AUSTRALIA BUILDS A CAPITAL IN THE BUSH

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12549, 11 September 1926, Page 11

AUSTRALIA BUILDS A CAPITAL IN THE BUSH

AUSTRALIA is creating a capital “ city in the bush, following the example set by the United States in the early days of the Republic when Washington was built on the banks of the Potomac. Next year’s session of the Commonwealth Parliament will meet in Canberra, and Australia has invited one of England’s princes to perform the opening ceremony. It is believed that the King will send his second son, the Duke of York. Nothing has been donb to the Capitol building since the Prince of Wales laid its corner stone six years ago, but the Parliament building is already up and work is beginning on its interior fittings. Temporary hostels to accommodate Government employees are also being hurriedly erected, so, although Canberra will not be finished for years to come,

there is expected to be sufficient housing ready for next year’s opening. Withal it is a bleak prospect for the Australian- bureaucracy. Canberra’s streets are ordinary bush roads, inches deep in red dust, and there is no prospect of any improvement in them until the heavy traffic of the builders is ended and pavements may be laid without the risk of being speedily chewed into ruts. Melbourne’s population is about 750,000. Canberra, at whose mere mention Government employees in Melbourne break into loud wails, has at present a population of about 3000. Moving day' next year is expected to find 111 members of the Australian Parliament looking for bungalows in the new bush capital. Comfortable but plain bungalows are being put up for the Governor-General,

the Prime Minister, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, but the ordinary M.P. will have to supply his own house. More than 3000 Government employees will share the delights of househunting with the M.P.’s The Prime Minister's Secretariat, the Treasury Department, the Attorney-General’s office, the Home and Territorial Ministries, the Customs, Health and Public Works Departments and the General Post Office are all to join in the general exodus to Canberra. Only such minor branches of the Government as the meteorological and statistical offices are to Temain behind at their comfortable moorings in Melbourne for the present. With another 1000 added for police, health inspectors and school teachers, and possibly 2000 for tradesmen and various camp followers, about 6000 Australians are expected to move out of Melbourne into the wilderness next year. It is expected Canberra’s population will have jumped to 10,000 when moving-day is ended. No capital anywhere has been planned with more care than Canberra. Ite plans were drawn by Walter Burley Griffin, of Chicago, and were based on Washington, but mistakes made in the development of Washington have been avoided both by Mr Griffin and by the Commonwealth Government. Some day it may be the finest capital city in the world, and the participants in next year’s trek will be regarded as the heroes of a pioneer day. But pioneering is in itself a bleak business. Canberra will still be overrun with carpenters and plasterers next year. A CO-OPERATIVE STORE There will be a single co-operative store instead of the big shops at which the wives and daughters of Australia’s

bureaucracy have been accustomed to do their shopping in Melbourne. And there will be soft drinks instead of the beers, wines, and spirits that have constituted one of the amenities of Melbourne. For Canberra is bone dry. Possibly this explains in part the rush to Queanbeyan, which lies just across the Federal territory border in the State of New South Wales. A real estate boom is under wav both at Queanbeyan and along the outer edge of the Federal territoryon Jervis Bay.

All land in the Australian Federal territory is to be perpetually Govern-ment-owned. Ninetv-nine-year leaseholds are sold, the ground rents to be reappraised at tlie end of twenty years, and thereafter at the end of each ten years. Its ground rents are ultimately expected to give the Commonwealth a return on the huge invest-

ment it is now making in the erection of Government buildings on an empty site. Outside the Federal line, however, freeholds are being sold, and land, ia already mounting in value. Hence the rush to get in on the ground floor. Canberra’s site is a beautiful one, a plateau 2000 feet high rimmed with hills, some of which reach altitudes of 6000 feet. It lies 429 miles from Melbourne, 204 miles from Sydney, and 912 miles from Brisbane, far enough to remove it from the quarrels of the older cities which have been the bane of the temporary capital. Twelve square miles have been set aside for the capital itself in the northern part of the Federal territory, an area of 900 square miles along the Murrumhidgee river, with an annexe on the coast at Jervis Bay, 120 miles away. Eventually there is to be direct railroad connection between Canberra and Jervis Bay, along which 60,000 square

miles of the richest part of New South Wales is to be drained. It is to be a Federal railway, and there are possibilities of a great Federal port on the shores of Jervis Bay. Its construction will not be welcomed by Sydney, but Jervis Bay is said to be among the finest and largest deep-water harbours in the world, and, once the Federal railway is built, Sydney will probably have to watch Jervis Bay’s growth with as much grace as it can command. Already Australia’s West Point and Annapolis have been established in the Federal territory, the royal Australian military college at Canberra and the royal Australian naval college.at Jervis Bay. Although it was interrupted by the war, work on Canberra first began in 1909. The question of trees and plants has had to receive much attention: A Government nursery has tested out the hardihood of trees and has eliminated those that failed to thrive. There have been tests of wind, climate, and soil to determine, not only the nature of the plants to be used but the positions of houses and the directions in which they were to face. Much afforestation has had to be done in the surrounding country. Five hundred and thirty thousand trees have been set out on Mount Stromlo alone. The Molongio and Cotter risers have had to be dammed and a water supply sufficient for a city of 2,000,000 people and for the largest powerhouse in Australia has been obtained. There is to be no gas in Canberra. Electricity only is to be used for lighting. Heating is a problem which has not yet been satisfactorily solved. Coal at Canberra costs about £2 10s a ton, or more than it costs in Melbourne, and wood is difficult to get at any price. It ia probably true that, for the present, at

least, tlie cost of living in CifibdSa will be higher than in Melbourne^ As soon as the workmen were R - commodated, larger buildings mere erected for hotel purposes, and the Canberra Hotel is now as fine a hotel as there is in the Southern Hemesphere. The Ainslee Hotel is also finished, and will bo used as a resi-

dential hotel for the Civil Service. The Kurrajong Hotel ia almost com. Dieted, but is being adapted for Tise U Government offices, and will not he available for hotel purposes until the permanent administrative building if completed, in 1830. The Acton Hotel is accordingly being rushed to completion to take its place for the present. One administrative building is already; done, and has been used to house, the skeleton staffs that the Government has maintained for some time at Can. berra. Three large hoarding hotels are in course of construction, and it it hoped to have a fourth completed he* fore the first arrivals from Melbourne appear. The housing problem, nevertheless remains the principal problem at Canberra. Contractors are running up five, six and seven room houses, and bids are being asked for the erec tion of 500 moderate-sized houses M

be finished within a year from til# date of the contract. A kiln is being erected to make brick and tile for the contractors, and another new plant will turn out concrete blocks. Six and seven room houses are to be sold at from £I3OO to £I9OO, and the Federal territory commissioners have arranged terms under which 10 per cent, of the purchase price is payable down, the remainder to be spread over a maximum of thirty years, and to bear 6 per cent, interest. Many of the houses, even workmen's cottages, will have tennis courts attached to them. Effort is being made to afford ample means of recreation. One public school is ready and another has been commenced. The New South Wales Education Department is to provide the teachers for the present and the Federal Commission is to pay for them. There is talk of starting a domestic economy school and a technical school this summer. a Federal university is also a part of the Canberra scheme, bat that, like so much of Canberra, lies yery far in the future. When Canberra is finally completed the Capitol Building is to crown jta highest point and boulevards lined with deodars and plane trees are to radiate from jt. Three large artificial pools are to afford boating facilities in the oentre of the city, and their banks are to be lined with green lawns. Gardens, parks and public buildings are to become the harmonious parts of a truly magnificent scheme. Bat the completion of all that lies far ahead. When the Federal Parliament, attended by its thousands of wailing exiles from Melbourne, arfives next year to meet for the first time in the new capital, its session will be opened amid the smell of wet plaster and its debates will be conducted to a rat-tat-tat of carDeutera’. hammers.

Officeholders Are Loath to Leave the Comforts of Melbourne for the Bungalows of Canberra