T.—l2a.

APPENDIX.

EXHIBIT I.—ADDRESS BY MR. W A. GRAHAM ON THE BEET-ROOT SUGAR INDUSTRY The Special Adaptability op Waikato Land Twenty years ago I had the honour of addressing a meeting of Waikato farmers and residents upon the important subject of sugar-beet-root culture in Waikato, at Ohaupo, on the 23rd August 1887 and the objects I have now in view are the same as they were then—to again impress upon Waikato townsmen and countrymen tiro great field for advancement with which the Waikato district is endowed by Providence in her soils, climate, rivers, limestones, timbers, and coals and her special adaptability for sugar-beet-root cultivation and the manufacture of sugar therefrom " }%%'> twent y years ago, the consumption of sugar- molasses, &c, in New Zealand was about 20,000 tons per annum; in 1906 it exceeded 40,000 tons. Now Zealand can never produce sugarcane for sugar-manufacture, neither can she ever manufacture sugar from sorghum cane She must therefore continue to import all the sugar she consumes unless the sugar-beet-root industry is established in Waikato. New-Zealanders consume 107 lb. per head per annum (see New Zealand Department of Agriculture Report for 1907, page 100). This is all imported cane-sugar- although they possess m Waikato a premier field for sugar-beet-root cultivation and beet-sugar- manufacture Phis is a fact worth attention, especially for Waikato landowners and business men to consider Twenty Years ago. Twenty years ago, at the meeting of farmers at Ohaupo, Waikato, Mr George Edgecumbe then the proprietor of the Waikato Time,, and the late Mr Yon Stunner were appointed by the meeting to assist me to collate from my address at the time such information as would be useful for the farmers and others willing to co-operate with a sugar-beet factory to be established in Waikato. This was done, and printed in pamphlet form. Twenty years' further- experience and study of the question and the results of actual experiments made only adds to the conviction then formed, that m the sugar-beet-root culture and industry rests the future greatness of the Waikato district. Her goldfields, forests, and other natural resources may become exhausted at a more or less early date, but her agricultural and her dairy industries can never- be exhausted so long as industry itself and British law and enterprise prevail. Twenty years ago our dairy industry was m its infant stage, and the sugar-beet-root industry and co-operation between townsmen and countrymen was then advocated in the interests of the dairy-farming industry It is the object we still have in view In 1887 (twenty years ago) New Zealand exported very little butter (if any), m 1896 she exported 16,000 tons, valued at £1,560,000, and she exported 130,000 cwt of cheese, valued at £340,000. In 1885 the total value of butter and cheese factories in New Zealand was only £44,000, in 1900 it had increased to £1,260,000 In 1.905 there were 264 butter and cheese factories, valued at (with repairs) £2,100,000, operating on materials valued at upwards of £2,000,000. The interval of twenty years of continuous progress should form a sufficient base from which to make our calculations for the future demands and progress of our dairy and a°ricutturai industries in Waikato and the Dominion as a whole, and as a home market for agricultural produce and manufactures. Professor Murphy on New Zealand. Speaking generally of agriculture in New Zealand, Professor Murphy, F.L.S , is quoted in page 451 of the New Zealand Official Year-book for- 1900 as follows : " It is generally admitted that there is no part of the British dominions where agriculture, in its widest sense, can*be carried out with so much certainty and with such good results as in Mew Zealand. The range of latitude, extending as it does from 30° to 47° south, secures the colony a diversity of climate which renders it suitable for all the products of subtropical and temperate zones, while an insular position protects it from the continuous and parching droughts which periodically inflict such terrible losses on the agriculturist and pastoralist of Australia and South Africa. Again, the climate, although somewhat variable, never reaches the extreme of heat and cold, so genial, indeed, is it that mostanimals and plants, when first introduced to the colony assume a vigour unknown to them before." Imported Tobacco. The amount of tobacco imported into New Zealand in 1906 was under 42,0001b. of unmanufactured leaf, valued at less than £2,000, whereas manufactured tobacco imported amounted to 2,044,0001b., valued at £198,000; cigars, 68,0001b., valued at £25,000; and cigarettes, 2,500,0001b., valued at £105,000—a total of upwards of £330,000 imported tobacco for the year Waikato has proved herself capable of producing the finest tobacco-leaf for manufacturing purposes, and therefore tobacco will form an important item in the sugar-beet-root industry, as it will become one of the alternating crops in lands suited to its production The Flax Industry The New Zealand flax industry (Phormium tenax) is only in its initial and experimental stages still, as with sugar-beet, but it, has already, owing to raw material at hand (which source of supply is fast disappearing before the face of settlement of our waste lands), made great progress as a fibre in the markets of the world during the past twenty years, and this industry is also an associate of the sugar-beet-root industry of the future, as the lands adapted for cultivation of the sugar-beets for sugar purposes will, when thoroughly farmed, be found to be adapted for the

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