Vlll. PRESIUENTIAL \DDRKSS. 



Considering the enormous wealth produced by our 

 handful of people, it may seem absurd to talk of national 

 waste. Lee us glance at some of our industries as they 

 stand to-day. and see if after all we are not wasting golden 

 opportunities. 



Take first of all our Pastoral Industries. Wool is 

 one of our principal exports. In 1910, the wool exported 

 was valued at £5,808,000 and weighed 139,250,8021bs. 

 (Government statistician). Much of this was scoured, 



and most of it could easily have been scoured here. In 

 France it pays to extract the water-soluble potash salts 

 from wool by washing the wool with cold water and evaporat- 

 ing the solution. From 7.0 to 10.0 per cent of potash salts 

 is obtained in this way from raw wool. (F. H. Bowman's 

 " Wool Fibre," page 25()). We produced over 139 million 

 pounds weight of raw wool in 1910, containing over 6,000 

 tons of potash salts recoverable without damaging the 

 wool, obtained by washing with w^ater. The evaporation 

 of this solution in the dry atmosphere of West Queens- 

 land should not be an expensive matter. We are evidently 

 losing wealth in that direction. 



Wool again is the source of lanoline, which exists 

 % raw w^ool to the extent of about 14 per cent. So far 

 as I can gather no lanoline is saved in Queensland. So 

 we throw aw^ay every year 20 million lbs. weight of lanoline. 

 And the German w^holesale price of lanoline is about lid. 

 per lb. I do not mean the mixture of lanoline, vaseline 

 arnd water, which is sold as lanoline in collapsible tubes, 

 at a very much higher rate. But at lid. per lb. our lano- 

 line which we threw away in 1910 had a value of approxim- 

 ately £1,000,000. Personally I think there is certainly 

 a fair margin of profit showing here — ^it is not at all likely 

 that a process which is already worked successfully and 

 well known in Germany, would cost a great deal more to 

 work here, with such a store of raw material to hand. 



Other directions in which it is obvious that waste 

 might be avoided and energy and material conserved 

 in the pastoral industry, are preservation and care of natural 

 pastures, and the prevention of spread of weeds and other 

 vegetable pests. The danger of practically exterminating 

 some of our most valuable indigenous pasture grasse 



