NORTH QUEENSLAND'S GROWTH.

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 130, 5 June 1933, Page 12

NORTH QUEENSLAND'S GROWTH.

The Chamber of Commerce of Townsville, North Queensland, has celebrated its jubilee, and Major H. B. Marks has prepared an informative and copiously illustrated record of the history of the city and of the highly-productive territory of which it is the capital. The work isi puhJished by the Townsville Chamber of Commerce, which claims for North Queensland the. distinction of being "the richest portion of the richest State in the Commonwealth." Townsville began as a city somewhere about 1864, and the founder was Captain Robert Towns, who took up station property in the district. Bowen was then the nearest town, and about 120 miles away. But local residents, who were very few in those days, thought Townsville should became a port o; its own. They were farseeing. Their'imports in 1865 were of the, value of £570 and their exports £8145, with an. immediate and rapid increase in the few subsequent .years. Exports today run into £7,000,000. Sugar, fruit, tobacco, dairying, cattle and sheep, and gold mining all contribute to the wealth of North Queensland today, and Townsville is a port of call for the mail liners between Australia and China and Japan.- The whole of North Queensland is shown by the Townsville Chamber of Commerce to be a vast area of great natural wealth worthy of continuous development.