to. The city of Paris alone requires nearly 300,000 gallons of wine
daily. Now, the total yearly wine production of the whole of Australia
is but a little over three million gallons. It will follow from the
preceding, then, that the single city of Paris itself would consume in
12 days all the wine which the whole of Australia takes 12 MONTHS to
make.

The future prosperity of Australia, at least to a very great extent, is
wrapped up in her wine industry; for its development means much more
than a large export trade to other countries. It means, in
fact, the use of Australian wine as a national and every-day wholesome
beverage; it means the covering of the land with smiling vineyards; it
means employment and a healthy calling literally to thousands upon
thousands; and, lastly, it means settlement upon the land, and a more
diffused distribution of the population throughout Australia.

It must be remembered that the nervous system is far more susceptible
to the effects of alcohol in a warm than in a cooler climate. It is
said that in Southern Europe there are very few water drinkers, but
that, on the other hand, there are very few who indulge in strong
drink. The system does not feel to want the strong alcohol, so to
speak. A weaker wine in a warm climate produces the same feeling of
exhilaration that one of greater alcoholic strength does in colder
countries. We shall not go far wrong in Australia if we stick to our
own natural wines. As it will be found in the chapter on Australian
wine, the every-day wine for Australian use is a wine of low alcoholic
strength; a wine of which a tumblerful may be taken with benefit; a
wine, indeed, which is beneficial, cheering, hygienic, restorative, and
wholesome.