1 Aua., 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 107 
Mr, O’Kerre (Laidley) said that while on the subject of Mr. Swayne’s 
paper he desired to take the opportunity of stating that he had been commis- 
sioned by the Lockyer Agricultural and Industrial Society to thank Mr. 
Swayne for the way he had taken up the subject of co-operation, and to assure 
him that any effort he might make would have the sympathy and support of 
the Lockyer society. 
Mr. F. W. Perk (Loganholme) said Germany was bidding not only for 
control of the sugar industry, but of numerous other manufacturing industries 
also, and for his part he would certainly give his support to the cause so well 
advocated by Captain Henry. He, too, had received instructions to thoroughly 
support Mr. Swayne, not so much in matter of co-operation among associations 
as in affiliation, between which there was a slight difference. With regard to Mr. 
Noakes’s paper, he stated that some four or five years ago, at the Acclimatisation 
Society's grounds, he was shown cane seed which had been grown there, 
and which had been planted out. Several gentlemen in his own district had 
received cane planis of new varieties from the Kamerunga State Nursery, 
which showed that the Government had already initiated the principle of 
experiment farms for sugar-cane. 
Captain A. Henry (Lucinda Point) thanked the delegates for the way 
they had received his paper, and also the Rockhampton Press for the way in 
which it had permitted him to champion the cause of the North. With regard 
to Mr. Bytheway’s criticism, he could assure that gentleman that nothing 
would gratify him (Captain Henry) more than a British Imperial Zollverein, 
and he hoped he would live to see it. However, he thought Mr. Bytheway 
was wrong when he said that, unless they were able to offer some compensation 
to the British public for its assistance to them, it would be ridiculous for them 
to press for countervailing duties; that until the colonies had given England 
some compensation for its loss it would be foolish to ask England to endure 
the loss. Mr. Chamberlain, for one, did not think it would be by any means 
ridiculous. As for countervailing duties being an infringement of the treetrade 
principles of England, he had only to say, with Mr. Chamberlain again, that 
the essence of freetrade was the free interchange of the national products of 
countries doing commerce with each other. It could at once be seen, however, 
that if a Government fosters one of its productive industries by huge bounties 
ull freedom of exchange ceases, and Mr. Chamberlain had stated that, in his 
opinion, the imposition of any duties which would restore the equilibrium 
and put the products of two countries on an equal footing would be 
entirely consistent with the principles of freetrade. In his (Mr. Henry’s) 
mind there was no answer to that. As for the confectionery business of Great 
Britain, it should be remembered, if the sugar-cane industry was destroyed, 
that there would be no doubt whatever that the continental beet-producing 
countries would immediately make the British public pay the piper. The con- 
tinental countries had not been taxing themselves all these years for nothing. 
They had already spent hundreds of millions in endeavouring to crush out the 
British-Colonial cane sugar industry, and if they were ultimately successful 
they would have this money back again. They would make consumers of sugar, 
the world over, reimburse them for the enormous taxation to which they had> 
submitted in order to crush out the cane industry. That being so, cheap sugar 
would soon be a thing of the past in England, and that, to his mind, was 
perfectly evident. The people of Germany had been told over and over again 
that if they could only win the victory they would reap the reward. If that did 
not mean that consumers would have to pay through the nose for their sugar, 
he did not know what it meant. Then came the question whether the imposi- 
tion of countervailing duties would immediately inerease the cost of the 
manufacture of British confectionery, and he maintained it would not. Sugar 
was now sold in Germany from 63d. to 8d. per lb. In England it fetched 
something like 2d. A farthing per lb. extra would meet the balance of £2 10s. 
per ton which the continental beet-producing countries pay on the 
