106 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Frz., 1898. 
“ Australians who have not had the advantage of travel, and indeed some 
of them who have travelled, entertain what I regard to be very false ideas 
of Australia’s influences in Britain. Something great in our estimation occurs 
here, and we ask what will they think of that in England? It is very likely 
that they will not think about it, because they may never hear of it. We read 
in the Australian papers daily columns of cablegrams about English affairs, 
but it is seldom that English papers give even a few inches of their space to 
Australian news. J was for four months in and out of London, and I can with 
a clear conscience say that, if I had not called occasionally to the branch office 
of the Sydney Morning Herald to glance through that paper’s files, i would 
have known about as much of what was doing in Sydney as we to-day know 
of life in Central China. yen this colony’s Agent-General could not tell me 
what weather was being experienced in Australia, whether the great drought 
had broken up, or what was the condition of tbe political atmosphere. If £ 
had remained another four months I should have become a thorough Cockney. 
I found in my travels through Britain that I was in the midst of a very sharp 
race of traders, and gradually learned the meaning of that question which 
the British business man frequently asks, Where do I come in? I think E 
said in one of my articles that there was no sentiment in the business between 
London and Sydney, and that the high, dry, well-crusted honourable merchant 
of whom historians wrote was not at home when I called. I sought for 
information, and 1 delved very hard to get at the bottom of things. I saw 
wool, tallow, and fruit from Australia sold by auction in a fair and free open 
way, but when | went for Australian meat and butter my probe was far too 
short to reach the bottom. I found men very willing to receive information, 
but very slow in giving anything in return; and I may say that the men who 
sell nieat and butter as agents in Britain rank in my esteem as perfect 
champions of secrecy. It was after much experience of this kind that I 
commenced to doubt the value of London quotations. The cattle and sheep 
sold in the old-fashioned way, which I described in one of my articles as the 
‘tip and whisper,’ formed quite as much a puzzle as the butter and meat. I 
can positively say that I, an Australian journalist with a fair reputation for 
being able to obtain information, could never during all my visits to Smithfield 
or Tooley street enter a note of prices which I could regard as satisfactory. 
It was not, however, until I had visited other British markets—Manchester, 
Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh—that I commenced to feel that Australia 
could never hope for fair prices for her perishable produce until she followed 
in the footsteps of the Americans and sent to the Old World her own men to 
do her business. I then wrote to that effect, and attempted to show as plainly 
as I could that the pastoralists of this colony were receiving 1d. per |b. less 
than they should for their meat in Britain. But pastoralists, bound as they 
were by certain financial ties, could not respond to my challenge. What has 
happened now? One of the keenest speculators in the Old World, Mr. 
Hooley, advised by some of the best men in England, by his offer endorses 
what I was bold enough to write eighteen months ago. 
“Gentlemen, if there is 1d. more per lb. in meat, there is for you from 
£5 to £10 per ton more for butter. 
“Make no mistake about the importance of knowing what is a true 
quotation. I am not quite satisfied that some of our sharpest business men 
here know what is the true quotation of Australian butter and meat in 
England, and they and you and I will never know until Australians join forces 
and open Australian depots in various centres of Britain wherein Australian 
produce will be sold as Australian, and watched from the time it leaves 
shipboard until it reaches the consumer’s table. I never can, indeed I never 
shall, forget the remark an astute business man of Glasgow made to me. 
‘ How is it that you Australians are such something asses?’ he asked. ‘You 
take some clerk who has had no special training and make him the manager of 
a meat factory or rate him as a produce expert. Look at the Americans, and 
you will find men specially trained conducting their trade.’ 
