continent, with the exception possibly of the Fitzroy in West Australia, and the Murray. Chinese experts have pronounced the valley of the Adelaide to be equal in natural richness to the famous rice-lands of Hainan. The plains adjacent to the Victoria, the Daly, and the Margaret rivers are equally fertile. Sugar, cotton, rubber, rice, indigo, coffee, and many varieties of fibre plants, sisal hemp in particular, have been experimentally grown there and elsewhere with the most encouraging results. Cotton thrives admirably; and Northern Australia, if fully developed, could supply the textile needs of Lancashire as completely as the southern and central portions of the continent now supply those of Yorkshire. Further inland, and eastwards, the rich black soil of the Barkly tableland, some 20,000,000 acres in extent, is believed by some authorities to be adapted for wheat-growing. A similar tract on the upper Victoria, nearly twice as extensive and equally fertile, may yet rival the famous 'black lands' of Russia, or the Canadian prairies, as a source of food supplies. So far, however, the suitability of the areas just referred to for the production of wheat has not been practically demonstrated; and their remoteness would in any case, until means of cheap transport had been provided, forbid their cultivation. Of the success that, were suitable labour obtainable, would attend agricultural operations in several coastal districts within easy reach of deep water there can be no doubt whatever. In view of the striking advantages just enumerated, and others that might be added, the question naturally suggests itself, Why, after a century of British ownership and nominal occupation, does the Territory remain an almost empty wilderness ? How is it that millions of acres of rich land, skirting large navigable rivers and regularly watered by copious monsoon rains, still remain uninhabited and untilled; while, within easy reach of the northern shores of Australia, hundreds of millions of people, crowded to repletion, struggle desperately for the bare necessaries of life? A single island, Java, separated only by a narrow strip of sea from Australia, contains at present more than six times the number of inhabitants dwelling in a continent sixty times its size. That the whole extent of the Australian continent north of the Tropic of Capricorn is occupied to-day by fewer white inhabitants than may be found in each of at least half a dozen provincial towns in England, is a fact that must be due to some special causes. Government by an absentee and, so far as tropical problems are concerned, an ignorant legislature and executive may be mentioned as one of the minor causes of the deplorable stagnation prevailing in the Northern Territory. The Commonwealth's chief representative there has never been allowed a free hand in administrative matters. He may recommend new measures, or the alteration of those that have proved unsuitable to local conditions; but the Federal Ministry in Melbourne, two thousand miles away, subject to rather perfunctory parliamentary supervision, alone possesses the power of drawing up Ordinances which operate as enactments in the Federal dependencies. Those Ordinances in a great degree bear traces of the noxious political influences exercised by the leaders of the southern trade unions, whose chief object is to keep all the Federal territories as a special industrial preserve for the white elect of Australia. Jealousy of private land-ownership, and an inveterate hostility to the employment of coloured labour of any kind, have always characterised the attitude of Australian Labour towards the Northern Territory. No matter how able and well-informed the Administrator may be, he is powerless to carry out, on his own initiative, any important beneficial measures. And his position is rendered all the more difficult by the outrageous attitude towards the Administration adopted by the local trade-unionists supported by their comrades in the south. It is scarcely too much to say that at the present time, the real rulers of the Northern Territory are the officials of the chief labour organisation represented there, the Australian Workers' Union. This body dominates the Darwin Municipal Council, the local bureaucracy, and, through the affiliated industrial organisations in the south, especially when the Labour party commands a majority there, the Federal Parliament. The white-ant pest is sometimes adduced as a reason for the lack of agricultural settlement in the Northern Territory. Undoubtedly white ants. are far more numerous and destructive there than elsewhere in Australia. But they are, or were, equally abundant in many closely settled districts in Africa; and their ravages, by the exercise of certain precautions, can be held in check. The same remark applies to the mosquito, the scourge of the tropics, whose presence in all parts of tropical Australia inspires the white toiler to outbursts of exuberant blasphemy. The white ant of Darwin, it must be admitted, is an insect of unusual powers and appetite. Besides wool, leather, and such comestibles, it is said to devour such unappetising fare as lead pipes and billiard balls. Mosquitoes and white ants together make living conditions in the Territory, to the white man, decidedly unpleasant; but worse enemies have been overcome by settlers in other new countries. Apologists of the orthodox White Australia' school usually attribute the 'pernicious anæmia,' from which the Northern Territory has suffered ever since it first became a British possession, chiefly to the remoteness of the region from the comparatively populous portions of the Australian continent. Isolation, they confidently assert, has been throughout the root cause of the prevailing malady. But it may be pointed out that, in a geographical sense, the Territory is far less isolated than New South Wales. It is not, like Switzerland or Bolivia, a land-locked country. It has a long coast-line, and is within easy steaming distance of the most populous countries in the world. It is nearer Europe, as well as Asia, than either Victoria, New South Wales, or Queensland. Its capital, Darwin, is the real front-door of the Australian continent; and the Territory possesses all those natural facilities in the way of harbours, navigable rivers, rich and well-watered lands and easily accessible markets, necessary to render a country self-supporting. The 'isolation' plea is, therefore, insufficient. British Columbia up to a quite recent time was as much isolated from Canada, and California as much cut off from the older States of the American Union, as the Northern Territory is still from Victoria; yet both those provinces made considerable progress before railway communication with the eastern shores of America had been accomplished. The completion of the long-delayed railway from Darwin to Adelaide or, preferably, Brisbane would be of considerable strategical value, stimulate pastoral settlement in the central regions of Australia, and cause a regular flow of travellers and tourists through the Territory; but it would do nothing towards establishing the vital and paramount industry of agriculture there, and settling a permanent population on the soil. Failing a fundamental change of policy in regard to the development of tropical Australia, a railway across the centre of the continent from north to south would merely mean a heavy addition to the burdens already borne by the Australian tax-payer. * In the brief sketch already given of the industries carried on in the Northern Territory no particular reference was made to agriculture. The reason for this apparently strange omission is simple. There is practically no agricultural industry in the region. Even the vegetables consumed by the residents of Darwin are largely imported. A neglected waste some sixty acres in extent near the capital known as the Botanical Gardens, a few cultivated plots in the same vicinity on which Chinamen grow pineapples, bananas, etc., for the use of the white residents, and a couple of Government Demonstration Farms,' each 2560 acres in extent, constitute almost the only signs of agricultural activity in the Territory. About fifteen settlers were induced some years ago to take up land in the Daly River district, but late reports indicate that most of these holdings have been abandoned. Since all the agricultural products officially recorded to have been exported from the Territory during the year 1918 consisted of nine bales of broom millet, which were sold in Melbourne for the modest sum of 427. 10s. 6d., and a box of butter, it seems clear that, making the amplest allowance for the requirements of the minute local population, the northern * According to figures compiled by Mr S. W. B. Macgregor, the Senior British Trade Commissioner in Australia, the loss on the four existing Federal Government railways for the year ending June 30, 1921, including interest on cost of construction, was 445,2007. Since the bridging of the 1000-mile gap between Oodnadatta and the Katherine River necessary to complete the transcontinental railway would cost not less than 8,000,0007., and the traffic returns for a number of years would be negligible, the financial objections to the carrying out of the project are obvious. farmer in Australia has not yet found the road to success in his vocation. A few years ago some 200 Welshmen, attracted by Government blandishments, went to the Northern Territory by the unusual route of Patagonia. They firmly refused, however, like the Greeks, Russians, Egyptians, and other elements of the composite population of the country, to become tillers of the soil. A place like Darwin, where the average maximum shade temperature exceeds 90°, and the mean annual temperature is about four degrees higher than that of Colombo, could hardly be expected to encourage strenuous outdoor exertion. It is a lamentable fact,' wrote Dr Gilruth, the late Administrator, just before his retirement, 'that the only improvement made in the way of cultivation on land in Darwin or its vicinity are those made by the Chinese on annual leaseholds.' And yet abundance of land of good quality lying close to the railway within a short distance of Darwin can be purchased at the moderate price of 2s. per acre. In more remote localities land of the richest kind can be had practically for nothing; and the Government offers liberal assistance to settlers. The Government 'Demonstration Farms' have served the negatively useful purpose of demonstrating how easily money can be wasted by foolish legislators. The local functionary, bearing the imposing title of Director of Lands and Agriculture, issues periodically elaborate reports of a gloomy complexion concerning the attempts made, under State direction, to foster agricultural settlement in the Territory. With wise reticence the Administration furnishes in the annual Report no statement of accounts. Evidently, however, the official mind has at last become convinced that white hands are not adapted for tropical cultivation, as it has been decided in future to utilise both farms chiefly as stock-raising establishments. How costly and unreliable white labour is in the Territory may be understood when it is mentioned that * 85 men were at first employed on the two farms, and that 50 of these abandoned their occupation in the course of twelve months. The wages then paid varied from 10s. to 158. per day of eight hours, but these rates have * Report of the Administrator for the year 1912. Vol. 238.-No. 472. N |
