apple or a plum,” says England, “and do not be impertinent enough to quibble about its being a trifle overripe or blighted.” To the people at home who assert—as I have often heard them do—that Australia is a completely self-seeking country, I would recommend a short study of Australian commerce—even of Victorian commerce alone—and of the statistics showing the imports of the last few years, a very brief perusal of which will be sufficient to prove that an infinitely larger amount of Australian money is spent in England, and other parts of the Empire, than in any foreign country. In 1908 Australia spent in imports from British Possessions, including India, £36,319,781, as against £13,479,492 in those from all other countries, including the United States. In 1904–1908 the proportion of goods imported from England and other British Possessions averaged 72.93 per cent., and from all other countries, including America, 27.7 per cent.—could England itself show as fair a record? Again, though in 1908, £1,305,602 were spent on German imports by Victoria alone, the value of Victorian goods exported to Germany reached £2,015,536, so that the obligation was by no manner of means all on one side. [Picture: Dairy Herd and Silo] Mr. Foster Fraser has two great faults to find with Australians—they are slack, and they are few. Oddly enough, while continually reverting to the thinness of the population in the country districts, he finds fault—to take only one of the many instances—with the fact that the output of butter is nowhere near as great in Australia as it is in Denmark. Denmark, a made country! A country that has been perfecting its dairying industry for years! Why, I remember when I was quite a small child—and that was a long while ago—that the cooking butter used to be brought in little kegs from Denmark—to a pastoral country like England, too! Little Denmark, which, including Iceland, has a population of 2,708,470, with a density of 49.94, as against the immense continent of Australia, with its population, according to the last census, of 4,275,306. Why, Denmark, including Iceland, covers an area of but 55,306 square miles, and Victoria, the smallest state in Australia, 87,884. Put 2,708,470 people—the population of Denmark—into it to start dairy-farming, and then comparisons may become merely odious, and not, in addition, ludicrous. As it is, Victoria alone exported to the United Kingdom, in 1908, butter to the value of £868,068, and that’s “none so dusty,” as her own people would say; while the amount of butter actually consumed there was valued at £1,250,000, and cheese, both consumed and exported, at £100,000.