South Australia and Western Australia

by Anthony Trollope

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.