Our First Half-Century: A Review of Queensland Progress Based Upon Official Information

by Queensland

CAMBANORA GAP, HEAD OF CONDAMINE, KILLARNEY

MINTO CRAG, DUGANDAN, FASSIFERN DISTRICT

It is only natural that in an industry whose operations extend over so many degrees of latitude conditions must greatly vary. Irrigation is necessary in some districts, notably in the Burdekin Delta, which lies in a dry belt. Drainage is the prime requisite in other places. Fertilisation varies with the soils, and information as to the latter has been compiled in a series of exhaustive analyses made by Dr. W. Maxwell at the laboratory in Bundaberg. In South Queensland the cane frequently takes two years to mature, while in the extreme North fifteen months after planting it is fit for the rollers.

According to the official estimate of the Commonwealth Treasurer for 1908, 4,825 farmers were then engaged in the industry in Queensland, 91·7 per cent. of whom employed white labour only, the number of employees being in round figures 30,000. In 1902 the number of farmers was only 2,496, showing the rapidity with which closer settlement is taking place. It is true that of late there has been a reduction in the area under cultivation, but this is probably attributable to the tendency to make "intense cultivation" a feature of the industry in order to solve the labour problem. Some of the larger areas under crop have been curtailed, and the reduction has not been made good by the increased settlement; but, as in the eighties those engaged in the industry found, possibly unconsciously, a remedy for the dearth of labour, so we may reasonably expect that the present difficulty in obtaining men for the ordinary work of cultivation will be met by new developments.

What does the future hold for us? Can we continue the work of building up a white nation beneath a tropical sun—a task which in many parts of the world is considered quixotic? The areas available for cane cultivation are still enormous, and, though hesitancy and doubt may for a time join hands in checking expansion, the main facts remain that there is room for the people and that there is a demand for the product. Australia, in her fiscal policy, has recognised that the sugar industry is a national industry, and our statesmen realise that it is doing for the Australian tropics what no other industry on the coastal lands has yet seriously attempted—what, indeed, no other country in the world is as yet prepared to try.

Assuming, as we have a right to assume, a sympathetic Australian Government, we can turn to the future with eyes full of hope. There are many directions in which we may look for the expansion of the industry. The increasing population of the Commonwealth involves an added capacity to consume the product. The field of invention in regard to the harvesting of the cane has yet to be explored and exploited. At present the cost of cutting and loading a field of cane is from eight to ten times that of harvesting an equal amount of sugar beets. Experiments are constantly being made with mechanical appliances for cutting and loading and unloading cane, and this is one direction in which Queenslanders may look forward hopefully to the time when they will not only lessen the volume of labour required, but when they will reduce the burdensome nature of the work, and place the cane-sugar industry in a position to compete successfully with the great beet-sugar industry of Europe.

Some 250,000 gallons of rum are distilled annually at Bundaberg, but we are told officially that 4,000,000 gallons of molasses go to waste every year. The conversion of this product into foodstuffs for live stock as an adjunct to the main industry would add materially to the profits.

In some sugar districts, dairying is finding a footing, and possibly the time is not far distant when a form of mixed farming will enable the cane-grower to utilise more of the by-products of his industry, at the same time rendering him more independent of unfavourable meteorological conditions. Generally speaking, improvement in the quality and quantity of the cane, intense culture, mechanical inventions, and the use of by-products are all within the bounds of possibility, and will make for further progress.

But all these things are of secondary importance compared with the need of a settled working population. Back from the coast lies a range of mountains, rising often 3,000 feet above the level of the sea. Along and behind these mountains are excellent lands, well suited for close settlement and for the production of cereals, and the fruits and vegetables so greatly needed in the more humid areas of the littoral belt. The climate of this elevated hinterland is excellent, and the close settlement of these lands will furnish one of the safeguards of the sugar industry, seeing that a permanent population within easy reach will always be available for employment in the canefields and sugar-mills. To a large extent, the populations of the lowlands and the highlands will be mutually dependent upon each other.