South Australia and Western Australia

by Anthony Trollope

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.