THE CATTLE KING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 3831, 14 May 1913, Page 7

THE CATTLE KING.

MR SIDNEY KIDMAN’S HOLD-

INGS.

BIGGER THAN NORTH ISLAND

SYDNEY, May 3. Mr. Sidney Kidman, the Australian cattle king, who is perhaps the largest landholder in the world, has just told an interviewer the story of his life. Born at Kapunda, in South Australia, in 1875, ho was at fourteen years of a„e sent to work on Mount Gpps station, receiving a wage of 10s per week. After serving two or three years as a station-hand he commenced teaming. Ho carted wool. He drove bullocks. When Cobar broke out he was there —not to mine, but to do tho carting for the mo nwbo did. His claim was always payable. His brother George and ho soon became known as a partnership which was going to be wealthy. Later on they extended their business to the carrying of mails and wherever a mail contract was going, there one of the Kidmans (generally Sid.) would be, with Jiis cost worked out to tlie lowest possible figure to secure the contract over all competitors. At one time they were carrying mails on contract for four different State Governments, many hundreds of miles apart. This was long before ho became a cattle king, or even a cattle prince, and he learnt Australia as few men learned it. The result is to-day !that Sid l Kidman knows the whole of Australia thoroughly. Every road, every stock route is as plain to him as the streets of Sydney are to the man who has lived here all his life.

Every student of ~the mining romances of Australia has read how Mr Kidman bought a fourteenth share in Broken Hill for ten stoic bullocks, worth £G apiece. So for £6O he bought a fourteenth of Broken Hill. That fourteenth six months later was worth £70,000. To-day it is would eb worth £1,000,000. Mr. Kidman did not keep his share six months. Ho placed it in tlie hands of an agent for sale. The agent sold for £l5O, and charged Mr. Kidman £SO commission.

Gradually by hard work and clever dealing, Sid Kidman accumulated wealth. He at once put it into land and cattle and horses. Land to him did not mean property in the sense that it does to so many men. It was merely an instrument. He regards a station merely as a means of breeding so many thousand cattle for sale. It is said of him that he eats a mn out before he is done with it. Certainly, he gets the most out of every acre he controls, and so vast and numerous are his holdings that as soon as one shows signs of weakening ho shifts his stock to another which is in better condition. Land, ever more land, and ever more cattle. That was his motto.

Many a kingdom, many a famous country of the Old V odd is dwaried by the vastness of Mr. Kidman’s holdings. He directly controls or owns in Australia to-day 45,000 square miles of country. And this huge extent of territory does not include holdings of companies in which he has shares or is interested. Some years ago he sold all his 'Western Australia estates to Bovril, Ltd. lie is greatly interested in that company, but no portion of that interest is counted in the 45.000 square miles. This is larger than the area- of the North Island of New Zealand. One man, Sidney Kidman, controls the whole of this, and controls it thoroughly. He has every wire in his fingers. He knows what stock is on every section of it. He knows what water, what grass. He is familiar with all of it. He visits it regularly. Ho watches bores, and soaks, and tanks, and creeks, and lakes. Rain on any holding is wired to him at once. Victoria Downs, his big Northern Territory run, contains 12,000 square miles, and has over 100,000 cattle on it, That is one holding as big as a European Kingdom. Of course.' it means a lot of work and Worry, but Mr. Kidman loves work, and delights in that persevering, constant thought which other men call worry.