Chapter XVII: Queensland and Her Resources and Prospects

Queensland dates her existence from the year 1859, when she was separated from New South Wales, and she is, therefore, the youngest of the Australian group of colonies. But her vast area, almost the whole of which is available, her varied climate, and the lavish manner in which Nature has bestowed upon her all the resources that go to make a country great, foretell, with certainty, that she will before long assume the leading position among her sisters, and eventually develop into one of the finest countries in the world.

The area of Queensland is 668,224 square miles, rather more than five and a half times the area of the United Kingdom, and the whole population in 1882 was only 248,255.

All along the coast runs a broad belt of mountainous country, entirely covered with forest. The timber becomes thicker and thicker towards the tops of the mountains, the higher ones being overgrown with dense impenetrable “scrub,” while the slopes and valleys between are open timber, with long grass growing everywhere amongst the trees.

Between the foot of the coast range and the sea is a tract of level country, varying from sixty to a few miles in width, in which are situated large areas of the finest alluvial soil, suitable, in the southern parts of the colony, for the growth of all the fruits and cereals of a temperate climate, and, in the central and northern districts, for the cultivation of cotton, coffee, tobacco, sugar, and all the products of the tropics.

The whole of the coast country is well watered, and is not subject to the severe droughts which occasionally visit the interior. The mountains, of course, attract rain, and the valleys between form natural reservoirs, in the shape of chains of water-holes and big lagoons, and, especially on the eastern slopes, innumerable creeks rise in the ranges, and find their way down to the sea.

One of the most extraordinary features of the coast country is the vast quantity of timber that grows everywhere. It is positively bewildering to think of the thousands of square miles that are covered with endless trees. The most common varieties are the blue, red, and spotted gum, iron-bark, stringy-bark, and blood-wood, all of which are admirably adapted for fencing and building purposes, as they are easily split and sawn, possess a very high breaking strain, and, when protected from the weather and the attacks of white ants, are perfectly imperishable. Even when standing in the ground, and exposed to the weather, they are good for fifteen or twenty years.

Of course, away in the Bush, the ravages of Bush-fires and white ants make havoc among the fences; but I have seen a stringy-bark sap-paling that had been twelve years in the ground, and when I took it up it was so sound that I made it into axe-handles.

Besides these varieties, on the eastern face of the coast range are pine, red cedar, and beech, and, on the western slopes, rose-wood, myall, dead-finish, plum-tree, iron-wood, and sandal-wood, all woods with a fine grain suitable for cabinet-making and fancy work. With the exception of cedar and pine, large quantities of which are exported every year, these woods are of little value at present, and on the Queensland lines of railway sandal-wood is used as fuel, the quantity of heat which it gives out being greater than that of any other wood in the colony. It is an inferior kind of sandal-wood, but still it contains a great quantity of oil.

The scrubs of Northern Queensland are full of different sorts of hard-wood, with most beautiful variegated grains, admirable for veneering; but at present their inaccessible position prevents their attracting the attention that they undoubtedly will when the country is more opened up. A visit to the Queensland gallery in the South Kensington Museum will give some idea of the beautiful quality of her different woods, but nothing but a visit to the colony can give any idea of the quantity.

The extent and richness of the mineral districts of Queensland are almost fabulous; and although the accounts of experts and others of what they have seen may, at first, appear incredible, experience proves every day that they fall short of the reality, and that the extraordinary wealth of the colony in metals is comparatively unexplored.

The recent crushings on Gympie gold field read more like a fairy tale than anything else, and when the report of them appeared in the papers everyone in the colony thought it was a misprint. One line of reef there lately took 500 tons of quartz out of a shaft that they were sinking, which averaged 20 ozs. of gold to the ton, and, on another line, a crushing of 53 tons gave the astounding yield of 2534 ozs. In nine months over £82,000 in dividends was paid by the latter claim.

Startling, however, as these returns undoubtedly are, they are entirely thrown into the shade by the recent discovery of gold at Mount Morgan, in the neighbourhood of Rockhampton.

The following is an account of the mine, taken from the Charters Towers _Mining Journal_ for September 1884:--

“Situated about twenty-five miles south-east of Rockhampton, on one of the branches of the Dee River, it seems to be a portion of a large basin in the hills. It rises out of granite, and is from 400 to 500 feet high from the site of the crushing mill, half a mile distant on the creek, where an abundance of water may be conserved. The property consists of 640 acres of freehold.

“The gold-bearing stone is composed of ferrugineous quartz and ironstone, some of it having the appearance of ‘clinkers’ from a blacksmith’s forge. The lodes, which seem to be parallel, run north and south. They are from 40 to 100 feet wide, and are very puzzling to most visitors. In some places they are quartz, in others porous ironstone, and in others there are cavities containing stalactites of black oxidised iron. Some portions are very much richer than others. Gold of a very fine grain is easily seen in the quartz, where it is not much oxidised, and, when prospected, it is apparently free.

“One lode now working is 40 feet wide, and another 100 feet wide in the face, and about 70 or 80 feet from the crown of the hill, and about 100 feet below this there is another face of similar stone, on the same quarry-like lodes.

“In these faces gold is always obtained from the drillings. By the present appliances, which are totally inadequate, the yield of gold is from 10 dwts. to 3 ozs. to the ton. Owing to the heavy nature of the ironstone quartz there is great loss in the ‘tailings,’ all of which and the sludge are being saved. Five assays from the ‘tailings’ give over 4 ozs. to the ton, and the ‘blanketings,’ after being put through the wheeler’s pan, and the Berdan, and concentrated in the shoot, assay as high as 90 ozs. of gold to the ton. Taking it for granted that this statement is correct about the tailings, if the gold can be got out of the stone it will yield 5 ozs. of gold to the ton, and the top lode alone is estimated to contain 450,000 tons.

“According to Dr. Liebius, M.A., F.C.S., the gold from this mine is worth £4:4:8 per ounce, assaying as high as 99·7 per cent of gold and is free from silver. The cost of production is remarkably low. It is said that 3 dwts. of gold to the ton pays for breaking, carting, and crushing. The formation cannot be called a reef. The whole hill-top seems to be of richly auriferous stone. It is merely cut away to suit the convenience of the miners, so that a broad quarry or terrace has been formed. The cutting is 20 feet deep and about 100 feet long; the stone is of the same character the whole distance, and extends to the summit of the mountain several chains higher.

“With reference to the statement that only one half of the gold is extracted in the ordinary quartz-crushing and amalgamating machinery, Dr. Liebius says:--

“‘Having the small quartz-crushing machinery in the Sydney mint under my charge, I had an opportunity of testing this fact. In November last we received 458 lbs. of this ferrugineous quartz, part of it consisting of picked stone. It was carefully crushed, and amalgamated in the Chilian mill with 240 lbs. of mercury. Thus 7·41 ozs. of gold were extracted. Another lot, weighing 174 lbs., was similarly treated, and from this 12·12 ozs. of gold were extracted. Thus Lot 1 gave at the rate of over 39 ozs. of gold to the ton of quartz, while Lot 2 gave gold at the rate of over 169 ozs. of gold to the ton of quartz. In Lot 1 gold at the rate of 46 ozs. 2 dwts. 12 grs. was left in the tailings, while in Lot 2 the tailings averaged 46 ozs. 5 dwts. 18 grs. of gold to the ton.’

“This discovery of gold is the largest, and richest in quality, ever yet made in any part of the world. A ninth share in the property lately sold for £31,000 (the purchaser being one of the remaining shareholders), a price very much below its value. Provided the owners of the mine can extract the gold from the stone, and there is no reasonable doubt of their being able to do so, the top lode alone should yield over £9,000,000 of profit.

“It may be that this mine is unique of its kind, but there is always a very great likelihood that where there is one there are others. Its development will give a great stimulus to prospecting, not only in the neighbourhood of Rockhampton, but throughout the whole of Queensland. It discloses what prizes this colony, almost unknown as yet, offers. It is barely two years since the property was purchased from the Morgans; and had they held on to their interests, they would soon have become millionaires. As it is, they have in a very short space of time retired with large fortunes. It is left for their successors to draw in the future wealth from the mine beyond the wildest dreams of avarice.”

Besides gold, the country is wonderfully rich in other metals; the chief of which are copper, iron, tin, silver, cinnabar, lead, and antimony. The deposits of copper are especially remarkable. The mines are but little worked at present, since the price of copper fell to £60 per ton, and the total amount exported in 1882 was only £650.

But formerly, when copper was worth £90 per ton, the profits from the mines were very great. Peak Downs copper-mine, the principal one in the colony, has paid over £1,000,000 in dividends, and, so far from its being worked out, it is the opinion of experts, and those who worked in the mines, that there is as much copper there as ever came out. The mines are not working at present--a circumstance due principally to the greediness of the shareholders, who thought of nothing but their dividends, and omitted to open up the mines ahead of the work.

As an instance of how the work has been mismanaged, an engine shaft twelve feet square was sunk to a depth of 150 feet, which cut the lode they were looking for, eighteen feet from the surface, without the manager ever detecting it.

The reports of experts who have visited the copper-lodes of the north show that the resources of the colony in this respect are unlimited. The following account, by Mr. Sheaffe, of the Mackinlay ranges, and the Cloncurry copper-mines, in the _Queenslander_ of August 9, 1880, is well worthy of notice. He writes:

“The Mackinlay ranges, teeming with an extraordinary wealth of minerals, are flanked for nearly 200 miles by high undulating downs of exceeding fertility; so that on the one hand you have almost boundless pasture, and upon the other almost inexhaustible mines. That I am justified in speaking of these mines as almost inexhaustible I shall proceed to show. The first known copper-mines approached by this route are the Mountain Home, the Rio Grande, and the West Briton, of which Mr. W. Wellington, who was sent to England by Messrs. Bolitho and Sons, reported as follows:--

“‘The principal lode is at Mount Norma, a well-defined lode, varying from three to six feet wide, running north and south, and dipping to the east. It stands in the face of an almost perpendicular mountain, showing from 400 to 500 yards. The ore is principally gray, of the following percentage, namely, thirty-four. The Rio Grande lodes consist of two, running parallel, with a distance of 250 yards between them. The outcrops show very distinctly on both these lodes for about 300 or 400 yards in length, consisting of red oxide and gray ores, of the following percentage, namely, forty-four. The West Briton, also running north and south, is about a mile north-east of the Mountain Home, showing a large lode from six feet to eight feet wide, chiefly red oxide and gray ore, of the following percentage, namely, thirty-eight. These lodes appear to be well defined and regular, all running north and south, and dipping to the east. The cost of working these lodes would be very little for some time to come, in consequence of the ore being so near the surface.’

“The line, after leaving these mines, should then pass near the gold reefs of Bishop’s and Fisher’s creeks. Near this are situated the Homeward Bound and Flying Dutchman copper-mines, from the former of which 250 tons of ore have been sent to Sydney, all of which have yielded over 40 per cent of pure copper.

“Twelve miles farther on the Cloncurry copper-mines are reached, the richness and magnitude of which it is difficult to conceive without having seen them; and though I have known many skilled miners who have worked at, and several mining engineers of note (Mr. H. A. Thompson, the Chairman of the Mining Board being one) who have inspected these mines, I have never known one who was not at first sight astonished at the almost incredible amount of rich ore lying on the surface of the ground. Half a mile to the south-west extremely rich and extensive lodes occur, while thirty miles to the north-west unnumbered lodes and copper-bearing veins appear. I myself know of nearly 100, only eight or ten of which are secured, and none worked. Eight miles to the north-west, on the Leichardt River, are two lodes, containing ores of red oxide, gray, and malachite. These lodes are from twenty to thirty feet wide, immense deposits of copper. Big boulders of gray are lying loose on the surface, of tons’ weight.”

Some very fine copper-lodes are situated at Mount Flora and Mount Orange, ninety miles from Mackay. The horseshoe formed by the two mountains and the ridge that connects them is one mass of copper-lodes, some of them extremely rich, and consisting principally of red oxide and malachite. An attempt was made to work them by some local men and some Sydney capitalists, who put up smelting works on the field, and obtained very fair results. But the company collapsed, from no fault of the mines, but from the grossest mismanagement on the part of the shareholders, backed up by swindling on the part of the mining manager.

Men who used to work in the mines have since told me that they have known the manager to put a shot or two into the wall, and entirely conceal the face of the lode. He then reported to the shareholders that the lode had “duffered out,” and that it was useless to continue working; and one of the latter, who was “in the swim” with the manager, obtained the whole claim from the rest for a trifling sum, and the lode was opened up again.

The peculiar natural advantages of the Mount Flora and Mount Orange mines should make them pay well, if properly managed, even when the price of copper is as low as it is now. Not only are they within a short distance of the coast, with a good road all the way to port, but they are in the centre of a district which is full of large deposits of coal. It is the opinion of geologists that the western plains will be found to overlie large beds of this mineral, which has already been found in nearly every part of the colony where it has been searched for.

In wandering about the runs in the neighbourhood of Mount Flora copper-mines, and Mount Britten gold-mines, I have come across many splendid seams of coal, cropping out in the gullies and banks of the creeks, some of the seams being eight feet wide, and all of them a very good sample of coal. In the neighbourhood of Bowen, 100 miles farther north, there is a seam of coal fifty feet thick, but it is not of quite such good quality as that farther south.

The principal coal districts that have as yet been tried are near Brisbane, in West Moreton, on Darling Downs, at Maryborough, at Bowen, and at Cooktown in the far north. But I believe, myself, that the coal beds in the neighbourhood of Grosvenor Downs and Lake Elphinstone, runs lying between Clermont and Bowen, will prove equal to any yet discovered in the colony both for quantity and for quality.

The tin-mines of Queensland are remarkably rich, and the value of the amount of that metal exported in 1882 was £269,904. The chief mines are those at Stanthorpe on the southern boundary of the colony, from which tin to the value of nearly a million sterling has been taken. Hitherto, all through the colony the metal found has been chiefly in the form of stream-tin; but recently what was thought to be a valuable discovery of lode-tin was made at Herberton, in the far north.

A tremendous rush set in, and boat-loads of speculators started up from Melbourne and Sydney to secure the ground. Not a man came down from the north in the steamers but had a sample of Herberton lode-tin in his pocket, and glowing descriptions of the enormous quantity of it that was sticking out of the ground excited the southern capitalists to the verge of madness.

Certainly the samples sent down were of extraordinary richness, but at present it seems doubtful whether the lodes will prove permanent, and I think the people who did best out of the Herberton tin-rush were the working men who originally took up the ground, some of whom sold their claims to maniacs from the south for as much as £20,000, without having done £20 worth of work in them.

Extraordinary as is the mineral wealth of Queensland, however, it is not in this that her real greatness lies. Gold is all-powerful in most things, and its acquisition will, for a time, outweigh all other considerations, but its presence can never make a barren land fertile, or turn a bad climate into a good one; and although immense deposits of this and other metals will always attract a large floating population, they will never support a permanent one, unless backed up by other conditions. The real greatness of Queensland lies in the fact that while she has been exceptionally endowed with what may be called ready-made wealth in the form of minerals, she possesses at the same time one of the healthiest climates in the world, and an enormous area fit for cultivation and stock-rearing, capable of supporting a vast population under conditions of life the most favourable. She is, in fact, a self-contained country, having within herself all the elements of a powerful nation, the germs almost of that chimerical greatness that has been described by Prince Bismarck as “une puissance finie.”

The term was applied to England; and whether it was intended to mean that she is strong enough to maintain her position unassisted either by an alliance with foreign Powers or by her Colonies, or whether the double meaning of the last word was meant to imply that the greatness of England has departed, in either case most Englishmen will be inclined to question the fitness of its application. The phrase is a trebly unfortunate one.

In the first place, the greatness of England has not yet departed; in the second place, no Power that has ever existed has proved itself strong enough to entirely disregard an alliance with others; and in the third place, the only thing in the history of the world that has ever pointed to the possibility of such a Power arising, is the present question of a permanent union of all British territories throughout the world. The British Empire, so united, would be by far the most powerful one that the world has ever seen, and would, indeed, be independent of any possible combination against it. But as regards England herself, now that Imperial Federation is attracting the universal attention that it deserves, it is apparent that she depends quite as much upon her Colonies for retaining her present position in the world as her Colonies depend upon her for retaining theirs; and Queensland, with a territory of over half a million square miles, and a population of less than one for every two square miles, must be an important factor in the future history of a country so over-populated as Great Britain.

To the west of the coast-range lie the prairies of Queensland, an almost boundless extent of rolling downs and plains, covered with grass and herbage that for rearing sheep and cattle is unsurpassed in any country of the world. Every mile of available country is now taken up, and held by the squatters, who are, of course, the chief producers of the colony, and to get new country a man must go into the northern territory of South Australia and into Western Australia. The number of sheep in Queensland in 1882 was over 12,000,000, and the number of cattle about 4,000,000; the value of the wool exported in the same year being £1,329,019. In the future sheep will increase very much faster than cattle, for no one who can afford the expense of forming a sheep-station will continue to rear cattle upon country that is fit to carry sheep. For many years to come, from climatic reasons if for no others, it is certain that the interior of Queensland will continue to be what it is now, essentially a wool-producing country; and its capabilities in this respect are incalculable.

The rainfall is unreliable, and the absence of natural water renders even the squatter’s industry at all times rather a precarious one, and obliges him to spend large sums of money in making permanent water upon his runs. The danger of drought is lessened by the largeness of the areas held by the squatter, and is further reduced by the precaution of storing water, but in a drought such as has recently visited the southern portion of Queensland, and New South Wales, nothing can save him from serious loss, and it is in reality only the enormous profits which he makes in good seasons that enable him to face an occasional bad one with cheerfulness.

In the chapter devoted to a comparison of the relative advantages of a sheep-station and a cattle-station will be found statistics which show what the profits of the former amount to in fair seasons; but anyone who is acquainted with the Western country would see at once the absurdity of supposing that it could be profitably held except in large areas, for pastoral purposes, until a great change has taken place in the civilisation of the colony.

It is impossible, of course, to imagine that such a country can remain permanently in the hands of a few hundred graziers, whose object is to keep away any population from their runs beyond the few hands necessary to work their flocks and herds. The Western Downs are supposed by geologists to overlie large underground reservoirs of water, and certainly wherever wells have been sunk to any depth success has attended the experiments, so that in time it is probable that some system of irrigation will be developed, which will turn the country into something more profitable to the community than sheep-runs; and the opening up of the country by railways will transform the interior of Queensland from a purely pastoral into an agricultural country. That cheap carriage to the coast is the one thing needful to make wheat-growing pay has been conclusively proved by the large quantities grown in the Allora and Roma districts, since the opening of the railway from Brisbane to the latter town. Five quarters to the acre is not an uncommon crop, and in 1880 250,000 bushels were raised in the colony. The quality of the wheat is excellent, the weight being as high as sixty-seven pounds to the bushel, and the flour fully equal to Adelaide. Land is being rapidly laid down under wheat in the Darling Downs and Maranoa districts, and it is expected that before long Queensland will produce sufficient to make her independent of any foreign supply.

With such resources as these at her command, it is evident that the colony requires nothing but an extended system of railway communication from the interior to the coast, to bring population and prosperity in its wake. The transformation that has been wrought in those districts where railways have already been constructed, shows what progress might be expected if the colony were to put forth her whole strength in this direction. With a good Government the thing would be done at once--for no sane man disputes the advisability of doing it; but, unfortunately, Queensland, like her neighbours, New South Wales and Victoria, suffers in this respect from a succession of selfish, sordid adventurers, whose proceedings it is impossible to watch, without forgetting the impurity of their principles in the imbecility of their policy. It is as absurd to distinguish the members of either party as Conservatives or Radicals, as it is to call any of them politicians, since the transparent motive of all of them is to plunder their colony. The Ins and Outs of Legislation would be a more appropriate term. The party who are in go straight for whatever they want; and the only security of the country lies in the certainty that the party who are out will do their best to prevent them from getting it, not from any consideration for the public weal, but because they want it themselves.

The great natural want of Queensland is navigable rivers and deep-water harbours. In all her seaboard of 2000 miles there are hardly any good harbours for vessels of large draught, and not a single decent navigable river. By a sort of practical joke of nature every one is adorned with a sand-bar at the mouth and a mud-flat a little way up. These efforts of nature are a thorn in the side of every coasting skipper, and a perfect god-send to the rascally _employés_ and _protégés_ of the Department of Public Works, who derive a regular annuity from misdirected attempts to deepen the rivers. More or less illegitimate plunder is made out of every public work in Australia by all concerned in it, from the Ministry downwards; the most notable instances being the adoption of Wood’s brake by the Victorian railways, the Steel Rails Inquiry in Queensland, and the Transcontinental Railway scheme in the same colony, which will be more fully described hereafter. These are official swindles, and require the active co-operation of those at the head of affairs, and a great deal of tact on the part of all concerned, to carry them through. Even then they do not always succeed. The Transcontinental Railway scheme was the downfall of the Ministry whose Premier was its chief instigator and promoter.

But in a small way nothing is so profitable and so popular with Government engineers as deepening a river, because it is work that can be indefinitely prolonged. At any other work they are bound to show some sort of progress, be it ever so miraculously slow, or else show some reasonable cause for delay. But in deepening a river, the engineer has it all his own way. No one can tell what he is about under water, and, by combining a studious neglect of the most elementary principles of engineering with a slight knowledge of the bottom of the river, he can extend his work over any period of time. The amount of public money that goes in this way is enormous.

The Fitzroy River, on which lies the town of Rockhampton, affords a striking example of Queensland Government engineering. Seven miles below the town are situated the Flats, on which there was naturally about three feet of water at low tide. It was decided to remove these flats, so as to allow vessels drawing nine feet of water to get up at any tide. The estimated cost of the undertaking was £25,000;--time not specified, being, as the advertisements say, “not so much an object as a comfortable home” for the engineer to whom the work was entrusted.

After fooling around dredging for some time, this worthy hit upon a notable scheme. Starting a little above the flats, he built a training wall slantwise down the river, so as to leave a narrow passage near the opposite bank. He calculated that the rush of the tide through this narrow channel would very soon deepen it.

He was perfectly right. It very soon did, and, by the simple process known as robbing Peter to pay Paul, the sand so washed away formed a fresh flat a little lower down, with only eighteen inches of water on it, instead of three feet!

Finally, after expending £110,000 during a period extending over ten years, they have at last succeeded in getting a depth of about five feet at low tide. Less than half the money wasted in tinkering the bottom of the Fitzroy would have given Rockhampton a deep-water port in Keppel Bay, at which ships drawing thirty feet of water could lie at any tide, and a railway from thence to the town.

There is not a single town on the coast of Queensland that has the natural advantage of deep-water communication with the sea, either by means of a harbour or a navigable river, except Bowen and Gladstone. These two townships are situated on the coast itself, and have good deep-water harbours; but there is no back country to either of them, so it will be long before they are of much importance. All the other ports are only accessible to boats of very light draught, and generally these have to wait for the tide.

Townsville lies right on the coast, but the neighbouring bay is so shallow that no vessel of any size can get within a mile and a half of the town.

Mackay lies two miles up a river, with flats upon which there is not more than a foot of water at low tide. At the mouth of the river is a sand-bar, and outside nothing but an open roadstead.

Rockhampton is forty-five miles from the coast, up the Fitzroy River, the flats in which have just been described.

Bundaberg and Maryborough are each of them some distance up a narrow, muddy, shallow river.

The coasting-trade of Queensland is increasing so enormously, there is no doubt that in time these difficulties will be overcome, and some, at least, of the coast towns will be provided with good artificial harbours.

In 1841 the whole trade of the colony of Queensland was carried on by a small cutter trading between Brisbane and Sydney. In 1879 the entrances inwards to Brisbane were 1261 vessels, with a tonnage of 637,695 tons, and the clearance about the same. Since then the increase in the coast trade has been even more surprising.

In 1883 Townsville alone, the most northern town of any importance in Queensland, was importing about 4000 tons of goods a week.

The production of sugar alone in the colony has risen from 12,300 cwt. in 1868 to over 400,000 cwt. in 1883. Very soon good seaports will be an absolute necessity; but, in the meantime, with the exception of the work done in the Brisbane River, all the money spent has been so much thrown away.

Mackay, the great sugar-growing district of Queensland, is about the worst off for a port of any town on the coast. It has, as I have said, a river with shallow flats and a bar at the mouth, and nothing but an open roadstead outside.

There are, however, two small islands, known as “Flat-top” and “Round-top,” just off the mouth of the river; and it was thought that something might be done in the way of a breakwater. The genius of the Fitzroy flats was accordingly consulted on the subject.

He assured the delighted inhabitants of Mackay that it would be the simplest thing in the world to make an excellent harbour. Nothing to do but connect one of the islands with the mainland, throw out a breakwater on the far side, and run a railway right away from the end of the breakwater into the town.

After an interval of four years, during which time they had been driven nearly out of their minds by the patriotic agitation on the subject by the member for Mackay, the Government proceeded to vote some money for the furtherance of this scheme. The breakwater was to be about a mile long, and tenders were called for in sections. The first section was the only one ever completed, and the only one ever likely to be, until some very much more able men take it in hand. The contractor’s only notion of a breakwater seemed to be to blast rock out of an adjacent cliff, break it up small so as to be convenient for handling, and barrow it into the sea, leaving it to form its own batter. He never got farther than high-water mark. His work, about forty yards long, remains, another monument of Government stupidity, and the Mackay breakwater ends where most breakwaters begin.

But the most notable attempt of modern times to rob the public exchequer was the Transcontinental Railway scheme. The responsible position of those whose names were connected with it, the magnitude of the undertaking, and the great care with which the real conditions under which it was to be carried out were concealed, for a long time saved this gigantic fraud from detection. At length, however, it was exposed, the public realised the amount of which it was intended the colony should be robbed, and the result was that the Ministry who brought in the Bill were defeated, and obliged to resign.

The proposed scheme is really worth some consideration, in order to show the enormous vitality of a colony that can still make rapid progress, even under the incubus of a Government that endeavours to plunder instead of fostering its resources.

The Transcontinental Railway was to run from the inland head of the Brisbane-Roma line (a Government line) to Point Parker, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, a distance, roughly, of 1000 miles.

There is no doubt that such a line would be of inestimable benefit to Australia at large, and especially to Queensland; but it is certain that the latter colony individually would benefit much more from an extension of her existing lines of railway farther into the interior.

The whole colony being fully alive to the importance of extending her railway system in some shape or way, the Government made it their business to try and persuade the inhabitants of Queensland that her credit was already strained to the utmost, and that it would be inadvisable, even if it were possible, to borrow sufficient to perform the proposed work.

We were told by the Premier that because we owed £58 per head of our population, which would be increased to £70 when the loans authorised were issued, we were on the verge of ruin, and could not possibly borrow any more.

Now it may be very sound to estimate the gravity of a public debt in this manner, when the money has been borrowed for unproductive purposes, such as war, or construction of national defences. But in a colony like Queensland almost the whole of the money so borrowed has, with a due allowance, of course, for official plunder, been expended on developing the national estate, so that the debt is represented to a great extent by valuable assets which bring in a revenue far in excess of the interest on the capital borrowed. Thus, in New South Wales, a colony that owes £18,000,000, the railways alone are valued at £25,000,000, and pay 5 per cent on the cost of construction.

The estimate of Sir Thomas M’Ilwraith, the Premier of Queensland, for the construction of the Transcontinental Railway was £3260 per mile.

In his reply of 22d February 1882, to General Fielding, the agent for the Syndicate that was formed in Europe for taking up this scheme, Sir Thomas M’Ilwraith declared most positively that the cost of a railway from Charleville to the Gulf, including every item, surveying, supervision, rolling stock, construction, stations, and all other outlay, should not exceed the above sum. Sir Thomas is himself an expert, and had besides the benefit of Mr. Watson’s survey and estimate to help him. The whole cost for the 1000 miles, therefore, should not exceed £3,260,000.

The Syndicate were to be allowed seven years and a half to complete their line. This gives £434,666 as the sum required to be spent every year to complete the line within contract time. Queensland can borrow at the rate of 4 per cent interest; we therefore find that had Queensland herself undertaken the work--

Amount required to be spent annually on construction, £434,666.

1st year’s interest at 4 per cent £17,387
2d ” ” 34,774
3d ” ” 52,161
4th ” ” 69,548
5th ” ” 86,935
6th ” ” 104,322
7th ” ” 121,709
half 8th ” ” 65,202
--------
£552,038
========

So that in seven years and a half Queensland would have completed the 1000 miles of railway, at a cost of £3,260,000 of loan funds, on which she would have paid interest during that time £552,038. The total cost to the colony therefore would be £3,812,038, and at the end of the time she would herself be the owner of the line.

Later on we shall see what it was proposed the colony should pay the Syndicate for the railway before it eventually passed into her hands. Having partly succeeded in persuading the colony that it would be impossible for her to borrow sufficient to accomplish the work, the Premier drew our attention to a body of philanthropists in the shape of a European Syndicate, who were ready to do it for us.

The fact of a joint-stock company being able to do what a colony like Queensland cannot do is sufficiently startling. But no matter; we were told that although our credit was run dry, Providence had provided us with the means of accomplishing our object in the shape of land-grants. Nothing could be more simple than to use the enormous area of comparatively unremunerative land to pay for the railway.

It is a most fortunate thing that the colony came to its senses, and realised the merits of the case before it was too late. At one time there was a danger that the Government might snatch a victory, and rush their nefarious project through Parliament, before the colony understood what was taking place. Had this happened, there is no doubt it would have had a lasting and most injurious effect on the prospects of Queensland.

There is not space here to transcribe the full terms of the agreement between the Queensland Government and the Transcontinental Syndicate, but what it amounted to was this: the Syndicate in the first place were to receive eleven million acres of land, freehold. This land was stated by the Premier to be worth at least 10s. an acre, and Government have been repeatedly solicited to offer it at auction at that upset price.

Not allowing therefore for the prospective rise in the value of the land upon the completion of the railway, this gives the value of the land-grant to be given to the Syndicate at £5,500,000. But in exchange for the inferior portion of land adjacent to the railway on the Gulf watershed, the Syndicate were allowed to select 1,200,000 acres on the Batavia River. This is grand agricultural land, which cannot be valued at less than £1 per acre. This brings the total thus:

1,200,000 acres on the Batavia at £1 £1,200,000
10,000,000 acres along the line at 10s. 5,000,000
----------
£6,200,000
==========

In making this valuation no account has been taken of the extra value of the land in the various townships along the line, and of the port on the Gulf, half of all which was to belong to the Syndicate.

Having induced the Syndicate to make the railway for us by the above enormous bribe, the agreement further provided for the purchase of the railway from the Syndicate when it was completed by the following remarkable clause:--

“13. In the event of the Governor-in-Council exercising the right of purchase of the said railway and rolling stock and appurtenances, given by the 26th clause of the said Act, the basis of valuation upon which the fair and reasonable value thereof shall be ascertained as therein mentioned shall be twenty-five years’ purchase of the average net earnings of the railway during the three previous years, with 15 per cent added thereto for forced sale, but not being less in total than £100 for every £100 of capital paid by and expended on the said railway, rolling-stock, and appurtenances.”

In order to give an idea of the probable amount that the colony would be required to pay under this clause, I cannot do better than quote from a pamphlet which appeared at the time the Bill was before the country. It was called _The latest Political Device for partitioning Queensland amongst Speculative Rings, and its Exposure_. It was written, I believe, by Mr. R. Newton, and was of immense service in showing up the gigantic fraud that the colony was very nearly swallowing. He says:

“From the above clause it may be inferred that the Government cannot exercise the right to purchase the line till the expiration of three years from its completion. By those most competent to form a correct estimate, it is computed that this colony will possess not less than 30,000,000 sheep in its central districts by the expiration of the time to be allowed to the Syndicate for the completion of their line to the Gulf. For it must be remembered that the country through which this Syndicate line is proposed to be taken, is not a useless, unoccupied territory, only to be made of any value by this railway. With the exception of a barren strip at the Point Parker end, the country is occupied as grazing-runs along the whole length of the proposed line, and for hundreds of miles to the west of it. Some of the country through which the line would pass is highly improved, and the whole is now being developed in an extraordinarily rapid manner. Few people understand or realise the vast traffic this increase in sheep will bring to our railways.

“We will take, as a basis for calculation, that only the produce and requirement for working one half of these 30,000,000 sheep can be influenced on to the Syndicate lines; and considering the enormous power they will possess, with the facilities they would be able to give at their port, Point Parker, by lines of steamers of their own, carrying at low freights, to allow the Syndicate line only one half the traffic is a moderate calculation.

“This, then, would give the Syndicate the traffic for 15,000,000 sheep. The wool from these, at 4 lbs. all round for clean and greasy wool, gives 26,786 tons. We will put the average freight on this at £8 per ton, a rate much below what is at present charged on our lines, the freight on clean wool from Roma to Brisbane, a distance of only 317 miles, being now £8 per ton.

“Allowing only double the weight of up-carriage to wool down, which is considerably under what is found in practice (as _vide_ the traffic returns of the Central Railway, a line supplying almost solely pastoral country), and calculating the average charge on up-freight at the same rate as wool down, viz. £8 per ton, and allowing for passenger fares, together with the large traffic which may be expected from live-stock, meat, etc. (without taking into account the mineral traffic from the Cloncurry, which may be immense)--we give the same amount as wool freights bring in--we have the following result:--

26,786 tons wool down at £8 per ton,
average freight £214,288
53,572 tons up-loading at £8 428,576
Passenger fares, live-stock, meat, etc. 214,288
--------
Total gross earnings £857,152
========

“Taking the working expenses at 50 per cent on gross earnings, which is an ample allowance over such an extremely easy and level country, we have £428,576 per annum nett earnings, which, at twenty-five years’ purchase, with 15 per cent added, comes to the enormous total of £12,321,560. This amount, if not considerably more, is the sum we should have to borrow in a few years, to purchase a railway, for the construction of which the country will have already given away £6,200,000 of its lands, besides vast unknown values in sites of towns, etc., and which line the country could have constructed itself, including interest on loans and every possible charge, for a sum not exceeding £3,812,038. It is simply utter nonsense to spread abroad the idea that this great colony, with its vast undeveloped resources--with the great future which is undoubtedly its inheritance--is unable to borrow for the making of its main trunk lines of railway (which would represent so grand an asset) a sum scarcely exceeding £3,000,000, extended over a period of eight years.”

Such was the great Transcontinental Railway scheme, which occasioned the downfall of Sir Thomas M’Ilwraith’s Ministry. It is deeply to be regretted that they ever took such a proposal in hand. They were the best government Queensland has ever had, and, had they chosen to do so, they were in a position to pass measures that would have been of inestimable service to the colony, such as the Coolie Bill to introduce coloured labour from India to the sugar plantations. Instead of which they took advantage of the security of their position to tamper with the interests of the colony. Allusion has been made above to the Steel Rail Inquiry. This was an attack made by Mr. Griffiths, the leader of the Opposition, upon Sir Thomas M’Ilwraith’s conduct in the purchase of some £60,000 of steel rails for the Queensland railways.

Mr. Griffiths directly impugned the honesty of the Premier’s conduct in the transaction, and, although he was unable to establish his charge, the extremely unsatisfactory circumstances that appeared in the inquiry greatly weakened the confidence of the country in the Ministry. When this further scheme for wholesale plunder was exposed, of course the country could stand it no longer, and turned them out.

Headed by Mr. Griffiths, their successors advanced, and, having elected a congenial spirit in the shape of a thrice-convicted felon to the Speaker’s chair, they laid themselves down to try by every means in their power to retard the progress of the colony, and feather their own nests.

The conduct of the Queensland Parliament in selecting such a man to fill the position of Speaker was severely censured by the neighbouring colonies, and deeply resented throughout Queensland herself. The tone of our Parliament has never been very high, but compared with the Houses in New South Wales and Victoria we always felt ourselves to be eminently respectable. All claim to such distinction is now gone. Whatever elements a House may be composed of, it cannot fail to lose caste by assigning the position of Speaker to such a man as now holds it.

But although the Queensland Assembly may be deficient in a sense of dignity, it certainly does not lack wit. Some years ago the present Speaker (Mr. Groom) was very desirous of obtaining a Government appointment. In the course of debate, one of his friends declared that Mr. Groom’s long services under Government most distinctly entitled him to hold some office. Whereupon someone on the other side got up and observed, with more truth than feeling, that “considering what the nature of Mr. Groom’s services to the country had been, the only appointment he was qualified to hold was that of Groom of the Stole.”

It is deeply to be regretted that a more healthy tone does not pervade the legislature of the Colonies. But as long as all respectable people hold aloof, and excuse themselves from attempting to take part in the government of their country, on the plea that they do not care to be mixed up in such disreputable society, there is not much hope of improvement. Such idle seclusion and selfish apathy deserves to be afflicted, as it is, by the worst of governments.

Throughout the whole of Australia a feeling obtains that Parliament is a profession which it is just as well for all decent people to keep clear of. In a book of advice to those visiting the colony of Victoria, I read the following interesting warning:--

“If you enter into conversation with a respectable-looking individual to whom you are a stranger, on no account ask him if he is a member of the Legislative Assembly. You cannot offer him a greater insult.”

As a class the squatters are marvellously indifferent to the legislation of the colony they live in, and they have greatly their own selfishness to thank for the losses that they suffer in consequence. The squatters are, of course, the backbone of a pastoral country like Australia, and represent the greater portion of its wealth. But anything like co-operation amongst them for the purpose of protecting their interests in Parliament is unknown. Each one thinks he can do best for himself by attending to nothing but the management of his station, and letting legislation take care of itself. They are by far the most poorly represented class in Parliament throughout Australia, and the consequence is that their seclusion in the Bush is subject to periodical interruptions of a most disagreeable kind.

While busily employed in making money in the back country, they awake too late, to find that literally the ground has been cut from under their feet at headquarters, and perhaps half their run taken away by some empirical piece of legislation on the part of the town-loafers to whom they have abandoned the reins of government without a struggle.

Of course, in a new country, the most difficult question that any Government has to deal with is a satisfactory adjustment of the question as to how the land shall be occupied. So far the problem has not been treated in the manner most likely to conduce to the welfare of the community, for at first, in the older colonies, immense freeholds were allowed to accumulate, the evil effects of which have found vent in measures of retaliation against the class that owned them.

The difficulty in a colony like Queensland lies in the fact that while the great want is felt to be an increase of population, it is almost impossible to find a class of people who can occupy the country profitably in small areas. The squatter knows, of course, that he only occupies his run upon sufferance, and that, unless he chooses to spend large sums in securing it as a freehold, he must expect to surrender his country when it is required for other purposes. When the time comes he succumbs to the inevitable, and moves farther away in search of fresh country; but his sorrow at being forced to give up the whole or half of his run is by no means diminished by the discovery that it is not of the slightest use to those who have taken it from him.

Of course, if a squatter holds land that is fit for cultivation either of sugar or of wheat, it is only right that he should hand it over to those who are able and willing to turn it to a use which is obviously more remunerative to the colony at large than the growing of stock. But when he holds country that is out of the scope of agriculture for the present, it is annoying to have to surrender it prematurely to people to whom it is no sort of good. Even in Queensland, land without capital is more of a curse than a blessing to those who are forced to hold it, and there is no more wretched class in the colony than the holders of pastoral selections.

It is perfectly impossible that a man can make anything more than a bare living out of one, and generally it is impossible for him to do even that honestly. When he has complied with the conditions of occupation, by completing the necessary improvements in the shape of fencing-in his selection, there is no more work for him to do, and he simmers down into growing pumpkins and sweet potatoes for his own consumption, and generally ekes out a living by stealing his neighbour’s cattle. A more utterly useless class of men to the colony cannot be imagined. The fact is that, for a long time to come, the most profitable way in which the greater portion of Australia, and certainly of Queensland, could possibly be held, would be in the form of large pastoral leaseholds, paying a fair rent to the Crown, but having a security of tenure that would encourage their holders to invest their capital largely in improvements. To throw open the runs of the squatters to selection wholesale is merely to try and drive civilisation at high pressure, which always means waste of power, and to foster a mushroom growth of population that will weaken rather than develop the natural resources of the country.

The population required for a country like Queensland consists mainly of two classes--large capitalists and skilled workmen of all trades. The former will find an ample field for profitable investments upon any scale that they may desire, and the latter will readily find employment at a high rate of wages.

But to the man of small capital, who is master of no trade, the colony is indeed a delusion and a snare. The days are over when large fortunes were rapidly made out of nothing at all, and anyone who makes money there has to work for it, and to work hard too. The possessor of a few hundreds, or even a few thousands of pounds, who goes to Queensland with the idea that he is likely to make his fortune, will find himself wofully mistaken; for the odds are a hundred to one on his losing every penny of his money.

If he goes out there to friends whom he can thoroughly trust, and who will take care of his money for him, of course he will get a higher rate of interest than he could get in England, and as he gains experience of the country he will see opportunities of increasing his capital safely. But unless he has good introductions to thoroughly sound men of business, he had far better stay at home.

The standard of honesty is no higher in the colony than it is elsewhere, and there are always crowds of sharpers on the lookout for men with money to invest. A form of partnership is often entered into, in which the new arrival in the colony provides the money, and the old hand the experience. These partnerships seldom last long, and at the end of them the respective commodities have generally changed hands: the unfortunate “new chum” has got the experience, and his rascally partner has got the money.

But Queensland is certainly the Utopia of the working-man who is not afraid of work, and numerous are the ways of making a living that are open to him.

On the goldfields ordinary miners’ wages run from £2:10s. on the old-established field to £4 on new diggings in the back country. Amongst the trades, carpenters, joiners, masons, and workers in iron are the most in demand, and at any of them a good tradesman will, in the towns, earn at least fifteen shillings a day. In the Bush, the wages for ordinary station-hands employed for shepherding or stock-riding are from £1 to £1:15s. a week, with rations, running up to £2:5s. for shearers in shearing time. Nearly all the fencing and putting up of station-buildings, yards, etc., in the Bush, is done by contract, and contractors always reckon to make at least £2:10s. a week.

After he has been six months in the colony, the working-man is endowed with the inestimable boon of the franchise--an advantage for which he has at all times, and in all parts of the world, shown himself willing to barter every other consideration.

A great deal has been said about the climate of Queensland, and it is often described as being a “trying” one. The only possible way in which it can be justly so described is in the sense of its being a climate in which people are constantly trying to kill themselves without succeeding. Probably there is no other country in the world in which men habitually take such frightful liberties with their constitutions with impunity.

The ordinary mode of living pursued by the inhabitants both of the town and the Bush is such that, if the climate were not an extraordinarily healthy one, they would die like rotten sheep. We will take the average Bushman’s life, say a stockman, or a hard-working squatter, who helps to work his own cattle. His food consists of beef and damper, and jam if he is luxurious. Vegetables he often does not see for weeks and weeks together, except in the form of pickles, and he is very lucky if he can always get them.

An occasional piece of pumpkin, or a sweet potato, forms a red-letter day in the calendar of his diet, and every meal is washed down with floods of strong scalding hot tea without any milk. Breakfast is the only regular meal that he gets in the day, and he has that soon after he gets up, but not before he has had a smoke. If he happens to be at home in the middle of the day he has dinner; if not, he has nothing from breakfast to supper, which is a movable feast, somewhere about sundown.

All day he is riding about under a broiling sun, and smokes an ounce of the strongest tobacco in the world every twenty-four hours. For days and nights together, sometimes, he is wet through, when camped out away from home; sleeping at night under a tree, with no covering but a blanket in winter, and in summer not even that, and awakening in the morning, perhaps to find himself lying in a puddle of rain-water that has fallen in the night, perhaps to find his hair stuck to his hat with hoar frost.

The only diversion in his _régime_ is an occasional visit to a neighbouring town, where he probably gets half poisoned by the extraordinary quantity and the infamous quality of the liquor that he drinks. If after ten years of this he should find his digestion not as good as it was, or feel symptoms of the approach of rheumatism, he is certain to put it down to the climate instead of to his own imprudence.

With the townsmen the case is still worse. Their climate is certainly not as healthy as that of the Bush, and in summer it is rather depressing; but they take little or no exercise, which is the only way to counteract its effects, and drink quantities of spirits from morning till night, every day of their lives, and even then it seems to take years and years to do them much harm.

All below the coast range of Queensland cannot be described as a pleasant climate, though it certainly is not an unhealthy one. But in summer it is rather a sticky, damp sort of heat, and both men and animals perspire far more than they do over the range on the table-lands.

In the Bush, though the thermometer is very high all through the summer from October to April, there is nothing whatever depressing or enervating about the heat; and the harder a man works, even though he be out in the sun all day, the better he will feel.

It is only the habitual loafers and the constitutionally weak who feel any bad effects from the heat of Queensland. The thermometer runs to about 90° in the shade in the middle of the day in the summer months, though on some few days it is much higher. I have seen it up to 120° in the shade of a back verandah, and 176° in the sun; but I never felt the slightest ill effects from going out and working all day in the sun, with no more covering for my head than an old felt hat.

Sunstroke in the Bush is unknown, though I have seen men working all day in a brick-kiln, when there was not a breath of air, with a vertical sun over their heads, and no protection but a workman’s linen cap. Even in summer, in the Bush, when the sun goes down, the air always gets nice and cool. Hot nights are unknown, and there are very few all through the summer in which a man is not glad of a blanket just before dawn.

If the climate of Queensland were a perpetual summer, it might, indeed, be rather trying to such people as are constitutionally unfitted to stand heat; but for seven months in the year it is impossible to imagine a more delightful climate, even for those who object to hot weather. From the middle of March to the middle of October is an unbroken series of bright, warm, sunny days, with a blue sky over which soft, fat white clouds sail on the wings of a fresh, cool breeze, the mornings and evenings being quite chilly, and the thermometer at night, during the months of June and July, falling sometimes to ten degrees below freezing, even in latitudes well within the tropics.

As is always the case with new countries, ague prevails in Queensland, but chiefly in the districts that have been recently taken up, and it disappears almost entirely in places that have been settled for some time.

In the interior a form of blood-poisoning, known as slow-fever, is not uncommon, and is entirely due to the effects of drinking impure water.

The only really unhealthy district of Queensland is on the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, where several obscure sorts of fever prevail, one of which very closely resembles the terrible Yellow-Jack, if indeed it is not the real article itself.

The rest of the colony may be considered as extraordinarily free from all the maladies incidental to hot climates, and it must be greatly a man’s own fault if he does not enjoy as good health in Queensland as he could in any other country in the world. I have tried the climates of New South Wales and Victoria, and certainly prefer that of Queensland to either of them; for during the seven years that I was knocking about the latter colony, at all sorts of work, exposed to all kinds of weather, I not only never had a day’s illness that I could by any ingenuity attribute to the effects of the climate, but I feel that I laid in a stock of good health, of which the beneficial effects will last during the remainder of my lifetime.