A WONDERFUL FUTURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19201, 18 June 1924, Page 2

A WONDERFUL FUTURE.

IMPRESSIONS OF AUSTRALIA. INTERIOR NOT A DESERT. (Feom Ouk Owm Corbfspondent.) WELLINGTON, June 17. Before the Rotary Club to-day, Mr Will Lawson, New Zealand author, journalist, and poet, warmly assailed the general impression that the interior of Australia was a desert. The real interior, which was reached by the western mail past Dubbo and on towards Mount Oxley (a “mountain” of 600 ft in a limitless plain) was not really a desert. It was simply waste land for want of water and for lack of closer settlement. Yet the water was there. It was in the rivers—the Macquarrie, the Darling, and the Murray. Around Bourke there was black soil 6ft deep, and he knew of 800 miles of country where the traveller would see grassy lawns and waving shrubs. Now the stations had largely teen given over to cattle owing to the drought. The boom of 20 years ago having passed by, the stations (17 big ones in all) wore being acquired by Sir Sidney Kidman, who now owned 1000 miles of country on which cattle were run. The wild dogs were a menace to stock, but the land could be reclaimed easily. Another portion of the country commonly called desert, but yet not really so, was the stretch between Trida and Cordoban, where there was 200 miles of railway without a station. The line there eventually would cross the Darling and go on to Broken Hill. This was cattle land, and a so-called “desert express” carrying a double crew went out to bring in stock. ITrbanville, which he had visited, had astonished him. It was a tract of land very much of the same size as Taranaki with similar soil and about the same average rainfall. Land there was to be had at £4 per acre, and it was worth £4O. There was, however, no communication, and to open it up properly was the problem. This was the class of land which was empty in Australia. There was not much waste land in the continent except in the Northern Territory, and the real type of Australian country was to be found there and in Queensland. In that State Ifiey had 800.000 people with 7000 miles of railway, and these railways did not pay, and were not expected to. Queensland, there was no doubt, was destined to he the most, important State in Australia. Though in some parts the climate was trying, the interior was beautiful. Australia had a wonderful future, and I hough there were ha ndicaps to her development in such wise as her politics, the work done wonderful. The eastwest. railway cost the common wealth £IOO.OOO per annum, and fhev were striving ban] for further development. Though Australia might, seem to he ovor-govemedi in some wavs, she would be a. big factor in the future of the Pacific. . •;■■■ i.".!.! 1 — 1 ■■■'■ ML-"' «