PLANS AND PERFORMANCES 45 



estimated as equal to that of seventeen times that of 

 man." Only dwellers in the tropics are capable of realising 

 the profundity of those pregnant words. Nowhere does 

 plant life so thrive and so squander itself And to toil 

 among all this seething, sweating vegetation ! No wonder 

 that the trashing of sugar-cane is not a popular pastime 

 among Britishers. 



Given a quiet and contented mind, a banana-grove, a 

 patch of sweet potatoes, orange and mango and papaw 

 trees, a few coffee plants ; the sea for fish, the rocks for 

 oysters ; the mangrove flats for crabs, and is it not possible 

 to become fat with a minimum of labour ? Fewer statements 

 have found wider publicity than that the banana contains 

 more nutriment than meat. I have good reason to have 

 faith in it. In Queensland every man has to find money 

 for direct and indirect taxation ; but apart from the 

 imposts upon living, moving and having being, what ready 

 money does a man want beyond a few shillings for tea, 

 sugar and other luxuries, and some few articles of essential 

 clothing ? But I am attempting to describe a special set 

 of circumstances, and would not have it on my conscience 

 that I indirectly offered encouragement even to a forlorn 

 and shipwrecked brother to abandon hope of becoming the 

 prime minister of the Commonwealth, and to enter upon a 

 life of reckless irresponsibility such as mine. 



As soon as test and trial proved in this special case 

 that life on the periphery of the whirl of civilisation was 

 not only endurable but " so would we have it," arrange- 

 ments were made with the Government of the State for a 

 change in the tenure upon which the right of possession 

 was upheld. 



In obedience to those altruistic tendencies which, with 

 due recognition of the law of self-preservation, comprehend 

 the duty of man, it is necessary that the terms and condi- 

 tions upon which others may acquire freehold estates in 

 tropical Queensland — the most fruitful and the most 

 desirable part of Australia — should be briefly detailed. As 

 insurance against intrusion, a small area of the island had 



