HQ SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



line the existing telegraph route must be followed, at any rate as far 

 as Newcastle Waters, 90 miles south of Daly Waters and 450 miles 

 from Darwin. 



The Standing Committee, in recommending that this extension be 

 authorised, expressed the view that it was inadvisable to use the longer 

 sleepers, and they recommended further experiments on the possibility 

 of using reinforced concrete sleepers on steep banks and curves. On the 

 original Darwin Pine Creek line steel sleepers were used, and these 

 had worn well excejjt on the coastal section, but their use on the southern 

 extension was impossible owing to the gx-eat increase in their cost. 



The 1913 Eoyal Commissioners in their report had recommended a 

 westerly swing of the main line to Willeroo to serve the Victoria Eiver 

 district, but the Standing Committee disapproved of this suggestion, 

 owing to the difficult nature of the country, which would much increase 

 the cost per mile, and would considerably increase the length of the 

 line. A Sub-Committee of three members of the Commission inspected 

 in July and August 1916 the whole of the country along the alternative 

 routes, and the final finding of the Standing Committee was based on 

 the report of this Sub-Committee. 



This Committee emphasised the need of settling population on the 

 areas already opened up by railways, not merely by taking people away 

 from other parts of Australia, but by the introduction of European 

 settlers. This would be facilitated by inducing railway construction 

 men to bring out their families, and by offering land settlement facilities 

 to them when the railway construction work was completed. 



Since the report of the Eoyal Commissioners in 1914 a fierce con- 

 troversy has been going on in the Commonwealth and South Australian 

 Parliaments and in the public Press in regard to the North-South line, 

 and as to the precise meaning which must be attached to the words in 

 the agreement made between the Commonwealth and the State of South 

 Australia when the latter ceded the Northern Territory in 1911 — viz., the 

 Commonwealth shall ' construct, or cause to be constructed, a railway 

 line from Port Darwin southwards to a point on the northern boundary 

 of South Australia proper,' and ' construct, or cause to be constructed, 

 as part of the Transcontinental Eailway, a line from a point on the 

 Port Augusta Eailway to connect with the other part of the Trans- 

 continental Eailway at a point on the northern boundary of South 

 Australia proper.' The Eastern States assert that it would be a waste 

 of national money to construct the due North and South line, as so 

 much of the country it traverses is useless for pastoral or any other 

 purpose, and they maintain that the line should deviate easterly from, 

 say, Newcastle Waters into Queensland to Camooweal, and that South 

 Australian interests would be completely met by a new line in that 

 State, running in a north-easterly direction from Maree on the Port 

 Augusta line to a connection with the Queensland railways near Birds- 

 ville. South Australia, on the other hand, insists that a bargain is a 

 bai'gain, and that this new proposal is entirely at variance with the 

 real meaning of the terms of the agreement. They further allege that 

 much of the land declared worthless would be quite good country for 

 sheep and cattle rearing if railway facilities existed and if water con- 

 servation on sound lines was carried out. 



