294 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTif. 



overbalanced by superior energy and enterprise. The Anglo-Australian 

 will, to say the least of it, meet his full equal in these particulars. And, 

 on the other hand, there is not a rational doubt that the natural and otlier 

 present advantages of all kinds are on the side of the Anglo- American. The 

 pirtion of North America included in the proper wool-gcowing zone is 

 immensely greater than in Australia ; our climate, all things considered- 

 considering the occasional terrible drouths of Australia is the best; OUT 

 lands are cheaper, and will certainly average as good, including our whole 

 Atlantic coast, and including only our territory between the Apalachians 

 and the Rocky Mountains, our land will average by far the best ; labor is 

 not dearer among us ; we are not a quarter as distant from the English 

 markets ; the wool from all parts of our immense interior, instead of be- 

 ing dragged long and expensive journeys in "bullock drays," is already 

 whirled along by steam, or boated on canals or rivers to the seaboard, at 

 a comparatively trifling expense. It would be difficult to name a particu- 

 lar, excepting in the two-cent duty, in which large portions of the United 

 States have not the advantage over Australia for supplying the English 

 wool market, and in other European markets we have perhaps every ad- 

 vantage over that Colony. 



THE AUSTRALIAN WOOL TRADE* [By Wm. Westgarth, Esq.] The importance at 

 present assumed by the Australian wool trade in the lists of British Commerce, demands 

 some degree of attention in the history of an Australian settlement. I shall, therefore^ de- 

 vote the "present chapter to a short account of this branch of Commerce, in its capacity both 

 of an export from the Australian Colonies and an import into the British market. 



In the year 1836, the quantity of wool exported from Sydney amounted to 3,700,000 Ibs. 

 weight. The proportion for the Port Philip district, included in this amount, could not, at 

 so early a period of her existence, have exceeded 60,000 Ibs. weight. Five years afterwai'd 

 the annual produce had attained to 1,578,000 Ibs. ; and the lapse of a similar period, bring- 

 ing us down to the year 1846, exhibits the astonishing quantity of 7,400,000 Ibs.t During 

 this interval of ten years the quantity of wool exported from Sydney, exclusive of any from 

 Australia Felix, had increased from three and a half millions to nearly twelve millions of 

 pounds weight. 



The importation of wool into the British market appears, indeed like the rise of the Aus- 

 tralian Colonies to be but a business' of yesterday, and one, among numerous other in- 

 stances, of the wonderful extension of Modern Commerce. In 1820, the quantity imported 

 was under ten millions of pounds weight; in 1845, it had risen to seventy-six millions. The 

 proportion from the Australian Colonies in the former year was the one-hundredth part ; it 

 now forms nearly one-half of the whole importationt , and at the steady and rapid ratio of 

 the present increase of Australian wool, the lapse of a few years will exhibit a quantity far 

 greater than the .united total of the wool at present imported into Britain from every quar 

 ter of the world. The following Table exhibits the respective averages, in round numbers, 

 for each period of five years from 1826 to 1845 ; the numbers representing millions of 

 pounds weight : 



Average of years. Foreign Wool. Colonial Wool. Total 



1826-30 25 2 27 



1831-35 34 4 33 



1836-40 44 10 



1841-45 36 22 58 



1846 34 30 64 



This Table illustrates the extraordinary progress of the colonial production, three-fourth* 

 of which are derived from Australia and Van Diemen's Land. 



The periodical public sales of colonial wool, which now occupy so important a position 

 amon" the commercial occurrences of the British Capital, date their origin only so lately as 

 the year 1817. The prices at that time, and for some subsequent period, were only from 

 2d. to 3d. per Ib. ; and it was not until twelve or fourteen years afterward that any important 

 advance took place in the value of this commodity. The fine quality of the Australian wool 



* From n new work in the press, on Port Philip. 



tThe wools occasionally sent from Port Philip by way of Sydney, and appearing in the Customs' return* 

 as Sydney exports, are here allowed for. The season or year is taken as ending on the 10th October, aa 

 the usual date of 31st December falls in the midst of the wool shipments, and cannot fairly represent tha 

 quantities and ratio of progress of each year. 



* t Jii 1846, the relative quantities imported into Britain were, in round numbers, thirty-four millions o 

 pounds of foreign wool and thirty millions of colonial. For the present year the colonial may be fiafelj 

 assumed at some what more than half the importation. 



