THE NORTHERN TERRITORY.--TELEGRAPH AND RAILWAY.
There are not a few in the colonies who declare that South Australia,
as a name for the colony which uses it, is a misnomer. Nearly the whole
of Victoria is south of nearly the whole of South Australia. Adelaide
is considerably to the north of Melbourne, and but very little to the
south of Sydney. Consequently those foolish English people at home are
actually making the stupidest mistakes! Letters have been addressed to
Melbourne, New South Wales, South Australia. The story is very current,
and is often told to show the want of geographical education under
which the old country suffers. I have not, however, been able to trace
the address to later years, and at any time between 1837 and 1851 the
details as given by the letter-writer were only too correct. Melbourne
did belong to New South Wales, and certainly was in the most southern
district of Australia. But if the name South Australia was bad, or
falsely describing the colony, when first given, it is infinitely worse
now. Then the proposed confines of the young settlement lay around
Spencer Gulf, and Gulf St. Vincent, and Encounter Bay, which armlets of
the sea break up into the land from the eastern extremity of the Great
Australian Bight,--as the curve in the sea line of the southern coast
of the continent is called. The new colonists had settled themselves,
or, when the name was chosen, were proposing to settle themselves, at
the centre of the south coast, and the name was fair enough. But since
those days South Australia has extended herself northwards till she
has made good her claim up to a line far north of that which divides
Queensland from New South Wales, and now she is supposed to run right
through the continent up to the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Indian
Ocean, so that she thoroughly divides the vast desert tracts of Western
Australia from the three eastern colonies, Queensland, New South Wales,
and Victoria. As far as area is concerned, she is at present as much
northern as southern. In some of our maps the northern half of these
territories is separated by a line from the southern, as though it
were a separate colony;--but it has had no name of its own yet given
to it; its lands are at the disposition of the government of South
Australia; its very few inhabitants are subject to South Australian
laws; and it is in fact a part of South Australia. It contains over
500,000 square miles; but, with the exception of one or two very small
settlements on the coast, it has no white population. The aborigines
who wander through it have been little disturbed, and nothing was known
of it till the great enterprise of running a telegraph wire through it
from south to north had been conceived and commenced. Now the northern
territory has come into fashion, men talk about it in the colonies, and
it is becoming necessary that even here in England the fact should be
recognised that there is such a land, which will probably before long
demand to be instituted as a separate colony.
The telegraph posts and wires by which the Australian colonies are now
connected with Great Britain are already an established fact. This line
enters the Australian continent from Java, at a point on the northern
coast called Port Darwin. At Port Darwin there is a small settlement
called Palmerston, around which land had been sold to the extent of
500,000 acres when I was in the colony, and this has been selected as
the landing-place of European news. The colonisation of the northern
territory is thus begun,--and there can be little doubt but that a
town, and then a settlement, and then a colony, will form themselves.
When the scheme of the telegraph was first put on foot the colony
of South Australia undertook to make the entire line across the
continent,--the submarine line to Java and the line thence on to
Singapore and home to Europe being in other hands. It was an immense
undertaking for a community so small in number, and one as to which
many doubted the power of the colony to complete it. But it has
been completed. I had heard, before I left England in 1871, that an
undertaking had been given by the government of South Australia to
finish the work by January 1, 1872. This certainly was not done, but
very great efforts were made to accomplish it, and the failure was
caused by the violence of nature rather than by any want of energy.
Unexpected and prolonged rains interfered with the operations and
greatly retarded them. The world is used to the breaking of such
promises in regard to time, and hardly ever expects that a contractor
for a large work shall be punctual within a month or two. The world
may well excuse this breach of contract, for surely no contractor ever
had a harder job of work on hand. The delay would not be worth mention
here, were it not that the leading South Australians of the day, headed
by the governor, had been so anxious to show that they could really do
all that they had undertaken to perform, and were equally disappointed
at their own partial failure.
The distance of the line to be made was about 1,800 miles, and the work
had to be done through a country unknown, without water, into which
every article needed by the men had to be carried over deserts, across
unbridged rivers, through unexplored forests, amidst hostile tribes of
savages,--in one of the hottest regions of the world. I speak here of
the lack of water, and I have said above that the works were hindered
by rain. I hope my gentle readers will not think that I am piling up
excuses which obliterate each other. There is room for deviation of
temperature in a distance of 1,800 miles,--and Australia generally,
though subject specially to drought, is subject to floods also. And
the same gentle readers should remember,--when they bethink themselves
how easy it is to stick up a few poles in this or another thickly
inhabited country, and how small is the operation of erecting a line
of telegraph wires as compared with that of constructing a railway or
even a road,--how great had hitherto been the difficulty experienced
by explorers in simply making their way across the continent, and in
carrying provisions for themselves as they journeyed. Burke and Wills
perished in the attempt, and the line to be taken was through the very
country in which Burke and Wills had been lost. The dangers would of
course not be similar. The army of workmen sent to put up the posts
and to stretch the wires was accompanied by an army of purveyors. Men
could never be without food or without water. But it was necessary that
everything should be carried. For the northern portion of the work it
was necessary that all stores should be sent round by ships, and then
taken up rivers which had not hitherto been surveyed. If the gentle
reader will think only of the amount of wire required for 1,800 miles
of telegraph communication, and of the circumstances of its carriage,
he will, I think, recognise the magnitude of the enterprise.
The colony divided the work, the government undertaking about 800 miles
in the centre, which portion of the ground was considered to be most
difficult to reach. The remaining distances, consisting of 500 miles in
the south and 500 miles in the north, were let out to contractors. The
southern part, which was comparatively easy as being accessible from
Adelaide, was finished in time, as was also the middle distance which
the government had kept in its own hands. But the difficulties at the
northern end were so great that they who had undertaken the work failed
to accomplish it, and it was at last completed by government,--if I
remember rightly, somewhat more than six months after the date fixed.
The line did not come into immediate working order, owing to some
temporary fault beyond the Australian borders.
The importance of the telegraph to the colonies cannot be overrated,
and the anxiety it created can only be understood by those who have
watched the avidity with which news from England is received in all
her dependencies. Australia had hitherto been dependent on one arrival
monthly from England,--and on a very little credited monthly dispatch
reaching her shores via New York, San Francisco, and New Zealand. The
English monthly mail touches first at King George’s Sound, in Western
Australia, but thence there are no wires into the other colonies. The
mail steamer then passes on to Melbourne, while a branch boat takes
the mails to Adelaide. As the distance to Adelaide is considerably
shorter than to Melbourne, the English news generally reaches that
port first, and is thence disseminated to the other colonies. That
happens once a month. Then comes, also once a month, the so-called
Californian telegrams, not unfrequently giving a somewhat distorted
view of English affairs. This is now changed for daily news. We who
have daily news,--as do all of us in England every morning at our
breakfast-table,--are sometimes apt to regard it as a bore, and tell
ourselves that it would be delightful to have a real budget on an
occasion after a month of silence. The only way to learn the value of
the thing, is to be without it for a time. In the single item of the
price of wool in the London market, the Australian telegraph will be of
inestimable value to the colonies. When the scheme was first brought
forward there was a question whether the line through the Australian
continent should be made by the joint efforts of the colonies or by the
energy of one. South Australia is justly proud of herself, in that she
undertook the work, and has accomplished it.
The telegraph line has certainly been the means of introducing the
northern territory into general notice; and now a much larger project
has been formed,--which, if it be carried out, will certainly create
a new colony on the northern coast. The proposition is to make a
railway along the telegraph line, a railway from Adelaide right across
Australia, over the huge desert of the continent, to Port Darwin! Who
will travel by it? What will it carry? Whence will the money come? How
will it be made to pay? And as it cannot possibly be made to pay,--as
far as human sight can see,--what insane philanthropists or speculators
will be found able to subscribe the enormous sum of money necessary for
such a purpose? These are of course the questions that are asked. The
distance to be covered by the new line is very nearly 1,800 miles, and
the money said to be necessary for it is £10,000,000! There are no
inhabitants in the country,--at any rate none who would use a railway,
and at the distant terminus there is no town,--not as yet a community
of 200 white inhabitants.
I soon found that the railway was but a portion of the plan,--and
indeed the smaller portion of it. The scheme is as follows:--The
parliament of South Australia is to pass a bill authorising the
formation of a small preliminary company, which company shall be
empowered by the colonial legislature to make over no less than two
hundred millions of acres in freehold to the shareholders of the
proposed railway company. The small company is to give birth to a
large company, the residence of which is to be in London, and this
large company is to consist of shareholders who will subscribe the
money needed for the railway, and take the land as bought by their
money. The great object of the promoters, who, when I was in Adelaide,
were chiefly gentlemen having seats in the parliament of the colony,
was to open up to human uses an immense track of country which is
at present useless, and in this way to spread the reputation and
increase the prosperity of the colony at large. There can be no doubt
that population would follow the railway, as it has always followed
railways in the United States. The pastures would be opened to sheep;
and contingent advantages are of course anticipated,--such as mineral
fields of various kinds. Within 250 miles of the southern end copper
exists in large quantities, and the expense of carriage alone suspends
its extraction. At the Port Darwin end, on the northern coast, gold has
been found, and they who are hopeful declare that a few years will see
the richest gold-fields of Australia near the banks of the Victoria and
the Roper Rivers. A world of hopes rises to the mind of the sanguine
proprietor as the largeness of his scheme endears it more and more to
his heart, till he sees the happiness of thousands and the magnificence
of himself in the realisation of his project.
That such a railway should be made on the speculation of trade returns
is impossible; but if the South Australian parliament be in earnest,
and if the colony will give her land,--land which she at present
has in such abundance that she cannot use it,--it may be that funds
sufficient for commencing the railway will be produced. It is proposed
that the land shall be given as the line is made,--so many acres for
every mile of railway. The entire territory contiguous to the line
is not to be given. The land is to be divided into blocks, of which
alternate blocks are to be surrendered, and alternate blocks retained,
by the government, so that the new owners of the territory may be
constrained as to price and other terms of sale. Of course the company
would fail in selling if it charged more than the government, or
proposed terms less advantageous than those offered by the government.
But there seem to lack two ingredients for the thorough success of
such a scheme,--a town at the end, such as was San Francisco when
the railway was proposed across the Rocky Mountains from Chicago
to that city, and a wheat-growing country for its support, such as
California,--and such as Oregon is, and the Utah territory.
I do not believe that I shall live to see a railway made from
Adelaide to Port Darwin, or even that younger men than I will do so.
The greatness of many accomplished enterprises is now teaching men
to believe that everything is possible; and they who are sanguine
are falling into the error,--directly opposite to that of our
grandfathers,--of thinking that nothing is too hard to be accomplished.
I cannot believe in the expenditure of £10,000,000 on the construction
of a railway which is to run through a desert to nowhere. But I do
believe in the gold-fields and pastures of Port Darwin, and in the
beauties of the Roper and Victoria Rivers; and, hot though the country
be, I think that another young colony will found itself on the western
shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria.