Owing to the fostering of immigration by the aristocratic government, the population of Queensland had, in 1866, quadrupled itself since 1860; but, even were the other colonies inclined to follow the example of their northern sister, they could not do so with success. New South Wales and Tasmania might import colonists by the thousand, but they would be no sooner landed than they would run to Queensland, or sail to the New Zealand diggings, just as the “Canadian immigrants” flock into the United States. That phase of the labor question to which I have last alluded seems to shape itself into the question, “Shall the laborer always and everywhere be encouraged or permitted to carry his labor to the best market?” The Australians answer that they are willing to admit that additional hands in a new country mean additional wealth, but that there is but little good in our preaching moral restraint to them if European immigration is to be encouraged, Chinese allowed. The only effect, they say, that self-control can have is that of giving such children as they do rear Chinamen or Irishmen to struggle against instead of brothers. It is hopeless to expect that the Australian workmen will retain their present high standard of comfort if an influx of dark-skinned handicraftsmen is permitted. Some ten or even fewer years ago, we Free Traders of the Western world, first then coming to know some little about the kingdoms of the further East, paused a moment in our daily toil to lift to the skies our hands in lamentation at the blind exclusiveness which we were told had for ages past held sway within the council chambers of Pekin. No words were too strong for our new-found laughing-stock; China became for us what we are to Parisian journalists--a Bœotia redeemed only by a certain eccentricity of folly. This vast hive swarming with two hundred million working bees was said to find its interest in shutting out the world, punishing alike with death the outgoing and incoming of the people. “China for the Chinese” was the common war-cry of the rulers and the ruled; “Self-contained has China been, and prospered; self-contained she shall continue,” the favorite maxim of their teachers. Nothing could be conceived nobler than the scorn which mingled with half-doubting incredulity and with Pharisaic thanking of heaven that we were not as they, when the blindness of these outer barbarians of “Gog and Magog land” was drawn for us by skillful pens, and served out to us with all the comments that self-complacency could suggest. A conversion in the future was foretold, however; this Chinese infirmity of vision should not last forever; the day, we were told, must come when Studentships in Political Economy should be founded in Pekin, and Ricardo take the place of Cou-fou-chow in Thibetian schools. A conversion has taken place of late, but not that hoped for; or, if it be a conversion consistent with the truths of Economic Science, it has taken a strange shape. The wise