conformity with this resolution, they visited all the districts from 

 whence the supplies have been drawn. In most of the localities 

 inspected strippers were observed at work, and the Board were 

 enabled to satisfy themselves of the nature of the operations carried 

 on, and no opportunity was lost of examining the strippers with 

 regard to the probable future of the bark industry. Many sittings, 

 open to the public, were held in all the large centres of popula- 

 tion where tanning establishments were being carried on, and also 

 in those townships where the bark trade was represented. The 

 observations made by the Board, and the evidence taken, tended to 

 reduce the question into one of supply and demand. The evidence 

 and deductions of the various personal inspections may be rela- 

 tively summarised under the divisions of Crown and private lands. 

 It was pretty conclusively shown that the largest proportion of the 

 present supply is derived from Crown lands, and tracts of country 

 in the temporary occupation of pastoral tenants. In some instances 

 selectors and freeholders stated that they had lately recognized the 

 value of wattles on their land, and had consequently taken steps 

 to preserve them. The number of wattle cultivators did not, how- 

 ever, bear comparison with the strippers who roamed the country 

 promiscuously, taking bark without any further restriction than 

 that of a quarterly license fee of 25s., and in many cases even the 

 payment of this amount was evaded. Up to the present time bark 

 strippers have had a very large field for their operations, but the 

 area of Crown lands, although yet of vast extent, is becoming 

 reduced, season after season, consequently the supply of wattles 

 must be maintained in order to afford them employment in any- 

 thing like the same ratio. 



The Board found that the bark industry had lately assumed large 

 proportions and afforded employment to a numerous class, the 

 majority of whom were men with families. In addition to the men 

 employed in stripping, a considerable number were engaged carting 

 the bark to the various market towns and ports, while others 

 found employment in bark mills, all independent of those actually 

 engaged in the export trade. The strippers, as a class, were com- 

 posed of unskilled laborers, many of whom devoted only a portion 

 of their annual labor to the work of bark stripping. Their earnings 

 were, as a rule, fairly remunerative, and where wattles were at all 

 plentiful, whole families w r ere comfortably supported. Many selec- 

 tors, it was also observed, augmented their income by resorting to 

 bark stripping by this means maintaining successfully the struggle 

 to pay off the accumulation of rent upon their holdings. In the 

 words of one of their number : u Without the help afforded by the 

 bark growing on Crown lands adjacent, it would have been difficult 

 to have found means to clear and fence their holdings, so as to 

 comply with the conditions of the Land Act under which their 



