spectacular crash brought the boom to an abrupt end. Banks and other businesses failed in large numbers, thousands of shareholders lost their money, tens of thousands of workers were put out of work. Although there are no reliable statistics, there was probably 20 percent unemployment in Melbourne throughout the 1890s. Melbourne had 490,000 people in 1890, and this figure scarcely changed for the next 15 years as a result of the crash and subsequent long slump. Immigration dried up, emigration to the goldfields of Western Australia and South Africa increased, and the high birthrate of the mid 19th century fell sharply and the city's growth continued, but very slowly. "Australia's capital": 1901-1927 Melbourne's status as Australia's largest city lasted long enough, however, for it to become the seat of government of the new Commonwealth of Australia when the six colonies federated in 1901. Parliament House in Spring St was lent to the Parliament of Australia, while Victoria's Parliament found temporary accommodation in the Royal Exhibition Building. The city's growth stalled, and by 1905 Sydney had resumed its place as Australia's largest city. Economic growth slowly resumed from 1900, and Melbourne's population reached 670,000 by 1914. But the boom years did not return, and the level of wages remained far lower than it had been in the 1880s. As a result, urban poverty became a feature of city life, and the slum areas of the inner suburbs spread. Due to long delays in establishing a permanent capital at Canberra, Melbourne remained Australia's capital until 1927, when the parliament finally moved to the 'country capital'. Melbourne nevertheless remained the centre of the Commonwealth Public Service, the Australian Defence Forces, and as the location of the High Court of Australia for some time afterwards. Interwar period Melbourne's mood was also darkened by the terrible sacrifices of World War I, in which 112,000 Victorians enlisted and 16,000 were killed. There were bitter political divisions during the war, with Melbourne's Irish-born Catholic Archbishop Daniel Mannix leading opposition to conscription for the war and the Labor Party suffering a traumatic split. Another 4,000 Victorians died in the Spanish flu epidemic which followed the war. There was a modest revival of prosperity in the 1920s, and the population reached 1 million in 1930, but in 1929 the Wall Street Crash ushered in another Depression, which lasted until a brief return to prosperity in the late 1930s, cut