562 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[January i, 1885. 



country. The present crop, owing to the late drought, is 

 very backward, and unless the rest of the winter continues 

 mild, the output for the next crushing will be far below 

 the usual average. The average yield per acre for cash 

 of last four years was as follows: — 1880-1, 23j cwt.; 

 1881-2, 18h cwt.; 1882-3, 12 cwt.; and in 1883-4, 25 cwt. 

 This gives an average for the four years of 18^ cwt.; but the 

 very satisfactory yield of the last year, viz, 20 cwt. per 

 acre, was most encouraging, and the prices realised were 

 so good that the whole value of the sugar produced in 

 the district amounted to £140,000. It is as well to state 

 how I fouud this money value, so as to avoid the appearance 

 of- inaccuracy. In the first place we see by the Government 

 statistics that the total quantity of sugar produced in the 

 Maryborough district was 4,880^ tons. Of this quantity no 

 less than 4,000 tons were manufactured by the Yengarie 

 process; and this sugar being refined, it realised £30 a ton 

 all round, or £120,000 in all. Then of the 880 tons remaining 

 about three-quarters of it was made by the vacuum pan 

 process, the rest by the open pan; and as the whole of the 

 two sorts was sold in the local market,£22 per ton is within 

 the average price. There was also 159,050 gallons of molasses, 

 at say Id. per gallon. I need only point out that these 

 two items will yield over £20,000, and that the whole will 

 make over £140,000, as before stated. Now there can be 

 no doubt that this £140,000 goes into local circulation, or, 

 at all eveuts, the planter's share of it. For, after all that 

 can be said in favour of the sugar industry, my experience 

 is that sugar in this latitude costs as much in its pro- 

 duction as it is worth in the market, taking one year with 

 another, and allowing a fair percentage on the capital invested. 

 The people engaged in it must stick to it, because they 

 cannot afford to lose the money invested in machinery and 

 other appliances." 



CONCLUSION. 



The employment of coloured labour, or labour equally 

 reliable and equally cheap, on the sugar fields of Northern 

 Queensland is, I am convinced, essential to the success of 

 the industry, and my reasons for so thinking I will here- 

 after give; but I must protest against the position of 

 martyrdom the planters have taken up. The present crisis 

 has been precipitated by their own utter want of fore- 

 thought, the selfish demeanour they have assumed, and 

 also by their having stretched the bounds of the cheap 

 labour they have had beyond its necessary, rightful, and 

 legitimate lines of limitation. 



It is my earnest conviction that the labour trade will 

 never be satisfactorily carried out under the present regul- 

 ations. Some system is required by which it cau be controlled 

 at the islands, and the only way that presents jtself as 

 feasible and calculated to attain the object desired is the 

 establishment of recruiting stations at the islands, say one 

 to each principal group, and under the command of re- 

 sponsible officers, whence by small steamers or sailing boats 

 the work of recruiting could, within a reasonable radius, 

 be conducted. Let the engagements be finally made at these 

 stations, giving the boys time to think over the matter and 

 thoroughly grasp the nature of the contract they enter into; 

 and there, also, let them for a time be engaged in the 

 cultivation of yams, taros, coconuts, &c., and in becoming 

 accustomed to the manners of the white men, their diet, 

 and, as far as possible, teaching them the language. Then 

 let these boys be drafted off to the plantations. "With 

 reference to the plantations, let efficient means of inspection 

 be taken in order to prevent the labour of the kanakas 

 — unless in such cases sanctioned by official authority — being 

 used outside of the drudgery of the cane-field and work 

 associated therewith. Also make it compulsory that with 

 each new arrival of recruits a sufficient quantity of yams, 

 coconuts, &c., be brought from the recruiting st .itions to 

 enable the boys to be gradually weaned to their new diet. 

 Also, if it be practicable, define the hours of work accord- 

 nig to the season, so that the boys may not be called 

 into the field before the sun has risen in the winter 

 mornings or be forced to work from 14 to 16 hour» at a 

 stretch in crushing time. 



There is a class of extremists who say that if it be 

 not possible to carry on the sugar industry without coloured 

 labour then better than employ such labour let the industry 

 perish, but there are, I think, few persons who, looking at 

 the question fairly and dispassionately, would for a moment 

 desire such an end It would be of a piece with the act 



of that notorious individual who cut off his nose to spite 

 his face. The value of sugar as au export, the immense 

 impetus it has given to the development of the trade of 

 the colony, the opening up and settlement by its means 

 of lands that were before but pasture fields for cattle, and, 

 not least, the effect it has had of employing directly and 

 indirectly a great quantity of white labour, should, apart 

 from many other reasons, place its importance to the colony 

 beyond question. Hence I think it may be assumed that 

 the desirableness of, at all events, maintaining the industry 

 is generally admitted. Sugar has been the staple agricultural 

 product of Northern Queensland for many years past, and 

 the fact that no other tropical cultivation has there reached 

 anything like equal proportions, may be taken as a proof 

 in part that sugar in the crop that can be most successfully 

 cultivated in that portion of the colony. It is reasonable 

 to suppose that had any other crop been found to be 

 more productive and more lucrative, it would have long 

 since been started, and have taken the place of the less 

 suoceessful. If it be urged that trial of other tropical 

 cultivation has not yet been made, that will be no argu- 

 ment against sugar-growing. It would be the very height 

 of folly to check what is known to be successful in order 

 to try some other, the success of which has not been 

 assured, and is at the best but problematical. 



As upon almost all points in connection with the subject 

 of these articles, there is a difference of opinion. So also 

 is there with regard to the possibility of white men being 

 able in the climate of Northern Queensland to do the work 

 of the black man. Upon this question of the white man 

 and the climate there is much diversity of opinion, but it 

 cau at best be only taken as in the main theoretical, white 

 labour in the canefields never yet having been thoroughly 

 tested. Isolated instances of success or failure cannot be 

 magnified into a general rule. Mr. Bashford, one of the 

 largest railway contractors in Queensland, gives his opinion 

 against the possibility. Whilst engaged in constructing a 

 tramway at Mourilyan Harbour, the mortality among the 

 labourers from malarial fever was alarmingly great, and 

 during my visit to that district it was said that scarcely 

 a man in the place but had had at some time or other 

 an attack of fever ; quinine and fever mixture were, indeed, 

 among the staple drinks at the local publichouse. This cert- 

 ainly was the most unhealthy district I visited, and the 

 number of complaints from men with pale, sickly-looking 

 faces that they had never " rightly shook that fever off " was 

 certainly not an inducement to me to remain there longer 

 than was absolutely necessary. At Mackay and the Burdekin 

 aud Herbert, fever is also one of the evils the sugar planters 

 have to contend against ; and, as I have already stated, it is 

 one of the principal causes of mortality among the coloured 

 labourers. Now, against these facts is set the opinion of 

 others, of whom Mr. A. Meston is a fair representative. 

 "Writing to the Brisbane Courier Mr. Meston says: — "I have 

 previously asserted, and I again repeat, that white men can 

 work as well in North Queensland as in the neighbour- 

 hood of Brisbane or anywhere else on the South Coast." 

 The district of Mourilyan Harbour and the Johnstone 

 River will, he thinks, be freed from fever when the dense 

 scrubs are cleared and the land is under cultivation, per- 

 mitting the sea breeze to reach the c'carings from one 

 side, and the tableland breeze to sweep them from the 

 other. It will be seen from this that Mr. Meston argues 

 not upon what is, but upon what may be in the future. 

 In the meantime the dense scrub surrounds the plant- 

 ations, and the sea breeze has no opening to cleanse the 

 land of its malaria. Mr. Meston then quotes a number 

 of instances of public works such as the railway from 

 Townsville to Charters Towers having been constructed by 

 white men in Northern Queensland. He further says, in 

 the course of his lengthy letter — " During the three years 

 of my residence in Northern Queensland I have paid special 

 attention to the climate and its effect on all nationalities, 

 and I find that the therm omf trical temperature does not 

 correctly indicate the degree of discomfort or oppression 

 experienced by the individual. I have felt the actual sun 

 heat more severely at Grafton, on the Clarence, at Ipswich, 

 Brisbane, and Warwick than ever I have done in North 

 Queensland, but I am bound to admit that in the tropics 

 there is a slight feeling of lassitude and disinclinatian for 

 exertion which is without doubt a characteristic of the 

 climate. . . . When Mr. Bashford says Europeans can- 

 not work on our north coast lands, his usual sound observ- 



