fitable to the small cane-growers as well as to the big companies; but its future will depend to some extent on the attitude adopted towards it by the Federal Commonwealth, as well as on the abolition of bounties by the nations of the European continent. The proposal that the United Kingdom should take off the duties on tea, coffee, and cocoa, and levy a like amount on beet sugar, has not unnaturally found support in Queensland. And it has been pointed out that, when sugar was put on the free list, it was produced entirely by British colonists, while tea was the product of a foreign country: exactly the reverse of present conditions. Coffee planting has not yet become a staple industry, though it has been found that in the scrub lands of northern Queensland an investment of £1000 on 20 acres will give a return of £400 per annum after the fourth year. The world's demand exceeds 500,000 tons, worth £40,000,000 sterling; but Liberian coffee, which is the variety mostly grown in Queensland and the Pacific, as well as in the Malay Peninsula and Borneo, has not yet recommended itself to the British or American palate, or at least has not overcome the prejudices of the middleman. A project is afoot at Singapore, amongst the planters of the Far East, to take some common action, as was done by the Ceylon tea-planters, to bring their wares before the consumer. Java or Malay coffee has merits of its own; and certainly an enforcement of the Adulteration Act should result in a great falling off in the sale of alleged coffee extracts, and would vastly alter the quality of the brew sold at our coffee stalls. The United States have not the same objections as ourselves to adulteration; yet even there the burnt beans which are served out to troops and civilians alike might be abandoned in favour of the real article. After all, the first coffee
