Page:Advanced Australia.djvu/52

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ADVANCED AUSTRALIA

districts, the more delicate clarets and hocks are produced. If a thoroughly profitable export trade can be established, there will be an almost illimitable field for its development, for almost all over the colony vines grow freely. Already these wines are becoming known in the English market, about 300,000 gallons being exported annually. The orange also grows well; and within a few miles of the city luxuriant groves may be reached, where the rich yellow fruit is seen shining in abundance through the dark glossy leaves. Olive oil of good quality is manufactured, and the dull sage-green foliage is to be seen on every hand, for the tree is largely cultivated. Once started, it seems to grow without further trouble. Of course, the local demand is limited; and up to the present the oil has not been manufactured to such an extent as to enable it to compete outside the colony with the product of the south of Europe, or rather with that cotton-seed oil which is commonly sold as Italian to the undiscriminating Briton. What can be done with olive oil in Australia has been shown in the neighbouring colony, at Perth, where the Roman Catholic Bishop lately sold and shipped a limited quantity, for flavouring purposes, to Italy itself; a method of sending "coals to Newcastle" which is not without its parallel elsewhere in Australia, as we shall presently see. But, in industries such as these, cheap labour is the great essential: and it is a satisfactory thing, after all, that labour cannot be obtained at the same rate here as in European countries.

The mineral wealth of South Australia is not so important a factor in the community's wealth as in some of the other colonies; but in the early days some of the richest copper mines of the world were discovered and worked here. The famous Burra Burra mine yielded