QUEENSLAND'S PROSPERITY.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 11975, 19 September 1906, Page 4

QUEENSLAND'S PROSPERITY.

Quibnsland is evidently enjoying the season of prosperity which appears to be fairly general throughout Australia. Ia the case of the north-eastern State, the progress is the more interesting because hindrances of one kind and another have to an exceptional degree to be overcome. The great natural richness of Queensland is undeniable. In minerals, in fertile sail, in varieties of climate which make an immense range of production possible, in rivers and parts serving productive districts, and in great stretches of fine pasture, the State has the raw material of vast wealth. Its climatic conditions in the greater part of the Slate, however, are such as Co throw upon it a duty of tropical and semi-tropical production which is not as yet incurred anywhers else in the Commonwealth, and the onerousness of which is increased by the gradual exclusion of coloured labour. And the aridity of some parts of the State is so marked that drought began in Western Queensland long before it afflicted other parts of Australia, and continued there long after it had lifted elsewhere. The progress that has been made in spite of these difficulties as these reflects all the more credit on the people. And as the Treasurer recently explained in his Budget speech, the advance has been both considerable and widespread. The mineral production does not show much increase, but the staple pastoral and sugar industries have gone ahead so fast that since 1903 the value of the wool clip has jumped from .£1,883,000 to £2,649,000, the number of cattle has increased by nearly half-a-million, and that of sheep by over four millions, while the sugar crop was worth JB 1,920, 000 last year, as compared with £1,066,000 in 1903. The development of the dairying industry, however, is the most remarkable event in recent Queensland history. The idea of producing butter on a big scale in the Northern Stats would have been ridiculed a very few years ago, yet in 1903 the outpat was worth £313,892, and last year that value was more than doubled. Concurrently, Queensland butter has obtained recognition on the London market, where it now commands, if not top price, a good average figure. That is a striking and encouraging fact, as showing the adaptability of the soil to the production of a commodity the demand for which is enormous and continually increasing, and it teaches a lesson which may be taken to heart all over Australia. Given favourable nmobi, and under the vigorous forward policy of the last few years— instances of which are the encouragement given to immigrant* and the extent to which land is tbrowa upen for settlement — Queensland may look forward to a prosperous, expansive future.