154 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Avae., 1899. 
if I concluded with a few statements of my own experience, and it will also show 
how outside pressure brought about co-operation in ‘our own case. Eight or 
nine years ago, the pineapple industry, in which we are much interested in 
Zillmere, was beginning to arrive at that stage of production which necessitated 
finding an outside market. Prices were getting very low, and we looked about 
for some means of extending our market. We came to the conclusion it would 
be best to co-operate, and we finally formed a limited liability company for the 
purpose of canning our surplus fruit. We started beautifully, with everything 
nicely arranged, but after we had made up one year’s crop, and had sent our 
produce about in different directions, the venture did not prove so successful as 
it had been painted. As is generally the case where people drift into co-opera- 
tion, money was not too plentiful with them, and when the second call was made 
very few answered it, and the result finally was that the company went into 
voluntary liquidation. However, I am pleased to say that our experience has 
not been the experience of all co-operative societies. 
THIRD SESSION. 
Turspay, 277H June, 1899, 2:30 p.m. 
Business was commenced by the reading of the following paper :— 
THE STATE IN ITS RELATION TO THE FARMER. 
By E. Swaynr, Homebush, Mackay. 
I do not propose in the following paper to enter into a learned dissertation upon 
the relative functions of the State as regards the agricultural industry of this colony as 
. a whole, but more directly to draw attention to those features which I believe are of 
importance should we at any time decide that an organised effort should be made by 
the farmers to secure attention to their requirements at the hands of this or any future 
Government. It is commonly said that farmers are notoriously the least satisfied 
section of the community, and that it is the farmer’s privilege to grumble. I hope to 
be able to show in this paper that if he does at times grumble he is not altogether to 
blame, and that he has some right on his side when he asks to be heard, and seeks 
attention to his requirements. It is a stale truism that all wealth comes from the soil— 
that the nation’s foodstufts and its clothing are the primary produce of the land, with- 
out which it is hopeless to endeayour to build up a nation, and upon which all other 
undertakings ultimately depend. We may admit at once that some nations may 
thrive by manufactures mainly, by lending money, or by acting as the changing- 
house of the world; but their functions would be gone were there no agriculturists 
to supply the basis, in their own country or elsewhere, upon which the secondary 
industries rest. And no nation will knowingly neglect the primary industries of 
the land, if it has the land necessary to als those industries to exist, but rather 
it will encourage them to the utmost. Broadly, these principles are accepted on all 
hands; yet the tendency of most Governments is to foster those industries which are of 
secondary importance, tend to encourage the aggregation of large populations in the 
towns, and initiate at the expense of those living on the soil large manufacturing 
interests which cannot fail to attract men from the land it is supposed to be desirable 
to settle. This tendency has been somewhat checked of late, and now and again we 
find some reversion to the common-sense policy which one would have thought could 
never have been lost sight of. To make the greatest possible use of the national asset 
of the land may be considered the first duty and the leading political principle of all 
Governments; and it is with a view to showing how inadequately the conception of what 
the farmer wants, and has a right to ask for, that this paper has been written. We 
Queenslanders at the present time have not a very great deal to complain of, though 
the conversion of our statesmen to the policy of pushing forward the agricultural 
industry is of somewhat recent date. Under the tariff of Sir Hugh Nelson, many of 
the implements we use on our farms are permitted to enter the country free of duty + 
but there is still much more to be done to relieve the farmer of the burdens cast upon 
him for the benefit of the whole community. His foodstuffs are still taxed, and this 
means not only greater payment by him for articles of his own consumption, but also: 
increased cost of feeding the labour which he employs. In the same way the ordinary cost 
of clothing is increased, and the State might well consider the miei lerttea of reducing 
these lines, and transferring the obligations of finding revenue to those who are not 
£ 
