PROGRESS IN VICTORIA.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 322, 6 November 1875, Page 2

PROGRESS IN VICTORIA.

At the Mayor’s luncheon on the occasion of the opening of the International Exhibition in Melbourne, the Chief Secretary read the following statement of the progress the Colony had made since the last exhibition : — The last exhibition was opened on the 6th November, 1872. Since that date at least 50,000 have been added to the numbers of our population, and 75,000 to the acres in cultivation. The revenue has increased by £400,000; the shipping inwards and outwards has increased by more than 200,000 tons ; the imports have swelled from £ 12,340,000 iu the year prior to that of the last exhibition to nearly £17,000,000 or by over £4,500,000 sterling; and theexports haveinereased in the same period from £14,500,000 to £15,400,000, or by £900,000, and this notwithstanding a falling off of £2,500,000 sterling in the export of gold. The letters passing through the Post Office haveinereased by 4,000,000, and the newspapers by 1,700,000. Messages by electric telegraph have increased by 164,000; deposits in savings banks by £500,000, and this notwithstanding the high rate of interest offered by building societies and other institutions. Children at schoolhaveincreased by 73,000 ; manufactories have increased from 1745 to 2109, or by 364 ; the hands employed in manufactories have increased from 19,294 to 28,026, or by 8,732 ; and the capital invested in manufactories, so far as it is represented by the value of lands, buildings, machinery, and plant, has increased from £4,725,125, to £6,798,820, or by £2,873,695. At the same time crime has diminished, as is evident from the fact that the persons committed fortrial have fallen off in three years from 781 to 694, and not one arrest has been made for smuggling in the past three years.