HUGE LAND DEAL

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 46, 31 March 1914, Page 10

HUGE LAND DEAL

ENGLISH COMPANY IN W.A. At the present time a matter of some importance to the future settlement of Australia is under consideration by the Federal Government. More immediately it concerns the Minister of Internal Affairs. The question -to be solved by Mr Glynn is whether he shall grant to an English company a, large aiea of grazing country—roughly estimated to contain 20,000 square miles—in Northern Australia, between the fifteenth and seventeenth parallels of latitude. The company applying to the Minister is known as the Union Cold Storage Company, and its headquarters are in London. If its negotiations with the Federal Government are successful it will acquire a huge tract of land stretching from the Northern Territory westwards towards Kimberley, in the northern part of West Australia. It is said to be good grazing land, most of it watered t>y the Victoria River. As regards the West Australia portion of the proposed holding, the company has already obtained a footing. It has leased a fairly large area until lately held by Copley and Co., and is also said to hold concessions from Emanuel and Forest, and from Connor, Durack, and Doherty. Whether its pastoral property will extend into the Northern Territory is a question that is now the subject of negotiation. Mr Glynn has had numerous consultations with the representatives of! the company now in Australia,, and with the director of the Northern Territory (Dr Gilruth). No settlement has .yet been arrived at, though an announcement on the subject may be expected at any time.

The attention of the Secretary for External Affairs (Mr Atlee Hunt) was drawn by a Melbourne pressman to certain statements that have been published in a Queensland paper'.with regard to '' a corporation styling itself the Union Cold Storage Company.' ? Mr Hunt stated that the company referred to was well known to the Department. It was an English company of good financial standing. So far from it having anything to do with the American Beef Trust —an allegation that has been freely made in connection with the negotiations now going on'—it was entirely foreign to that body, being controlled from London, possessing properties in Russia and the Argentine, and having no connection whatsoever with the American octopus. As far as the leases in West Australia was concerned, Mr Hunt remarked that the Federal Government hail nothing to do with the granting of them. Whether it should grant an English company the use of land in the Northern Territory, and if so, on what terms, was a matter under consideration.