but has taken, in its belief in the soundness of the enterprise, a direct interest in it. No surer guarantee can exist than this law, that the Parliament of Queensland will in future safeguard the prosperity of an undertaking in which the State has so keen an incentive to protect itself from loss."[1] The contingent liability incurred by the State in the year ending June, 1895, was L157,000, and in the preceding year L44,000: the amount is likely to be increased, as the construction of seven additional mills has been conditionally approved of, but, under an amending Act of 1895, is not to exceed a total of L500,000. The Premier sees no reason to suppose that, with proper management, any of the new factories will fail to meet their liabilities to the State. Under these circumstances the question arises whether coloured labour will permanently be necessary, the answer to which depends upon the ability of the white man to become acclimatised in a tropical country. "If the white man," to quote a prominent Queenslander, "can live and work and bring {67} up his children in the tropics of this continent, then assuredly the time will come when we shall require coloured labourers to cultivate our cane no more than do the continental sugar-beet farmers require coloured men to do their field work. Where can we look for proof of the European's ability to work and live in the heated North? He works on railways and in mines now, but there is an entire lack of evidence that his children and his children's children can continue to do so with unimpaired health and vigour. Again, it has to be seen what will be the normal death-rate in the North. It has been heavy, but we have yet to estimate the lowering of that rate as the malarial swamps are drained, and the dense tropical scrubs cleared away.... Time alone can solve this question thoroughly, though it may be permitted one to say that so far there is ample reason to think that the evidence is accumulating in favour of the European's ability to permanently inhabit and cultivate our tropical lands. There is some satisfaction in noting, for instance, that, despite the increased settlement in Northern Queensland, the death-rate for the Colony has fallen from 22.97 Per 1,000 in 1884 to 12.08 in 1894."[2] The rate of mortality among the Kanakas is reported officially to have been 40.62 per 1,000 in 1894, and 29.64 in 1895. Their employment is absolutely prohibited in the mills, and is restricted to certain forms of work upon the plantations. The {68} Government are anxious to replace the Kanakas gradually by white labourers and to settle the tropical littoral with a population of small farmers. This object, however, it is contended, cannot be attained without the temporary employment of coloured labour. Another aspect of the question may be noted: granted that white men cannot at present do all the work upon the plantations, Kanakas are preferable to Orientals, whether Chinese or Japanese, who