132 
PRESIDENT S ADDRESS SECTION E. 
inclement winter clime. Thus South Australia may take courage at 
such a grand example by continuing its transcontinental railway, 
whereby the steam engine, never tired when fed, will bring our great 
southern land into still closer contact with Asia and Europe. We are 
all well aware that the construction of railways saves largely the for- 
mation and maintenance of ordinary road, though that palpable fact 
is often lost sight of. Western Australia will doubtless come across, 
at a time not very distant, by an extension of its railway system to the 
eastern colonies. In either case the impetus is given by continued 
gold discoveries in the direction of these two lines. The distance 
from Moreton Bay to various parts of Japan, if we revert once more 
to these islands, unique in every respect, is somewhat less than 5,000 
miles, traversable in two or three weeks, and not much further than 
from' Swan River to New Zealand. It would seem that the extensive 
import requirements of the crowded population there could yet be far 
more met from our colonies than has hitherto been the case. The 
subject is so large that it cannot even cursorily be dealt with on this 
occasion. 
Let us go on now to British India, which comprises an area fully 
half as large as that of Australia, with about 260,000,000 inhabitants. 
As the well-being of the vast native multitude gradually increases 
under the wise British rule, the people’s requirements increase com- 
mensurably. and so Australia will doubtless be able to share in 
providing the Indian wants. 
Proceeding still further east, the resources of western South 
America become unfolded to us. Though situated within the same 
degrees of latitude as our colonies, so that we cannot effect an inter- 
change of the products of season such as with countries in the 
Northern Hemisphere, yet Chili and Peru interest us much also in a 
commercial aspect. Scenically the contrast is great, especially through 
the snowy elevations of the Andes chain. There, in high lands, is the 
home of the llama, the alpaca, and the vicuna, which, though doubtless 
destined to be superseded as burden animals by the dromedary and 
Bactrian camel, and possibly even in tropical jungles the elephant, 
will afford during indefinite periods, also to come, their unique fleeces 
for fabrics, rivalling in lightness cotton apparel, but much exceeding 
the latter in warmth. In the same way we may from the vegetation 
there instance the nut Araucaria, allied to the famous Bunya Bunya 
of Queensland, which, as permanent food trees, are wanted by the 
million for cool humid tracts of any countries of the mild temperate 
zone. But from the mineral empire in nature a far more striking 
example may be adduced, the Chili saltpetre, an agrarian fertiliser not 
foreign to us here, but far too insufficiently utilised in Australia, as 
yet, for aiding in the resuscitation of exhausted tillage lands, always 
more readily defertilized in winterless zones, where cultures variedly 
proceed through the whole year. 
A brisk direct traffic might be kept up for this mercantile 
commodity alone. Merely to the harbour of Hamburg this nitrate 
of sodium is annually shipped at a value of about £2,500,000 
sterling, equal to 40 per cent, of the whole Chilian export, though 
not entirely for rural purposes. Bolivia and Peru likewise furnish 
this nitrate to a considerable extent. What can we offer in return ? 
Chili imports timber largely, so that for our surplus of hard and 
