With its land mass it has about every conceivable climate (except possibly a really good one). In the beginning He populated this land with a handfull of the most backward people imaginable and, isolated from more progressive civilizations, the aborigines left the treasures of this land to be developed by the more vigorous and enlightened people who came later to its shores. We in the United States are really responsible for the initial settlement in Australia - Sydney - in 1778, for our American Revolution caused the British to cease sending us the overflow from their jails and seek an export market for these souls elsewhere. Like our own country, soon the free settlers came, slowly and then in increasing numbers, and they and their descendants overcame great handicaps and founded a civiliation of which they are deservedly proud and that has much in common with our own --homogeneous, democratic, politically stable with respect for law and fair play and for the dignity of the individual.. Australians are wonderful people. The trouble is there aren't enough of them. Australia has only 11. 4 million people -- many more than the United States had when we were Australia's age -- but still a relative handful in today's world. We could house her entire population with 25 miles of the Empire State Building, yet Australia is the size of our original 48 states. While the Australian pictures himself as others picture him -- the rugged outdoor type living out in the bush --he has in fact crowded himself for the most part into cities. Sydney and Melbourne are bigger than all but four of our cities in the United States. 58% of the population is clustered in -2-