NORTHERN TERRITORY

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 97, 14 June 1911, Page 5

NORTHERN TERRITORY

THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT. The prospects of the presidential election of next year are being debated keenly in the United States, and tne announcement that Mr Roosevelt has endorsed Mr Taft’s candidature will move the prophets to fresh efforts. Tne cx-iTesident stated .three years ago that he would not again ••.'■come tne executive head of the repuiiic, and evidently he is det maum-1 10 ad here to his resolution in sp’te of oil the blandishments of a section >:L the Republican party (.remarks the •‘Lyttelton Times”.), dat it is '-at’y yet for Mr Taft’s friends to assume that his “re-election is new assured." The Democrats, who swept, t 1 e political field at the recent elections for the House of Ttepresentati/is, have still to bo considered, and thw say with every appearance of coniidmu’e that the new President will not l-o tt Republican. at all. probably flm deciding factor will oe M.v \YiU : am d. Bryan, who three times has led the Democrats .lO defeat in a I’n sdc-n----tial campaign. Last year Mr. Bryan seemed finally to In vo h-r Ins !•• •*. i on the party. He gullf-vd a luniuJiating defeat in his own State of Nebraska, and men who had supported him for twelve years said that his day was over, and that a new leader must be found. The newspapers discussed the relative merits and abilities of Mr. VVoodrof Wilson, Mr. Harmon, Mr. Hoke Smith, and Mr. Champ Clark. But Mr Bryan has declined to retire into the ranks. In the words of an American writer, he has “just simply crowded to the front,” and there is more than a possibility that next year ho will be asking for a fourth nomination from his party. The result of the dissensions such a request would create in the ranks of the party almost certainly would be a Republican victory at the election. If, on the other hand, Mr. Bryan will consent to stand aside, the Democrats will be able to concentrate their strength behind one of the other leaders of their party, and then success will,. Ija, well within their grasp. So far tlTd '' sil-ver-tongued Nebraskan” has kept his own counsel and only the progress of events will reveal whether ho snar is the general conviction that the National Convention has irrevocably acquired the habit of not electing urn. MR GILRUTH’S EXPEDITION. The association of Professor Gilruth, who was for some years a valued officer of the Agricultural Department of New Zealand, with an important expedition which is to leave Sydney in a few days to undertake research work in the Northern Territory of Australia, is a well-de-served tribute to his professional skill and attainments. The work of the explorers will have to lie done under most trying conditions, since they will traverse large tracts of almost, unknown country; and will be subject to all the evil influences of a tropical climate, but Professor Gilrutli’s friends will expect him to accomplish much even in the face of these great difficulties. The expedition to which he is attached will undertake the scientific research that is the necessary complement to the investigations of a general exploration party which went out into the wildnorness a few months ago. The Commonwealth’s knowledge of the great territory which came into its possession this year is imperfect and uncertain, but it is a land of promise whose development is awaited with keen interest. Of its 335,000,000 acres less than 100,000,000 acres are occupied, and in the interior of 'the Northern Territory' there . are vast tracts of country which in all probability will provide profitable fields for settlement. The areas that have boon explored already have been found to be endowed with mineral wealth similar to that possessed by other portions of the continent, mere are largo forests of valuable timber, and the experiments that have been made in the agricultural and pastoral industries have given premising results. At present, there is reason to suppose that the territory will repay an active policy of development by white people, and the Commonwealth has guarded its own interests by securing all but about 500,000 acres of its possession against alienation. An urgent reason for the opening of the country is the provision made in the Northern Territory Acceptance Act, which was passed by the Federal Parliament last year, for the construction of a trans-con-tinental railway to connect the main northern lino from Adelaide with the short railway running inland from Port Darwin. By means of this great railway and the trans-Siberian service passengers and mails could bo transported from Adelaide to London in seventeen days, and the shortness of the sea journey as well as the rapidity of the service would tend to make it as popular as it would lie useful. The expeditions which have boon organised by the Federal authorities may be able to take the first stops in revolutionising the methods of communication between Australia and the Motherland and in adding substantially to the wonderful progress and prosperity of the Commonwealth.—“Lyttelton Times.”