EMPIRE 8i 



the fruit districts of Australia many of the growers form 

 themselves into co-operative associations for picking 

 and marketing their fruits and thus save the expense 

 of harvesting labour ; and the Commissioners see no 

 reason why analogous organisations should not be 

 developed in regard to cotton growing. The cost of 

 labour in their opinion is not an obstacle to the success 

 of the industry, and if this is so then the conditions of 

 Australia must be in every way suitable for the estab- 

 lishment of the cotton industry. 



Tropical products. — There are £29,000,000 worth of 

 tropical products which the British Islands now import 

 from tropical countries other than the three Dominions ; 

 but Australia possesses the capacity for production of 

 this sort. The Instructor for Tropical Agriculture in 

 Queensland told the Commissioners that Australia is 

 well endowed by nature for the cultivation of tropical 

 products, and coffee, rice, rubber, and cocoa have all 

 been grown there with success. 



It is generally supposed, however, but without 

 sufficient reason, that in the tropical industries white 

 cannot compete with coloured labour. Yet there is no 

 warrant for such a belief. The fact that these commodities 

 are now produced with coloured labour is due to the 

 accident of their having arisen in countries where the 

 population is a coloured one. Where an industry is 

 carried on both by coloured and white labour the latter 

 is quite able to hold its own. Wheat cultivation illus- 

 trates this fact. India is one of the great wheat-pro- 

 ducing countries of the world, and has an output six 

 times that of Australia, yet Australian wheat tends to 

 drive the Indian out of the British market, while the 

 wages of Australian labour are 36s. a week and those of 

 Indian only 3s. a week. The supposed greater cheapness 

 of coloured labour is clearly not a bar to the capture of 

 an industry by white labour, and if it was desired to 

 grow all our tropical products in Australia with white 



