The

not long before owed his elevation to the Bench to the State Labour Party, was chosen for the delicate task of deciding whether the Darwin officials or the "industrialists" were most to blame for the two successive outbreaks. The proceedings which followed were lengthy and somewhat animated. The Commissioner first visited Darwin, where, as it were, the case for the prosecution was presented. Charges of improper acts connected with land and mining transactions were brought against the expelled officials, to whom in some cases corrupt practices were imputed. Certain local scandals of a rather grimy character were also investigated. Among the witnesses summoned was a functionary bearing the imposing title of "Supervisor of Hotels." This gentleman, a Mr. Callan, received the handsome salary of £600 a year for managing the managers of the three or four State-owned hotels in the Territory, where the sale of intoxicants is a strict Government monopoly. Apparently even this usually lucrative business has been so far, in official hands, a source only of loss. At one Darwin establishment alone the yearly receipts were stated to be from £1,200 to £1,800 below the expenditure, although evidence was given to show that the profits on the sale of beer and whisky ranged from 50 to 90 per cent. quality of these beverages, however, seems to have caused discontent in Darwin. Complaints were made that a strange liquid locally known as "Kill-stone-dead beer " had been dispensed under official sanction, with disastrous effects. Whisky of a peculiarly potent kind, it was affirmed, had been imported for the public refreshment, the result being several fatalities in a single day. In fact, Government control of the liquor trade in Northern Territory seems to be so successful as to warrant the immediate appointment there of a Director-or Supervisor-of Cemeteries. Indirect reference has already been made to the local dispensation of justice. A place where Chinese cooks might be murdered and important public officials assaulted with complete impunity might seem to possess the unappreciated privilege of sanctuary accorded to Manchester and half a dozen other English towns in Tudor times. But one class of offender was not allowed to escape unpunished. Two witnesses testified to the extraordinary fact that they had suffered imprisonment for no other cause but debt. One, a returned soldier, affirmed and his evidence was uncontradicted that for eighteen months he enjoyed the pleasing society of Chinese, Malay and native criminals in the town gaol solely because he was unable to meet

a small pecuniary engagement. Oddly enough, his arrest immediately followed his announcement of an intention to enlist and go to the war. When at last he contrived to regain his freedom, he carried out that resolution. His companion in misfortune was arrested under precisely similar conditions. Apparently patriotism is, or a short time ago was, accounted a crime in Darwin. The cosmopolitan leaders of a "little Bolshevist community" could hardly be expected to encourage such a sentiment.

When the wearied Commissioner returned to Melbourne, the humiliated officials had their innings. The late Administrator, Mr. Gilruth, and his ill-used assistants and successor were examined, and, on the whole, came through the ordeal with credit. A scandalous charge against the ex-Administrator to the effect that he had entered into improper relations with a certain firm for his personal benefit was absolutely refuted. The manager of the firm in question, too, was entirely exculpated. The most rigorous cross-examination failed to elicit any facts which could in any degree suggest corruption on the part of the administration, although many deplorable errors were undoubtedly committed.

In the Report subsequently furnished by the Commissioner there were some very singular passages. To the amazement of the well-informed public, Mr. Justice Ewing completely exonerated the instigators and leaders of the Darwin riots from all blame. Rather euphemistically he described the action of the citizens in insisting on the departure of the Government representatives as unconstitutional." Apparently, the physical attack on the Administrator himself was regarded as unconstitutional " also; although to the non-judicial mind a shorter and more forcible term would have seemed more appropriate. At the same time he insisted with ludicrous fervour on the cruel wrongs under which the people of the Northern Territory suffered. They were actually refused the privilege of representation in the Federal Parliament. They had to pay taxes and were not allowed to vote. The Argus, in a leading article, mildly characterized this condonation of flagrantly illegal action as extraordinary." The inhabitants of the Northern Territory, like those of Papua and Canberra, do not certainly send a member to the Federal Parliament. But to grant such a privilege to a paltry little community numbering but two thousand permanent residents would be a distinct wrong to the other portions of the Commonwealth, where representation is on the basis

of one member to about fifty thousand people. The Northern Territory, too, is an essentially parasitic dependency. Its administration costs the Commonwealth, yearly, a sum far in excess of the trifling amount received in revenue from the local taxpayers. Indeed, the inhabitants of the far North, in relation to those of the flourishing Southern and Eastern States, are paupers in receipt of outdoor relief. They are a source of weakness, not strength-loss, not gain-to the people of Australia. The white inhabitants of Papua, equally debarred from the Federal franchise, have on the other hand a real grievance in that their products are penalized like those of foreign countries by the Australian tariff. This gross injustice, attributable to the selfishness and jealousy of the trade-unions, demands immediate removal. But the dwellers in the Northern Territory, enjoying already so many special advantages, have no right whatever to claim preferential political treatment also.

Apart from this initial aberration, Mr. Justice Ewing's Report contains much that merits approval. It sweeps away all imputations of corruption brought against the men who have lately held responsible positions in the Territory, although it censures the ex-Administrator and one or two officials for acts which, in the Commissioner's opinion, were either improper or indiscreet, particularly certain land and mining transactions. It also contains a pointed reference to the failure of the commander of the local military forces to assist the Administrator when not only his authority but his person was assailed. It is to be hoped that the military authorities will take the hint and have a special inquiry made into this matter. With very good reason, also, the Report strongly condemns the mediæval practice of imprisonment for debt-or patriotism -prevailing in the Territory, and calls attention to the numerical weakness of the local police and the lack of discipline and control which impaired their efficiency.

But in one or two pregnant sentences towards the end of his Report the Commissioner exposed the root of the whole trouble. "Various schemes for land settlement in the Territory," he remarked, "had hopelessly failed. The Federal authorities had conceived the idea that products could be grown in the Territory with wages from three pounds ten shillings to six pounds per week, that were being grown in Eastern countries with wages from sixpence to one-and-sixpence per day." In other words, the "White Australia fetish stands, and has throughout stood, in the way of the effective settlement and profitable

use of the almost uninhabited wilderness known as the Northern Territory. The employment there of suitable coloured labour, under reasonable conditions, would mean life to a dead waste, and, so far from threatening the supremacy of the white race in the Australian continent, would strengthen and perpetuate it. For an empty possession is an endangered possession. Effective occupation is a condition necessary to ownership. This principle was enforced by Great Britain herself at the expense of Portugal in South Africa not many years ago. Pastoral and mining enterprises alone are insufficient to guarantee prosperity and security. Agriculture, the greatest and most vital of industries, must be established in tropical Australia before that vast and fertile region can be populated by a permanent garrison sufficient to hold it and exploit its riches. The fatuous policy of racial discrimination hitherto pursued by the Commonwealth has entirely prevented this. far, Australian Legislatures have persisted in the foolish policy of kicking against Nature's pricks. They have given the starving man abundance of medicine, but have withheld nourishment. In consequence, a vast region capable of adding enormously to the world's supplies of food and raw material has remained for over fifty years unpeopled and undeveloped. A narrow and selfish fanaticism has been mistaken for an enlightened policy, with results that now menace not only the internal tranquillity of the Commonwealth but the safety of the Empire. foreshadow tragedies. Even a Darwin Comedies sometimes convey a wholesome warning. 99 may

revolution

F. A. W. GISBORNE

So

CORRESPONDENCE

POISONING THE WELLS

TO THE EDITOR OF THE National Review.

SIR,-After reading Mr. Stutfield's The Roman Mischief Maker and Michael J. F. McCarthy's The Irish Trouble, its Cause and Cure, I earnestly feel it my duty to supplement the teachings of those books by enlightening your readers about the real power that has been fomenting Sinn Feinism, with its accursed accompaniment of vindictive and murderous falsehood and treason, in the United States during the last two years. If the Irish Roman Catholic prelate and priest would limit themselves to the spiritual and religious life of the laity, all this fierce vindictive campaign of monstrous falsehood against the United Kingdom and the United States would very quickly subside. First, it is to be remembered that while the Roman Catholic Church in the United States includes large numbers of Italians, Poles, French Canadians and Germans, with a small sprinkling of persons of English, Scotch or Welsh descent, the large majority of the Church are of Irish descent, and the Ultramontane Sinn Fein bishops and priests of Irish training dominate the policy and action of the Church. The type of former-Archbishop Williams of Massachusetts, Archbishop Ireland and Cardinal Farleyseems to have largely disappeared or to have lost its control. Other men are now in the saddle, and are playing the part of traitors against the United States and the United Kingdom with an unscrupulous ferocity that makes the Church at the present time a most malign, anarchistic, secessionist force in the Republic.

The old, repulsive Clan-na-Gael has largely been merged in other secret brotherhoods of more high-sounding names, such as Ancient Order of the Hibernians, Friends of Irish Freedom, and the Knights of Columbus, which is much more respectable than the first two. Still, it is heartily to be condemned, because in all its State Conventions and in its recent Federal Convention it has almost unanimously endorsed the recognition of this bastard Irish Republic, and that monstrous Bolshevistic scheme of robbery, spoliation, repudiation and murder called Sinn Feinism or the Independence of Ireland. Membership in all these organizations is limited to Roman Catholics.

While this conspiracy had been planned for several years from the time of the beginning of the war, it first dropped the mask and showed its wolf-like spirit in an address of Cardinal O'Connell, given in New York City just before the public hearing in Washington in December 1918 on the proposed Gallagher Resolution, in order to give the vindictive keynote to the conspiracy. Arrayed in his full robes of cardinal red, he delivered a pestilential address, filled with vindictive hatred of the truth and love of falsehood. Then followed the hearing on the Gallagher Resolution. The report of this hearing is found in Document 1832 of the House of Representatives, 65th Congress, 3rd Session. Any earnest student of modern history who studies this document will find it 90 per cent. falsehood and the rest non-pertinent truth. Almost every speaker in favour of the resolution was a Roman Catholic, including four Professors and the President of the Roman Catholic University at Washington. All this saturnalia of falsehood had been organized and