“NORTH IS CALLING.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20239, 24 February 1934, Page 17 (Supplement)

“NORTH IS CALLING.”

Can the White Race Hold It Without Population? AUSTRALIAN PROBLEM. that tile tummunwealth Government is planning great tilings lor the peopling oi tile ;\orth ot Australia, a score oi varying views, by experts and non-experts, have appeared in the Australian Press. This is what the well-known Australian writer, E. J. Brady, has to say in praise of the North as quoted from his book, ” The Land of tne Sun ” : You should send no philosopher to Queensland —but a poet! Here are only a little people—like the people of the Greek iree towns, but Levantine lovers ol the Sun—advanced, intellectual, democratic, princely Children of that Golden King whose Northern reign is absolute. They will, 1 believe, though yet small in numbers, like another Marathon band, conquer the problems of colonisation that confront*them and, as an outpost of Empire, precede an invincible army of occupation—an army vast in numbers, invulnerable in strength, which will hold the Australian Tropics for a white race. The North, the Far North! I am reluctant to leave her. For beauty dwells upon her green mountain sides. And white sails of Chance still dot the blue waters that encircle her. From Cleveland Bay, round by Thursday Island and down the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Territory borders, he who loves warm tropic seas and lonely horizons, crystal dawn and silver moonrise, can spice his life with the clove and cinnamon of romantic adventure. For him still gleam the coral and the surf; reef and islet, mangrove swamp and coco-tree. He may win a fortune in pearls, or in many ways of tropic trade. On beach or foreland, under branching pandanus or in tangled jungle depths, he may find the hidden treasure that his soul is seeking. It might be only that Vision Splendid of him who loves God's glorious world and draw direct from Nature’s breast a daily milk of health and content which makes life always worth the living. It might be darked-eved Love homing to his heart, as gently as the white pigeon of Torres Strait* homes to her nest in some chosen islet along the Barrier. It might be a newly-broken specimen of landward stone flecked with gold! It might be an inspiration for a book or an incentive for a picture, a picture of light and colour such as no artist has vet given the world Tt might be of a hundred human things, but there are a thousand chance* for him who will throw into the brazier of this Northern goddess an offering of Endeavour and bend a willing knee in'worship at her golden

Sonny Boy, the North is calling you!. Just over the Tropic of Capricorn there lies a vast undeveloped country where dwell, as yet, only a few faithful chillren of the Sunrise. Strong and stalwart, in sooth, are these. Their lives are filled with pleasant effort: nor are their purses haply lacking in good rotund result. But, for Queensland's sake, for Australia’s safety, for the security of an Empire, which represents all that is best, so far, in human civilisation—they are too few, too few! Sonny Boy ! if I were young as you, and know what I know, it is to the North I would be going—now. Had I never written a line of verse I know the North would have made a poet of me. Had I been a weakling the North would have made me strong. Ilad I been poor. 1 know doubly well that, with honest attempt, the North would have enriched me. If it is independence you are seeking with a chance of Fortune and a free man’s life—Go North! North where the sun rises in the hush of dawn over the Barrier Reef like a golden rod of old: where the moon floods shores and hills of an enchanted littoral with the perfection of tropic night. Go North and hear the silken rustle of the palm-trees ! * Go North and hear the wild gee c e honking under velvet night skies powdered \»!th the stars!