the former all but 1,113, and of the latter all but 30,258 are ratepayers. The executive is vested in a Governor appointed by the Crown. Governor of Victoria.-The Most Hon. George Augustus Constantine Phipps, Marquis of Normanby, born 1819, only son of the first Marquis; Member of Parliament for Scarborough, 1847-58; Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, 1858-63; succeeded his father as second Marquis, 1863; Governor of Queensland, 1871–74; Governor of New Zealand, 1874-78. Appointed Governor of Victoria, Dec. 10, 1878; assumed the government, February 27, 1879. The Governor, who is likewise commander-in-chief of all the colonial troops, has a salary of 10,000l. a year. In the exercise of the executive he is assisted by a cabinet of nine ministers, composed as follows:- Premier and Treasurer.-Hon. James Service. Chief Secretary and Postmaster-General.-Hon. G. Berry. Minister of Mines.-Hon. J. F. Levien. Minister of Justice and Commissioner of Public Works.-Hon. A. Deakin. Minister of Lands.-Hon. A. L. Tucker. Commissioner of Trade and Customs.-Hon. G. D. Langridge. Minister of Defence.-Hon. F. T. Sargood. The Premier and Chief Secretary have each a salary of 1,8001., and the other ministers from 1,400l. to 1,650. At least four out of the nine ministers must be members of either the Legislative Council or the Assembly. For purposes of local administration the colony is divided into urban and rural municipalities. The former ought not to be of a greater area than 9 square miles, and in being constituted must contain at least 300 householders. The latter called shires are portions of country, of undefined extent, containing rateable property capable of yielding a revenue of 5001. In 1882 there were 58 urban and 119 rural municipalities, 18ths of the whole area of the Colony being included within their limits. A large and powerful torpedo boat and two gunboats were launched in England in 1883 for the defence of the colony, while another two torpedo boats are being built (Dec. 1883). There are besides an ironclad, the Cerberus, of 2,100 tons and an obsolete wooden vessel, the Nelson, with heavy armament and engines of 500 horse-power. It is proposed to add four cruisers and three other steamers. The strength of the naval force was 336 officers and men in 1883. The approaches of Melbourne are protected by batteries. The colony possesses a volunteer force consisting of cavalry, artillery, rifles, engineers, torpedo and signal arms. The strength of the force in 1882 was 3,035 officers and men. artillery have 551 guns, many of old pattern. There are a military and a naval commissioner appointed by the Home Government at the expense of the Colony. In 1882-3 108,500l. were spent on military and naval defences, and 188,000l. in the estimates of 1883-4. Church and Education. The There is no State Church in Victoria, and no State assistance has been given to religion since 1875. Prior to that period a sum of £50,000 had been set apart annually out of the general revenue for the advancement of the Christian religion in Victoria, and this amount had been distributed proportionately amongst the various denominations. At the date of the last census about 73 per cent. of the population were Protestants, 24 per cent. were Roman Catholics and a half per cent. were Jews. The following are the numbers of each of the principal divisions:--Episcopalians, 311,291; Presbyterians, 132,591; Methodists, 115,053; other Protestants, 59,457; Roman Catholics, 203,480; Jews, 4,330; Pagans (principally Chinese), 11,159; others (including unspecified), 24,985. Educational establishments in Victoria are of three kinds, viz., the University with its two affiliated colleges, State schools, and private schools. The Melbourne University was established under a special Act of the Victorian Legislature, which was assented to on January 22, 1853, and the building was opened on October 3, 1855. The Act provides for its endowment by the payment of 9,000l. annually out of the general revenue. It is both an examining and a teaching body, and in 1859 received a Royal Charter empowering it to grant degrees in all faculties except divinity. Affiliated to the University are two colleges-Trinity and Ormond-in connection with the Church of England and Presbyterian Church respectively. From the opening of the University to the end of 1882, 1,783 students matriculated, and 790 degrees were conferred. In 1882 the students who matriculated numbered 135, the graduates numbered 80, and there were 397 students attending lectures. The present system of public instruction, which has been in existence since January 1, 1873, is strictly secular; it is compulsory in the case of children between the ages of 6 and 15, with certain exceptions, and it is free, no fees being charged for teaching the subjects comprised in the ordinary course of instruction. In 1882 there were 1,762 State schools, with a total enrolment of 222,945 scholars, instructed by 4,162 teachers. The average attendance was 118,279, or 53 per cent. of the numbers on the Roll. It was estimated that, in 1881, about 96 per cent. of the children at school age living in the colony were being educated during some portion of the year, and that 80 per cent. of these were at the State schools. Amongst persons aged 15 years and upwards at the census of 1881, 92 per cent. were able to read and write, and only 3 per cent. were entirely illiterate. In 1882-3 the total cost of public instruction was 566,7211. Secondary education is entirely under the control either of private persons or proprietary bodies, usually connected with some religious denomination. No State assistance has been given to such bodies of late years, but formerly a few of the principal ones received money and grants of land from the Government. There were in 1883 655 private schools in Victoria, with 1,551 teachers and attended by 34,443 scholars. These numbers include 175 schools, 527 teachers, and 20,340 scholars in connection with the Roman Catholic denomination, the members of which do not as a rule avail themselves of the free education afforded by the State. Revenue, Expenditure, and Debt. The revenue of Victoria may be divided into three heads, viz., taxation, land revenue, public works (chiefly railways and water supply). Taxation consists chiefly of customs and excise duties, with an annual revenue of 1 millions sterling; a land tax yielding 120,000l.; and probate and succession duties, duties on bank notes, and other stamp duties, over 200,000l.; also revenue from port and harbour dues, and business licenses. In 1881-2 the total amount raised by taxation was 2,317,7067., which gives a proportion of 21. 128. 8d. per head of the population. The revenue and expenditure of the colony in each of the five financial years, ending June 30, from 1879 to 1883, were as follows: Of the revenue in 1882-3, 1,769,0041. came from customs, 537,4641. from excise and inland revenue, 679,9341. from land, 1,971,1997. from public works, 324,8211. from posts and telegraphs. The revenue for 1883-4 is estimated (including balance 88,3097., and recoups 225,0007.), at 6,093,0841., and the expenditure at 6,057,7521. Victoria has a debt, incurred in the construction of public works, which amounted to 22,103,2021. at the end of December 1882, and at the end of June 1883 to 26,103,2001. Of this sum, the greater part was borrowed for the construction of railways, and the rest for water supply, docks, State school buildings, and other public works. In January 1884, a new loan of 5,548,900l. was successfully floated. The estimated total value of the rateable property of the colony in 1882 was 91,792,5471., and the annual value 7,433,8127. Area and Population. The colony, first settled in 1835, formed for a time a portion of New South Wales, bearing the name of the Port Phillip district. It was erected in 1851-by Imperial Act of Parliament, 13 and 14 Victoria, cap. 59-into a separate colony, and called Victoria. The colony has an area of 87,884 square miles, or 56,200,000 acres, about 4th part of the whole area of Australia. The colony is divided into 37 counties, varying in area from 109 to 236,778 square miles. The growth of the population, as shown by the census of ten successive periods, is exhibited in the following table: The following table gives a summary of the population of Victoria, according to the census taken on the 3rd April 1881 :— During the last decade there has been a large decrease both in Chinese and aborigines. The following are the births, deaths, and marriages in the colony for the five years from 1878-82 : In 1882, 1,271 births or 4.7 per cent. of the whole were illegitimate. The progress of population of the colony since its establishment was greatly aided by immigration, which, however, declined in recent years, on the nearly complete withdrawal of the system of 'assisted' immigration, which reached its highest point in 1863, when 8,622 persons--3,213 males and 5,409 females-were brought into the colony at the expense, partly or wholly of the State. In the 37 |