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I can go still further north and point to a remarkable instance of a community which did its very best to establish itself in the far north. I refer to the town of Croydon, about 300 miles north-west of Charters Towers, about 100 miles from the Gulf of Carpentaria, and about 2,000 miles by sea, round the Cape York Peninsula, to Brisbane. As you will appreciate, Mr. Speaker, that was a very isolated community, cut off by rugged terrain from the sea ports of the east and south-east. Nevertheless, because of the very rich reefs of Croydon, the people who were there were spurred, by opportunities for handsome rewards, to great efforts to reduce the disadvantages of isolation. A foundry and an engineering works were constructed. The miles of mining machinery that line the reefs of Croydon to-day - air compressors, steam engines, boilers and winding gear - were mostly made in that far northern, isolated foundry. Unfortunately, the great Golden Gate reef, which was the main supplier of wealth to Croydon, many feet wide and yielding many ounces to the ton, suddenly faulted, and searchers have never been able to find any trace of the rest of it. So, the history and the prosperity of Croydon ended. It is tragic, Mr. Speaker, that that mineral wealth did not have the endurance of such ore-producing areas as Mount Isa and Broken Hill, because 1 have no doubt that those people, with their application and their desperate attempts to reduce the geographical disadvantages that they suffered, would have established, had they been able to exist in the area, an industry which would have supplied very rich mineral ores to the east and south-east. They would have built up their industry on local coal and iron deposits. But that was not to be. Instead of the many thousands of people who were in Croydon during the 90's of the last century - a considerable number when it is realized that at that time the total population of Queensland was under 400,000 - there are now only a few dozen. It is an area of well laid out streets, stone-faced gutterings, and aged buildings, mostly deserted. Strange to say, there are lamp posts made in the local foundry and patterned on those of London's gas-lit era. I mention that, not for any poetic significance that it might have, but to indicate the hopes and the spirit of the people who were there. They felt that they could establish a community, and had they been able to do so it would have been an outpost in the far north. They could obtain only beef locally; everything else had to be imported. They had incentive to produce foodstuffs, but their knowledge of agricultural conditions in a summer rainfall area was too meagre to enable them to make a success of the venture. It was not so long ago that the Darling Downs area was considered to be too far north to be a successful wheatgrowing area. Yet, to-day, with new strains of wheat to suit our particular conditions, we grow some of the finest wheat in Australia. To-day, wheat is successfully grown north of the Tropic of Capricorn, in the Peak Downs area. I think that that indicates the possibilities that we have for our future. We have seen the successes achieved by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organzation in its endeavours in the north-west of Western Australia, in the Kimberleys area - I think on the Ord River - and also at Katherine, in the Northern Territory. We have seen the success of ricegrowing in the region of Darwin, and I am sure that vigorous experimentation will find fodders and grains suitable for those areas. The scientists no doubt will find fertilizers that will give optimum productivity and, what is most important, a legume which will give fertility to our soil. If they evolve such a legume, they will break the barrier to t. successful agronomy for northern Australia. Queensland is on the verge of a great awakening. There has been tremendous discoveries of vast mineral resources. I mention Mount Isa, Mary Kathleen and Weipa, and no doubt there will be many more. The ores from these new discoveries will be processed and refined in the north. That will bring there a new population, and the mere fact of those communities being developed will result in the establishment of greater communities to serve those people. T can visualise eventually many new jobs being created of a very high standard in north Queensland, but we still have quite a way to go. It is of no use exhorting the people in those areas to grow more sorghum and more beef until we can find markets to absorb the increased production. But we must be ready to take advantage of those markets when they eventuate.