1 Ava., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 215 
have a protective duty, but they have not. We, in the Southern part of 
Queensland, consume the sugar from the North, but I say the North does not 
consume our produce in like proportion, for, in spite of the protective duties, 
we still frequently hear in the papers of orders going to the southern colonies. 
I have nothing against federation on proper lines. 
Mr. H. M. Sevens (Rosewood): Iam sorry to have to disagree with 
my colleague, Mr. Hudson, on the subject of federation, but at the same time 
I have no mandate from my society as to the opinion I should express here. 
I can merely express my-own, and that is that I think that on the whole we 
have nothing to fear from federation. Perhaps in some lines we may go 
down, but on others we have a great advantage over the south owing to 
‘our earlier seasons and cheaper lands, and on the average I think we have the 
advantage. If one article of produce fails, we would have to take up others 
which we can produce to greater perfection than they can in the south. 
I have thought a good deal on the matter since it has been brought prominently 
before us, and on the whole I think it would really be more desirable for us to 
join in than to stand out of the union. 
Mr. U. J. Booker (Woolooga, Wide Bay) : Mr. Hudson was particularly 
anxious that federation should be approached without any sentiment, I am 
not with him in that, and whenI contemplate that piece of cloth at the end of 
this hall, “ Faith, Hope, and Charity,” it reminds me that every Queenslander 
should have it for his motto—that is, faith in the country, hope for the future 
in what the country and he himself will be able to do, and charity towards his 
neighbours. I am a native of Queensland, a cattle-owner, a dairyman, and a 
farmer, and I really think I represent the interests the delegates here are 
representing. For myself I represent the three, but I know most about the 
cattle industry, and, touching upon that particularly, federation to the 
Queensland cattle-owners—the owners of something like 6,000,000 of cattle— 
will mean this so soon as the machinery of federation is established, and the 
disruption that federation will naturally bring about has subsided. I grant 
that in many of the industries there will be disruption, for on all occasions 
when there is a change of tariff, a few must suffer. But this will only be for 
a short time, and as soon as the machiner 
y_of the union is set going it will 
mean to the cattle-owners of Queensland £1 a head, or an increment of 6 
millions of money to the wealth of the colony. At the present time if we 
federate, bullocks that are sold at Brisbane at £4 could be chilled at the works 
in Brisbane, and sold as chilled meat in Melbourne, where they would return 
to the cattle-owners of the southern districts, at the very lowest, allowing for 
the profits of the meat company and the middleman—without whom we cannot 
conduct our business—£5 10s. per head, and we must consider that while the 
producer is thus benefiting, so also are the storekeeper and the community 
generally. What really concerns the cattle-owners in that particular way, 
concerns the dairyman, for if the bullocks are enhanced in value to the extent 
of £1 10s. a head, so would the value of the cows that breed the steers be similarly 
increased, and jn an all round sense federation means to every farmer, who is 
also a cattle-owner, a considerable balance on his credit side. It has pleased 
me immensely to-day to hear the southern delegates, with about but one 
exception, declare themselves federalists, because 1t will go forth throughout 
the country that a body of representative men from centres which federa- 
tionists were afraid of, have shown themselves in favour of the movement 
by voicing to-day sentiments worthy of them, and of the country in which they 
live. (Applause.) 
‘ Mr. I, W. Peex (Loganholme): I would like to ask, in the event of 
federation becoming an established fact, whether each State will have the 
power, in the interests of agriculture, to establish special regulations and laws, 
or practically a board of agriculture for its own particular interest in that 
State. Will they have that right, and is there any provision in the Bill for a 
Board of Agriculture, or for a Board of Trade ? Although mining is 
-darticularly looked after in the Bill, agriculture is not considered. 
