AUSTRALIA TO-DAY.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 11 September 1914, Page 8

AUSTRALIA TO-DAY.

THE STORY OF PROGRESS. A RICH AND EMPTY LAND. BY HARRY S. CTJLLETT. It is frequently remarked that th< greatest development of the twen j tieth century is to be the reawakenI ing of the great Asiatic peoples, anc !it is forecasted by pessimistic West- : erners that the millions of the Easi may, 100 years hence, be the domin : ant influence in the world. But those who take this view are surely short-sighted. It is youth that wins and a little study must convince thai 100 years hence there should be nc more ambitious or more powerful nations in the world than those | which are now so rapidly building ut ;in the wide, new, fertile, and, as yet. : almost empty regions 'of the earth, :We have seen in a single century j what has been done in the United '• States ;we have seen the American people increase in 100 years from ' some seven or eight million to nearly 100,000,000. And just as certain is it that in the next 100 years this wonderful performance will be equalled, and possibly eclipsed, in such lands as Australia, and Canada, and South America, and South Africa, The significance of this to the British people is that three of these grand young homing countries are parts oi our Empire. Australia I mention first, because it is with Australia in particular that this article proposes to deal. Pew people who have not made it their business to compare the old countries with the new, can grasp what is inevitably before such a land as the Australian Commonwealth, To build up a splendid future for Australia, is not idle boasting ; it is just a. matter of studying like and like ; it is a matter to which you can apply hard and fast rules, and arrive at unerring conclusions. A country's development and the part it is destined to play are dependent upon two or three simple factors. Given only wealth producing soil, a good geographical location, and a sound stock on which to build your population, and you have the elements of ultimate greatness. Australia has all these. Then a gain she has fertile country in profusion, an exceptional location, climate of almost every sort, and as a basis of population she has the people of the United Kingdom. AUSTRALIA'S SIZE. The Australian is often charged for talking about the size of his country, and yet it is difficult for him to begin on any other subject. You must appreciate the size of the land before you can understand what is ahead of it. Obviously, its greatness depends largely at. this time, when strength counts for so much among the nations, upon the number oi its people. And at once it may be said that it is difficult to set a limit upon the number of the Australians. Travellers who have visited us set various estimates upon the country's population carrying capacity. These estimates, range up to and beyond 200,000,000, and to those who know the country, and have compared it with Europe as a standard, such figures are noc a bit extravagant. The Commonwealth is made up of an area of nearly 3,000,000 square miles. In other words it is three-charters as large as Europe, and about tne same size as the United States. And today Europe has a population, roughly speaking of 440,000,000, and theUnited States some 90,000,000. So that the enthusiastic Australian which well becomes his age, may be pardoned for talking of the big days his country has ahead. i These relative population figures convey little however, until we compare the qualities of the three countries quoted. a popular description of Australia abroad, but one which is happily failing into disrepute, is that it is a va.et desert country, fnnged by a narrow margin of wellwatered fertile lands. That description was typical of the world's ignorance generally about this vast British land down in the south-west Pacific. The truth is that as we f.now more about Australia we learn j less and less oi its desert. The fur- I ther we go, the further does the de- j sert retreat, until we now know that j the term was one loosely applied to ! an unexplored and unknown region, j Fertility is largely a matter of soil and rainfall, an d population largely , a matter of fertility. We have ' proved in Australia that that coun-j try, which is favoured"'by a rainfall! of upwards of 18 inches a year, is! admirably adapted for close farm i settlement, or, in other words, for! the maintenance of a dense poptila--! tion. Now the country contains up- j wards of 1,000,000 square miles of ' land, which has a rainfall in excess! of 28 inches, and even-outside this 20-inch rainfall, we are each year i growing large quantities of wheat, j and successfully engaging in other' forms of agriculture. Everything! points to the time when we shall, by ' the adoption of improved farm prac-1 tices, and the proper utilisation of our river waters, secure closer settlement on the country which has a, ' rainfall above, say, 13 inches. CAPACITY FOR POPULATION. If you take 1,000,000 square miles of Europe, that is, the equivalent to the area in Australia, which has , a 20-inch rainfall and count the peo- '< Pie upon it, you get results which j justify Australian optimism. For I ; instance, Germany, France, Spain, I ' Italy, -Great Britain and Sweden' ' i ma'ie up roughly 1,000,000 square1 ] rmlrs. The population of theselcountries is in round figures 200,000,- j ] 000. One need go no farther to de- ■' \ monstratc that Australia promises ' I to necomo a country strong, at least I '

in numbers. And that this storengtSf will not be confined to numbers, but that it will be distinguished by a high standard of wealth and political freedom and equality, and ail else that goes to make up an enlightened •nd a happy and powerful nation, will not be difficult to imagine. 3 It is sometimes said that Australia advances slowly. When you tell people that the country is wide and rich, and that its population to-day ia only 4£ millions, they exclaim, t "If it is so good a land why aren't there more people in it ? If you can |. easily carry one hundred millions, as you say, or even more, why is it that , to-day you have less than n five milt lions ?" But the answer is easy j and satisfactory. Even the greatest , must have a beginning, and it is on--3 ly the other day that Australia, began. She began little more than a century ago, and when you take in- ': to consideration her remoteness from ' r i the Mother Country, from which she | has drawn no less than 96 per cent. "of her people, and, until recently the t crude and difficult means of navigation, you wonder how she managed L to build up even h.er present posi- , tion. - j THE BEGINNING. L • It was in 1778 that Governor Phil--1 lip founded his first settlement on • the site of what is now the flourish--1 ing city of Sydney. He began with - about 1,000 souls, and landed at the same time the following livestock . ; Horses, 7 ; cattle, 7 ; sheep,29 ; pigs, '74 ; rabbits, 5 ; turkeys, 18 ; geese, 29 ; ducks, 35 ; fowls, 209. That was • the beginning. It was a start in ; the bush, and from that first tented I camp to the position to-day, has > been a long "and wonderful stride. ■ Where Governor Phillip landed you now find Sydney, a city of nearly 700,000 people, and the largest city lin Australia, and the fifth in the Empire. "The 1,000 settlers have been increased to 4-J- millions ; the 7 horses to nearly 2,000,000 ; the 7 cattle to 11,000,000^ the 29 sheep to nearly 100,000,000, and the rest of that miscellaneous collection of pioneers in proportion. So has our 1 British colonisation commenced all the world over, and so, too, has it flourished. The first 70 years showed but little progress. The story of that time is a story of great-hearted men who hewed and sweated in their isolation in order that the generations that c a me after might enjoy the harvest they could not realise. Even when S the Sydney settlement (had become ! but one of a number of colonies settled round the wide coast, and bold navigators, and still bolder explorers had revealed the future richness of - the territory, the settlers still laboured vastly and reaped lightly. Even when they had established themselves upon highly fertile country, there was but an indifferent return for their industry. The local market was cramped and indifferent, and export was, of course, almost out of the question. The demand for farm produce was narrow, and hence the chief industry down to about 1850 was almost entisely grazing. Men drove their flocks out in the wide green eucalyptus forests, where shepherds tended them. The only lines of produce which could be sent over-sea, and for which these was any certainty of return, were wool and tallow and hides. Good cattle and horses and sheep could be bought for the price of English poultry, and the outlook was anything but bright. " Weekly Telegraph."