THE MANUFA C TURING INTEREST. 337 



mineral wealth in something like fifty years, and which raises £9,000,000 

 or £10,000,000 a year from the sale of its wool clip, is too rich in natural 

 wealth for the population to crowd itself into factories. For the 

 present, and in comparison with the yield from those resources, the 

 population is too small to work larger manufactures, tliough it should 

 be said that even under present conditions the numher of the pojjula- 

 tion engaged in manufactories has more than trebled itself since IHOO, 

 and about one-sixth of the whole is dependent on that interest. Forty 

 years is not a long time in Avliich to build up large manufactures in 

 the face of the competing attractions for labour and capital, and what 

 has been done offers fair promise for the future. 



That promise is strongly emphasised when we come to consider the 

 advantages New South Wales offers as a manufacturing country in its 

 wealth of raw material, in the demands of the growing Australasian 

 population, and in the prospects for export. With a larger working 

 population, and a more liberal employmeut of capital by manufacturing 

 experts, there can be no doubt that these are such as to ensure 

 exceptional success. In considering the advantages favourable to 

 manufacture the inquirer is naturally attracted first by the subject of 

 coal, and in our inexhaustible supplies of this, it is needless to say, 

 the Colony is singularly fortunate. The coal formation is f(jund over 

 a large area of the Colony, while nothing even remotely approaching 

 our coal, either in quality or quantity, is to be found in any other of 

 the Australian Colonies. This fact alone seems to mark the mother 

 Colony out as the natural centre of Australian manufactures when the 

 right time comes. Although we have already raised coal to the value 

 of £29,500,000, the mining- operations are still in their infancy. It is 

 calculated that our coal measures extend over about 2J-,()00 miles of 

 territory; and after allowing one-third loss in working, the Government 

 Geologist computes that, going down only 4,000 feet, and excluding 

 seams of less than 30 inches, the supply of coal unworked amounts to 

 over 78,000,000,000 tons. Then, as to the quality of our coal, it has 

 been proved to compare favourably in the production of heat with the 

 best foreign coal. The mean specific gravity of some samples of IJritish 

 coal tested for comparison was found to be r270, while the mean of 

 New South Wales coal was 1'316, with less sulphur. The proportion 

 of carbon in British coal was found to be 80'40, while our own gave 

 about 76'47, our northern and southern coal showing 79-28 and 79"40 

 respectively. For the purposes of the manufacturer who seeks a field 

 for investment these facts have considerable practical significance, as 

 well as the circumstance that the proportion of hydrogen, nitrogen, 

 and oxygen in our coal is much the same as that in J']nglish coal, 

 while its steam-producing power is, in coal from the Northern collieries, 

 nearly equal to English, while that from the south and west is a little 

 below the standard thus set up. The fact that our coal has a slightly 

 larger percentage of ash has an influence on locally manufactured coke, 

 which has 6 per cent, more than the imported; but certain improve- 

 ments in apparatus which have been adopted by some of the collieries 

 suggest a hope which the comparative figures of the years 1893 and 

 1894 seem to bear out; for while in the former year we imported upwards 

 of 61,000 tons of coke, in the latter we imported less than 48,U00. 

 Nor was this difference due to a decreasing demand, owing to the 



