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AUSTRALIA AND THE EMPIRE.

Gavan Duffy, formerly a leader of the "Young Ireland" party, but more recently a politician, and now a pensioner, of the Colony of Victoria; and to a recently published book. The Irish in Australia, by Mr. J. F. Hogan, an Irish- Australian journalist.

I must confess that the effect of this strong dose of Celtic literature on the uninstructed British mind must be truly appalling. According to both these authorities, it is the Irish who have done everything worthy of record in these so-called British colonies. If, however, one turns from the glowing, if somewhat immature, pages of Mr. Hogan to the Victorian Year-Book of Mr, H. H. Hayter, the Government Statist, one quickly re-awakens to the fact that the great bulk of the Australian people are of British descent or birth. Can it be then that the race which Lord Salisbury has proclaimed to be the "Imperial and consolidating" race in these islands has, despite its superior numbers, played but a minor rôle at the Antipodes?

Before attempting to deal with this interesting question, let me briefly state what I conceive to be the political intention of Sir C. Gavan Duffy's Essay, "An Australian Example." He shows that the Colony of Victoria dates its rise and progress