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All this is now changed, and the farmers owe their thanks to the men of enterprise and pluck that have started up-to-date faetories, and are now putting pork products on the market in the very best form-men who have spent thousands of pounds in working up a market, and men who have spared neither time or money in giving the farmers an improved class of pig.

Compare the pig of to-day to what it was a few years ago. Farmers who are paying attention to careful breeding and grading their pigs now have an animal that with ordinary care is fit for the bacon factory at 5 to 7 months old.

I am sorry to have to say that many farmers are still under the impression that half the breeding goes down the throat. This is a great mistake, and the sooner they try it in a practical way the sooner will they be enlightened.

The well-bred, shapely, deep-sided, full-hammed pig is worth 50 cent. more per than the common, coarse-boned, slab-sided, thin-hammed, long-snouted brute you see so many men wasting good food with. Not so long ago we thought 50 to 60 pigs at a sale a big day's yarding. To-day it is not an uncommon thing to see 500 to 600 pigs sold and delivered in a day, with competition keen for them; and within 12 months, I venture to say that in Toowoomba alone you will see 1,000 pigs sold at one sale.

The industry is making rapid strides; it has come to stay, and by careful management it promises to be one of the largest, if not the largest, and most profitable industry in this the garden of Australia.

Of course when I say "in this " I mean the Darling Downs, but at the same time I think that in the near future you will see the North play a very important part in this growing industry. It has been argued by some who have evidently not taken the trouble to look into the matter carefully that federation will kill this industry, but the following figures are worth looking over. They give plain facts :Queensland exported bacon in

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and live pigs to the tune of £2,718; making, in all, the very handsome sum of £33,146; the whole of this being taken by the sister colonies.

We have at the present time in the colony about 128,000 pigs, and during 1898 the number killed at the factories alone was 85,510, producing 6,973,007 lb. of hams and bacon.

This industry has not been bounty fed, neither has it asked support from the Government. Throughout the colonies the public are daily learning to consume more pork products, and why? Simply because they are getting them put before them in a better form, and more tastily got up.

In America the consumption of pork products is something enormous, to say nothing of their export trade, that in the year 1883 exceeded all others (excepting wheat and cotton) amounting to £21,000,000. Now, if America can do this enormous business, surely we Australians should be able to capture some portion of so profitable a trade. We have our chilling establishments, fast lines of ocean-going steamers carrying cargoes of frozen products, and markets within easy reach of our shores.

The Cape should be a fairly remunerative market, as I notice that a shipment of cattle from our ports realised £32 per head. There should be room for a few shipments of pork there.

Shipments of hams and bacon are regularly being made to Western Australia, Tasmania, Batavia, and to all our Northern ports. These are not pork-producing areas, and not likely to be, as the climatic conditions are not suitable. Therefore, there is every prospect of the industry forging ahead. There is also room, even in our own town, for a fresh pork and small goods trade.

The demand is good for well-got-up, marketable goods. There is no place here where one can buy a decent joint of pork, pork sausages, pork pies, and other porcine dainties. These things only require putting before the people in an appetising form, and there would be no scarcity of customers. Owing to there being no fresh-pork trade here, porkers are not a profitable class of pig for our farmers, as they must either sell them as forward stores to their neighbours or keep them until fit for the bacon-curer, and this may not always be convenient when feed is short.

The Price.—This is the all-important point to the farmer and pig-raiser. Well, pigs are like any other marketable commodity, they fluctuate in value according to supply and demand.

During the past 12 months farmers have been receiving a top price for their pigs, and in many cases, owing to their being fed on soft food, there has been a great shrinkage in the cured products; consequently loss of weight and loss to the bacon Grain-fed pigs are always worth more than milk and slop-fed pigs, and if the past season had given a good maize crop pigs would have been considerably cheaper, but, at the same time, would have paid the farmer as well.

curer.

Take America. With their enormous grain crop, they get on an average 27s. 6d. to 30s. for prime baconers-which means a pig not less than 180 to 200 lb.; whereas here we have been getting 38s. and up to 45s. for pigs ranging from only 120 to 150 lb., clearly showing that the American farmer prefers selling his cheap grain products in the form of live pork, and, being a pretty wide-awake gentleman, knows which pays him best.

Now, with our favourable climate, cheap lands, and everything in our favour, we should, in the near future, be a formidable competitor. At present the Sydney market may be said to control the Australian markets, as most of the southern colonies buy largely there, and Sydney buys largely from here, both in a live and cured form.

I have been trying to induce southern buyers to operate here, but lately there has been no margin of profit to them, our prices being equal, and in some cases better than theirs. May, June, and July generally show a fall in prices, owing to the rush of fat pigs, in consequence of maize and pumpkin crops being harvested.

Marketing. The present system of selling pigs will, I think, very soon be on a better footing. The old idea of selling to any pig-buyer who chooses to go round to the sties and make an offer is by no means a good one. They must make their average prices come out right, consequently one man gets the value of his pig, and the other man much less. You don't see woolgrowers selling their produce in this fashion; they submit their products to public competition, and get market value for them.

I maintain that all fat pigs should be sold by auction, and by live weight, not by appearance, and I hope ere long to see this system in vogue. A weighbridge at the various markets could easily be erected, and let every lot of pigs be weighed, their weight posted above their pens, and sold at per lb. live weight. Buyers would then know exactly what they were buying, and the farmers would be more satisfied; the grain-fed animal would give his owner a good idea whether it would pay him to grain feed or not. This matter of weighing might well be taken in hand by the Government. Let them erect weighbridges at the various trucking yards where pig sales are held, and charge a small fee, of say, 2d per head as a yard due. It would pay them well to consider this matter, as the business would be a remunerative one:

I would also suggest that a qualified inspector attend all sales, and condemn any animal he considered unfit for food.

A Pig Breeders' Association would be of great value to farmers and others, as there are many little matters that often crop up that require seeing to. Take, for instance, the trucking conveniences at the various railway trucking yards. They are utterly unsuitable to load a truck of pigs from, the present race and conveniences being enough to kill a man, to say nothing about the bruising and injuries the unfortunate pig receives.

The shelter and watering conveniences are about as bad as they can be. An association might do a great deal to remedy these existing evils, and materially assist in building up one of the leading industries in Southern Queensland.

The next paper was by Mr. E. N. ROGERS, of Port Curtis road, Rockhampton :

PROPOSED DAIRY LEGISLATION.

The object of this paper is to criticise a Bill "to provide for the registration and inspection of dairies and to regulate the manufacture, sale, and export of dairy produce," cited as "The Dairy Produce Act of 1898." The Bill was introduced into Parliament, referred to a select committee, and their report was printed. The Bill proposes to lay down rules, to be fixed by a Government department, as to the minute details of dairy management, and to enforce these rules by means of Government inspectors with enormous powers of interference and the right to inflict heavy penalties. And there is to be no appeal except to the Minister, in a colony of 668,497 square miles. There is no board of dairymen, and the Minister, whose qualifications are unknown, and a few experts have power not only to administer a most stringent Act, but to legislate without consulting Parliament by means of undefined regulations. The Bill had a bad time of it in committee, but the committee did not finish its work, and

the Bill was shelved. But, as both the experts and the public still ask for stringent legislation, another attempt is likely to be made soon to pass this or a similar measure. As the Bill concerns dairymen and farmers directly, this Conference seemed a good opportunity of bringing the matter up, especially as the present Ministry is not committed to or responsible for the measure. The aim of the Bill must meet with general sympathy, since it is to protect the public health and to secure a better quality of dairy produce for export. But this very fact makes it all the more necessary to criticise. Unpopular measures meet with plenty of opposition, and are therefore framed carefully. Popular measures have not to face the same criticism, and are framed and passed often without due consideration, especially when they affect a class like dairymen and farmers, the nature of whose occupation makes it difficult for them to organise and influence public opinion and parliamentary debate. The popular aim is generally right, but the popular methods of attaining the end in question are generally wrong, for the average man, unaware or heedless of the complex nature of society, likes to take the direct royal road. And this is what the Dairy Act proposes to do: Instead of trying to reform the dairyman gradually by education, instead of teaching him and persuading him to co-operate, its method is direct compulsion. The local authorities have been very lax in sanitary matters for many years, although Acts are in existence -the Public Health Act, the Food and Drugs Act, the Stock Diseases Act-which, had they been enforced, would have made this Dairy Act unnecessary. Local control and local inspection have proved failures, so we are to jump to the opposite extreme of complete centralisation, although common sense ought to tell us that if local control has failed because the local authorities are too much interested, central control is certain to fail for the opposite reason that the central authorities are too little interested. Here, as everywhere, the true legislator should try to hit the middle way. A judicious mixture of compulsion and persuasion is what has to be provided for. Local control is weak because little can be done which people object to, and central control is harsh because everything is done or attempted without consulting or getting the consent of the people of the locality where the Act is administered. It is surely easy to combine the two by having a local board or council to advise a single head appointed by and responsible to the central authority. But this Dairy Act provides for nothing of the sort. The district inspectors not having any local body to advise them will have to receive all instructions from headquarters instructions which are sure to be unsuitable to many localities. It is the class of small dairymen and selectors which will suffer under this Act, for the big factories can always take care of themselves. With ample capital to pay for first-class management and improved machinery, the Dairy Act will not affect them directly-in fact, the big factories approve of the Act because it saves them trouble and expense in inspecting the sources of their milk supply and educating their suppliers in habits of cleanliness and improved methods. They complain, as it is, that one careless or ignorant supplier may contaminate the milk supplied by all others. They have in some cases offered more for aerated milk, but dairymen have neglected to purchase and use aerators even then. Naturally the big factories welcome an Act which makes aeration compulsory, and supplies inspectors at other people's expense who can give the factory managers a hint as to any impure source of milk supply. But a Minister settled in Brisbane, and a board of experts, are not at all likely to realise the difficulties a small farmer has to contend with the want of capital, the extreme difficulty of getting suitable labour, the manual drudgery of which leaves him no energy or time to think how he can improve things. And if the provisions of the Act are strictly enforced, the small dairymen and farmers who do not make dairying a principal feature are certain either to give up the business, as they have actually threatened to do in some places, or to be compelled to get into debt and eventually ruined in order to comply with the requirements of the Act. Then the big factories, in order to keep up their milk supply, will have to take over the selections themselves or to employ their late owners on wages. If the Government finds funds for the factories and creameries, the end of it is likely to be State socialism, while the independent yeoman farmers will be gradually wiped out. Labour members in Parliament approve of Acts like this precisely on this ground. It is a step towards socialism, they say. And "socialism in our time" is in Parliament now, which looks like business. Individualism and socialism are both extremes to be avoided. I look rather to co-operation as the "golden mean," and think that we shall eventually realise in Australia a true co-operative Commonwealth. But I do not think we are ripe for this yet, and must for the present be content with individual ownership of capital and machinery and profit-sharing with employers. These preliminary remarks may seem superfluous, but they are not really so, for unless the legislator understands the tendency of society-what the society for which he makes laws is becoming-legislation is a leap in the dark. If we are going to trust to pure individual

enterprise in dairying, the system of inspectorship is evil and unnecessary. If we are going to have State socialism, the inspectors and experts instead of inspecting ought to actually do the work, manage it, and overseer it. If we are going in for profit-sharing as a step towards true co-operation, then the business of the Government is to legislate with a view to this, to educate dairymen for co-operation when Government interference would cease altogether except with the industry as a whole, and to legislate, if necessary, so as to compel the private owners of factories to take those who supply them to some extent into partnership by means of profit-sharing. When we turn to the Act we find that does none of these things. It retains private enterprise while it gives to inspectors and experts such extensive powers of interference as to amount to a proof that private enterprise has completely failed. It does not allow the experts and inspectors to become fixed and actually do or manage the business. And it is legislation rather in the interest of private companies and against the interests of small dairymen. It is a piece of legislation guided by no definite principle, and likely to prove unsatisfactory to everyone who is affected by it. A proof of its purely experimental power conferred on the Governor in Council-practically the Minister and expert -to make regulations which on mere publication in the Gazette have full force of law. Regulations may be thus made with regard to the powers and duties of experts, analysts, and officers; the registration of dairies, brands, marks, &c., of owners and consiguers; dairy ventilation and drainage; the situation of water-closets; the keeping of swine and the construction and situation of pigsties; the inspection, cleansing, and disinfecting of dairies, utensils, machinery, works, carriages, and everything in connection with dairy produce; the use and treatment of stock diseased or suspected to be diseased; the application of tests-e.g., tuberculosis; the preparation and manufacture of milled butter; the disposal of condemned dairy produce; the aeration and cooling of dairy produce; the use of preservative and colouring matters; notices to be given under the Act; payment and recovery of expenses; imposition and collection of fees; the qualifications of experts, inspectors, officers, and -as if this long list was not enough-all other matters and things necessary for the efficient administration of the Act; and a breach of regulations entails a penalty of not more than £50. Now, when everything is controlled from one centre, as under this Act, uniformity makes administration much easier. There is a probability, then, that the department will prescribe definite methods of doing everything; it certainly will have the power. We may be compelled to erect dairies and pigsties on one plan, have one style of cart, one sort of cooler and aerator, and one description of machinery. This would entirely destroy individual initiative and remove the incentive to improvement. An inspector might come along and say-"This new process and machinery of yours is not that prescribed by the Minister. I cannot allow you to make butter in this way; I shall be in danger of losing my billet if I do not stop you." Suppose the Department prescribes a definite plan for a chilling-room and a particular kind of refrigerating machinery. The use, say, of liquified air, might at any moment make the whole thing obsolete. Suppose the Government lent money to dairymen for machinery and works, and suppose the experts knew of a cheaper method of production, the inertia of the Government would have to be overcome, money voted in Parliament, and all the rest of it, before an improvement can be made. Meanwhile individual enterprise in some other countries, not hampered by Government interference, would drive our products out of the market. To come to the powers and duties of inspectors under the Act, an inspector may at all reasonable hours enter and inspect all dairies, examine all utensils, machinery, works, carriages, store-houses, and ships used in connection with dairy produce; and, if he thinks fit, by order in writing under his hand, order the cleansing and disinfecting of everything or anything; forbid the use of anything and the removal of any produce for such time as he thinks necessary. And a dairy, it must be remembered, is defined as any place where dairy cows or other animals are depastured or kept, or where dairy produce is stored, manufactured, or sold or exposed for sale. Under definition, an inspector might enter any private premises or paddocks. Any old woman with a goat might under the Act be ordered to stop milking and clean her billy-can. An inspector may demand samples of dairy produce or water for analysis. An inspector may at any time open any keg or a box or vessel which contains, or is suspected to contain, dairy produce. Thus a dairyman in a hurry might lose a train, or have his cart stopped anywhere at any time because an inspector, who might have a down upon him, suspected a box to contain dairy produce. If any inspector thinks any stock are diseased, he may exercise the powers conferred under the stringent Stock Diseases Act of 1895, or by undefined regulations, or by the provisions of the Dairy Act, which requires owners to isolate diseased stock, to keep their produce separate, and to discontinue the use of it as food for man or for any other animal. An inspector may order the water supply to be discontinued and a pure supply found; and after reference to the Health Officer of

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the district, may order the removal or its isolation of any farm or a dairy farm affected with disease which might contaminate dairy produce. And in the schedule of the Act there are 18 diseases mentioned-8 in human beings, 10 in stock. Any produce may be condemned and disposed of as the Department thinks fit, and no produce which has been in contact with or even near diseased persons or stock shall be sold or exposed for sale, or by clause 14 the produce of stock even suspected of having ulcers or running sores, &c., is not to be sold. Sour milk is prohibited from sale, though the manager of the Silverwood factory said before the select committee, “If sour milk is prohibited from sale it will spoil a good deal of the trade; we dispose of a great deal of sour milk to bakers for bread-making, and it is generally regarded as wholesome." Then in future no one is to be allowed to sell by measure, and no one is to be allowed to adulterate dairy produce with animal, mineral, or vegetable oils, or extraneous butter fat, though good cheese can be made from skim milk in this way. Then the inspector can demand from the owner a list of his customers. Plainly this is a power which should only be used in extreme cases under order from the Health Officer. Again, the fact that diseases have existed upon a dairy for one day is to be prima facie evidence that the owner knew of it, and neglect to give notice of it makes the owner liable to £100 penalty or six months' imprisonment Manifestly, owners to be safe would have to treat their hands like niggers on African diamond-fields, and strip them naked once a week at least. The penalty just mentioned can be inflicted upon anyone who obstructs an inspector or expert, or refuses to give any information or to obey the order of an inspector, or refuses to give any notice prescribed by the Act or Regulations. For thorough-going inspection this Act can hardly be beaten, but is it not also a reductio ad absurdum of the system itself? And I think that those who have had experience of inspection in Central Queensland, during the late tick scare, will agree with Dr. Bancroft, Health Officer for Brisbane in 1897, when he said before the select committee, "To give the inspector power to sit down here would be a terrible thing." Of course, he said, "If you got an angelic form of inspector, well and good," or an angelic form of dairymen," his examiner added. Now, if such a system of inspection were carried out, it would create a despotism tempered probably by the occasional examination of an inspector, especially as, if the experts had their way, they would eradicate disease by the compulsory destruction of all diseased animals, and the Acts say nothing about compensation. To give such powers is too much for average human nature. Inspectors are not likely to be angels or devils, but very average men. In fact they must be "Jack of all Trades" men. To properly carry out his duties, as the select committee pointed out, an inspector would have to be a sanitary expert, a veterinary surgeon, a medical man, an analyst, and a butter-taster all in one. And when we consider the independent class of men he would have to deal with, he would have to possess infinite tact and perfect firmness. In a somewhat similar case in New South Wales the Colonial Secretary of that colony said that not more than three such competent men could be found in the colony. In New Zealand they have had to import veterinary surgeons. If the inspectors exercised their power they would demoralise dairying and themselves, and to give them powers which they cannot possibly use is also to demoralise both. Then think of the expense. By section 18 of the Regulations it would appear that the industry itself is to bear the expense. Could a not too profitable industry stand such a system if it was properly carried out, and if the public is protected, why should it not share the expense? Dr. Bancroft thought it would take five inspectors doing nothing else to properly inspect the dairies within a radius of 10 miles of the centre of Brisbane. How much we must discount the opinion of dairy experts in matters like this may be seen from statements made before the select committee by one wellknown expert who said he thought the Bill entirely reasonable, and that he failed to find any unworkable clause in it. Asked how many inspectors would be required under the Bill to overtake the whole colony, he said, "I think it would take half-adozen." Half-a-dozen for a colony of 668,497 square miles! And yet when this expert was asked further on if new model by-laws issued by the Central Board of Health, which cover much the same ground as the Dairy Act, were enforced, would it not meet the case, he said, "No." Asked why, he replied, "You want a man to keep travelling through the country in the various districts to witness the cows being milked'; to be on the ground almost every other day. To be there periodically, at any rate, to see what is being done." Anyone can see from this what the inspector once begun would develop into. We should have an inspector sitting on the cap of half the milking-yards of Queensland. The poor dairyman would be taxed by a mild, yet despotic, Government to pay an army of inspectors, and to cap it all would have to feed them with his own milk and whisky to keep them in good humour. And the inspector would probably carry rifles to "spot" stock diseased or suspected to be

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