It appears now to be agreed that this grant system was as injudicious as it was lavish. Middle-class capitalists came to reside on their estates, and not to work, and the settler of humbler but more useful pretensions was led to believe that the colony was closed to him. The settlement was hapless from the first. Old colonists give lively descriptions of how ladies, blood horses, pianos, and carriages, were landed on a desolate coast, while no one knew where his particular allotment lay. The settlers found that they had no control whatever over the men they brought out, and in some instances they were left to establish their homes in the wilderness as they best could by themselves. Many, deciding from the arid appearance of the place that there was no prospect of success, abandoned it. Some who believed at one time that the Garden of Eden lay on the banks of the Swan River, and that colonisation was a perpetual picnic, returned wiser, poorer, and sadder, to the more congenial sphere of settled and civilised England. Others, like the Messrs. Henty, sought more favourable fields, and ultimately, in Australia Felix, acquired both riches and reputation. Many of those who remained do not seem to have possessed the stuff the real settler is made of, but thought more of giving entertainments and seeking pleasure than of work. When the supplies they had brought from England ran out, they were very nearly starved, and they had to expend much of their capital in importing provisions.
In after years their numbers were but little increased. Considerable doubt existed about their progress being sure, and none whatever about its being slow. Never well-to-do, they felt very severely the depression general throughout Australia in 1848. People looked to their money-chests only to see if they had sufficient left to take them away. Casting about for relief, the York Agricultural Society suggested that convicts should be applied for, and the proposal found favour with the people. Backsliding seems as easy with communities as with individuals. The colonists who had met more than their share of difficulties and obstruction, while proceeding in the straight-forward path of settlement, found everything prepared for them when they turned aside. It so happened that, just before this time, the effects produced by the vast influx of convicts into Tasmania had shocked the British public, and provoked a spirit of resentment and resistance in the Australian colonies such as had never existed before. The whole of the eastern settlements stood arrayed against the mother country, and the conclusion was forced upon the Imperial Government that the system must be terminated. Earl Grey, who was then in office, and who had initiated important improvements in the management of convicts, endeavoured to find for the flood of British criminals a new outlet where these plans could be tested. He addressed a circular on the subject to the colonies of New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, New Zealand, the Cape, the Mauritius, and Ceylon, explaining the improvements it was proposed to make in the management of the convicts, promising to send a free emigrant for every convict shipped, and asking whether, under these conditions, the colonies would consent to receive criminals. The answer was "No" in each instance, with the single exception of Western Australia. Her reply was favourable, and a bargain was soon struck. Western Australia entered into the contract upon the understanding that the annual imperial expenditure should be sufficiently large to be of importance to the colony, and in the hope that cheap labour would attract capital to it.
The system was continued until 1868, when, in deference to the protests of the sister states, and because also expectation had been greatly disappointed as to the results, convict importation was finally closed and determined. The protest was carried so far that it was proposed by one Government to exclude from the ports of the free colonies ships that had come from the convict settlement; and this decision would have shut out the mail steamers. And Western Australia found that, while it obtained convict labour, it frightened away free men, while immigrants avoided the place as though it were a plague-spot. Now it may be said the past is forgotten, the taint is dying away, and Western Australia is awakening into life.
The country is being opened to the northward, but up to within the past few years the bulk of the settlement was in the south-western corner of the colony, in the neighbourhood of the Swan River—a stream which possesses the peculiarities of being short, broad, and shallow, and which, in consequence of its bar and its flats, is well-nigh useless as far as navigation is concerned. At the mouth of the river lies Fremantle, with a population of about 5000—the seaport of the colony. Ten miles higher up is Perth, the capital city, possessing 2000 more inhabitants than Fremantle. A like distance farther on is pretty Guildford, and seventy miles from the seaboard, separated from it by the Darling ranges, are the agricultural settlements in the Avon valley. The town of Bunbury lies on the western sea-coast; and Albany, a settlement of equal size on the southern coast, is indebted for its existence to its harbour—King George's Sound—being a place of call for the mail and numerous other steamers. Geraldton and Roebourne are northern ports—the latter the centre of the pearl fishery trade.
Looking at its vast size, and the dispersion of its thin population—the whole not equal to that of a Melbourne suburb—Western Australia can only be described by one image—it is the giant skeleton of a colony.
A clever Yankee once described the colony of Western Australia as having been run through an hour-glass. The American, however, possessed the failing common to many humorists: he economised the truth for the sake of uttering a smart saying. It is only to be expected that in a country like Western Australia, possessing an area of a million square miles, that sandy tracts are to be met with; but to assert that the colony is a vast sandy waste—a Sahara—is to convey a wrong impression of its physical features. In the far north the richest of Australian tropical vegetation exists; fine rivers flow through tracts of splendidly grassed territory, and the conformation of the country is bold. It is farther south, where the tropical growth gives place to level plains and bush vegetation, that the dreary sandy plains exist in parts, though not to the extent sometimes imagined.
Along the south-west coast, however, where the splendid forests of jarrah and other varieties of eucalypts are found, the soil is richer and better watered, but the prevalence of dangerous poison plants renders it less useful for pastoral purposes. Some districts are infested with strong quick-growing bushes, the juices of which are fatal to animal life. There are no less than fourteen known varieties of these plants, but only four are commonly pointed out. These are the York-road, the heart-leaf, the rock, and the box-scrub—the Gastrolobium bilobum, the Gastrolobium calycinum, Gastrolobium callistachys, and the Gastrolobium anylobiaides. The most common is the York-road plant, a low bushy scrub, with narrow fresh green leaves, and a light coloured stem. After a bush fire this plant is the first to spring up. Its young shoots have a particularly green and attractive appearance; the sheep feed eagerly upon it, swell to a great size, and die in a few hours. A single mouthful at this period is sufficient to destroy them. The plant is also very dangerous when in blossom, as then also the sap is fresh and plentiful. In summer, when it is dried up, the sheep do not care about it, and may even be fed on country where it is not very thick. It is destructive to horned cattle, but it does not affect horses much. Millions of acres are overrun with this poison shrub, which, however, when cleared, may be profitably occupied. For instance, in the mahogany forests about the Darling ranges, there is a coarse grass growing which would support sheep well, but, in consequence of the prevalence of poison, at present the land remains unproductive and unoccupied. As one goes north the poison plants disappear, and the flocks which Victoria and Queensland and New South Wales are now pouring into the new pastures there feed as securely as they would in the Western District of Victoria, or on the famous Darling Downs.
The city of Perth is built in a picturesque situation above the broad reach of the Swan River known as Perth Waters. Its streets are broad and well defined, and, considering that it only contains a population of some seven thousand souls, it is a remarkably compact town. The Town Hall, built by convict labour, is a pretentious structure, and within easy distance of it are to be found the Legislative Assembly Chamber and the commodious offices devoted to the use of the civil servants. The principal buildings are to be found in St. George's Terrace, a fine wide street lined with beautiful trees. The soil of Perth is admirably suited to the growth of many varieties of fruits and flowers, and the love of the residents for these gifts of nature is indicated by the well-kept gardens that surround most of the houses. Indeed, no colony can produce finer fruit than Western Australia.
