["The Great Nor'-West", The West Australian, Saturday 30 September 1911, page 9]
THE GREAT NOR'-WEST.
(By Canon Tucker.)
No. 1.
The great nor'-west of Canada has been the objective of the greatest economic treck the world has witnessed. Our Nor' West is as vast as the famed Saskatchewan Valley and the Golden Elberta put together. Ours is not as fair, but it should prove as fertile. It is not, for months in the year, a frozen zone, but genial and salubrious as sun ever made God's earth. Off the roads of Cossack, the port of Roebourne, is revealed. A submarine magnetic point. Passing over it the ship's compass veers and swings about as a veritable merry-go-round. The Nor' West is a vast magnetic field. It exercises a powerful pull upon all who come within the sweep of its mysterious influences. It is an enormous and a richly favoured, yet comparatively unknown, land. An air of romance attaches to the labours of its pioneers. Its pearl-strewn shore attracted the first Englishman to land and linger on our endless coasts. William Dampier, the rescuer of Alexander Selkirk, the literary father of Robinson Crusoe, was self-marooned on these northern shores. He discovered the west a hundred years Before Captain Cook anchored in Botany Bay.
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Next to the pearl-white sea strip lies the verdant fringe of sea littoral--near the Pindan country, often 50 miles wide, spread for some 2,000 miles. There, according to Mr. A. Dispeissis, the prophet and "our own particular friend" of this coast, tens of thousands of tons of mangrove, and as much perhaps of wattle bark, "await the coming of the stripper." But he comes not. The stripping would cost £3 a ton. The bark would command £13--almost as profitable as electioneering! Here cocoa-nut and date palm will flourish, for in these the white ant and kindred pests dare not venture.
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As Mr. Despeissis abundantly shows, most of the four million pounds' worth of tropical products that each year the Commonwealth imports, might be grown in these far northern areas. Much on every hand that is impressive lends colour to the hope. The enhanced cost of living is everywhere lamented. Why? Largely because we have not the honesty and the wisdom to utilise the resources at our disposal. Men on all hands combine, evidently that they may bespoil others for their own gain. Rings are more rife than in Saturn. Monopolies abound. The people pay and are dumb. For one shilling a pound at Northam I have known beef sold, while up North it could not command a penny! Cattle by the thousand must needs be "overlanded" to Queensland and New South Wales because no room can be found in the little ships that sail near shore to Perth! One vessel more, and a weekly service could be arranged. Larger vessels running more frequently as far at least as Ports Sampson or Hedland would help to solve the difficulty of transit and high price. A railway from Nullagine to Peak Hill, and so to Perth, light lines connecting with the above along one or two of the rivers would not pay directly. Indirectly they would bring wealth and population. The land calls for it. The people, as we yet would show, are worthy of it. Link up the Nor' West!
