Photograph by II. E. Gregory 

 A CHARACTERISTIC "LAKE"- — THE BED OF LAKE HART 



Kanaka labor. Opposition to the color 

 of the laborers, and more especially to 

 the wage received, led the people of the 

 temperate part of southern Queensland, 

 outside the sugar belt, to object to the 

 employment of non-Europeans, and the 

 political friction engendered led to seri- 

 ous talk of secession. With the forma- 

 tion of the Commonwealth the demand 

 for the elimination of competition with 

 colored races under the guise of the 

 ''White Australia" policy was irresistible 

 and the sugar-planters were deprived of 

 their efficient labor and their profits. 



The profits were restored by a bounty 

 granted on condition that white labor be 

 employed and that wages and hours be 

 "fair and reasonable." Bernhard H. 

 Wise states that "for the first five years 

 the cost of this experiment was about 

 $4,900,000." While the tonnage of sugar 

 produced has fluctuated, the acreage of 

 the Commonwealth has remained prac- 

 tically the same since 1902, and the num- 

 ber of persons engaged in the sugar in- 

 dustry has decreased steadily from 46,000 

 in 1907 to 28.000 in 1912. 



The history of cotton, rice, and coffee, 

 for which the climate of Australia ap- 

 pears to be eminently suitable, is similar 

 to that of sugar. In spite of liberal 

 bounties, their production has decreased. 



•THE DESERT 



The Central Desert is the Australians' 

 family skeleton. There is not much said 

 about it at home and the visitor rarely 

 sees it ; but it is there, a stern reality, 

 which stands in the way of national de- 

 velopment. Other continents have des- 

 erts, too ; the Sahara is larger and our 

 Mohave and the Painted deserts, as well 

 as large areas in Utah and Nevada, are 

 as barren as the region about Lake Tor- 

 rens. 



It is its enormous area in proportion 

 to the size of the continent which gives 

 the Australian desert its commanding 

 position. More than half of the entire 

 continent receives less than 15 inches of 

 rain per year, and the area receiving less 

 than 10 inches is 1,077,245 square miles — 

 more than one-third of the continent, or 

 more than all the United States east of 



5-" 



