AUSTRALIA’S REAL OUTBACK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16668, 25 February 1922, Page 3

AUSTRALIA’S REAL OUTBACK.

THE CHEAT UNEXPLORED NOR.'-WEST.

A LAND OF INFINITE POSSIBILITIES.

To a Sydney man about town the words Marble Bar call up visions of cool drinks amidst luxurious surroundings (writes G. W. Miles. M.L.C., Western Australia, in the Sydney “ Sun ’’) But there is another Marble Bar 2000 miles and more from Sydney and far out in the vast almost empty spaces of north-western Australia.- Marble Bar is the terminus of the short railway from Port Hedland, the only railway that touches the coast in the 1800 miles, from Gerald ton to Darwin. Tt is not always cool at Marble Bar. nor is it luxurious, but it is the gateway to a wonderful region, a region less known to most Australians than Alaska or Central Africa.

The district which T represent in the Legislative Council of West Australia has an area of 600,000 square miles or thereabouts. Tt is not quite twice as big as New South Wales, but it could easily swallow half a dozen Victorias. It forms part of the Federal electorate of Dampier, easily the largest electorate in the world. My electorate lias a white population of nearly 8000. There are fewer white men in the nor-west than when I went to Marble Bar twenty years ago. The main object of our North Australia Development League i to increase the white population. As one means to that end. w r e want 1787 miles of railway. Tt sounds a lot, but it would open up 191.000.000 ac res of good land. SYDNEY’S TOY HABBOTT*. This north-western coast was th«» first part of Australia to he seen by Englishmen. The innumerable islands of Buccaneer Archipelago and of the Dampier Archipelago recall the two visits of William Dampier. first as a buccaneer in 1688, and next as the commander of a King's ship in 1699. The coast abounds with magnificent harbours, which are almost unknown. The completely landlocked NapJer. Broome Bay, lias a water area of 217 square miles as against Sydney Harbour’s twenty-seven, and there* is - not a white man settled on its shores. Over eighty years ago. Grey, afterv aids Sir George Grey, remarked that the land between Derby and Wyndham was the finest that he had seen. It is as empty now as it was then- There are minerals too. in forty feet of water, alongside islands of iron ore, w hich contains,'according to the conservative* estimate of the Government Geologist (Mr Montgomery), at least 97,000,000 tons of exceptionally pure ore. The Kimberley coast is much the most broken and indented in Australia. There are hundreds of islands on which no white man lias ever set foot. The aborigines still swim from island to island, as they did in the days of Darn pier.

LAND OF MYSTERY AND WONDER. Behind this coast lies a land of mystery and wonder. Much of it has hardlybeen touched by the white man. The aborigines, favoured by plentiful food supplies, are a strong and vigorous race, and they resent intrusion, and still live in the stone age. North of the Kimberley country, between King Sound and Cambridge Gulf, there is an ftiea of over 40,000,000 acres, much of it believed to be excellent cattle country, unoccupied because the “blacks are bad.”

In the back country of the Eimber ley. out from Hall’s Creek, there are great areas of tableland country, from 1000 to 2000 feet above sea level, which would, it is estimated, carry 20,000,000 sheep. But it is the remotest part of Australia as yet occupied, and it is difficult enough to get even -cattle to market. Compared with this region, the Northern Territory stations are in touch with civilisation. The carriage of flour to Hull’s (.’reek costs £3O a ton, and Hall s Creek i.s only the beginning.

OPERATING BY TELEGRAPH. Some years ago one of the Darcys, three brothers, who had a station near Hall’s Creek, was badly injured by a fall from his horse- A serious and dif ficult operation was necessary. Mr Tucket-t, the Hall’s Creek postmaster (and mining warden, electoral officer, census officer, registrar and many other things), sharpened his razor and made a good job of the operation under instructions sent over the telegraph wire by Dr Holland, in Perth, 1800 miles away. The patient died, but that was due to fever, not to the operation. Another incident illustrates the remoteness of this region. When Mr Hughes was in Perth two years and a half ago, on his way back from the Peace Conference, I pointed out to him that a squatter from the Hall’s Creek country wms also on his way home from London. But while Mr Hughes could reach Melbourne from Perth in four or five days, the squatter had not half finished his journey. It would take him six weeks’ travelling to reach home A long and tedious coasting voyage would be followed by an overland trip of many hundreds of miles, over country absolutely devoid of roads or bridges. A flood might prolong the journey for months. THE ROARING DAYS OF PEARLING PORTS. Australia yields 90 per cent of the world's output of pearlshell, and the Commonwealth’s great pearling ground is the coast from the Buccaneer Archipelago. The roaring days of Cossack, of Broome, and of the other pearling ports, when men won and lost fortunes in a single night’s gambling, have gone. But pearling, though it has its ups ana downs, is a profitable business, with the chance of a big find. Such is Australia’s north-west, a land of sun and storm, of strange animals and savage men. but a land of infinite possibilities, rich in cattle and pearls and with potentialities, partly known and partly guessed at, in gold, copper, tin, lead, and possibly oil, to say nothing of tropical agriculture.