Victoria. Of these, 3,212, or 58 per cent., arrived in the first year, and 5,168, or 93 per cent., in the first three years of the decenniad. The number has declined rapidly from year to year, and since 1873 only 377 such immigrants have arrived. Of these, only 5, all females, came in 1880, and not one in 1881, so that State-assisted immigration to this colony may be said to have ceased. The following are the numbers of assisted immigrants of either sex who have arrived in Victoria during each year of the period referred to : ASSISTED AND FREE IMMIGRATION, 1871 TO 1881. Chinese immigra tion. Chinese, where from to. 133. The Chinese immigrants included in the returns of 1881 numbered 1,348, or 401 more than in the previous year, and included 4 females. The number of Chinese emigrants during 1881 of which there is any record is 652 (all but 2 of whom were males), as compared with 114 in 1880; but this does not include those departing in steamers to the colonies of New South Wales, Tasmania, and South Australia; consequently, this number, probably to a great extent, understates the truth. 134. Of the Chinese who arrived, 129 came from New South Wales and where and Queensland, 53 from New Zealand, 33 from South Australia, 107 from Tasmania, 1,008 from Hong Kong, and 18 from Batavia. Of those recorded as having left, 133 went to New Zealand, 6 to South Australia, 464 to Hong Kong, and 49 to India. Chinese immigration, 1853 to 1881. 135. Chinese first began to arrive in Victoria in 1853; and at the census of 1854 2,000 were enumerated. In 1855 an Act* was passed limiting the number of Chinese males a ship might bring to Victoria to one to every ten tons, and making it compulsory that the sum of ten * Act 18 Vict. No. 39 (12th June 1855). pounds should be paid in respect to each of such immigrants. But notwithstanding the stringent provisions of this Statute, which, however, were largely evaded by Chinese being landed in the adjacent colonies and coming overland to Victoria, the Chinese had in 1857, when the next census was taken, increased to 25,370; and at the end of 1859 it was estimated that they numbered no less than 42,000. Soon after this an exodus of Chinese took place, chiefly to New South Wales, it being estimated that, besides those who departed by sea, as many as 11,000 went over the frontier to work at the Lambing Flat diggings in that colony. In consequence of this, the census of 1861 showed the number of Chinese remaining in Victoria to be only 24,732, or 638 less than in 1857. In 1865 the Act which imposed restrictions on Chinese immigration was repealed; but, notwithstanding this, the number of Chinese in the colony decreased, by the time the census of 1871 was taken, to 17,935, or by 6,797 as compared with 1861; which number at the census of 1881 had been still further reduced to 12,128, or by 5,807 more. The official records of the departures of Chinese by sea are of little value, as no account is kept of those who go to the adjacent colonies; but the arrivals by sea have been regularly recorded since 1860, and were as follow :— ARRIVALS OF CHINESE BY SEA, 1861 TO 1881. number of immigrants. 136. The whole number of Chinese who arrived in the 21 years was Average 12,848, or an average of 612 per annum. It will be observed that only Chinese in 1881 and two other years of the period did the number arriving exceed 1,000, and the highest number reached, viz., 1,348, was in the year under review. and emigra tion in Austral aslan colo 137. The arrivals in each Australasian colony of persons who made Immigration their way there without State assistance, and of those whose passages from the United Kingdom were paid either wholly or in part by the Colonial Governments, also the departures from each such colony, were as follow during the eight years ended with 1880. All the arrivals and departures referred to were by sea only: By the Chinese Immigrants Statute 1858, 28 Vict. No. 259 (9th May 1865). Restrictions on Chinese Immigration were again quite recently imposed by the Chinese Act 1881, 45 Vict. No. 723,. which came into operation on the 1st April 1882. It limits the number of Chinese Immigrants a ship may bring to Victoria to one to every 100 tons, and imposes on each of such immigrants a tax of £10, to be paid before he leaves the vessel. nies. NOTE.-The minus sign (-) Indicates that the emigrants exceeded the immigrants by the number to which it is prefixed. For returns of immigration and emigration of the neighboring colonies during 1881, see Summary of Australasian Statistics (third folding sheet) ante. An International Exhibition was held in New South Wales in 1879, and in Victoria in 1880. colonies in respect to gain by immigration. 138. With an exception in the case of New South Wales, during Order of 1879, that being the year in which an International Exhibition was held in that colony, more persons have in all the years come to Victoria than to any of the other colonies, and in all the years more persons have departed therefrom than from any of the other colonies, but the gain to Victoria by excess of immigrants is usually much less than the similar gain to New South Wales or New Zealand, both of which colonies, it will be noticed, subsidize immigration largely. In 1880, however, the net immigration to Victoria was in excess of that to New Zealand. Victoria and New South Wales are the only colonies of those named in which the net results for 1880 compare favorably with those of previous years. In Queensland, the falling-off in the net immigration during the last three years is very marked. The following is the order in which the colonies stood during 1880 in reference to the net increase of their populations from external sources :ORDER OF COLONIES IN REference to EXCESS OF IMMIGRANTS OVER 1. New South Wales. 2. Victoria. EMIGRANTS, 1880. 3. New Zealand. 5. South Australia. Order of colonies in respect to 7. Western Australia (emigrants in excess of immigrants). 139. Whilst immigration receives scarcely any State assistance from Victoria, Western Australia, and Tasmania, it is still subsidized by other four colonies, although less so in 1880 than in former years. In 1880, if the immigrants to all the colonies had been left to find their tion. the gain by unassisted immigra way there by their own means, the balance of immigrants in favor of New South Wales would have been reduced from 19,300 to 16,200, that in favor of New Zealand from 7,200 to 4,500, that in favor of South Australia from 1,800 to 1,000, whilst the gain of 3,047 to the population of Queensland would have been changed to a loss of 103. The positions of the colonies on the list would also have been somewhat altered: Tasmania rising from the sixth to the fifth place, and Queensland descending from the fourth place to the sixth. The following is the order of the colonies in regard to excess of unassisted immigrants over emigrants, or the contrary, in that year, the figures showing the gain or loss to the population being placed against each colony :ORDER OF COLONIES IN REFERENCE TO EXCESS OF UNASSISTED IMMIGRANTS OVER EMIGRANTS, 1880.* Disturbances to Austra gration returns. 103 200 140. None of the other colonies on the Australian continent, any lian immi- more than Victoria, attempt to take account of arrivals or departures overland, so that the remarks† made on the absence of such information in the case of this colony are applicable in a greater or less degree to all the others, except Western Australia, with which there is no overland communication. It will, therefore, be readily understood that, with this exception, the immigration returns of the continental colonies are liable to an error which is apt to increase from year to year, for which reason the figures given in the last table should not wholly be relied on. If the arrivals and departures by sea are correctly recorded, there ought, however, obviously be no such inaccuracy as regards the Australian continent taken as a whole, or as regards the insular colonies of Tasmania and New Zealand. Gain of Australia and by immigration. 141. According to the figures in the last table, the net gain to the Australasia population of the Australian continent during 1880 by excess of immigration over emigration was 35,582; the net gain from the same source to the population of the whole of the Australasian colonies was 43,199. Although these figures, for reasons given in the concluding portion of the preceding paragraph, ought to be tolerably correct, the results of the recent census show that they are not so reliable as was Year of the Melbourne International Exhibition. |