An ingenious but sarcastic Yankee, when asked what he thought of Western Australia, declared that it was the best country he had ever seen to run through an hour-glass. He meant to insinuate that the parts of the colony which he had visited were somewhat sandy. It is sandy. The country round Perth is very sandy. From Freemantle, the seaport, the road up to Perth, the capital, lies through sand. From Albany, the seaport at which the mail steamers stop, the distance to Perth is about 260 miles, and the traveller encounters a good deal of sand on the way. The clever Yankee who thought of the hour-glass probably did not go beyond Perth. There is much soil in Western Australia which is not sandy,—which is as good, perhaps, as any land in the Australian colonies;—but it lies in patches, sometimes far distant from each other; and there is very much desert or useless country between. In this is, probably, to be found the chief reason why Western Australia has not progressed as have the other colonies. The distances from settlement to settlement have been so great as to make it almost impossible for settlers to dispose of their produce. This has been the first great difficulty with which Western Australia has had to contend; and to this have been superadded others: the absence of gold,—an evil not so much in itself as in the difference created by the presence of gold in the other colonies, whereby the early settlers in Western Australia were induced to rush away to Adelaide and Melbourne; its remoteness from the populous parts of the Australian continent; the fact that it is not the way from any place to any other place; the denseness and endlessness of its forests; its poisonous shrub, which in many places makes the pasturing of sheep impossible; and the ferocity of the aboriginal tribes when they first encountered their white invaders. These causes have made the progress of Western Australia slow, and have caused the colony to be placed in a category very different from that in which the other colonies are reckoned, and to be looked at from an exceptional point of view.

The other Australian colonies were originally founded on some ground or for some cause special to themselves. New South Wales, which was the first occupied, was selected as a penal settlement for the use of the mother country. Captain Cook had then but lately made himself acquainted with the coast, and had specially recommended Botany Bay to the British Government. Consequently, a young convict world, under the rule of Governor Phillip, was sent to Botany Bay; and finding Botany Bay unsuited for its purposes, the young world settled itself at Port Jackson. From this establishment Van Diemen’s Land was an offshoot, first colonised for the same purpose,—that of affording a safe refuge to British criminal exiles. An effort was also made in 1803 to establish a penal settlement near the site on which Melbourne now stands. And indeed the first attempt to set up the British flag on that part of the Australian continent which is now called Western Australia was a step made in the same direction. The governors of Port Jackson, or New South Wales, as it came to be called, having been nearly overwhelmed in their heroic struggles to find food for these convicts fourteen thousand miles away from home, on a land which, as far as they had seen it, was very barren, made a sister settlement, first at Norfolk Island, then in Van Diemen’s Land, and thirdly at King George’s Sound,—where stands the town of Albany, which place is now the Southern District of Western Australia. A small party of convicts, with Major Lockyer as their governor, were stationed here in 1826,—but the convicts were withdrawn from the place when it was recognised as belonging to the established colony of Western Australia. After this fashion and for this reason, that of affording a home to the transported ruffians of Great Britain,—the first Australian settlements were made. South Australia was colonised by private enterprise. Victoria and Queensland were separated from New South Wales to the south and north as they became sufficiently populous and strong to demand to be allowed to stand alone. But Western Australia arose after another fashion. She was colonised because she was there,—not because she was wanted for any special purpose, either by the community at large or by any small section of it. We had claimed, and made good our claim, to call all New Holland, hardly by this time known by the name of Australia, as our own. We had done something on the east coast, something in the southern island; some small attempts had been made to utilise the south generally. There were still the west and the north open to us. The northern coast, which even yet we have hardly touched except for telegraphic purposes, was very hot and very unpromising. But there came news to us that on an estuary which had been named the Swan River, running out into the ocean at about the thirty-second parallel of latitude, in a salubrious climate, a commodious settlement might be formed. News to this effect was brought home by Captain Stirling in 1827, and in 1829 the captain, now promoted to the position of Governor Stirling, returned to the Swan River, and founded the colony,—which dates from 1st June of that year. He was preceded, by a few months, by Captain Freemantle in the “Challenger,” who first hoisted the British flag on the spot on which the town of Freemantle now stands. In the month of August the town of Perth, twelve miles up the Swan River, was founded, and in the following month lands were assigned to the new-comers. In that year twenty ships arrived with settlers, stores, several immigrants, and a few soldiers. I do not know that these were specially high-minded men, flying from the oppressive rule of an old country, as did the Pilgrim Fathers who were landed from the “Mayflower” on the shores of Massachusetts;—nor that they were gallant, daring spirits, going forth with their lives in their hands, in search either of exceptional wealth or exceptional honour, as has so often been done by the Columbuses and Raleighs of the world. They certainly were not deposited on the shore because they were criminals. They seem to have been a homely crew, who found life at home rather too hard, and who allowed themselves to be persuaded that they could better their condition by a voyage across the world. What was their position, or what might have been their fate had they remained at home, no one now can tell. They certainly did not have light work or an easy time in founding the colony of Western Australia.

Ships continued to come. In 1830 there came thirty-nine ships, with 1,125 passengers, and stores valued at £144,177. I think it right to state that I take my details as to these matters from the early numbers of the “Western Australian Almanac,” which surely among almanacs deserves to be placed in the very highest rank. I may say of all Australian almanacs that they are much better than anything of the kind in England, telling one what one does want to know, and omitting matter which no one would read. Among them all, this “Western Australian Almanac” should stand high, and will, I hope, show itself to be as charitable as it is good, by pardoning the freedom with which I purloin its information.

Troubles, heavy troubles, soon arose among the young colonists. The heaviest, probably, of these early troubles came from the not unnatural hostility of the natives. All the first years of the colony’s existence were saddened by contests with the blacks—by so-called murders on the part of the black men, and so-called executions on the part of their invaders. Looking at these internecine combats from a distance, and by the light of reason, we can hardly regard as murder,—as that horrid crime which we at home call murder,—the armed attempts which these poor people made to retain their property; and though we can justify the retaliations of the white conquerors,—those deeds done in retaliation which they called executions,—we cannot bring ourselves to look upon the sentences of death which they carried out as calm administrations of the law. The poor black wretches understood no pleas that were made against them,—were not alive even to the Christian’s privilege of lying in their own defence, and of pleading not guilty. They speared a soldier here and a settler there, ran away with booty, fired houses, and made ravages on women and children, doubtless feeling that they were waging a most righteous war against a most unrighteous and cruel enemy. When caught, they knew that they must suffer. In the old records of the colony, one reads of these things as though all the injuries were inflicted by the blacks and suffered by the whites. Here, at home, all of us believe that we were doing a good deed in opening up these lands to the industry and civilisation of white men. I at any rate so believe. But, if so, we can surely afford to tell the truth about the matter. These black savages were savage warriors, and not murderers; and we too, after a fashion, were warriors, very high-handed, and with great odds in our favour, and not calm administrators of impartial laws.

I do not say that the black men were ill treated. I think that in Western Australia, as in the other colonies, great efforts were made by the leading colonists to treat them well, and, if possible, so to use the country for the purposes of the new-comers as not to injure the position of the old possessors. In this, however, the colonists failed egregiously, and could not probably have avoided failure by any conduct compatible with their main object. It was impossible to explain to the natives that a benevolent race of men had come to live among them, who were anxious to teach them all good things. Their kangaroos and fish were driven away, their land was taken from them, the strangers assumed to be masters, and the black men did not see the benevolence. The new-comers were Christians, and were ready enough to teach their religion, if only the black men would learn it. The black men could not understand their religion, and did not want it; and, to this day, remain unimpressed by any of its influences. But the white men brought rum as well as religion, and the rum was impressive though the religion was not. It is common to assert, when we speak of the effect which our colonists have had on uncivilised races, that we have taught them our vices, but have neglected to teach them our virtues. The assertion is altogether incorrect. We have taught them those of our customs and modes of life which they were qualified to learn. To sing psalms, and to repeat prayers, we have been able to teach the young among them. Of any connection between the praises and prayers and the conduct of their lives, I have seen no trace. Many arts they have learned from us, the breaking and training of horses, the use of the gun, the skill and detective zeal of policemen,—for in Western Australia and in Queensland the aborigines are used in this capacity,—and some adroitness in certain crafts, such as those of carpenters and masons. But we have been altogether unable to teach them not to be savage. They will not live in houses except by compulsion. They will not work regularly for wages. They are not awake to the advantages of accumulated property. In their best form they are submissive and irresponsible as children,—in their worst form they are savage and irresponsible as beasts of prey.

Two institutions of a philanthropic nature are maintained in this colony for black men and women, or for black children,—or, as I found to be the case at the one which I visited, for half-caste children. One at New Norcia, which I did not see, is in the hands of the Roman Catholics, and was established by Bishop Salvado. There were, according to the census papers, thirty-four adults and twenty-six children at this place. They are associated with and instructed by a large number of monks, and they are made to follow the ceremonies of the Church to which they are attached, and perhaps to understand them as well as do the white proselytes. And there is a Protestant establishment for the teaching of children at Perth, which was first established at Albany, but which has been transplanted to Perth by the present bishop. Here I found twenty-two children, of whom fourteen were half-caste and eight were natives. For each of these the colony paid one shilling a day;—any further expenses incident to the establishment were defrayed by the bishop. The registrar of the colony, in speaking of this establishment in his last annual report,—that for 1870,—says that “it has gone through a varied history of success and disappointment. Several of the young women trained there have, from their educational attainments and knowledge of music, been sent for, and have gone as teachers at missionary stations in the neighbouring colonies, but it is to be regretted that the numbers now under charge do not exceed fourteen.” He goes on to say that “the acquirement of a home and property is unknown to the natives of the bush, and it seems essential for the success of any attempt to ameliorate their condition, that this principle should be chiefly promoted and encouraged.” I quite agree with this gentleman as to that which would be chiefly essential; but I must say, at the same time, that I never found an aboriginal Australian in possession of a house of which he was himself the owner or tenant. For the establishment at New Norcia, the colonial government allows £100 a year. I was also informed that £50 per annum was allowed for a school maintained for native children by sisters of mercy. Of this latter school I could find no trace.

It is calculated that in the settled districts of the colony, there are at present about three thousand aboriginals, including men, women, and children. That the number is decreasing very quickly there is no doubt. Of these three thousand, nearly seven hundred are supposed to be in the service of the settlers of the colony during some portions of the year,—some for a few days at a time, or for a few weeks,—some perhaps for a few months. They cannot be depended upon for continual service. Their doom is to be exterminated; and the sooner that their doom be accomplished,—so that there be no cruelty,—the better will it be for civilisation.

The black men in Western Australia were certainly not treated with exceptional harshness,—were perhaps treated with exceptional kindness,—but they were very troublesome to the new-comers. There was much of spearing on the one side, and much of shooting and hanging on the other. There seem to have been two pertinacious chiefs, or resolute leading natives, named Yagar and Midgegoroo, who gave a great amount of trouble. They carried on the war for four or five years, by no means without success. The records speak of them as horrible savages. They were probably brave patriots, defending their country and their rights. Midgegoroo was at last taken and shot. What was the end of Yagar, or whether he came to an end, no one seems to know.

And there were many other troubles in the young settlement which, as we read the record, make us feel that it was no easy thing to be an early colonist. Food for the new-comers was often wanted. The young crops of wheat, on which so much depended, were destroyed by moths and red rust. There was great lack of any circulating medium. The soil, though good in many places, was good only in patches very distant from each other; and there were no roads,—so that the settler who produced meat in one place could not exchange it for the corn and wheat produced elsewhere. And there was no labour. That of all evils was perhaps the one most difficult to be encountered and overcome. The black man would not work; and the white man who had his block of ground thickly covered with gum-trees and blackboys,—a large resinous shrub common in the country is called by the latter name,—could not clear it and till it and sow it with sufficient rapidity to procure sustenance for himself and family.

It must be remembered in regard to all the Australian colonies that the country, which has proved itself to be exceptionally rich in repaying industrial enterprise, produced almost nothing ready to the hands of the first comers. There were no animals giving meat, no trees giving fruit, no yams, no bread-trees, no cocoa-nuts, no bananas. It was necessary that all should be imported and acclimatized. The quickness with which the country has received the life and products of other countries is marvellous. In some districts of certain Australian colonies,—especially of Victoria and Tasmania,—the English rabbit is already an almost ineradicable pest; in others is the sparrow. The forests are becoming full of the European bee. Wild horses roam in mobs of thousands over the distant sheep and cattle stations. In Western Australia grapes of an enormous size are sold retail at a penny a pound. Mutton through the colonies averaged twopence a pound in 1871. But everything was at first brought from Europe, and at first the struggle for existence was very hard.

This struggle was very hard in the first infant days of Western Australia; and there seems often to have arisen the question whether upon the whole it would not be well that the settlement should be abandoned. In 1832 the troubles were so grievous that the governor, Captain Stirling, went home to represent matters. Could not something be done for the poor strugglers? At the end of this year there were only six hundred acres of land under grain, and the reason given for so slight an advance was the difficulty, or almost impossibility, of procuring seed. In 1834 the governor returned as Sir James Stirling, and the struggle went on. In the same year was taken the first step towards that resolution which has since given the colony its present position and reputation, either for good or for bad as it may be. A petition for convicts from home was got up at King George’s Sound, where, as has been before stated, a small convict establishment had been settled in early days by the then governor of New South Wales. In Albany, at King George’s Sound, the comforts of convict labour seem already to have been appreciated and regretted. This petition, however, was repudiated by the colony at large. The colonists were in a bad way,—but not yet so bad as that. At this time the system of transportation had already become odious to the other colonies,—especially to New South Wales. The stain of the convict element had been felt to be disgraceful, and the very name was repulsive and injurious. But convicts could be made to labour, to open out roads and clear timber and build bridges, and do works without which it is impossible that a young colony should thrive. And the expense of convicts would be borne by the imperial revenue. Convict labour, bad as it might be, meant labour for nothing. The mother country, which would give but little else, in her desire to rid herself of her own ruffians, would no doubt give that. It was known that the mother country was hard pressed in that matter, not knowing what to do with her convicted ruffianism, and that she would be only too happy to send a few thousands to the Swan River. But the colony rejected the petition which was originated at King George’s Sound, and would not as yet condescend so far.

But things went from bad to worse. In 1838 there was a sad wail. Ten thousand barrels of oil were taken off the coast, but not a barrel was taken by an English or colonial vessel. All this wealth had fallen into the hands of French or American whalers. And the murders went on, and the hangings. And in 1840 all the wheat was destroyed by a moth. There had indeed been glimpses of success. In 1832 a Legislative Council first sat,—nominated of course by the governor; and in the same year a newspaper was published,—in manuscript. Soon afterwards a theatrical entertainment was given, and a printing-press was brought out, and a public clock was set up, and churches were opened. Struggles were made gallantly. Mr. Eyre, who was not so successful afterwards when he went as governor to Jamaica, made his way across the country from South Australia to King George’s Sound, through the most sterile region of the continent, performing one of those wonderfully gallant acts by which Australian explorers have made themselves famous. Fresh acres were brought under cultivation. In 1843 the white population had risen to nearly four thousand. But still things were very bad. We are told that in 1844, from scarcity of money and other causes, the colony was in a most depressed condition. In 1845 a second petition for convicts was circulated,—not only at King George’s Sound, but throughout the colony. It did not, however, find much favour, and was signed by no more than one hundred and four settlers. The struggle still went on, and on the whole very bravely. A literary institute was proposed, if not opened. There was an exhibition of European fruits grown in the colony. There was some success in whaling, instigated no doubt by a feeling of British hatred against those French and Americans who had come with their ships in the early days, and carried off the oil from under the very noses of the colonists. New patches of good land were discovered,—notably in the Toodjay district, about sixty miles from Perth. A subscription of £30 was collected for the poor Irish who were dying at home in want of potatoes. The public revenue in 1849 was £16,000, and the expenditure only £15,800. With £200 in the public chest and no debt, there was clearly a state of public solvency. But still the complaints of the want of labour were very sore, and it is recorded that in 1848 a great number of mechanics and labourers left the colony for South Australia. This was the saddest thing of all, for South Australia was only founded in 1836, whereas Western Australia was seven years her senior.

In 1849 the colony yielded to its fate, and at a public meeting in the capital, with the sheriff in the chair, a deputation was appointed to ask the governor to take steps to make Western Australia a penal settlement. And so the deed was done. Steps were taken which were very quickly successful, and from that time,—or rather from 1st June, 1850, when the first convict arrived, down to 9th January, 1868, when the last convict was put on shore at Freemantle, over 10,000 of these exiles have been sent to a colony which still possesses a population of only 25,000 white persons.

Of this same year, 1849, two other memorable statements are made. It is said that coal was discovered in Western Australia, and that gas admirably fitted for domestic purposes had been extracted from the shrub called the “blackboy.” I regret to state that neither the gas nor the coal are at present known in the colony. Whether there be coal or not in this part of Australia is still one of the secrets of nature. Search is being made for it now under government auspices, by the process of boring,—not I fear with much promise of success. I am told that geologists say that there is coal, but that it lies very deep in the earth.

From 1850 down to 1868,—and indeed to the present day and for many a day to come,—the history of Western Australia is and will be that of a convict colony. Whether it is well that a young and struggling settlement should be assisted after such a fashion is a question on which they who have studied the subject in regard to Australia differ very much. As regards the colony now under review, I am inclined to think that it could not have been kept alive without extraneous aid; and I do not know what other sufficient extraneous aid could have been given to it. It may be well to explain here that the exportation of convicts to Western Australia was discontinued, not in deference to the wishes of the colony itself, nor because the mother country was tired of sending them,—but because the other colonies complained. The convicts when released got away to South Australia and Victoria,—or, at any rate, the Victorians and South Australians so reported; and thus the stain was still continued to the young Eastern world. The other colonies remonstrated, and therefore convicts are no longer sent to the Swan River.

But there are still in Western Australia nearly 2,000 convicts. On 1st January, 1872, there were exactly 1,985, including holders of tickets of leave and of conditional pardons. In addition to these there are the remainder of the 8,000 who have worked out their sentences,—or, in the language of the colony, have become expirees,—and their families. The whole labour market of the colony, as a matter of course, savours of the convict element. No female convicts were sent out to Western Australia, and therefore an influx of women soon became above all things desirable. Women were sent out as emigrants, in respect of whom great complaint is made by the colony against the government at home. It is said that the women were Irish, and were low, and were not calculated to make good mothers for future heroic settlers. It seems to me that this complaint, like many others made in the colonies generally, has been put forward thoughtlessly, if not unjustly. The women in question were sent that they might become the wives of convicts, and could not therefore have been expediently selected from the highest orders of the English aristocracy. Another complaint states that the convicts sent there were not convicts of the kind ordered and promised. There was,—so goes the allegation,—a condition made and accepted that the convicts for Western Australia should be convicts of a very peculiar kind, respectable, well-grown, moral, healthy convicts,—who had been perhaps model ploughmen at home,—and men of that class. I have always replied, when the allegation has been made to me, that I should like to see the stipulation in print, or at least in writing. I presume the convicts were sent as they came to hand,—and certainly many of them were not expressly fitted to work on farms at a distance from surveillance. The women, I do not doubt, were something like the men;—and in this way a population not very excellent in its nature was created. But the men worked for nothing.

It is certainly true that the convict element pervades the colony. If you dine out, the probability is that the man who waits upon you was a convict. The rural labourers are ticket-holders,—or expirees who were convicts. Many of the most thriving shopkeepers came out as convicts. There are convict editors of newspapers. A thorough knowledge of the social life of the colony is needed in order to distinguish the free-selecter from him who has been sent out from Great Britain to work out his period of punishment. Men who never were convicts, come under the suspicion of having been so, and men who were convicts are striving to escape from it. The effect is that the convict flavour is over everything, and no doubt many would-be immigrants are debarred from coming to Western Australia by the fear that after a year or two their position would be misconstrued. In this respect a great evil has been done.

But it may be doubted whether the colony would have lived at all without an influx of convicts. They who at last asked for them,—so unwillingly,—were clearly of that opinion. There are many in the colony now who express much regret that the settlement should ever have been contaminated by a criminal class, and who profess to believe that nothing but evil has come from the measure. Such regrets are natural, but cannot be taken as indicating any true conception of the difficulties which caused the settlers to ask for convicts. Others declare, and I think with more reason, that the colony could not have lived but for the questionable boon. The parent colony, New South Wales, could not have been founded without convicts. The land was not a land of promise, overflowing with milk and honey. It was a hard land, with much barren soil, often deficient in water, with but few good gifts apparent to the eye of the first comers. The gold was lying hidden and unsuspected among the distant water-courses, and in the bosom of the mountains. The large pastures had to be reached across mountains which were long impervious to explorers. In telling the early tale of New South Wales I have endeavoured to explain how great was the struggle to maintain life on the first settlement; and the struggle was made only because it was necessary to Great Britain that she should find a distant home for her criminal exiles. The convicts were sent; and the attendants on the convicts, with convict assistance, made a new world. The same thing has been done in Western Australia, and the results will at last be the same. As soon as the exiles arrived at the Swan River imperial money fostered and comforted the struggling settlement. Not only was work done by the men who were sent, but for every man sent money was expended. There were imperial officers, comptroller-generals, commissary-generals, commandants, superintendents, surveyors, chaplains, accountants,—all paid from home. And the convicts did work,—not indeed so well or with such result as paid labourers,—but still, after the convict fashion, with considerable effect. If the men individually were bad workmen, yet their number was great. And it was work gratis,—costing the colony nothing. Such roads have been made as the other colonies,—always excepting Tasmania,—do not possess. Public buildings have been erected, and an air of prosperity has been given to the two towns,—Perth and Freemantle, the only towns in the colony,—which could hardly have come to them yet but for this aid. And imperial funds are still spent largely,—though no doubt the money flowing into Western Australia from that source will yearly become less and less. The comptroller-general has gone home, and there is doubt whether there will be another comptroller-general. The comfortable and somewhat imposing house, in which the old comptroller used to live, at Freemantle,—in dignity only second to that of the governor,—has been made a hospital. The numbers are decreasing both of officers and men. The head convict establishment is at Freemantle, and the glory of Freemantle is over. The men are no longer allowed to work on distant roads, because the gangs are expensive when kept at a distance. Everybody is talking of retrenchment. The Home Office is still called upon to pay, but can no longer get rid of a single ruffian in this direction, and of course looks closely to the expenditure. In Western Australia generally much blame is thrust upon the government at home because of its parsimony, and hard things are said of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, because it is supposed that he has ordered the withdrawal of the gangs from the roads. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer is a vigorous man, but I hardly think that his vigour has gone so far as this. The retrenchment has probably sprung from the zeal of officers here, who have felt it to be both their duty and their interest to respond to the general demand for economy expressed by their superiors at home. But still there is money coming, and still there is work done; and it may be that this will last till the colony can exist and prosper without further aid. In this respect great good has been done.

Whether more of good or more of evil has befallen Australia generally from its convicts, is a question which will not be decided to the satisfaction of the English world at large for many a year to come,—though the day for a general decision will come. But this may be said of the system with certain truth,—as it may of all human institutions,—that now, when the sweets of it have been used and are no longer sweet, the advantages are forgotten and the evils borne in mind. The Bill Sykes physiognomy of a large proportion of the population is to be seen daily throughout Western Australia. And the roads and buildings are also to be seen. But men remember whence Bill Sykes came, and why; but they forget how they got the roads and buildings.

In 1851 the rushes for gold commenced in Victoria and in New South Wales, and before long there came upon Western Australia the conviction that gold was the one thing necessary for its salvation. If gold could only be found, Western Australia would hold up its head with the best of them. Exploring parties were made, and gullies were ransacked,—I will not say altogether in vain, for I have seen small grains of gold which were undoubtedly washed out of Western Australian earth;—but no gold was found to repay the searchers. In 1862 a reward of £5,000 was offered for the discovery of a gold-field that would pay, within a radius of fifty miles of Perth; but no lucky man has claimed the reward. In the same year an offer was made to the colony by Mr. Hargreaves,—one of those who claim to have first discovered gold in Australia, and who possessed the credit of having found it, not by accident, but by search made in consequence of geological comparison instituted by himself between California and Australia. The great Mr. Hargreaves proposed to come to Western Australia and search for a gold-field, on condition that £500 and his expenses were paid to him. The colony at once accepted the proposition. If gold could only be found, what would be £500 and Mr. Hargreaves’s expenses? Towards the end of the year Mr. Hargreaves came, and started to the north, for the Murchison River. If anywhere, gold might be there. Such seems to have been Mr. Hargreaves’s opinion. But in the January following Mr. Hargreaves returned to Perth unsuccessful. The colony, no doubt, paid the stipulated price,—and wept again as it has wept so often. It has since sent, in the same way, for other expensive aids from beyond its own limits, for machinery and skilled science; the machinery and skilled science have come, and the poor colony has paid the bill;—but there have been no results.

From that day to this the craving for gold has continued,—and is still strong as ever. It is the opinion of many that nothing but gold can turn the scale, can bring joy out of despondency, can fill the land with towns, and crowd the streets with men. And there is much truth in the belief. It is not the gold that does it,—the absolute value of the metal which is extracted,—but the vitality to trade, the consumption of things, the life and the stir occasioned by those who, with the reckless energy of gamblers, hurry hither and thither after the very sound of gold. The men come, and must live,—and must work for their livelihood, if not in getting gold, then on some other work-field. The one thing wanted is population. Gold, if really found in paying quantities, would be a panacea for all evils in the colony; but, if that be impossible, even tidings of gold, tidings loud enough to gain credit, might turn the scale.

It may easily be conceived that such hopes as these,—hopes which might be gratified any day by an accident, but which could not assure themselves of success by steady industry,—would lead to a state of feeling which I may best describe as the Micawber condition. If only gold would turn up! Gold might turn up any day! But as gold did not turn up,—then would not Providence be so good as to allow something else to turn up? This feeling, than which none can be more pernicious, is likely to befall every population which seeks after hidden and uncertain gains. The gain may come any day,—may come in any quantity,—may turn squalid poverty into wealth in an hour. The splendid transformation has been made over and over again, and may be repeated. Why should it not be repeated here, with me, on my behalf? And, if so, how vain, feeble, and contemptible would be a paltry struggle after daily wages? No doubt there was much of the Micawber spirit in the colony, and many waited, thinking that gold would turn up,—or if not gold, pearls, or coal, or copper, or gas made out of blackboys. For there have been promises made by the cruel earth of all these brilliant things.

By the earth or by the water;—for perhaps the promise of pearls has been, of all these promises, the one best performed. In 1861 I find the mention of mother-of-pearl found on the northern coast, at Nickol Bay,—far away beyond the limits of the colony which had been explored, but which was geographically a portion of the seacoast of Western Australia. Now there is a settlement at Nickol Bay. At present horses and sheep are reared there; but Nickol Bay is best known for its pearl fishery. This has gradually increased. In 1862 pearl-shell was exported to the value of £250. In 1863, none. In 1864, £5. In 1865, none. In 1866, £7. In 1867, £556. In 1868, £5,554. In 1869, £6,490. For 1870 I have not the amount. In 1871 it arose to £12,895. This enterprise can hardly be regarded as having been carried on by colonial industry, as strangers have come to the coast, and pearl-divers are men of migratory habits, who know little of homes, and are not subject to much patriotic enthusiasm; but they attach themselves for a time to the coast that is nearest to them, and spend upon it some portion of their gains. The fishery on the northern coast of Western Australia, not for pearls, but for pearl-shell, will probably become a prosperous trade.

The staple of the colony has no doubt been wool,—and it appears to have been the original idea of the wealthier settlers to carry out in Western Australia the system of squatting which had already become successful on the eastern side of the continent. The value of wool exported is more than half that of all the exports of the colony. In 1871 it amounted to £111,061,—which was shorn from the backs of 671,000 sheep. But these figures cannot be taken as indicating any great success. I could name five stations in Queensland on which more sheep are kept than run through all the pastures of Western Australia. It is common in Western Australia to hear of squatters with 2,000, 3,000, or 4,000 sheep. In the eastern colonies I found it unusual to find less than 10,000 on a single run. I heard of one leviathan squatter in Western Australia, who owned 25,000 sheep. In Queensland, New South Wales, or Victoria, 30,000 is by no means a large number of sheep for a single run,—as the reader of the previous pages will know very well by this time, if he have read attentively. There are various reasons for this comparative smallness of things. The colony has never been popular. It began poorly, and has been since succoured by convicts. It is remote from the other pastoral districts of Australia, and divided from them by a large impassable desert. And there are large districts infested by a poisonous shrub, which is injurious to horses and deadly to cattle if eaten green, but which is absolutely fatal to sheep. The traveller comes on these districts here and there, and some one picks for him a sprig of the plant,—with a caution that, if he eats much of it, it will probably disagree with him. I withstood all temptation in that direction, and ate none. From land wanted for agricultural purposes, the poisonous shrub is easily eradicated; but the cost of doing this over the wide districts required for pastoral purposes would be too great. The baneful localities are known, and the number of sheep poisoned are few; but the fact that so much land should be unserviceable is of course adverse to squatting.

The timber trade has thriven in Western Australia, and at the present moment is so much in request that complaints are made that the available labour of the colony is all taken into the bush, to the great detriment of the farmer. Hitherto the chief exportation has been of sandal-wood, which in 1871 amounted to £26,926. In 1869 it had risen to £32,998. This goes almost entirely to the east,—to Singapore and China,—and is, I am told, chiefly used there for incense. But the trade in jarrah-wood, which hitherto has been small, will probably soon take the lead. Tramroads are being laid down in two places, with the view of taking it out from the forests to the seacoast. The wood is very hard, and impervious to the white ants and to water. It is a question whether any wood has come into man’s use which is at the same time so durable and so easily worked. It may be that, after all, the hopes of the West Australian Micawbers will be realised in jarrah-wood.

The first object of the first settlers was of course to grow wheat. In any country that will produce a sufficiency of wheat men may live and thrive. Western Australia will produce wheat, and contains many patches of country which, from the nature of the soil, seem to be specially fit for cereal crops. The heat on the western coast is not continuous, nor so intense as it is at the same latitudes in New South Wales and Queensland; but, nevertheless, failure in the wheat-crops has been one of the chief sources of misfortune and failure in the colony. One reads constantly of rust and moth, and of the insufficiency of the grain produced, and even of the difficulty of procuring seed. The farming has been thoroughly bad, and very bad it is still.

From the commencement of the settlement up to the present day Western Australia has been a crown colony, or, in other words, has been subject to rule from home instead of ruling itself. A governor has been appointed to it, whose duty it has been to initiate such changes in the laws as have appeared necessary to him, and as have met with the approval of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. He has had a Legislative Council, which was nominated by himself, and therefore subject to him; and, of course, an Executive Council, consisting of paid officers who have done the departmental work for him. Under this scheme of government the colonists themselves had nothing to do with the manner in which they were ruled. The governor was irresponsible to them, but responsible to the government at home. It may be that such a form of rule may be good for an infant community. For an adult colony it cannot be good. How far it has already been altered under the sanction of the present governor, Mr. Weld, I will endeavour to explain in another chapter, and will also speak of the further changes which are in prospect. The absolute power attaching to the governor of a crown colony is already, happily, a thing of the past in Western Australia.

I will also postpone to another chapter such account as I may be able to give of alienation from the Crown of lands of the colony. The manner in which this should be done, and the manner in which it has been and shall be done, have been of all questions the most important to the Australian colonies generally. As a new law on this subject was proclaimed in March, 1872, when I was in the colony, and as the changes made are of vital importance, I will endeavour to explain the present condition of the matter when speaking of the colony as it now is.

And thus Western Australia has struggled on since 1829, having undergone many difficulties; not much heard of in the world; never doomed like Sierra Leone or Guiana; never absolutely ruined as have been some of the West Indian Islands;—but never cropping up in the world, an offspring to be proud of, as are Victoria and Canada.