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taking a beating. The production of
wheat, one of Australia's major
export items, will probably fall to
half its normal leve!. Even though
rain has brought relief recently to
sorne areas, the drought still has a
firm grip on large sections of the
nation . Unless the drought breaks
soon nationwide, an economic
disaster of mammoth propor tions
looms.
Bushfires ravaged huge areas of
the drought-plagued south and
southeast. The fires swept through
forests, grazing land a nd
towns in the states of Victoria
and South Australia leaving a
trail of death and destruction.
Two weeks later ftoods swept
through areas of South Aus–
tralia, including sorne areas
devastated by the fires.
Australia's prosperity and
standard of living are slowly
being eroded. This is occur-
ring even when Australia
sti ll has aston ishingly rich
mineral deposits and re–
sources.
How Did She Become
So Prosperous?
Australians are not the wealth–
iest people in the world. Per capita
income is around US$9,580. But
few other people live as well or
enjoy the same easy life-style.
Australians dwell in good housing
(around 70 percent of the people
own their own homes).
The regions that have been sur–
veyed are rich enough in resources.
Bauxite. Gold. Silver. Nickel. Cop–
per. Lead. Zinc. Coal in enormous
quantities. The statistics are in–
deed impressive, even when com-
Few countries seem so well
endowed as Australia to face the
economic uncertainties of the
future.
Australia, when it became one
nation in 1901 (six sovereign states
federated), was a huge, almost
empty contine nt, populated by
only 3.8 million people. Tbe popu–
lation was 95 percent British and
99 percent white. The Abor igines
by that time accounted for only
about 1 percent of the popula-
tion.
In the early 1960s it was
estimated that the ancestry of
Australians was roughly 50
percent English, 20 percent
lrish, 1
O
percent Scottish, 2
percent Welsh and 18 percent
non-British.
lmmigration to Australia,
mainly from countries such as
Poland, the two Germanies,
Holland, Yugoslavia, Italy,
Greece and Turkey, is chang–
ing the composition of the
population. Melbourne, Aus–
tralia's second largest city,
has become, after Athens and
New York, the third largest
Greek city in the world.
The Bible Answers
But why did Great Britain
~
come to inherit this continent
a
with all its wealth? Was it by
1
accident or by design? The
!
story can be traced back into
Bible history and prophecy.
Few people, including Aus–
tralians themselves, under–
stand why 15 million people
enjoy so much comfort and
wealth. Let alone compre–
hend why their standard of
living is s lipping a nd the
nation is becoming riddled
with problems.
ROBERT J. L. HAWKE, Australian Irade union execu–
tive and now Prime Minister. Can he stem the tide of
l n less than 200 years of
European settlement Austra-
_n_a_fio_n_a_J_m_o_r_a_J_d_ec_a_r_?___________
J oseph was one of the 12
sons of the H ebrew patriarch
J acob, o r Israel. J oseph
received the birthright (T
tia has risen from wilderness
to wealth. She has become one of
the well-off, prosperous nat ions of
the world-the envy of sorne of
her neighbors in Southeast Asia
and the Pacific.
When the first Europeans
arrived from Great Britain in
1788, little did they realize that
they had set foot on a vast trea–
sure trove- a unique land with
mountainous stores of minerals,
rich soil and rolling coastal grass–
lands.
Australia's vastness is often not
realized. The area of Australia is
almost as great as that of the
United States (excluding Alaska).
In size it is 32 times greater than
the United Kingdom.
6
pared with the rest of the world.
Australia is about 70 percent
self-sufficient in crude oil, and the
natural gas reserves in the Indian
Ocean off the northwest coast are
far beyond domestic needs.
Australia has about 17 percent
of the Western world's low-cost
uranium reserves. l t also has the
world's biggest deposits of tanta–
lum, a metal used for high tech–
nology applications such as jet
engines and nuclear reactors. Aus–
tralia is also the world's biggest
producer of rutile- an important
source of titanium.
Much of the mineral wealth is
largely untapped. In many cases it
is not yet fully fathomed.
Chron. 5: 1-2). The birthright had
to do with future national g reat–
ness and was first promised to
Abraham. Jt was then passed down
to Abraham's son Isaac, then to
Isaac's son J acob.
Just before J acob's death in
Egypt, J oseph took his two sons,
Ephraim and Manasseh, and visited
his ailing father. Jacob asked for
the boys to come near so he could
bless them. Because his father's
eyesight was poor (Gen. 48:1
O),
Joseph directed Ephraim, tbe
youngest son, toward Jacob's left
hand and Manasseh, the eldest,
toward Jacob's right hand (verse
13). This was so the firstborn
(Continued on page 39)
The
PLAIN TRUTH