20 



lime to develop proportioDS of a threatening character. The 

 provisions of the existing Act, consisting of eighteen clauses, 

 deal almost entirely -with the cure or after effects of the disease, 

 and not with its prevention, aud a fuller and more precise measure 

 is, I consider, necessary at the present juncture. The arrange- 

 ment I have suggested of empowering the elective Board to appoint 

 its own committees, for special purposes would relieve the present 

 Phylloxera Board of its functions, and place the responsibility for 

 framing the necessary organization and regulations, as also of 

 •seeing them carried into effect, upon the shoulders of those who, 

 being themselves vine-growers and having their own interests at 

 stake, ought to be the best fitted to deal with this important 

 question. Although upwards of six months have elapsed since 

 the outbreak at Bendigo was discovered, apparently no attempt 

 lias yet been made to formulate any organized scheme generally 

 applicable to the colony of such a character as will effectually 

 ■check the spread or growth of the parasite in the future. I must 

 say that I consider the Government ought long since to have made 

 public its policy and intentions in dealing with this question. In 

 Europe everything is made as public as possible, charts showing 

 the infected areas are published periodically, and reports on all 

 matters relating to the development of the disease are regularly 

 forwarded to the viticultural associations of each country. There 

 is nothing to be gained by a policy of secrecy or silence, which 

 may be mistaken for hesitation or incompetency. A plain and 

 candid statement as to the measures the Government proposed 

 adopting would have produced a beneficial effect, not only among 

 our vignerons, but also in reassuring public opinion as to the 

 future stability of the industry generally. There is less reason 

 for this delay, inasmuch as we have the immense advantage of the 

 tnowledge and experience gained during the last twenty years in 

 ■the viticultural countries of Europe and America, which i.<! set 

 forth in different publications and reports accessible to any person 

 ■who takes the trouble to procure them. To imagine for one 

 moment that the recent official inspection of our different viti- 

 cultural districts offers any real guarantee that these are at 

 present free from the phylloxera would be the idlest illusion. If 

 ten times the number of inspectors had been employed in exam- 

 ining the same area they could not have done the work thoroughly 

 in the time. In any case, inspectors who travel over the ground 

 at the rate of three or four miles an Jhour are about the last 

 persons who would be likely to discover the disease in its 

 darkest stage or before it had manifested its presence on the dying 

 plant by the discolouration of the leaf. Of course, any one can 

 discover the existence of the phylloxera wlien it has established 

 tself throughout a district. By that time, however, the damage 

 IS done, and ,t is then too late to adopt aiiy measures that might 



s ;i 



