ON EARTH.'

The speaker was the Rev. A. R. Edgar, head of the Central Mission,
Melbourne.

"'After circling the globe, then, you are still satisfied that
Australia is not a bad country to live in?'

"'The best,' said Mr Edgar, emphatically. 'I have no hesitation in
saying that Canada and America are not to be compared with Australia.
Unfortunately, England doesn't know it. Australia herself doesn't
half realise it, and as for America and Canada, they haven't the
remotest ghost of a notion of it. In England they learn with
regrettable slowness, and their knowledge is scanty indeed; but
across the Atlantic the ignorance is deplorable. "Australia?" says
the Canadian. "Oh yes! Let's see, that's the place where it's always
droughty--yes, yes, to be sure, the place where y' can't get a drink
of water." He laughs at the idea of Australia producing as much wool
and wheat as Canada, and bluntly tells you there's no country on the
face of the planet can grow wheat and wool like his. But the fact is,
there isn't a bit of territory fit to compare with the Western
District of Victoria, for example, and conditions are infinitely
harder for the agriculturist than in Australia. Canada's western
district is icebound in winter, and her eastern lands are strewn over
with great boulders, between which the plough works laboriously in
and out'."--From the "New Idea."

I often feel for the dweller in Canada; for notwithstanding his
beautiful spring and autumn he has six months of ice and snow and
freezing winds, and I feel selfishly grateful that my lot is cast in
more genial Australia.

Let us well ponder Mr. Edgar's concise and forcible statement: "If we
Australians took as much trouble to prepare for our summer as the
Canadians take to forestall their winter, Australia would be the most
prosperous country on earth."

This is quite true. The Canadian must thoughtfully and rationally
prepare for his winter, or he would freeze and starve. We have no
frigid climate to prepare against, but we have possible drought, and
our first and greatest consideration should be the conservation of
water for irrigation.

This water conservation is exceedingly important thing. Men do not
think, and the waste is enormous. When the rain falls it runs into
the gully, from the gully to the creek, from the creek to the river,
from the river into the sea; and then in the dry season water is
deplorably scarce.

I once asked a young squatter from the New