Fifty years
hence, when the population of each has passed from one million to ten
millions, and when a system of irrigation has fertilized the large
proportion of now sterile areas of the larger colony, the latter will
assert her precedence and, perhaps, easily pass her rival. But for the
present she is rather handicapped than otherwise by her distances.
Granting that she has throughout as many rich acres as Victoria, still
she is, for the time being, under the disadvantage of having to draw her
resources from greater distances--from an average, say, of more than 300
miles to Victoria's 100.
Against this collective relative handicapping in her race, New South
Wales has happily still to oppose her good fortune in having adhered as
yet to the impartial freedom of exchange for the labour products of all
her workers, while Victoria has restricted that freedom, and has,
consequently, by so much, reduced that product, by her protective
enactments. Let me try to estimate this most important matter. Victoria
has seen fit to protect certain interests, agricultural and
manufacturing, at the expense of the whole of her public. Happily for
her the agricultural protection is probably almost, if not indeed
altogether, inoperative, as the climate and the soil of the country, and
the vigour of her people, give to her, independently, the natural lead
in agricultural products.
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