THE EMPIRE’S THIRD CITY

Hokitika Guardian, 27 February 1924, Page 3

THE EMPIRE’S THIRD CITY

Sydney, New South Wales, now estimates its poulation at about 0.i0.000, and with that figure becomes the tilth citv in til** Empire. Only London, with 1,5011,00(1 in the county and with over 7.060.066 within the police area. Calcutta with l.30;'U>:!0. Bombay with 1.200.000, and Glasgow with 1,000.600 give a bigger count of head.-. (.‘uh-utla and Bombay are coloured lilies, ami so Sydney is now the third white city in Greater Britain, just heating Birmingham, with its 90(),0il0 people. Fourth comes Liverpool or Melbourne, each with about 800,060. So. counting out the Indian cities. Australia, though she lias fewer titan (hOfIO.PCFI inhabitants till Cold, gives us two of our first half-dozen cities. Uis rather surprising. Wo had locked for our own great towns to he beaten in time by the towns in other parts of tho Empire, hut, again ruling out India, we had probably expected the first. 1,000,000 city of the Dominions to arise in Canada, part ol the Continent of Big Things.

It seemed quite possible that M0n,,,,.,1 iUl( i Toronto and Winnipeg would catch the infection of rapid growth from the towns ol the United States. And, true. Montreal (600.060) and Toronto (500,000) are big cities, l„,t thev are not growing at an exceptional rate. There are no signs that Winnipeg "ill grow as Chicago did. The cities of the Dominions that will reach the niilion mark iirst are Sydney and Mehoumc, iwo of the farthest from (Tt’oafc .Britain. The? ceroat population# that Sydney mill Jkdxmrne declare are not perhaps quite so urban as they look. The figures are qualified with “including suburbs,” and the term “suburbs” is fairly liberally interpreted. But. then, what we call Louden, the largest city in the world, with 7.000.000 people, is five or six times the area of ihe County of London, and so it hardly does to belittle the figures of the Australian cities. Vet why do Sydney and Melbourne grow so rapidly? Australia has great spams waiting to he filled, and vet. something like half of her population is metropolitan—that is concentrated within the areas of the State capitals, on the coast fringe. One would nl-mo-t “ay that those towns, at the gates to the continent, capture all D>o immigrants.

Rut the population of AipHa ia v

growing quite as much hy natural in crease as hy immigration. The birthrate is about 25. and the death-rate about 8. and so three people are bom to every one that dies.