100 Mr. J. Buckland on 



The Plumage Bill. 



Here I intend to make a slight digression. Quite 

 recently the Textile Trade Section of the London Chamber 

 of Commerce submitted to the consideration of the Melbourne 

 Chamber of Commerce a book, issued for the purpose of 

 attempting to refute certain statements made to the detriment 

 of the feather-dealers. 



In its reply the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce pointed 

 out that the work performed by the wild birds in the 

 Commonwealth alone, in keeping in check the ravages of 

 myriads of noxious insects, was worth many millions of 

 })ounds sterling. The natural enemies of insect pests were 

 the birds, and were they destroyed Nature would become 

 unbalanced and successful agriculture become impossible. 

 The London Chamber of Commerce was also informed that 

 the value of birds in life was infinitely greater to the 

 community than would be the profit accruing from the 

 sale of their feathers, and that, therefore, the Melbourne 

 Chamber of Commerce was unable to support the position 

 taken up by the book in question. 



Yet bird-skins from Australia, every one of them illicitly 

 exported, are regularly trafficked in by London feather- 

 dealers. More than this, the President of the Board of 

 Trade and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, ignorant 

 of, or indifferent to, their responsibilities to the Empire, are 

 heedless of the awful calamity their neglect is fostering. 



The Value of Birds in Forests. 



Birds attain their greatest usefulness in the forests, because 

 the conditions there closely approach the ja-imeval. 



Forest trees have their natural insect foes, to which they 

 give food and shelter ; and these insects in turn have their 

 natural enemies among the birds, to which the tree also 

 gives food and shelter. Hence it follows that the existence 

 of each one of these forms of life is dependent upon the 

 existence of the other. Birds are not only essential to the 



