i 
i, 
1 JULY, 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 169 
roof of the rule. So, before a white man undertakes to make his livelihood by such 
abour. it were well for him to stop and consider that in doing so he is entering into 
competition with the lowest-class labour in the world—of such a nature that mechanical 
aids cannot be brought to his assistance, and superior intelligence is of no avail. 
Happily, but few white men fall so low in their social status as labourers as 
to covet such work for themselves, but nothing is too low for the political 
blatherskite to claim. If, in one portion of the colony, where there are light crops 
grown, or where there is a dry climate—which, by the way, is most unsuitable for sugar 
production—trashing has been dispensed with, it is immediately argued that it may 
be soin all cases. If in any part where there is a superabundance of low-class white 
labour it has been employed in any of those operations, it is therefore argued that it 
may be so anywhere else without consideration whether it be hot or cold, wet or dry, 
healthy or unhealthy, or indeed of any of the manifold variations of circumstances, or 
whether such low-class labour be available or not, or whether it may be profitably 
employed atsuch work. But the fact is that those men omit to state one-half of their 
ereed. Itis not only a “ white Australia,” but ‘‘ Australia for such of the whites as 
are already here, and are prepared to join their labotr organisations, and to be 
ruled by their committees,” for they want no more even of the whitemen. They are 
opposed to all immigration, and, professing to be knights of labour, view labour only 
as opposed to capital, and are quite regardless as to what industries they wreck so 
that their present object be temporarily gained—the rise of wages. ‘They would, 
without one moment’s consideration, kill the goose for the golden egg, and think they 
had done a good thing, too. 
Trashing cane cannot be done without, wherever there are heavy crops and a 
moist climate. Heavy crops of untrashed cane are just one intricate tangle of cane 
and dead leaves. ‘The cane having grown upward till borne down to the ground by 
its own weight, grown up again, and again fallen in all directions till it is difficult to 
tell where the roots are. 
In such a condition the sun and air cannot penetrate the mass to ripen the cane. 
The latter will start into growth at every joint where it comes into contact with the soil, 
or where moisture is retained at the joints by the dead leaves or thrash. When such 
cane is wrought, it is apt to produce more molasses than sugar. 
Properly cultivated, that cane would be trashed before it fell down. ‘The sun and 
air would then get through it and ripen it, and the trash stripped from the cane would 
form a mat upon the ground protecting the cane joints from coming into contact with 
the soil, the operation being repeated as the cane makes further growth. Light crops 
of ae growth might take but little injury from not being trashed; but as all dead 
leaves have to be stripped from the cane before leaving the field (for sugar is not made 
from cane leaves), where is the economy in leaving that work till harvest—stacking 
up work till the season when there is most to do? Just what cane trashing is, is not 
very easily described. The best way to know is to make a fair trial of it ina good 
heavy crop and in nice, dry, hot weather; not for a few minutes, like the clergyman’s 
trial of the treadmill, but for a day or two from morn till night—an experience which 
most sugar-growers have had at some period of their lives. In the morning, burrowing 
through the cane, you will be soaked from head to heels with dew; later, when the 
day gets hot, you will be soaked in perspiration and choked with dust and dirt and 
the fine hairs off the cane, your pibties felted with those hairs and your skin irritated. 
by them, as it may have been when a boy by the somewhat similar hairs on the seeds 
of the wild rose (the Hip of Scotland), and even though there should be a good breeze 
outside, you will pant for air, for no breeze can reach you there. 
There is no comparison possible between harvesting cereal crops in a temperate 
climate and cane in the tropics. There are as many tons of cane as there are hundred- 
weights of wheat or oats. Cane cannot be bundled up as grain is and handled with a 
fork, but must be lifted in armfuls and carried on the shoulder and that climbed with 
on to the top of the trucks. The temperature must not be forgotten. Grain stands in 
the field till it is convenient to draw it in, but cane must go straight off to the mill or 
it sours and spoils. 
A cane farmer deprived of his labour and placed at the mercy of an unreasonable 
labour union would be absolutely ruined. 
Some years ago the Griffith Ministry decreed that kanaka labour should cease. 
The result was that many of the sugar-planters abandoned their occupation, and that 
all property was greatly reduced in value, while those who remained sought low-class 
labour of other kinds—Chinese, Malays, and so forth, all very objectionable compared 
to the South Sea Islander, who does not lawtully come into competition with the 
European. If some people employ kanakas at unlawful work it is not a proof that 
the law is bad, but that itis badly administered. 
