"Each colony has its own postal regulations, its own postage-stamps, and its own rates for letters and other mail matter. New South Wales is a land of free-trade, while Victoria, its neighbor, is a land of protective tariffs; each can demonstrate the advantages of its particular system, and on the other hand each has a minority party that wants its laws patterned after those of its rival. The gauges of the railways are different, so that there is a break at every frontier; consequently passengers are obliged to change trains, and all freights bound across the line must be transshipped. The enactments of the colonial legislatures are often hostile to one another, and sometimes the rivalry expresses itself so strongly that it seems unfortunate that the colonies have a common language.
"None of the colonies has any State Church, and all religions are placed on the same footing. The Episcopalians are the dominant body so far as numbers are concerned, the Roman Catholics are next, and then come the Presbyterians, and after them the Methodists. These are the four great denominations; far below them in numbers and in their order of strength are the Lutherans and German-Protestants, Baptists, Congregationalists, Jews, Bible Christians, Church of Christ, Unitarians, and Free Presbyterians. The Asiatic proportion of the population adds Moslems, Confucians, and Pagans to the list of religionists. Considering the recent settlement of the colonies, the proportion of places of worship to the population will compare favorably with other countries.
"There is a tendency to exclude religious teaching from the public schools, and in place of this there is a wide-spread interest in Sunday-schools, which abound all over the continent wherever it has been settled. In the matter of education the colonies are happily actuated by the same impulse, all believing that it is one of the vital principles of good government. The children are taught either wholly or partially by the aid of the State funds of each province, and in nearly all the colonies a separate department, under a minister of the Crown, controls the machinery of education.
[Illustration: INFANT CLASS IN AN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL.]
"The leading principles of education in Australia are that it is free, or very nearly so. It is compulsory, and it is secular, though not in all cases, to the absolute exclusion of Bible-reading. The latest reports at hand show that there are 5844 State schools in Australia, with 553,191 pupils and 11,890 teachers. There are numerous high-schools, academies, and denominational schools in the cities and larger towns, and there are colleges and universities at Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide."