The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, MAY 15, 1914. THE NORTHERN TERRITORY.
What many people consider to be the greatest problem with which Australia has to-day to deal, is that of the Northern Territory. For over ninety years groat effort has been made to solve the problem of settlement, and during that period much money has bean spent and many lives lost in the work of pioneering. Dr. Gilruth has been trying very hard to arrive at some reason for the* failures which have so persistently j followed efforts on the part of white men to make their homes in that < tropical land. According to what he: says the occupation of the North has ail along been carried out on wrong] lines. The first settling expedition j was despatched in 1825; it founded) Fort Dundas, on Melville Island, but the hostility of the natives proved too much for it. An attempt was made at) Raffles Bay, but at this stage the sol-1 dlers and traders were recalled by the Home Government. About 1835 Sir Gordon Bremner was sent to found a settlement at Fort Essington, with tho curious orders “not to encourage tho permanent settlement of any of his Majesty’s subjects.” Captain McArthur, who arrived in 1810, and Captain Stokes, in 1841, were discouraged by the climatic conditions, and settlement was still looked on in no hopeful light when the Territory was transferred to South Australia in 1863. Private enterprise was the next comer A sum of £20,000 was sunk and wasted in a sugar enterprise at l>e Lissavilla. The rat urn iu the fifth year from this enterprise was only seven tons-, tkrougli various ©ausc». Aftsr
this a Victorian syndicate took up 10,000 acres of rich, sugar-growing land on the Adelaide River, but the enterprise, despite the quality of the land, was a faint-hearted one, and bush fires speedily destroyed its hopes. The failure of the pioneers of the Northern Territory has usually been set down to the climate, but Dr. Gilruth declares that no climate has been more unfairly libelled. It was not until the rush of gold-seekers that fever and illness were introduced, and so far as can be ascertained, it was not until then that there was any disease in existence, and he goes so far as to say that there is even now less disease in the Northern Territory than is to be found in most other tropical countries. One great point Dr. Gilruth makes is that the white people have not yet discovered how they ought to Jive so as to fit themselves to the climatic conditions. Medical testimony, however, is quite emphatic when it states that to people of ordinary health, who do not neglect the necessary daily exercise in the open air, and who are moderately temperate in their habits, the climatic conditions of the Northern Territory are absolutely compatible with the continuance of the highest standard of health. There is no need, therefore, to leave this great tract of country to the brown man to settle. Under proper conditions the white man may yet find his place there.
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Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 20, 15 May 1914, Page 4
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523The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, MAY 15, 1914. THE NORTHERN TERRITORY. Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 20, 15 May 1914, Page 4
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