No 6 Waikerie

Waikerie is the offshoot of a desperate experiment. The experiment failed, but a prosperous town has arisen on its ruins. Waikerie is one of the darlings of the Murray, and owes its success to irrigation.

Waikerie is a nouveau venu amongst towns— a thing of humble origin, self made, and successful. It might not unreasonably be called a war product, for it was not proclaimed a district council until 1914. Its civic history can be dated from then. In 1914 it was very small potatoes as a centre. Today it is large, and it is going to be larger.

Waikerie is a town with a future. Originally it was a village settlement. It was one of several hopeless communal schemes evolved by a worried Government during the financial crisis of the nineties, when something had to be done with the unemployed. They were dumped along the Murray, given rations, and told to put their communal schemes into practice.

Of course, they couldn't do it. Those schemes are only successful in dreams. The trouble is that the law of equality won't work by Act of Parliament. The Creator was no believer in human standardisation. He turned men out with different temperaments, different ambitions, and different views about everything in general. When man starts out to improve on the work of his Maker he always makes a mess of it. It seems to me that until you can produce the human race out of a single mould, you can give up all ideas of equality, no matter by whatever name you call it. You cannot alter a natural law, and the law of life is the survival of the fittest. We all prey on one another — from the most minute parasite to that most perfect product of civilisation which we call man. By way of parenthesis, I am not prepared to argue that question of perfection.

At Waikerie, Mr. J. H. Strangman, the chairman of the district council, showed me, almost in the centre of the town, the blocks where these first settlers tried their hopeless experiment. Some day, I hope, the governing authorities will erect an obelisk on the site, because, after all, this was the birthplace of Waikerie, and those who follow us 100 years hence, when the present town is a city on the Murray, will be interested to know where, and under what conditions, the place came into existence. [See also https://artserve.anu.edu.au/raid1/student_projects/wine/waik.html ]

To return to the village settlements. Like the French visionaries before them, the settlers adopted as their motto, "Liberty, equality, fraternity." Very commendable — provided it will work. In the case of the Waikerie settlement it didn't work— even though they carried the doctrine of equality to the extent of serving the same quantity of rations to the man with a wife and six kids as to the single man who had none. I have the word of Mr. G. A. Edwards, who was in Waikerie in the days of the settlement, that they did that.

The settlers who invaded the Murray lands in the early nineties were a small community, who had a vast amount of hope, a vaster amount of inexperience, and a most vast determination to show the world how it should be run. The trouble was there were too many bosses. You can't have equality if you have bosses. You might get over it by making everybody a boss. Then you have chaos. If you have no boss at all,then you have failure. And if you have only one boss, then your doctrine of equality goes smash. I mention these things in passing, just to show what a complicated piece of business this equality stunt is.

The villagers camped in one community, had their own special laws, and received rations from the Government. Mostly they studied the land and pronounced it no good. A great many of them left for places where there was less equality, but more money. Those who remained were, after three or four years, given 10 acre blocks. By now the edge had been worn off the theory of equality. It failed to survive rubbing edges with the touch stone of practical experience. The communal scheme collapsed. The only two original settlers still holding their blocks, I understand, are Mr. J. C. Rowe and Mrs. M. Starr.

Waikerie Moves Ahead

Today Waikerie comprises the three former village settlements of Waikerie, Holder, and Ramco. The first man to show what could be done with the land around the Murray was the late Mr. Albert Francis. Mr. Francis was a trader on the river. Times not being too good, he took up a block which an apostle of equality had abandoned. He planted fruit trees and started irrigating. His results surprised everybody. From that year on the future of the Murraylands was assured. The land about the river is a light red, sandy loam. In view of what has been achieved, I examined it attentively. I admit I am no expert, but if anyone had asked me what it was fit for I would have answered without hesitation:— "It might be good for covering lawns but for nothing else."

And I would have been wrong. Experience has shown that, with irrigation and proper manuring, artificial and natural, it will grow the finest fruit in Australia. Its oranges are world-renowned. It was Albert Francis who showed them how to do it. If it had been in France they would have put up a statue to him. Since then Waikerie has never looked back. It has had its ups and downs, but these have been economic. But the question of productivity has been settled for good and all. The Murrayland is good— provided you know how to farm it. And this, I feel, is true of large areas of unsettled country in the State for which no use has been found to date.

It was soon after this that the town was surveyed. It began to grow at the bottom of the hill which is now McCoy street. In those days the tendency was towards the Murray. Today the Murray as a means of transport is virtually dead— strangled by the railways— and the town has climbed up the hill towards the railway.

Once A Station

In giving the early history of Waikerie I omitted one important detail. Forty years or more ago, before the village settlements were thought of, the country around was the Waikerie sheep station. It is from this that the name of the town is derived. The word, I am told, is native for a certain juicy grub found in the mallee, and highly esteemed as an article of diet by the blacks— and some of the whites as well. Later the station, of which the town site then formed part, was cut into agricultural and village settlement blocks. The property belonged to Shepherd Bros., and the old homestead is still standing.

Today the population of the district is over 2,000. The present district clerk is Mr. P. W. Annells. And a pretty shrewd clerk he is.

Waikerie is the largest dried fruit and citrus fruit area on the Murray. It also exports a fair amount of wheat. The extent of the irrigation area is 11,776 acres. Up to the present nearly 4,000 acres are being irrigated, and 6,824 acres are not irrigated.

The blockers today are full of optimism. Good times, they say, are just ahead. They had their slump two years before wheat and wool were affected. They are now well on the up grade. Prices for dried fruits are better today than they have been for years. The next three or four seasons promise well, provided they get the crops. The market prospects were rarely better. The industry has been substantially benefited by two factors — Imperial preference and the high rate of exchange. The growers are keenly interested in the forthcoming economic conference at Ottawa. They anticipate an extension of the preference.

Ordinarily the district is a large producer of wine and fortifying spirit. But this branch of industry is not too good this year. The Waikerie Co operative Distillery turns out annually 1000,000 gallons of sweet wine of muscat type, and 50,000 gallons of spirit, most of which goes abroad.

Waikerie owes its prosperity to irrigation. Without it, the land would be practically useless. The whole of the fruit land is irrigated. There are four floodings a year, generally between September and February. Sometimes there are five if the season is dry. The pumping station is right in the town, on the banks of the river. The plant supplies 1,000,000 gallons an hour. Mr. F. R. S. Goodchild is the officer in charge.

The dried fruit industry is one of the few cases where Government control has been a success. Both State and Federal jurisdiction is exercised. Grave doubts about the wisdom of allowing the Government a finger in the pie were entertained when the scheme was first mooted. Experience, however, shows it has been the salvation of the industry. Each district is allotted its own quota for home sale and for export. The whole of the packing sheds have been, brought under supervision, uniform systems of grading have been introduced, and marketing has been systematised. Before the adoption of the present scheme 75 per cent of the produce was sold in Australia, and only 25 per cent abroad The figures have now been reversed. The great majority of river growers would not willingly revert to the old competitive system. The Federal Act controlling the industry is very stringent. The penalty for unlawfully trading in dried fruits is £500, for unlawfully packing (that is, packing in sheds other than those approved by the Government), £100; and there is a reward of £50 for persons who give information about unlawful trading.

Typical Packing Shed

In company with Mr. Strangman and Mr. L. Barclay (manager), I went over the sheds of the Waikerie Co-operative Fruit Company, Limited. Everything is up-to-date, even to the railway running right into the factory. The fruit is cleaned, weighed, and packed by machinery. The cases are made by machinery at the rate of 2,000 a day compared with 200 a day before the introduction of the new plant. There is little or no handling, and everything is uniformly graded. The mark "A.D.F.A." today stands for quality all over the world.

The plant can cope with 2,500 tons a season. The present average is about 2,000 tons a year. As the name implies, the whole industry is co-operative, and it handles 100 percent of the fruit of the district. This, of course, refers to the dried fruit. The company, however, also disposes of the citrus fruits. The output from the district is about 110,000 cases annually. Of this, the shed deals with fully 75 per cent. Recently 1,000 cases were sent to New Zealand as an experiment. They were all sold at satisfactory prices. Now plans are being made to develop this new market, and to oust the Yankee. Ottawa is expected to help this movement.

Waikerie is seized of the importance of helping local industry. The packing shed wants to use cases made of pine from South Australian forests But they are up against a problem— quality. During my inspection I saw two stacks of boxed fruit ready for export. One stack was clean white pine, without a flaw. It looked very attractive. The other was a dirty yellowy color, streaked with ugly imperfections. The difference between the two stacks was so marked that I was constrained to enquire: — "Why pack in those discolored receptacles, when you have timber like this to use?" And I indicated the neat white pile.

"There you have asked a question which is giving us much thought"answered Mr Barclay. “The discolored stuff is South Australian pine from Mount Burr; the white pine is from Canada."

'Then,” said I, "it's up to the Government to see if they can't grow the Canadian species." And so they should.

Hanging on the wall of the manager's office is a large gold medal. It was won last year by the company at the Imperial fruit show at Manchester against the fruit of the whole Empire. This is the sort of thing Waikerie can do. South Australia should be proud of it.

NEXT WEEK Blanchetown: Which Never Grew Up

Images:

• MR. J. H. STRANGMAN, Chairman of the Waikerie District Council.

• THE LIFE BLOOD OF WAIKERIE. One of the irrigation channels which conveys water to the orchards. Without these huge gutters Waikerie would be a sandy desert, fit for nothing:.

• CANOE TREE on the Murray near Waikerie, from which natives in the early days cut a bark canoe. The cut never healed. Government photo.