to the success of similar ventures, and will furnish experience and 

 data for the guidance of vignerons elsewhere, we trust that the 

 vine -growers of other districts will interest themselves in our 

 company by becoming shareholders, if even to a small extent, 

 since our success or failure will in all probability mean their 

 success or failure likewise. 



The matter has been taken up enthusiastically at Rutherglen, 

 and I can safely say that scarcely a vine-grower of any note in 

 our district now holds aloof from the company. About 8,000 out 

 of the 10,000 shares reserved for Rutherglen have been taken up, 

 and we have no fear of the balance of the local shares not being 

 subscribed, as applications are constantly being received, but stiU 

 a certain portion of outside capital is needed to insure an effective 

 start. The expenses of working will be small, the Argus estir 

 mate of the cost of distillation being only one halfpenny per 

 gallon on the wine used. We shall save in railway freight about 

 three halfpence per gallon on this wine by distilling on the spot, 

 and we shall further save very considerably by having absolutely 

 no cartage charges, either in receiving wine from other parts of 

 the colony or in despatching wine or brandy from the company's 

 cellars to London, provision having been made for the purchase 

 of a site fronting the railway. 



Under these circumstances we confidently look for support to 

 our fellow vine-growers and the public, believing that if. our 

 venture is made a pronounced success, as it can readily be, others 

 of a like kind will follow in other parts, and with equally good 

 results, and the establishment of such companies throughout the 

 colony on a secure and permanent footing will do much to turn 

 again the tide of prosperity in our favour, to give food and cloth- 

 ing to our unemployed, to bring back traffic, to our railways and 

 shipping to our ports. It will do something, even if it is but a 

 little, to strengthen the hands of those who have preceded us in 

 introducing our wines to the British public, in converting those 

 wines from being merely objects of curiosity, and but seldom 

 seen in many parts of the United Kingdom, into commodities in 

 common and every-day use; something to draw more closely the 

 bond of brotherhood and the ties that spring from a feeling of a 

 common interest between ourselves and the citizens of the old 

 land to which we are proud to belong; and, as the result and 

 symbol of all this, I trust that, before many years are over, it will 

 be no uncommon thing for Britons on the other side of the sea 

 and Australians on this, at their social gatherings, to drink success 

 to each other's fatherland and to each other's nation in bumpers 

 of Australian wine. 



At the last meeting of the Rutherglen Association a motion 

 was passed to ask the Government to send to France for full 



