1 Jury, 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 108 
‘In conclusion, let me urge you to be unceasing and untiring in your efforts to 
elevate both agriculture and the agriculturist, and to secure to ‘oth’ the respect to 
which they are entitled. 
Some of my suggestions may mean a somewhat larger expenditure on the part of 
the Government, but there are two sides to every ledger, ral ultimately it may be 
roved that a small extra expense on account of agriculture has saved a very much 
arger one in another direction. Australia is now a nation, young and sensitive. Her 
actions will be watched by foreign powers, especially those with possessions in the 
South Pacific, with much keener concern than formerly. There is already some talk 
of applying the Monroe doctrine. Not long since a French statesman referred to what 
he fondly styled ‘‘the unappropriated parts of the Continent of Australia.’ It is said that 
the best way to avert war is by being prepared for it. There is no better man behind 
a gun than the man from belund the plough. Foster agriculture, and then if war 
breaks out, there will be no long delay nor great cost in mobilising our defenders. 
Let the bugle sound the alarm, and thousands of stout-hearted and strong-limbed 
country youngsters will promptly respond, needing only sufficient time to kiss their 
own mothers and somone else’s sister, seize a true rifle and.mount a trusty horse, and 
present themselves fully equipped at the nearest rendezvous, an army which friends 
can trust and foes may dread, and, if our army is a small one— 
The world knows well to-day 
That a small Australian army goes a darned long way. 
The next contribution was by Mr. TH. Swayne, of Homebush, Mackay :— 
SOME PHASES OF THE SUGAR INDUSTRY. : 
é Mr. Cratrman,— Having been since yesterday morning asked to substitute for 
the paper on “ Associated Action amongst Farmers,” for which I am down on your 
programme, another dealing with one or two of the questions that are just now 
exercising the minds of all connected with the sugar industry, and to one of which 
great, and I think undue, prominence has been given in recent politics. 
Owing to the time I have had to prepare it, you will, I must ask you to, excuse 
me, gentlemen, if it is somewhat crude. Init I will touch on the labour difficulty 
chiefly from a climatic point of view; and the organisation of an industry which from 
the distance the districts in which it is principally carried on are from the large 
centres of population, and the consequent unavoidable isolation, comparatively speak- 
ing, of those engaged in it, particularly requires that they shall act with unanimity. 
Tf the industry could have existed without such labour, kanakas would have gone 
years ago with the advent of the small cane farmer, for I can safely say that the great 
majority of that class first took their farms with the fixed determination of doing the 
work entirely with white labour. It was only after a hard struggle that they were 
reluctantly compelled to admit that a power greater than that of man prevented them. 
The utter unreliability of white labourers in the tropics, which is often adduced 
as the cause why the industry cannot be successfully prosecuted, if dependent entirely 
upon them, is wrongly so termed—it is simply the effect of a cause, the primary 
reason being the natural repugnance of the men to work under conditions to 
which they are not constitutionally adapted. Many of the same men 
who in the Northern . canefields are a constant source of anxiety and 
loss to their employers—through their habit of knocking off work on the slightest 
pretext, getting on the spree, falling sick, or clearing out of the district just at the 
time their services are most required—would, on a Southern farm, work contentedly 
enough. But they were not intended by nature to work in a moist, sweltering heat 
surrounded by tropical vegetation higher than their heads, the work itself generally 
requiring to be performed in a stooping position. That the climate of tropical 
Queensland is a trying one to Europeans, requires only a trip from Melbourne to one 
of the Northern ports, or vice versd, for the difference in the physique of the people 
to be at once seen. ‘The fresh condition of the South is replaced by sallow or pale 
faces, nor will the same robust frames be seen. A tendency to smaller chest measure- 
ments will be apparent, and a general air of listlessness will be noticed. Such being 
the case, is it to be wondered at that a man’s nature revolts at performing year in and 
year out, for long hours every day, the drudgery entailed by some of the work necessary 
onacane farm. If sugar-growing as a large industry is to succeed, farmers cannot 
be expected to go to the expense of planting cane (a crop that requires constant 
attention) and then depend upon the chance of sufficient unemployed coming along to 
enable them every few months to replace those who get tired of their job and chuck 
it, fora week or two without labour at a critical time means an irreparable injury 
to the crop. ‘To carry on canegrowing to such an extent as will utilise the 
