Evening star., 1941-05-18
Australian Steel Had
Card Come Origin
By Frederic J. HdSkin.

tory Of great industrial fortunes lies be-
hind the story of AUstralia's heavy in
dustry-the keystone of a booming war
production supplying enemies of the Axis
in an area bounded by Alden, the Hima-
layas, Singapore and the New Zealand
Alps.
The story began SO years ago with the
crazy tale of sheepherder who pegged
out tin mine claim or a rocky ridge
in the heat and mirages of the New
South Wales western plains. There was
no tin, and the sheepherder and some
Of his associates lost their stake in
poker game. The claims new owners
thought they would look for gold any,
way. There was no gold, but 20 feet
down the shaft they uncovered a great
lode of silver, lead and zinc that has
yielded 47,000 900 tons of ore worth $780,
100000 in so years.
The company that began with the
sheepherder's dream of a tin mine soon
found itself with one of the worlds
largest deposits of lead, and now op-
crates the largest steel plant in the
British Empire. Thus, the lonely sheep
herder and his poker game began some
thing that has developed into what is,
perhaps, the most important political
factor in the South Pacifc-an Austral-
ian arms industry with 10000 workers.
Australia occupies a land mass of 81
100000 square miles and has a popula-
ton of slightly less than that of New
York City, but the big commonwealth
down in the South Seas is not back
woods country still in pioneering con-
dition, although it may look that way
on the map. 1t was the last continent
opened to white settlement.
Take away the eastern and southern
coast areas and Australia is just a big
place occupied by kangaroos, 115,000, 900
sheep-the worlds largest sheep popula-
tion-and so many rabbits there is a
standing reward of 100000 for some one
with workable method of wiping them
out. 1t is the industrial fringe of the
continent, however, that makes this Pa
cific democracy important to the United
States today.
Gold and wool were the two things
that made Australia rich. When gold
was found in 1851, the population of the
commonwealth quadrupled in nine years.
Prospectors had found the Welcome
Stranger Nugget, lump of pure gold
worth $4,000, and the gold fever was
running high when news came in 1867
Of long outcrop of stone jutting from
the lonely plains Of Western New South
Wales. Gold seekers swarmed to the
place, called the Barrier Ranges, and
many perished Of thirst. They found no
gold, and bitterly left the Barrier to the
5-foot goanna lizards that lived in the
mulga scrub.
Six years later the Barrier was deserted
except for sheepherder, Charlie Rasp,
who rode the wire fences that stretched
into the mirage on the endless horizons.
His job as boundary rider for Mount
Gipps sheep station took him to the edge
OF the Barrier. He recalled the tragic
gold rush and so, one day in 1883, teth-
cred his horse and pegged out 40 acres
of the outcrop as mine claim. Then he
AO6C 3A4SO C44C 44OIuCoIcdo anu UO1O Ills
boss, George McCulloch, that he had
found tin mine.
McCulloch liked the idea, and a syndi-
cate was formed, each man putting I'D
$3.50. But Charlie and the boys found
no tin, and that night he and some of
the others tossed their shares in a poker
game. Perhaps they knew the cards,
hIIt thnu Iil AaIx
dividends of 5000, 100000 were to be paid
from the riches of that blistering 3-mile
hump Of ironStone in the desert. Rasp's
shaft, sunk in 1884, found at 20 feet the
top of huge mass of silver, lead and
zinc ore. The great lode has been only
scratched, yet ore already taken repre-
sents slab 81 miles long, 1000 feet
across and 80 feet thick.
The Broken Hill Proprietary Co. was
formed to mine the deposits, and today
1t Is one Of the great corporations of the
world, parent Of half a dozen COM
| panies. The system dominates the in
dustrial pattern of the South Pacific,
runs the British Empires biggest steel
works, with annual production OF more
than 100000 tons, and has a feet OF
coastal steamers. 1t owns many coal
mines, also the worlds largest lead
smelling plant, located at Port Pirie.
South Australia, and in addition, a
sl2000,000 zinc corporation and a copper
corporation. 1t also owns mountain Of
iron ore called Iron Knob, South Aus
tralia, estimated at 100000 tons, and
two islands at Yampi Sound, Western
Australia, which consist of SO, 900 900 tons
OF iron jutting up from the tide.
In recent times the scene has shifted
from the endless desert TOO miles east
to the coal coast of the Pacific. where
Australia has centered her steel industry.
Great blast furnaces and steel rolling
mills look out over the wide fringe of
surf at Newcastle and at Port Kembla
on the New South Wales south coast,
The steel industry enables Australia
to build her own warships. She has
$4,000 tons of warships now building,
and has launched the first Of three de-
stroyers. She Is building so l0,00O-ton
pre-fabricated freighters and a craving
dock able to ref1t huge battleship. She
Is able tc build for herself an entirely
mechanizee division comprising about
800 tanks and armored vehicles.
Americans can see across the Pacific
an outpost OF the same democratic pat
tern OF life as in the 48 States, able to
form an industrial bastion of democratic