INTRODUCTION. 



been very fairly maintained, even without the loosing, and consider- 

 ing- — which perhaps, after all, has had more to do with the matter 

 — this colony's immense natural advantages. In any case no one 

 can cjuestion the ability and perfect knowledge of the subject with 

 which these papers — by IMessrs. Nash and Rendall respectively — 

 are written, while he must be a very rabid opponent of the new 

 policy who will not join in the hope that their most sanguine 

 anticipations of its results may be fulfilled. Another paper of 

 marked ability is that by the first-named of these two writers, on our 

 railways — in their splendid success, under the management of ]\Ir. 

 Eddy and his fellow commissioners, not the least remarkable of the 

 many instances in these pages of the country's progress. Accord- 

 ing to this writer, not only are they " the most efficiently main- 

 tained., the best managed, and the most profitable of all the state 

 railway systems of Australasia," but in many important respects, 

 "will stand comparison with the admirably maintained railways 

 of the old country," and he adds, " cannot by men like myself, 

 Avho have studied the working of the railways of the United King- 

 dom and elsewhere, fail to be viewed with admiration." It 

 would be difficult to overrate the value of such a paper as this, in 

 the proper appraisement to the world of one of the country's prin- 

 cipal assets, and the confounding of those who are in the habit of 

 criticising the working of our railways without studying anything, 

 except, perhaps, the display of their own ignorance or spleen. 



To the general public, however, the papers of most interest and 

 value will probably be those treating of the country's several great 

 industries hi esse or in iwsse, her productions, and grand natural 

 resources. It is not too much to say that here may be found, set 

 forth by the most competent authorities, a complete course of infor- 

 mation and instruction on every phase and feature of the country's 

 practical development ; and it may be noted that while the older 

 industries are dealt with as fully as the exigencies of space would 

 permit, not less attention is given to the very newest, or to those 

 later developments, in each and all, on the intelligent study and 

 prosecution of which depends so largely the future progress of the 

 colony. Thus, while the great pastoral industry in its more familiar 

 aspects is ably dealt with in the papers by IMessrs. Bruce and Wright 

 on Live Stock and Wool respectively, it assumes quite a new or at 

 least even larger importance in the admirable paper on the ]\Ieat 

 Export Trade by that undoubted enthusiast on the subject, Mr. 

 Cuthbert Fetherstonhaugh, whose vision of Australia, and specially 

 b 



