"One of the most hopeful signs of the day is that, with the help of the representatives of labor in Parliament, Australian governments have done much within recent years to mitigate the excess of population in the large towns, and to replace the unemployed upon the land. Of course mistakes have been made. In some cases settlers have failed through lack of agricultural knowledge; in others, on account of the barrenness of the soil. In South Australia, the village settlements, which were avowedly started as an alternative to relief works, have been only a modified success. In New Zealand, village settlements have produced very satisfactory results. … In Victoria, a labor colony has been established, with the entire support of the trades-unionists, to which the unemployed may be sent, and at which they receive, at a very low rate of wages, a course of instruction in agricultural pursuits which enables them subsequently to obtain private employment with farmers or others. In New Zealand, I found a very strong feeling among trades-unionists that it would be to the interest of the workingmen themselves if a penal colony were established, on the lines of those which exist in Germany, to which loafers might be sent, and at which they would be compelled to work, with the alternative of starvation." _H. De R. Walker, Australasian Extensions of Democracy (Atlantic Monthly, May, 1899)._ See also (in this volume), NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1891-1900. AUSTRALIA: Western Australia: The Outlander problem in Australia.