The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1912. THE NORTHERN TERRITORY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 199, 20 February 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1912. THE NORTHERN TERRITORY.

Few people living know anything about the Northern Territory of the Commonwealth, the administration—or the neglect of administration—of which was taken out of the hands of the South Australian Government. It is vast, it is virtually unexplored, it is a menace. It is capable of sustaining millions of brown or yellow men, and it is unguarded, with its back door wide open to the alien. Mr. J. A. Gilruth, whose services the New Zealand Government found they could do without, as will be remembered, obtained an important professorial appointment in Victoria. He is, however, a man who is partly lost if his passion for deeds is not satisfied, and when he was called to try his hand as an explorer in the great country into a corner of which New Zealand could snuggle and be lost to view, his oppor-. tunity came. Previous to his exploring trip he had theorised in regard to this waste country, and the basis of his theories was scientific. Given the opportunity'to prove his beliefs that the Territory contained incalculable wealth but that its emptiness invited the hordes of the East, he pushed into the interior as far as he was able, and on his return to civilisation produced a masterly report, which decided the Commonwealth that the Territory was worth holding. It is impossible to imagine a man holding a position of greater importance than that of Administrator of this vast country, for he himself has no precedent for its administration. He must begin at the beginning. Ife 71111st be a man of immense courage and resolution, dominating, decisive, and possessing unique knowledge. Mr. fiilruth goes to the Territory with his mind made up that it is to be now and for ever a white man's country, and that the back door must be closed. On the proper policing of the Territory may easily depend the future safety of the whole island continent. Its vast areas will be probably given away to those white men of courage who faced (lie wilderness and who will face it again. The Commonwealth Covormni'iit

has apparently recognised that Mr. Gilruth is of the stuff from which Empirebuilders are made, and on his resource and courage, his. learning and his scientific skill, will the country depend for its stream of settlers. Great open spaces .have wonderful attractions for many British men, and to lick a new country into shape is man's work. Once a man has tasted the fascination of Australia's vastness, he hungers for it ever more. Already the glamor of the great Territory is stealing over men from many parts of Australia and this country. But to make the back-door safe against the possible aggression of the yellow man, no mere driblets of population will be effective. The Chinese have found ways to enter 'the back-door without being seen. A million men might be lost in the wilds and the rest of Australia know nothing of them. The white man, under a tireless administrator who loves his work, will push on into the wilderness, will die in the bush, will perish on the plains,, will fight hunger and starvation and; the blacks, willingly and joyfully as their forefathers did. A great new country is the- mother of ideas, the cradle of new courage, the teacher of all humanity. On every new enterprise with danger and man's work to do, you will-find the born plainsman camped with the Cockney" who never before was out of. sight of bricks and mortar. The man cradled in the bush will sit round the camp fire with the gently nurtured university man, and the country will teach them all to be equally effective empire-builders and equally useful pioneers. Without fuss or flurry there are men of the earth of all classes who push into new countries before they are "discovered"—if one may be mo■eitarily Hibernian. We all know about the ancient New Zealand whalers, hard, fearless men, who might horrify comfortable people nowadays, and like their lives carefully spoke-shaved and a good breakwind to save their complexions. In the Territory, hard, fearless men have hunted and fought for half a century. First, the unscientific utilitarian hunter, then the fearless scientists, then what are called "the pioneers." There is hope for humanity when at any time men can be found to cheerfully leave the supposed comforts of modern civilised life to "blaze the track." The tracks have not been blazed by the men who have always blazed tracks, for the occasion always produces the man. We don't hear much of the men of vast spaces, the human insects who burrow into the heart of a big continent, the fellows who are classed "ne'er do weil" by pious stay-at-homes, and who perform the feats that ultimately . make staying at home and a safe fireside possible. They are the men who count. Perhaps they will get drunk when they return to civilisation. They might even fight. They sometimes do! ,But they are the men who do the spadework of Imperial foundations. A year or two in the "never-never" of the great 'Territory would be useful to the "antidefenders" of New Zealand who believe that countries are won by waving their arms and passing resolutions. The human enemy is not the only circumstance that has to be fought. ' A search of two days in a tropic temperature for a waterhole would knock some silly notions out of people who have never moved out of Queen street or Lambton Quay, or have never lost sight of the Octagon or Latimer Square. The man who is going to administer the Territory and the men who are going to help him, the hunters, the prospectors, the fighters of aboriginals, the dam-sinkers, the fencers, the stock'men, the bushmen, are going to do the things that matter, the primal things. 'They are, indeed, the men whose work has made it possible for Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Auckland Wellington, Capetown, New York or Ontario to exist. And just whenever you want men to rush great enterprises, you can get them. That little fact is the linchpin that holds the wheel of the Imperial chariot secure.