QUEENSLAND.
SIZE AND CONFIGURATION--EARLY SETTLEMENT--BRISBANE ISLAND AND COAST
TOWNS--GLADSTONE--ROMA--GYMPIE--TOOWOOMBA--TOWNSVILLE--COOKTOWN--
SQUATTING--THE CATTLE STATION--THE SHEEP STATION--THE QUEENSLAND
FOREST--THE NETTLE-TREE--SUGAR PLANTING--POLYNESIAN NATIVES--
STOPPAGE OF THE LABOUR TRADE--GOLD MINING--THE PALMER--SILVER,
TIN, AND COPPER.
[Illustration: BRISBANE.]
[Illustration: A VILLAGE ON DARLING DOWNS.]
The following sketch of the great colony of Queensland is from the pen
of Mr. Carl A. Feilberg of Brisbane.
In order to form a just idea of Queensland it is necessary to bear in
mind the broad divisions of its territory. First, there is the coast
country, which is often spoken of as a strip, though in reality it has
at some points a depth of over two hundred miles. A glance at the map
will show innumerable rivers finding their way into the sea along the
whole east and north coasts of the colony, and it is the country which
forms the watersheds of these rivers which is spoken of as the coast.
West and south of this bordering tract lies the great central plateau,
which is mainly a huge plain, where the surface, which sometimes rises
into rolling downs and sometimes spreads out in apparently limitless
flats, is only broken by a few ranges of low hills. From this great
plateau the whole surface drainage is to the south and south-west, a
small portion finding its way into the Darling, but the greater part
flowing by a network of channels through the thirsty sands which lie to
the north of the lakes, or more properly the huge swamps of South
Australia. In the coast country the rainfall in ordinary seasons is
sufficient in quantity and sufficiently spread over the year to permit
of agriculture. The rivers and creeks generally contain running streams
of water, and the air is moist enough to permit the fall of dew at
night. In the interior the rivers are watercourses that seldom contain
running streams, being during the greater part of the year merely chains
of pools, or 'water holes,' as they are locally called. Rain falls at
long and uncertain intervals: the annual total is small; night-dews are
not common, and agriculture is virtually impossible unless assisted by
irrigation. To this general description there is, however, one important
exception. In the southern part of the colony the table-land approaches
to within seventy or eighty miles of the seaboard, and therefore enjoys
a comparatively moist climate. The district so situated, known as the
Darling Downs, lies immediately to the west of Brisbane, and is the seat
of the most important agricultural settlement of the colony. The moister
climate of the Darling Downs changes almost imperceptibly as they
stretch to the westward, and it is difficult to fix on the point where
agriculture, carried on in the usual way, without irrigation, may be
regarded as a hopeless task.
The occupation of the territory now included in Queensland began almost
simultaneously at two points. Pioneer squatters, pushing northward from
the interior of New South Wales, discovered the fertile plains of the
Darling Downs, and the Sydney authorities determined to form a convict
station on the shores of the remote almost unexplored sheet of
land-locked water known as Moreton Bay. The convict station was founded
in 1826, and in the first instance on the coast at a place since known
as Humpy Bong, meaning, in the language of the blacks, 'dead huts or
houses.' This settlement was soon abandoned, as the water-supply was
precarious, and there was insufficient shelter for shipping. A site was
subsequently chosen about twenty miles up the channel of the principal
river emptying into Moreton Bay, which had been named after Sir Thomas
Brisbane; and 'The Settlement,' as it was at first called, soon came to
be known by the name of the river, and the decaying buildings of the
first attempted lodgment caused the wandering blacks to give the
locality the name it now bears.
At first, of course, there were nothing but the necessary buildings for
the convicts--dangerous characters who had been convicted for fresh
crimes in the land of their exile, and were therefore relegated to what
was then the safe isolation of Moreton Bay--and for the warders and
others in charge of the prisoners. Meanwhile, as we have said, pioneer
squatters had spied out the pastoral wealth of the Darling Downs, and
some bold adventurers had pushed overland with their flocks to occupy
it. These pioneers at first kept up communication by bush trails with
far distant Sydney, but, hearing that a new settlement had been formed
on the coast, they sought to open communication with it. A pass--known
as Cunningham's Gap--was found in 1832 through the ranges which form the
eastern flanks of the great plateau, and communication was opened with
the settlement. Townships were formed. Near the verge of the Darling
Downs plateau the seed of what is now the thriving and important town of
Toowoomba was sown by the carriers making a halting-place before
attempting the toilsome and dangerous descent through the ravines of the
thickly wooded range, which then swarmed with bold and hostile savages.
Another such halting-place was the spot where travellers, having emerged
from the broken country and having passed the great scrubs or jungles at
the foot of the hills--now a populated and thriving farming
district--first struck the navigable waters of the Bremer, the principal
affluent of the Brisbane. At that point the town of Ipswich came into
existence, and for many years it rivalled Brisbane in importance,
because the goods brought to the capital by sea-going ships were taken
in river craft to the former town, which was thus the point of departure
for all land carriage.
Brisbane grew slowly. There was no special attraction to induce people
to leave the more populated districts of New South Wales, and bury
themselves in so remote a settlement. There was the fever which attacks
settlers in all newly opened settlements, the blacks were dangerous, and
that the place was a station for doubly and trebly convicted felons told
against it. But the rich Darling Downs came to be regarded as a pastoral
paradise, and squatting occupation spread rapidly in the interior, so
that its expansion told slowly but surely on the outpost. The convict
establishment was in time closed. The plot of ground formerly cultivated
by the convicts is now occupied partly by a fine public garden, and
partly by the domain surrounding the Governor's residence.
Brisbane is a fast-growing city, with a population, including the
suburbs, of between 50,000 and 60,000, its growth since the census of
1881 having been so rapid that it is not possible to furnish more than
an approximate estimate of the number. Originally built on a flat,
partly enclosed by an abrupt bend of the river, the town has climbed the
bordering ridges, crossed the stream and spread out in all directions.
The principal street--Queen Street--runs across the neck of the original
river-side 'pocket;' at one end it touches the wharves, at the other it
meets the winding river at right angles, and the roadway is carried on
by a long iron bridge across to the important suburb of South Brisbane.
Queen Street, which is the combined Collins and Bourke Streets of
Brisbane, promises to be a fine-looking thoroughfare. Already it
possesses shops and bank buildings which may challenge comparison with
those of any Australian city, and every year the older buildings are
giving way to new and more imposing structures. On one side of the
thoroughfare the cross-streets lead through the oldest part of the city;
through blocks of buildings where fine warehouses and tumbledown hovels
are strangely intermixed with the Parliament Houses, the public gardens,
and the wharves. On the other side of Queen Street the same
cross-streets climb steep ridges to the terraces, where high and broken
ground offer cool breezy sites for streets filled with dwelling-houses.
The diversified surface of the ground over which the town of Brisbane
has spread itself, the broad noble river which winds through it,
doubling back almost on itself, as if loth to quit the city it has
called into existence, and the picturesque range of wooded hills which
closes the view to the westward, constitute a scene of great beauty. An
artist roaming round the town would find objects of interest everywhere.
From the elevated terraces he could look down on the main town, with the
river, a broad band of silver, winding through it, and his horizon would
include the blue peaks of the main range to the westward, and the
shimmer of the sunlight on the great land-locked sheet of Moreton Bay to
the eastward.
[Illustration: VALLEY OF THE RIVER BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND.]
One of the sights of Brisbane is the Garden of the Acclimatisation
Society--a body supported partly by private subscription and partly by
Government endowment. In these Gardens are collected a vast number of
trees and plants selected for their use and beauty, and the
sub-tropical position of Brisbane allows the propagation of the
vegetable products of almost every zone. The 'bush house' in these
gardens, a huge structure consisting of a rough framework roofed with
dried bushes, covers several acres, and is stocked with a most
interesting collection of ferns, lycopods, orchids, dracaenas, colans,
begonias, &c. There is a public museum, which is well stocked, and its
specimens of natural history are well arranged.
The use of timber for buildings is very general in Brisbane. Pine is
abundant on the coast of Queensland, and the easily worked timber is
cheap. The climate is very mild, and their weatherboard walls are quite
sufficient to keep out the very moderate cold experienced in winter;
almost all the dwelling-houses, and many of the stores in the suburbs,
are therefore wooden buildings. The dwelling-houses also are nearly all
detached, standing each one in an allotment of its own, so that the
residential part of the town straggles over an immense area, stretching
out in fragmentary streets for miles from the main city. There are
hundreds of neat cottages and trim villas scattered over the low hills
and valleys, on the river bank, or nestling under the range of hills
which lie to the west of the town. It should be remembered, however,
that in the climate of Brisbane the 'verandah is the best room in the
house,' and people live as much as possible in the open air; the family
group gathers on the verandah in the evening instead of, as in a colder
climate, congregating indoors.
The extended coast-line of Queensland, and the peculiar position of
Brisbane in the extreme south, has prevented it from concentrating the
social and commercial life of the colony, as is done by Sydney,
Melbourne and Adelaide. It is by far the largest coast town, the centre
of government, and its commerce is larger than that of all the remaining
ports put together, but these ports are many of them also real capitals
and commercial cities. The first important town on the coast going
northward is Maryborough, on the banks of the Mary River, a town
containing probably 10,000 inhabitants, and the commercial capital of a
rich agricultural and mineral district, of somewhat limited extent.
Maryborough disputes with Brisbane the possession of the most extensive
ironworks in the colony, the demand for sugar and mining machinery
having called them into existence. Rockhampton, near the mouth of the
Fitzroy, is a town of equal if not greater population than Maryborough,
but it is a far finer and better built city. Being the west terminus of
the central system of trunk railways, it is essentially a commercial
capital, and a busy, thriving place. Agricultural operations are not as
yet very extensively carried on in the surrounding district, neither
sugar-growing nor general cultivation having at present helped to
increase the prosperity of Maryborough, nor is there any successful
gold-field in the vicinity, though one phenomenally rich mine, Mount
Morgan, is being worked in the neighbourhood. Rockhampton has grown and
prospered by trade, and as it is the outlet for over 100,000 square
miles of territory, it should have a very prosperous career before it.
The towns named are the most important on the coast-line of sub-tropical
Queensland. There are also the thriving little towns of Bundaberg, at
the mouth of the Burnett river, the outlet for a rich tract of
agricultural land, and Gladstone, a few miles to the south of the mouth
of the Fitzroy. The last-named township is next after Brisbane the
oldest settlement in Queensland, but it has never prospered. Hidden away
at the head of a great land-locked sheet of deep water--probably after
Sydney the finest natural harbour on the east coast of Australia--it
slumbers peacefully without any visible trade: a bush village, supported
by the stockmen employed on the neighbouring cattle stations, and
occasionally galvanised into life by a promising discovery among the
rich but fragmentary and erratic mineral lodes found in the volcanic
country in its vicinity. These constitute all the coast towns worth
mentioning.
Inland, on the line of trunk railway running westward from Brisbane, are
Ipswich and Toowoomba, both agricultural centres, but the latter the
more important of the two, with a population of eight or nine thousand
people. Just beyond Toowoomba, a branch of the railway curving to the
south runs to Warwick, another pretty country town of some four thousand
people, surrounded by rich soil and thriving farmers, and enjoying, from
its elevation, a pleasantly cool climate. Continuing, the branch railway
reaches Stanthorpe, near the border, mentioned elsewhere, and the line
is being continued to effect a junction with the New South Wales railway
system. After leaving Toowoomba, the main line continues in a nearly
direct line westward, passing through Dalby, a rather stagnant little
bush town of some two thousand people, set down in the midst of vast
plains more suited by reason of the climate for pasture than
agriculture. These plains may be regarded as the limit of the Darling
Downs. Beyond them the railway runs through a desolate tract of
scrub--not the fertile jungle of the coast districts, but an arid tract
closely filled with stunted trees, hard and gnarled by their long
struggle for existence. Emerging from this belt, the railway reaches
another open tract, consisting of the true pastoral downs country, and
runs into the pleasant little town of Roma, where from three to four
thousand persons find employment in supplying the wants of the
surrounding pastoral region. Still continuing, the railway is being
pushed on westward towards the great pastoral area of the interior--the
fertile wilderness which Burke and Wills first traversed, and where they
died, which now is being filled by millions of sheep, and adding rapidly
to the wealth of the colony. There are bush townships in the track of
the advancing railway which will no doubt become towns, but as yet they
are in no way noticeable. The same may be said of the townships reached
by the Central Trunk Railway running westward from Rockhampton and its
branches. The country through which it runs has not a climate very
suitable for agriculture--at least no agricultural settlement has taken
place--and with the exception of Clermont, a little town of about two
thousand inhabitants, which grew into some importance by means of
mineral discoveries in its vicinity, there are only bush townships of
varying sizes in the central districts. The thriving town of Gympie,
with five thousand inhabitants, the second gold-field of Queensland, and
also the centre of a thriving and spreading agricultural settlement,
lies about seventy miles to the south of Maryborough, with which it is
connected by railway.
The line of the Tropic of Capricorn runs close to the town of
Rockhampton; sub-tropical Queensland ends there. The first place of
importance on the coast going north is Mackay, a town of some three or
four thousand people, supported by a small rich district which has
become the chief centre of sugar cultivation in the colony. The Mackay
district is in a sense isolated, having little or no trade connection
with the interior. Next after Mackay comes Bowen, a sleepy, decaying
settlement of some one thousand inhabitants, occupying a most beautiful
site on a sheet of water land-locked by a ring of picturesque islands.
There is no prettier town on the coast of Queensland, no place which
seems more fitted for the site of a great city than Bowen; but trade
left it soon after its foundation, and it has mouldered half-forgotten
ever since.
From Bowen northward the coast of Queensland is sheltered by the line of
the Barrier Reef and a long chain of romantic and beautiful islands. The
traveller on this coast enjoys a perpetual feast of the eye. On the one
side the islands in the line of reef present every variety of form and
colour--the green of the timber or vegetation clothing them, the varying
lines of their fantastic, weather-beaten, rocky cliffs, and the dazzling
white coral sand of their beaches. On the other side, the mountains of
the coast range approach closely to the shore, sometimes apparently
springing upwards from the very beach; and their imposing masses,
clothed with dense vegetation to the very summits, smile rather than
frown on the blue sparkling wavelets of the sheltered water, which seems
to lave their feet. At various points the mountains fall back, opening,
as it were, avenues to the interior of the country. At the entrance to
one of these openings is Townsville, the chief commercial centre and the
virtual capital of the north. This fast-growing city is built on the
actual sea-coast; and though to some extent sheltered by islands, its
harbour is shallow and exposed. A breakwater, however, is being
gradually made, and in various ways an artificial harbour is being
formed. Townsville, which now contains probably a population of nine or
ten thousand people, is the terminus of the Northern Trunk line.
Immediately to the west of it are the great gold-fields of Charters
Towers and Ravenswood, and the railway is being pushed far to the
westward, traversing the northern portion of the pastoral plateau of the
west, and tapping the verge of the great plains which slope gradually to
the shore of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Townsville promises to be a very
fine city; and, although it is too new a settlement to contain many
buildings of special note, it will not long be without them.
[Illustration: TOWNSVILLE, NORTH QUEENSLAND.]
Still following the coast, and passing the little mountain-bound port of
Cardwell, which nestles at the feet of great hills which, by cutting it
off from inland traffic, have stunted its growth, and by the ports of
Cairns and Port Douglas, which dispute between them the lucrative
position of outlet for the mineral fields on the elevated mountain
plateau lying just behind them, we come to Cooktown. This town, built at
the mouth of the Endeavour River, on the spot where Captain Cook
careened his vessel after the discovery of Australia, was called into
existence by the great gold rush of the Palmer, described elsewhere. Its
fortunes waxed with the rush, and waned as the alluvial field became
exhausted; so that its population, Chinese and European, is now probably
not more than two thousand souls. There is, however, a future before it,
because a railway, now in course of construction, will soon link it with
the Palmer gold-field, where there are hundreds of gold-reefs awaiting
cheaper carriage and more certain communication with the coast for their
full development. In the meantime Cooktown is becoming a centre for the
nascent New Guinea trade, and a certain amount of settlement is taking
place in its vicinity. This is the best port on the mainland of the Cape
York peninsula, but at its extremity there is the port of Thursday
Island, a shipping centre, and the northern outpost of Australia. At
Thursday Island there is a Government resident, charged with the control
of the pearling fleet, which has its head-quarters there, and the
government of the scattered islands in Torres Straits, which are under
the jurisdiction of Queensland. Thursday Island is a port of call for
all vessels passing through Torres Straits, and several thousand tons of
coal are always stored there.
On the Gulf of Carpentaria are two small ports. The principal one,
Normanton, on the Norman River, is a growing town of over a thousand
inhabitants, and will probably be the terminus of a line of railway.
Burketown, on the Albert River, is a place which is reviving after a
strange history. About twenty years ago, when the pioneer squatters
first drove their herds into the Gulf country, a township was located
there; but the settlers formed their settlement and lived in such
reckless defiance of all sanitary rules that a fatal fever broke out,
which decimated them. The place was after this entirely abandoned, and
the grass hid the rotting posts of the mouldering houses, which rapidly
decayed in that hot, moist climate. A few years ago, however, the
attempt to form a town was renewed, and this time with more care.
Burketown is now quite as healthy as any tropical settlement; and as it
is surrounded by vast plains of exceptional fertility, abundantly
watered by flowing streams, it will probably become a place of some
importance. This completes the list of towns on the coast of Northern
Queensland.
Queensland is pre-eminently the cattle colony, possessing no less than
4,266,172 head of horned stock in 1884. Experience has shown that sheep
do not thrive in the coast districts, especially in the north. The
merino breed of sheep will thrive, in spite of an exceedingly high
summer temperature, provided the heat is dry, but not when the warmth is
accompanied by moisture; so that in Queensland sheep-raising is
practically confined to the table-lands of the interior. Cattle, on the
other hand, do as well on the short scanty grasses, and in the dry pure
air of the uplands, as on the rank luxuriant herbage and in the steamy
atmosphere of the great plains which lie sweltering in the sun round the
shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The whole colony is therefore
available for cattle, while probably not more than half, or at the
utmost two-thirds, can be used by the sheep-grazier. It is not possible,
however, to lay down any definite boundaries between the sheep and
cattle countries, because at many points the one melts insensibly into
the other, and prolonged experience is sometimes required to fix the
dividing line with any degree of accuracy.
The sheep-owner comes when the wilderness has been partly subdued, the
blacks tamed and reduced to idle drunken loafers, and the facilities and
cost of carriage greatly reduced. He must either be a capitalist or have
the command of large sums of money, for he has to subdivide his country
with great paddocks inclosed by wire fences; he must supplement the
natural stores of water by scooping out reservoirs, sinking wells, or
damming creek channels; and he must erect costly buildings as
wool-sheds, stores, huts, &c. The term squatter is quite misapplied to
the wool kings of the present day, who are here men of business,
watching the markets and the seasons, eager to utilise to its utmost
every crop of grass which a good rain yields, and to turn it into mutton
and wool, and buying and selling stock so as to profit by every turn of
the market.
A good deal of the sheep farming of the colony is now carried on not by
individuals, but by joint-stock companies with capitals of many hundred
thousands of pounds. In fact, the old-time squatter--the type depicted
in such books as Henry Kingsley's stories--is as extinct as the dodo in
Queensland, so far as the sheep districts are concerned.
The cultivation of cereals and crops such as are grown in the southern
colonies is only practised in Queensland on a considerable scale in the
district of Darling Downs, where the comparatively cool climate of the
inland plateau is accompanied by a sufficient rainfall to permit of
ordinary farming. Wheat is grown, but not to any great extent, the total
area under wheat in 1884 being less than 16,000 acres. The soil is very
fertile, and the yield of grain per acre is decidedly above the
Australian average; but for some reason red rust is a perfect scourge to
the farmer.
It is on the fertile scrub land that the most successful agriculture is
carried on. These scrubs are generally found on the banks of rivers,
although in certain localities broad areas, containing hundreds of
square miles, are clothed with scrub. The soil is a deep alluvial
deposit; and the close-growing trees on it spring straight and tall in
the struggle to reach the upper atmosphere and light, for the leafy roof
allows no sun to penetrate to the damp ground, soft with mouldering
leaves, but makes a cool green gloom even on the most fiery summer day.
There is something very solemn in the quietude of a scrub untouched by
the axe of the lumberer or settler. There is no undergrowth, properly
speaking, though delicate little ferns and fairy-like mosses nestle
close to the feet of the trees. But there is a wealth of parasitical
life. Giant lianas twine from tree to tree, hanging in great loops and
folds and contortions, suggesting the idea of huge vegetable monsters
writhing in agony. Much more graceful are the lovely shy orchids hiding
in crannies, and the bolder ferns, springing from great root-masses
attached to the stems of the trees, the graceful shape and curve of the
leaves, and their pure pale-green colour, undisturbed and undimmed by
wind or sun. Among the wilderness of trees may be noticed the victims of
the treacherous fig, the dead trunk of the original tree still visible,
but enveloped in the interlacing stem of the robber, which has seized it
in its cruel embrace, sucked life and marrow out of it, and reared
triumphantly its crown of glossy green leaves far above in the bright
sunlight. On all these beautiful or strange or weird objects one gazes
in a stillness which seems to be intensified by the continuous murmur of
the breeze in the leafy roof--a quiet so great that one is almost
startled by the timid thud of the tiny scrub marsupial, which, after a
gaze of fascinated terror at the intruder, hurries away, or by the
clatter of a scrub pigeon or turkey far up in the overarching foliage,
or the strange snoring call of the Australian sloth, or native bear.
In the tropical scrub the lianas, the creeping canes and creepers of
every description, bind the trees into compact masses of vegetation; and
it is a vegetation which, if one may be allowed the term, is of a
fiercer type than in the south. Every creeper seems to be armed with
thorns, to tear the clothes and lacerate the flesh of the rash intruder,
and poisonous and stinging plants abound. Chief among these must be
placed the nettle-tree, a shrub with broad green, soft-looking leaves,
covered with a down that carries torture in every tiny fibre. Even
horses brushed by these treacherous leaves go mad with pain. But in the
north, as in the south, the timber-getter rifles the scrub of its
treasures of timber, and the sugar planter clears all before him, and
skims with his cane-crops the incalculable store of fertility
accumulated in the soil.
[Illustration: SUGAR PLANTATION, QUEENSLAND.]
It is in connection with sugar-growing that the labour difficulty,
common in Australia, becomes unusually severe in Queensland. The
difficulty is two-fold--climatic and economical. Field work in the
tropics is everywhere shunned by white men, and in Queensland, north of
Mackay, it has not as yet been found possible to induce Europeans to
engage in it. Some of the work connected with cane-growing, also, is
peculiarly exhausting, because the canes, when they reach a height of
six or seven feet, shut out every breeze, and the heat between the rows
is stifling. Then a large staff of labourers is required on a
plantation, because during the planter's harvest--the crushing season,
which extends over some months--a considerable number of additional
hands are required. In a colony where labour is well paid and work
abundant there is practically no floating population to furnish these
temporary supplies. It follows therefore that the planter must keep all
the year round a staff equal to his harvest requirements, and the
expense of doing this, if the men employed were paid at the high rate of
wages current for white men, would be crushing. The difficulty has been,
up to the present time, solved by the importation of South Sea
Islanders, who are generally speaking good and docile labourers, not
affected by heat, and comparatively cheap. They are engaged for terms of
three years, at a wage in cash of L6 a year; but their employers have to
feed and clothe them, and to pay for the cost of their introduction and
their return to their homes when the engagements are terminated. It is
reckoned that the cost of Kanaka labourers, including everything, equals
from L25 to L35 a year for each 'boy' employed, though that of course is
very much less than the L1 a week, with food and lodging, generally paid
to white labourers.
The labour trade, as the procuring of Kanakas is termed, is, however, to
be stopped in 1890. In spite of rigid regulations and the care exercised
by the Government of the colony, it is a trade which, from its very
nature, is liable to abuse, and it has been abused. Vessels trading to
islands where the natives knew nothing of the colony or of regular work
endeavoured by fraud and misrepresentation, and sometimes, though
rarely, by actual violence to procure cargoes of labourers. It must be
remembered that the Queensland labour trade has been ever since its
establishment the bone of contention in fierce party disputes, and the
usual unscrupulousness of party politicians has been displayed alike in
attacking and defending it.
Taking a general view of agriculture, it must be admitted that
Queenslanders have not, except in regard to sugar, taken advantage of
their great opportunities. Sugar-growing, until the recent crisis in the
labour difficulty, was progressing rapidly. The yield for 1885, though
not officially stated, is computed by reliable experts at 50,000 tons of
sugar, which is nearly all of a high quality, and worth probably about a
million sterling. The wheat yield, as has been seen, is insignificant,
and even of maize--which grows freely in every part of the colony--there
is not enough produced to supply home consumption. In the tropical coast
districts some attention is being paid to the cultivation of fruit for
export. Pine-apples and bananas grow luxuriantly in all parts of the
colony, but in the north they attain great size and develop a very fine
flavour. These fruits, with mangoes, are now sent south in yearly
increasing quantities. Arrowroot growing and manufacture is spreading in
the districts round Brisbane, where the soil and climate seem to be
especially suitable to the tuber. Coffee has been grown experimentally
at several points on the coast, but nowhere in quantity, though the
experiments have been highly successful. Cotton growing, which at one
time was vigorously fostered by the Government in the southern coast
districts, flourished so long as a bonus was paid on every bale
exported, but when that support was withdrawn it was killed by the
labour difficulty. Olives, almonds, figs, and fruits especially suited
to a sub-tropical climate flourish in the same southern coast districts,
but no attempt has been made to cultivate them on a commercial scale. An
effort was made to establish silk production, and it resulted in the
production of just enough silk to secure the promised bonus, and there
the industry stopped. In fact, agriculture throughout the colony is
crippled by its very prosperity. The high rate of wages prevalent, and
the demand for labour in other fields, precludes the possibility of
pursuing any agricultural industry which requires many hands, unless the
product is exceptionally high-priced.
The mineral wealth of Queensland is surprising. Its gold-fields are of
vast extent, and as yet hardly touched. There are innumerable copper
lodes; stream and lode tin are being successfully worked; silver ores
abound, and are being mined now; iron has been found in great
quantities; extensive coal-fields exist, and are being worked in the
vicinity of Brisbane and Maryborough; lead, nickel, cobalt, and bismuth
ores have been found. The gold prospectors found their way to Queensland
soon after the great alluvial fields of the south began to show signs of
exhaustion, but for many years they found little to reward their
efforts. There was, however, a prevailing idea among regular
gold-miners--who, very soon after the first discoveries, began to form a
distinct class in the population--that rich finds would be made in the
northern colony. This belief led to the Canoona 'rush' in 1858, probably
the most remarkable wild-goose chase in which the excitable Australian
miners ever engaged. There was a report that gold had been found near
the shores of Keppel Bay, then occupied only by a few cattle stations,
and at once all the miners of Australia became excited. Steamers and
sailing vessels, filled with eager men, discharged their living freights
on the desolate shore, and in an incredibly short space of time many
thousands of miners, scantily provided with the necessaries of life, had
ascertained that the rush was a 'duffer'--that there was no gold--and
were spreading over the face of the country, prospecting it in all
directions. They found no gold, and were reduced to such straits that
the Government of New South Wales, which then included Queensland, was
compelled to charter craft to carry them away. But if they found no
gold, they discovered and made known the value of the country, and laid
the foundation of what is now the thriving town of Rockhampton. Gold was
found in sufficient quantities to repay mining at Peak Downs, about two
hundred miles inland from Rockhampton, where, it may be mentioned, the
proprietors discovered a wonderfully rich lode of copper ore that was
afterwards mined and produced many thousand tons of metal.
The gold yield of Queensland, however, for many years after separation
was only trifling. In 1860 the whole gold export of the colony was only
4127 ounces, and in 1862 it sunk to 189 ounces. But in 1868 a prospector
named Nash, travelling through the broken hilly country which forms the
upper watershed of Mary River, found 'prospects' in a gully, which
induced him to stay and try it. In a few days he rode into the sleepy
seaport of Maryborough--then a stagnant township with grass-grown
streets--and startled it by applying for a prospector's claim. In a few
weeks the colony rang with the news that a really rich alluvial
gold-field had been found, and in a few months from twelve to fifteen
thousand people had congregated in the field of Gympie. It was a very
rich but a limited field, and, though other neighbouring patches were
opened out and worked, the alluvial deposits were soon exhausted. But
there was better than alluvial gold at Gympie. The ridges were seamed
with quartz reefs, which were proved to be richly impregnated with
metal; and the gold yield from these reefs has been constant and
increasing ever since. In 1884 Gympie yielded 112,051 ounces of gold,
and it has given since it was first opened 1,043,131 ounces.
The last great gold discovery in Queensland was that of the Palmer in
1874. In the preceding year, Mr. (now Sir Arthur) Palmer, being Premier,
sent out an exploring expedition to examine the unknown interior of the
Cape York peninsula. In this report the explorers mentioned that they
had found 'the colour' in the bed of a river which they named after the
Premier. A party of four well-equipped northern miners acted on the
hint. Carrying with them plenty of provisions and spare horses, they set
out to examine the Palmer country, and soon found that the sand which
overlays its rocky bed and the gullies running into it were impregnated
with gold. A great rush ensued, and, though no very remarkable nuggets
were discovered, and no specially rich finds were made, the gold was
everywhere near the surface, and large quantities were unearthed. From
its discovery to the end of 1884 the Palmer yielded 1,243,691 ounces.