A SILENT REVOLUTION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LI, Issue 5599, 4 February 1879, Page 7

A SILENT REVOLUTION.

(From iM Quoonalan&r.) It must be apparent to thoughtful observers that a revolution, retd, though almost unnoticed, is taking place in the relative position of the four principal Australian Colonies. Hitherto, in treating of the affairs of the continent, it has been the custom to consider mainly, if not entirely, New South Wales and Victoria, the Colonies of Queensland and South Australia occupying very subsidiary positions. In any proposal for joint action, in weighing the distant possibilities of federation, it has been assumed as a matter of course that the initiation must lie with the older and more populous communities. And it has been a matter for regret among the more thoughtful public men m Australia that the mutual jealousies of the two principal Colonies should constitute one of the main obstacles to united action. No one has had the boldness to suggest even the possibility of a future in which the initiative might pass from both Sydney and Melbourne, and a bond of union spring into existence not originated by them, but in which they might be glad to be included. And yet a stranger —an intelligent foreigner —looking at a map of Austnuia, would be surprised to leam that the mere south-eastern corner of the continent should contain all that was worth considering, and that the enormous territories of Queensland and South Australia, surrounding and dwarfing its dimensions, should be regarded as mere adjuncts, inhabited by communities whose position in relation to their more populous neighbours, was not likely to be materially altered. A few years ago the anomaly would have been easily explained. The enquirer would have been told that South Australia consisted practically of a moderate-sized strip of territory, extending no great distance to the westward of the boundary line, hemmed in by huge expanses of useless marsh and mountains and waterless deserts; while Queensland, possessing certainly a fertile coast strip, was, with the exception of a few patches of country in the south, too hot for white labour or too dry for any but pastoral occupation. In short, a stranger would have been informed that Queensland and South Australia were for the most part merely “ geographical expressions,” and few of the residents even in those Colonies would have demurred to the statement. But this explanation of the anomaly to which we have alluded with the knowledge then possessed of the interior is true no longer. The discrepancy remains. It has yet to be seen whether it can still be explained away. We venture to doubt whether any explanation can now be given to point out that the anomalous position held by the Australian Colonies towards each other, having regard to their territorial dimensions, which was at one time only apparent, is becoming real now. There is a possible change in the “ balance of power” on this continent looming in the distance. In South Australia we know now that the forbidding area of sterility formerly supposed to envelop the small patch of really available territory is itself of circumscribed dimensions, and in Queensland we have chased the phantom of an interior desert quite out of existence. We have been accustomed to hear during the last few years of the boundless areas which our pioneers have virtually annexed to our available territory. We learn without surprise of the pressing necessity of a definition of our western boundary, so that settlers on both sides may know which jurisdiction they are to acknowledge. We are absolutely sated with descriptions of endless expanses of fertile soil; of possible mineral country; of unlimited territories inviting settlement, and as capable of becoming the homeof a European race as the most favoured portions of New South Wales or Victoria. All these things have become familiar to us j we are almost weary of hearing them. Perhaps we may indulge in vague calculations of the possible amount of stock the natural grasses of half a continent thus opened up to the pastoral pioneer may carry, or still vaguer speculation as to the time when the more settled industry of the farmer will follow the opening made by the squatter. But there are few who realise not merely the immediate results certain to follow from this great expansion of the available area of the continent, but the modification likely to be produced in the onward march of Australian settlement. If South Australia and Queensland are not merely huge spaces marked out on the map of Australia, but contain between them an area fit for European settlement two or three times as great as that of New South Wales and Victoria, then, bearing their relative geographical position in mind, it is evident that a time must come when the last two Colonies will be compelled to accept the position of provinces, and not necessarily the most important provinces, of an Australian federation.

But in insisting on this important fact we have other motives than a merely speculative discussion on Australian possibilities; it has a practical bearing on the immediate future or all the Colonies. Hitherto each has developed after its own fashion by isolated independent efforts; but the time is approaching—it has, indeed, almost arrived — when some unity of action will become absolutely necessary. Already we attempt to act unitedly in arranging mail and telegraphic communication with Europe. Those attempts are marred and sometimes frustrated by an awkward stiffness which arises more from the rather absurd punctilios of the respective Governments than any real jealousy existing between the peoples of the different Colonies. But there is a force at work behind the official ramparts. In the interior of the continent the settlers of all the Colonies are joining hands, and may be reckoned on to exercise a centrifugal force tending to neutralise the Joentri petal tendencies ot the groups of politicians who speak in their names. And there is one direction in which this unifying force will act with a power that must grow until it becomes irresistible. These settlers, who are rapidly but silently marking out every blank space on our maps, have one great object in common—communication with the seaboard. They are not likely to be affected by the mutual jealousies of Melbourne and Sydney; it is a matter of the most perfect

indifference to them where thedufclet they need may be found, provided that it is cpnvenientand accessible. ‘Watching the railway development of New South Wales and Victoria, they will sec how the respective Governments are pushing a multiplicity of lines in every direction, with no apparent paramount object except that of “ tapping ” each other’s trade. And they cannot be blind to the silent revolution which they themselves have effected. Will not the time come when, turning from the comparatively petty rivalry, they may appeal to us and our South Australian neighbours to join hands and help them, leaving the older Colonies to fight out their disputes undisturbed in their own particular corner of the continent ? It was in this belief that we originated the “ Queenslander Transcontinental Expedition,” for it cannot be long before the appeal is made, and the public, who will have to answer it, ought to be in possession of (he facts on which they must base their reply.