THE AUSTRALIAN CATTLE KING

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 127, 29 May 1913, Page 8

THE AUSTRALIAN CATTLE KING

OW2JER-OF VAST TERRITORY. Mr Sidney Kidman, the Australian cattle king, who is perhaps the largest landholder-in the world, has just told an interviewer the story of bis life. Born at Kapnnda, in South Australia, in 15557, he was at fourteen years of age sent to work on Mount Gipps station, recerting a wage of 10/ per week. After serving two or three years as a stationhand he commenced teaming. He carted ■"tool. He drove bullocks. When Cobarbroke out he was there —-not to mine, bat to do the carting for the men who did. His claim was always payable. His brother George and he soon became known.

as a partnership which was going to be wealthy. Later on they extended their business to the carrying of mails, and wherever a mail contract was going, there one of -the Kidmans (generally Sid.) would be, with his cost worked ont to the lowest possible figure to secure the contract over all competitors. At one time they were carrying mails on contract fox four different State Governments, many hundreds of miles apart. This was long before he became a cattle king, or even a cattle prince, and he learnt Australia as few men learned it. The result is today that Sid Kidman knows the whole of Australia thoroughly. Every road, every stock route is as plain to him as the streets of Sydney are to the man who has Jived there all his life.

Every student of the mining romances of Australia has read how Hr Kidman bought a fourteenth share in Broken Hill ior t?n store bullocks, worth £6 apiece. So for £60 he bonght a fourteenth of Broken Hill. That fourteenth six months later was worth £70,000. To-day it would be worth £1,000,000. Mr Kidman did not keep his share six months. He placed it in the hands of an agent for sale. The agent sold ior £150. and charged Mr Kidman £50 commission.

Gradually by hard work and clever dealing. Sid Kidman accumulated wealth.

He at once put it into land and cattle and horses. Land to him did not mean property in the sense that it does to so many men. It was merely an instrument. He regard? a station merely as a means of breeding so many thousand cattle for sale. It is said of him that he eats a run out before he is done with it. Certainly, he gets the most out of every acrehe controls, and so vast and numerous are his holdings that as soon as one shows signs of weakening he shifts his stock to another which i= in better condition. Land ever more land, and ever more cattle. That was his motto.

>lanv a kingdom, many a famous country of the Oid World is dwarfed by the vastness of Mr Kidman's holdings. He directly controls or owns in Australia to-day' 45.000 square miles of country. And this huge extent of territory does not include holdings of companies in which he has shares or is interested. Some years ago he sold all his Western Australia estate to Bovril, Ltd. He is greatly interested in that company, but no portion of that interest is counted in the -Io.COO square miles. This is larger than the area of the North Island of New Zealand. One man. Sidney Kidman, controls the whole of this, and controls it thoroushlv. He has every wire in his He knows what stock is on every section of it. He knows what water, what grass. He is familiar with all of it. ]Ie visits it all regularly. He watches bores, and soaks, and tanks, and eres&s. and lakes. Rain on any holding is wired to him at once. Victoria Downs, his big Northern Territory run. contains IWKIO square miles, and has over 100,000 rattle on it. That, is one holding as big as a European Kingdom. Of course, it means a lot of work and worry, but Mr ' Kidman loves work, and delights in that persevering, constant thought which other men call worry.