A WHITE ELEPHANT.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 98, 1 June 1914, Page 5

A WHITE ELEPHANT.

THE NORTHERN TERRITORY.

On January 1, 1911, the Commonwealth formally took over the Northern Territory from South Australia, and since then has been endeavouring to develop the country on lines permitted by the White Australia Policy and the trade unions, wrote Henry Stead in anEnglish journal. . South Australia honestly tried its best to develop its northern district, but after Federation the exclusion of the Chinese and other coloured races immediately affected these efforts, and the meagre population shrank by 1600 between 1901 and 1911. South Australia was very glad indeed to hand over the territory and its debt of £3,600,000 to the Commonwealth, and to sell the railway which runs from Port Augusta on the coast due north to Oodanadatta for £2,275,000. Finding herself thus possessed oi 330,000,000 acres of land the Commonwealth proceeded to attempt their development. Unfortunately, the Government made a ghastly blunder at the outset. It decided that close settlement must be encouraged as much as possible, but instead of at once pushing on with railways which would tap the country it appointed a' host of officials to take charge of affairs and spy out the. land. The Federal" Government is situated at Melbourne, which has a temperate climate, although a very changeable one. This may be the reason why an attempt has been made to adapt the conditions of the South to the entirely different conditions of the North an attempt foredoomed to failure. Many of the officials appointed were quite unfitted to the task of developing a tropical country. Almost all of them came from, temperate climates. There is not a single Anglo-Indian amongst them. A highly-paid bureaucracy has been created, to discharge functions alto-' getlier superfluous in the beginning of settlement.

WHERE OFFICIALISM IS SUPREME.

The situation, as an old resident there said bitterly, reminds one of comic opera, were there not tragedy beneath it. Officials are appointed to order other officials about. The total increase in the population during the last two years is practically entirely caused by the arrivals of officials. There are no less than 173 of these, excluding the 82 who run the little 146 mile railway from Darwin to Pine Creek. This railway, by the way, is probably the most expensively run in the world. The cost is £22,565 per annum, and 600 miles a week is all that is managed. The cost per train mile is just double the average of the rest of Australia. At the census in 1911. the total population of the territory was 3310. Of these there were 2734 males and 576 females.' Amongst them were 1165 Chinamen and 46 Chinese women. There were 1896 whites, 519 being females. The remainder were a mixed lot of Asiatics. The population is now estimated at 3814 (3128 males and 686 females). There has been no natural increase since 1911 —in fact, the deaths exceeded the births by 34 in 1911, and by the same number in 1912. The increase is entirely due to immigration, and the officials with their wives and families account for almost the whole of it. EXPERIMENTAL FARMS.

There are some 20,000 aboriginals, who do most of the work and receive in returni meat the white will not touch, bad flour and corn cobs. The lubra, the female native, has a very hard lot. Many half-caste 3 of the lowest type are now growing up. Disease is rife, and, to quote the words of the Administrator, "Professor Spencer had to clear up a most unholy mess" when he went north in the interests of the natives.

The two experimental farms, which have been practically useless, having merely proved that certain tropical plants will grow in the tropics, cost £21,000 per annum, excluding the salary of a director of agriculture and an entomoligst, which run away with £IOOO per annum. There are school inspectors to look after the two or three school teachers, and officers of health and doctors who sometimes go for months without a patient. But perhaps the most extraordinary of all is the public works staff, with a superintendent of buildings, a draughtsman and his assistant, a clerk of works, a storekeeper, a elerk, and timekeeper, who between them receive £2,018 per annum.

FUTURE POSSIBILITIES. Obviously, the development of the Northern Territory must follow natural lines. Everywhere in Australia stock has come first, grain next, and intensive culture last of all. To attempt the last first spells failure from the start. Yet the idea has been to get settlers to take up land on the low-lying flats near Port Darwin with the object of raising crops for which there can be no market for many years. The cost of hiring labour is simply appalling. A man cannot hope to do everything himself, and the experiment was bound to fail. A sheep raiser who has lived in the territory is high in praise of the possibilities up thel-e-. "The prospects," he says, ''are immense; but nothing can be done until the inept administration is don& away with. The sooner the Commonwealth Government realises its inability to grapple with the problem and hands it over to the British Government the better. Then, freed from the restrictions of the trade unions, with workers allowed to work as long and as hard as they please, with free imports' and loosed from the blighting domination of the South, the Northern Territory has a chance." Britain, he considers, will find the money needed to develop the great property when she finds its control has got into the right hands. ~

A WILD DREAM. That is, of course, a wild dream; but as time goes on it is becoming increasingly evident that with the present methods the Northern Territory will never settled by whites. We have created the machinery for a full-blown State and set it to govern a handful of people. The cost has been heavy and the result has been nil. Across the water in India are millions of men and women who are adapted in every way to develop this tropical land, and yet to think of them at all is the highest treason in Australia just now. Later on there is little doubt that they will be asked to '' come over and help us.''

The reason why Australia is trying to force an unnatural develojunent upon the Northern Territory is due to the Japanese bogey. We begin to realise that, financially, Japan is flat oil her back as the result of a successful war, and is more likely to go bankrupt than to wage another. But when our defence schemes were decided upon the bogey was very much in evidence. "We must fill our northern areas to resist invasion," was the cry; and so the Commonwealth is desperately trying to do it. It looks now as if .this*very development were to be stopped, because the money is needed to train every Australian man to bear &rui3.