The Daily News FRIDAY, AUGUST 27. AUSTRALIA'S PRESSING PROBLEMS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 174, 27 August 1909, Page 2

The Daily News FRIDAY, AUGUST 27. AUSTRALIA'S PRESSING PROBLEMS

One of the pre«s!.,g problems of defence of the Commonwealth of Australia is what i< lei be done with the Xorlhei'.i Territory, a rich undeveloped area; and now that Ihe Federal Government proposes to lake over from South Australia the charge of that Territory tile matter of securing for it adequate development, and at, the same time ensuring it against foreign invasion, is attracting much attention. As Lord Northcote pointed out recently, the Northern Territory is the real danger area of the Commonwealth. Port Darwin possesses a magnilieent harbor, which is absolutely undefended. A hostile expedition coul! ia7id any number of men there that k liked—assuming that the British fleet was otherwise and the aggressors could squat on the land and consolidate their position at leisure, receiving whatever reinforcements their country chose to send them until they spread over the whole of the richly productive part of the Territory, -which is capable of sustaining as dense a colored population as the Punjaub. The intruders might stav where they were, in the assurance that they could not possibly be dispossessed, and might drift southward in search of a more temperate climate whenever it suited them.

The fact that the Territory has hitherto been free from invasion may rest upon the invulnerability and watchfulness of the British Navy; but, the Sydney Daily Telegraph urges in an able article on the subject, the time may tome when the British Navy may be hard pressed elsewhere, and may be un-. able tp send ships to protect Australia's back gate in addition to its task of patrolling the trade routes of the -world. And unless the Commonwealth fills up the Northern Territory with white settlers before that time arrives, trouble must he expected. A transcontinental line connecting Port Darwin with the fertile lands and centres of population ill the south and east of Australia hedimes n necessity both for development and defence. The only question to be settled is that of the route. This is an age of transcontinental railways, the most powerful agents for increasing tlie industrial and military strength "of a country that the world -has ever seen. By means of her Siberian railway Russia has already planted an immense and handy population i n a region where the people become not ohly producers of wealth hut also a source of military strength in the event of a possible conflict; with a Far Eastern .nation. Bv the new transcontinental railway Canada Is opening immense new and fertile fields for settlement, and a great commercial and strategic port at Prince Rupert. Similarly, says the Telegraph, by means of a transcontinental line connecting Port Darwin, In- the utilisation of existing lines, with Townsville, Rockhampton, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne; and Adelaide, a white population might be planted in the Northern Territory ,o win wealth from the soil, and at the same time to form the advanced guard of the Australian defence forces in the event of a possible conflict with unauthorised intruders. With a railway to transport their produce, to bring them into touch with the markets ol the world, and to carry to them all the resources of civilisation, white settler* in the wide fertile bells of the Northern Territory would have much in their favor. And unless white settlers are planted there Tiv means of a railway, it is, humanly speaking, certain—judging by what has already happened in every other part of the world that -lies between the Tropic of Capricorn and tlio Equator,—that colored settlers will, sooner or later find their way 'there. A transcontinental railway from Port Darwin to the southern and eastern centres of population would, of course, be a strategical, as well as a developmental, line. It would enable the military resources of the/greater part of the Commonwealth to" be massed at a given point and transferred rapidly to the danger-area in the north. And it is the only means by which could oe «o transferred to meet a sudden emergency. Moreover, by sending the European mails overland to I'ort Darwin and thence via China and the Siberian railway, many days would be saved as coinpared with the present long sea route a saving of time which would mean a considerable saving of money, apart' altogether from the manifold' benefits | derived from speedy communication [ with the rest of tlie world for mails and J also for passengers. In dealing with the question of the transfer of the Northern Territory from South Australia to the Commonwealth, the Federal Government, it is argued by the Sydney Press, is hound to take into consideration the construction of a transcontinental rail-

way. A ercat blunder may bo avoided if the Government steadfastly disregards the course -vvhirli opportunism might. -surest, and determines that when.lhe time comes to choose the hack of the railway Uia-t must be built, nothing ftliall prevent the selection of a I route which will give the best strategical and developmental railway to Australia. South Australia's interests arc , demanding the construction of n line from Oodnadatta to Pine Creek, at a cost of £7.187,000. but it is claimed that a much more satisfactory trunk route could be obtained by linking up the existing Port Darwin railway with Quneusland lines, thus making practicable direct communication between Port

Darwin and all the big population areas on the eastern seaboard from Townsvillc to Melbourne. The cost would bo very slijrhtlv in excess of the Ooclna(lattu railway, and this route, would traverse preai tracts of fertile territory instead of, as by the other route, over more than one thousand miles of desert land—the worst stretch of territory that could lie chosen in Australia—ami then i further 500 miles south from Oodnadattn over a permanent way which in twenty-five years developed a traffic requiring but one train per fortnight. As the easternmost scheme would give opportunitv for direct communication between all the big populatinTi areas and the Territory, that is the wily route justified liv both (lie defensive and the commercial needs of the Commonwealth. The question is subservient to the passage of the measure taking over the Northern Territory, but it must shortly be put in the forefront of practical politics in the Commonwealth.