ADELAIDE TO DARWIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 September 1919, Page 10

ADELAIDE TO DARWIN.

PROPOSED NORTH-SOUTH RAILWAY. \ Sydney, .Aug. 21. Having completed, the east-west railway, so that Perth is now linked with Brisbane—although,. unfortunately, the line comprises five or six sections with different gauges—the Australian peoplu are now considering the possibility of completing the railway which shall give the Northern Territory communication with the rest of Aurtralia. At present, owing to the long sea journey and the wide desert spaces that' shut it off, it is farther from New South Wales and Victoria than New Zealand is. Messrs Timras and Kidman, who are railway and general contractors in a very big way, have offered to build a connecting railway between the South, Australian and Darwin systems for about - £8,000,000, and it is believed that, with the employment of 5000 working at both ends, communication would be established in three years. The contractors, who know this empty central land intimately,. say that the engineer. ing difficulties ' are not great, except where the line would have to cross the Macdonnell Range. Their offer waß formally, submitted to the Federal Government last week. There are two obvious difficulties in ;he way of an early start on this work. The first is finance and the second the route. The Commonwealth has not got £8.000,000 to spare now; it is finding it hard to raise money for ordinary purposes. The quostion of the ,route is certain to arouse the fiercely conflicting jealousies of the State*. South Australia will want, the railway to come due south, because that on the map appeal the right track. Queensland and New South Wales will insist that the shorter anil more valuable route would be to] link up with their systems. A railway direct to South Australia would run mostly through desert, but from Bourke, in New South Wales, through the back of Queensland, and across the Barkley Tableland to Pine Creek, ifc would open up a great area of fairly valuable pastoral country. t