Queensland

“ Turning to the agricultural operations, similar evidence of the evolution of the industry is to be found. Time was when a visitor could stand on some slight eminence and look over vast areas of cane, the vista unbroken save for a few trees, or the plantation roads running like ribbons through a sea of waving green. Now the prospect discloses the homes of farmers standing out amongst the cane, with all the evidences of a closely settled and thriving population. The large gangs of labourers tending the cultivation have for the most part disappeared. ”

“ But, speaking now from a point of view which concerns literature no less than science, I may be permitted to say that it is gratifying to hear the announcement of the Honourable the Premier that the claims of original research will be brought within the scope of the institution which takes its origin to-day. (Applause.) Surely it is a desirable, even a necessary, function of the chief seat of learning of a State that its professors and teachers should not only teach that which is known, but that they should themselves be contributors to the sum of human knowledge. ”

“ With free institutions, individual liberty, and great natural resources, Queensland is destined to become the home of a numerous and prosperous people. It is our manifest duty to see that it forms part of a strong, self-reliant, British nation beneath the Southern Cross, linked in the bonds of affection with the Motherland and our brethren across the seas, with arms open in welcome to our kin and colour, but ready to defend ourselves against aggression. In the great work, the men who are subduing the wilderness and converting it into a smiling garden can be relied upon to play their part. ”

“ I deem it a fortunate circumstance that, a few days after my arrival in Brisbane, I should have the privilege of participating in a ceremonial for the establishment of "The University of Queensland," of taking part in a State function of historical and of great social and economic importance.
We live in an age of more rapid progress than any that has ever preceded our own day: and for my part I am prepared to believe that we owe to education the enormous advances in recent years in health, wealth, and in the amenities and comforts of life. ”

“ It may happen that the country is bare of all improvements, in which case he has to fence it before he gets a lease, his neighbours being liable for half the cost of this work, which forms their common boundary. He pays a higher rent than the representative of the pioneer who created the goodwill which has descended by purchase. What more desirable opening can be found for a young man of limited capital than a farm that will carry 10,000 sheep or 1,500 cattle? ”

“ It must be apparent, therefore, that any needful public expenditure to ascertain whether the flow diminishes or increases as the years go on, and to prevent waste if waste there be, is more than justified. Indeed, should any great public loss be suffered for want of State control of this life-giving national asset, it might be difficult for Parliament entirely to clear itself from blame if charged with neglecting the reiterated advice of its own responsible officer in this respect. ”

“ The output of beet sugar steadily forged ahead until, in the early eighties, it was almost equal to the output of cane sugar. Tropical planters and manufacturers then found themselves engaged in a life-and-death struggle for which they were ill-equipped. Forced by inexorable necessity to face the situation, they realised that only by following the example of their rivals—by calling in the aid of science both in cultivation and in manufacture, and by paying the strictest attention to the financial side of their enterprise—could they hope to hold their own. ”

“ For many years the fascination of a pastoral life and the search for gold, with the hope of winning fortunes in those avocations, proved more attractive than the regular, uneventful life of the farmer, with its prospect of a competence; but the old-time glamour of grazing and mining is passing away, and the independence of the farmer is now preferred to the lot of station hand or working miner. ”

“ In the Western Interior are the true sheep pastures. The farther one goes west the more treeless the country becomes. Here undulating downs for the most part stretch to the horizon, intersected by watercourses fringed with timber, and although in summer many of these creeks shrink to a chain of disconnected waterholes, few of which are permanent, they offer abundant opportunities for water conservation. In the last few years many for several miles of their course have been converted into running streams by artesian bores. ”

“ In the early days of settlement in East and West Moreton and on the Darling Downs, the small selector, with no capital in many cases save a pair of strong hands, a courageous heart, and a tireless energy, made his way every year to the squatter's shearing shed. ”

“ What we understand here by a University, and what we aim at, is an institution where any person can find the fullest and best instruction of the day in any branch of knowledge. It will be the head corner-stone of the system of education that has been legalised in this State, a school that will be accessible to all, and will afford equal chances and opportunities to rich and poor alike, without reference to sex or religious denomination. ”

“ I know of no institution in modern social life that equals the University in giving a fair chance in life to the youth that is capable and is able and willing to work; although, for my part, I can only regard schools of all grades as only preparatory for the studies that have to be incessantly pursued after one ceases to attend classes, if one does not resign oneself to falling behind ”

“ Too large a proportion of the people of Australia is already congregated in the capital cities on the seaboard, and this centripetal tendency constitutes one of the problems most difficult of solution in our young communities, as it is proving in the older countries of the world. Here, however, we are not confronted with the obstacle of high-priced land, and no effort is being spared to turn the tide of settlement to the true source of national virility and prosperity—the land. ”

“ The general opinion throughout the Commonwealth with respect to the vital question of national defence has undergone a marvellous change for the better during the past twelve months, the unanimity displayed justifying the most sanguine anticipations of future unbroken concert between Great Britain and her self-governing dominions, and the supremacy of the British Empire on the ocean, a supremacy which means the protection of the world's trade routes and unimpeded maritime commerce. ”

“ Similar vast prairie lands, which in America sustained countless herds of bison and in Africa literally swarmed with antelope and many species of game, were in Australia almost uninhabited. The absence of large rivers and a general scarcity of water had doubtless much to do with this destitute condition of the great pasture lands of the interior, but still the wonder remains that a continent which now carries more sheep than any other country in the world should have been in its original state, except along its coastal belt, almost tenantless. ”

“ A university costs money, much money, especially in the technical departments, such as engineering, mining, and agriculture. The endowment of universities has been recognised in recent years as having such strong claims on public funds that they cannot be overlooked. That principle is accepted here. Our nearest neighbours have conferred valuable land areas on their universities; and they have been very liberal to them in money grants. In this respect the oldest of our Universities, that of Sydney, led the way with wisdom and a liberal hand, and to-day New South Wales reaps her reward. ”

“ The areas available for cane cultivation are still enormous, and, though hesitancy and doubt may for a 142 time join hands in checking expansion, the main facts remain that there is room for the people and that there is a demand for the product. Australia, in her fiscal policy, has recognised that the sugar industry is a national industry, and our statesmen realise that it is doing for the Australian tropics what no other industry on the coastal lands has yet seriously attempted—what, indeed, no other country in the world is as yet prepared to try. ”

“ Maize, sugar-cane, and the fruits of the tropics, on the other hand, revelled in the sunshine and moist atmosphere of the seaboard.
The farmer's first consideration is how he may utilise his land to the best advantage. The most profitable crops are those for which there is a world-wide demand but only a limited area of production, and therefore little competition for the grower; or, alternatively, crops which, by reason of natural advantages, he can produce more abundantly and at less cost than his competitors. ”

“ We require a broad and strong foundation, able to carry a great edifice, sufficient to provide the most comprehensive tuition, not only in what is known, but also to facilitate and encourage original research and invention, as set out in the Act. Even sport will not be forgotten, for it is an important consideration, in a non-residential university, to foster that feeling and regard for a bountiful mother that should animate the students of every great University. ”

“ These pastoral exhibits represented stock yielding more than a moiety of the £14,000,000 worth of annual exports; and the industry connected with grazing stock on the natural pastures of the country not only employs much labour and contributes largely to the revenue of the State directly in the shape of Crown rents and railway freights, but it assists the Treasury indirectly in many other ways. The magnificent display of stud and pedigree stock and their products spoke volumes for the value of the indigenous grass crop which costs nothing to raise and only wire fencing to protect. ”

“ In the university life one of the chief and most valuable features is the comradeship, the common citizenship with the other members of the university, the participation in athletic sports, the esprit de corps that comes from belonging to such an institution. And from that aspect I look with pleasure upon the Brisbane River, only a few yards away, where we shall find in the future, I hope, a university boat club, which club has always been a prominent feature of universities in Great Britain, as it is now becoming in Germany. ”

“ Irrigation and afforestation are both necessary for the successful development of the West. If water can be supplied to settlers at a cost which is not prohibitive, whether it be drawn from storage reservoirs or from subterranean sources, the face of the country will quickly be changed. Instead of a handful of pastoral lessees controlling in some instances areas of hundreds of thousands of acres, a much larger population of grazier farmers will be settled on much smaller holdings, enjoying all the benefits—educational, social, and civic—which result from concentrated settlement. ”

“ Diversity of products is to be expected in a country stretching through 181⁄2 degrees of latitude, possessing an infinite variety of soils, and divided into a hot and humid coastal belt, an elevated tableland with cool climate and moderate rainfall, and a huge plain with light rainfall and dry, invigorating atmosphere. There is probably no country in the world with so wide an agricultural range. To mention crops which can be, and are being, grown with gratifying results would be to set forth in detail nearly every crop of economic value found in the torrid or the temperate zone. ”

“ We start under the best auspices, for we have before us now a most gracious message of 251 congratulation and good wishes from His Majesty the King, whose life is devoted to the welfare of his subjects, and there are with us to-day representatives from the great Universities of Sydney and Adelaide. Each of these Universities has sent us a man of world-wide reputation. I know well what I am saying when I tell you that the names of Professors David and Stirling are as well known, and are as highly honoured, by the learned men and women of Europe and America as by the people of Australia. ”

“ European brains and European labour have brought into being a flourishing industry, and converted into one of the healthiest portions of Australia, fitted to become the permanent home of millions of our own race, a malarial belt where it had for long been thought none but coloured people would ever be able to labour and live. ”

“ We need universities as well as we need "Dreadnoughts" and Kitcheners—as we do need them to keep our country foremost in the arts, not only of war—even in war a university may do much; we have a Director of Military Studies at our University at Sydney, and I trust you will have one here—but to keep us foremost in the arts of peace. In the matter of the foundation of the universities of the Old World, you will remember that it was through the Crusaders that those universities were founded. ”

“ Australia owes much to her adventurous explorers, as well as to the men who, following up their tracks, placed stock on much of the country that produced great wealth to the people, though as a rule neither explorers nor pastoral pioneers personally benefited much by their labours and privations. ”

“ The suitability of the State for agriculture is amply demonstrated by the condition of those engaged in that industry, for there is no 115 considerable class in the community so prosperous. Comfortable homes, well-stocked farms, overflowing barns, and other evidence of labour richly rewarded, bear witness to this fact. The abundance of a series of fat years more than compensates for the loss of crops and stock in occasional years of drought, and these losses it is possible to minimise by devoting attention to afforestation, the conservation of water, irrigation, and the storage of fodder. ”

“ But British statesmen, whether Conservative or Liberal, appear to have felt that, responsible government having been granted to and enjoyed by the people of New South Wales—and consequently to the people of that part of its territory about to be separated—any Imperial limitation of popular rights already conferred would be regarded as an unjustifiable encroachment upon public liberty achieved after many years of ardent struggle in the parent colony. ”

“ As Napoleon in his wildest dreams had no conception that his anti-British policy would ultimately lead to the expansion and evolution of the sugar industry of the tropics, so the Queenslander who first planted a few sticks of sugar-cane on the shores of Moreton Bay half a century ago little foresaw that from that humble beginning would develop the greatest agricultural industry of this State—an industry which, if treated with continued consideration and sympathy by the Commonwealth, bids fair to revolutionise the hitherto accepted view of the relations of the white races to the tropics. ”

“ As every extension adds to the volume of traffic, apart altogether from the added value given to Crown lands by providing them with railway communication, every inducement is held out to maintain a vigorous policy of construction. There is every reason to believe that in a few years our railway system will be the greatest and most stable of all contributors to the Consolidated Revenue; and when it is recollected that forty-five years ago there was not a mile of railway or tramway open for traffic in Queensland, the progress made in providing transport facilities is brought out in bold relief. ”

“ One thing is abundantly clear: that because we are determined to have a university equal to the needs of this great State, a university that shall stimulate those of the sister States, and because we start at so late a date, we must begin with the very best teachers that can be procured, the most learned and enthusiastic men in their several departments. On those men will in a large measure depend the future character and standing of our University. The best men will be the cheapest. Queensland can afford to employ them, and we know they will be a profitable investment. ”

“ It is now well known to us all that the nation that is backward in education is, or soon will be, behind in all that makes a people great and prosperous.
I am aware that these facts were fully recognised by many men in Queensland long years ago, for I well remember the former efforts that were made to found a University here—efforts that failed through causes that happily no longer exist. One of the most noticeable facts in the social and economic life of English-speaking people in recent years is the great impulse that has been given to the development and extension of university teaching. ”

“ Fifty years ago, when what is now Queensland, casting itself free from the parental skirts of New South Wales, began to walk alone, its mining industry did not exist. It would not be correct to say that gold—here, as elsewhere in Australia, the first to be sought and found of the numerous minerals that have since proved a source of so much wealth to the State—had not been then discovered upon our shores. ”

“ The shearers have their own cook and "find" themselves, sharing together in a general mess; and as they earn good money they "do themselves" really well, denying themselves no delicacy obtainable at the station store. The whistle sounds at 6 p.m.; the last fleece has been gathered, and the men stroll to their camp to discard sodden shirts and moleskins and clean up generally before supper. The twilight is short, night chasing it swiftly from the world. The weird charm of a Queensland night in the bush penetrates with a calm satisfaction difficult to analyse. ”

“ For not only are we doing what we can to make a prosperous and contented people, but we are doing a great work for the whole of the white races. We are proving that the tropics can be conquered and permanently settled by people of our own race and colour; we are holding one of the gateways of the East; and we are garrisoning an important outpost of the Empire. Kipling's stirring words, written of Queensland, find an echo in the hearts of Queenslanders ”

“ Following the usual practice on scrub land, maize and grasses are the principal objects of culture, as they can be planted among the fallen timber and converted into milk long before the land can be put under the plough.
The Darling Downs, famous for their beauty and fertility, well deserve their title of "Garden of Queensland." Other districts, notably Atherton and the Burnett, have as good land, and the latter may have an equal area; but nowhere can there be seen 4,000,000 acres of splendid 124 agricultural country requiring so little labour to bring it under cultivation. ”

“ With his earnings he paid his rent and improved his land. It was men of this stamp who built up the great agricultural industry of Southern Queensland, and they and their descendants of the second and third generations are the very cream of the farmers of to-day. It is to a similar class of settlers in the sugar districts and their hinterland that we look for the proper settlement and development of our tropical lands. And in our aspirations for a great white agricultural population we are entitled to expect the sympathetic assistance of our kinsmen in the South and of the Empire at large. ”

“ Some men of good will are not permitted by their means to do more than to found a prize for proficiency in some branch taught in the university. This State possesses an enormous area; the productions are varied in a very unusual degree, and they are of enormous value present and prospective; and there can be no reason to suppose that Queenslanders are to be less generous and patriotic towards their University than our neighbours have been towards theirs. I shall be satisfied if we have citizens here as generous as Russell in Sydney, as Ormond in Melbourne, and Elder and Hughes in Adelaide. ”

“ Since the discovery of the Gympie goldfield there has been no cessation in the progress of mining in Queensland. From one end of the 146 territory to another the existence of gold and other minerals has from time to time been disclosed. For many years—
"Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold—"
but still much to be desired—was the magnet which attracted the peripatetic prospector away from the comforts of civilisation into the rugged wilds of the coastal ranges and the gullies and stony stream-beds of the eastern watershed ”

“ I would have the Senate always remember that it was the desire of our people that inspired the crowning of our educational system by the establishment of a University, that in very truth the Queensland University is "of the people," and I trust that the Senate will never forget that it should be "for the people." ”