THE GOLDEN WEST.

Evening Star, Issue 20329, 11 November 1929, Page 10

THE GOLDEN WEST.

A few weeks ago a Queensland pastoralist was conducting propaganda for tho formation, of' a wool trust. He argued that Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Argentina had a virtual monopoly of word growing, and that they should co-operate in its disposal instead of meekly accepting what the buyers offered. This was promptly followed by an announcement from Yorkshire that a. group of the biggest textile firms there was contemplating a scheme for growing their own requirements. The idea seems to have originated with an enterprising land salesman in Australia. Apparently he has secured an option over a million acres in 'Western Australia, the property being known as Hampton Plains. The outlay on the. purchasers’ part „ was estimated at one and a-half millions sterling, and the inducement was that production would be on such • a scale that the owners would get their raw materia! for manufacturing purposes at half the market values ruling for wool. It has long been Bradford’s complaint that it has been forced to pay uneconomic values for its raw wool. This is one of the reasons why wages:for mill hands' have been reduced--a measure which threatened a textile strike similar to that which has' afflicted tho Lancashire cotton trade. This trouble now looks like being averted, and, should that prove the case, another addition to the anxieties of wool growers on this side of the world will not be made, for no more inopportune time for dislocation of this industry at Home could be-chosen. ; On the other hand some wool growers, noting current values for tho new season, i mplain of their 1 bably having to accept' uneconomic prices for their wool. ' It would be an interesting experiment if tho Yorkshire group of firms should embark on primary production as an adjunct to their manufacturing industry. However, this seems hardly likely, the latest advices being that the outcome of negotiations for the West. Australian, la’id deal is doubtful. There is a good adage about the shoemaker sticking to his last. Sometifncs proposals have been made for producers to go into business and make up their own taw material into manufactured goods, i ins inversion of the Yorkshire proposal has usually not fructified either. A caso in point was that of the proposed. Southland Woollen - Mills j which was to • have been a wool growers’. concern. Incidentally, ithe i proposal serves to draw attention to the, remarkablo> development of 'the pastoral industry in West Australia; ' Though as old as the country itself, it : is now being realised that this industry is only in. its infancy. Twenty years, ago the extent and’ of the. JFes# Australia^

pastures were realised by . few; -but those few, having-Jong . leases of enormous holdings, . have become . enormously wealthy. Thoso seeking other land; have had to; look further -in the interior and face the-water question, which until recently has been regarded as a serious one. But-now; in-a'great many districts regarded as bad for that reason,' some ' very ' fine supplies of water have been l obtained by boring. Latterly there has been'an influx of a younger generation of pastoralists from the Eastern 'States of Australia, and they . are. rapidly transforming what until recently was considered desert country into highly productive pastoral properties. For the most part they are well backed with capital, and, employing up-to-date methods, - are proving themselves fast workers, doing in a couple of years what past generations would have taken twenty to 1 accomplish. Their equipment includes boring plants, motor tnicks, machine-shearing plants, - and telephonic arid aerial communication, and they draw on ' wellestablished studs in the Eastern States for stocking their runs.- There is a confident- belief that history is rapidly being made in wool growing, and that inside five years the results will be such that the pastoralists ; of the other Australian States and elsewhere will be forced to recognise a fresh factor in the ’ world’s wool production. Among those engaged in this development work is a well-known South Otago pastoralist, who not long ago secured 600,000 acres in the Kalgoorlie district. The improvements began only a year ago, and they comprise 207 miles of wire fencing on the 250,000 acres already subdivided, and fifty-two different watering places supplied by pipe lines from eight goodTcapacity wells. This season 10,000 sheep are being shorn, and it is expected to shear double that number next year, a celebrated stud in South Australia having been drawn on for the breeding flock. Among many other instances of successful' and rapid development, the West Australian papers give the palm to the enterprise shown by this, experienced Now Zealander. In: these days when so much is hoard of the depression and stagnation in the Eastern States of Australia, it is reassuring to learn of the activity and progress of the West. History is repeating itself. . In the “nineties,” when a burst boom, of which Melbourne was the centre, sent business tottering, it was the West, with its opportune discovery of gold, which- retrieved, the situation.