—advised to take up such holdings, well provided as they already are with roads, schools, churches, railways and all the conveniences of civilisation. The South-West, with its unsurpassed climate and its many accompanying advantages, is that home of closer settlement in this State.

Roads.—The condition of the roads in the older settled districts was generally satisfactory, but in the new districts they are capable of great improvement. We have fully referred to the roads question in our previous report.

Clearing and Land Development.—The cost of clearing varies every mile, and the methods of treating the timber are also varied. Generally the old practice of ringbarking large areas is now condemned. The settler should only ringbark what he can comfortably keep in hand, especially jarrah and red gum, which, when touched with the axe, suckers very badly. From a grazing point of view the value of overgrown ringbarked country is infinitesimal. Generally also we hold that partially clearing land for grass in the early stages of a holding-taking out the small trees, leaving the large trees standing and ploughing round the stumps to grow crops and establish grass-is that best policy. At the risk of repetition we point out again that dairying should be the mainstay of the country, and a policy of partial clearing will enable a living to be earned from cows at an early stage, after which the clearing of the partly subjugated country can be accomplished gradually on the lines of least resistance.

Child Immigration.—We visited the farm school which is being run at Pinjarra by Mr Kingsley Fairbridge. We will allow him to describe in his own words, which carry with them their acceptance or condemnation, the main design of the farm school: "There are normally in England 200,000 orphan and destitute children, and these are brought up in workhouses and orphanages and similar institutions. My theory is that it is bad that these children should be allowed to grow up in England, where there is little demand afterwards for their services, and furthermore, unfortunately, a stigma attaches to them for the reason that they have been brought up at the expense of the ratepayer. This is not the case in the colonies, where a man is accepted for what he is worth rather than on account of such consideration. I am a colonial myself, and I conceived an idea that it would be useful national work to try and get these children from the orphanages and workhouses and immigrate them to the colonies and train them in a farm school. I should like to explain that my farm is not a model one, nor is it intended as such. The idea is simply that the children shall grow up and learn the initiative in farming matters, and this they can get no opportunity of doing in England." In our previous report we have recommended then encouragement of child immigration. Mr Fairbridge's effort certainly deserves all the encouragement the State can give it.

Diseases and Pests.—Incidentally, we have dealt with orchard pests in dealing with the fruit-growing industry. In a moist climate like the South-West, tick in sheep will always be a trouble which can only be kept down by systematic dipping, which should be continuously enforced under State supervision. Lice in sheep occurs occasionally, and the remedy is the same. The blowfly trouble in sheep is a far more alarming feature, the seriousness of which is perhaps hardly realised, the scientific opinion being that it threatens seriously the whole Australian sheep industry. Too much importance cannot be attached to the burning of all carcases and to thorough crutching and dipping of sheep as preventives. Here, too, not as affecting the State as a whole, at the moment, but as affecting the State as a whole, we should sound a note of warning as to the danger attendant upon any unnecessary use of poison in the destruction of rabbits. Poison admittedly must be employed, but every effort should be made to limit its use by relying, as a first line of defence, upon, as far as possible, trapping with cyanide poisoning at the dams, where all carcases can be burnt. Rickets in two forms also affect the South-West. The first is that caused by eating the Zamia palm, for which there seems to be no practical remedy under actual working conditions. The second is that of enlarged joints occurring on portions of the plain country from Busselton to the Moora district. This is held by the Stock Department to be due to an absence of lime salts in the soil, which can be, to a certain extent, countered by removing affected stock to cultivated fields or to country not so deficient.

The Dingo Trouble.—In the immense forests, stretching from the Leeuwin to Albany, the dingo roams undisturbed, and is always a menace to the breeding sheep. We express the opinion that a conference of roads boards affected should be convened by the Government to see if a dog-proof fence on the frontier line of southern settlement could not be constructed at the expense of the enclosed country, the cost of the erection and patrol to be reimbursed by a rate on the protected country. Settlers hold that the present system of identification where the bonus is claimed for the destruction of dingoes, under which the regulations require that a strip of the skin from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail must be produced, is unworkable. A suggestion is made that the tail only should be required and that the identification should be in the hands of the roads board, where experienced men can protect the State from imposition and see that the bonus is paid to the genuine applicant. Where dingoes are destroyed by poison, the carcase may not be discovered for some time, when it is frequently decomposed and it is more or less impossible to comply with the present identification requirements. The result of the existing regulations is that trappers, who for the sake of the reward carried out poisoning systematically and were rewarded by the bonus for the time and trouble taken, are reported to have ceased making any special effort in this direction.

Development Railways.—The Commission must hold that it is folly to build more agricultural railways in Western Australia till settlement on existing lines is built up. Under such a policy, the settlers on the Margaret River should be the only exception, and they should be assisted by a railway or—