COMMONWEALTH SKETCHES.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 160, 7 July 1909, Page 6

COMMONWEALTH SKETCHES.

(By T. B. TAYLOR-),

THE MENACE OF THE NQBTKEKS T TEEmiOKY. The average Australian of to-day has not begun to understand the magnitude of either the territory or political problems of the sreat continent he calls his home. Commonwealth thinking is indulged in by but few Australians. The iuiluence of State interests is still very potent, and the near future will witness some dramatic conflicts between Federal and State powers. Such conflict is the only highway to a realisation by the people of their duty with regard to the effective occupation of the immense areas which to-day are lying barren and empty. If Australians do not speedily learn to think io Commonwealth instead of State terms, the White Australia ideal will be rudely shattered within a generation. Into the' statecraft of civilised countries there is gradually finding its way a principle which declares that no one man has the right to lock up from production areas of land which other men desire to cultivate. Land must be profitably and effectively occupied, or it must be yielded to others so that Nature's bounties may be extracted from it for the common good. No sound reason can be urged against the application of a similar principle to such an area as constitutes the Northern Territory of Australia. It is not conceivable that the natural increase in population will satisfy the demand for men and women to help in the development of the more settled portions of Australia, much less can such natural increase ever provide people to effectively and profitably occupy the vast Northern Territory.

It contains 335,116,500 acres, and every acre is practically empty. The immensity of the area may be comprehended by contrasting it with the area of New Zealand. The Northern Territory is more than five times the size of New Zealand.

It is empty. If the German menace really exist* so far as Britain is concerned, it is well to remember that Germany has established herself in New Guinea and in Polynesia, and from these points can work out designs upon the empty spaces in Australia, if such is her ambition. If Germany's desire for territorial expansion takes no thought now or hereafter of Australia's broad acres, there still looms the sombre danger of an Asiatic invasion. Who can believe that densely-populated countries like China, India, or Japan will for ever permit a handful of people occupying the fringe only of the Australian Continent to deny them the right of effectively occupying the Northern Territory, Or such other portions of Australia as remain empty ?

Profitable use or the force of arms a :e the only things which will in the future maintain the Commonwealth's title to the Northern Territory. European population is the only means of guaranteeing the permanency of the White Australia ideal. If Australia could by a stroke of magic call into existence a navy, it could not perform equal service to the Commonwealth in defending its territories to that which could be rendered by a hundred thousand people occupying the Northern Territory. The empty spaces of Australia can only be defended and can only toe retained by the Commonwealth if they can be populated. The population problem is the greatest issue the people of Australia have to solve. Can the British people breed fast enough to provide capable citizens to hold the vast territories which to-day girdle the earth, and in which the title of Britain and her dependencies is recognised by the world? This question of breeding capacity is vital. If France owned South America or Northern Australia, she could not provide Frenchmen to people those areas, because her population is on the ebb, and she cannot be stimulated to breed to savp her national existence, whilst her virile northern neighbour, Germany, requires no appeal to patriotism to produce tho life requisite to national existence and expansion. Australia must either breed sufficient people to occupy her lands or import them from stirh countries as she ap proves, or pay the cost of a navy sufficient to prevent invasion, or let any nation desiring to enter possess itself of lands which neither Australia nor nny other country has a right + o leek up against thr needs of mankind. Tt is not ea*y to diKcov«r .what public opinion is in Australia with regard to this question of the Northern Territory. I am not sure the public has any opinion at all on the matter. TTn° average Australian knows vaguely that the term Nbrt'hern Territory applies to the country north of South Australia, and lying between the States of Wester Australia and Queensland. I endeavouTcd recently to discover, whilst in. New South W«les and Queensland, wh.rt intorest the average citizen took in +he great expanse known us the Northern Territory. Tho quest for information wns depressing. I inquired of casual labourers on Clrcalar Ouny. tram conductors, pa spongers on tram or train, lawyers, merchants, Civil Servants and artisans, and. with rare exceptions, they held no opinion on the important i*sup as to what should be done with the most pmnty space on the great continent. I Rm convinced -tha-t the fate of the Northern Territory will be settled by a' few Commonwealth politicians and ffver of its newspapers. The common p"ople will criticise and confirm, but will not originate the action. The r-ttidy of modern political conditions suggests that democracy is impossible. Within every democracy the power of initiative and veto is practically vested in an oligarchy. In the Commonwealth such great concerns as the one under consideration, the defenoo <]npst-ion. the matter of imposing graduated taxes upon the iand, are settled by a handful of politicians nnd about a score oi metropolitan newspapers. Dpmocraey would seem to be imperative except in countries having a scanty population. In America and France, the -two dominant republics of modern democracy only rules spasinoaicßlW. Undw normal condi I ticnis, β-b ttKgnrchy comprising statesmen, newspapers and -weatt-h exercises a rule nlmost as absolute as was that of I Phillip of Spain. Except the great re farm agencies of hunger and co-Id mow the mass of men, J they display a degree of .contentment i with normal conditions such as makes I the democracy the willing victim of the j wealth and ambition of a small minority j of men. Few other created things are ■more content than the average man. Give him food, clothing and shelter, a few social joys and only one man's rightful share of iiuman affection, and he will give ,the righi .to rule, in exchange, to the handful .oi restless, eager souls who, whilst raking into their lapi the imaginary joys of wealft apd power,

miss tU solid pleasures of the lot of the common man- The spectacle "Js an impressive one. la theory, adalt; suffrage haa created the governing force in Australia. In reality, the power of adult suffrage is manipulated by an oligarchy of politicians and pressmen. The later prqbably exercise moat power, but the condition of affairs emphasises the urgent need there is to maintain high moral standards by which to judge both pressman and politician. In the absence of a large volume of public opinion, what does political and Press opinion say about the problem of the Northern Territory? The Federal and State interests are much in evidence on this question. The only national newspaper in the Commonwealth is conducting an able campaign to have the territory problem settled upoa purely Commonwealth grounds. Tbe "Sydney Bulletin," knowing no ptflitieal party and having no political idols to maintain in power, speaks with more decision than does any other journal in Australia. The need to populate the Northern Territory is universally admitted. The controversy wages over the best methods to secure the effective occupation. The "Bulletin" and South Australian opinion urge a highway into and through the wilderness of 335,116,800 acres of no man's land, by means of a line of railway running in the straightest possible line from Oodnadatta, the northern terminal of the South Australian railway system, to Pine Creek, the terminal "point of the 145-mile-long railway running south from Port Darwin. This distance would be 1060 miles, and the estimated cost is over £ 12,000,000. The advocates of this direct liae urge thai, it would prove of greater value for strategic and commercial purposes than any other route yet suggested. They claim that over a hundred, million acres

of land within the Northern Territory suitable for immediate and profitable occupation would become available. They point out that as every acre in tho Northern Territory is Crown land, the whole of the unearned increase in value certain to follow the construction of the

transcontinental line would advantage the Commonwealth, whereas other suggested routes would confer the increased value in land largely upon privatelyowned areas. They claim that the country in th« vicinity of the ilacdonnell Ranges ig fertile enough to carry in comfort a million people, and tha£ it is a great natural fortress, available in t times of national peril for defence purposes. They claim the Pine CreekOodnadatta line to be the shortest and cheapest proposed, that English mails could reach Adelaide in seventeen days •by means of this line, that it would create enormous State-owned land values, open up vast areas of State-owned land, and in other ways would serve Commonwealth interests more effectually than any line yet suggested or capable

of being proposed

The interests hostile to "Bulletin and South Australian opinion state their case as follows: —They say: Adelaide people are guilty of colossal impudence in suggesting that a line of railway running straight from Oodnadatta to Pine Creek would best serve Commonwealth interests. It would make Adelaide the pivot of trade for two great transcontinental railway systems —one running due north and the other from Adelaide to Perth, the capital of Western Australia. Ths construction of the railway from Westralia to Adelaide was an implied condition of the Federation compact. In the absence ol a Perth'Adeilaide railway, Western Australia is divorced from the Commonwealth. It will be rsadily understood tha-t Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland -view with alarm, if not commercial consternation, proposals that will make Adelaide the commercial centre for railways serving twothirds of the area of the Commonwealth. This group claims that the transcontinental railway must make a detour when leaving South Australia, and, passing to the east of the straight line from Oodnadatta to Pine Creek, ent<?r Xew South Wales and Queensland, so thai the lines running westward ia the two latter States may connect with the transcontinental and get across to Port Darwin in the north and Adelaide and Perth in the south and west. It is claimed that a transcontinental railway linking up itself with the existing railway system of New South Wales and Queensland would be a really Commonwealth line, whereas the line advocated by the "Bulletin" and by South Australia would tremendously enhance the interests of pne State without conferring advantages upon or .stimulating the development ol other States in the Union. It is urged that the linking up of the transcontinental line with the eastern Sate railways would re.nd.er the deience »f the resources of the eastern States mors quickly at thfi disposal of the defence authorities. As against this the straight line advoea.tes urge that the eastern States would be freer from the danger of invasion by a force coming in from the north if their wealth had a buffer between it and the invader represented by a roadless and railless tract of country. Apa-rt from the parties advocating the opening up of the Northern Territory by railroad, as the forerunner of settlement, there are not wanting able men in very responsible positions who believe that the best safeguard to Australian interests in to keep the Northern Territory roadless and railless. They contend that the difficulties of provisioning an ■army of invasion, attempting to aftack Australia from the north, would, when added to th« enormous difficulty ol transporting an invading force to the shores of northern Australia, be an impossible undertaking. They regard the Xonhern Territory as the "back door of the continent, and .they .say it is not possible for it to be opened by an Asiatic or European force. These contend, that the ports ef Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia can be defended, and they regard the closer settlement of the seaboards of these States, and their material development, as being of greater ic-oi.-nent than any effort to settle the Northern Territory, which effort they believe will prove' futile, whilst fertile Queensland, with her 420,000,000 acres, carries only .about one soul to the thousand acre*, and the other States possess "wealth beyond the dreaans of avarice, only requiring population to win it from the earth. In a former article I eaid that the problems of the Ooimnonwealth Tvere proportionate to its great territory. Hoy vast the territory is may be judged by a glance at a railway guide. One can take a ticket at the railway station in Longreach in Queensland for Oodnadatta in South Australia, and cover ov&r 3000 miles in the one journey. Yet railway construction in Australia is in its iufancy. Railways and population are the most urgent needs of the Commonwealth. Although Australia has more miles of railway in proportion to its population than any other country on earth, it probably needs jnoro railways mose urgently than any ether country, if its vast wealth ie to be Macerated and, mote important §$fs»B E<j>»SßS||»B tJ}r<jngh£jis, • « > '

When the final struggle fc» defc*-.-the railway policy for the tary takes place, the fc*ce a *$ ptfe range themselves into two hosti] W ? Western Australia South AustrllS Victoria will junction, and New « 7*Wales and Queensland will «crt the' * fluences to divert the transeonW i line so that their capitate cpntact with Port Daw-in, and iate r Mt some of the trade which the straight r P from Oodnadatta ip Port Darwif;^. 6 pour into the city of Adelaide aW The most definite force supporting straight transcontinental li ne : £ i? a I "Bulletin." It is uncompromising in it ' advocacy, and the impulse it may yet overcome the State prejudices , ? Queensland and New South Wales J lieve the clearest thinkers in the Co • monwealth recognise that the Korth.?* I Territory will become a greater me 2to the integrity of the Commonwealth » a British possession every decade a j that it has to be effectively •} other nations are to be exejudg ! j [ft sharing the ownership of the wutinen?'I think the proposal for the straight lfo from Oodnadatta to Pine Creek tj] e j.'^ ter point being practically Port Darwin, ■which port is the starting point of th Pine Creek line, will ultimately b e en dorsed by the Labour party. Aβ opposJ to the route skirting the western bound! Aries of New South Wales and Queensland! the line running straight through tW Northern Territory will develop 323 000 000 acres of land, all of which TroiuaMai the property of the State. The questions of land tenures and taxes which tj«b]ptthe politicians of the more settled Btat« would permit of ideal solution in r the Statp-owned Northern Territory. . Irf any case it is clear that the question of wW is to be done with this mighty". area is one of first magnitude ani fraught with momentous consequences to Australasia. iStudents of CommonweaUi . nolitics will find much to interest then;' in this matter within the nest, sever years.