THE TERRITORY.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16036, 29 January 1920, Page 7

THE TERRITORY.

IMPRESSIONS OP DARWIN-

DRIFT TO THE CITY,

The extent to which the population of the Australian States is.concentrated in the capital cities is a matter much discussed (writes a special representative of the Melbourne Argus from Darwin). Politicians and others have sought remedies, but failed to find anything effective. It is curious that this tern deucy should be rust as pronounced in the almost empty Northern Territory as it is in Victoria, Now South Wales and South Australia. The Territory has an area of 523,000 square miles, equal to 334,720,000 acres, or more than a sixth of the area of Australia. Statistics of population, like other things in the Territory, are rather in a state of flux. The population is largely a floating one, and there is continual migration and movement. But it is anticipated that the municipality of Darwin has over 2000 inhabitants, exclusive of aborigines, on an area of less than 3000 acres. The other 334,000,000 acres in the Territory have about the same population, leaving out of account the aborigines. The Territory, as a whole, has not one white inhabitant to a hundred square miles, even if the Asiatics are reckoned in with the whites. But without the population of Darwin it has not one to 200 square miles. Darwin itself makes a rather good impression on a visitor. To begin with, it has a magnificent harbour, spacious and fairly well sheltered, and with good depth of water. The very high tides, with a rise of np to 27 feet at spring tides, are hardly an advantage, but, apart from that, there are few better harbours in Australia.. The- town is built on a limestone plateau nearly 100 feet above the sea, and it is dry and well drained. The limestone makes an excellent building stone, used in a few

of the chief buildings. For the rest, almost all the houses and business, places are built of galvanised iron. With the exception of sypress pine, which is hard to get, and expensive, timber is apt to fall a prey to the white ant, which in Darwin is credited with being able to eat or bite through concrete, billiard balls and even sheetlead. Galvanised iron is not picturesque, nor is it comfortable, for it makes the buildings very hot. But there are plenty of trees, which make things bearable, both to the eye and to other senses. Darwin has some good public buildings, some very fine stores, and many very fair private houses. It has also some disgraceful humpies, tenanted mainly by foreigners, which offend almost every gen so. But it must be borne in mind that almost everything in the Territory is concentrated in Darwin. It has received the benefit of mast of the large sums spent in attempts to develop the Territory, generally with results summed up (with the inevitable exaggeration) in the local legend that on one of the now closed Government farms it cost <£12,000 to grow a pumpkin, and that then someone stoic the pumpkin. Outside there is practically nothing but the great pastoral leaseholds, including Victoria Downs, with its 16,000 square miles and 100,000 cattle, the largest cattle station in the world, a few mining fields in a generally depressed condition, and a few camps of buffalo-hunters and trepaug-fishera. Up to the present time the attempts to establish agriculture in the Territory have ended iu smoke. Darwin itself gets most of its fruit from Queensland or New South Wales, while vegetables are both scarce and dear. Oranges oorae from the south, and cost from 3s 6d to 4s a dozen; Queensland pine-apples can sometimes be bought as a favour at Is 6d each; and mangoes and a few bananas can be obtained, but they are not cheap. There is almost a famine of vegetables, the result, according to local statements, of the restrictions which have been imposed on Chinese market gardeners. Indeed, Darwin, in spite of the policy followed for several years, is hardly a striking proof even now of the success of the White Australia policy as applied to this part of the tropics. Even ardent members of the A.W.U. have their clothes made by Chinese tailors and washed by Chinese laundrymen, deal with Chinese storekeepers, and eat their meals at restaurants in Chinatown. Many residents say frankly that they do not know how the place will get on without the Chinese, the number of whom is steadily, though slowly, decreasing, Just now Darwin is compulsorily doing without another form of coloured labour, and it growls loudly over the experiment. Much of the rough work of the place is done by aboriginal houseboys, and these have all been sent to the compound for fear of influenza, much to the discomfort and disgust of their employers. The pearling industry, which is still of some importance in Darwin, which is the headquarters for two fleets of luggers, that by Jolly and Company, and of Captain Edwards, depends on coloured labour. The divers are mostly Japanese, with a few Manilamen and Malays from Macassar, while the luggers are manned by Koopangcrs from Timor. (If the white population of Darwin, a large proportion consists of Russians, Greeks, Spaniards, Patagonians and Maltese. There was some excuse for the Sydney finn which recently sent an advertisement to the Darwin newspaper, asking that if the newspaper were not published in English, the advertisement should be translated into the language used in the town. It would, however, be very hard to decide what language other than English is the most used.

Another small point of interest about Darwin is the lack of facilities for swimming, though the town has water on two sides. Open sea-bathing is not fashionable, owing to 1b" juw'M!i".> o! stray sharks. aml an o.i a-mm i croc..dilc ’ There were baths, but they woe swept away by a cyclone a year ago—and are still away.