AUSTRALIA'S PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 122, 22 May 1920, Page 6

AUSTRALIA'S PROBLEM.

| The report of Mr. Justice Swing on the Government of the Northern Territory is the latest, and one of tbe most impressive, of the innumerable warnings that have been addressed to'the people ■of Australia on the subject of the unpopulated areas of the north facing the teeming millions of the East. The Commissioner who investigated the affairs of Australia's "back-yard" after the local representatives of the Commonwealth Government had been compelled by the rebellious inhabitants to leave, has presented such a report as was expected from the evidence put before him. The Commonwealth Government, which jtookover the territory from South Australia in 1011, made the fatal mistake of denying the inhabitants the rights of , self-government enjoyed by the rest of the continent. There was no local par--1 liament. The population had no such ! voice in the management of their affairs as was enjoyed by citizens of the -various States, and the Administrator, acting under instructions from a Government two thousand miles away, had i,the powere of an autocrat. A wise and tactful man might have avoided serious - trouble, but Dr. Gilruth was by. dis-. •■ position inclined to play the autocrat. {An able and energetic man, ha is also •. masterful and unaccommodating, and his 'methods, helped no doubt by an adminissystem wrapped heavily in red !»pe, caused discontent that ended in a bloodless revolution. The white population in the Territory, recruited largely from foreign elements, is not easy to handle, tout Judge excuses its .excesses by declaring that "it had;been governed in a way no other portion of I the Commonwealth would tolerate for a Imoment." Refbnn'Mn' the ; '."sysl^nr I '"of ', 'government must come, the ' more "so {"because, in the opinion of the Commissioner, it is a preliminary to that effective settlement of the territory which, [in the interests of the whole Continent, 'the Federal Government should strive to I promote. The vast tropical area, lying lat the very door of the over-crowded I East, is populated by a mere handful of j whites. In this respect little progess has :been made in the nine years of Federal {control In 1911 the population, exclusive of aborigines, was only £548; in 11918 it was estimated at 4781. The {European population in 1013 was only (2143. Australia must cither increase the "number of white- people there very j largely, or abandon her white Australia I ideal, or be prepared ultimately to meet 'the consequences of the law of ineffec(tive occupation,. This has been' perfectly clear to thoughtful Australians for decades past, yet practically nothing has 'been done successfully to populate the territory. Britigh immigrants naturally (prefer to settle in other parts of the (continent than to go to a- tropical and ivery isolated land. Probably the removal of the isolation would improve matters considerably: what \s wanted ['* the completion of the promised trans-, continental line from Adelaide, to do away with the long sea journey. Apparently, however, there is no single solution bf a proWem that gravely threatens the whole future of Australia.