The area of New South Wales is over 300,000 square miles, or half as large again as that of France. Its population is a little under a million. Sydney, with 220,000, is the only large town; there is not another above 15,000. There is little agriculture and no manufactures to speak of. At Newcastle, about 60 miles north of Sydney, coal is found in abundance, and from there most of Australia is supplied, but much of it is of a dirty and smoky kind, more fit for steamers than for domestic use. Coal has now been found in Gippsland, in Victoria, and it is a question of carriage to bring it into use at Melbourne. The New South Wales coal is about 21s. a ton in Melbourne. The pastoral interest (sheep farming) is the principal, almost the only interest in New South Wales, therefore when one drought follows another the whole colony is of course depressed. At these times the public offices in Sydney are besieged by crowds of men out of work, and the Government will employ as many as possible, sometimes uselessly. This is a dangerous thing, for men speedily acquire the notion that if they do nothing for themselves the Government is bound to provide for them. But a man out of work in Sydney or Melbourne is a different animal from the same man in England. If offered 4s. 6d. a day for stone breaking he will object that it blisters his hands. He wants not merely work, but work that he happens to like, and any politician who will provide him with work of this kind will be sure of his vote at the next election.