172 
3- Banks and the Australian Wool 
Industry. 
Banks failed to realise, at all events at the beginning, the suitability 
of Austrahan conditions to the growth of sheep and wool. It seems 
to me that this is the only important matter, affecting Australia, in 
which his judgment was at fault. Indeed the suitability of the 
Austrahan climate and pastures to the merino could hardly have been 
predicted ; the knowledge had to be obtained by experiment. 
First of all, his personal knowledge of Australia was confined to the 
coast, and such situations, as a very general rule, are favourable to 
the growth of coarse tussocky and running grasses, unsuitable for 
sheep. 
Then there was the personal element. He conceived a dislike to 
Captain John Macarthur. Now Captain Macarthur’s services to 
Australia, particularly in regard to the wool industry, were unquestion- 
ably very great ; he was enterprising and full of resource, a man of high 
aspirations, a good family man ; but it will be conceded that he was a 
difficult man to get on with. The number of men with whom he 
quarrelled, and the litigations in which he was engaged, were large, 
and there is no doubt that he was both exacting and domineering. 
Sir Joseph Banks was an amiable and benevolent gentleman of high 
standing, perhaps somewhat autocratic, one who was accustomed to 
deference being paid to him, and it appears probable that Macarthur 
withheld from Banks those courtesies and that deference which a 
younger man might well pay to an older man of superior rank. In a 
word. Banks and Macarthur, to use an expressive vulgarism, did not 
“ cotton ” to each other. 
And so, with one misunderstanding and another, the relations between 
these two masterful men became strained and even worse.* 
Then it must be remembered that Banks was the most loyal of 
friends to his proteges, and Bligh was a protege in whom he took 
especial interest. As regards the relations between Bligh and Mac- 
arthur, I think the former was grossly indiscreet, and unfitted by 
temperament for the management of men — he was tactless and vain. 
Banks was puzzled doubtless, but he threw his influence on the side 
of Bligh, and his antagonism to Macarthur increased. 
• e.g.. Hist. Jiec., vi, e91. 
