LONDON TO AUSTRALIA.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 15294, 24 July 1923, Page 6

LONDON TO AUSTRALIA.

IN LESS THAN A FORTNIGHT TRAIN AND FERRY BOATS. LORD STRATHSPEY'S AIM, From London to Australia m less than a fortnight, by train all the way without changing carriages, that is the latest and greatest of the world's travel projects. In the following special article Lord Strathspey, a New Zcalander by birth and education, outlinos the scheme and draws attention to its vast possibilities. It is based on a proposal to seek a land route as far as practicable, ferrying tile trains across the few narrow intervening stretches of sea. What the trans-Siberian was to Russia, and the C-P.R-, to Canada, that to my mind would be an all-land route to Australia, he says: "Of the 12,500 miles that separate London from Sydney, only 720 miles are necessarily water, and that could be crossed by train ferries, so that it would be possible to go from the wilds of Scotland to New South Wales in a little over a : week without getting out of your Pullman'.

"Nor is the scheme so difficult or so expensive an might be supposed," he proceeds, "but in any case the advantages to the trade of the Empire, to say nothing of finding an outlet for our surplus population at home, would more than compensate the outlay. And, I may add, if Lhe project were undertaken now, in the grand spirit, of the old Roman road builders, it would put hundreds of thousands of unemployed in work for years to come. All this is obvious, of course, but the technical side of the suggestion, which I take from Mr James John Arnold, may not be mite so familiar. By far the greater portion of the route, 10,000 miles, would be perfectly level, leaving some 1780 miles for gradtags, junctions, and so forth. As regards the 720 miles of train ferry, the only serious ocean current to be crossed would be that between the Isle of Tarnor and Queensland, but as the current is tidal between the long' belt of islands, it might be necessary to build locks at the ports. "As a matter, of fact, the main difficulties would be mostly political rather than mechanical—i-e., the obtaining of concessions from the countries traversed, for all along the whole route there is natural power in abundance. As regards time, this suggestion would reduce it from the 35 to 50 days which the route now takes, to less than 'l3 days.—i.e., bring it down to one-third, a calculation arrived at upon the following basis: —At 50 miles per hour 11,800 miles would take 10 days. Say two days on the ferry to cover, 720 miles at 15 miles per hour, and add one day for stops and changes, and you get 13 days, or less than a fortnight, instead of six weeks.

"Suppose you covered the 10,000 miles of level at 100 miles per hour, this' would take four days, say, 1800 miles ■ gradings would take one day and a-lialf, increase the rate of the ferry to 20 miles per hour, and you get seven days, and, say, another day for stops-

"To begin with, it is the last giant engineering feat left—the last of the great highways that knit the whole world together like the streets of a town, and it would thus become an artery of civilisation. Instead of making emigration appear like exile, it would thus make it more like a trip, and a run up to London from Sydney would be far easier than the trip of our forefathers from Edinburgh. The aesthetic beauty of the route would be something thrown into the bargain, bnt no man living could gauge the commercial value of such an enterprise, and, if I may add, the political value.

"Again the scheme should not, any, more than in the case of the Canadian Pacific Railway, be judged purely as a passenger service, and it would be well worth while if only goods were carried backwards and forwards. Minerals, grain, meat, vegetables, chemicals, raw material of every description abound in every hundred miles of the route, for import to the Motherland. The directness of the export consequent upon such a route would also in turn benefit the home producer of manufactured articles, for at present the shipment from boat to rail and rail to boat makes English goods almost prohibitive in many parts of the colonies, just as it makes the raw material found all along the proposed route impossible to bring to our industrial areas -at a marketable price. "As regards cost, it would be high, of course, but it could not be called a risk in the sense of depending for profit upon its completion, like, say, the Channel tunnel, for it could, properly handled, be made to pay at every stage, though that tunnel would be one of the first. Why not, I ask, venture a great sum—we have a surplus of £100,000,000 at the present moment in hand —upon a scheme which would be not an outlay, but, like the Suez Canal shares bought by Disraeli, a real investment? Give 100,000 or 250.000 men a year or two years' job fit £5 a week each —so that they could save a bit—and then launch a 'great productive scheme that would, perhaps, in five years' time, reduce the price of bread by half, or double the amount of moat available to the working man at homo for the same price •ho now pays for half, when be can afford even that."