170 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {il Jury, 190i 
In the early days of the Island trade, there were certainly many abuses both i 
recruiting and in the consequent treatment of the “ boys,” but that is all changed nov 
and the trade is under strict Government supervision. P 
As regards the boys themselves, nothing can be said against their employment 
from a humanitarian view of the subject. hen brought to the colony they are me 
savages ; and when properly treated and industriously employed for their three yea 
engagement, they are certainly better men at its expiration than they were when 
brought here. ‘They are well cared for; their ration is fixed by law, and is great 
than that allowed to a white man; they are sufficiently clothed, althoug 
previously they wore little or no clothing; they have the same medical attendance as_ 
a white man. 
The removal of inter-State, and the establishment of federal tariffs, will cause 
enough confusion for some time to come without interfering with our necessary labour 
Already the leading sugar manufacturers are resting on their oars, for what man 
in his senses would invest money in an industry that is in danger of being so interfered 
with that it can only be prosecuted at a loss? _ 
The production of cane sugar has been handicapped for many years by the action — 
of continental nations, who are satisfied to tax themselves heavily to support their beet- | 
sugar trade by a bounty, to the destruction of the British-colonial cane sugar trade, 
showing that those nations place a very high value on what many Australians seem 
quite prepared to throw away. : 
To harass the Queensland sugar industry at the present time is simply to play 
into the hands of the continental Garecticnte Let them succeed in their object 
establishment of their own trade and destruction of the British—and then the sugar 
consumers must pay the piper. But hold our own, guided and protected by fair and 
wise legislation till the artificial stimulus of the bounty is removed, as it must bem 
time, and the beet-sugar trade will go down as everything else does which has been — 
unduly foreed—when it is left to itself. Meanwhile, however, those nations are — 
reaping one benefit which they much value—yviz., the establishment of fleets of 
steamers and general extension of commerce. = 
The tendency of all unnecessary interferences with trade, whether by legislation — 
or by action of labour unions, is bad. Several trades in Great Britain have been already 
ruined and driven to other countries by such interference. i 
Even what is generally considered wise legislation frequently has a very different — 
effect from that intended—instance: To raise revenue at the expense of the Chinese, — 
whom all agree in considering undesirable colonists, a heavy import quyy was placed — 
onrice. he result is that the Chinese have, by growing rice, converted the tax into — 
a protective tariff, and the tables are turned. a 
The white Australian may, in his extreme colour sensitiveness, drive the South — 
Sea Islander from the colony, but surely he will not attempt to follow him and dri 
him from the Islands—some of them under French, German, and American protection. 
The sugar trade is already established in some of them. There is abundance of rich soil, 
and the requisite climate. Sugar-planters are, from their experience, satisfied that — 
they cannot profitably work without abundance of low-class, and, above all things, 1 
reliable labour. As it was when previously attempted, so it will be again if the labour — 
be withheld—the industry will be driven elsewhere and the colony be the loser. — 
Our distress will be the opportunity of the continental nations, and of Honolulu, | 
Fiji, and other places. 
