TEMPERATE SURPLUS-PRODUCING REGIONS 71 



non-agricultural classes reduces the export-surplus. At the present 

 time there is a distinct tendency for industries to expand, 1 with 

 the result that more of the total output is intercepted by the home 

 market. Notwithstanding this, the advancing population lives 

 mainly by producing and exporting pastoral and agricultural 

 products. Though as yet animal foodstuffs form a relatively small 

 proportion of the total agricultural and pastoral products exported, 

 there is a tendency for this proportion to increase, 2 owing to the 

 changes in progress from purely pastoral, to mixed farming, i.e., 

 from wool production to the production of mutton, dairy produce 

 and wheat. 3 



Down till quite recently the gain in wheat production has not 

 been so great as that in meat production and dairying, but it is 

 possible in the not distant future that while the latter continue to 

 expand, wheat cultivation will increase much more rapidly. 4 It 

 will do this not so much at their expense, as by utilising land as a 

 rotation crop in conjunction with more intensive sheep farming 

 and dairying 5 and still more by utilising land, now half idle as pure 

 pastoral land. 6 behind the 20-inch isohyet. 



Since 1890 the increase in mining population has been compara- 

 tively small, the only marked developments having taken place 

 in Western Australia, but the additions to the population of the 

 Western State were largely drawn for some years from those of 

 the Eastern States, so that the actual gain of population to the 

 Commonwealth was but slight. 7 It should be added that this 

 movement was mainly of a floating mining population unsuited 

 to agriculture. On the other hand, there has been a continuous, 

 though perhaps slow, increase in the population on the land and a 



1 This expansion is assisted by (a) the resources of the Commonwealth in 

 coal, iron and other metals ; (b) the distinct desire of the people to encourage 

 local industries and to be independent, as far as possible, of foreign manu- 

 factures. 



a The proportion of exports of animal foodstuffs to total exports of agri- 

 cultural and pastoral produce rose from 15-6% in 1901 to 17-6% in 1911 by 

 values. 



3 The total area of private lands acquired for closer settlement by the various 

 State Governments amounted to - 2 million acres by 1901 and 2-7 million acres 

 by 1912. 



4 Cf. Dominions Commission, Second Interim Report (Cd. 7210, p. 51) 

 which recommends the bulk handling of wheat as a means of greatly increasing 

 wheat production in Australia, which " has at present considerable areas of 

 land just outside the margin of profitable wheat cultivation." See also 

 Dominions Commission Minutes of evidence taken in Australia at Adelaide 

 and Perth. 



5 Especially with irrigation and the cultivation of fodder crops. See U.S. 

 Daily Commerce Reports, Dec. 19th, 1910. See also Dominions Commission 

 Minutes of Evidence in Melbourne, Q. 8130. 



9 U.S. Daily Commerce Report, Oct. 6th, 1910, p. 65. See also Dominions 

 Commission Minutes of Evidence taken in Sydney, Q. 7654, where a prominent 

 witness stated that the cutting up of large estates has been shown to result 

 in " double the production of wool and mutton even with one half under 

 wheat. 



7 Commonv.-ealth Year Book, Vol. VII , p. 89. 



