That some of the peoples of crowded Asia may, sooner or later, seek a settlement for their surplus millions on what, for them, would be so desirable a land as the Northern Territory, with its magnificent opportunities for those capable of working in a tropical climate, is a contingency that has been fully realised in Australia, and the questions have arisen (1) as to whether the presence of a thousand whites in a region half a million square miles in extent constitutes such "effective occupation" thereof as gives them a right to its exclusive possession; and (2) whether it would be possible either to prevent Asiatics from invading the Northern Territory, if they sought so to do, or to eject them therefrom if they did.
The latter question raises in an especially interesting form the problem as to the respective merits and possibilities of sea-power and rail-power.
Sea-power would, assuredly, have to be relied upon for safeguarding the Northern Territory against invasion, since it would be impossible for the Commonwealth Government to station troops at every prospective landing point along 1,200 miles of a tropical coast-line in sufficient force to keep off any invader who might appear there at some unexpected moment. For the checking, therefore, of such invasion, dependence would have to be placed on the power of the British Fleet (1) to stop the invader, (2) to cut off his connections if he should effect a landing, or (3) to carry war into the invader's own country.
Nor, if any large Asiatic settlement—as distinct from an "invasion" in the ordinary acceptation of that term—did take place in the Northern Territory under conditions that might not call for the intervention of the British Fleet, is it certain that the ejection of the settlers could be ensured with the help even of a trans-continental line of railway. Here the question is not that of the carrying power of a single line of railway. The examples offered by the War of Secession, the South African War and the Russo-Japanese War have well established the great advantages that even single lines, extending for great distances, can confer in the effecting of military transport. The considerations that would arise in Australia are, rather, (1) the fact that troops arriving at Pine Creek or Port Darwin from the south might have to make some very long and very trying marches across the 523,000 square miles comprising the Northern Territory before they reached the settlement of the Asiatics whom they were to eject, while they would be dependent for their supplies on a far-distant railway base; and (2) the doubt as to whether Australia could spare a sufficiently large body of troops to undertake such an expedition, having regard to the defence requirements of her south-eastern States, the integrity of which would count as of more vital importance than an Asiatic settlement in her Far North. So there are those who think that if such a settlement were eventually effected in the Northern Territory, under conditions not constituting a casus belli, Australia would simply have to accept the situation, and reconcile herself to it as best she could.
All these things may seem to reflect on the precise value, from the rail-power point of view, of that direct communication which, more especially for strategical reasons, Australia has hoped eventually to obtain between north and south as well as between west and east. It is, nevertheless, desirable to see what has already been done in this direction.
The construction of a north-to-south trans-continental line, passing through the very centre of the Australian mainland, and linking up the Northern Territory with the southern and eastern States, has been under discussion for a period of about forty years. Progress seemed to be assured by the Acceptance Act of 1910, under which the Government of the Commonwealth, in taking over the Northern Territory from South Australia, agreed to build a trans-continental line connecting Oodnadatta, the northern terminus of the South Australian railway system, and 688 miles from Adelaide, with Pine Creek, the southern terminus of the Northern Territory system, and 145 miles distant from Port Darwin. This connecting link would have a length of 1,063 miles,—the same, by a singular coincidence, as that of the Kalgoorlie-Port Augusta line.
Since this "bargain" between the South Australia and the Commonwealth Governments was made, there have been many advocates of an alternative, or, otherwise, a supplementary route which, instead of going direct from South Australia to the Northern Territory, (passing through the central Australian desert,) would link up—on their west—with the railway systems of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, connections with the new line being made by these States where necessary. This "eastern deviation route" would, it is argued, offer a greater strategical advantage, as compared with the other route, because if troops had to be despatched to the north, they could more readily be supplied from Melbourne and Sydney—which, between them, contain over one-fourth of the entire population of Australia—than from Adelaide; while to send troops from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria to South Australia in order that they might start on their journey to the Northern Territory from Oodnadatta, would involve a material delay under, possibly, urgent conditions. Thus it is estimated that if the eastern route were adopted, troops and travellers from Brisbane to Port Darwin would only travel about 2,234 miles as against 3,691 miles via Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and the central Australian route from Oodnadatta.
How these rival claims and contentions will be eventually settled remains to be seen; but there has now been added to them a project for the building of other avowedly strategical lines, establishing a more direct connection between the Kalgoorlie-Port Augusta trans-continental line, when it is finished, and the capitals of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland respectively, facilitating the mutual defence of the eastern, southern and western States in a time of crisis. This further scheme is, however, designed only to supplement the trans-continental lines already mentioned.
As regards the eastern States and the "central" State of South Australia, the question of an Asiatic invasion may be assumed not to arise. It has, however, long been regarded as possible that if Great Britain were at war with some non-Asiatic Power able to challenge her supremacy on the seas, the enemy might make an attack, not on the admittedly vulnerable Northern Territory—which he would not want either as a colony for Europeans or as a "jumping-off" place from which to conquer the remainder of Australia—but on some point along the coast-line of nearly 2,000 miles which, stretching from Rockhampton, in Queensland, to Adelaide, in South Australia, comprises (with a Hinterland of some 200 miles) the most populous, the most wealthy and (for non-Asiatics) the most desirable section of the whole Australian continent.
It is true that Germany—the Power which claims first attention from this point of view—has shown far greater desire to convert Africa into a German Empire than she has to effect the annexation of Australia. Yet that she has recognized the weakness of the Australian situation is suggested by the fact that, in dealing with the defensive power of the Commonwealth, Dr. Rohrbach, one of the exponents of German World-Policy, and author of "Deutschland unter den Weltvölkern," among other works, has declared that Australia could not resist if her four chief towns, all of them near the coast, were occupied by an invader.[87]