54 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 Juny, 1902. 
Department of Agriculture, forgetting that the advantagesin this way obtained would 
be more than compensated for by the cribbing, cabining, coffining, and confinin: 
of what would be otherwise most vital powers for good. In passing, it may be note 
that the Central Chamber of Agriculture of Great Britain has proved of most service 
through being a non-government body. 
Others have advocated an organisation having branches created by itself, all 
working under the same rules, implying the securing of a membership irrespective of 
or in addition to co-existing societies. While having good points, such an arrange- 
ment under present conditions is impracticable. Our agriculturists do not see their 
way to pay more than one subscription, and desire at any rate to support the society — 
doing some special work in the interest of their particular district. This ditficulty 
has had to be grappled with elsewhere. The English organising society hefore- 
mentioned, in carrying out the co-operative principle, found it necessary to adapt 
the same to the different environments of each county when promoting the incor- 
poration of any society, and therefore lays down no hard and fast rule in the 
application of agricultural co-operation. In the words of a recent letter from its 
secretary if “dovetails in with the requirements and idiosyneracies of each village 
and district.” 
In Victoria and New South Wales the same difficulty was present, and in each 
State it was found more advantageous to deal with the established, rather than to 
attempt the creation of new, bodies. 
The more or less nebulous ideas held in Queensland concerning comprehensive 
union reached a more concrete stage at the last agricultural Conference, when the 
delegates present, representing about eighty associations, aflirmed the advisability 
of forming a Queensland Chamber of Agriculture, and appointed a provisional com- 
mittee to undertake thé business. 
As convener and chairman of this provisional committee, it has Bupotzel fitting to 
the writer to bring before the present Conference some particulars of the movement 
since the Bundaberg gathering of last June. 
The committee came at once face to face with the crux of any such organisation— 
yiz.: the all important question which, while it is the strength, is prone to prove the 
principal clement of weakness in any attempt to secure a comprehensive union of 
agriculturists—viz.: the fact that to do really effective work such a union must include 
an executive consisting of men able to assemble frequently in some one centre. 
There is nothing new in this question; it has been all threshed out and settled 
long ago from a political standpoint. and more recently in Queensland local governin 
bodies have found the only means of securing a union in the best interests of each an 
all was the adoption of similar lines. 
Foreseeing that some objection would lie against any organisation having Brisbane 
as the working centre, in spite of the supreme advantage of securing a continuing 
executive body constantly alongside the Government and its various departments, as 
well as the headquarters of the leading carrying companies, &c., the committee 
seriously considered, but was obliged to abandon any idea of partitioning the State, 
with the object of securing executives in three or more localities, as rather making 
against than favouring that cominunity of interests for the whole State which has been 
so much urged, and is indeed so necessary. 
It was further evident that just in the ratio that some body of agriculturists 
requiring amelioration in their condition might be remote from Brisbane the necessity 
would only increase for prompt representation at head.quarters. This has been 
already proved in the working of the organisation that has been formed. . 
The objections raised to the adoption of any scheme having a single centre lie in 
the fact that, especially in its initiation, the majority of the representatives on its 
executive would have to be selected from the ranks of men able to reside more or less 
close to that centre. 
As before indicated, the strength of any organisation of the kind will consist in 
the fact that it can obtain disinterested men prepared to sit and work onits executive, 
and give their time and brains at frequent regular as well as at all emergency 
meetings, and attend on deputations, &ec., as required in the interests of brother 
agriculturists, and to so ensure no matter of business brought under its notice 
suffering through delay. 
Until this matter is thought out country associations and individual agriculturists 
may consider that some local association only can work in their best interest. If this 
were so then there seems to be no need for any comprehensive union of agriculturists, 
and the position goes back to the ancient form of the weakness of a single stick as 
against the bundle. 
