138 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Ave., 1898. 
congratulate ourselves upon that success. Yesterday it was proposed that 
the next conference should be held in the North, but it will probably be a 
matter for very serious consideration whether it should be held outside of 
Brisbane. Jn other countries, when conferences are proposed, towns compete 
against towns for the honour of the conference being held in their midst. 
Business men realise that these assemblies of sixty or seventy people for 
several days in their town are of considerabie value to the town. The utmost 
efforts are madein Great Britain and America to impress upon the delegates 
the importance of the district in which they are temporarily staying. 
The principal features of the district are brought before them, and oppor- 
tunity is taken to advertise the resources of the place they happen to 
be in. As yet we have not arrived in Queensland at that stage. I 
need say no more than that, except I shall add this, because it will 
be a hint to other towns: When it was decided to hold this Conference here, 
we could get no roof, except at exorbitant rates, to shelter us. I say this, 
so that when other towns propose conferences which cause delegates to spend 
a very great deal of money, they should know what we think. There are 
features in this district which, as head of the Department, I was extremely 
anxious: that you should have all seen. One of the brightest spots is an 
an institution which has jong struggled manfully against adversity into 
success—namely, the Lake’s Creek Meatworks. Delegates have asked me 
whether they could see these works, and I now have to tell them that, as a 
body, they are not at liberty todo so. The manager is willing that six and 
not more delegates can visit those works. There are other interesting features 
in the Rockhampton district that I have visited. There are the Botanic 
Gardens, which are a credit to the town. When you have discovered where 
they are, I hope you also will visit them. ‘Time is short, and I have nothing 
more to say. Probably I have made myself perfectly clear, and I now ask you 
to drink the health and long continuance of the Department of Agriculture 
and its officers here present. 
The toast haying been drunk with musical honours, 
Mr. P. McLean, in response, said that as a Civil servant, he ought, 
perhaps, to feel himself in the position of those who, in old times, knew that 
if they spoke their minds they would have their heads cut off, but he was happy 
to say that he had no fear that day in that respect. He had been most highly 
gratified at the success of the Conference. The debating power of the delegates 
was quite up to anything they had had before, and a special feature had been the 
way delegates had attended the sittings and stuck to their work. He had had 
a good deal of experience of conferences generally, and too often it was found 
that delegates had friends here and friends there whom they had to visit. 
There was certainly a good deal of work in getting up these agricultural 
conferences, but when one knew how the work was done, there was not much 
difficulty in it. He was only too pleased to do what he could to ensure the 
success of the gatherings, and when he had finished his duty he threw the 
rest of the responsibility upon the shoulders of the delegates. ‘They had 
worked harmoniously, and, without rubbing themselves down too much, they 
could congratulate themselves on a most successful Conference. Looking back 
ten years, he remembered when the Agricultural Department existed in two 
little rooms in the Lands Office, and he had so much to do that he was able to 
read all the reports and newspapers that came addressed to him. They would 
be able to understand something of the expansion that had taken place since then 
when he told them that the Department was now occupying a large three-story 
building, that tenders had just been called for adding to that building another 
eighteen rooms, everyone of which was occupied before it was built, and that 
he had long since been forced to give up personally reading all but a fraction 
of the reports and newspapers that were sent to him. As long as he had any- 
thing to do with the Department it would be his object to advance the interests 
of the colony generally, while specially devoting his attention to the agricultural 
industry- 
