TROPICAL AUSTRALIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 January 1933, Page 8

TROPICAL AUSTRALIA

SOME STRIKING FACTS Now that a practical plan is afoot to open up Northern Australia, the old cry “the country’s only fit for black men!” is sure to be heard, says a writer in the Sydney “Daily Telegraph.” How thoroughly this fallacy has been scotched by scientific men can be gathered from, the report of 21 years’ investigation set out below. A* settler returns from the Australian tropics, wrecked by alcoholism, but labelled by a. kindly practitioner, “tropical neurasthenia.” He justifies his collapse to sympathising friends by tales of an “enervating heat that drains the energies and saps the mental vigour,” and accordingly the whole tropical area suffers undeservedly in repute. So writes Dr. R. W. Cilento, Director of . the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine. He summarises in a paper read before the Australasian Medical Congress the results of an investigation upon the habitability of our tropics by the white race. This research was begun in 1911 by Drs. Young, Breinl, Nicoll, and Priestly. It was taken over by the Commonwealth in 1921, and concluded recently when

Dr. Cliento travelled The world to compare conditions in tropical Australia with similar tropical settlements elsewhere.

The following arresting results have ’ been established: —Tropical Australia has tho lowest death-rate in the Commonwealth. The figures given are those of tropical Queensland (10.4), as compared with the other States, with the figures for Queensland south of the tropics and for the Commonwealth as a whole. Moreover, tropical Queensland has a. lower death rate than any country in Europe or America. SURPRISINGLY GOOD I Tropical Australia has the lowest infantile mortality (plus the highest birth-rate) of any portion of the Commonwealth. The infantile mortality is also lower than that of any country ip Europe or America. The percentage of rejectee for Citizen Forces was less in the year 1914-1918 in tropical 'than in non-tropical Queensland. In 1918 it was less than in. any State of the Commonwealth. This disposes of the cry that children grow up physically weak and enervated in the tropics. No physiological difference of any significance could be found between tropical Australians and those in southern States. This investigation occupied over 20 years, it included exhaustive examination both of adults and children many of the latter being of the third generation in the tropical area.

.There is little loss of working efficiency in the hot season. In tropical Queensland companies employing large numbers of men put down efficiency as 11 per cent, less than in the coo) months. Tho climate is not. one monotonous, tinelianging, hot season. Professor Skertehly, of Brisbane, who personally investigated the climatic conditions of Northern. Australia, says that “the

North” to most people signifies the mangrove-swamp coastal hell, where equable and humid conditions obtain. Phis humid area i.s not more than 17 pci- cent. of our i ropics. As tor the country behind it (which it. i;; now proposed to open up), he says: “Viewed as a whole, the Austral inn tropic region enjoys a. far more favourable climate than much of the extra-!ropic land.

“It. is only moderately moist, possesses an adequate rainfall, and for half the year the climate might almost be called perfect.”