AUSTRALIA’S EMPTY SPACES.

Wairarapa Age, 15 March 1922, Page 5

AUSTRALIA’S EMPTY SPACES.

VAST CAPABILITIES. (Received 8.25 p.m.) London, March 13. —Mr F. R. Johnston, formerly Railway Commissioner in New South Wales, and lately engineering adviser to the Peking Board of Communications, lectured before the Institute of Transport on the railway problems of Australia and China. He endorsed the commission’s recommendation of 1921 for the adoption of the New South Wales gauge, and pointed out the overwhelming advantages from the point of view of defence, of diverting the proposed north-south line to the eastward, thereby linking up Queensland with the east and west lines.

Sir Joseph Cook paid a tribute to Mr Johnson’s railway services in Australia.. He deprecated reference to the “desert line.” 'He had the best authority for saying that in-this tertritory there were hundreds of millions of acres capable of carrying millions of cattle when the bores were in operation and railway transport was provided. In the Kimberley area alone there were 100,000,000 acres of the finest cattle country in the world. Lord Kitchener had repeatedly informed him that he favoured the Queensland overland route, not only for military purposes, but from an economic point of view. He (the speaker) advocated spending £1,000,000 on railway extension and land development, thereby employing hundreds of thousands of immigrants and promoting the expansion of industries.—(A. and N.Z.)