August i, 1887.] THE TROPICAL 
THE FUTUEE OP THE NOETHEEN 
TEEBITOHY OF AUSTRALIA. 
Lecture tiy the Hon. J. L. Parsons. 
At the Adelaide Town Hall on Thursday evening, May 
19, the Hod. J. L. Farsous (Government Resident in the 
Northern Territory) delivered a lecture entitled " The 
Northern Territory, with a Glance at Eastern Asia ." 
In the course of his lecture Mr. Parsons said ho 
woudered how many in the audience could give him 
approximately the number of square miles and acres 
the Territory contains. The area is 531,402 square 
miles, and the acreage is 340,097,200 acres — a suffici- 
ently extensive country, one would suppose, to 
inspire confidence and courage. At 5s. per acre it is 
worth more than £85,000,000 sterling. He found this 
fact received everywhere in the Bast with open- 
eyed astonishment, and frequently with thinly veiled 
incredulity. In this vast expause of country there 
are, it is true, stony wastes, and so far as haphazard 
exploration has gone there are waterless areas and 
rocky and sterile ranges. But then there are vast 
rolling downs, wide well-grassed plains, rich alluvial 
flats, large navigable rivers, and metalliferous areas 
exceptionally rich in gold, tin copper, and silver. Port 
Darwiu is the one great harbour of the north coast 
of Australia, with no competing second for situation, 
size, or safety. The rivers of the Territory — the 
Macarthur, lloper, Limmen, Hodgson, Robinson, Clyde's 
Inlet, the three Alligator rivers, the Adelaide, Daly, 
and Victoria — arc so many waterways made by nature 
to settle and stock the lands. He could not say that 
squatting has been, even generally, up to the present 
a paying investment. But where in the wide world 
have pioneer operations been immediately successful? 
Ho would like to say that through good report and 
evil report, in the face of great difficulties and losses 
Mr. 0. B. Fisher has acclimatized shorthorn cattle 
stocked various stations, and has for years supplied 
the whole population with good beef. As to mining, 
it was the construction of the overland telegraph which 
led to the discovery of gold. It would be tedious to 
trace the history of successive gold discoveries or to 
outer upon descriptions of the Margaret, the Twelve- 
mile, Pine and Bridge Creeks &c. From the Stapleton 
to tne Stow, a distance of 100 miles, gold has been 
found. Quartz reefs have yielded up to 00, 70, and 
80 ounces to the ton of stone. Pickets of the precious 
metal have been lighted upon of wonderful richness, 
and alluvial deposits have been unearthed which have 
made the miners' eyes gleam with a satisfied joy. 
Over 5 tons of gold arc known to have been exported 
from Port Darwin, and year after year from 20,000 
to 30,000 ounces pass through the Custom-house. A 
Oalkeof 1,(100 ounces of retorted gold from the Eleanor 
and Telegraph Claims will be seen at the Exhibition. 
Other valuable metals — tin, copper, and bilver — are 
spread over a wide region, and the Rev*. Tenison Woods 
Confidently asserted that the country was exceptionally 
rich in minerals, only a small portion of which has 
been made known to the public. Of agriculture there 
is up to the present much less satisfactory accounts 
to give. It happens uufortuuatcly iu connection with 
the cultivation of laud that no new country appears to 
profit by the dear bought experience of planters iu other 
places. For the failure of agricultural experiments 
in the Territory, preventable blunders, such as the 
selection of unsuitable land, wasteful expenditure, 
uud bad management, will in part account. He could 
not admit that it was owing either to unsuitabilitv 
of climate, deficiencj of rainfall, or poverty of soil. 
With the exception of a small area nature em- 
phatically indicated by the ironstone rock which crops 
up that she never meant sugar-cui .• to he grown ;it 
corlaiu places. At the Daly River the mil is magnificent, 
bnl the promoters who held the conditional giant of 
2o,iiim) acres lost heart owing to the repeated failures 
at Delissavillo and the disastrous decline iu the price 
of sugar. The present representative of agriculture 
on a largo scale is Mr. Brandt, whose sugar plant- 
ation and mill are at Shoal Ba> ; but be bail not 
plucked the fruits of success. The Chinese have ga- 
thered harvests of rice and su^ar-cane from limited 
AGRICULTURIST, 119 
fields. It is to the banks of the rivers we must look 
for cultivation. There we have the soil which through 
innumerable ages, with an annual raiufall of over 60 
iuehes, has been washed down from the hillside and 
upland. There water is stored by nature at the bottom 
of the bills for irrigation, and there are tidal rivers 
for waterways. The picked spots on these rivers 
are suited for coffee aud a variety of products ; the 
inferior areas for rice. The general character of 
land aud scenery on the rivers is wonderfully 
similar to the vast rice regions of Saigon, only our 
soil has the advantage as to quality, and is virgin. 
In the new Government Garden sugar-cane, rice, 
tapioca, jute, ground nuts, iudigo, ginger, and sesame 
are growing luxuriantly. There is a finer small crop 
of sugar-cane there than any he saw during his 
pilgrimage through the East, and much credit is due 
to Mr. Holtze, the Curator of the garden, for the 
intelligence aud knowledge he manifests in bis work. 
He was sad and sorry about agriculture, but he did not 
despair. People must not make any mistake about 
the climate. It was distinctly tropical on the north 
coast, and that fact must lie at the base of all 
action there. The mean temperature all the year 
round is 78°, and the thermometer has never been 
seen lower than 58 ° . The atmosphere is dank, steamy, 
and heavy, with moisture during the wet season, 
aud dry parching, and malarial during the dry season. 
He was in good health there, but though they never 
have yellow fever or cholera or smallpox, most of 
them get smothered with prickly heat, they melt almost 
with moisture, and they have to beware of malaria 
with its fever and ague. The question of whether 
life not only is worth the living, but whether it can 
be lived at all, depends upon the liver; that import- 
ant organ becomes a source of constant anxiety. 
For the labouring white man it must be said that 
he who puts forth his strength in the suu for eight 
hours a day during the whole year through finds 
out where he is. So long as the great existing 
meteorological laws last the climate will be tropical, 
and all that can be done is to miuimize the evils 
that result by care, by change, and by rest. Then 
there is a great medley of races. It is estimated 
that all told the fixed and floating white population 
is about 2,000. There are between 4,000 and 5,000 
Chinese, a sprinkling of Malays, Cingalese, and large 
tribes of aborigines, who claim and hold the country 
according to their tribal boundaries, aud who are 
treacherous, cunning, powerful, and murderous. 
The facts mentioned must be kept distinctly in mind 
if the right answers are to be found to the next 
question— " What ought South Australia to do for 
the Northern Territory?" He thought it would save 
him from a great deal of rather perilous walking 
between naked swords if he were to turn to the 
Minister who had the control of the Territory and 
say, "Ask him." He would listen very closely, and 
probably should feel impelled to ask leave to amend 
a little and add a few things to the replies. For 
himself he had all the courage of his convictions, 
and the Minister had fraukly told him to say what 
he liked. One thing cannot be done. We cannot 
sell the Xothern Territory to pay off our debts — 
at any rate, without the consent of the Imperial 
Government. South Australia does not possess the 
fee-simple of the country. She holds the Territory 
during Her Majesty's pleausre. Before the railway 
was undertaken the Bray Government brought tho 
tubject of the relatiou of the Territory to South 
Australia uuder the notice of the fmparial Govern- 
ment, and received from the Eirl of Derby, tho 
Colonial Secretay, the gratifying assurance that tho 
Queen's Government recognised tho public spirit and 
enterprise shown by So it li Australia and the declar- 
ation that there was no prospect of tin- terms of 
union being disturbed. But everyoue should undent mil 
that while South Australia has a good holding title 
she does not possess a selling title, lie advised the South 
Australians must get to kuow more about the Territory 
and understand it better. Iguorauce is fatal and has 
beenjthe parent of all procrastination and of all the blund- 
ers, We must not look to level balance sheets of expeudi- 
