CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 71, 23 March 1877, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

j WOOL PRODUCTION. To the- Editor of, the...' Evening Mail.' Sir,— tThe accuracy^ of . the . statement I made in your paper regarding .the very great inferiority of Victoria compared with New South VVales in the matter of wool-growing having been questioned, I sliall feel obliged if ; you will reprint the following passage quoted from the London Times newspaper in the Australasian of June 3rd;'1876, page 729, which quite bears me out :— " It is in sheep| however.that the great wealth of the Austra- 1 lism Colonies^ consists; their flocks, having attained the prodigious number of 61,650,000 in! 1874, an increaseof 3,600,000; ' or six per cent, over the. previous year. New. South \Vales possesses 23.000,000 of this total, Victoria more than 11,000,000, and the other colonies own from . 6,000,000 to .7,000,000 each." The fact is that many . thousand bales of wool produced in New South Wales are for convenience shipped at Melbourne! and Victorians take the credit of these as if grown in their colony. In the naive words of an official publication— The Progress of. Victoria, h y W. 11. Archer, Registrar-General^ page 77— referring to the exports ot wool: " The imports via the Murray are not distinguished in the Customs returns." j I am, &c, F. W. Irvine.