THE AUSTRALIAN OVERLAND.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1546, 16 September 1912, Page 5

THE AUSTRALIAN OVERLAND.

RAIL TO KALQOORUE'

LORD DENffIAN TURNS FIRST

SOD,

A NOTABLE EVENT.

Bj TclecraDh— Press Aesociation-CoßJtielli (lice: SeiiloinlxT IG, OJS a.m.)

Adelaide, September 15. Port Augusta is on fete lor the turning of the first sod of the transcontinental railway to Kaljjoorlio, which is to be constructed at au estimated cost of JM.000,000.

Tliero has been a great inlhix of oral and other members of Parliament' and distinguished visitors. Tho accommodation has bceu over-taxed and the Parliamentarians slept in tents.

The Governor-General, Lord Denman, in performing tho ceremony, read a message from tho King, 'expressing his Majesty's keen sense of tho importance of this great national enterprise to his people of tho Commonwealth.

Another message was from the Imperial Government, and .staled that the. Government was convinced that the great undertaking would redound to the. strategic and commercial advantage of Australia.

Felicitous speeches were delivered by Lord Denman, Admiral Sir Day Bosanquet (Governor of South Australia), Mr. O'Mnlley ■(Minister for Home Affairs), Senator I'oarco (Minister for Defence), and others.

Mr. O'Mnlley charaderised tlie event as ono of the supreme occasions prophetic of Australia's future greatness. It was not in the mammoth fighting machines on land and sea, or in aerial instruments of destruction that Australia placed. her hopes, but in unhampered political and social progress. The groat Christian party to which ho belonged was determined to afford every person an opportunity to mako good. The building of the railway was on outward expression of the Government's inward ambition. •