Ay | 3 \ 
many other similar matters. Many are inclined to look upon the Government 
as a sort of providence from whom all good things ought to come, and who 
should step into those fields of occupation which rightfully belong to individual 
enterprise. Some even urge that the Government should undertake the agency 
of the sale of their produce, the lending of money, and all the other functions 
which they think are not now satisfactorily discharged by individual enter- 
prise. In the adoption of any such ideas by a Government, there lurks untold 
danger, and no section of the community would be exposed to greater danger 
than the farmers themselves. It speaks well for past administration of State 
affairs when people seek to add to them the discharge of such functions. It 
is not long since any attempt by Government to extend its tentacles into the 
private affairs of individuals would have been regarded as a deep design 
against the liberty of the subject, or a scheme by which it might acquire the 
power to crush or oppress them; and there is no saying when a state of affairs 
might arise when the temptation to use such a force might be too strong for 
resistance. 
The remedy for any such evils as really exist is mainly in the hands of — 
the farmers themselves. Those who need their products must buy them; those 
who have money to lend to them or goods to sell must come into the market to 
lend or sell. Without practical or effective union on the part of the farmers, 
they are individually so weak that they cannot protect themsclvyes. With 
union, they can become so strong as to be abie to control within reasonable 
limits the markets in which they deal; without union, they are unfitted for 
taking part in a successful struggle for the capture of foreign markets. With 
union, they can equip themselves with all the means by which they may exclude 
foreign competition with their own products in their own markets; without 
union, their voices sound as discordant as those of Babel in the ears of a 
deafened and distracted Agricultural Department. With union, they can readily 
convey their sentiments to the intelligence of a sympathetic Minister or officer 
of his Department, and secure the removal of obstructions to progress, the 
adoption of improvements, the passing of good laws, and finally, the raising 
up of agriculture as a pursuit, to the very high level to which it naturally 
- ought to belong. 
By whatever term this necessary union may be ‘called, its general effect. 
upon the individuals comprising it is of immense good. Its direct material 
advantages ure great, and its moral effect in the development of a spirit of 
independence and self-help, and at the same time of mutual support to each 
other, is none the less great. 
Local farmers uniting for these objects, having representatives upon 
larger district associations, which in their turn haye representatives in a 
periodical gathering of the leading agriculturists of the colony, would give 
greater help to the development of the agricultural interests of Queensland 
than can ever be possible under present conditions. And they would also — 
furnish a more suitable and effective channel for the spread of the collected 
information of the departmental staff than all their lectures or bulletins 
heretofore in vogue could possibly be. el ae 
To sum up the whole matter, the objects the Department now chiefly 
desires to promote are:—The education of both young and old in the technical 
knowledge of agriculture, and the formation of associations or bodies of 
farmers both for the attainment of objects of material importance to their 
welfare, and for providing an adequate means of giving expression to the 
general sense of that important section of the community. 
