TEMPERATE SURPLUS-PRODUCING REGIONS 73 



cannot push forward their railways more rapidly than the increase 

 of settlement warrants. In this and in other directions it is evident 

 that the further development of Australian animal industries still 

 depends largely upon the increase of agricultural population. 1 



A second form of capital expenditure required for the further 

 development of animal-rearing industries is upon irrigation works 

 and artesian bores. The former have already been undertaken on 

 a large scale by two of the State Governments ; the latter have 

 hitherto been almost entirely the result of private enterprise on 

 the large stock " runs." Though artesian waters are insufficient 

 for irrigation, besides being chemically unsuitable for that purpose, 

 their value in providing live-stock with water in the drier interior 

 districts, especially of Queensland, is very great. They make 

 stock-raising possible where otherwise the vagaries of the rainfall 

 and the insufficiency of surface streams would work destruction 

 with the sheep and cattle that thrive upon the rough natural vege- 

 tation. As the best scientific opinion is concentrating on the view 

 that these artesian waters are due to rainfall precipitation, 2 it may 

 be presumed that the supplies of water can be relied on for the 

 future, though not perhaps in greater quantities in the basins now 

 tapped, than hitherto. Besides the Great Artesian Basin, a number 

 of smaller one? in South Australia and Western Australia, not yet 

 completely surveyed, are known to exist. These will be of the 

 greatest value to pastoralists in large districts where shortage of 

 water is perhaps the only impediment existing to the raising of 

 sheep and even cattle. Since the supply of artesian waters is so 

 vital to stock-rearing interests over large areas of semi-arid 

 Australia, a much greater measure of Government control and 

 enterprise is to be anticipated. The inter-State Government 

 commission, charged with the duty of supervising and controlling 

 the use of artesian waters will probably make the available resources 

 of greater economic value. 



The artesian areas, however, are naturally more suitable for 

 merinos than for mutton sheep, though in some cases they support 

 cattle. However, with the general change throughout the world 

 from merinos to crossbreds in response to the demand for mutton, 

 the supplies of wool from these areas in the future will be of indirect 

 moment in the world's supplies of animal foodstuffs by setting sheep 

 lands free for mutton production elsewhere. 



The large irrigation works, in course of construction and proposed 

 in the valleys of the Murray and of its tributaries, will convert 

 great areas of ordinary pastoral lands into valuable agricultural 



1 Dominions Commission, Minutes of Evidence, Australia (Cd. 7172). 



Q. 8137 : " The agricultural output will increase, not in proportion to the 

 land under cultivation, but in proportion to the people cultivating it." 



2 Dominions Commission, Second Interim Report (Cd. 7210), also (Cd. 7172) 

 Minutes of Evidence, Australia, QQ. 9320-9789. The theory that the Aus- 

 tralian artesian waters are of plutonic origin has been maintained, especially 

 by Gregory. 



