South Australia and Western Australia

by Anthony Trollope

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.