For several years now there has been very little news from the cotton world which has been bright in every aspect and, if it is possible for outsiders to judge, the main problem would appear—to be almost as much the maintenance of supplies to meet the—existing demand as the covering of the increased requirements of a world that requires more pocket handkerchiefs and other articles of adornment for newly _evlightened people every year. Every new country to be developed is first and foremost a cotton country, and after all these years, comes Australia. The cry of '"QOotton for Australia'? has been rapidly increasing in volume and now it has been taken up by the finest press agent the country has ever had—that hardworking, popular, and, we believe, very genuine man, Mr. Hughes, the Premier. Reuter reports Mr. Hughes as having predicted in a speech at Melbourne "'that cotton-growing would become one of the greatest industries of Australia, affording scope for tens of thousands of immigrants." We would not doubt for a minute that cotton can be grown as well as anywhere in a country like Australia, with its almost limitless possibilities, but one would like to hear how Australia is going to surmount the picking difficulty. Un-Jess we are very ignorant, cotton picking is a negro's job in the United States and a native's in any other country. The strawberry and potato pickers of the Eastern Counties are the dregs of the slums and certainly are not the type of immigrant Australia would encourage. Field picking of any sort is a cruel job and is very near to the last thing any white man would choose. If, as.is said, Australia's native population is dying out and is already, comparatively, a mere handful, where are the pickers to come from, and who are the immigrants Mr. Hughes has in mind?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.