The citizen. [volume] (Berea, Ky.) 1899-1958, 1906-01-18
CAPITALS MADE TO ORDER.
Australia Is to Follow the Examples
of the United States and
Russia.

The Australian commonwealth. TAX
ing a leaf from the history Of the
United States. has decided to buil6 a
new capital which shall be free from
the influences Of either Of the great
sections. 1t will build the capital lit
orally from the ground ~ and his
selected a site not far from this pretty
village of Dalgety, on the Snowy river.
Dalgety might have slumbered In pas
toral obscurity for the next hundred
years but for the assumed necessity of
Australia to have a capital in a place
which nature had designed Tor a viii
lage. Ii is 30 miles from the nearest
railroad station and even when that
distance is spanned by the iron way
still further connections must be built
to link Il with the main Victorian sys-
tenn. Henry Stead, in the Independent,
estimates that cost Of the railroad con-
struction entailed will be SS,SO0,O00
and that water supply, public build
ings and land purchase will carry the
total of the expenditures for the new
capital up to S2S000O00. After the
city is built it will be a purely arti-
fetal capital, just as Washington is,
but it will have a very much smaller
population, the assumption being that
it will not exceed $4,000.
An artificial capital, one created by
fiat as a result of a compromise be-
tween rival sections or decreed by as
sumed political necessity is an expert
ment under the best circumstances and
usually falls short Of being a metrop-
oils Washington and st. Petersburg
are examples. Washington is simply
the seat OF the federal government;
nothing more. It has disappointed the
expectations Of its founders that it
would become an emporium, a busy
mart, a port. a city that should be an
illustration in itself OF all the actvi-
ties of a great and busy country.
Beauty IL has. but business it has not.
In population il is far below nSny
cities that we are went to think o as
in our second or possibly our third
class.
st. Petersburg. on the other hand,
has far outstripped the old capital in
population, having 1.3l3,30O inhabit-
ants, to Moscow's 1.092360 by the lat
est census. st. Petersburg is really
great port. commanding a heavy sea-
borne trade, but. in fact, Il only d.
vides the hOnors of the capital with
Moscow. The latter has the greater
hold on the affections and traditions
of Russia. II has a prestige which
Peter the Great could not undermine.
II Is the capital Of the Russian heart.
Napoleon was right when he held that
Moscow was the capital TO be struck
by an invader of Russia.
Australia has one advantage which
neither the United States nor Russia
enjoyed when they created their arti-
fetal capitals. Its area is fixed and
determined. The capital will always
bear the same geographical relation 20
every Australian region that II will
have in the beginning. In this coun-
try the capital is conveniently situated
to only a very small section. The
United States have expanded into re-
sions that the founders Of Washington
thought would be wildernesses for
many generations to come. Similarly
Russia has grown so far and so fast
that st. Petersburg is in. a corner very
remote TO provinces that are populoui
and progressive. in regions that were
not even Russian when Peter the Great
began to drive the piles for the foun'
dations of his capital.