The British Empire - A History of the Growth and Development of the United Kingdom - Volume II

Thus far, in describing the growth of the British dominions, no reference has been made to Australia and New Zealand, two of the most conspicuous parts of the Greater Britain of to-day. Much has been said of India, and mention has been made of the beginnings of South Africa. But Australia and the islands forming the archipelago of New Zealand came to European knowledge late, and there was much less interest in them than in the more accessible and better known lands discovered during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries...