62 MANUFACTURE OF PAPER IN TASMANIA. 



right itself. But this is not the whole truth. We have even in this island 

 capital lying idle, and many men who have patriotism and public spirit 

 enough to apply it to any practical uses — if the way is made clear to them . 

 We want, however, the presence of practical men in a position to afford 

 guarantees of their good faith, competence, and energy to give direction and 

 development to the capabilities of the colony. We could point to many 

 proofs, and some of them very recent, of the readiness of all classes here 

 from the man of large, down to the man of scarcely more than nominal, 

 capital to help on every really practical and apparently well directed effort 

 to give birth to new industries. If the plant necessary for the establish- 

 ment of a paper mill in Tasmania were brought to the colony, we think it 

 is not too much to guarantee that no help on the part of the colony would 

 be wanting to set it in operation. Or, if there were on the spot men equal 

 to the task of directing its construction, in whose competency to conduct 

 the enterprise to a successful issue full confidence could be placed, we do 

 not believe the public would be found wanting in any of the necessary 

 resources. But the condition most essential to the development of a manufac- 

 turing industry in Tasmania is, that it should be inaugurated under auspices 

 that would command confidence. We all want the work to be undertaken 

 by proper hands, that the success of a grand experiment may not be jeopar- 

 dised by charlatanism or incompetency. The pioneers of the new 

 movement would be welcomed from whatever quarter they came, but 

 they would be welcomed and co-operated with cordially, in proportion as 

 they were in a position to inspire general confidence. We must content our- 

 selves with giving publicity to the fact, that in this colony a door stands 

 open for any enterprising body of men to lay the foundations of a manu- 

 facturing enterprise, and that paper-making is one branch of manufacture 

 that would most certainly command a ready success. 



Lest there should be any misgiving as to the existence of a sufficient 

 available supply here of the material of such a manufacture, we may state 

 that the colony abounds in fibrous vegetation, which has been pronounced 

 admirably adapted for all qualities of paper, and which would enable the 

 produce of our mills to compete with the ordinary rag paper of commerce. 

 The supply of this material is inexhaustible. Not only is its adaptability 

 for being worked up into a good paper of every quality attested by the 

 very best authorities, but the colony abounds in actual specimens of native 

 paper manufactured by the primitive process of the rain beating down upon 

 collected heaps of matted leaves, of a strong fibre. In the museum of 

 the Royal Society of Tasmania are specimens collected from Mount 

 Wellington, which overhangs Hobart Town, of perfect natural paper of 

 great thickness thus manufactured. A sight of those specimens would satisfy 

 the most sceptical of the availability of the vegetation of Tasmania 

 to feed with raw material, as many mills as the demand for the 

 Australian market would keep going. In the abundance of the raw 

 material, and in the constancy of the demand for the finished product, 

 the two main conditions of success exist. The presence of cheap labour, 

 of accessible fuel, and of an abundant water supply furnishes the rest. 



