A NATION OF THE FUTURE.

Shannon News, 29 October 1929, Page 3

A NATION OF THE FUTURE.

SOME OF THE MANY FEATURES OF AUSTRALIA. DESCRIPTION BY MR A. SEIFERT. An interesting ancl entertaining account of conditions and happenings in Australia was given in an address delivered at the monthly gathering of the Levin Chamber ,of Commerce • Lunch Club on Friday, at Williams’s Tearooms, by Mr A. Seifert, who is iv ellknown as one of the pioneers in the flax-milling industry in the Manawata district and who returned recently from one of many visits to the Commonwealth. „ . , The Mayor (Mr C. Blenkhorn), who presided over an attendance of about twenty-five, extended a hearty introduction to the speaker for the occasion. His Worship mentioned that Mr Seifert was the first gentleman who had addressed the Lunch Club, haying spoken at the inaugural lunch in 1927, his subject then being “Topical Products/’ for which he was very happily remembered by the older members. Mr Seifert had been many times across the water, and he was one who used his eves and ears in his trips abroad. lii his address at this gathering he would have much scope, and his remarks should arouse great interest. -

' A FAST TRIP IN 1903. The first visit which he made, to Australia, stated Mr Seifert, was in 1903, and since then he had made many more, but the first passage'was the fastest of ! them all, the old Mooraki making the run in three days, six hours and a few minutes. In the fifteen and sixteen trips he had made across the Tasman after that, none of the steairfers on which he had travelled had equalled that performance. WHERE MOUNTAINS WOULD BE AN ADVANTAGE. ' “Australia is a very large country,” the speaker continued,, “being only slightly smaller than Europe including Russia. It is comparatively flat; its highest mountain, Kosciusco, is about. 7200 feet, as compared with the 12,300 ' odd feet of our highest, . Mt. Cook. ‘ ‘ The large amount of barren land on the continent was due, lie explained, to a lack of rainfall largely brought about by the. lack of mountain ranges over the greater part of the country. In New Zealand barren land was due to the - presence of mountain masses, and nearly half the South Island was unproductive for that reason. The forest' growth of Australia was totally different from that of the Dominion. Six years ago, in company with Mr Overton, a Power Board engineer from this country, he saw the forests from which the power-poles were procured. These poles were got from an area of about twelve million acres, the bulk of which was Government land. After a cutting-out of poles, the for-

est could be visited for the -same pur-

pose in ten years’ time, when a lot of equally large trees could be obtained, as the Australian forests regenerated very rapidly, in contrast with the gradual growth o£ New Zealand trees. A GREAT DROUGHT.

On the occasion of Mr Seifert’s first

visit to Australia, in 1903, the country had been suffering from a disastrous „»,4jaoiught, which ended before lie took Ids departure. Before it began, New; South Wales had 62 million sheep, but there were only 25 million left by the time the drought finished. It was humorously reported that the dry conditions liacb lasted so long that when the rain came even the ducks took cover. (Laughter.) As illustrating the wonderful powers of recovery'ln the dormant pasture-lands, Mr Seifert stated that, three days after the first showers, a tinge of green ( was noticeable over the whole countryside that had previously been parched for years. There was always a drought in one paid; or another of the cdntineut. it could not receive general rain, because of the changeability 6f the winds. The description “disastrous drought”, was used when the major portion of the country was affected. In 1902 the opposite of the drought conditions prevailed along the coast below Sydney, plenty of rain being experienced during all that'period; and over a very large area in that direction the farmers bad a remarkably, good time. This state of climate meant, however, that if the big drought broke they would have their own drought for a long per- . iod. Even at the present time it was not knowm why the winds changed as they did in Australia. On one occasion ho was sitting at an hotel table in Sydney, and was informed by some people who had a station that carried'many thousands of sheep, that the animals wero so poor that it was-not-possible to kill enough mutton for the station’s * own supply; and the mutton had to be bought. ABUNDANCE OP BIRD LIFE.

In speaking of the bird life that, abounds in Australia, Mr Seifert said that when he visited the Northern Rivers district, in company with Mr Overton, he was astonished at the number and variety of the birds. Since then he had read that in both these respects Australia was -equal to any country in the world, with the exception of Asia. When the first explorers Visited Australia they thought they had entered, a new world, because of the strangeness of the animal life,

FOREST FEATURES. The trees were very different from what inhabitants of other countries knew - . There were so many of the eucalyptus family that to him they seemed" monotonous, and he preferred the forests of his own land because of their greater variety. Probably if Australia had the .same rainfall as New Zealand, there would be as much variety.in the forest growth. He had noticed an exception to the monotony when travelling through Kangaroo Valley, on the South Coast; there the bush very much resembled that of this country, for the reason, no doubt, that there was a considerable rainfall in that

valley. Travelling from there to Mossvale, he saw trees 300 to 350 feet high, in rich soil and well sheltered. He understood that Australia had the tallest trees in the world, but he had not seen them.

THE EUREKA STOCKADE

On his last trip Mr Seifert went so Ballarat, and saw the site of the Eureka Stockade, where there way a monument to the mew who had fought against the Government forces of their day, to resist the levy of a charge of 30s a month made on the gold seekers. Recalling the rebellion, lie stated that the miners had asked that, instead of the impost, with its alternative of work on the roads, an export duty of 2s 6d an ounce be placed oh gold, contending that this would yield the Government more money than the license. At the time, they were naturally called rebels by the Governor, but now there was the monument with an inscription stating that the men who fell had given their lives in the cause of liberty. Looking at the event after the lapse of years, there was no doubt that the miners had been forced into the position of fighting for a right for which they should never have had to ask.

WEALTH OF THE MINE AND STREAM.

At Ballarat Mr Seifert was taken to the monument marking the place where gold was first discovered. The monument was on the top of a hill, which seeemed a strange place to him, but he thought it might have been put there to indicate that the gold was found in the creek below. Three hundred millions pounds’ worth of gold had been taken from Victoria, and £60,000,000 worth from Australia. To-day there was not much gold being mined in that country. In the later, period Western Australia provided a considerable amount of the (precious ■ metal. Goldmining was not now a very important industry, but, strange to say, wheat growing was. THE GOLDEN GRAIN.

Mr Seifert stated that he was in Perth and Fremantle in 1913, and was told at that timd* that Western Australia was not self-supporting in wheat and flour. It had since become one of the largest exporters among the • Australian States, and it had, besides, much more, land that could be brought under cultivation for wheat. One factor. that had done a great deal to make the wheat-growing business prosperous in Australia had been plant selection. A Mr Farrar took up as a hobby the selecting of better wheat for the Australian conditions. He was a remarkable judge as to what was a good milling wheat, and he wprked in a very commbnsense way, carrying on his in r vestigations for many years. If he saw a particularly good field of wheat, he selected seed from the best heads and planted it. He was especially observant of drought-resisting properties, and by comparing the characteristics of different classes of wheat and crossing them he achieved great results. The experiments lasted over a lengthy period, and some of the varieties he crossed a number of times. Following upon all this research, one did not hear nowadays of the disastrous failures in wheat crops such as occurred in the early days. It was only necessary to compare the records to see that Farrar and those who had followed him had done marvellous work. The speaker had been told that Farrar got £IOO while he was living and a monument when he died. POPULATION AND RAILWAYS. A description was given by Mr Seifert of some of Australia’s, health resorts, including those of the Blue Mountains. He spoke of the problem of centralisation, a "(glaring (example of which-is that more than half the population of New South Wales lives in Sydney. In that case, he pointed out, the condition had been brought about partly by the. configuration of the country and partly by the conservative manner in which the railways had been laid out. The inhabitants of Sydney had increased in number to such an" extent that they were using their votes and their power to bring everything to that centre; on the other hand, the people of the country districts would never be united, because they were scattered to the north, west and south. Referring to the many changes of railway gauge in Australia, Mr Seifert spoke of the danger once pointed out by the late Lord Kitchener, that ,a foreign army could concentrate in a part of the continent served by a line of one gauge while the home forces were being delayed by their transfer over a number of differing railway systems. In the future, aviation might revolutionise the "whole situation. NEW ZEALAND GOLFERS.

On his last visit Mr Seifert accompanied the golf team who competed for the Kirk-Windeyer Cup, a trophy given by two gentlemen of those names and which has to be played for each year in a different State, with New Zealand included, next year’s contest being set down for Christchurch at Easter. The New Zealanders did not win the cup, but went very close to doing so. MODERN MELBOURNE.

Praise was accorded by the speaker to the modern electric suburban railway system of Melbourne, and he gave some particulars of the demand for land in the environs of that city, mentioning that a golf club had paid .£IBO an acre for land situated 15 miles from Melbourne and which he considered not worth 15s an acre from an agricultural point of view. STIRRINGS OF A NATION. In concluding, Mr Seifert said he believed that Australia was going to be a remarkable country in the future. Many difficulties were being experienced at present, and Labour Governments were blamed for them, but these were only incidents in the life of a nation, and changes would come. The people settling in Australia were commonsense people, mostly of British stock, who had helped to build up other countries. The environment

might not be altogether suitable for some time to come, but people would adapt themselves to it, and eventually a type would be evolved quite suitable to the country. Australia would become very powerful in time and develop into a great nation. Mr Parker moved a hearty vote of thanks to Mr Seifert for his excellent address, remarking that those present were much indebted to him for the interesting information he had imparted to them.

The Mayor added a tribute of appreciation and mentioned the help that Mr Seifert had been to those with whom he was associated in public life, by reason of the fund of knowledge derived from experience which was at s command and which he was always ready to place at their disposal. The motion was carried by acclamation.