The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, JULY 17, 1908. AUSTRALIA'S FUTURE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 170, 17 July 1908, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, JULY 17, 1908. AUSTRALIA'S FUTURE.

for the cause that lacks assistance, far the wrong that Kesris resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that we can do.

The appeal .made by Dr Arthur, of Sydney, through the English Press, for a quarter of a million British emigrants for Australia appears to us to go straight to the root of the most serious problem that the Commonwealth has to face. We do not hold that the most important aspect of this question bears in any way upon the so-called "Yellow Peril," or the possibility of a Japanese invasion. At the same time, the protest that the Bishop of South Tokio has just addressed to the "Times" on this subject is a decidedly opportune contribution to the controversy. The Bishop urges that it is quite unreasonable to expect that China and Japan will always be content to acquiesce tamely in the policy which insists upon the friendly reception of Europeans into their country, but forbids them to enter or settle on British or American soil. And we agree that the difficulties which are thus certain to arise in the future are likely to be aggravated when the Japanese and Chinese realise that most of the country from which the Australians are barring them, is practically empty of inhabitants. It is not so much as a defence against foreign aggression that Australia needs population, for we see no immediate prospect of danger in the form of armed invasion. But the occupation of her now vacant territory by hundreds of thousands of settlers would provide a sufficient answer to aliens demanding leave to enter the country; and, at the same time, it must be obvious that it is only by filling up the huge empty spaces on the Australian map with millions of inhabitants and the work of their hands that the people of the Commonwealth can hope to develop their country's magnificent resources, and secure for it the place it deserves to hold in the world's esteem. For those who from personal experience know anything of the limitless possibilities that lie dormant in Australia, it is at first difficult to understand why this great Continent has not yet attracted a larger share of surplus population from the Old World or the New. Wβ nifty ignore f.°r the moment the vexed question pi t*ie abnormally clow rate at

which Australia's- white population is now reproducing itself, except to note that this failure of the natural method of increase has rendered it all the more urgently necessary to attract immigrants from outside. And it is now generally recognised even among the wage earners of the Commonwealth that it is absolutely necessary to take somo steps to supply this deficiency. But, though strenuous efforts seem to have been made by several of the States to encourage immigration, it does not seem that the outcome has yet been at all commensurate with expectations. This disappointing' result we attribute chiefly to the bad reputation that Australia has unfortunately managed to acquire, largely through the ignorance that prevails about these Colonies nearly all over the world, and particularly in England. The great majority of outsiders appear to regard Australia as consisting for the most part of a waterless desert, sursounded by a thin strip of cultivable land, which has already been taken up, and in which the keen competition of the existing population absolutely bars the way to newcomers. This entirely erroneous conception of the country is, 'we believe, the chief obstacle to its settlement, and till these groundless prejudices are broken down, it will be useless to expect any sudden influx of population into the Commonwealth. "The outside world," says a recent contributor to "Life," "those people who 'little know of England' because 'they only England know,' imagine Australia to be a continent, with a narrow fringe of productive soil and a vast interior of sandy, droughty waste. I wish they could see the Cooper in flood a hundred miles wide running down the cemtr". of Australia." Between the central and the northern railway lines in Queensland there is a huge stretch of country known as "the desert," because it is usually dry in summer; but in winter, after a few inches of rain, it resembles a vast inland sea. And so with many other tracts in the interior which casual travellers have condemned as barren and useless because they have seen them only in a dry season. Nothing in Australian life is more marvellous than the rapidity with which even the worst watered districts recov-er from drought after the rains have once come. In a few days, what were arid waetc3, are transformed into green pastures capable of supporting enormous numbers of sheep and cattle. And as exploration is being pushed further into the country on systematic lines, it is becoming every year more certain that the natural resources of the country have been hopelessly underestimated. The Northern Territory, for example, once classed with so much of Central Australia as "desert," is now admitted to contain millions of acres of the best country in the continent. And even the deserts, as experiments have already proved, cam by the help of irrigation and artesian wator supply come in time to "blossom as the rose.' . In the light of thn experience aiready gained, it is impossible to calculate the gain that would accrue through a systematic extension of the irrigation and artesian systems ■throughout the continent; and if the Commonwealth devoted a large fraction of its revenues for the (next generation to this work alone, it would find itself speedily and amply repaid. But Australia's reputation should not depend only upon potentialities to be developed in a still distant future. As some of the larger estates in New South Wales and Victoria are being cut up, it has been realised that vast stretches of land which once were regarded as fit only for pastoral purposes are admirably adapted for wheat growing. In New South Wales alone the wheat-growing area has increased from 993,000 acres in 1897 to 1,940,000 acres in 1905 —an increase of nearly 100 per cent in eight years. "A great proportion of the immense areas of the State hitherto devoted exclusively to pastoral pursuits consists of land which could be profitably utilised for agriculture, much of it being more suitable for the cultivation of wheat than some of the land now under crop; and the returns show that wheat-growing, which was formerly confined to small farmers, is now engaging the attention of a number of the large landholders, who cultivate large areas of thousands of acres in extent, and use the most modern and effective implements and machinery for ploughing, sowing, and reaping." Thus the latest edition of the Official Year Book of New South Wales; and the same authority points out that whereas less than 2,000,000 acres are now laid down in wheat, the area comprised within the wheat belt, and suitable for its cultivation, is calculated at from 20,000,000 to 25,000,000 acres. This estimate excludes the coast land where wheat-growing has been a failure owing to rust; and it gives some idea of the enormous magnitude to which the wheat industry may speedily attain even in New South Wales alone. With a less promising outlook, and under far less advantageous circumstances, Canada long since began to exploit and advertise her natural resources for the purpose of attracting immigration; anu the results have far exceeded the most sanguine anticipations. If New South Wales in particular and Australia in general would follow the example of Canada by spreading broadcast information about her unsettled lands, and by offering special inducements to wouldbe settlers, the tide of population that now flows westward toward America would speedily be diverted, at least in part, toward the Southern Hemisphere. But the successful application of th; 3 remedy for Australia's deficiencies depends upon the extent to which her workers realise the indubitable truth that to develop her resources, and to justify their monopoly of her wealth, they must encourage the influx of immigrants to people hex empty lande.