conditions are well known in most of the islands from which the labourers are recruited. According to official figures, the number of islanders in Queensland increased in 1895 from 7,853 to 8,163, of whom nearly two-thirds are in the districts of Mackay and Bundaberg; all are employed on the cultivation of sugar, with the exception of a few at Thursday Island, who are engaged in the beche-de-mer and pearl-shell fisheries. It would seem that the only valid objection which can now be made against the system, except by those who disagree from the whole thing on principle, is, that it may lead to the gradual depopulation of some of the islands by the withdrawal of a considerable proportion of the adult males of marriageable age. It may be noted, in this connection, that the islanders have also been recruited for Guatemala, if not for other countries. The mode of cultivation and the treatment of the raw material have been modified during the last few years. At first the cane was grown solely in large plantations, each of which possessed a separate mill and treated only its own produce; but as prices fell and the local demand was overtaken, more scientific {65} methods began to prevail. It was found, on the one hand, that the cane could be treated most economically on a large scale; on the other, that few plantations were sufficiently extensive to keep a large mill at work during the whole season. To meet these conditions, central mills were constructed and the land was in many cases subdivided, and let or sold on a system of deferred payments to farmers, who were encouraged to cultivate it in small areas, and to send their cane to the factories. The interests of the mill-owner and the farmers should be identical; the former is anxious that his mill should be worked to its full capacity, and has every inducement to dispose of his land upon terms favourable to cultivators; the latter have a sure outlet for the disposal of their produce. In 1894, fully 40 per cent. of the 80,000 acres under cane was cultivated in areas of ninety acres and under. An impetus was given to this movement by the temporary prohibition of the importation of islanders, which compelled planters to consider the possibility of an alternative to coloured labour, and by a vote of L50,000, by means of which two central mills were erected for groups of small farmers. The success of these mills induced the Government to pass the Sugar Works Guarantee Act, under which "any company which can give the Government security in land, has the requisite cane crops growing for a fair season's mill work, and can show that it has an area of land capable of supplying the mill with a full crop, can obtain the {66} sanction of the Government to accept a tender for the erection of a factory, the State guaranteeing the interest and the redemption of the debentures issued in payment for it. By this measure the country has not only supplied the means for the steady development of the industry,