6 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Jury, 1898. 
FIRST SESSION. 
Wepnerspay, llr May, 1898. 
THE CHAIRMAN’S ADDRESS. 
The Hon. J. V. Cuaraway: Gentlemen,—This is not the first conference 
of this nature that has been held in Rockhampton, but it is undoubtedly by 
far the most important and the most largely attended. Some years ago a 
conference was held here under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture, 
but, unlike the present gathering, it’ was purely agricultural in its objects and 
purely local in its delegates. The value of conferences has long been 
recognised by the Department of Agriculture, but, while local meetings 
have been found possible, considerable difficulty has been experienced 
in gathering together delegates from the various parts of the colony. 
They enable them to compare notes to see where improvements can be 
effected and economies established ; to hear of ideas which, while new in one 
part of the colony. are old in another, and which are thus distributed and put 
into practice to the benefit of every producer. Further than that, they tend 
to enforce the idea, an absolutely true one, of the unity of interests in the various 
parts of Queensland. ‘This should never be lost sight of. ‘The farmer in the 
South may grow wheat, maize, or potatoes, and the planter in the North, sugar- 
cane or coffee, but the interests of both farmer and planter are identical in 
the end, and the driving home of this truth of the unity of interests of all the 
agriculturists of Queensland is probably the most important gain in such 
conferences as the present. And it is the same in the pastoral section. 
Pastoralists from one end of the colony to the other have the same objects 
in view. They are all anxious to lessen the cost of production and 
find new markets for their stock. The papers that are read at these 
gatherings are like the leading articles of a newspaper—the views of 
one man. But they are the views of a man who believes what 
he says, and who has given considerable thought and attention to the matter 
he is dealing with. The discussions, however, which follow these papers are 
the thoughts of twenty or thirty men, and it is this which so enliances the 
value of the papers. Again, the facts and opinions supplied are kept as a 
permanent record, so those furnished, say, in 1898 will doubtless be of interest 
ten years hence. Last year a conference—a purely agricultural one—was 
held at the Agricultural College, Gatton. The late Minister for Agriculture 
was chairman, and, although the first of its kind, it was extremely successful. 
In fact, considering we are now holding our sittings in a city, and not in a 
comparatively isolated college, I doubt whether we will be able to look forward 
to the same success, in some respects, here. The success of the Gatton 
_conference was not so much due to the papers or discussions as to the way the 
delegates were thrown together from carly morning till late at night. They 
were not scattered about a large town as you are somewhat, but were always 
in constant contact with each other. I was an onlooker at that conference 
from the start to the close, and was surprised at the modified views of many 
of the representatives at its conclusion. A delegate perhaps came from the 
North, a man perhaps who had never before met the successful wheat- 
grower of the Vow:s, but about whom nevertheless he held certain views. 
he same with the wheat-grower. He had pictured the planter as an individual 
rolling in riches, and subsidised, perhaps, by the kindly State. He discovered, 
however, that it was not'as he thought. The North discovered and the South 
discovered that each had his troubles, and strangely enough they found that 
the troubles of both were almost identical. 
But this year we are not at Gatton; we have come far North enough to 
see in the heavens the constellation of the Plough. 1 hope this will be a happy 
augury that some good to the agriculturists of the colony will be evolved out of 
our labours. Perhaps I may not be out of place in alluding to the enormous 
spread of agriculture in Queensland of late years, and I trust the spirit of this 
