THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. 97

the former state of the meat market had so effectually
introduced a system of over-stocking the runs in
order to keep numbers on account of their wool alone,
that it took a considerable time for many settlers to
discover that, in proportion to numbers of sheep, the
wool bales were not increased when that increase of
numbers went beyond the limits within which sheep
could be kept in good healthy condition.

This fact, I think, sheepowners generally for some
years past have been gradually becoming alive to :
hence the diminished importation of beef and mutton
during the last five or six years, while at the same
time the market has been better supplied with good
meat and at reasonable rates.

During those years when we were paying £100,000
per annum for imported meat, according to the
Statistics, we had from 1,700,000 to 1,800,000 sheep
in Tasmania; while the Customs Returns demon-
strate that the export of wool was not greater than
at present, when we have between 300,000 and 400,000
fewer sheep, and a supply of meat very nearly equal
to the demand: from which I conclude that, with a
further reduction in numbers on the natural pas-
turages, we shall have an abundant supply of fat
meat without importing either bullocks or sheep,
together with an increased weight of wool of a more
valuable quality.

It would be out of place in a paper of this kind to
enter into the discussion of abstract questions of
political economy, or inquire if a tax on beef and
mutton is to be justified on the ground that beef and
mutton have no higher claims to be styled necessaries
of life now-a-days, in this quarter of the world, than
tea and sugar and other articles which many consider
quite as necessary adjuncts in the composition of a
wholesome and palatable meal. Waiving, therefore,
any expression of my own opinion upon the economic
and political aspect of the question of the propriety
or otherwise of taxing what are often somewhat
arbitrarily termed the necessaries of life, I have no
hesitation in stating my belief that the practical
operation of the impost on bullocks and sheep has
tended to induce farmers to turn their attention
more to the production of meat; and while it has,
combined with other causes, produced a steadier and
more certain market, it has not enhanced the cost of
the article to the consumer during the last twelve
months, if such an opinion may be deduced from
the fact that the retail prices of meat in Hobart
Town have ruled lower on an average than in many
former years, when the market was almost entirely
supplied by importations from Victoria and New
South Wales.

There has been a considerable export of rams to
New South Wales and elsewhere, which may be
expected to increase every year. The fact of a Scab
Act being in operation here tends to largely increase
this export; and I believe that in a few years, when
scab in Tasmania has become a thing of the past, the
export of rams and ewes for stud purposes to the
northern Colonies will increase to such an extent
that I hesitate at the present time to express
an opinion as to its probable value to the Colony
in future years, because, if I was to do so, I
should run the risk of being considered a vision-
ary, whose judgment was dazzled and obscured by
exaggerated ideas of the importance of the work
he had in hand. I therefore content myself with
stating that, in my opinion, before ten years elapse,
the annual export of stud sheep will form an import-
ant item in the general exports of Tasmania, and
that it will owe its increased importance to the opera-
tion of the Scab Act seconding the efforts and
protecting the interests of the few who now, and
the largely increased number of those who will in the
future, devote their attention to and invest their
capital in improving the existing as well as in
creating new stud flocks.

When I stated in Parliament that in my opinion
the complete eradication of scab from the flocks
of Tasmania would increase the income of sheep-
owners by £120,000 per annum, and was supported
and confirmed in that opinion by the calculations of
another practical sheep-farmer of extensive ex-
perience in Victoria and in Tasmania (Mr. Robert
Clerk, then of Malahide), many persons were dis-
posed to laugh at what they were pleased to
characterize as the exaggerated views of an enthu-
siast: they had no doubt about the great advantages
which might be expected to flow from the eradication
of disease from the flocks of Tasmania, but the idea
of an increased income of £120,000 or more per
annum was pooh-poohed as absurd in the extreme.

However absurd and exaggerated the statement
appeared to many at the time, a review of the calcu-
lations upon which it was based, I venture to say,
will convince any practical sheep-farmer that I was
no visionary enthusiast, but a careful understater of
probable results in every item which composed the
sum total of my estimated £120,749 per annum
increased income. Mr. Clerk, I observe, calculated
the amount at £145,676; and I now consider, as I
did at the time, his calculation nearer the truth than
my own. In my estimate I calculated that the
labour of 400 men would be saved: this, at £50
each per annum, is £20,000. Now, I have every
reason to believe that, instead of a saving of the
labour of 400 men, it will save the labour of 500
men, or £25,000 per annum, hitherto expended in
wholly unproductive labour.

I append to this Report, for your information, the
calculations made by Mr. Clerk and myself at the
time I was preparing "The Scab Act, 1870," together
with a revised one made now with the advantage of
fuller information on the subject.

With the view of ascertaining the general opinion
of sheepowners regarding the working of the Act and
the amendments it requires, I sent out a circular
with a number of queries to settlers in every district
in the Island, taking them indiscriminately with
reference to their opinions having been favourable
or adverse to the Act; and I am now in a position to
state that the strongest expressions of approval in
some instances come from gentlemen who were
formerly the loudest in condemnation of a Scab Act
of any kind whatever.

To the questions-"Has 'The Scab Act, 1870,'
effected an improvement in the condition of the sheep
generally throughout Tasmania during the last twelve
months? Has its operation been beneficial and
without the infliction of hardship?"-I have received
replies from over 120 sheepowners, representing more
than 500,000 sheep, and out of that number there are
only two or three individuals who answer them
adversely.

The several papers containing the queries and
answers thereto, I herewith forward for the informa-
tion of the Government.

It affords me great pleasure to be able to report
that the gentlemen who were appointed Inspectors
have, by their energy and intelligence, fully borne
out the favourable opinion I had formed of their
qualifications. I should consider it an advantage if
the fund would bear the additional cost of two more
Inspectors during the next twelve months; but
under the present system of raising that fund, it will
not bear a larger staff.

If the fund was derived from a small impost on
wool instead of so much per sheep,-say, 9d. or 1s.
per one hundred pounds weight of wool,-it would be
a much simpler mode of raising the amount, and I
have no hesitation in stating my belief that it would