PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.
Primary Education: Board of National Education; Education Act
of 1860; Board of General Education; Education Act of 1875;
Department of Public Instruction; Higher Education in Primary
Schools; Itinerant Teachers; Status of Teachers; Statistics.
--Private Schools.--Secondary Education: Grammar Schools Act;
Endowments, Scholarships, and Bursaries; Success of Grammar
Schools; Exhibitions to Universities; Expenditure.--Technical
Education: Beginning of System; Board of Technical Instruction;
Transfer of Control to Department of Public Instruction;
Statistics; Technical Instruction Act; Continuation Classes;
Schools of Arts and Reading Rooms.--University: Royal
Commissions; University Bill; Standardised System of Education.
From 10th December, 1859, the date of the founding of Queensland, to
30th September, 1860, primary education was under the control of a
Board of National Education appointed by the Governor in Council. That
board consisted of Sir Charles Nicholson (chairman), Messrs. R. R.
Mackenzie, William Thornton, George Raff, and D. R. Somerset; the
secretary was William Henry Day. There were then only two national
schools in the whole of Queensland--namely, one in Drayton and one in
Warwick. The system of primary education obtaining in New South Wales
was continued, but the subject of education was one of the earliest
matters which received the consideration of the first Parliament of
Queensland, and in 1860 an Act to provide for primary education was
passed. The Bill was initiated in the Legislative Council by Captain
O'Connell, and Mr. R. G. W. Herbert had charge of the measure in the
Legislative Assembly. The object of the Bill was to provide primary
education under one general and comprehensive system, and to afford
facilities to persons of all denominations for the education of their
children in the same school without prejudice to their religious
beliefs.
PRIMARY EDUCATION.
The Act provided for the appointment of a Board of General Education
to consist of five members, together with a Minister of the Crown who
would, _ex officio_, act as chairman. The members of the first Board
were:--Mr. R. R. Mackenzie (chairman), Dr. W. Hobbs (vice-chairman),
and Messrs. W. H. Day, J. F. McDougall, W. J. Munce, and George Raff.
The scheme of primary education which the board framed was based
generally upon the national system in operation in Ireland. Schools
were divided into two classes--vested and non-vested. The vested
schools were unsectarian in character. The aid granted by the board
towards the establishment, equipment, and up-keep of schools varied
from time to time, and ranged from one-half to two-thirds. The board
appointed the teachers. The salaries of teachers were supplemented
by school fees, ranging from 3d. to 1s. 6d. per week for each scholar
according to his standard in the school work. When the board took
office there were 10 teachers, 493 pupils, and 4 schools--Drayton,
Warwick, Brisbane (boys), and Brisbane (girls). The total expenditure
in 1860 was L1,615 2s. 3d. School fees were abolished by the Premier,
Mr. Lilley, from the 1st of January, 1870, and since that date primary
State education has been free, Queensland being the first of the
Australian colonies to adopt the principle of free public education.
The Education Act of 1860 was superseded by the State Education Act of
1875, which came into operation on 1st January, 1876, and is still
in force. When passed it was regarded as the most progressive Act
in Australia. Its author was Mr. S. W. Griffith, the present Chief
Justice of the Commonwealth, and he was the first Minister for Public
Instruction. The first Under Secretary was Mr. C. J. Graham. On 31st
December, 1875, there were 230 schools in operation, the aggregate
enrolment for the year being 33,643, and the average attendance
16,887. The number of teachers employed was 595, and the total
expenditure for the year was L83,219 14s. 9d.
The new Act provided that the whole system of public instruction in
Queensland, formerly administered by the Board of General Education,
should be transferred to a department of the public service, to be
called the Department of Public Instruction.
The Act provided that one-fifth of the cost must be contributed
locally in the first instance towards the purchase of a school
site, the erection of the necessary buildings, and the providing of
furniture; thereafter the State bore the whole expenditure. Thus the
State defrayed the total cost of repairs and maintenance, renewals,
additions, and the like. State aid to non-vested schools was withdrawn
as from 31st December, 1880.
In 1895 a resolution was agreed to by the Legislative Assembly in
favour of the establishment of superior State schools with a view to
providing higher education for children in towns and populous centres
where grammar schools did not exist. The ultimate result of this
action was the passing of the State Education Act Amendment Act of
1897, which gave the Governor in Council power to prescribe that any
subjects of secular instruction might be subjects of instruction in
primary schools. The department immediately took advantage of this
amending Act, and provided for the teaching of mathematics, higher
English, and science in the fifth and sixth classes.
So far as the resources at its disposal have permitted, the Department
of Public Instruction has done what it could to bring primary
education within the reach of all the children of the State, and it
may be safely claimed that wherever twelve children can be gathered
together there exists a school. But where the children cannot be
gathered into groups the department goes to the homes of the pupils.
Itinerant teachers, fully equipped with buggies, camping outfits,
school requisites, and other necessaries, traverse the sparsely
settled districts in the far West and North where the establishment of
schools is not possible. The travelling teachers look for the homes
of the pupils, be those homes rude wayside inns, log cabins, or even
tents, and an effort is made to visit each home not less than four
times a year. Under this system the little ones are at least taught
to read, to write, and to count. The itinerant teacher system was
initiated in 1901, when one teacher was appointed. There are now
twelve of these teachers, and the expenditure in this direction has
risen from L411 per annum to L5,129 per annum.
In 1906 the department began to appoint trained teachers to the charge
of all schools where the attendance exceeded twelve. By this process
properly qualified teachers will soon be in charge of 90 per cent. of
the schools of the State. One of the most difficult problems which
has to be faced in England, Scotland, America, and also in some of our
sister States, is the adequate staffing of small country schools by
efficient teachers. Queensland has solved that problem, and it is
doubtful if any country has done better in that respect.
Primary school teachers are officers of the State, and are not
subject to the caprices of boards or local committees; they enjoy the
protection and privileges of the Public Service Act, and the interests
of no branch of the public service are more zealously protected by
Parliament. They stand high in public estimation in Queensland,
and that estimation is steadily rising. The pay on the whole is
good--particularly that of head teachers, and the conditions of
service are by no means unattractive.
In 1908 the total expenditure on education (including school
buildings) was L393,378 1s. 8d.; the total number of departmental
schools open during that year was 1,141, the net enrolment of pupils
being 94,193, and the average daily attendance 67,309.
[Illustration: VIEW OF GYMPIE FROM NASHVILLE RAILWAY STATION]
[Illustration: COKE OVENS, IPSWICH DISTRICT]
PRIVATE SCHOOLS.
The number of private schools in operation in Queensland during 1908
was 157, namely:--Church of England, 8; Roman Catholic, 61; Lutheran,
2; undenominational, 86. These schools are not subsidised by the
State. The number of teachers employed in them during the year
totalled 665. The total enrolment of scholars was 14,098--males,
5,934; females, 8,164. The total average number of scholars attending
the schools was 11,928--males, 5,114; females, 6,814.
SECONDARY EDUCATION.
In 1860, that is within one year of the founding of Queensland as a
separate State, an Act was passed to provide for the establishment
of grammar schools, in which was to be given an education higher than
that which could be given in the elementary schools. The following
remarks made by Mr. R. G. W. Herbert, who introduced the bill in the
Legislative Assembly, are very interesting. He said: "The question of
education might be considered under three heads as primary, grammar
school, and collegiate. The bill introduced into the other branch
of the Legislature was intended to provide for primary education,
principally under the national system, and would make adequate
provision for imparting fundamental instruction at a cheap rate to all
classes of youth without distinction of creed or religious profession.
The bill he now introduced was intended to provide for a higher order
of instruction of a useful and thoroughly practical character by
establishing grammar schools easily accessible to the colonial youth
of all denominations throughout the colony.... It was desirable
that the instruction to be afforded in the grammar schools should
be afforded at a cheap rate, so that as many as possible might avail
themselves of it, and that it should be such as would best qualify the
youth of the colony for discharging the duties that would devolve upon
them in after life."
Captain O'Connell, who had charge of the measure in the Legislative
Council, said: "It was merely a sequel to the Primary Education Bill,
and was designed to give those who might desire it a higher education
than could be afforded by the primary schools. It was a matter of the
greatest importance that a system of this kind should be established
on a broad and permanent foundation, and therefore it was not
difficult to perceive that the creation of primary schools such as
were contemplated under the other bill would be found extremely useful
in carrying out the great objects now proposed to be accomplished."
Under the provisions of the Grammar Schools Act a school may be
established in any locality where a sum of not less than L1,000 has
been raised locally, and the Governor in Council may grant towards
the erection of school buildings and a residence for the principal a
subsidy equal to twice the amount raised locally. An amending Act
was passed in 1864 providing that when certain conditions had been
complied with an annual endowment of L1,000 might be granted to each
grammar school. Each school is governed by a board of seven trustees;
of these, four are appointed by the Government, and three are
nominated by the subscribers to the building fund; they hold office
for three years.
There are ten grammar schools in the State--seven in Southern, two
in Central, and one in Northern Queensland. The Ipswich Boys' Grammar
School was the first to be established; it was erected in 1863. The
last established was the school for girls in Rockhampton, which was
founded in 1892.
Each of the schools has qualified for the annual endowment of L1,000;
of this amount the State pays L750 a year unconditionally, and L250
on the understanding that the school will receive a certain number of
State scholars per annum, the scholarships held by these pupils being
known as district scholarships. Queensland has always been liberal
in the granting of scholarships, and at the present time no less than
102, including the district scholarships, are granted every year; of
these, 70 are available for boys, and 32 for girls. Each scholarship
has a currency of three years. The State also grants seven bursaries
to boys and three to girls. A bursary entitles the holder to free
education at an approved secondary school for three years, together
with a cash allowance of L30 per annum. The trustees of the various
grammar schools also grant scholarships in addition to those provided
by the State. In 1908 the aggregate enrolment of pupils in attendance
at the grammar schools was 1,101, with an average daily attendance
of 970; and of these pupils fully one-third were the holders of
scholarships. Free railway passes to the nearest grammar school are
granted to the holders of scholarships.
To assist the children of poor parents to avail themselves of the
scholarships which they may win, the Government grant a living
allowance of L12 per annum to the winners of scholarships, provided
that the income of the parents does not exceed L3 per week, or L30
per annum for each bona fide member of the family. This rule came into
operation on the 1st of January, 1909.
It is generally recognised that the Queensland grammar schools do
good work; the success of their students in the junior and senior
examinations of the Sydney University abundantly justifies this
conclusion. Each school constructs its own programme, but, broadly
speaking, the curriculum of the several schools is designed to lead
up to the Sydney University. As each school practically shapes its own
course, the success of the institution depends very largely upon the
personality, efficiency, and vigour of the principal. In addition to
the State-endowed grammar schools there are several other secondary
schools. Some of these are denominational, and others are conducted by
private persons. Schools of this class are not endowed by the State,
but the winners of State scholarships or bursaries may attend these
institutions if the Governor in Council is satisfied that they are of
a sufficiently high standard.
Queensland has not so far placed the coping-stone on her educational
system by establishing a University, but each year she grants three
exhibitions to Universities outside the State. The exhibitions
are open to competition, and the test examination is the senior
examination of the Sydney University. Each exhibition has a currency
of three years, and is worth L100 a year. The winners may attend any
University approved by the Governor in Council.
It will thus be seen that Queensland has been fairly liberal in
providing the means of higher education for her children. A comparison
with her sister States of New South Wales and Victoria emphasises this
fact. During the year 1906-7 New South Wales, with a population of
1,528,697, and a revenue of L13,392,435, granted L12,945 towards
secondary education; Victoria, with a population of 1,231,940, and a
revenue of L8,345,534, granted L5,874; Queensland, with a population
of 535,113, and a revenue of L4,307,912, granted L12,909, this
amount being exclusive of the L900 per annum granted on account of
exhibitions to Universities. In 1908 the amount granted by the State
towards secondary education in Queensland was L14,272 11s. 11d.
TECHNICAL EDUCATION.
The system of technical education in Queensland is in its infancy, but
no branch is likely to make more rapid and lusty growth or to have a
more important bearing upon the industrial and commercial development
of the State.
The Brisbane Technical College has been in existence as a distinct
institution since 1882. It is only since July, 1905, that the
Education Department has been closely associated with the
administration of technical education. Previous to 1902 technical
colleges, with the exception of the Brisbane College, were carried on
in connection with schools of arts under the control of local
committees, the State subsidising the colleges to the extent of L1 for
each L1 paid in fees or subscribed for technical college purposes.
In 1902 a Board of Technical Education was created; the board held
office until 1905, when this branch of education was placed under
the control of the department, and a special officer was appointed to
supervise the work. Endowment is now paid upon a differential scale,
the distribution being based on the general and practical utility of
the subjects taught, the subsidy ranging from 10s. to L3 for every L1
collected in fees. There were seventeen colleges in operation during
1908. The progress which has been made during the past five years is
shown in the following table:--
---------------------+---------------------+----------------
Year. | Number of | Endowment.
|Individual Students. |
---------------------+---------------------+----------------
1904 | 3,600 | L4,732 4 6
1905 | 3,892 | 5,460 4 11
1906 | 4,321 | 7,930 13 5
1907 | 4,702 | 9,610 4 2
1908 | 5,187 | 10,719 12 7
---------------------+---------------------+----------------
The importance of a highly developed system of technical education has
been fully realised in this State, and in 1908 a Technical Instruction
Act was passed. It provides for the establishment of a central
technical college in Brisbane which shall be maintained by, and be
under the direct control of, the State. It is intended that this
college shall be the recognised technical institute of Queensland,
and it is hoped that it may ultimately be one of the most important
institutions of the kind in Australia. The colleges outside the
metropolis will be affiliated with the central college, but will
remain under local control.
In addition to liberal assistance to technical education, provision
has been made for evening continuation classes. These classes are to
enable pupils who have left school before completing their primary
education to continue their education; to assist persons to obtain
instruction in special subjects relating to their employment; and to
prepare students for the technical colleges. The classes are liberally
endowed by the State, and very comprehensive regulations have been
framed for their administration, the system being probably the best of
its kind in the Commonwealth.
[Illustration: GULF CATTLE READY FOR MARKET]
[Illustration: BRIGALOW COUNTRY, WARRA, DARLING DOWNS]
[Illustration: HEREFORD COWS, DARLING DOWNS]
Schools of arts and reading rooms are also fostered by the State. A
grant of 10s. is made for each L1 of subscriptions or donations, but
the grant to any one institution cannot exceed L150 per annum.
The State subsidises reading rooms at shearing sheds, sugar mills,
and meat works to the extent of L1 for L1, with a view to assisting
to provide reading matter, and such suitable recreation games as
draughts, chess, &c., for the workers in those industries.
The amount contributed by the State towards schools of arts and
reading rooms is L5,000 per annum, and in 1908 there were 181 of these
institutions.
UNIVERSITY.
The question of establishing a University has been under consideration
from time to time for the past thirty-five years, and more than one
Royal Commission has been appointed to inquire into and report upon
the subject. In 1874 a commission recommended the immediate foundation
of a University. In 1891 another commission was appointed, and made a
similar recommendation. For various reasons, however, but principally
financial stringency, no action was taken until September, 1899,
when the Government introduced a bill for the establishment of a
University. Unfortunately the bill did not become law, and Queensland
remained without a University for another decade.
The Government programme for the first session of 1909 included a
University Bill, but owing to the untimely dissolution of the Assembly
nothing was done in the matter. When Parliament met again on 2nd
November, the bill was the first measure proceeded with. Both Houses
being unanimously in favour of establishing a University on modern,
democratic lines, it was speedily passed, and on 10th December,
the jubilee of the foundation of Queensland, Government House was
dedicated to the purposes of the University by His Excellency the
Governor, Sir William MacGregor, in the presence of a large and
representative gathering of citizens. With the State system of primary
education established on a sound basis; technical education placed on
a firm foundation and progressing steadily; secondary education
linked to the other branches, and all leading towards the University,
Queensland will have a system of education which will place her on a
level with the most progressive of the nations.
PART III.--OUR JUBILEE YEAR.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL REVIEW.
Good Seasons and General Prosperity.--Land Settlement
and Immigration.--The Sugar Crop.--Gold and Other
Minerals.--Reduction in Cost of Mining and Treatment
of Ores.--Vigorous Railway Extension.--Mileage Open for
Traffic.--Efficiency of 3 ft. 6 in. Gauge.--Our Railway
Investment.--The National Association Jubilee Show.
--The General Election.--The Mandate of the Constituencies.
--Government Majority.--Practical Extinction of Third
Party.--Labour a Constitutional Opposition.--Federal
Agreement with States.--Federal Union Vindicated.
During the half-century of Queensland's existence she has never
experienced a more prosperous year than that of her Jubilee. Not only
have the seasons been good, the rains well distributed though in
some parts light, but prices of staple products have been high in the
world's markets. The increase of sheep, cattle, and horses has
been unusually large this year; the clip of wool has been highly
satisfactory both in respect of quality and market value; the yield of
butter and cheese has been above the average; and crops generally
have been remunerative to the farmer. The wheat crop at the time
this chapter is being written promises well, the area showing a
considerable increase upon last year, while prices are certainly
above the average. Trade and commerce have consequently been brisk and
sound, and nearly all classes of the community have participated
in the prosperity that has prevailed. Settlement upon the land has
progressed by leaps and bounds; immigrants have begun to flow into
the country in encouraging numbers, and, with few exceptions, the new
arrivals have found a market for their labour at wages contrasting
favourably with their earnings in the mother land.
Of all staple products sugar alone shows declension in yield this
year, but that arises, not from the season of 1909, but from the
unprecedentedly severe frosts of the previous year. Yet, despite
the lessened yield of cane, the sugar-growers do not complain of bad
times, nor is their outlook discouraging.
The gold yield has continued to fall off, but that is partly due to
the prosperity of the pastoral and agricultural industries, which have
attracted both capital and labour that under other circumstances would
have been employed in prospecting for the precious metal. Silver and
the baser metals have also exhibited a shrinkage in output, but that
is explained by the low prices which have ruled since the American
crisis of two years ago. Two of the great mining companies in Central
Queensland--the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company and the Great Fitzroy
Copper Mining Company--have both had a prosperous year, having
found in simultaneous mining for gold and copper abundant scope for
enterprise and energy; and improved methods of raising ore, as well as
constantly lessened expense of treatment, have made the prospect for
the future reassuring. Large profits are being made to-day in the
treatment of the less rich but more abundant ores, which could not
have been utilised even ten years ago except at ruinous loss. It is
now recognised that a well-organised laboratory is as essential in the
equipment of a great mine as a corps of skilled miners or a range of
smelting furnaces. Hence it is that the mining outlook is encouraging,
and that in the opinion of scientific experts the industry in
Queensland has scarcely yet passed the infantile stage.
It is natural that in accordance with the progressive spirit of the
times the Government should have induced Parliament to authorise the
expenditure of much more than the recent average amount of loan money
in the construction of railways and other public works. No less than
eleven railways, as stated in the Commissioner's report recently
published, have been under construction this year. These lines are
expected to be completed within a few months, so that nearly 4,000
miles will be open for traffic before the close of the financial year.
Besides this large mileage for a population of 568,000 persons, 446
miles of other railways and tramways, more or less under the control
of the State, are available for public traffic. Being of the same
gauge as the State railways, they have been the means of developing
large areas and materially improving the position of the Government
lines. Thus the length of railway which will be open for traffic
before 30th June, 1910, will amount to 4,320 miles of the standard 3
ft. 6 in. gauge, which will be equal to the traffic of a comparatively
dense population. The increased breadth of rolling-stock has been
found to conduce to comfort without imperilling the safety of
passengers, and by the use of heavier rails and more powerful engines
the carrying capacity of the narrow-gauge lines has of late years been
greatly increased.[a]
The Commissioner puts the total cost of our railway system on 30th
June last, including L1,139,405 spent on lines not yet open, at
L24,534,727. The total authorised outlay is, however, given as
L27,221,805, so that at the rate of expenditure of last year the
balance unexpended will enable construction to be continued for over
two years. The net revenue available for the defraying of interest
accruing on capital for the financial year 1908-9 was L883,610,[b]
equal to L3 7s. 6d. per cent. The mean rate of interest payable on
the total public debt of Queensland, which includes much stock bearing
more than 31/2 per cent., is L3 14s. 1d. per cent., so that our
railways may be deemed almost directly reproductive; and, what is
still more satisfactory, they are rapidly improving in net earning
capacity. As every extension adds to the volume of traffic, apart
altogether from the added value given to Crown lands by providing them
with railway communication, every inducement is held out to maintain a
vigorous policy of construction. There is every reason to believe that
in a few years our railway system will be the greatest and most
stable of all contributors to the Consolidated Revenue; and when it is
recollected that forty-five years ago there was not a mile of railway
or tramway open for traffic in Queensland, the progress made in
providing transport facilities is brought out in bold relief.
One of the most noteworthy events of the Jubilee Year was the
thirty-fourth exhibition of the National Agricultural and Industrial
Association. This exhibition is the occasion of the most generally
observed holiday of the year in the metropolis, and attracts thousands
of visitors from all parts of Queensland, and many from the Southern
States. It has come to be regarded as the annual meeting-ground of
friends from widely separated localities. Year by year the attendance
of visitors has grown, and the interest taken in the display has
increased. This year special efforts were put forth by the council
of the Association; and, fearing that their own resources would prove
unequal to the strain, they applied to the Government for a jubilee
grant. But the Government refused to do more than provide jubilee
medals for certain classes of successful exhibitors, and enter some
splendid exhibits from the State farms and others illustrative of the
mineral wealth of Queensland. They held that to accede to the request
would be to supply a precedent for similar applications from kindred
associations in provincial towns, and that one of the glories of the
metropolitan exhibition is that it is a self-supporting, self-reliant
institution. The sequel proved the correctness of this view, for the
exhibition far exceeded all predecessors in magnitude, and gave a
handsome profit to the National Association, which richly deserved
such a reward for months of self-sacrificing work.
[Illustration: ABOVE STONY CREEK FALLS, CAIRNS RAILWAY]
The official opening was attended by unusual pomp and ceremony, the
Governor-General of the Commonwealth, the Earl of Dudley, performing
the task of declaring the exhibition open. His Excellency took
advantage of the opportunity to impress upon the people of Queensland
the urgent need for a vigorous immigration policy if the country is to
be successfully developed and its well-being maintained.
To attempt a detailed description of what was not inappropriately
termed "Our Jubilee Carnival" would be beyond the province and the
scope of this volume. When it is mentioned that the exhibits numbered
over 8,000, the magnitude of the undertaking will be realised. It will
be sufficient to mention a few salient points. For example, there
were no less than 1,580 exhibits of live stock; and as, in the case of
sheep and cattle, an entry often included pens and not single animals,
the provision made for this attractive and paramount feature of
the show was taxed to its utmost capacity. These pastoral exhibits
represented stock yielding more than a moiety of the L14,000,000 worth
of annual exports; and the industry connected with grazing stock on
the natural pastures of the country not only employs much labour and
contributes largely to the revenue of the State directly in the shape
of Crown rents and railway freights, but it assists the Treasury
indirectly in many other ways. The magnificent display of stud and
pedigree stock and their products spoke volumes for the value of
the indigenous grass crop which costs nothing to raise and only wire
fencing to protect.
Among the exhibits was a trophy of that world-commanding product,
wool, of which the value exported from Australia in 1908 is given
in the Federal Treasurer's Budget delivered in August last as
L22,914,236. The Commonwealth returns do not differentiate between the
various States, but, assuming the average value of the fleece to be
the same throughout Australia, the value of Queensland's share of the
clip was about L5,000,000. Another product which has the world for
its market is cotton. Of this article there were three splendid
exhibits--one from West Moreton, in Southern Queensland; another from
Rockhampton, in Central Queensland; and the third from Cairns, in
Northern Queensland. Nothing save the cost of labour in picking
prevents cotton being classed among the staple products of our State,
and it is hoped by experts that as families upon the farms increase
this difficulty will be removed. The Cairns exhibit was of Caravonica
cotton, a variety of the valuable Sea Island species, concerning the
extensive cultivation of which the most sanguine anticipations are
expressed. In agricultural products emulation was greatly stimulated
by the district exhibits, of which there were five, and on the
whole they were superior to any that had ever before been shown in
Queensland. Almost every product of the temperate and torrid zones
appeared among the exhibits, though, of course, many of them are not
yet being cultivated on a commercial scale. Among the most prominent
of those of commercial value may be mentioned sugar, butter, cheese,
hams, bacon, wheat, maize, fodder crops, potatoes, pineapples, and
citrus and deciduous fruits, in all of which the displays were a
revelation, not only to visitors from other parts of the continent and
oversea, but also to many of our own people. The same may be remarked
of the magnificent exhibits of gold, copper, tin, coal, and other
minerals, which form so large a proportion of our wealth-producing
exports. Statistics relating to the production and export of these
commodities will be found in the appendices to this volume, and need
not be further referred to here. Another attraction meriting special
notice was the collection of gems and precious stones, the industry
represented by which is at present struggling against the want of
access to profitable markets; but the great interest aroused at the
Franco-British Exhibition of last year by the magnificent display of
Queensland gems is calculated to remove this disability, and to place
the industry on a prosperous and permanent footing. The great variety
of foods manufactured in Australia was another feature of the display,
while in the machinery section the entries surpassed any previous
exhibition in Queensland. Consequent upon the removal of border duties
and the adoption of a uniform tariff, Queensland has suffered keenly
from the competition of the Southern States. Statistics abundantly
prove that some of our nascent manufactures have been checked
seriously by such competition, although these losses are being
gradually compensated for by gains in the form of enlarged free
markets for products in which Queensland is safeguarded by natural
conditions; but even freetraders must admit that our protective
Customs duties are stimulating what are called native manufactures
in a surprising degree, and that year by year Queensland and the
Commonwealth at large are becoming less dependent upon the outside
world for the products and manufactures which are essential to the
existence of a civilised nation.
Politically, 1909 has been rather a trying year, but the result of the
general election on 2nd October seems to give promise of better things
in Parliament. Both the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition agree
that the practical extinction of the third party by the appeal to
the electorate will be beneficial to the country. The election also
ratifies the fusion of parties carried out towards the end of last
year, with the consequential placing of the Labour party in the
position of a constitutional Opposition. These salutary changes are
held to be equivalent to a restoration of responsible government,
which had been practically suspended by the impossibility of any party
carrying on the work of legislation without making humiliating terms
with an irresponsible section. It was contended that there were three
parties in the country, and that the existence of the same phenomenon
in the Assembly proved it to be a true reflex of the electorate at
large; but the late general election has dispelled that illusion, for
on no occasion since the splitting up of parties had the issue been
put in so clear-cut a form to the country. Another result of the
election has been to add somewhat to the strength of the Labour
members, who are now sufficiently numerous in the Assembly to give
them a reasonable expectation of being called upon in due time to
assume the responsibilities of government. The State must gain from
the resolution of the House into two parties, for the purity and
effectiveness of party government demand that His Majesty's Ministers
shall always be faced by an Opposition fitted and prepared to become
the advisers of the King's representative whenever the existing
Administration loses the confidence of the Parliament and the country.
As mentioned elsewhere, a most satisfactory event of the year is
the prospect of a settlement of the financial relations between
Commonwealth and States on a durable and mutually acceptable basis.
Public opinion throughout the continent is so clearly in favour of
the agreement that its ratification seems certain during the present
financial year, and it seems also certain that it will come into force
on 1st July next. From that date there is reason to hope that the
benefits of federal union will become so conspicuous as to silence
cavilling opponents and justify the aspirations of its advocates. The
general opinion throughout the Commonwealth with respect to the vital
question of national defence has undergone a marvellous change for
the better during the past twelve months, the unanimity displayed
justifying the most sanguine anticipations of future unbroken concert
between Great Britain and her self-governing dominions, and the
supremacy of the British Empire on the ocean, a supremacy which means
the protection of the world's trade routes and unimpeded maritime
commerce.
[Footnote a: As indicative of the progress made in the local
manufacture of railway stock, it may be mentioned, on the
authority of the Commissioner, that one Brisbane engineering firm
has this year completed its 100th locomotive for the Department.]
[Footnote b: Treasury figures. The Commissioner's figures differ
somewhat from those of the Treasury. In estimating the percentage
return the Railway Department takes into account only the
expenditure on open lines, whilst the Treasury bases its
calculations upon the expenditure on all lines, and charges the
Railway Department with its proportion of loan deficiencies and
flotation charges.]
CHAPTER II.
THE FEDERAL OUTLOOK.
Proclamation of the Commonwealth.--The Referendum
Vote.--Queensland's Small Majority in the Affirmative.
--Representation in Federal Parliament.--The White
Australia Policy.--Temporary Effect on Queensland.
--An Embarrassed State Treasury.--Assistance to Sugar
Industry.--Continued Protection Necessary.--Unequal
Distribution of Federal Surplus Revenue.--The Transferred
Properties.--Effect of Uniform Tariff.--Good Times Lessen
Federal Burden on State.--The Agreement between Prime
Minister and Premiers.--Better Feeling Towards Federation.
--National Measures of Deakin Government.
After several vain attempts on the part of Australian statesmen to
bring about federation, the Commonwealth Constitution Act was adopted
by the several States in 1899 and ratified by the Imperial Parliament
in 1900; and Her Majesty Queen Victoria issued a proclamation,
declaring that on and after 1st January, 1901, the colonies of New
South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania,
and Western Australia should be federated under the name of the
Commonwealth of Australia, the several colonies being thereafter known
as "States." The union took place by the freewill of all the colonies,
a popular vote being taken in each. The poll was small, only 583,865
electors recording their votes, of which number 422,788 voted for
federation and 161,077 against, the majority in favour being 261,711.
In Queensland 38,488 voted in the affirmative and 30,996 in the
negative, giving the narrow majority of 7,492, equal to only 10.78
per cent. of the total votes polled. That majority was obtained by an
almost block pro-federation vote throughout the Centre and North of
the colony, the majority in the Southern district, which contained
about two-thirds of the population, being adverse to union. There was
no objection to the abstract principle or to the wisdom of a federal
union--rather the reverse; but Queensland had not been represented at
any of the Conventions at which the Constitution was drafted, and no
provision was made, such as was made in the case of West Australia,
to meet the peculiar geographical, industrial, and financial
circumstances of this State. In the absence of legislative safeguards
and guarantees, the unsatisfactory experience of New South Wales
administration in pre-separation days led the people of Southern
Queensland to doubt whether the vaunted fraternal spirit would
withstand the actual attrition of business competition. They feared
that the great urban populations of Sydney and Melbourne would,
under the proposed democratic Constitution, secure for themselves
industrial, commercial, and administrative advantages at the expense
of their brethren, but none the less rivals, in the more remote
parts of the continent. Believing that, though their occupations
and products were the same as those of the Southern States, their
interests were conflicting, the majority in Southern Queensland cast
their votes against the union. Finding themselves in a minority, many
of the opponents of federation deliberately refused to exercise the
franchise in the first election, held in 1901. Instead of taking steps
to secure the return to the Commonwealth Parliament of men who would
try to avert any evil consequences arising from non-representation at
the Conventions and who would oppose any unfair discrimination, the
short-sighted abstention of these people from voting enabled the
Labour party, who certainly did not comprise a majority of the
electors, to return nine out of our fifteen representatives in the two
Houses.
[Illustration: MOUNT MORGAN: OPEN CUT AND DUMPS]
[Illustration: MOUNT MORGAN: MUNDIC AND COPPER WORKS.]
One of the first results of this predominance of Labour representation
was the early passage of legislation abolishing Pacific Island
labour in the sugar industry--which is almost exclusively confined
to Queensland--and requiring all the islanders to leave Australia for
their native homes not later than 31st December, 1906. With a view
to compensating the cane-growers for the added cost of labour, and to
induce them to abandon all forms of coloured labour, a bounty, ranging
at the present time from 7s. 6d. per ton of cane in the extreme North
to 6s. per ton in Southern Queensland and on the Northern Rivers of
New South Wales, was offered upon all cane grown exclusively with
white labour; while to provide funds for payment of the bounty an
excise duty, first of L3 and then L4 per ton, was imposed. These
radical changes occurred at a time, unfortunately, when the State
was suffering from severe depression resulting from an unprecedented
succession of adverse seasons and the substitution of a uniform
protective Customs tariff for the State tariff, which had for years
previously yielded a large revenue per head while affording protection
to many native industries. The abolition of interstate Customs
duties caused a further loss to the Queensland Treasury; so that the
Government felt compelled to ask Parliament to impose new taxation as
well as sanction severe retrenchment in order to check the alarming
series of revenue deficits which, despite large loan expenditure,
marked the stressful period. All this tended to make federation
unpopular, and obscure the benefits the union under the Commonwealth
Constitution was calculated to confer eventually.
The popular sentiment was, however, overwhelmingly in favour of the
White Australia policy; and even most of its opponents took exception
to the hasty methods of enforcement rather than to the principle
itself. Much difficulty was at first experienced in securing reliable
white workers, but the remuneration year by year attracted, in
increasing numbers, men accustomed to farm work, until, in 1908-9, the
owners of about 90 per cent. of the cane grown found themselves in a
position to claim the bounty. Pacific Island labour is now almost a
thing of the past, though a few islanders who were not repatriated
still engage in field work. In the more severely tropical of the sugar
districts some Asiatic labour is also employed, the planters alleging
that white men will not, unless at prohibitory wages, face the muggy
heat of the cane-brake. The bounty, together with the L6 import duty,
appears at length to have re-established the industry on a durable
basis; but many growers look forward with some apprehension to the
gradual extinction of the bounty and the possibility of a reduction
in the import duty, holding that without the protection at present
afforded Australian cane sugar cannot compete against the product of
the cheap coloured labour of Java, Fiji, and Mauritius, or the beet
sugar of Europe.
A further objection to federation was found in the mode adopted of
distributing the Federal surplus revenue among the States. The 87th
section of the Constitution required that for ten years the Federal
Government should not expend on its own purposes more than one-fourth
of the net Customs and Excise revenue of the Commonwealth, and that
the balance of such revenue should be returned to the States. Prior
to federation this had been interpreted to mean that each State would
receive back not less than three-fourths of the net Customs and Excise
revenue collected within its jurisdiction. But the Commonwealth Crown
law officers placed a different construction on the section, and held
that, so long as at least three-fourths of the net Customs revenue was
distributed collectively, the Commonwealth had no obligation to
return that proportion to any individual State. This has caused great
uncertainty and embarrassment to the Queensland Treasurer, and has
impelled many public men to stigmatise the union as a curse instead of
a blessing.
In illustration of the unequal division of the surplus Federal revenue
among the States, it may be mentioned that, according to a table
published by the Commonwealth Auditor-General, while the aggregate sum
beyond the three-fourths of Customs and Excise revenue returned to the
States amounted to L6,059,087, Queensland actually received L44,951
less than her three-fourths during the eight and a-half years ended
30th June, 1909; and her Treasurer was much embarrassed by the
uncertainty of the return owing to tariff alterations and the
determination of the Federal Government to defray from revenue
otherwise accruing to the State under the Constitution Act the cost of
permanent buildings, which the State had formerly provided for out of
loan moneys.
Another grievance of the States--especially of Queensland, which
borrowed largely to construct its 10,253 miles of telegraph lines,
and incurred a heavy annual charge upon revenue in providing postal
communication throughout its vast and scantily populated territory--is
that the Commonwealth Government treat section 85 of the Constitution
as a dead letter. This provision expressly enacts that "the
Commonwealth shall compensate the State for the value of any property
passing to the Commonwealth under this section"; but not a penny of
compensation has ever been paid, although there is a considerable
interest charge to be met annually by the State Treasuries on account
of money borrowed for the purposes of these transferred properties.
The chief revenue loss suffered by the Queensland Treasury under
federation arose from the passing of the uniform tariff, which drew
considerably less than the former State tariff from the pockets of the
taxpayers. Of course the remedy had to be sought in other taxation,
and it could only be found in direct levies much more objectionable
than the indirect charge imposed by Customs duties. However, the feat
was ultimately accomplished, despite the depressed condition of the
State through years of scanty rainfall and the enormous losses of live
stock consequent thereon; but successive State Governments have had to
bear much unmerited odium and have suffered in popularity on account
of their efforts to restore financial equilibrium when the principal
disturbing element was the advent of federation and not State
mismanagement.
Since times began to improve throughout Australia, the Federal burden
has been less in evidence; and at the late Melbourne Conference, held
to confer with the Commonwealth Government with the view to adjust
mutual relations, no State Premier recognised more frankly than did
Mr. Kidston the claims of the Federal Government to increased revenue
to defray the cost of old-age pensions, naval and military defence,
and other great national objects. The provisional agreement entered
into by the Conference was recognised by all the Premiers as less
advantageous than they had desired, but they were unanimous in
admitting that under the altered conditions it was the best they could
now hope for. On the Commonwealth side it was recognised that the
States had made a large voluntary surrender, and that the position of
the Federal Treasury would be greatly strengthened under the operation
of the agreement. The apparent dread of diminishing Customs revenue
in after years was clearly not well founded, because the Commonwealth
Parliament can easily, by readjustment of duties, make up any
deficiency. On the other hand, an immense advantage will be gained by
both parties to the agreement from the separation of Federal and State
finances except in respect of the liability of the Commonwealth to
hand over, and the right of the States to receive, a fixed annual
contribution of 25s. per head of the population. The representatives
of the States granted a further concession to the Commonwealth by
permitting the retention of an additional L600,000 of the Customs
revenue for the current year to reimburse the cost of old-age pensions
not already provided for by the Commonwealth Trust Fund created by the
Surplus Revenue Act of 1908. The bill embodying the agreement received
the approval of the statutory majority in both Houses of Parliament.
It now rests with the electors of the Commonwealth to accept or reject
the necessary amendment of the Constitution; and there is every reason
to hope that the compact will be made as permanent as any other part
of the Constitution. In that event, the relations between Commonwealth
and States will undoubtedly improve, and harmonious co-operation for
the public welfare may be safely anticipated from the Parliaments.
The Federal session of 1909 has been distinguished by the passage
of epoch-making bills for the appointment of a High Commissioner
in London and for naval and military defence, measures which are
calculated to raise the Commonwealth to an exalted position in the
scale of young nations.
[Illustration: QUEENSLAND 1859]
[Illustration: QUEENSLAND 1909]
[Illustration: AUSTRALIA 1859 SHOWING SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES]
[Illustration: THE WORLD Showing relative position of AUSTRALIA.]
PART IV.--THE PRIMARY INDUSTRIES.
CHAPTER I.
THE PASTORAL INDUSTRY.
Importance of Industry.--Small Beginnings in New South
Wales.--Extension of Industry.--Stocking of Darling Downs and
Western Queensland.--Rush for Pastoral Lands.--Difficulties
of Early Squatters.--Influx of Victorian Capital.--Changes
in Method of Working Stations.--Boom in Pastoral Properties.
--Checks from Drought.--Discovery of Artesian Water.
--Conservation of Surface Water.--Introduction of Grazing
Farm System.--Closer Settlement of Darling Downs.
--Cattle-Rearing.--Meat-Freezing Works.--Overstocking.
--Dairying.--Station Routine.--Charm of Pastoral Life.
--Shearing.--Hospitality of Squatters.--Attraction of
Industry as Investment and Occupation.
The pastoral industry in Queensland is, in point of duration, well
within the compass of a single life. In about seventy years it has
attained its present dimensions, and, as progress in the early years
was very slow, its magnitude to-day supplies striking testimony to
the energy and enterprise of two generations. The description
of Queensland as a huge sheep and cattle farm with contributive
industries, which without very great extravagance might have been
offered forty years ago, has long ceased to be applicable. But
though other industries have grown into importance, reducing its
pre-eminence, the pastoral still retains its unquestioned lead and is
deservedly regarded as the main source of the State's wealth. Bearing
in mind that the total exports from Queensland for 1907 were rather
over fourteen and a-half millions sterling, of which pastoral produce
claimed more than half, it will be seen that this title to
precedence cannot be challenged. With an abatement of L529,000 for
butter--dairying being associated with agriculture--this imposing
sum is the direct product of the natural grasses. It can hardly
be surprising then, after realising the potential wealth of
these pastures, that visitors should be struck with the fact that
rainfall--past, present, and prospective--is a constant and very
prominent topic in all grades of social intercourse.
That a continent so suited to the abundant propagation of animal life
should have been so poorly equipped by Nature with an indigenous fauna
can only be accounted for by Australia's primeval isolation. Similar
vast prairie lands, which in America sustained countless herds of
bison and in Africa literally swarmed with antelope and many species
of game, were in Australia almost uninhabited. The absence of large
rivers and a general scarcity of water had doubtless much to do with
this destitute condition of the great pasture lands of the interior,
but still the wonder remains that a continent which now carries more
sheep than any other country in the world should have been in its
original state, except along its coastal belt, almost tenantless. The
fierce carnivora of the older world were entirely unrepresented, the
principal denizen of the lonely land being the timid kangaroo; but the
curious problems presented by the Australian fauna have compensated
the naturalist for its modest numbers.
In Queensland what is recognised as the Western Interior occupies
about half the area of the State and is distinct in its geological
formation from the coastal belt, the waters of which run into the
ocean to the east and north. The region of these watersheds, with the
exception of some comparatively limited areas of downs country on the
heads of the rivers, is regarded as unsuitable for sheep, the rainfall
being more abundant than on the Western waters and the grass coarser,
so that cattle are almost exclusively run there. In the Western
Interior are the true sheep pastures. The farther one goes west the
more treeless the country becomes. Here undulating downs for the most
part stretch to the horizon, intersected by watercourses fringed with
timber, and although in summer many of these creeks shrink to a chain
of disconnected waterholes, few of which are permanent, they offer
abundant opportunities for water conservation. In the last few years
many for several miles of their course have been converted into
running streams by artesian bores.
Before, however, dwelling on the present position, we must briefly
glance at the origin of pastoral enterprise in Australia and its tardy
extension to Queensland.
As soon as settlement was established, the new land had to be stocked
with the domesticated animals of the old. Captain Phillip, the first
Governor, in 1788 made a very modest start. He brought with him from
England 7 horses, 7 cattle, and 29 sheep, besides pigs, rabbits, and
poultry. Remembering that in those days England was from six to nine
months distant from the new settlement, it is not perhaps surprising
that pastoral progress was slow. In 1800 there were only 6,124 sheep
and 1,044 cattle in Australia. But five years prior to this the seed
destined to produce a giant growth was already germinating. A shrewd
young soldier had detected the germ of Australia's future wealth.
With a strange prescience, unaided by experience, Captain Macarthur
recognised that the dry climate of Australia was peculiarly adapted to
the growth of a fine type of wool. Starting from most unpromising ewes
from India, he gradually improved the strain by the introduction of
Spanish blood. He was fortunate at the start in getting three rams
from the Cape, part of a gift from the King of Spain to the Dutch
Government, and by sedulous culling with a bold disregard for
carcass, although fat wethers at the time sold for L5, he succeeded
in establishing a good merino flock the wool from which created
an excellent impression in England. English manufacturers, who had
hitherto drawn their limited stocks of clothing wool from Spain,
welcomed the promise of a new source of supply.
Macarthur had taken some wool with him to England, when deported in
consequence of a fatal duel in 1803, and its fine quality was at once
recognised and appreciated. He was fortunate in being still there in
the following year, when George the Third, in the hope of encouraging
the production of fine wool, sold a portion of his Kew stud flock, the
progeny of Negretti sheep, another gift of the Spanish King, so that
they might be distributed amongst his subjects. Macarthur was the
principal buyer, securing seven rams and a ewe at very moderate
prices, the highest being under L30. He was an enthusiast, and could
see the enormous possibilities of the virgin continent he had left,
with its mild dry climate and almost limitless pasture lands, for the
maintenance of great flocks, the wool of which could be improved to
the finest type. He asked the British Government for a grant of land
to feed his flocks, assuring them that he was "so convinced of the
practicability of supplying this country with any quantity of fine
wool that it may require that I am earnestly solicitous to prosecute
this important object, and on my return to New South Wales will devote
my whole attention to accelerating its complete attainment." This
request--in spite of the adverse opinion of Sir Joseph Banks as to the
suitability of the new land for wool-growing--was granted, Lord Camden
instructing the Governor of New South Wales to grant Macarthur such
lands "as would enable him to extend his flocks in such a degree as
may promise to supply a sufficiency of animal food for the colony
as well as a lucrative article of export for the support of our
manufactures at home." Macarthur selected near Mount Taurus, and the
Camden estate, long famous as the source from which many studs were
either formed or replenished, was established. How limited at this
time was the world's production of this superfine wool--suited to the
manufacture of the finest fabrics--may be gathered from the fact of
one bale of Macarthur's being sold at Garraway's Coffee House in 1807
at 10s. 6d. per lb., the cloth from which provided England's Farmer
King with a coat.
But not till the merino had passed beyond coastal influences was
the improvement of growth due to an eminently suitable habitat fully
realised. Wentworth and others had in 1813 pushed across the Blue
Mountains, and the occupation of the interior began. In the Mudgee
district, which was stocked with sheep about 1824, the clip improved
so distinctly on the original Spanish stock as to form almost a new
type. Increasing in length and gaining in softness and elasticity, it
has commanded ever-increasing attention from manufacturers, and has
long been recognised as the premier fine wool of the world.
Tasmania, starting with Macarthur's stock, and following on his
breeding lines, had proved peculiarly adapted for the growth of a
dense fleece of fine wool. As numbers rapidly increased in this small
island, flockmasters had to look about for an outlet. This was easily
found on the mainland, and sheep were soon pouring across the narrow
strait into the district of Port Phillip, which in 1851 was proclaimed
the colony of Victoria.
After Macarthur's death in 1834, his system of breeding was carefully
followed by his widow, and when in 1858 the flock was dispersed the
stud ewes numbered about 1,000. These, passing into the hands of
flockmasters of New South Wales and Victoria, were the foundation of
many of the noted studs of to-day. The Victorian flocks, starting
from the Tasmanian, early competed with the island of their origin in
excellence, and, though Tasmania still maintains its reputation as
the home from which the studs of the other States are constantly
replenished, it has of late years gone largely into crossbreds. The
most noted studs, however, are still maintained undefiled, except that
the introduction of the American Vermont blood has been in some cases
cautiously tried, with results that have provoked much controversy.
Other pioneers of the industry, the Rev. Samuel Marsden for one,
started with the same Spanish blood, crossed with the hardy and
prolific Indian ewe, but unlike Macarthur they found the temptations
of the fat stock market irresistible. Remembering the great price fat
wethers commanded in those early days, it must be admitted that the
temptation was considerable. Macarthur, however, by steadily rejecting
all mutton breeds and making a fine description of fleece his one
object, deserves grateful recognition as the founder of the Australian
merino.
[Illustration: FAT CATTLE, CENTRAL QUEENSLAND]
[Illustration: CATTLE COUNTRY, WEST MORETON]
Although the settlement of Moreton Bay was started in 1824, it was
long before the pastoral industry made any progress in the territory
which is now Queensland. In that year Governor Brisbane sent Oxley
to explore Moreton Bay and report on its suitability for a convict
out-station. From information given by two white castaways living with
the blacks, he found the river which Cook in 1770 and Flinders ten
years later had failed to discover--though both, confident of its
existence, had spent days in the Bay searching for its embouchure.
Sheep and cattle were sent as supplies. But in a few years the
settlement was abandoned, the officials and prisoners returning to
New South Wales; and in 1842, when Moreton Bay was proclaimed a free
settlement, the Government live stock were dispersed by sale amongst
the settlers. Blacks were numerous and very hostile, and, though
cattle throve well, the country was found unsuitable for sheep, so
that expansion from the Moreton district was very slow.
But already in 1827 one man had been favoured with a glimpse of what
is still regarded as the garden of Queensland. Allan Cunningham,
starting from the Hunter, had pushed steadily North for 500 miles till
he emerged from the broken highlands of New England on to the famous
Downs which he named after Sir Charles Darling. He was enraptured with
the country, which he described as clothed "with grasses and herbage
exhibiting an extraordinary luxuriance of growth." Yet it was thirteen
years before anyone took advantage of his discovery. To a later
generation acquainted with the great value of the lands, which as a
distinguished botanist Cunningham could not have failed to recognise,
this appears one of the most astounding facts in the history of
exploration. Many a time he must have discoursed to his friend Patrick
Leslie on the rich vision he had been privileged to look on, yet it
was not till 1840 that the latter with a small flock followed in his
footsteps. What increases the surprise at this apparently strange lack
of enterprise is that the year after Cunningham had found the Darling
Downs he visited Moreton Bay, and succeeded in crossing the range from
the coast by a gap since known by his name and reached the vicinity
of his old camp, thus demonstrating that the natural port of this rich
region was little over a hundred miles distant. Leslie, who settled in
the neighbourhood of where the flourishing town of Warwick now stands,
was rapidly followed by others who established the fine squattages
that have since become famous. Although a few sheep had previously
been introduced in the Moreton district, Leslie and his confreres must
be regarded as the fathers of sheep-farming in Queensland.
Difficulties of carriage long retarded any attempt to occupy the
splendid territory farther West which Sir James Mitchell had explored
in 1846 and Kennedy had farther penetrated a year later, crossing
the Barcoo and discovering the Thomson River. Though the existence of
these vast rolling plains was known, the presumption that no industry
requiring a fair amount of labour could pay, handicapped with five
to six hundred miles of land carriage, checked any attempt to occupy
them. Nor was this unreasonable. The difficulties and uncertainties of
such an undertaking might well prompt hesitation. Yet, in view of
the rich returns from flocks elsewhere, it was impossible that
these solitudes should for very long await easier conditions. A few
adventurous spirits pushed out to these great undulating plains. Their
example was quickly followed. In the early sixties a general migration
westward began, and wherever water was met with the country was taken
up. In 1869 an Act was passed granting 21-year leases to applicants
who had taken up areas and stocked them to the extent of twenty-five
sheep or five cattle to the square mile. It was found that on these
Western pastures, rich with succulent grasses and saline shrubs
all the year round, and in winter abounding in herbage of many
descriptions, all stock grew and fattened amazingly. The climate, too,
falsified all predictions, and instead of converting the wool to hair,
which experts had prognosticated as the inevitable result of an ardent
summer, grew an excellent fleece of fine lustrous combing wool. A
frantic rush for country set in. Flocks and herds were hurried out by
jealous owners anxious to forestall one another in the scramble for
leases. In a few years the whole territory, except where absence of
water forbade settlement, was parcelled out in sheep and cattle runs.
It had not yet been recognised how country destitute of surface water
could be utilised. On these neglected areas are now many prosperous
sheep-runs, the pioneers little suspecting the inexhaustible supplies
awaiting the magic touch of the boring-rod to provide the abundant
streams they longed for.
With such easy conditions of tenure and lands of unsurpassable quality
for grazing, it might naturally be expected that these pioneers
amassed easy fortunes. The falsification of such expectation is a
melancholy story. Though the cattle-men in many cases managed
to struggle on, the majority of the sheep-owners went under. The
difficulties were enormous. Railways had not yet penetrated the
country, though a small start had been made. Wool took from six to
nine months reaching the coast by bullock dray, and the carriage
of supplies to the station cost more than the goods themselves.
Frequently the next clip was awaiting carriage ere the previous one
had left the station. Wages were high, and all forms of labour scarce.
The quality of sheep, too, was poor, many of them being the culls from
Southern flocks, bought at high prices. The depression in the wool
market, with high rates of interest on borrowed money, strained the
pioneer's resources to breaking point, and in too many cases years of
strenuous endeavour and hardship ended in ruin.
But brighter days were in store. As railways pushed out, the attention
of Victorian capitalists was attracted by the potentialities of
Western Queensland. The phenomenal gold production of Victoria had
produced a plethora of money seeking investment, which constituted
Melbourne the financial capital of Australia. This accumulated wealth,
after fructifying New South Wales, flowed into Queensland. A Victorian
invasion began. The knell of the shepherd had sounded, wire fences
taking his place. Sheep that had hitherto been run in flocks of 1,500
to 2,000, tended during the day by a man and a dog and yarded at
night, were now turned into large paddocks by tens of thousands with
only a boundary rider to look to the fences. It was found by this
method that the carrying capacity of country was enormously increased.
Yarded sheep, driven to and fro twice daily, destroy more grass than
they can eat, whereas when left to themselves it is all utilised. The
smaller the paddocks, the less the sheep wander and the larger the
number that can be carried on a given area. It was found, too, that
stocking greatly improved the water. On the spongy surface of virgin
country, untrodden by any hoof, there was little "run" off the
surface after rain, but when hardened by the tread of stock the creeks
received a fairer share of the downpour. The best rams procurable
from the Darling Downs and noted Southern studs rapidly improved the
flocks. In 1873 wool rose to a price not touched for many years; a
boom in Queensland stations set in, and the remnant of the pioneers
who elected to do so sold out at prices that gave a rich though tardy
reward for long and toilsome enterprise.
Although the general course of the industry has been one of great
prosperity, it has not been without its serious checks. A severe
drought throughout nearly the whole of Australia, culminating in
1902, inflicted terrible losses of both sheep and cattle. Waterholes
supposed to be permanent dried up; and pastures within reach of those
which proved permanent were trodden into a desert condition till the
stock were too weak to travel back to the surviving pasturage. The
outlook was so gloomy that almost universal ruin seemed impending.
It is sad to think that whilst stock were perishing in multitudes
abundant subterranean streams, flowing southward to discharge
uselessly in the Great Australian Bight, might have been available to
avert this national calamity. The uses of adversity have never been
more strikingly exemplified than by the number of artesian bores
put down since that hard experience. These, as the cost of sinking
decreases, are multiplying yearly. The artesian basin exists
throughout nearly three-fifths of Queensland, and whilst the origin
of these subterranean stores is still somewhat of a mystery they are
apparently inexhaustible. The supply and the depth at which water
is obtained vary considerably; the former runs as high as 3,000,000
gallons per diem, and the latter averages about 1,600 feet.
Whilst artesian boring has been prosecuted with commendable
enterprise, the storage of surface water on an extensive scale has not
yet received the attention it deserves. Many schemes have been mooted
for conserving a portion of the huge volume of water that in the rainy
season flows through regions which would gladly retain a share, to
waste itself in the Southern Ocean. Doubtless in the future a problem
of such fascination will attract the best engineering skill, and a
number of inland lakes will result. But that day may yet be distant.
One such scheme only need be noticed. The Diamantina River, which
in time of flood stretches out to many miles in breadth, flows
south-westward through several degrees of Western Queensland. At a
point known as Diamantina Gates it finds an exit through a narrow
gorge in a low range. Although never yet tested by accurate survey,
competent judges have surmised that a substantial dam at this spot
would throw back an amount of water which would constitute a veritable
inland sea. Other large rivers--the Thomson, Barcoo, Hamilton,
Georgina--also offer to the hydraulic engineer splendid opportunities
of winning distinction.
In 1884 a notable change of land policy was adopted. The 1869 leases
were expiring, and it was recognised that the big squattages could
not longer be allowed to monopolise the country. Room was required for
smaller holdings. All available country was already occupied under
the 1869 leases, and, although under another Act 5,120 acres could be
acquired with conditions of improvement and residence, there was no
way of getting an area capable of carrying 10,000 sheep. There did
not exist a small squatting class. The Minister for Lands, Mr. C.
B. Dutton--himself a large squatter--recognised the desirability of
creating such a class, which would stand in the same relation to the
"squattocracy" that the yeomen of Britain do to the large landowners.
In granting a new lease to the original lessee, Dutton's Act required
him to surrender a portion of his run, from a half to a quarter
according to the length of time his lease had been running. A Land
Board independent of Ministerial control was appointed to arrange an
equitable division of the runs and to fix the rent of the new lease,
which was for fifteen years. Two years later this was increased to
twenty-one years, on condition of the lessee surrendering another
quarter of his area at the end of the fifteenth year. The portions
resumed from the old squattages were surveyed into areas up to 20,000
acres and thrown open to selection. The old lessee--who regarded any
area under 400 square miles as a paltry holding and counted his crop
of calves by thousands and his yearly lambing increase by tens of
thousands--ridiculed the new departure, maintaining that any man must
starve on such an absurdly inadequate area as 20,000 acres. But
these sinister predictions did not deter selectors from testing the
question. At first grazing farms were only very gradually applied for,
but a few years' experience justified Mr. Dutton's expectations, and
a great demand set in, till now, as soon as opened to selection, there
is a keen competition for them. The difficulty is to survey them fast
enough to provide for requirements. The maximum area has since been
increased so that now as much as 60,000 acres can be held by an
individual, provided the total rent does not exceed L200. It is not
unusual for three or four grazing farmers to combine and manage the
combined leasehold as a co-partnership, which, although not provided
for in the Act, is sanctioned by the Land Court.
[Illustration: HORSES AT GOWRIE, DARLING DOWNS]
[Illustration: SHEEP AT GOWRIE, DARLING DOWNS]
[Illustration: HORSES, WESTERN QUEENSLAND]
[Illustration: FAT CATTLE, BURRANDILLA, CHARLEVILLE]
A new Act in 1902 offered those who elected to take advantage of it
a fresh lease, at the expiration of the current one, of from ten to
forty-two years, according to classification; and farther resumptions
were made for closer settlement. The classification, which was decided
by the Land Court, was governed by the degree of remoteness from
railway and the demand for land in the neighbourhood.
The low range of hills surrounding the Darling Downs encloses over
2,000,000 acres of land of a quality that invites the plough to
convert it into the granary of the State. As the railway to the New
South Wales border takes its rather serpentine course southwards,
coasting round many of the undulations to avoid cutting through them,
the traveller looks upon a land which he must recognise as capable
of maintaining a large farming population. What he actually saw till
quite recently was paddock after paddock of sheep on each side, then
a paddock of cattle and horses, and again more sheep. It was palpable
that this could not continue indefinitely. The railway built at the
cost of the general taxpayers had greatly increased the value of these
estates and rendered their working more profitable. The owners
of these flocks and herds had done good service to the State, and
deserved the most generous treatment. Successors of the original
pioneers, they had bred the stock that helped to occupy the West, and
had founded studs that enabled others to replenish their flocks and
herds from the purest sources. It was important above all things that
no legislative interference should harass men who deserved so well of
Queensland, and that no step should be taken to dispossess them which
could be suspected of any taint of harshness. In time, doubtless, they
would themselves have parcelled out their estates for tillage, but the
process would have been slow, the easy terms of payment possible to
a Government borrowing money at a low rate of interest not being
generally convenient to an individual, and time in the development of
a young country is important. Parliament therefore took the matter
in hand and decided that where possible these landholders should be
bought out on a valuation made by an independent tribunal. A number
of properties have been bought by the Government, cut up into farms of
from 80 acres upwards, and sold to farmers on liberal terms, payment
extending over twenty-five years. Mixed farming and dairying are the
chief purposes to which the land has been put, and busy townships
have sprung up at the railway stations where a few years ago the
stationmaster, his family, and an assistant porter formed the bulk of
the resident population. Breeding lambs for export is found to be
a profitable branch of the pastoral business on the Downs, and the
breeding of crossbreds is consequently increasing, the Lincoln or
Leicester being mated with the merino. Southdown and Romney rams have
also been tried, but the Lincoln cross has been generally preferred.
Crossbred lambs three to four months old bring 10s. in Brisbane, the
railage costing from 1s. to 1s. 3d.
So far little mention has been made of cattle. It may be generally
stated that where country is suitable for sheep, or, more accurately
speaking, where they can be profitably run, cattle are only depastured
in very small herds. The coastal belt and the Northern Gulf region are
exclusively cattle country, and in the extreme West, although sheep
thrive excellently, the long carriage causes cattle to be preferred,
the expense of cattle management being much below that of sheep. The
product of these distant pastures travels on the hoof to market, the
Western cattle being noted for their great weight of flesh and the
distance they carry it without great waste. Most of the herds have
been improved to a high degree of excellence by importation of some
of the best blood in England, and high-class stud herds have been long
established in the different States from which drafts of herd bulls
are drawn as required at from about 10 to 15 guineas per head.
With a population of little over half a million occupying a territory
of 670,500 square miles, it will be realised that the yearly cast of
"fats" greatly exceeds local requirements. The Southern States take a
large number. New South Wales and Victoria are the best customers, as,
with a combined population of roughly five times that of Queensland,
the total of their cattle is only slightly in excess of the Queensland
herd. South Australia is also a regular buyer of "fats." The "stores"
that go South to be fattened beyond the State are almost exclusively
bullocks of three to four years. Amongst the "fats" of ripe ages is
a proportion of dry cows, and a limited number of breeders and mixed
cattle also find sale with Southern buyers. But these outlets would
have been quite inadequate for the absorption of the Queensland annual
surplus had not meat-preserving come to the rescue of the stock-owner.
Before freezing works were established, boiling down was the one
resource, the tallow, hides, and sheepskins giving a meagre return,
whilst the valuable carcass went to the pigs. The late Sir Arthur
Hodgson, a leading pastoralist, used to relate with humorous comments
his experiences with a first draft of sheep from his Darling Downs
station (Eton Vale), brought to Brisbane to be boiled down at the
Kangaroo Point works. During the process the owner--educated at Eton,
and subsequently a Minister of the Crown in Queensland--went round
daily with a handcart selling the legs of mutton at sixpence apiece.
Such commercial enterprise has long fallen into desuetude.
To bring the surplus meat of Australia within reach of the eager
millions of Europe has not been an easy problem, but it has at length
been fairly solved by freezing the carcass, though much has yet to be
done in discovering the best method of distribution of so perishable
an article and its proper treatment from the freezing chamber to the
spit. The various works buy cattle at about 18s. to 20s. per 100 lb.,
the weight of bullocks averaging about 750 lb., though many mobs,
notably the huge beasts from the West, go as much as 200 lb. beyond
this. The works are also buyers of fat sheep, a 50-lb. wether two or
three months after shearing bringing from 9s. to 10s. In the six years
1901-6 the exports of frozen meat from Australia totalled 353,514,135
lb. of beef and 371,692,090 lb. of mutton.
An occupation the profits of which are capable of such large additions
by increasing numbers is apt to foster a spirit of gambling. In a
season of bountiful rainfall it is almost impossible to over-stock
country, and owners too often take the risk of availing themselves
to the full of Nature's prodigality. Such a policy is most dangerous.
When the time of more limited rainfall comes the owner of over-stocked
pastures pays a heavy toll for his improvidence, whereas he who has
regulated his numbers on the assumption of fair average seasons comes
scathless through the time of trial.
Dairying comes more within the department of agriculture, as crops
must be grown for feed, the dairy-farmer being necessarily the
occupant of a very limited area. The benefit dairying has been to the
small stock-owner can hardly be exaggerated. In old days the owner of
a herd of 50 to 100 head could look only for a poor living, working
for wages for part of the year whilst his family looked after the
herd. Now he is a rich man. The monthly cheque from the creamery for
a man milking 25 cows easily reaches an average of L20. Except in
the few cases where the business has been conducted in a large way
by capitalists, it is mostly an enterprise for small men. The work is
unremitting, the herd having to be milked twice a day, but the rewards
are sure and ample. Butter and cheese factories have sprung up like
mushrooms in the last few years, there being now 79 in the State. The
yield of butter for 1907 totalled 22,789,158 lb. As returns depend on
the amount of butter-fat produced, owners have converted the ordinary
breeds of cattle to good dairy herds by plentiful introductions of
the true milking strains--Jersey, Alderney, Ayrshire, Holstein, and
milking Shorthorn.
Many will probably wonder how cattle grazed over an area of many
hundred square miles of country, which in the outside districts is
probably unfenced, can be mustered or even kept on the run. Cattle
are docilely subservient to custom, and once broken into "camps" will
voluntarily seek repose in these shelters. On a well-managed station
the crack of a whip will start any mob within hearing trotting for
their camp, formed in a clump of shade on the creek, or, if shade is
available, on some better galloping ground. Others, seeing them on the
move, head towards the same well-known resort, there to pass the day
till the shadows lengthen, only moving off in the cool of the evening
to feed. If they are being mustered for branding, the cows with calves
are "cut out" and brought to the stockyard to be dealt with; if for a
butcher to select a draft of fats, these only are taken and delivered
either on the spot or where arranged. At the general muster, which is
only made every few years, as the cattle are brought in they are put
through a lane in the yard, the long lock at the tip of the tail being
cut short; they are thus easily distinguished on the run, so that
only long-tails are brought in subsequently. A "bang-tail" muster is
recorded in the station books, and, as all sales and other disposals
are carefully noted and an allowance made of from 3 to 5 per cent. for
deaths, it is not necessary to repeat an operation taxing horseflesh
so severely at nearer intervals than three to five years. Stock-horses
become very clever, and will turn and twist with a beast through the
mob, the rider's whip playing on either side till the animal is run
out. Large tailing yards are maintained in different parts of the run
to avoid much driving, and at weaning time the weaners are herded for
a month or six weeks and yarded at night, which has a quieting
effect they never forget. A well-managed herd is noted for absence of
rowdyism amongst its members. On a well-improved station the bullocks,
heifers, and weaners will be in separate paddocks, and at a certain
season the bulls are taken out of the herd and put in a paddock by
themselves.
[Illustration: WOOL TEAMS, WYANDRA, WARREGO DISTRICT]
[Illustration: HAULING CEDAR, ATHERTON, NORTH QUEENSLAND]
Much has been written of the Australian squatter's life, both in fact
and in fiction; yet the charm it exercises remains unexplained. The
invigorating influence of perfect health doubtless has something to
do with it, as well as the utter freedom and escape from all
conventionality. Much of the bushman's time is passed in the saddle,
and his dress consists of moleskin trousers, the sleeves of his shirt
rolled up to the elbow, and a soft shady hat. He rises at daybreak and
after an early breakfast starts his day's work. As frequently he
will not return to the homestead till nightfall, his lunch is in his
saddle-pouch, to be enjoyed in the shade by some waterhole, where he
boils the quart "billy" that dangles all day from a dee on his saddle,
and makes the inevitable brew of tea. Probably he has companions and
is mustering a paddock half the size of an English county; bringing
the sheep to the drafting yards, it may be to draft out the fats from
a mob of several thousand wethers, or perhaps to take lambs from
their mothers for weaning, or to separate the sexes in a mob of mixed
weaners, or to bring sheep to the shed for shearing.
Shearing is of all times the busiest. At this season men, each usually
riding one horse and leading another packed with his swag, roam the
country in gangs and undertake the work at contract rates, which of
late have been raised from 20s. per 100 to 24s. There will be from
ten to forty men on the shearing board, according to the size of the
flock; and in most of the large sheds men write beforehand to bespeak
a stand. Shearers earn great wages; a good man will do from 100 to
200 per day, though the latter number is of course exceptional. The
introduction of shearing machines has helped to increase the shearer's
daily tally. A host of other men are employed in the shed. Boys gather
the fleeces which they throw on a table where they are skirted, the
trimmings being divided into "locks and pieces" and "bellies," and
the rolled fleece is thrown on another long table at which the
wool-classer presides. He is an expert, and orders each to its
respective bin, according to quality--judged by condition, length of
staple, and brightness. From the various bins so graded men feed the
wool-press worked by two wool-pressers, who turn out, sew, and brand
the bales, of an average weight of from 3 to 4 cwt. Wagons are waiting
to convey these to the railway, horse and bullock teams being almost
equally used. A whip cracks like a pistol shot, and with lowered
heads, the bullocks straining at the yoke, the first team draws slowly
off to the incomprehensible objurgations of the driver, an incredible
number of bales in three tiers piled on the wagon and securely roped.
But this bustling activity is not confined to the shed. Shorn sheep
have to be returned to their paddocks, fresh mobs brought in, and the
morrow's shearing housed in the shed to escape the night's dew or a
chance shower. From daylight to dark during this harvest time everyone
is at full stretch. The shearers have their own cook and "find"
themselves, sharing together in a general mess; and as they earn good
money they "do themselves" really well, denying themselves no delicacy
obtainable at the station store. The whistle sounds at 6 p.m.; the
last fleece has been gathered, and the men stroll to their camp to
discard sodden shirts and moleskins and clean up generally before
supper. The twilight is short, night chasing it swiftly from the
world. The weird charm of a Queensland night in the bush penetrates
with a calm satisfaction difficult to analyse. It is, let us suppose,
spring or summer, and the stars appear to hang low from the deep clear
indigo vault. The silence is unbroken, appealing to some indefinable
emotion. No cry of beast or bird ruffles the stillness, save perhaps
the faint tinkle of the bell-bird or the solemn plaint of the mopoke
from some distant scrub. The men are sitting outside their hut
smoking, or with tired limbs stretched on the short dry grass lying
full length drawing the quiet night into their blood, its cool
soft breath soothing the fatigue of the arduous day's toil. Very
entertaining to a listener would be the symposium of experiences
and amazing political theories of these rough good-humoured toilers,
whilst in the pauses one might perhaps enjoy the fantasia executed by
the musician of the party on his concertina.
Life at the homestead of many of the old-established stations differs
little from that of a wealthy country home in other parts of the
world. Froude in his "Oceana" draws a diverting picture of his
anticipations of a bush home and its reality. He had pictured a
log-hut in the wilderness, and was taken to Ercildoune, where he was
amazed to find a mansion amidst splendid gardens, with conservatories,
elaborate drawing-rooms, well-dressed ladies, and all the
appurtenances and customs of refined life. Expecting chops, damper,
and tea, the culinary triumphs of a skilful _chef_ would strike an
author in quest of the barbaric life with a keen reproach. Had Mr.
Froude visited Queensland, he might have found something more suitable
for literary treatment. Although in the older settled districts,
especially on the Darling Downs, the lessees live in comfortable,
well-furnished homes, many bush homesteads are still very primitive.
The farther a station is from the railway the more the owner is
inclined to dispense with the superfluous, till in many cases he
restricts himself to the absolutely necessary. But every year sees
an improvement in this respect. Hospitality is unlimited, any visitor
being sure of a welcome and a night's lodging; he turns his horses
into his host's paddock, and, if there are ladies of the household,
his evening is enlivened with music and cultured talk.
Some of the more gigantic enterprises are conducted by squatting
companies, the sheep numbering several hundred thousand and the cattle
up to thirty or forty thousand. But these stupendous figures need not
deter small investors. In the purchase of a station the goodwill is
an asset to be paid for, and in many cases this is valued at a high
figure. The selector who takes up a grazing farm pays nothing for
goodwill, and gets into what is possibly a going concern from the
outset with no other payment than the year's rent and the value of the
existing improvements erected by the former lessee before the area was
resumed from his holding. It may happen that the country is bare of
all improvements, in which case he has to fence it before he gets a
lease, his neighbours being liable for half the cost of this work,
which forms their common boundary. He pays a higher rent than the
representative of the pioneer who created the goodwill which has
descended by purchase. What more desirable opening can be found for a
young man of limited capital than a farm that will carry 10,000 sheep
or 1,500 cattle? He leads the healthiest life in the world, and,
although it is full of hard work and includes what would be thought
hardships in the home he comes from, a manly youth takes the latter
with a frolic welcome, and if he works hard he also plays hard when
the occasional races, cricket carnival, and festivities in the nearest
township or perhaps at some neighbouring station give the occasion.
But above all things it is important that he should not invest till
he has gained experience. There is no difficulty in acquiring this, as
stockowners are without exception glad of the assistance of a willing
young fellow who accepts the knowledge acquired and perhaps a trifling
salary as an equivalent for his time and work. After a couple of years
of this novitiate as a "Jackeroo," he will be equipped for facing the
future on his own account, which with ordinary steadfastness, energy,
and forethought he may regard with confidence.
[Illustration: DAIRY CATTLE ON DARLING DOWNS]
[Illustration: SHEEP, JIMBOUR, DARLING DOWNS]
[Illustration: HORSES, IVANHOE STATION, WARREGO]
CHAPTER II.
AGRICULTURE IN QUEENSLAND.
Tripartite Division of Queensland.--Climate.--Development of
Agriculture in Queensland.--Wide Range of Products.--Early
History.--Exclusion of Farmers from Richest Lands.--Origin of
Mixed Farming.--Extension of Industry Westward.--Inexperience
of Early Settlers.--Cotton-growing.--Chief Crops.--Dairying.
--Cereal-growing.--Farming in the Tropics.--Farming on the
Downs.--Farming in the West.--Irrigation.--Conservation of
Water.--Timber Industry.--Land Selection.--Assistance Given by
the Government.--Immigration.--Attractions of Queensland.
--Defenders of Hearth and Home.
Situated between 101/2 degrees and 29 degrees South latitude and 138
degrees and 1531/2 degrees East longitude, Queensland covers 670,500
square miles, or 429,120,000 acres--greater than the combined areas
of France, Germany, and Austro-Hungary. Of this immense territory 53.5
per cent. lies within the Tropics, and 46.5 per cent. within the South
Temperate Zone.
The State may be divided into three belts--the tropical, stretching
from Cape York to the 21st parallel in the neighbourhood of Mackay;
the sub-tropical, between Mackay and Gladstone, about 24 degrees
South; and the temperate, from Gladstone to the 29th parallel on the
border of New South Wales.
These three zones lend themselves, in turn, to a tripartite
subdivision of littoral, tableland, and Western plain. Running
generally in a North and South direction, and distant from the Eastern
coast 30 to 100 miles, the Great Dividing Range separates the littoral
from a series of tablelands having an altitude of 3,000 ft. at the two
extremes, with a lesser elevation between Herberton in the North and
the Darling Downs in the South. Almost imperceptibly the intermediate
plateau sinks into a vast plain, which extends westward for hundreds
of miles and into South Australia.
The mountain barrier between coast and tableland, though rarely
exceeding 4,000 ft. in height, is still sufficiently lofty to cause
the clouds of the Pacific to deposit most of their moisture on the
Eastern slopes. The precipitation in this coastal belt ranges from
a yearly average of 135 in. at Geraldton (at the foot of the
Bellenden-Ker Mountains, in the North) to 40 in. between the Tropic of
Capricorn and Brisbane, with a heavier fall wherever the mountains
are in close proximity to the ocean. On the Western side of the Great
Divide the rainfall decreases from 40 in. to about 30 in. at the
Western limit of the tableland, and, gradually diminishing with
increasing distance from the seaboard, averages only about 10 in. in
the extreme South-west.
Temperature, rainfall, and soil necessary for the successful
cultivation of almost every known crop are to be found in Queensland.
Pastoral pursuits and mining have been the principal wealth-producers
in the past; but steadily agriculture is coming to the front, and,
long before the present generation has passed away, will occupy first
place among the primary industries. That it has not done so already
is due partly to the comparative youth of the country and its small
population, and partly to its rich natural pastures and vast mineral
resources. For many years the fascination of a pastoral life and
the search for gold, with the hope of winning fortunes in those
avocations, proved more attractive than the regular, uneventful life
of the farmer, with its prospect of a competence; but the old-time
glamour of grazing and mining is passing away, and the independence
of the farmer is now preferred to the lot of station hand or working
miner.
On the inestimable value of a rural population to the permanent
well-being of a nation Mr. Roosevelt, the late President of the United
States, lays stress in these pregnant words:--
"I warn my countrymen that the great recent progress made in
city life is not a full measure of our civilisation; for
our civilisation rests at bottom on the wholesomeness,
the attractiveness, and the completeness, as well as the
prosperity, of life in the country. The men and women on the
farms stand for what is fundamentally best and most needed in
our national life. Upon the development of country life rests
ultimately our ability, by methods of farming requiring the
highest intelligence, to continue to feed and clothe the
hungry nations; to supply the city with fresh blood, clean
bodies, and clear brains that can endure the terrific strain
of modern life; we need the development of men in the open
country, who will be in the future, as in the past, the stay
and strength of the nation in time of war, and its guiding and
controlling spirit in time of peace."
Too large a proportion of the people of Australia is already
congregated in the capital cities on the seaboard, and this
centripetal tendency constitutes one of the problems most difficult
of solution in our young communities, as it is proving in the older
countries of the world. Here, however, we are not confronted with the
obstacle of high-priced land, and no effort is being spared to turn
the tide of settlement to the true source of national virility and
prosperity--the land.
The suitability of the State for agriculture is amply demonstrated
by the condition of those engaged in that industry, for there is no
considerable class in the community so prosperous. Comfortable homes,
well-stocked farms, overflowing barns, and other evidence of labour
richly rewarded, bear witness to this fact. The abundance of a series
of fat years more than compensates for the loss of crops and stock
in occasional years of drought, and these losses it is possible to
minimise by devoting attention to afforestation, the conservation of
water, irrigation, and the storage of fodder.
Diversity of products is to be expected in a country stretching
through 181/2 degrees of latitude, possessing an infinite variety
of soils, and divided into a hot and humid coastal belt, an elevated
tableland with cool climate and moderate rainfall, and a huge plain
with light rainfall and dry, invigorating atmosphere. There is
probably no country in the world with so wide an agricultural range.
To mention crops which can be, and are being, grown with gratifying
results would be to set forth in detail nearly every crop of economic
value found in the torrid or the temperate zone. Wherever Nature is
so generous with her gifts there must be accompanying drawbacks in
the shape of vegetable and insect pests, but, by the application
of intelligence and industry, the farmers of Queensland are able to
combat these petty foes.
Some of the principal objects of culture have a remarkably extensive
distribution. Citrus fruits, fodder crops and artificial grasses,
pumpkins and melons, flourish in every part of the State. Maize is
very prolific throughout the littoral and on the tableland. Sugar-cane
and tropical fruits grow luxuriantly on all the coastal lands. Most
of the fruits of the British Isles and Continental Europe are at home
everywhere except on the coast north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and
reach perfection on the elevated lands of the Darling Downs. Cereals
and root crops are produced in the Southern and Central West districts
equal in quality and yield to the crops in the Southern States and
oversea countries.
"Agriculture," says Professor Robert Wallace, of Edinburgh University,
"is one of the oldest of human arts, dating from long before the dawn
of history. The savage who lives on the roots and fruits he finds
ready to his hand stands lower in the scale than the huntsman living
by the chase. The herdsman leading a nomadic life belongs to a higher
stage of human culture; but civilisation in any full sense only begins
amongst men with settled habitations, who till the soil for their
sustenance." Judged by this standard, Queensland has passed through
the evolutionary stages. Eighty-five years ago, when the first British
settlers landed on the shores of Moreton Bay, the country was sparsely
inhabited by savages of the lowest type, dependent upon native
roots and fruits and the chase for a subsistence. For a quarter of a
century, settlement on the coast was confined to a few convicts and
military guards stationed at Brisbane and Ipswich, and a handful of
free settlers. In the year 1840 some adventurous spirits, searching
for sheep country west of the Main Range, found themselves on the
magnificent tableland which Allan Cunningham had discovered in 1827,
and which, during the intervening years, had remained untrodden by the
foot of a white man. Soon the whole of the Darling Downs was parcelled
out into large sheep stations. Agriculture, until the advent of small
selectors many years later, was only represented by garden patches
of cereals, vegetables, and fruit trees, grown for the use of the
station-owners and their employees.
On the Eastern side of the Range the industry was in almost as
backward a state before the arrival of the first shipment of
agriculturists in the ship "Fortitude" in January, 1849. Gangs of
convicts felled the scrub on the banks of the Brisbane River adjacent
to the barracks; with the hoe they planted maize among the stumps and
tree-trunks under the constant surveillance of armed guards, and,
when the corn was ripe, dragged it in carts to the windmill on
Wickham terrace, still a conspicuous landmark, though now used as an
observatory. There the maize was ground into "hominy," an important
item in the menu of those days.
A band of Moravian missionaries settled at what is now known as
Nundah, and they and the majority of the "Fortitude" immigrants were
the real pioneers of agriculture in the infant settlement.
Land orders, free immigration, and the discovery of gold were all
factors in the development of the country, and the demand for farm
lands led to the unlocking of areas previously given over to grazing.
The pastoralists regarded agriculturists with disfavour, and in some
cases with open antagonism. By the exercise of "pre-emptive rights,"
which their influence in the Legislature secured for them, they
converted into freehold large blocks of the best land, as well as
strategic areas by the possession of which they were able to close
against settlement immense tracts preeminently suitable for farming.
This was particularly the case in the settled districts of Moreton,
Darling Downs, Wide Bay, and Burnett, and to a lesser degree in
Maranoa. To such an extent was the right of preemption used that many
squatters seriously crippled themselves, the price paid being too high
for grazing to be remunerative on their freehold lands.
[Illustration: HARVESTING WHEAT, EMU VALE, NEAR WARWICK]
When, in after years, it would have been to their advantage to
subdivide and sell to farmers, it was not in their power to give
titles. In the course of time railways were built through some of
these large estates, but their earning power was seriously hampered
by country capable of supporting a very large agricultural population
being devoted to pasturing sheep and cattle. As the most satisfactory
solution of the difficulty, successive Governments have repurchased
a number of properties at a cost exceeding a million sterling, and
resold them in small areas to farmers, with highly gratifying results
both to the settlers and to the State.
The immediate effect of the exclusive policy adopted by the
pastoralists, however, was to force many selectors to take up land in
dense scrubs on steep mountain slopes and in river pockets which were
useless to stockowners. They had literally to hew their homes out
of the jungle. Having no roads, they were thrown upon their own
resources, and were obliged to live very largely upon the produce of
their farms. Erecting a rude makeshift fence around a clearing of a
few acres, the "cocky" or "cockatoo farmer," as he was contemptuously
styled by those who regarded him as an interloper, planted maize and
pumpkins among the remains of the scrub. Despite the ravages of bird
and beast, he persevered, until at last success began to crown his
efforts. A cow or two provided him with milk and butter, any surplus
butter being sold to the storekeepers in the towns which quickly
followed in the wake of settlement. Lucerne, sorghum, and other fodder
crops formed part of his husbandry, live stock multiplied, and thus
commenced that system of mixed farming to which thousands of the
farmers of Queensland owe their prosperity. The coming of neighbours
and the making of roads rendered life less lonely. With increasing
prosperity, improved implements and methods were adopted. The plough
succeeded the hoe; the harvester or the reaper and binder took the
place of sickle and scythe; and the slab humpy or bark hut gave way to
the comfortable farmhouse.
Though these early selectors were driven into almost inaccessible
scrub, they were at least within the region of heavy rainfall, and,
even where some distance from permanent streams, suffered little from
drought. Settlers who went over the Range, profiting by the experience
of the pastoral pioneers regarding the vicissitudes of climate,
avoided the mistake of relying upon a single crop, or, to use a
homely phrase, of putting all their eggs in one basket--an error which
brought ruin to thousands upon thousands of the people who, between
thirty and forty years ago, flocked from the Atlantic seaboard to the
arid regions of America, west of the Mississippi. Mixed farming became
the general rule on the further side of the Main Range, so that, if
wheat and maize failed, the farmers had their flocks and herds
and their shearing cheques as a standby until the next harvest was
garnered.
It is sometimes said with scorn that there is comparatively little
real farming in Queensland; but the conditions peculiar to
settlement in the State are responsible for the trend of agricultural
development. In the United States and Canada, the flood of immigration
and the part played by the great railway companies as land-owners and
promoters of settlement to provide traffic for their railways led
to the creation of small holdings, which, in turn, led to intense
cultivation of field and orchard crops. In Queensland, immigration has
never been conducted on an extensive scale, and, indeed, for over a
decade almost ceased. There was no great demand for land, and, as the
mistaken belief long prevailed that the quantity of arable land was
small, the area of so-called agricultural farms was made sufficiently
large to enable a man to make a living from stock-raising, dairying,
and pig-breeding. Field labourers being scarce and stock cheap, the
farmer's aim has rather been to grow feed for his stock than crops for
human consumption. He has followed the line of least resistance, so
using his land as to carry on his operations with family labour and a
little casual assistance during the busy seasons.
Events have justified this mixed farming from the point of view of
the farmer, and doubtless the monthly returns from dairying will cause
most of the farmers of Southern and Central Queensland to rely chiefly
upon that industry so long as high prices continue, and to look to
pig-breeding and lamb-fattening as subsidiary branches. But for the
swelling tide of newcomers the supplies of rich scrub, alluvial flat,
and volcanic downs country must sooner or later prove inadequate.
Indeed, within the last few years settlers have been turning their
attention to land which was once regarded as inferior. From the
lighter soils of plain and upland larger and more certain crops of
grain are being won, and on these lands dairying will take second
place to cereal production.
Since an enlightened Legislature has resumed many millions of acres
previously held under pastoral lease, and repurchased large estates in
districts enjoying the advantages of railway communication, there
has been no need to go far afield, and settlement has been chiefly
confined to the lands adjacent to the rivers and railways in the
coastal belt, on the Darling Downs, and, of recent years, in the
Burnett district.
Still, within the last thirty years, from one cause or another, groups
of settlers have made their homes far beyond those limits. Thus the
wheat lands of Maranoa were settled when there was no farming more
than a few miles to the west of Toowoomba. Over eighteen hundred years
ago Tacitus wrote of our Saxon forefathers: "They live apart, each by
himself, as woodside, plain, or fresh spring attracts him." And
this racial characteristic is strong in many of their descendants in
Queensland. Better results and greater profits might have accrued from
concentration, but the wonderful development of the British
Empire owes much to this centrifugal impulse and to the spirit of
independence and self-reliance which it has fostered; and as the flag
has followed the adventurer in so many parts of the globe, so are the
scattered pioneers of our Western lands nuclei around whom settlement
is gradually gathering.
To people coming for the most part from the mother country, experience
constituted no safe guide to the agricultural possibilities of their
new home in the South. Naturally, mistakes were made and time
and money lost before they discovered which crops were the most
profitable, and on what kind of land those crops could be grown with
greatest certainty of success.
When Dr. Lang induced the "Fortitude" immigrants to cast in their lot
with the Moreton Bay settlement, in whose welfare he took so deep an
interest, his desire was to establish the cultivation of cotton, to
which he believed the climate and soil were specially adapted. But,
despite the heavy crops produced on the river flats, cotton did not
prove remunerative until, after the outbreak of the American Civil
War in 1861, the Lancashire spinners were reduced to such straits
that they gladly paid high prices for all that could be obtained from
Queensland. The product was of excellent quality, but the cost of
picking precluded competition with countries where cheap labour was
plentiful, and, with the return to normal conditions in the United
States after the termination of the war, cotton passed almost out
of cultivation, and has never since become a crop of commercial
importance. An effort was made some years back to resuscitate the
industry by the offer of a Government bonus upon manufactured piece
goods. The bounty was earned by a mill at Ipswich, but the industry
did not long survive the stoppage of the bonus. Since the drought
of 1902 cotton has again been grown, principally in West Moreton
and North Queensland, as a subsidiary crop, and farmers have been
encouraged to extend their operations by the recent offer of a
bounty by the Commonwealth; but, until machinery takes the place of
hand-picking, farmers are likely to prefer crops which are not subject
to competition with the cheap labour of other lands.
The first European colonists in America found there two valuable
native products--maize and tobacco. Australia, on the other hand,
presented a virgin field to the agriculturist. Like the rest of the
Commonwealth, Queensland, blessed with the richest natural pastures,
possesses no indigenous food plants of proved economic value. The
early settlers naturally availed themselves of the wealth of native
grasses and edible shrubs, and became graziers. When a commencement
was made with agriculture, farmers sowed the crops to which they had
been accustomed in Great Britain. Though these grew well, it was soon
found that they were, on the whole, better adapted to the elevated
downs than to the forcing climate on the coast. Maize, sugar-cane, and
the fruits of the tropics, on the other hand, revelled in the sunshine
and moist atmosphere of the seaboard.