an5tralig.—The news from Australia extends to the 28th Sep- tember.
At Melbourne the General Assembly met on the 3rd Sep- tember, and the Governor in his speech promised the people occupa- tion licenses, paid members, and duties arranged so as to fall on goods which compete with those produced in the colony. Mr. Heales, Premier and coach-builder, is supposed to have a strong belief in protection. In Sydney the Parliament opened on the 3rd September, and has passed a law prohibiting the issue of miners' licenses to Chinese after 31st July, British subjects not excepted. All the men concerned in the riots against the Chinese—called locally the Lambing Flat riots—have been acquitted. South Australia is still quarrelling with its Chief Justice, who has declared a local law illegal, and is apparently to be removed by bill, and New Zealand is occupied with the gold discoveries. The diggings are at Tuapeka, a few miles from Dunedin, and seem, though the accounts are uncer- tain, to be very profitable. The average rate of gain seems to be an ounce, or say three pounds a day. A stream of emigration has set in from the neighbouring colonies, 6000 men are already at work, and the population of the colony will probably have increased by the next mail by thirty thousand men. The Native question is forgotten, and the Middle Island will probably become the centre of colonial action.
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