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The economic history of Australia traces the economic history of Australia since European settlement in 1788. ==1788–1821== The first European settlement in Australia took place on 26 January 1788 at Port Jackson (modern Sydney, New South Wales), when the First Fleet brought more than 1,000 convicts, marines and seamen, and a vast quantity of stores to found the penal colony of New South Wales. The British claimed all of New South Wales as its land on the basis of terra nullius. According to the first census of 1788 as reported by Governor Phillip to Lord Sydney, the white population of the colony was 1,030, of which 753 were convicts and their children, and the colony also had 7 horses, 29 sheep, 74 swine, 6 rabbits, and 7 cattle. Governors of New South Wales had authority to make land grants to free settlers, emancipists (former convicts) and non-commissioned officers. Land grants were often subject to conditions, such as a quit rent (one shilling per 50 acres (200,000 m2) to be paid after five years) and a requirement for the grantee to reside on and cultivate the land. Whaling in Australia commenced in 1791, when Captain Thomas Melvill, commanding the ''Britannia'', one of 11 ships of the Third Fleet, and Captain Eber Bunker of the ''William and Ann'' led expeditions in Australian waters. Whale oil and baleen (whalebone) were profitable commodities and whaling was one of Australia's first major export industries. Sealing and whaling contributed more to the colonial economy than land produce until the 1830s. When Governor Phillip left the colony in December 1792, the European population was 4,221, of whom 3,099 were convicts. Hobart in what was then Van Diemen's Land (modern Tasmania) was established in 1804 as a penal settlement. Its establishment was more to forestall a possible French claim to that part of Australia then any economic benefit to the Sydney settlement. The colony of New South Wales barely survived its first years and was largely neglected for much of the following quarter-century while the British government was preoccupied until 1815 with the Napoleonic Wars. One very important British oversight was the provision of adequate coinage for the new colony and, because of the shortage of any sort of money, the real means of exchange during the first 25 years of settlement was rum. Though it did not solve the problem arising from the lack of coins, but in an attempt to put some order into the economy, in 1800, Governor Philip Gidley King set the value of a variety of foreign coins circulating in New South Wales. During this period the New South Wales Corps, whose officers had benefited most from access to land and imported goods (thus hopelessly entangling public and private interests), defied the authority of the governors. The New South Wales Corps was recalled in 1808. Governor Macquarie was appointed in the following year. The change of policy under his administration was the promotion of a private economy to support the penal regime, separate from the activities and interests of the colonial government. There was a significant increase in transportation after 1810, which provided cheap and skilled labour for the colony. As laborers, craftsmen, clerks and tradesmen, many convicts possessed the skills required in the new settlements. As their terms expired, they also added permanently to the free population. The crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813 enabled the settlers to access and use the rich land west of the mountains for farming. Bathurst was established as Australia's first inland settlement.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.hyperhub.com.au/forto/Crossings_BiCentenary/history_sub.cfm?Category=General%20History )〕 The first bank in Sydney, the Bank of New South Wales, was established in 1817. The Bank, and each private bank established afterwards, could issue its own paper money. During the 19th and early 20th century, the Bank of New South Wales opened branches, first throughout Australia and Oceania, including branches at Moreton Bay (Brisbane) in 1850, then in Victoria (1851), New Zealand (1861), South Australia (1877), Western Australia (1883), Fiji (1901), Papua New Guinea (1910) and Tasmania (1910). In line with the British government's policy of concentrated land settlement for the colony, Governors of New South Wales tended to be conservative in making land grants. By the end of Macquarie’s tenure in 1821, less than 1,000 square miles (3,000 km2) of land had been granted in the colony. Above all, agriculture was established on the basis of land grants to senior officials and emancipated convicts, and limited freedoms were allowed to convicts to supply a range of goods and services. Although economic life depended heavily on the government Commissariat as a supplier of goods, money and foreign exchange, individual rights in property and labour were recognised, and private markets for both started to function. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Economic history of Australia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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