WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
MAP OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Stanford’s Geogl. Estabt London.
London: Chapman & Hall.
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WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY HISTORY.
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.
CHAPTER II.
ROTTNEST AND FREEMANTLE.
Rottnest is an island some twelve miles distance from Freemantle, and Freemantle is the seaport town nearest to Perth,—very deficient in its qualifications in that respect, as I shall explain hereafter. The two places are now spoken of together as containing two convict establishments,—that at Rottnest for black men or aboriginals, and that at Freemantle for European and colonial white prisoners. I will speak of Rottnest first, because it was established for its present purposes before convicts were sent out from England to Western Australia.
The island is about four miles long and two miles broad, and was originally almost covered with bush. The soil is sand throughout. Here and there through one end of the island there are five or six small salt lakes. Here black convicts were confined and made to work very soon after the colony was first established. In the course of a few years they were taken to the mainland, in order that they might be employed on the roads. But they ran away, and could not by any amount of chaining and repression which was compatible with work be kept from escaping. Then the establishment at Rottnest was reopened, and has since been maintained as a penal settlement for black convicts, who have been regularly tried and condemned in accordance with British law. When I visited Rottnest there were sixty-five of these aboriginals in the island,—not a large number, perhaps hardly sufficient to justify any special mention; but the special mention is made because it seemed to me that the black men whom I saw in the prison were very much nearer to a state of civilization, and were upon the whole in a better condition, and indeed happier, than any whom I encountered in other conditions. Of course they desired their liberty, though by no means with that pining desire which creates brooding melancholy; but they were clothed and fed and housed, and constrained to work,—though by no means to work heavily,—and had assumed the look and bearing of human beings. They were not subject, either by night or day, to solitary confinement,—except in cases of outrage and insubordination, and such cases did not often occur. They had a regular dietary,—twelve ounces of meat a day properly cooked, with rice and bread and tea. By their labour wheat was produced from the sand, and barley, and hay. The wheat was thrashed and ground, and of course baked on the island. The only white labour employed was that of six European convicts borrowed from the opposite establishment at Freemantle, to do portions of the work for which black men could not be trained to sufficient skill. These prisoners also made salt from the salt lakes, which is sold on the mainland, and which may be made in such quantity as to pay the expense of the whole establishment. For superintending the salt-works a white man is employed at a salary,—who was himself a convict not long since. I was informed that the produce of the island obtained by the work of the prisoners defrayed the whole expenses of the establishment, except the salaries of the officers. There is a governor, with five warders, and a doctor. There is no chaplain, nor is any attempt made to Christianize these savages. I believe that any such attempt, and that the presence of any chaplain, would be misplaced and useless. I know that for saying this I shall have against me the opinion of many good men,—of the very men whose good opinion I should be most proud to win,—but I do not believe in the result of the Christian teaching which these men are able to receive. Nor does it strike me with any special horror that sixty-five savages should be left without this teaching, when I know it to have been the will of God that hundreds of thousands such as they should die without it in their own countries.
But here, at Rottnest, the aboriginal convicts do work, and work cheerfully. On Sundays they are allowed to roam at will through the island, and they bring home wallabys, and birds, and fishes. At night they are locked up in cells, never less than three together, and are allowed blankets for bedding. It was the nearest approach that I saw to black adult civilisation,—though made through crimes and violence. And here I must again express an opinion, that the crime and the violence of these men have altogether a different effect on the mind of the bystander than have the same deeds when done by white men. As we condemn them for much in that they are savages, so must we acquit them of much for the same reason. Our crimes are often their virtues; but we make them subject to our laws,—of which they know little or nothing,—and hang them or lock them up for deeds for which they are not criminal in their own consciences, and for the non-performance of which they would be condemned by their own laws. I was astonished to find how large a proportion of these black prisoners had been convicted of murder;—and that the two who were awaiting their trial were both accused of that crime. But these murders were chiefly tribal retributions. A man in some tribe is murdered, or perhaps simply dies. It is then considered necessary that the next tribe should lose a man,—so that things might be made equal; and some strong young fellow is told off to execute the decision of the elders. Should he refuse to do so, he is knocked about and wounded and ill treated among his own people. But if he perform the deed entrusted to him, he is tracked down by a black policeman, is tried for murder, and has a life-sentence passed against him. When examined as to these occurrences they almost invariably tell the truth;—never endeavouring to screen themselves by any denial of the murder done, or by the absence of sufficient evidence; but appealing to the necessity that was laid upon them. Such an account one of those in prison, who was to be tried, gave to me in the governor’s presence,—which was much as follows, though at the time demanding interpretation, which I hope the reader will not need:—“Him come,”—him being some old chief in the tribe;—“him say, ‘Go kill Cracko;’”—Cracko being the destined victim;—“me no like; him say, ‘must;’ me no like very much; him hab spear;”—then there was a sign made of the cruel chief wounding his disobedient subject;—“then me go kill Cracko.”—“With a tomahawk?” suggests the governor. The prisoner nods assent, and evidently thinks that the whole thing has been made clear and satisfactory. In very many cases the murderer is acquitted, as the judge very properly refuses to take the prisoner’s story as a plea of guilty, and demands that the crime shall be proved by evidence. If the evidence be forthcoming the young murderer is sent to Rottnest with a life-sentence, and,—as I think,—enters on a much more blessed phase of existence than he has ever known before.
In the evening it was suggested that the prisoners should “have a corroboree” for the amusement of the guests, and orders were given accordingly. At that time I had never seen a corroboree,—and was much interested, because it was said that a special tribe from which sixteen or eighteen of these men came were very great in corroborees. A corroboree is a tribal dance in which the men congregate out in the bush, in the front of a fire, and go through various antics with smeared faces and bodies, with spears and sticks, howling, and moving their bodies about in time;—while the gins, and children, and old people sit round in a circle. I am told that some corroborees are very interesting. I probably never saw a good one,—as I did not find them to be amusing. This corroboree in the Rottnest prison was the best I saw,—but even in that there was not much to delight. When the order was given, I could not but think of other captives who were desired to sing and make merry in their captivity. Here, however, there was no unwillingness,—and when I proposed that five shillings’ worth of tobacco should be divided among the performers, I was assured that the evening would be remembered as a very great occasion in the prison.
I did not find the establishment for white convicts at Freemantle at all as interesting as that at Port Arthur in Tasmania. Port Arthur is in itself very picturesque and beautiful. Freemantle has certainly no natural beauties to recommend it. It is a hot, white, ugly town, with a very large prison, a lunatic asylum, and a hospital for ancient worn-out convicts. No doubt the excitement which one expects to feel in such a place is supposed to be aroused rather by the nature of its inmates and by their treatment, than by any outside accessories;—but the outside accessories of Port Arthur no doubt had a strong effect. And at Port Arthur I met with men who interested me, and with whom I have endeavoured to interest others. At Freemantle there was hardly a man whom it can be worth the reader’s while to have introduced to him. Perhaps that stipulation of which I have spoken, that none but respectable convicts should be sent to Western Australia, may have produced the undesirable effect of which I speak. I can call to mind no special individual except a gentleman whom I remembered to have been tried in England for having got the mate of one of his ships to scuttle the ship out at sea. I saw him walking about with a very placid demeanour, and perhaps his friends may be glad to hear that he was conducting himself in a most exemplary manner. I do not doubt but that he will be editor of a newspaper before long. It was interesting, too, to see tobacco served out to all the European convicts who had not been re-convicted since their arrival. Such men are called probationers, and seem to have considerable privileges,—as though there were much virtue in coming out to the colony and working there gratis, with all expenses paid by the government at home. The poor black fellows only get tobacco on such a very rare holiday occasion as that I have described; but the white men from England, who had scuttled ships and the like, get their weekly supply regularly,—as gentlemen should. I own that I grudged it them.
At Port Arthur I saw men in solitary cells, who had been there long, who would be there long,—who had spent almost their lives either in solitude or under the lash. At Freemantle there were only two or three in the cells, and they only for a day or two each. I rather complained of this to the officer who was showing me the place, giving him to understand that I had expected something more exciting. He had, he said, one man locked up for making himself generally objectionable, whom I could see if I liked; but he warned me, that if I did see him, I might find it very difficult to check his eloquence. The cell was opened, and the man came out and made his speech;—or so much of it as we would consent to hear. At last the warder explained to him that his indulgence could not be prolonged, and he was gently put back, and locked up again. I was assured that he would have gone on for hours;—but there was nothing interesting in his speech, whereas the eloquent prison lawyer at Port Arthur delighted me by the malignity and audacity of the charges which he brought against everybody.
The large prison at Freemantle is fitted to hold 850 prisoners. I do not know that so many have ever been confined there. The men, as they have arrived, seem to have been told off into gangs, and the majority of them have been employed at distances from the head-quarters,—chiefly on the construction of roads. When I was in the colony there were still such gangs, some on one road, and some on another; but the system of so employing the men was being brought to a close, because their cost was greater when thus spread about the country than when maintained at one centre establishment. This was declared to be the case, and the allegation was made that the reduction was forced upon the colony by home parsimony. The allegation was made, but did not reach me from official lips,—and I do not believe that they who have the management of the convicts, the governor and comptroller, have ever received orders to put the men to comparatively useless works, in order that the money spent upon them from Great Britain might be lessened. I do not doubt but that general, and perhaps stringent, instructions have been given as to economy. In what branch of the public service have not such instructions been given during the last four or five years? But the zeal which has complied with these instructions by withdrawing the men from the distant and more useful works has probably been colonial, and is, I think, to be lamented. As the colony has had the convicts, it should at any rate get from them all that it can get;—and even though the small extra expense of keeping the men in distant gangs should be borne by the colony itself, the money would be well expended. The matter will probably seem to be insignificant. It is perhaps necessary that a man should visit such a colony as Western Australia before he can realise the need of roads. The distance from Albany to Perth is 258 miles. Perth is the capital of the colony, and Albany is the port from and to which is made the only communication by steamboat with the outside world which the colony possesses. About a third of this road has been properly made. The remaining two-thirds consist of a cleared track through the bushes, with bridges here and there, and occasional attempts at road-making. It would be much better that the road should be finished. In the colony there are many excellent roads running out of Perth, without which the colony would be altogether uninhabitable;—and they were all made by convict labour. I mention the two facts in order that I may be excused for dilating upon the subject.
The prison, which, as I have said, can hold 850 inmates, now contains 359 men. Of these 240 are imperial convicts,—convicts who have been sent out from England, and who are now serving under British sentences, or sentences inflicted in the colony within twelve months of the date of their freedom. For all these the expense is paid from home. And there are 119 colonial convicts,—convicts with whom the colony is charged, as being representatives of colonial crime. But even of these about four-fifths came to Western Australia originally as convicts from home. I cannot tell the extent of the charge upon the imperial revenue,—as I did in regard to the establishment in Tasmania,—because at Freemantle the affair is managed on a different basis. At Port Arthur the colony supplies everything, and receives so much a head for the men. At Freemantle the home government does the work for itself in detail, sending out stores from England, and making purchases for itself.
I suggested to the superintendent of the prison that the enormous building through which we were walking would soon become useless. He scouted the idea, and declared, apparently with pride, that the colony would always supply a sufficiency of convicts to keep it going. I suggested that 850 men under sentence would be a great many,—that even half that number would be a very great number,—in a population of 25,000 souls; and the more so, as the enormous distances in the colony made it necessary that other prisons and penitentiaries should be maintained. But he was still hopeful. The population would increase, and with the population crime. It was not likely that a people whose connection with prisons had been so long and so thorough should fail Freemantle at a pinch. I could not agree with him. I do believe that the prison at Freemantle will become all but useless,—as will also that at Port Arthur.
As to the treatment of the men at this establishment, there can be no doubt that it should be held to be free from any charge of harshness. The question is, whether the men be not too well treated. The food is sufficient, and very good. The work is always lighter than that done by free labourers. The utensils and bedding are good. Everything is clean. The punishments are light and infrequent. Flogging still does take place, but very rarely. The men, if they behave well, are allowed more hours of amusement than fall to the lot of freemen;—and have as many means of amusement as most free labourers. It was only half-past five in the evening when I saw the men marshalled at the end of their day’s work to receive their tobacco. Why a man who had come from England with a life-sentence against him should receive tobacco, whereas a colonial prisoner sent in for six months should have none, I could not understand.
In the old days, when Norfolk Island was the doubly penal establishment attached to our first penal settlement at Port Jackson, when the managers of these prisons had not yet learned the way to extract work from unwilling convicts without flogging them, penal servitude was no doubt a horrid punishment. Chains and the scourge, darkness and bread and water, were then common. That wretch whom I saw at Tasmania,—who told me that for forty years he had never known one day’s freedom,—had been made what he was by the old system. I do not remember that he had ever been a thief, but he had always been a rebel. The manner of the thing is altogether altered now, till one finds one’s self driven to ask whether punishment so light can be deterrent. As regards our connection with the colonies, the question is not one of much importance, as we shall never send another convict to Australia.
I cannot finish this chapter without giving the copy of a certificate which was handed to me by a policeman at Albany, just as I was about to leave the colony:—
“I hereby certify that the bearer, A. Trollope, about to proceed to Adelaide per A. S. N. Co.’s steamer, is not and never has been a prisoner of the Crown in Western Australia.
“(Signed) ———
“Resident Magistrate.”
It is perhaps something of a disgrace to Western Australia that the other colonies will not receive a stranger from her shores without a certificate that the visitor has not been a “lag.” Such a resolution on their part must remind the poor Western Australians grievously of their disgrace. So many have been convicts, that the certificate is demanded from all! But I think that they should not charge a shilling for it, and thus raise a revenue out of their own ill fame. It was not my fault that South Australia demanded the certificate. Considering all the circumstances, I think that they should give the passport, and say nothing about it.
CHAPTER III.
PRESENT CONDITION.
I learn from a little book, written by Mr. W. H. Knight, and published in Perth, on the history, condition, and prospects of Western Australia, that the colony, “as defined by her Majesty’s Commissioners, includes all that portion of New Holland situated to the westward of the 129th degree of longitude, and extends between the parallels of 13° 44′ and 35° south, its greatest length being 1,280 miles from north to south, and its breadth from east to west about 800 miles. The area is about 1,000,000 square miles, or about eight times the size of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.” The total population on December 31, 1871, as given in the Blue Book published in 1872, was 25,353. On the 31st March, 1870, the population, as taken by the census, had been 24,785. For a young colony that can only thrive by an increasing population, the figures are not promising; and they are the less so, in that the latter number may be probably taken as exact, whereas the former, showing the increase, has been matter of calculation. In such calculations there is always a bias towards the more successful side. With an area so enormous, and a population so small, the value and distribution of the land form together the one all-absorbing question. The new-comers arrive intending to live out of the land, which at any rate is plentiful;—and as new-comers are not plentiful, it is necessary to tempt them with offers of land. In all the Australian colonies the system has been the same, although it has been carried out with various limits and various devices. In the early days of Western Australia very large grants indeed were given on compliance by different individuals with certain stipulations as to the number of emigrants imported and value of stock and goods brought into the colony. The following grants were made:—
| To Mr. Thomas Peel | 250,000 | acres. |
| To Colonel Latour | 103,000 | ” |
| To Sir James Stirling | 100,000 | ” |
I need hardly say that the estates thus conferred were very extensive, and such as would together constitute a county in England. The county of Berkshire contains only 481,280 acres. But it has not appeared that grants on this scale have done good to the colony, or to those to whom they were made. In neither of the cases above named has any prosperous settlement been established on the lands granted, nor, as I believe, have the families of the recipients been enriched, or permanently settled in the country. It was soon found that land divided into smaller quantities would more probably produce the energy which was wanted, and other schemes were invented. The grants above named were made under an order issued from the Colonial Office called Circular A, which was in existence prior to the regular settlement of the colony. Circular B was issued in 1829, and entitled settlers to free grants of land at the rate of one acre for every sum of 1s. 6d. invested on the land,—the land to be made over in fee at the end of twenty-one years, if the improvements effected satisfied the government. But this was soon again changed, and Circular C granted land on and from 1st January, 1831, to all settlers, at the rate of an acre for every 3s. invested, and 100 acres for every servant introduced into the colony, limiting the time of improvement to four years. But on the 1st March, 1831, Circular D appeared, doing away with all free grants,—excepting to officers of the army and navy retiring from their profession with the intention of becoming settlers,—and substituting for such free grants the sale of the crown lands at a minimum price of 5s. an acre. In July, 1841, the price of the crown lands was raised to 12s. an acre; and subsequently, in the same year, to 20s. an acre,—which may be called the normal Australian price, though variations have been made upon it in all the Australian colonies;—and, at this rate of 20s. an acre, it was to be sold in blocks of not less than 160 acres each, with a right of commonage attached to each block. In 1843 another change was made, which, however, did not alter the price, but had reference to the maximum and minimum limits of land which might be purchased. In 1860 the price was again reduced to 10s., and the quantity to 40 acres. Then, in 1864, came further alteration, and other laws were enacted, which were those in operation at the time of my visiting the colony, but which were again changed while I was there. Under the regulations of 1864 lands were classified as town, suburban, country, and mineral. Town and suburban lands, the value of which was of course dependent on the prosperity of the so-called town, and on the nature of the land around it, were saleable by auction, the upset or reserve price being fixed by the governor. Mineral lands, or lands known or supposed to contain minerals, were saleable in lots not less than 80 acres each, at £3 an acre. The ordinary country lands,—land, that is, which might be selected here or there by the immigrant or other intending purchaser,—were again to be sold at 10s. an acre, and in blocks of not less than 40 acres each. It is as to land of this nature,—the ordinary land of the country left open for inspection,—that the emigrant should interest himself. The same law of 1864 also defined the term under which pastoral lands should be let by the Crown in the various districts of the colony, being in one district at the rate of 20s. per 1,000 acres, and in another 10s.,—with various other stipulations. But the pastoral squatter’s relations with the Crown are of much less interest to him than are those of the free-selecter or purchaser. This last law of 1864, as did all previous land laws in the colony, require that the purchaser should pay his money down. At first indeed there were free grants under certain stipulations, then 5s. an acre was charged, then 12s. then 20s., then 10s.,—but in each case the money was to be paid at once. In this way during the eleven years up to 1869 inclusive, 117,854 acres were alienated in the colony, showing an average of something over 10,000 acres a year. For this the Crown,—or we may more safely say the colony,—received £69,440—or an average of about £6,300 per annum. The absolute price realised was about 12s. 6d. an acre; but the sale had been very slow,—the injury arising from which was to be found, not in the smallness of the money received, which was and is a question of quite second-rate importance, but in the absence of inducement to immigrants, of which it seemed to be evidence. There is the land, undoubtedly in many districts so fertile as to offer to new-comers the means of living easily upon its bounties,—producing wheat, oats, barley, grapes, potatoes, with ordinary fruits and vegetables in abundance; with a climate preferable to Englishmen to any other Australian climate except that of Tasmania; certainly with many drawbacks, the chief of which is the distance from each other of the districts which are so gifted;—but still a country with all these gifts. How shall men be induced to come to it, and partake of its good things?
I cannot say that the question is asked by the colony at large in any spirit of wide philanthropy, or that it is asked eagerly, as it is, by those in whose hands rests the government of the colony, with any special view to benefit the hungry labourers of England and Ireland. In Western Australia it is simply a question of self-preservation. I do not know that any good can be done by soft words in the matter. The colony has never prospered as yet, and is not prospering at present. I have endeavoured in a previous chapter to show, if not the reason for the fact, at any rate the fact itself. At first a scanty population spread itself over a wide district, and, having no extraneous help to foster it, was on the brink of perishing by its own natural weakness. Then it called for extraneous help, and received it in the guise of convicts. But the very aid was an injury,—which has still to be endured, and, if possible, gradually cured. Convicts do not make a colony popular with intending colonists. Gold makes a colony popular; but gold has not been found in Western Australia. Coal makes any land prosperous; but coal has not been found in Western Australia. Good harbours assist a colony,—and Western Australia has a magnificent harbour at King George’s Sound;—but it is 260 miles from the capital, and is divided from the capital by an uninteresting and useless country. The so-called harbour near to the capital, that at Freemantle, is simply a road in which vessels cannot lie safely. Struggling against these evils, the colony has not hitherto prospered;—but the question still arises whether something further may not be done to induce men to settle on its shores and till its lands, and gather its grapes and figs, and make themselves fat with its fatness. There are two things which may yet be tried, say the governors and those who are interested,—which may be tried, perhaps, with some greater confidence than can be placed in the Micawber hope for gold, and coal, and pearls. Let us have representative government, and let us have another land law. The new land law has been passed and proclaimed; and the condition of the government is a state of transit, being at present half Crown condition and half representative condition. These at present are the two great panaceas.
As to the land, I have no doubt that the governors are right. I use the word in the plural number, as I neither wish to give to any man the glory which should be another’s, or to take from any man the glory that is his, and I am not at all aware how far this gentleman or that is responsible for the new regulations. I will postpone to the next chapter my endeavour to explain the new law, or that part of it which may be important to emigrants, as in this chapter I am desirous of confining myself to the present condition of the colony. The law, though proclaimed when I was there, had not so come into operation that any action had been taken under it. The intermediate step between Crown government and representative government had already been taken, and had produced effects. This step I believe I may safely attribute to Mr. Weld, the present governor of the colony, and my readers will understand that I should not mention his name, did I not thoroughly agree and sympathize with him in his efforts to do away with a fashion of government under which I believe that Englishmen will never prosper.
The other Australian colonies are governed by responsible ministers under irresponsible governors, each with two legislative chambers, of which the larger and more influential is elected, and the other is either elected, as in Victoria, or nominated by the leading colonial minister, as in New South Wales. In these larger colonies the kings, lords, and commons to which we are accustomed at home, are repeated, though there is an overriding power in the Secretary of State at home which somewhat clips the wings of these colonial parliaments, and robs them of that omnipotence which is the great attraction of our own Houses. But Western Australia is still a Crown colony. The governor is responsible, and his advisers, as such, are not so. Legislation takes its initiation with him. He is supposed, in truth, to govern, whereas governors in the other colonies are ornamental vice-sovereigns, whose business it is to superintend society, and to be the medium of communication between the great minister at home and the smaller ministers in the colonies. But in Western Australia at present the governor does not quite govern in the true Crown-colony fashion. Under the auspices of the present governor, and with the consent of the Secretary of State at home, an intermediate condition of things has been reached which is intended to pave the way to responsible government. There is an executive council, of course,—as there always has been,—consisting of the governor himself and four officers, of whom the colonial secretary is supposed to be the leading spirit. These gentlemen form the governor’s cabinet. But there is also a legislative council,—a parliament with one house,—of which six members are nominated by the government and twelve are elected by the different districts of the colony. Of the six nominated members, three, but not more than three, may belong to the executive council, and be paid servants of the Crown. This chamber is nominated and elected for three years. It sat for the first time in November, 1870, and was deposed after a second session early in 1872, in consequence of a change in the adjustment of the right of voting. A re-election was about to take place when I was in the colony. The last session had, I was told, been rather stormy. The next, it was thought, would be less so. As things stand at present, the governor can effect nothing without the House, nor can the House effect anything without the governor. It is not so with us or in the other colonies,—as all who understand parliamentary action are aware. The governor of Western Australia is under no obligation to accede to the wish of the people as expressed by the House; but the House has the power of voting supplies, and can, of course, cause this power to be felt.
Such a confused condition of governing and legislating,—for it is, in truth, a confused condition,—can only be justified by the inexpediency of rushing at once from the secure but repressing despotism of a Crown colony to the unpractical energies of a full-fledged, double-housed parliament, with responsible ministers, who shall go in and out in accordance with the majorities of the day. The feeling of the present governor, and of the minister at home, is, no doubt, in favour of the full-fledged representation system; but in so small a colony,—in a colony with a sparse population, scattered over an immense area,—there must necessarily be great difficulty in finding men fit to be legislators. And they who may, after a while, become fit, have as yet had but slender means of learning how legislation should be conducted. The system, as at present adopted, which will hardly bear strict investigation on its own merits, may probably be found useful in giving the necessary training to the leading men of the colony, and in bringing them by degrees into the ways of discreet legislation. I must confess that in Western Australia one hears of doings in days not far remote which lead one to think that any amount of ignorance in a legislator, that any amount of what I may, perhaps, call rowdyism in a chamber, is better than practically irresponsible power in the hands of a would-be mighty colonial officer, removed from home by half the world’s circumference.
I do not wish to be understood to say that I look to responsible representative government as a panacea for all the evils with which Western Australia is afflicted, or that I think that a colony which would perish without that remedy would by that alone be saved from ruin. I have no such belief in any form of government. It is in Western Australia, as elsewhere, by the people and their energy that the people must be made to flourish. But I do think that a people who are empowered to act for themselves in politics, even though their political action should in many instances be unwise, are more likely to be stirred to energy than are a herd of men driven this way or that in matters of policy, according as some men from without may choose to drive them. I am aware that a population of 25,000 is very small to support, very small to need, all the paraphernalia of a double-housed parliament; Queensland, however, had not so many when she commenced the experiment, and with Queensland it has succeeded. I am aware that there is at present great difficulty in getting proper men for the position of legislators in Perth;—perhaps I may go further, and say that as yet these are not to be found in the colony. Men are wanted who can yearly afford to give a portion of their time in the capital for nothing, who shall have trained themselves to think, as legislators, of their country’s good, and not of their own special wants, and who shall be possessed of that patient demeanour and forbearing temper which a legislative chamber demands. I doubt whether such men can as yet be found in Western Australia. I know they have not been plentiful in the other colonies. I know that in some of the legislative chambers of Australia rowdy manners are common, and class interests very much in the ascendant. I am well aware that these chambers are not what they should be,—are very short, indeed, of being model legislative chambers. But nevertheless the work is done,—if not in a perfect, still in a wholesome manner, and the colonies are upon the whole raised to energy, vitality, and dignity by the unseen operations of representative government. I believe that the same result would follow in Western Australia, and that the colonists would gradually throw off that Micawber tone of hoping to which I have alluded, if the duty were imposed upon them of managing for themselves.
I reached the colony from Melbourne at Albany, and I left the colony starting from the same town for Adelaide in South Australia. Albany is a very pretty little town on King George’s Sound,—which is, I believe, by far the best harbour on the southern coast of the continent. It is moreover, very picturesque, though not equally so with Port Jackson and the coves round Sydney. In Albany there are a few stores, as shops are always called, a brewery, a depôt for coals belonging to the Peninsular and Oriental Company, a church, a clergyman, two or three inns, and two or three government offices. Among the latter I found an old schoolfellow of my own, who filled the office of resident magistrate, and in that capacity acted as judge in all matters not affecting life for a district about as big as Great Britain. His training for these legal duties he had gained by many years’ service in the Prussian army, and, I was told, did his work uncommonly well. Albany itself was very pretty, with a free outlook on to a fine harbour, with bluff headlands and picturesque islands. The climate is delightful. The place is healthy. I was assured that the beer brewed there was good. The grapes were certainly good. For a few moments I thought that I also would like to be a resident judge at Albany, with unlimited magisterial power over perhaps a thousand people. It is pleasant, wherever one’s lot is cast, to be, if not the biggest, at least among the biggest. But I was told that even at Albany there were squabbles and factions, and that the rose-colour of the place did not prevail always. And then, though grapes grew there, and other fruits, and some flowers, I could not find anything else growing. The useless scrub covered the stony hill-tops close up to the town. The capital was distant 260 miles, and between it and the capital there was nothing. The mails came and went once a month. At each of my visits to Albany the mail excitement was existing. The Tichborne case was at its highest, and people had much to say. When I was departing, there were two bishops there. I fancy that I saw the best of Albany, and that it would be rather dull between the mails.
I travelled to Perth with a friend, having made a bargain with the mail contractor to take us,—not with the mail, which goes through without stopping in seventy hours,—but by a separate conveyance in four days, so that we might sleep during the nights. This we did, taking our own provisions with us, and camping out in the bush under blankets. The camping out was, I think, rather pride on our part, to show the Australians that we Englishmen,—my friend, indeed, was a Scotchman,—could sleep on the ground, sub dio, and do without washing, and eat nastiness out of a box as well as they could. There were police barracks in which we might have got accommodation. At any rate, going and coming we had our way. We lit fires for ourselves, and boiled our tea in billies; and then regaled ourselves with bad brandy and water out of pannikins, cooked bacon and potatoes in a frying-pan, and pretended to think that it was very jolly. My Scotch friend was a young man, and was, perhaps, in earnest. For myself, I must acknowledge that when I got up about five o’clock on a dark wet morning, very damp, with the clothes and boots on which I was destined to wear for the day, with the necessity before me of packing up my wet blankets, and endeavoured, for some minutes in vain, to wake the snoring driver, who had been couched but a few feet from me, I did not feel any ardent desire to throw off for ever the soft luxuries of an effeminate civilisation, in order that I might permanently enjoy the freedom of the bush. But I did it, and it is well to be able to do it.
No man perhaps ever travelled two hundred and sixty miles with less to see. The road goes eternally through wood,—which in Australia is always called bush; and, possibly, sandy desert might be more tedious. But the bush in these parts never develops itself into scenery, never for a moment becomes interesting. There are no mountains, no hills that affect the eye, no vistas through the trees tempting the foot to wander. Once on the journey up, and once on the return, we saw kangaroos, but we saw no other animal; now and again a magpie was heard in the woods, but very rarely. The commonest noise is that of the bull-frog, which is very loud, and altogether unlike the sound of frogs in Europe. It is said that the Dutch under Peter Nuyt, when landing somewhere on these coasts,—probably near Albany,—were so frightened by the frogs that they ran away. I can believe it, for I have heard frogs at Albany roaring in such a fashion as to make a stranger think that the hills were infested with legions of lions, tigers, bears, and rhinoceroses, and that every lion, tiger, bear, and rhinoceros in the country was just about to spring at him. I knew they were only frogs, and yet I did not like it. The bush in Australia generally is singularly destitute of life. One hears much of the snakes, because the snakes are specially deadly; but one sees them seldom, and no precaution in regard to them is taken. Of all animals, the opossum is the commonest. He may be easily taken, as his habits are known, but he never shows himself. In perfect silence the journey through the bush is made,—fifteen miles to some water-hole, where breakfast is eaten; fifteen on to another water-hole, where brandy and water is consumed; fifteen again to more water, and dinner; and then again fifteen, till the place is reached at which the night-fire is made and the blankets are stretched upon the ground. In such a journey, everything depends on one’s companion, and in this I was more than ordinarily fortunate. As we were taken by the mail contractor, we had relays of horses along the road.
Perth I found to be a very pretty town, built on a lake of brackish water formed by the Swan River. It contains 6,000 inhabitants, and of course is the residence of the chief people of the colony,—as the governor is there, and the legislative chamber, and the supreme judge, and the bishop. The governor’s house is handsome, as is also the town-hall. The churches,—cathedrals I should call them,—both of the Protestants and Roman Catholics, are large and convenient. On my first arrival I stayed at an inn,—which I did not indeed like very much at first, as the people seemed to be too well off to care for strangers; but which in its accommodation was better than can be found in many towns of the same size in England. I must acknowledge, however, that I was much troubled by musquitoes, and did not think the excuse a good one when I was told that a musquito curtain could not be put up because it was Sunday.
I found that crime of a heavy nature was not common in Perth or the districts round it, though so large a portion of the population consisted of men who were or had been convicts. Men were daily committed for bad language, drunkenness, absconding, late hours, and offences of like nature. For men holding tickets-of-leave are subjected to laws which make it criminal for a man to leave his master’s employ, or to be absent from his master’s house after certain hours, or to allude in an improper manner in his master’s eyes. And for these offences, sentences of punishment are given which seem to be heavy, because it is difficult to bear in mind the difference between free men and prisoners who are allowed partial freedom under certain conditions.
I have heard it said, more than once or twice, in reference not specially to Perth, but to the whole colony, that the ticket-of-leave men are deterred from violence simply by fear, that they are all thieves when they dare to steal, and that the absence of crime is no proof of reformation. The physiognomy, and gait, and general idleness of the men, their habits of drinking when they can get drink, and general low tendencies, are alleged as proof of this. It cannot be supposed that convicts should come out from their prisons industrious, orderly men, fit for self-management. The restraint and discipline to which they have been subject as convicts, independently of their old habits, would prevent this. The Bill Sykes look of which I have spoken, is produced rather by the gaol than by crime. The men are not beautiful to look at. They do spend their money in drink, filling the bars of the public-houses, till the hour comes at which they must retire. But it is much in such a community that they should not return to crimes of violence.
For myself, I must say that I spent my time in Perth very pleasantly. I remember being reminded once of the injustice done to a certain poor community by a traveller who had wandered thither and had received hospitable treatment. “They cannot be so poor,” the traveller had said, “because they gave me champagne every day.” Doing honour to the stranger, they had broached their last bottles of the generous wine, and, though poor, had put their best foot foremost in exercise of genuine hospitality. I was told how cruel this was. “We were poor,” said my informant, “but we gave what we had freely, and were then twitted with making false complaints.” I cannot but think of this as I tell my experiences of Perth. I heard very much of the poverty of Western Australia, but I found that people there lived as they do elsewhere. There were carriages and horses, and good dinners, and, if not liveried servants,—a class which is not common in the colonies,—men waiting with white cotton gloves, who in London would be presumed to be greengrocers, but who in Perth were probably “lags.” They seemed to hand the dishes very well.
Of the other town, Freemantle, I have already spoken. I went also sixty miles up to the west, to Toodjay and Newcastle, which, from the returns showing the acres under cultivation and the produce, I find to be one of the best agricultural districts in the colony. It is surpassed only by the Greenough district. As to the prospects and past experiences of farmers in this and other parts of the colony, I found it very difficult to get information on which I could rely. I came across men who had been farmers, whose report was anything but good,—who said that to farm in Western Australia was simply to break the heart. And I came across others,—notably two old colonists in the Toodjay and Northam districts,—who assured me that they had done very well. In each of these cases the men had had sons capable of working with their own hands and not too proud to work. Hitherto I do not think that there has been scope for farmers who employed much outside labour. The labour has been dear and bad,—and money has been hard to get. There has always been and still is a great effort to pay labourers in produce,—but this cannot be done entirely, and the farmer who hires has drained from him almost all the money that he can earn.
That the farming has been and is atrociously bad, there can be no doubt. Men continue to crop the same ground with the same crops year after year without manuring it, and when the weeds come thicker than the corn, they simply leave it. Machinery has not been introduced. Seed is wasted, and farmers thrash their corn with flails out on the roads after the old Irish fashion. I need hardly say that there is no reason why this should continue to be so. That the land would soon pay for good farming I have no doubt, even though the surplus grain were sent home to England. At present the colony, which should above all things strive to be an agricultural colony, actually imports flour and grain to the amount of about £6,000 per annum.
I have already said that wool is the staple commodity of the country. I doubt much whether it will continue to be so, as the trade of wool-growing does not seem to extend itself in any way at all commensurate with the area of land which it occupies. In 1869, there were 654,054 sheep in Western Australia, and in 1871 the number had increased only to 670,999. In the other wool-growing colonies, it is thought that no squatter can make money on a run with less than 10,000 sheep. In Western Australia, 3,000 or 4,000 are considered to be a fairly large number, and squatters frequently run flocks that do not exceed 1,500 or 2,000 over enormous tracks of land. In New South Wales and Queensland, few squatters have less than a sheep to three acres. No rule can be laid down, as every run must be considered as a whole, and on most runs there is some land, more or less, which is not fit for use at all. But a squatter with 60,000 acres will generally have grass for 20,000 sheep. In Western Australia, one hears of a sheep to ten acres, and a sheep to twenty acres. The sheep of the Australian colonies amount together, I believe, to about forty millions. In Western Australia, which boasts of being the largest in area of them all, there is not as yet one million. In truth there is very much against the squatter. It is not only that much of the land which is called pastoral bears a poisoned shrub fatal to sheep;—but that, from this and other causes, the distances are so great that a sufficient number of sheep to make the business really remunerative can hardly be kept together.
I found rural wages lower in Western Australia than in the other colonies,—the reason for which is of course to be traced to the nature of the labour market. The squatter, or farmer, expects to get a man who is or was a convict, and the price of the work is arranged accordingly. It averages about 3s. a day without rations, or from 30s. to 40s. a month with rations. I was told that a man’s rations cost 10s. a week,—which is much higher than in the other colonies. I do not doubt that the men are charged at this rate. If the man be paid full wages, so that he has to feed himself, he must in most cases get all his supplies from his employer’s store, and the employer exacts a large profit. If the employer feeds the man, he calculates the rations supplied at the rate that he would sell them, and fixes his wages accordingly. Thus a man with 40s. a month, with rations, would be supposed to receive 80s. a month, although he would not cost his employer above 68s.
The wages of mechanics are about the same here as in the other colonies: masons, carpenters, and blacksmiths earning about 7s. a day throughout the colony.
There are so-called public schools throughout the colony, supported by government, and free to necessitous persons. They who can pay are made to pay, at rates ranging from 6d. to 1s. a week; but the greater part of the expense of the schools is borne by the colonial revenues. The sum so expended is between £3,000 and £4,000 a year. In 1871, there were 1,730 scholars at these schools, a number which seems to be too small for the population. I find, however, that in the year previous to that, namely, 1870, out of the whole population, there were only 3,945 above the age of five who could neither read nor write.
In Western Australia the State still takes charge of the religion of the people, and pays £3,560 per annum for its ecclesiastical establishment. Of this by far the lion’s share goes to the Church of England. There are fourteen so-called chaplains stationed in different districts of the colony, and the theory I believe is, that they are appointed to look after the souls of the convicts. They do, in fact, act as parish clergymen. They receive from the government £200 per annum each, and their income is subsidized to a small degree by the public who attend their churches. Small payments are also made to the Roman Catholic and Wesleyan Churches. But all this will soon be altered. The payments from imperial funds will doubtless be discontinued as the convict establishment dies out, and all ecclesiastical payment will be brought to an end by representative government here, as has been or as is being done in the other colonies. I fear that, when it is so, the difficulty of maintaining clergymen in Western Australia will be very great.
CHAPTER IV.
FUTURE PROSPECTS.
I fear that it will seem that in what I have said I have given a verdict against Western Australia. I have intended rather to show how great may be the difficulties attending the establishment of a young colony, which in its early years finds no special or unexpected aid from remarkable circumstances. The same struggles with equal hardship and similar doubts have no doubt been made before, and nothing has been said of them. The stragglers have lived through and fought their way to prosperity, and but little has been heard of the details of the fight. When the Puritans were landed on the shores of Massachusetts men did not rush about the world and write books. It may probably be that they too, at their first starting, had but few glimpses of the glory of the coming Yankee world. It was perhaps only by hard fighting with adverse circumstances that they could get corn, and labour, and money. But they went on, and the glories of Yankeedom are now patent to the whole earth.
It is to the gold that has been found in Eastern Australia that the eastern colonies have owed their rapid rise and great name;—and in a great measure, the want of reputation under which Western Australia labours is due to the golden achievements of her sisters. She would not have been thought to have done so badly, had not those sisters done so well. This cannot be pleaded as being entirely sufficient to account for the effect, because we know that South Australia has not done much with gold, and South Australia holds up her head. I have not yet spoken of South Australia, but, when doing so, I will endeavour to show how and why she has prospered.
And then, in another way, the gold-diggings of the eastern colonies have been detrimental not only to the reputation, but to the very existence of Western Australia. Men have constantly gone after the gold. It became almost useless to land emigrants on the western shore. Tidings came of this rush and of that rush, and the new-comers disappeared, soon turning up, as new chums again, in the golden land. I have expressed my opinion more than once that the majority of those who have rushed after gold have done themselves but little good;—but they enriched the colony to which their labour was given, and from which they drew their supplies. Gradually this evil of “rushing” is dying out. The amount of Australian gold produced may go on increasing year by year for many years. They who profess to understand the matter think that it will do so. But the gold will come from quartz-crushing,—from that eating up and digesting of the very bowels of the mountains by heavy machinery, which I have endeavoured to describe elsewhere,—and not by the washing of alluvial soil. It is the latter pursuit which has produced the rushes, whereas the former produces steady industry with a fixed rate of wages. The shifting of labour from colony to colony will, I think, from this cause, become less common than it has been, and agricultural work will hold its own against mining work,—in Australia as in other countries. It is a mining country, and there will be many miners;—but it will not occur to every man that he should be a miner.
In speaking of the future of Western Australia I shall not receive the thanks or sympathies of many of its inhabitants, if I express an opinion that that future is to be independent of gold. The idea is deep-rooted that there should be gold and must be gold,—that Providence cannot have been so unjust as not to have put gold there. Why not in the west as well as in the east? And then the stranger is told of mica, and slate, and quartz, and boulders,—and of the very confident opinion which Mr. Hargreaves expressed. I know nothing of mica, and slate, and quartz, and boulders,—and very little of Mr. Hargreaves. But I know that no gold worthy of the name has been found yet; and that the finding of gold in infinitesimal quantities has been common in many countries. Doubtless gold may turn up in Western Australia, but I trust that the colony will be too wise to wait for it. Should it come, let the favour be accepted from the gods;—but I do not think that men should live expecting it.
In the meantime what other measures may serve to turn the tide, and produce some life and action? The land is good, and if properly tilled will produce all that is necessary for man’s life. And the land that will do so, though widely scattered, is abundant. I need hardly say that at home in England there are still among us millions of half-starved people,—half-starved certainly according to the dietary of the poorest even in this poor colony,—to whom the realisation of rural life in Western Australia would seem to be an earthly paradise if it could be understood,—to whom it would be a paradise if it could be reached. I have spoken in anything but flattering terms of the colony and its labourers. I have not depicted the present normal Western Australian carter as a very picturesque fellow. But, bad as he is, he can always get enough to eat and drink, and, if he will behave himself well, can always have a comfortable home.
But they who will come now will not be unpicturesque with the lineaments of the gaol, as he has been, and the more that may come the less probability will there be of mistaken suspicions. Living is cheaper than in England, as meat is 4d. instead of 10d. a pound, and wages are higher;—for in no agricultural county in England do they rule so high throughout the year as 18s. a week. In the colony 18s. a week are the lowest that I have known to be given without rations. And the rural labourer in Western Australia is more independent than in England. How, indeed, could he possibly be less so! He is better clothed, has a better chance of educating his children, and certainly lives a freer and more manly life.
But how shall the rural labourer out of Sussex, Suffolk, Essex, or Cambridgeshire get to Western Australia? If there were no pecuniary difficulty in the journey,—if every labourer were empowered by Act of Parliament to go to some parish officer and demand to be sent across the ocean,—it is probable that a very large fleet of transport ships would soon be required, and that English farmers would find it difficult to get in their seed. This can never be the case, but something towards it is done. The colonies assist intending immigrants, and the mother country too assists, or, in some cases, pays the entire expense of emigrants. We sent out those ill-born and ill-bred women who were wanted as convicts’ wives,—and who, when received, were found to be mere Irish. But it is ill bringing a man out who will not stay when he is brought. If you, my philanthropical reader, send out some favoured tenant or parishioner, your object is fairly achieved whether the man make himself happy in Western Australia or Victoria. But it is by no means so with the colony, when the colony pays. When a colony has paid for three or four hundred immigrants, and finds after a few months that they have all disappeared, and gone to more fortunate lands, the colony not unnaturally becomes disgusted. Then it is that the colony feels that nothing will do but gold. And the mother country is affected somewhat in the same way, though less bitterly. It is said now that England has promised a certain number of free emigrants to Western Australia, and that she has not kept her word. But the mother country says that, as regards Western Australia, it is useless to send her emigrants unless she can keep them. In speaking of the continuance of the obligation on the part of England, Lord Granville, in July, 1869, wrote as follows:—“It has already been laid down as a condition of that continuance that the immigration should be wanted, and such as the colony can provide for; but it is clear from the census returns that the large proportion of these persons who reach Western Australia do not remain in it. There is therefore the strongest primâ facie evidence that the immigration is not wanted.” The men are tempted away; and do the colony, for whose benefit they were sent, no good by their short sojourn. Then why send them? Renewed petitions for emigrants, emigrants to be sent out at the expense of the government, were made; but the Secretary of State was firm. Nominated emigrants would remain,—emigrants nominated by friends in the colony. So pleaded the governor, with an anxiety which showed that at any rate his heart was in the matter. But the Secretary of State was still hard. “Her Majesty’s Government are fully aware,” he said in 1870, “that nominated emigrants are more likely to remain in the colony than others; but unfortunately they have no evidence before them that either one or the other class do in fact remain.”
How shall men and women be got who will remain:—who will come to the place in order that they may live upon the land, and not simply making it a stepping-stone to some rush for gold? It can only be done by making the land attractive; and the great attraction offered by land is ownership. Let a man understand that he can have land of his own and live upon it, owing rent to no one and service to no one, subject to no bondage, with no one to order his coming in and his going out, with no tasks laid on his shoulders by another, that he can be altogether free from the dominion of a master, and you open up to his mental eyes a view of life that is full of attraction. This new home, that is so unlike the home that he is to leave, is indeed far across the waters, in another world, away from the comrades and circumstances of his life amidst which he feels that, though wretched, he is secure. He feels that if he go he can never return; and he hears vague, unsatisfactory, even contradictory accounts of the new land. He knows that he is groping his way, and that, should he go, he will at last take a leap in the dark. Even with those among us who have many friends, the nature of whose life has taught us where to look for information, who can not only write but express in writing what we mean, who can not only read but know where to find the books that will teach us that we want to learn, there is felt to be much difficulty when the question arises whether we shall remove ourselves and our household gods to the new home that we call a colony, or whether we shall send a son to push his fortunes in the new country. To digest what we have learned and bring it all together so that we may act upon it safely is no easy task. What must it be to the working man whom some newspaper has reached, or some advertisement to emigrants; and who, in addition to this, has heard the vague surmises of his neighbour? He goes to the parson, or to the squire, or perhaps to his employer,—and is recommended to remain. The adviser hardly dares to say otherwise, and is probably himself impregnated with the patriotic idea that there is no place for an Englishman like England. For members of parliament, and men with £5,000 a year, or with prosperous shops in Cheapside,—for some even whose fortune is less brilliant than that,—England is a very comfortable home. No land can beat it. But for Englishmen in general, that is, for the bulk of the working population of the country, it is I think by no means the best place. A large proportion of our labouring classes cannot even get enough to eat. A still larger proportion are doomed so to work that they can think of nothing but a sufficiency of food. In all the Australian colonies, if a man will work the food comes easily, and he can turn his mind elsewhere. I do not assert that there is no poverty,—no distress. Even in Western Australia the government is obliged to maintain an establishment for paupers. But poverty is not the rule, and a man who will work and can work may be independent.
Success in emigration depends much on the fashion of the thing, and this peculiar exodus,—to Western Australia namely,—is not at present fashionable. If in the course of the next two or three years two or three thousand new-comers were to land upon its shores and stay there, the thing would be done. And the two or three thousand would find plenty and happy homes. But solitary immigrants to the colony feel that they become mixed with the convict population. At the present moment great encouragement has been offered to new-comers,—to men who on arriving with a few pounds in their pockets will be willing to work with their own hands, but who will so work on their own lands.
I do not know how far, in what I have written of the other colonies, I may have been able to make my English reader understand the nature and position of a “free-selecter.” I found it very difficult to understand myself, or to come to a conclusion whether he should be regarded as the normal British emigrant,—manly, industrious, independent, and courageous,—or a mere sheep-stealer. There was one other alternative, hardly more attractive than the last. He need not be a mere sheep-stealer, though probably he would do a little in that line; but might have free-selected with the first great object of making his presence so unbearable to the squatter on whose run he had perched himself, that the squatter would be obliged to buy him out. I certainly found that the manly, independent, and courageous free-selecter was not the free-selecter of whom the squatters talked to me in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria. The squatters did not carry me with them altogether; but it certainly is the case that free-selecters in these colonies often do steal sheep, and often do make themselves disagreeable. A man desirous of free-selecting,—say in Queensland and New South Wales, for the game has nearly been played out within the smaller and more valuable confines of Victoria,—has the whole world of the colony open to him, and very little to divert his course. He searches and inquires, and, actuated by good or bad motives, settles down on some bit of land which he thinks will grow corn, and where he is sure to be hated by the squatter whom he is invading. The colonial governments offer him every possible encouragement as to money,—land at 15s. an acre, land at 10s. an acre, and especially land with deferred payments,—with payments taking the shape of rent, perhaps 1s. 6d. or 1s. an acre per annum,—the land becoming his own at the end of a term of years, the yearly deferred payments having been taken as the price of it. But the governments have done little or nothing to assist the free-selecter in placing himself. A part of the charm of the thing in the eyes of the free-selecter has been the power of choosing his land. We can understand that there is a pleasure in going well on to the run of some great squatter, pegging out some 40, 80, or 160 acres, and saying, “By your leave, sir, I mean to have this.” We can understand that there is pleasure in doing it, and great pain in enduring it. My sympathies have been chiefly with the free-selecter, not believing that he is always a sheep-stealer, and feeling that the land should be open to him. Pastoral autocrats with acres by the hundreds of thousands,—acres which are not their own,—cannot fill up a country. They are the precursors of population, and, as the population comes, should make way for it. But might it not be arranged that the free-selecters should be invited to come and take up their lands in some manner less objectionable than that which has hitherto prevailed?
When I was in Western Australia new land regulations were issued and proclaimed, having just received the sanction of the Colonial Office at home; and these regulations go a long way towards effecting a remedy for those evils attaching to free-selection which I have attempted to describe,—and they will remedy another evil which, in Western Australia especially, is very detrimental to the selecting farmer. They will bring the agricultural occupiers of the land together. Men are invited to occupy lands chosen for “special occupation.” By this arrangement the skill and experience of the land officers of the colony will be used on behalf of the selecter, who will not only be enabled to place himself on soil capable of bearing corn, but will find himself surrounded by others, occupied as he is in producing corn. In this way rural communities may be formed which shall not be sheep-stealing communities. The locality having been chosen in the first place, not by the new-comer, but by the government, sheep-stealing will not at any rate have been the object when the choice was made,—nor the idea that a squatter if harassed sufficiently may at last be induced to buy his neighbour out. Communities will be formed, and communities will make markets. I have sometimes thought that free-selecters like to take their land up far away in the bush, at long distances each from another. There is a wild independence in the doing so which charms. But no decision can be more detrimental to the man’s material interest. When so located he is driven to consume all that he grows, and then,—unless he steal sheep,—he can consume nothing else. That which is most to be desired by him is that gradually a township should be formed round his homestead.
Immigrants and others are invited by these new regulations to take up land selected for special occupation, and great boons are offered to those who will do so. In the first place the payment of the price of the land is deferred. Hitherto in this colony it has always been necessary that the price of the land should be paid down. The land, as has been explained elsewhere, has been purchased at various prices, ranging from 5s. to 20s. an acre,—but there has been no deferred payment. At last 10s. an acre was the settled price,—and so it remains. The ordinary free-selecter may go where he will beyond the limits of town, suburban, or mineral lands, and, if no purchaser have been before him, may purchase any amount of land in blocks of not less than 40 acres, at 10s. an acre. But when purchasing after this fashion he must pay his money down. If he will take up land selected for special occupation, he need not pay his money down. He need only pay 1s. an acre per annum, such payment being required in advance. He must then fence the whole of his land and till a quarter of it during the ten years over which the payment is deferred.—and if he do thus the land becomes his own.
There are other stipulations which the intending emigrant should understand. The purchaser cannot purchase in this manner less than 100 acres. It is considered that he cannot crop all the land yearly, and that less than 100 acres will not afford a man subsistence. Nor can he take up more than 500 acres. In addition to the use of the land which will be his own at the end of the ten years, and will be in his own hands during the previous occupancy, the selecter will be entitled to run cattle and sheep upon commonages, or neighbouring lands not fitted for agricultural purposes. It is stipulated that the common land shall in no case exceed 200 per cent. of the land fitted for agricultural purposes,—so that the commonage for 2,000 agricultural acres, or acres fit for agriculture, shall not exceed 4,000 acres. It is not stipulated that the commonage shall amount to any fixed number of acres. It is understood, however, that it will suffice,—not of course for the produce of wool,—but for meat and milk.
In writing for the information of future emigrants, it is very difficult to make the exact truth clearly intelligible. The new regulations speak of land fitted for agricultural purposes, and in what I have written above I have spoken of “agricultural” land. The emigrant who comes out to take up lands selected for special occupation in Western Australia, must not expect that he will find ploughed fields. He will find forest land, covered more or less thickly with timber,—what all the world in Australia knows as bush,—and it will be his first work to clear that portion of his holding from which he intends to get his first crop. But the land will have been chosen as being fitted, when cleared, for agricultural purposes. The thickness, and what I may call obduracy, of timber is very various. It may be presumed that the land chosen will not be heavily timbered. I was told that the average price of clearing bush in Western Australia was about £4 an acre. A man contracting to do such work would expect to make 25s. a week. If this be so, a man knowing what he was about would clear an acre in three weeks.
But, to my thinking, the best part of the offer made still remains to be told. Any emigrant taking up land in the colony selected for special occupation within six months of his landing,—the time named should I think have been prolonged to at least twelve months,—and who can show that he has fulfilled the above conditions with regard to improvements, is entitled to the value of his passage-money out, provided that passage-money does not exceed £15; and he will have the same allowance made to him for every adult he brings with him,—the money to be credited to him in the payments made for his land. The offer in fact amounts to this,—that thirty acres will be allowed free for every adult whom the immigrant may bring with him to settle on the land, provided that the passage out has cost £15,—which is I presume the usual price of sending an adult to Western Australia. I am also assured, certainly on good authority, that half the allowance will be made for non-adults; but there is no proviso in the bill itself to this effect.
The result of all this any intending emigrant can calculate for himself. A man with a wife and one adult and one non-adult child would in fact get his one hundred acres for nothing. If his family were larger, he would get more land;—but he should bear in mind that he has to fence it all and till a quarter of it within ten years, and that in this way a larger acreage may become an increased burden to him rather than an increased property.
Of course I am here addressing those who have in their own hands the means of emigrating. Not only will the £15 a head be wanting in bringing out his family, but also something on which to live when the new country is first reached. But, presuming that a working man with a working family can raise £200,—a very strong presumption I fear,—I do not know that he could do better than establish himself as a farmer in Western Australia.
I believe that Western Australia has no agent at home, as have the other colonies, a part and perhaps the chief part of whose business it is to facilitate the emigration of those who intend settling themselves in the new colony. Why should we pay an agent to send us emigrants when no emigrants will come to us? That no doubt is the feeling of a desponding Western Australian. And yet the colony has, as I think, with much wisdom offered most alluring terms to emigrants. At present, however, I do not see how these terms are to be made known to persons at home. I say this as an apology for the insertion here of details which cannot, I fear, interest the ordinary reader.
It is admitted on all hands that Western Australia cannot be made to thrive until her population shall be increased by new-comers. Twenty-five thousand people may perhaps live together in comfort within confines which shall be sufficiently extended to afford to all a sufficiency of land, and at the same time compact enough to bring them together. But Western Australia is an enormous country, and its scanty population is spread about it by hundreds. The so-called settled districts are twelve in number, and the average area of each is more than half as big as England. The average population of each district is only just above 2,000. Let the English reader conceive the ten northern counties of England with 2,000 inhabitants between them! And in saying this I am speaking of the settled districts,—not of the distant regions which are claimed by the colony as belonging to it, and which will remain probably for centuries, perhaps for ever, uninhabited. An influx of population is necessary to Western Australia, not only that there may be enough of men and women to form a community and administer to each other’s wants, but that the very nature may be changed of those upon whose industry the colony now depends. In its deep distress it accepted convicts, and was saved, as I think, from utter collapse by doing so. But the salvation effected was not healthy in its nature. I have given the figures over and over again. To make up a population of twenty-five thousand souls, ten thousand male convicts have been sent! Life and property are fairly safe. Work is done. The place is by no means a lawless place. Those who emerge from their sentences reformed are encouraged to prosper. Those who come out unreformed are controlled and kept down. But nevertheless the convict flavour pervades the whole,—to the great detriment of that part of the working population which has always been free. This evil is of course curing itself by degrees. The colony receives no more convicts, and the very birth and growth of its young citizens will gradually obliterate the flavour. But this would be done much more quickly and much more effectually by an influx of new blood. Nothing would tend so much to the improvement of the people as any step that would enable the enfranchised convict to move about among his fellow-labourers without being known as a convict. It is so in New South Wales and Tasmania. Intimate intercourse will probably reveal the secrets of a man’s past life in any country; and if a man once degraded afterwards rise high, his former degradation will be remembered. But in these once convict colonies time is having its effect, and men’s minds are not always referring to the matter. It does not affect the rate of wages, nor the character of the work to be done. The once convict does not feel that every one regards him as a convict, and does not therefore work as convicts work. In Western Australia the man who never was a convict will fall into such habits of work, simply because they form the rule of life around him. Nothing but an increasing population will cure this quickly.
But the very fact that it is so, the very injury to which the colony has been subjected in this matter, gives in one respect the surest promise that here a new-comer may find a prosperous home. In England, as all the world knows, residences of all kinds are to be had at a much cheaper rate to the east of London than at the west. The east has all its disadvantages,—which are chiefly of a sentimental or fashionable nature. The man who can despise these may live there in a commodious house, who would be forced to put up with straitened quarters if he allowed himself to follow the fashion. Western Australia is the east side of London. The objections to it, bad as they are, concern chiefly sentiment and fashion. I do not recommend the man who is taking out £20,000 to a colony, with the idea of becoming a great man, to go there; but to him who feels that with £200 or £300 he has but little hope in England, and who would prefer independence and property of his own to the composite luxuries and miseries of a crowded country, I think that Western Australia offers perhaps as good a field for his small capital as any other colony.
I have endeavoured, as I have gone on, to indicate the natural sources of wealth to which the colony has a right to look. To those that I have already named I should add the breeding of horses, for which it seems to be specially adapted. At present the business is limited by the difficulty which the breeders have in disposing of their produce. India is their great market,—together with Batavia and Singapore. But there are no middle traders to take the young horses off the hands of the breeders,—who cannot themselves breed horses, and charter ships, and conduct the sales. This again is one of the evils to which a scanty population is ever subject.
I have no doubt that the exportation of jarrah-wood and of pearl-shell will become large and prosperous trades. The former will probably be by far the most beneficial to the colony, as it will be prosecuted by men in the colony,—whereas the pearl-shell will be sought and taken away by coasting strangers. It is hard, too, to believe that a country should be so prolific in grapes as this is without some result. I will not take upon myself to say that I drank West Australian wine with delight. I took it with awe and trembling, and in very small quantities. But we all know that the art of making wine does not come in a day;—and even should it never be given to the colony to have its Château This, or Château That, its 1841, its 1857, or 1865, or the like,—still it may be able to make raisins against the world.
Gold of course may turn up even yet. For myself, I look to corn and fruit, and perhaps oil,—to the natural products springing from the earth,—as the source of the future comfort of this enormous territory.