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348 without reason, I must confess, as we have not yet reached perfection with our fine wines."

From wine-culture the conversation naturally turned to the labor question, which Mr. Watson said was one of the perplexities of Queensland. The climate is too hot to permit the white man to work in the fields and other places where severe manual exertion is required, with the exception of the elevated regions of the Darling Downs and some other comparatively cool places. Consequently there has been a necessity for imported labor, and in endeavoring to secure it Queensland has had a great deal of trouble.

In previous chapters we have alluded to the Polynesian labor-trade, much of which was carried on in the interest of the sugar-planters of Queensland. There were many abuses in its early days, but at present the trade is under so many restrictions that the laborers have little cause for complaint. The natives are brought to the colony for three years; the master is bound to give them food and lodging, thirty dollars a year wages, and then pay their passage home in addition to the outward passage which he has paid to the ship-master who brings the laborers from their islands.

By the last census there were about six thousand Polynesians in Queensland, ten thousand five hundred Chinese, and about two thousand inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago. The Chinese, like the Polynesians, are mostly employed in out-door work, though a considerable number of them are utilized as house-servants, and in other domestic employments. They go to Australia to earn a certain amount of money, and then return home, just as they come to the United States. Of more than ten thousand Chinese in Queensland, all but forty-nine were men; and no matter how prosperous a Chinese may be in Australia, he rarely thinks of taking his family there.

Frank asked what was the total population of the colony.

"Not far from three hundred and fifty thousand," was the reply.