106 PRODUCTION 





TROPICAL AUSTRALIA. 



Considerable areas of land, said to be thoroughly suitable for 

 cattle, exist in various parts of the highlands of tropical Australia. 1 

 The most important districts seem to be the Kimberley District 

 in Western Australia and the adjoining land in the Northern Terri- 

 tory, a stretch of country in the Northern Territory bordering on 

 Queensland and various parts of Queensland from the Western 

 border to the coastal range. 



Cattle-raising in these districts will probably develop consider- 

 ably and ultimately provide a large surplus for overseas exports 

 of refrigerated meat. Difficulties have hitherto been encountered 

 in the construction of freezing works at such outlet ports as Wynd- 

 ham and Derby owing to the fear that West Australian consumers 

 might be prejudiced by a heavy withdrawal of cattle for export. 2 

 The more rapid development of cat tie -raising industries in tropical 

 Australia has doubtless been prevented as much by this fact as by 

 the more fundamental factors of remoteness from centres of popu- 

 lation, of the entire lack of railways and of the deep-rooted 

 Australian dislike for anything resembling exploitation by foreign 

 monopolistic undertakings. 3 Hence, in spite of the undoubted 

 advantages in climate and pastures, 4 possessed by these Northern 

 tropical highlands, it may be some considerable time before they 

 develop stock-rearing industries to such an extent as to be an 

 appreciable factor in the world's supplies of their special products. 



MATABELELAND, RHODESIA AND BECHUANA LAND. 



This extensive tropical highland is, generally speaking, adapted 

 to cattle-raising in the better watered parts and to sheep farming 

 elsewhere, 5 except in the low-lying river valleys which are too 

 pestilential for ordinary stock to survive. The average elevation 

 is well over 3000 ft., and the rainfall sufficient, especially towards 

 the East. In Southern Rhodesia the pastures are reported to be 

 richer than elsewhere in South Africa, and germ diseases have been 

 successfully fought by means of dipping tanks. Cattle-raising on 

 a large scale has been established by powerful companies which 

 have constructed private lailways to supplement the main 

 state-owned lines. Land is being subdivided, and pastoral settle- 



1 Commonwealth Year Book, 1913, p. 282. " By far the finest specimens 

 of beef-producing cattle are those raised in the tropical districts of the 

 'Commonwealth, i.e., in the northern parts of Queensland, in the Northern 

 Territory, and in the north of Western Australia." 



2 Dominions Commission (Cd. 7172), Q. 9042. 



3 In this case in the form of freezing works, established by the American 

 Beef Trust. 



4 See Dominions Commission (Cd. 7172), Q. 9042. "There are millions of 

 acres of splendid country now lying idle in East and West Kimberley, the 

 Northern Territory, and North Queensland, which could be utilised to grow 

 cattle, sheep and horses. . . . The possibilities of the far North of Australia 

 are enormous ; there we have the great essentials in the rearing of stock, a 

 regular and good rainfall and a generous soil." 



6 U.S. Daily Commerce Reports, Nov. 2nd, 1912, p. 599. 



