930 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
in these days of world-wide competition is of primary impor- 
tance. If the existing “ happy-go-lucky” methods of wine 
production are to be relied on, then a_ successful export 
trade les beyond our reach. The producers on the Murray 
should strive to arrive at a standard wine for blending with 
the lighter vintages of the Hunter, and the two should be 
matured and married prior to shipment. The economical future 
is towards co-operation in crushing, cellar work, and blending, 
leaving the shipment and the English distribution to independent 
traders, who would buy at the N. 8. W. export store. The bar 
to the realisation of this ideal is undoubtedly financial, for if the 
industry cannot furnish the requisite capital wherewith to buy 
grapes, establish wine-crushing cellars, and the export blending 
cellars, outside capitalists will necessarily expect to reap all the 
profits they can. Some years ago a proposition based on co-operative 
lines was placed before the wine-growers of N. 8. Wales ; but 
when the financial problem had to be faced nothing was acceptable, 
hence the scheme lapsed. If the wine industry were to do 
nothing else, it would make a giant preliminary step towards 
the success of an export trade were a large proportion of the 
existing wines in the cellars sent to the still and very many of 
the casks burnt. In Victoria the State, having stimulated wine 
farming—e.g., the cultivation of grape vines—by a bonus, is now 
being compelled either to abandon or complete the “forcing” of a 
new industry by the dilemma in which the wine-farmers are at 
present placed, who, being quite unable to find a market for their 
produce—chiefly represented by badly-made wines—must plough 
up their vineyards. At the present time the Victorian Govern- 
ment finds itself in a tight place, being confronted with a 
necessity to either find the finances to market the wines or leave 
the wine-farmers to a hard fate. If New South Wales has been 
too slow and Victoria too fast in developing the wine industry, 
South Australia has worked on other lines not altogether satis- 
‘factory. Private enterprise has led to the planting of large areas 
under grape-vines, oftentimes of an unsuitable type, and a great 
bulk of wine has been produced, but of a character that was 
foreign to the British palate. Private enterprise did its utmost 
to develop distribution both locally, intercolonially, and in the 
United Kingdom; but without costly advertising the British 
consumer is beyond reach, for the vested interests of wine 
merchants are hostile to the entry of new wines. The South 
Australian wine-makers therefore applied to the State for assist- 
ance, under the hope that the British wine trade would be 
attracted by a State guarantee of quality. Wine-makers in the 
colony were invited to send forward any and every class of wine, 
provided it passed inspection at Adelaide, for transmission to the 
London Wine Depét, where Mr. Burney Young prepared the 
