Coloured labour has been depended upon to
a large extent. Even the poorest settler has had the aid of aboriginals.
But with the passing of that race, and prohibition against the employment
of any sort of coloured labour, the question is to be asked, Can tropical
products be grown profitably unless consumers are willing to pay a
largely increased price--a price equivalent to the difference between the
earnings of those who toil in other tropical countries and the living
wage of a white man in Australia?
Fruit of many acceptable varieties can be grown to perfection with little
labour in immense quantities. Coffee is one of the most prolific of
crops. Timber is obtainable in magnificent assortment and unrealisable
quantities. Poultry and pigs multiply extraordinarily. Apart from bananas
the fruit trade is shifty and treacherous. The markets are far away and
inconstant, the means of transport not yet perfect. Many assert that not
half the pine-apples and oranges, and not one-hundredth part of the
mangoes produced in North Queensland are consumed. That the quantity
grown is trivial in comparison with what would be, were the demand
regular and consistent, is self-evident.
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