WOOL IXni'STRF. C-] 



contemporary inventors that it became possible for tlie manufacturinr.' 

 industries to expand with sufficient rapidity to absorb llio ovci^ 

 increasing- supplies of raw material ])roduced in Australia. Net (,nly 

 has the nineteenth century witnessed almost incrediljle results in tlio 

 way of mechanical invention, but also in the development of iulicrcnt 

 capabilities of taste, and as a consequence, in times of normal trade 

 the wool products of this continent have always been in great request^ 

 and the comfort of woollen and worsted wear has been extended to 

 millions of people who even half a century ago could not have aspired 

 to its use. At the outset all the wool grown in this colony was 

 consigned to London for sale, and this method of dealing with the 

 annual output for long remained the most popular one, notwith- 

 standing the fact that by its adoption growers practically lost all 

 control over the disposal of their produce, and had moreover usually 

 to wait patiently for the best part of a year to elapse before the actual 

 result of the sale of same became known to them. With the prooress 

 of modern industrial civilisation, and the improvement and extension 

 of the mechanism of distribution, the isolation of small and remote 

 communities has long ceased, until to-day, through the mediuin of 

 steam and electricity and trade competition, the whole world has 

 become a neighbourhood so to speak. Nowhere is this more clearly 

 recognised than in Australia, where, as the tendency of commerce to 

 draw the producer and consumer into closer relationship with each 

 other gradually acquired momentum, the old-time system of dealinor 

 with the annual wool c\\\) was completely changed, and large local 

 markets for the sale of our principal product were successfully estab- 

 lished. Once the wool-combing machine was brought to perfection, 

 people in all parts of the woi-ld were encouraged by the increasing 

 supplies of raw material and the facility with which the newest 

 machinery could be obtained from England to seek to fill their own 

 requirements in the way of textile fabrics, and were no longer content 

 to turn to Yorkshire and Lancashire for nearly every stitch of clothing. 

 On the continent of Europe the development of manufacturing interests 

 was especially very rapid, and in the race for commercial success and 

 distinction which followed in the train of the partial shifting of trade 

 from its old and accustomed channels, the movement in the direction 

 of acquiring the raw material at the various points of production was 

 speedily initiated. In having to visit London and buy wool there 

 Continental users soon found themselves at a great disadvantage as 

 compared with their English competitors, whose closer proximity to 

 that entrepot naturally enabled the latter to land their purchases in 

 the factories at a less cost and in less time than was possible in the 

 case of vfool bought in London for use in the French and German 

 industrial centres. It gradually became manifest that the only way 

 for the manufacturers outside the United Kingdom to equalise matters 

 was to go beyond London and purchase at least a portion of the wool 

 required at first cost in the colonies. In this way wonderful c-hangcs 

 soon came to pass in the colonial wool trade. French and (u-rnian 

 buyers quickly became staunch supporters of the system of selling 

 v/ool in Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide, and the operations of a 

 comparatively few firms speedilv forced others to follow suit or content 

 themselves with running the risk of having to take merely a secondary 



