Nov. 1, 1864.J THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



149 



WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES IN AUSTRALIA. 

 As wool is the great staple of Australian produce, so woollen goods may 

 be expected to become, at no distant day, her staple manufacture. At 

 no time since the period of the gold discovery has so fair a prospect 

 presented itself for the investment of capital and the success of enter- 

 prise in manufacturing pursuits as at this ^time. With the present 

 and prospective rise in the price of cotton goods, consequent on the 

 scarcity of the raw material, woollen fabrics must come into greater 

 demand and consumption ; and with a thorough knowledge of the 

 latest methods and appliances on the part of colonial manufacturers, and 

 the importation and adaptation of the most improved machinery, there 

 can be no valid reason why — carrying on their operations in the country 

 which produces the wool — they should not be able to drive from the 

 field the goods imported from a heavily taxed country, sixteen thousand 

 miles off. Colonial manufacturing enterprise is only now recovering 

 from the severe depression which it underwent at, and shortly after, the 

 period of the gold discovery. Almost every mechanical and manufac- 

 turing pursuit suffered more or less at that time, but more especially 

 those branches of industry where large capital had been invested in 

 expensive and complicated machinery, requiring special knowledge, and 

 steady and painstaking workmen to keep it in profitable operation. Skilled 

 labourers could not be found to replace those who had abandoned the 

 hammer or the shuttle for the pick and the spade, even if the rate of 

 wages demanded did not preclude its employment, except with the 

 prospect of certain ruin to the capitalist. The consequence was that, in 

 common with other industrial pursuits, the manufacture of woollen 

 goods, previously in a most promising state, dwindled, in two or three 

 years, almost to nothing. In 1852, when the gold mania set in, the 

 number of yards of tweed made was 234,378. In 1855 it had fallen to 

 35,760 yards, and in the following year to 26,534 yards. This was the 

 period of the greatest gold excitement, and, consequently, of the greatest 

 manufacturing depression. From that time industry became more 

 settled and steady. Many of those who had tried a digger's life began 

 to tire of it, and most of them returned to their former less exciting but 

 more reliable pursuits. From 1856 the quantity of tweed-cloth made 

 gradually increased, and in 1861 the number of yards produced was 

 145,393, or about two-thirds the quantity made ten years before. This 

 was an increase of 26,887 yards over the production of 1860, and nearly 

 double the quantity made in 1859. 



When it is considered that this comparatively rapid increase in 

 woollen manufactures has taken place, without any legislative inter- 

 ference, or without the aid of the hot-bed but deceptive influence of 

 protective duties, it must be admitted that the prospect for the future 

 is encouraging. The number of tweed factories in operation in New 

 South Wales, and the quantity produced in 1861, were as follows : — 



