According to a letter to the London _Times_, from Sydney, "the population of Australia on December 31, 1908, was estimated at 4,275,304 (exclusive of full-blooded blacks), showing an increase of 509,965, or of 13.5 per cent. in the eight years of federation. That," said the writer, "is not a satisfactory expansion, and we should have fared better. New South Wales gained 231,367, or 17 per cent. and Western Australia 87,143, or 48.4 per cent. but all the other States fared indifferently. There is reason to hope that in the change of fashion, Australia will again grow into some favour with the emigrant from home." AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1908. Change of Ministry. Late in the year, the Ministry of Mr. Deakin lost the provisional support of the Labor party, which had kept it in control of the Government for nearly four years, and suffered a defeat in Parliament which threw it out. For the second time a short-lived Labor Ministry was formed, under Mr. Andrew Fisher. AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1908. The Governor-Generalship. After five years of service as Governor-General, Lord Northcote returned to England in the fall of 1908 and was succeeded by Lord Dudley. AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909. Attitude of the people toward immigration. Land-locking against settlement. See (in this Volume) Immigration: AUSTRALIA. AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909. A summary of sixty years of growth and progress. Sir John Forrest, Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia, in his Budget Speech to the Federal House of Representatives, in August, 1909, surveyed the position of Australia as part of the British nation,—a continent, he observed, containing two billion acres, with a coast line of 12,000 miles, no other nation having right or title to any part of this splendid heritage of the Southern Hemisphere, which was another home for the British race. Sixty years ago, said Sir John, the population of Australia was 400,000 and there were no railways. Now the inhabitants numbered nearly four-and-a-half millions, of whom 96 per cent were British. They had £112,000,000 deposited in banks and deposits in savings banks to the amount of over £46,000,000, the depositors in these being one-third of the entire population. They had produced minerals to the value of £713,000,000. Ten million acres were under crop. During last year Australia had produced 62,000,000 bushels of wheat. It had exported butter of the value of £2,387,000 and wool of the value of £23,000,000. Australia had 90,000,000 sheep, 10,000,000 cattle, and 2,000,000 horses. The oversea trade in 1908 represented £114,000,000. AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909. Proposed federalization of state debts.