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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3059, 16 April 1881, Page 2

A valuable and copious table of Australasian statistics for 1879 has been issued by the Registrar-General of New South Wales. In these days of croakiog and gloomy prediction they are most timely, as showing the marvellous and unprecedented progress of these Australasian colonies in every department of industry, settlement, and population. Surely the record of the past is the best guarantee of the future—the skill, enterprise, and pluck which have achieved so much in the last fifty years —a record such as this should beat once inspiration and an assurance that, though for a season a check may be given to our prosperity, yet that there lies before the people of these lands a future big with promise. These tables embrace the colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. We submit the total results as tabulated by the Registrar-General:—The area in square miles is 2,580,282£, and the estimated mean population is 2,659,779. The revenue for (1879) is £15,927,448; the proportion of revenue raised by taxation is £5,927,036, which is £2 4s Bjd per head of the population. The value of imports is £47,378,783, which is £17 16s 3d for each person. The exports amount to £41,276,856, at the rate of £15 10s 4£ per head. The total value of our trade (imports and exports) is £88,655,639, equal to £33 6s 7_-d value of trade to every head of the population. Open to December 81, 1879, there were 4.338£ miles of railway, and in course of construction 937| mUeB. In the telegraphic department there are miles of Hues opened, and in course of construction 1500 miles. The acreage under crop is 7,136,483 J; horses, 1,064 640; cattle, 7.878,566; sheep, 65,914,236 ; pigs, 822,089. The public debt is £77,896,183, which is £23 13s B|d of indebtedness psr head of the population. What limit should be placed to the ambition of a people who have achieved such results in the first half century of their existence. From tbe vantage point of to-day, looking forward to the future, may we not hopefully anticipate the future ? What may be the ratio of increase in ail departments when another quinquennial of colonial history shall be tabulated would be perilous to predict. Whatever other assurance such results may afford, we think beyond all controversy they afford to the money-lenders of the world an ample security for the millions they have entrusted us with.