1 Jury, 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 107 
used every week, all of which were purchased from the Caboolture district. 
I likewise found that the estate employs no less than 10 cooks and 2 bakers. 
Those 10 cooks and 2 bakers use no less than 600 loaves of bread of the 
best quality, made from Warwick flour. There are 14 bullocks cut up and 
used every week to feed those boys and employees. Then there are 42 miles 
of private railway on the estate, six locomotives, and 500 trucks for carting the cane 
to the mill. Further, the firm have another property 20 miles away, at Watawa, 
from whence the cane has to be transported to Bingera over the Government 
railway, and Messrs. Gibson and Howes must, therefore, be contributing a not 
inconsiderable income to the Government in freights. I would like to draw 
attention to a statement which I read in the Brisbane Courier a few short days 
ago, in the Southern House of Representatives, that a white woman could not 
and dare not walk through the streets of Bundaberg. I would like to give 
from this platform, after having been here a week, that statement an unqualified 
denial. We have passed a splendid resolution this evening, which I hope may 
have some influence with the Federal Parliament, for I think the sugar people 
of the North deserve the earnest support not only of every farmer, but of the 
whole of Australia. 
Mr. T. E. Coutson (Rosewood) : This sugar business is a very large 
subject, and I may say I had my eyes opened this afternoon by the magnitude 
of the industry. I can easily see that it requires a lot of capital to work such 
an industry as we see here to-day, and that, if that capital is used to provide 
food and work for us people, then people who are using it are good colonists. 
I may here state that I am very thankfulto Mr. Gibson for giving us the invita- 
tion to Bingera, and for treating us in the way that he did when we got there. 
We have heard that cane cannot be grown in this country without black labour. 
I have my opinions about that. I know nothing about your conditions here, but 
there is a sugar-mill in the district I come from, and the small farmers are 
growing cane for it, under a cast-iron agreement, at 6s. 9d. per ton. Now, 
some of those farmers have to cart their cane 8 and’4 miles, and some as much 
as 5 miles, over rough and ridgy country. 
A. Voice: Are they making a living ? 
Mr. Covrson: That is the question. They are not making such a living 
as they would like. It pays some so well that they prefer to pay the penalty 
provided by the agreement for not growing cane rather that grow any at all 
and get 6s. 9d. a ton for it. If, however, they had the facilities I understand 
they have up North in the shape of access to mills, &c., and got 10s. a ton for it, 
I think they would make it pay. There is another aspect of the question I 
would like to speak upon. Mr. Swayne has read a very able paper, and he says 
that no white man can work in the canefields in the Northern portion of the 
State. I therefore suppose if we want to be gentlemen, we must be Northern 
cane farmers. I presume they do not stop inside all the time. Now, with regard 
to reliable labour, I must say that I never hear of strikes among the Northern 
eur ce actver ss so I think it must be a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. 
Where money is to be made, you will always find white men ready to make it. 
Mr. T. Burcess (Forest Hill): I came up to Bundaberg at the 
end of last week for the purpose of getting some information relative 
to the employment of black labour on the sugar plantations. I used to 
hold a conviction that this black labour business was a matter of pounds, 
shillings, and pence, and thatif white men were properly paid there would 
be found enough of them willing to do the work required on sugar 
plantations. I have been in a position to acquire some valuable facts, and 
something has altered my views very considerably. Hight years ago there left 
our district about twenty men. I knew most of them personally, and knew the 
stuff they were made of. They were men of grit, energy, and intelligence. 
They came to Bundaberg, and the morning they left Laidley, I came down to 
Brisbane to see them off. Those men went to Bundaberg determined to grow 
sugar, and to grow it without black labour. ‘These men assured me they would 
do so. I came to Bundaberg last Saturday, and went out to Watawa, where 
