A GIGANTIC COLONISATION PROJECT.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 301, 31 May 1875, Page 4

A GIGANTIC COLONISATION PROJECT.

(From the South Australian Register, May llt A.) Our old friend Lieutenant-Colonel Palmer, whose brain seems to be always busy with some scheme for the furtherance of South Australian interests, writes thus to Mr John Hance, sen, upon a comprehensive project lor colonising intertropical Australia —“ Ihe following proposition is at present under the earnest consideration of the Earl of Carnarvon and the authorities at the Colonial Office, particularly of his Lordship's private secretary, Mr Herbert, who is well conversant with Queensland, the northern territory of Australia, and Western Australia; the object being to promote the prosperity of the northern coasts and Australia generally. In the first place, it has been suggested by Admiral Pullen and myself to form free ports at Port Darwin like Singapore, and ports to be formed at the mouths of the Victoria River running into Cambridge Gulf, and the River Roper running into the Gulf of Carpentaria, and perhaps another at the north-eastern point of Queensland, to which there is an abundance of land, which may be attached for the encouragement and settlement of Asiatics and their families, all which free ports might be made independent provinces; the Government of each to be administered by members of the Indian civil service of a certain standing (if the Marquis of Salisbury would lend their services for three or four years), the object being to promote the settlement of Northern Australia by an energetic and industrious class of persons who have had experience in building railways in India and North America. The first work of importance to be undertaken is to build a rail or tramway in the vie nity of the Transcontinental Line of Telegraph from Port Darwin to Port Augusta—a distance of 2000 miles—and then with the railway already formed between that spot and Port Adelaide a direct trunk line of iron road would be accomplished across this vast continent, available to all persons travelling to any port of Australia, Tasmania, or New Zealand. To accomplish this a proposition has been made to the Lord Commissioners of Her Majesty’s navy to appropriate three or four of the ships now of an obsolete class, Borne of whom have never been commissioned, and now being brought forward to be broken up for firewood —one to be placed at as early a date as possible at each of these free ports, taking out suitable emigrants from this country and railway plant, and then remaining there as guardships or depots as long as they may hold together. The first action necessary for the Government of these new provinces is to grant the free use of certain portions of the now worthless lands adjacent to the line of electric telegraph to such contractors as will engage to build and work railways for a time across this continent as they have done in California and other countries, to be done at little pecuniary cost to England, but of vast importance and advantage to the future of Australia and our Eastern fellow subjects. If the South Australian Government afford but moderate disposition to support this policy, they will find themselves warmly supported by Lord Carnarvon and the authorities at the Colonial-offices, the Maiquis of Salisbury, and the Indian Government, the Right Hon Ward Hunt, the First Lord of the Admiralty, as well as by the Lords Commissioners of her Majesty’s Treasury—one of whom in particular, Sir James Dalrymple Elphinstone, Bart, M.P., is well conversant with these countries and the subject, and is using his best endeavors to promote the adoption of this line of policy, which it is not possible for everyone fully to appreciate. It will also be of vast commercial importance, opening one line of communication between Eng-and and Port Darwin via Ceylon, Singapore, and Java, and the other via Liverpool, New York, San Francisco, and Port Darwin. A trunk line of railway across the Continent of Australia, from Port Darwin to Adelaide, with branches east and west from the centre of New Holland, must be built in time. The depot ships I think will be granted. The great difficulty I at present see is to the free grant of the necessary lands adjacent to the line of telegraph for the purpose of building the railways and settling the actual builders of these good works on lands adjacent to the line of railway, as was done in California, India, China, and Japan.”