AUSTRALIA’S EMPTY HALF.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3539, 1 June 1912, Page 2

AUSTRALIA’S EMPTY HALF.

‘‘ADMIRABLY ADAPTED FO SETTLEMENT!”

■STATESMEN’S THEORY EXPLAINED.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 21.

The party of statesmen who recently visited the Northern Territory has returned, clioeli full of information. Their reports may he somewhat- lacking in coherence, and, therefore, better calculated to intensify doubt and uncertainty than to point- out a policy of assured good sense. But what it lacks in this behalf it more than makes uo in varietv.

Tropical Australia, they tell us, is admirably adapted for white settlement, so admirably adapted that for the last century no white man would live in .it any longer than he could help. Had he been allowed to utilise labor acclmatised, and accustomed to out-door work, in so hot a climate, the result might have been different. But, as Dr. Sangrado remarked, “We have a theory,” and everything must he sacrificed to that theory. His theory was bleeding and hot water, and lie swore by them vigorously 1 as his modern prototypes swear by 'vaccination. Our theory is that AiistralI ia must be kept sacroscant from the foot of the colored person, even if His exclusion should place us before the world in the unlovely attitude of the dog in the manger, with more than a possibility of leading, ultimately, to overwhelming national humiliation. But this is by the way. The visitors found tlie_ Territory empty. About the only point on which they agree is the importance of persisting in the policy which has kept it empty. What everyone says must he true. There must be, therefore, something that passes for truth in this feature of their testimony. Admirably adapted as the tropics are for encouraging manual labor and nhysical exercise among the white folks, some of those who were loudest in proclaiming their advantages in this respect also testify that they never saw people quite so listless and apathetic as these northern residents. This cannot, of course lie due to the bracing climate. It must be, therefore, because of the mental and physical inferiority of the low-class persons who were beguiled into trying their fortunes so far north. Some other members of the party, however, as if they had a suspicion that this interpretation o fthe backwardness of the settlement would throw doubt on the “bracing” characteristic's previously asserted, ascribe it to another cause. The inhabitants, they tell us, are so much in love yith the country and its climate that they have entered into a conspiracy to keep it all to themselves, and not to say or do anything that might attract immigration ! And when they leave this earthly paradise for other parts (which they do a't the very first eligible opportunuity that offers) it is with the secret thought of returning to enjoy the advantages which it offers, when they shall have “made their piles” in some less favored localities. The tour, however, is worth all the money it has cost, if only for the light which it has thrown on the calibre and discernment of some of our most prominent legislators.