104 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 Jury, 1901. 
Commonwealth’s vast resources in those regions where only tropical products 
flourish will require a fixed population capable of hard manual work, for if | 
must be remembered that, so far, it has been found impossible to employ machinery 
to anything like the same extent in the canefields as prevails in other branchey 
of agriculture. It is sometimes asserted that higher wages will overcome 
the difliculty—in other words, money is to be pitted against nature. This raise 
two questions—iirst, is it desirable or is it for the good of the community that men 
should be bribed by a few extra pounds to injure their constitutions,-and if this iy 
assented to would it meet the difficulty ? So far, experience has shown that, generally 
speaking, the higher the wages the less the work done. The more money, the longey 
the time taken to spend it—in other words, the bigger the spree. In reply to this it 
has been asserted that with higher rates a better class of men will flock to the sugay 
districts, but the same dislike to some kinds of work would still be shown, and in the 
past there have been many instances of steady men in receipt of good wages for field 
work during the cooler parts of the year directly the hot weather has commenced, 
when the most important work in the routine of sugar production is at its height, 
declaring the country was not fit to live in, and leaving it for pleasanter climes. 
Coming to the facts bearing on the question as to whether the climate of the 
majority of the Queensland sugar districts is really one that is suitable for white 
men to be engaged in field work: The future development of the industry will take 
place in the districts situated on the coast, commencing at Mackay and terminatin 
at Cooktown. Taking Cairns as the centre of the locality where the largest extent o 
rich new lands lies, the mean maximum temperature there for the four years ending 
1897 was 83:3, the mean minimum 67°6. As Cairns is directly on the coast and gets 
the benefit of the sea breeze, and as the canegrowing lands are very often hemmed in 
by mountains where the breeze cannot penetrate—in fact, regular steaming pans in which 
cane luxuriates—the Cairns readings are rather temperate for those parts ; vee itis when 
the column indicating the humidity of the air is glanced at, standing as it does at 73°] 
with an average rainfall of 90 inches, that the climate is fairly realised. What must 
constant hard work under such conditions take out of a man? « Compare it with other 
countries where sugar-cane is the staple. Honolulu has about the same maximum, 
Java only 5 degrees higher, yet what sane man would talk of growing sugar there, if 
compelled to rely for his labour entirely on Europeans. In fact, some Southerners | 
coolly ask us to attempt a task never yet accomplished in the world—the carrying on 
of a large agricultural industry in these or corresponding latitudes close to sea level 
exclusively with white men as labourers. As it 1s, the Queensland sugar producer 
employs more men of his own race than any other cane sugar producers in the world, 
and Australia should be proud of them for doing so. As for protective duties being a 
panacea for the trouble, Hawaii has the advantage in her markets, United States of 
America, of a 40 per cent. duty, and yet they have the same anxiety over their labour 
as we haye. And now I would like to quote a few actual experiences that have 
occurred to those who have tried to entirely replace black labour with white. Of 
course, Sir Samuel Griffith’s legislative experiment of about ten years ago is too well 
known to require going into; suffice to say, £50,000 of the State’s money was put into 
it, and an honest attempt was made by the growers to carry it to a successful issue 
Coming to individual efforts: At Mackay, in 1891, the Colonial Sugar Refinery 
Company commenced the subdivision of their Homebush estate into small farms, the 
leases of which were chiefly taken by men who, as ploughmen, &c., were well used to 
agricultural work, both in Europe and out here, being thoroughly practical men. 
Most of them started firmly resolved to have no blacks about the place. For the 
first year or two, on open forest land, exceptionally well adapted for the use of horse 
implements, several of them, with the assistance of their children working in the 
field when they ought to have been in school, and sometimes of their wives, to 
the detriment of the latter’s health, they managed to adhere to their resolve, but as 
the harvest time came along extra labour was an absolute necessity, and the gang of 
white canecutters was put on at contract, the rate being 3s. 6d. per ton, horses an 
drivers being supplied for pulling the cane trucks on the portable tram lines. he 
crop throughout was fairly good, but there was constant difficulty in men knocking off, 
sometimes a strike of the lot, only ended hy some concession by the employer, and 
considerable delay through drinking when money was paid. Again, the next year, 
1895, a gang was picked of a thoroughly good stamp of men, and, profiting by past 
experience, an agreement was drawn up and signed that it was thought would prevent 
all difficulties. ‘The rates were 3s. per ton for all crops over 15 tons per acre, 3s. 6d. 
for under 15 and over 10, and 4s. for under 10 and over 7; below that, day wages (the 
crops were poor this year), men providing their own food. Camp equipage, and cane 
knives, and a horse to pull trucks were supplied by the employers, At the end of the 
