DRY DECADE

Evening Post, Issue 82, 6 April 1936, Page 9

DRY DECADE

WEST OF QUEENSLAND

RAIN AFTER ELEVEN YEARS

RESUSCITATED HOPES

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, March 26.

Those graziers of far western Queensland who have survived eleven years of drought—many who went under have lost their all—are rejoicing even though their holdings are mortgaged for thousands of pounds, for, during the last fortnight, rains varying in intensity from five to fifteen inches, have ushered in the almost forgotten monsoonal season. The long years of drought are past, and the west is recalling the long run of good seasons when wool prices were higher before 1925.

Every year out west the man on the land looks for monsoonal rains in February or, at the latest, early March. If by then they have not arrived, he knows that the chances against their arrival are 100 to 1. In 1926, the rains did not arrive, or did they arrive except in small and practically useless quantities during any of the years that followed. Graziers were compelled to mortgage their properties to restock. And, having restocked in the hope that rain would come, they saw season follow season when the only available feed for their cattle and sheep was the inland mulga, a small shrub. '

During the last five years their difficulties were intensified as the price of wool fell. Many of those who were holding sheep sold them to speculators for 9d and Is a head. Last year the position became desperate and many stations were abandoned. The water shortage was acute. Not only was there no rain, but there was no water for household purposes. Special trains brought water hundreds of miles, but it was precious and had to be rationed. Many settlers were using the harsh waters of the artesian bores. HUGE STOCK LOSSES. Still the cards were dealt against them. At the end of June came terrific cyclone storms, accompanied by intense cold. The west was flooded, but the water was useless. It was estimated that 2,000,000 sheep died in i few days because of the cold. On one station alone 14,000 sheep perished. There was neither sport nor social life. The country was drought stricken. But a paradox of the situation-was that unemployment decreased; every available man was mobilised to cut the only feed available —scrub mulga. When the drought was at its height milions of acres, ordinarily a sea of waving Mitchell grass, were levelled and parched, unrelieved but for a few scattered, stunted gidyea trees bordering the river lines. Here and there shone a silver boree and an occasional coolibah or leopardwood. For mile after mile, the ground was bare, brown, and crumbly. The bones of dead sheep lay everywhere. Haunting the outskirts of small drought-stricken towns were brolgas (native companions) and wild turkeys, their fear temporarily forgotten, so great was their need for water. Above all, seeming never to move, blazed the sun, mercilessly, relentlessly. Usually 110 degrees, the temperature was often more. Then came the rain, and floods, which none minded. Rivers whose courses had long been forgotten flowed again; dams, tanks, and waterholes overflowed. The floods brought snakes and centipedes, but the west was not deterred, and swain joyously. It had not been able to swim in a decade. PREDICTION THAT WAS TRUE. Viewed in. retrospect, a prediction of the late Mr. Clement Wragge, made in 1912, forms a remarkable sidelight on the metamorphosis of the west. Mr. Wragge, who subsequently became Commonwealth meteorologist, was at the time Queensland meteorologist. This forecast, which was circulated throughout Quenesland, and for years posted on public notice boards, foretold a period of diminished rainfall beginning in either 1923 or 1924. It foretold also a return of good seasons, either at the end of 1935 or early in 1936.

Now that this prediction has come true, the west is setting out immediately to recoup its losses. Many will never recoup them, but they are not disheartened. They ask no more than a continuation of good seasons and a good price for their wool and cattle. Given this combination, they will overcome almost any hardships. That is the west.