AUSTRALIA PRIOR TO 1893 85 
The private wealth of Victoria and New South Wales has 
an important bearing upon the whole subject which should not 
be overlooked. The importance of this estimate lies in the large 
proportion of land included in the total of assets, the production 
from which, through seasonal variations and movements of 
prices, is subject to very wide fluctuations in value. According 
to Mulhall’s Dictionary of Statistics the wealth of Australia 
rose from £300 millions in 1870 to £1,250 in 1888, but ‘the great 
bulk of this increase was in real estate, and it affords some 
measure of the enormous inflation that took place as a result 
of the speculative influx of capital after 1880’. 
Tare XIV 
Private Wealth of New South Wales and Victoria, 1890 
Land, houses, and improvements 
Live-stock . ’ . 8 
Coin and bullion , . . 
Merchandise . . 
Household property 
Shipping . 
Mines and plant . 
All other . 
ToTAL 
N.S. 
Wales. 
£m. 
Victoria. 
£m. 
Total. 
£m. 
Per cent. 
303-0 
34-6 
9-7 
17-9 
17-95 
1-9 
18-3 
8-0 
256-0 
21:9 
11-1 
14-5 
20-4 
1-4 
61 
12-5 
569-0 
56-6 
20-8 
32-4 
38-36 
3-3 
24-4 
21-4 
74-0 
7-8 
2:76 
4-0 
50 
0-4 
3-26 
31 
112-25 | 3439 | 756-15 | 1000