The state of the meat market in England is already affecting the South Australian squatter very materially,--as also the squatters in the other colonies. I left England in May, 1871, and at that time Australian meats had only begun to make their way in the London markets. In speaking of the Queensland meat-preserving companies as I found them in August and September, 1871, I spoke almost with doubt of the trade;--for there was doubt when I was in Queensland. But when I was in South Australia in April, 1872, the trade was established, and squatters were already calculating that the carcase should not in future be made to give way altogether to the wool. Meat, which is in round figures 10_d._ a pound in London, costs but 2_d._ a pound in South Australia. Then arises the question whether meat can be carried half-way round the globe in a good condition, or whether its nature makes it impossible that good mutton should be imported from Australia as well as good wool. That bad mutton may be imported,--that is, mutton which has been changed from good to bad by processes of cooking and packing previous to exportation,--we have known for some time. That any Australian meat has as yet reached the English market in a state that would enable it to compete with English meat, I do not believe. I feel sure that none has done so. But every mail during the latter months of my sojourn in Australia brought out tidings that the trade was on the increase,--so that when I left the colonies sheep were worth 3_s._ or 4_s._ a head more for butchers than they were twelve months earlier, when I arrived at Melbourne. Three shillings a head is certainly not much on a sheep in England,--where the animal at twelve months old may be worth from £3 10_s._ to £4. But in Australia, where 10_s._ a head is even now a good price, the difference is very large. When I reached Melbourne in July, 1871, I was told at a meat-preserving company that they could not afford to give more than 6_s._ a sheep. All that goes home to England is, after all, but a morsel to the markets of that little island; but to this wide continent the preparation of that morsel is most important.