The Project Gutenberg eBook of South Australia and Western Australia,
by Anthony Trollope
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Title: South Australia and Western Australia
Author: Anthony Trollope
Release Date: March 26, 2023 [eBook #70385]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUTH AUSTRALIA AND WESTERN
AUSTRALIA ***
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
AND
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
AND
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
BY
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
BEING A PORTION OF THE WORK ENTITLED “AUSTRALIA AND
NEW ZEALAND,” BY THE SAME AUTHOR
LONDON
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY
1874
LONDON:
PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO.,
CITY ROAD.
CONTENTS.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
CHAP. PAGE
I. EARLY HISTORY 3
II. ADELAIDE 19
III. LAND 29
IV. WOOL 44
V. MINERALS 58
VI. NORTHERN TERRITORY.--TELEGRAPH AND RAILWAY 68
VII. LEGISLATURE AND GOVERNMENT 75
WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
I. EARLY HISTORY 85
II. ROTTNEST AND FREEMANTLE 106
III. PRESENT CONDITION 115
IV. FUTURE PROSPECTS 131
INDEX 145
[Illustration: MAP OF THE COLONY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
]
SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY HISTORY.
South Australia has a peculiar history of its own, differing very
much from those of the other Australian colonies, though similar in
some degree to that of New Zealand, which was founded after South
Australia, and with aspirations of the same nature. New South Wales
was taken up by Great Britain as a convict depôt, and grew as such
till the free inhabitants who had followed and surrounded the convicts
became numerous and strong enough to declare that they would have no
more such neighbours sent among them. Van Diemen’s Land, which is now
Tasmania, and Moreton Bay, which is now Queensland, were occupied as
convict dependencies to the parent establishment. Moreton Bay was still
part of New South Wales when New South Wales refused to be any longer
regarded as an English prison, and Van Diemen’s Land did for herself
that which New South Wales had done before. Even Port Phillip, which
is now Victoria, was first occupied by convicts sent thither from the
parent colony,--though it is right to say that the convict system never
took root there, and that the attempt never reached fulfilment. On the
same principle New South Wales sent an offshoot convict depôt to King
George’s Sound, which is now a part of Western Australia,--an unhappy
colony which, in its sore distress, was destined to save itself from
utter destruction by delivering itself to the custody of compelled
immigrants, who could be made to come thither and work when others
would not come. In this way all the now existing Australian colonies,
except South Australia, have either owed their origin to convicts, or
have been at one period of their existence fostered by convict labour;
but South Australia has never been blessed--or cursed--with the custody
of a single British exile.
In 1829, when Australian exploration was yet young, Captain Sturt, who
had already travelled westwards from Sydney till he found and named the
Darling River, and had done much towards investigating the difficult
problem of the central Australian waters, received a commission from
the government of New South Wales to make his way across to the
Murrumbidgee River, and to discover by following its course what became
of it. It was then believed by many, and among others by Captain Sturt
himself, that the great waters of the continent, which had been reached
but of which the estuaries were not known, ran into some huge central
lake or internal sea. With the view of proving or of disproving this
surmise, Captain Sturt with a few companions started on his journey,
carrying with him a boat in detached pieces, in which he proposed to
solve the mystery of the river. For, it must be understood, none of
those maritime explorers who had surveyed, or partially surveyed, the
eastern, southern, or western coasts of the continent had discovered
any river mouth by which it was supposed that these waters could escape
to the sea. Sturt was very zealous and ambitious to make for himself a
great name among Australian explorers,--as he has done. In his account
of a subsequent journey,--made into the interior after he had found
that the river did not conduct him thither,--he thus describes his
own feelings:--“Let any man lay the map of Australia before him and
regard the blank upon its surface, and then let me ask if it would not
be an honourable achievement to be the first to place foot upon its
centre.” This he did, subsequently, in 1845; but in 1829-1830 he and
his companions made their way down the Murrumbidgee till that large
river joined a still greater stream, which he first called the Murray.
The upper part of this river had been crossed by Hovell and Hume in
1826, and had then been called the Hume. But the name given by Sturt
is the one by which it will hereafter be known. He followed it till
it was joined by another large river, which he rightly presumed to be
that Darling which he had himself discovered on a former journey. Still
going on he came to the “Great Bend” which the Murray makes. Hitherto
the course of the wanderers down the Murrumbidgee and down the Murray
had been nearly due west. From the Bend the Murray runs south, and from
henceforth it waters a territory which is now a part of the province or
colony of South Australia.
Sturt, when he had progressed for a while southwards, must have begun
to perceive that that surmise as to a great inland sea was incorrect.
For the waters both of the Murrumbidgee and the Darling he had so far
accounted, and he was now taking with him down to the Southern Ocean
the confluence of the three rivers. It is not my purpose in this book
to describe the explorations of Australia, and I will not therefore
stop to dwell upon the dangers which Sturt encountered. But it should
be remembered that he was forced to carry with him all the provisions
for his party, that he had no guide except the course of the waters
which he was bound to follow, and that as he went he was accompanied
along the banks by tribes of black natives, who, if not absolutely
hostile, were astonished, suspicious, and irascible. Why they did not
surround and destroy him and his little party we can hardly conceive.
As far as we yet know, no white man had been there before, and yet it
appears from Sturt’s account that the natives frequently evinced no
astonishment whatever at firearms, looking on while birds were shot,
and not even condescending to admire the precision with which they were
killed.
He went on southwards till he entered a big lake,--now called Lake
Alexandrina. There are indeed a succession of lakes or inland waters
here, of which Lakes Alexandrina and Albert are very shallow, rarely
having as much as six feet of water, which is fresh or very nearly
fresh,--and the Coorong River, which is salt, and, although as much
within the mouth as are the lakes, must be regarded as an inlet of
the sea. Of Lake Albert and the Coorong River, Sturt appears to have
seen nothing, but he did make his way with extreme difficulty through
the tortuous, narrow, and shallow opening of the river which takes
the waters of the lake down to the sea in Encounter Bay,--and then
perceived that for purposes of seaborne navigation the great river of
which he had followed the course must always be useless. “Thus,” he
says, “were our fears of the impracticability and inutility of the
chain of communication between the lake and the ocean confirmed.”
Having so far succeeded, and so far failed, he was called upon to
decide what he would do next. He could see to the westward ranges of
hills, which he rightly conceived to be those which Captain Flinders
had described after surveying the coasts of Gulf St. Vincent and
Spencer’s Gulf. Flinders had called these hills Mount Lofty, and Sturt
could perceive,--at any rate could surmise,--that there was a fertile,
happy land lying between him and them. But he had not the means nor
had his men the strength to go across the country. He could not take
his little whale-boat out to sea, nor could he venture to remain on
the shores of Encounter Bay till assistance should come to him from
seawards. He had flour and tea left, and birds and kangaroo might be
killed on the river banks. So he resolved to go back again up the
river, and thus with infinite labour he returned by the Murray and
Murrumbidgee, and made his way to Sydney.
The results of this journey were twofold. Though Sturt did not discover
the land in which the colony of South Australia was first founded, and
on which the city of Adelaide now stands, the history of his journey
and the account which had previously been given by Captain Flinders,
led to the survey of the land between the two gulfs and the Murray
River. There stands a hill, about twenty miles from Adelaide, called
Mount Barker; in honour of Captain Barker, who was killed by the
blacks while employed on this work. The land was found to be good,
and fit for agriculture; not sandy, as is so large a proportion of the
continent, nor heavily timbered, as is a larger portion of it. The
survey was made immediately on the receipt of Sturt’s account, and the
operations which were commenced with a view of planting the colony,
were no doubt primarily due to him. And he solved the great question as
to the Australian waters, proving, what all Australia now knows, to its
infinite loss, that the river Murray,--the only considerable outflow
of Australian waters with which we are as yet acquainted,--makes its
way into the sea by a mouth which is not suited for navigation. There
is already much traffic on the Murray, and no doubt that traffic will
increase;--but there is very little traffic indeed from the Murray to
the seaports, even on the Australian coast, and it is not probable that
that little will be extended. It is yet possible that on the north or
north-western coast navigable rivers may be found. Just now men who
have visited the northern shore are beginning to tell us that the Roper
River and the Victoria River may by certain processes of blasting and
dredging become serviceable, not only for inland but also for maritime
navigation. But hitherto Australia has had no river into which great
ships can make their way, as they do on the open rivers of America,
of Europe, and of Asia. The narrowness and shallowness,--or, as I may
perhaps call it, the meanness,--of the mouth of the Murray is one of
the great natural disadvantages under which Australia labours.
Tidings of the land between the Murray and the Gulfs came home, and
then a company formed itself with the object of “planting” a colony,
as British settlements were formerly planted in North America. The
plan to be followed was that which came to be known as the Wakefield
system, the theory of which required that the land should be sold in
small quantities, at a “sufficient price,” so that the purchasers
should settle on their own lands, and hold no more land than they would
be able to occupy beneficially for themselves and the colony at large.
This theory of occupation was to be adopted in distinct opposition
to that under which large grants of land had been made in Western
Australia,--the territorial estates so granted having been far too
extensive in area for beneficial occupation.
In establishing new homes for the crowded population of old lands it
has been found almost impossible to follow out to any perfect success
the theories of philanthropists. The greed of individuals on one
side, and obstinacy and ambition on other sides, have marred those
embryo Utopias in the prospect of which the brains of good men have
revelled. Machinery, if the means and skill be sufficient, can be
made to do its proposed work in exact conformity with the intentions
of the projectors; but men are less reliable. They are, however, more
powerful, each being the owner of a new energy; and though the Utopian
philanthropist may be disappointed,--even to a broken heart,--the
very greed and obstinacy of his followers will often lead to greater
results than would have been achieved by a strict compliance with the
rules of a leader, however wise, however humane, however disinterested
he may have been. The scheme proposed for the colonization of South
Australia was not carried out in strictness; but the colony is strong
and healthy, and it may be doubted whether it would now be stronger or
healthier had a closer compliance with the intentions of the founders
been effected.
In 1834 an Act was passed for founding the colony of South Australia.
Under this Act it was specially provided that the proceeds of the land
should be devoted to immigration. This, however, was no necessary part
of Mr. Gibbon Wakefield’s plan. In his evidence given subsequently
before a committee of the House of Commons in 1836, he thus speaks
of his own scheme: “The object of the price is not to create an
immigration fund. You may employ the fund in that way if you please,
but the object of the price is to create circumstances in the colony
which would render it, instead of a barbarous country, an extension
of the old country, with all the good, but without the evils, of the
old society. There is no relation,--it is easy to see one which is of
no consequence, but I can see no proper relation,--between the price
required for land and immigration.” He repeats the same opinion in his
book, called “A View of the Art of Colonization.” This is written in
the form of letters, and in Letter 55 he says: “So completely is the
production of revenue a mere incident of the price of the land, that
the price ought to be imposed, if it ought to be imposed under any
circumstances, even though the purchase-money were thrown away.” Again
in the same letter he continues, speaking of the money which would
arise from the sale of land: “It is an unappropriated fund which the
state or government may dispose of as it pleases without injustice to
anybody. If the fund were applied to paying off the public debt of the
empire nobody could complain of injustice, because every colony as a
whole, and the buyers of land in particular, would still enjoy all the
intended and expected benefits of sufficient price upon new land. If
the fund were thrown into the sea as it arrived, there would still be
no injustice, and no reason against producing the fund in that way.”
This is a very strong way of putting it; but Mr. Wakefield meant to
assert that the consideration of the use to which the fund arising from
the sale of land might be applied, was no part of his plan. Let others
decide as to that. He had seen that the grants of vast areas of land to
men who had taken themselves out with a certain amount of capital and a
certain number of fellow emigrants, had not produced colonial success.
There was the terrible example of Western Australia before him. The
land was not occupied, and was not tilled. Each new-comer thought that
he should have a share of the land, rather than that he should perform
a share of the labour. I would not, however, have it supposed that I am
an admirer generally either of Mr. Wakefield’s system of colonization,
as given in his book, or of his practice as carried out in New Zealand.
He was right in maintaining that all land should be sold for a price
so high as to prevent, at any rate for a time, the formation of large
private estates in the hands of individuals, who would be powerless
to use such estates when possessed. In almost all beyond that,--as in
regard to his idea that English society, under the presidency of some
great English magistrate, should be taken out to the young colony “with
all the good, but without the evil,”--he is I think Utopian. Of his
own doings as a colonizer I shall have to speak again in reference to
New Zealand.
Mr. Wakefield’s plan was by no means adopted as a whole by the Act
of 1834, in conformity with which the new colony was to be founded.
In 1831 an attempt had been made to obtain a charter for forming a
company, by which the new colony was to be planted in strict accordance
with Mr. Wakefield’s principle. But this scheme broke down, and in
1834 the Act was passed. Under this Act it was provided that the land
should be sold in small blocks,--no doubt at a “sufficient price,”--and
that the money so realised should be applied to immigration. What the
“sufficient price” should be Mr. Wakefield had never stated. Indeed
it would then have been impossible, and is still equally impossible,
that any price should be fixed as the value of a commodity, whose value
varies in accordance with climate, position, and soil.
The impossibility of fixing a price for land, and yet the apparent
necessity of doing so, has been the greatest difficulty felt in
arranging the various schemes of Australian colonization. At first
sight it may seem easy enough. Let the land be put up to auction, and
let the purchaser fix the price. But when the work was commenced it
was necessary to get new settlers on to the land, who knew nothing of
its relative value, who could not tell whether they could afford to
give 5_s._ or £5 an acre for it and then live upon it. These new-comers
required to be instructed in all things, and in nothing more than as to
the proper outlay of their small capitals. And the system of auction,
when it did come to prevail in the sale of crown lands, was found to
produce the grossest abuses,--I think I may say the vilest fraud. Men
constituted themselves as land agents with the express purpose of
exacting black-mail from those who were really desirous of purchasing.
“I will be your agent,” such a one would say to the would-be purchaser.
“I will buy the land for you, at a commission of a shilling an acre.
You can buy it for yourself, you say. Then I shall bid against you.”
This system has prevailed to such an extent that the agency business
has become an Australian profession, and men who did not want an acre
of land have made fortunes by exacting tribute from those who were in
earnest. As a rule, 20_s._ an acre has been the normal price fixed in
these colonies generally,--though from that there have been various
deviations. In South Australia proper,--that is in South Australia
exclusive of the northern territory,--the Crown has never alienated
an acre for less than 20_s._ an acre. Mr. Wakefield seems to have
considered that 40_s._ an acre should have been demanded from the early
settlers in the new colony,--but he would fix no sum, always adhering
to his term of a “sufficient price.”
The Act required that the money produced by the sale of lands should be
employed in bringing immigrants into the country; but this requirement
has not been fulfilled. A public debt was soon accumulated, and the
colony decided that the proceeds of the land should be divided into
three parts,--that a third should go to immigration, a third to the
public works, and a third to the repayment of the public debt. But this
arrangement has again gone to the wall, and the money produced is now
so much revenue, and is like other revenue at the disposal of the House
of Assembly. But the Act of 1834 enjoined also that no convicts should
ever be sent to South Australia, and this enactment has never been
infringed. It also decreed that, as soon as the population of the new
colony should have reached 50,000, a constitution, with representative
government, should be granted to it. This, too, was carried out with
sufficient accuracy. At the close of 1849 the population was 52,904,
and in 1850 the British Parliament conferred on the colonists the power
of returning elected members to serve in the Legislative Council.
I should hardly interest my readers, if I were to dilate upon all
the success and all the failures which the promoters of the South
Australian plan encountered. But it is well that they should understand
that there was a plan, and that the work was not done from hand to
mouth,--that South Australia did not progress accidentally, and drift
into free institutions, as was the case with the other Australian
colonies. There was much both of success and of failure; but it may
be said that the attempt was made in a true spirit of philanthropy,
and that the result has been satisfactory if not at first triumphant.
Mr. Wakefield, Mr. Hutt,--now Sir William Hutt,--Colonel Torrens, and
Mr. Angas were chief among those to whom the colony is indebted for
its foundation. The first vessels sent out were dispatched by the
South Australian Company, of which Mr. Angas was the chairman. They
arrived in 1836, but the new-comers knew nothing of the promised land
before them. At the bottom of Gulf St. Vincent, lying off a toe of the
land, as Sicily lies off from Italy, is Kangaroo Island. It is barren,
covered with thick scrub, and deficient in water. No more unfortunate
choice could have been made by young settlers. But here the first
attempts were made, and here still linger a few descendants of the
first pioneers, who live in primitive simplicity together. They have
a town called Kingscote, on Nepean Bay. Mr. Sinnett, in his account
of the colony, says that he was there in 1860-61, and that then there
were about half-a-dozen houses, chiefly occupied by the descendants and
connections of one old gentleman. Such was the fate of the earliest
settlement formed by the South Australian Company.
But Nepean Bay was soon relinquished as the future home of the
would-be happy colonists. Later in 1836 Colonel Light arrived, sent
out as the surveyor-general by the government at home, and Captain
Hindmarsh as the first governor of the new colony. There was still much
difficulty before a site for the new town was chosen, and apparently
much quarrelling. Adelaide, which was to be the earthly paradise of
perfected human nature, was founded amidst loud recrimination and
a sad display of bitter feeling;--but the site was chosen, and was
chosen well, and the town was founded. Captain Hindmarsh, however,
was recalled in 1838, as having failed in his mission, and Colonel
Light died in 1839. Captain Hindmarsh was replaced by Colonel Gawler,
who went to work with great energy in making roads and bridges,--and
running the colony into debt over and above the funds on which it
was empowered to draw. The colony was insolvent, and they who had
advanced cash on bills drawn by the governor were for a while without
their money. It seemed as though the great attempt would end in
failure. The colony, with a revenue of only £30,000, had attained an
annual expenditure of £150,000 and a public debt of £300,000.[1] Such
was the condition of South Australia when Captain (now Sir George)
Grey succeeded Colonel Gawler. Under his influence the expenditure
was checked, and money was lent by the British Parliament. From that
time forward the colony flourished. The debt was repaid, and Elysian
happiness was initiated.
[1] I take these figures from Mr. Sinnett’s work.
The real prosperity of South Australia commenced with the discovery
of copper at the Burra mines in 1845. As I shall say something of
the great wealth which has accrued to the colony from her copper in
a following chapter, I will only remark here that as gold produced
the success of Victoria, so did copper that of South Australia. But
the gold in the former was very nearly ruinous to the success of the
latter. In 1851 began the rush of diggers to the Victorian gold-fields,
and so great was the attraction that for a time it seemed that the
whole male population of South Australia was about to desert its
home. I will again quote Mr. Sinnett: “Shipload after shipload of
male emigrants continued to leave the port during many consecutive
months, while thousands more walked or drove their teams overland;
the little-trodden overland route becoming the scene of active
traffic,--the principal camping-places being every night lighted up
by the numerous camp-fires of parties of travellers. At the same time
that the men went, the money went with them. The banks were drained
of coin, and trade partially ceased. Scores of shops were closed,
because the tradesmen had followed their customers to the diggings.
The streets seemed to contain nothing but women; and strong feelings
were entertained that no harvest would be sown, and that, allured by
the more glittering attractions of the gold colony, the small landed
proprietors, who formed so important a section of our society, would
permanently remain away, selling their land here for whatever trifle
it would fetch.” This is a strongly drawn picture of the state of
all Australian society at the time. There was one general rush to the
gold-fields, and men for a time taught themselves to believe that no
pursuit other than the pursuit of gold was worthy of a man’s energies.
South Australia had no gold-fields, and therefore the current of
emigration was all away from her. For a time the gloom was great.
But the runagates soon found that everything was not bright in the
rich land,--and they returned to their homesteads, many of them with
gold in their hands. Though there was great terror in the colony when
the exodus was taking place, the opinion is now general that South
Australia gained more in wealth than it lost by the discovery of the
Victorian gold.
South Australia is at present possessed of a representative
government,--as are all the other Australian colonies, except Western
Australia. But during the early years of her existence she, as well
as the others, was subject to government from our Colonial Office at
home. There was from the first a feeling averse to this, which no doubt
greatly assisted in producing the troubles by which the early governors
were afflicted. They who had been instrumental in founding the colony
were hearty Liberals, attached to religious freedom, altogether averse
to Established Churches, and anxious for self-rule. For men coming
out in such a spirit, but coming out nevertheless with the aid and
furtherance of the home government, there were of course trials and
crosses. They desired to rule themselves,--as the Pilgrim Fathers had
done in Massachusetts. But the office in Downing Street would not
relinquish its authority to colonists who might be visionary, and were
certainly ambitious. On the other hand, men who were disposed to devote
their time and fortunes to a system of philosophical colonisation
were apt to feel that their scheme should not be made subject to the
interference which a convict colony might probably require. There
were troubles, and those two first governors, Captain Hindmarsh and
Colonel Gawler, had hot work on their hands. Colonel Robe, who in 1845
succeeded Captain Grey as governor, and who as a military man felt that
he was governing the colony on behalf of the Crown rather than on that
of the colonists, gave great offence,--especially by providing State
endowment for religion, a point as to which the founders of the colony
had been particularly sensitive. But a good time was coming. When
50,000 inhabitants had settled themselves on the land, then would those
inhabitants be entitled to govern themselves; and then any governor who
might be sent to them from the old country would be no more than that
appanage of royalty which serves as a binding link between the parent
country and its offspring. Then they would make laws for themselves;
then they would not have State endowment for clergymen more than for
doctors or lawyers; then would their Elysium have truly been initiated.
The work of governing the colony had indeed been commenced with some
little attempt at double government. There was a board of South
Australian Commissioners in London, and when Captain Hindmarsh came
out as governor, there was appointed a certain member of this Board
to act as resident commissioner in Adelaide, and to report direct to
the commissioners at home. Colonel Gawler and his successor, Captain
Grey, held, however, the joint offices of governor and resident
commissioner,--so that very little came of the arrangement as a check
upon the power of Downing Street. In 1842 the office of resident
commissioner was altogether abolished, and the Act of Parliament by
which this was done provided for the appointment of a Legislative
Council of eight, the whole of which, however, was to be nominated by
the Crown. In 1850,--when the requisite population had been achieved,
the colonists were allowed to elect two-thirds of the Legislative
Council, the number of councillors being raised from eight to
twenty-four. But this did not long satisfy the cravings of the people
for self-government. In other Australian colonies,--especially in the
neighbouring colony of Victoria,--demands for free constitutions were
being made at the same time; and what colony could have a better right
to be free than South Australia, established, as she had been, on
philosophical and philanthropical principles?
The Council gave way to the people, and the governor gave way to
the Council; but they did not at first give way enough. In 1853 they
passed a bill,--subject to confirmation at home,--creating two houses
of parliament, of which the Lower House,--to be called the House of
Assembly,--should be elective. The members were to be elected for
three years, subject of course to dissolution by the governor. But
the members of the Legislative Council, to consist of twelve members,
were to be appointed for life by the governor. It should be remembered
by all who desire to study the form of government and legislative
arrangement in these colonies, that members of the Upper House are
nominated by the Crown,--and therefore, in fact, by the minister of
the day,--in New South Wales and Queensland, but are elected by the
people in Victoria and South Australia. In 1853, however, when the
Council in South Australia was sitting, with the view of framing a new
constitution for the colonies, the question was still unsettled as to
any of these colonies. Queensland had not commenced her career. In New
South Wales it had been decided that the existing Legislative Council
should pass a constitution, but that it should be one under which the
future Upper House of the colony should be nominated by the Crown;
and an Act to this effect was passed accordingly on 21st December,
1853. No doubt the proposed action of the sister colony was well known
and well discussed in Adelaide, the party of the government feeling
that a constitution which was supposed to suit New South Wales might
well suit South Australia; and the colonists themselves feeling that,
however willing the old-fashioned people of New South Wales might
be to subject themselves after the old-fashioned way to government
nominations, such a legislative arrangement was by no means compatible
with the theory of self-rule, under which they had come out to the new
country. A petition against the bill was sent home,--a petition praying
that the assent of the Crown, for which it had as a matter of course
been reserved, might not be given to it. The petition was supposed to
represent the feeling of the colony, and the bill was therefore sent
back for reconsideration. The Legislative Council was dissolved, and
a new Council elected and nominated,--with sixteen elected and eight
nominated members. This Council was obedient to the will of the people,
and passed the constitution which is now in force. The new Legislative
Council was to be elective, and not nominated; and the governor was to
be without the power of dissolving it. It was to consist of eighteen
members, six of whom should retire every four years,--so that when the
arrangement came to be in full force, as it is now, every member would
have a seat for twelve years. The elections were to be made by the
country at large. At each election any man possessed of the franchise
for the Upper House would vote for any six candidates he pleased, and
the six having the majority of votes would come in as returned by
the entire colony. When speaking in a future chapter of the acting
legislature of the colony, I will give my reasons for disapproving of
this form of election. It was adopted, and, having the general approval
of the colony, was confirmed by the Crown at home, and is now the law
of the land. The second chamber was to consist, and still does consist,
of thirty-six members, to be elected for three years each. An elector
for the Council must possess a £50 freehold, or a leasehold of £20 per
annum, or occupy a dwelling-house valued at £25 per annum. Manhood
suffrage prevails in reference to electors for the Lower Chamber, it
being simply requisite that the elector’s name should have been six
months on the roll, and that he shall be twenty-one. A member of the
Council must be thirty-four years old, born a subject or naturalised,
and a resident in the colony for three years. The qualification of a
member for the Legislative Assembly is the same as that for an elector.
This constitution was proclaimed in the colony in October, 1856, and
the first parliament elected under it commenced its work on April 22,
1857. Thus constitutional government and self-rule were established in
South Australia. With such a parliament responsible ministers were,
as a matter of course, a part of the system, and on 24th of October,
1856, five gentlemen undertook the government of the colony as chief
secretary, attorney-general, treasurer, commissioner of crown lands
and immigration, and commissioner of public works. From that day to the
period of my visit to the colony,--April, 1872,--there had been no less
than twenty-four sets of ministers; but the cabinet remained the same,
with the five officers whom I have named.
CHAPTER II.
ADELAIDE.
Adelaide is a pleasant, prosperous town, standing on a fertile plain,
about seven miles from the sea, with a line of hills called the Mount
Lofty Range forming a background to it. On 31st December, 1871, the
city proper contained 27,208 inhabitants, and the suburbs, so called,
contained 34,474, making a total of 61,682 persons either living in
the metropolis, or so closely in its neighbourhood as to show that
they are concerned in the social and commercial activity of the city.
On the same date the entire population of the colony was 189,018.
Adelaide alone, therefore, contains very nearly a third of the life
of the whole community of South Australia. This proportion of urban
to rural population,--or I may perhaps better say of metropolitan to
non-metropolitan,--is very much in excess of that which generally
prevails in other parts of the world.
The same result has come of the immigration to the other great
Australian colonies, though not quite to the same extent. The
population of Melbourne and its suburbs up to the beginning of 1872 was
206,000, and that of the colony was 755,000. The population of Sydney
and its suburbs was 136,000, and that of New South Wales 500,000. In
each case the population of the one city with its suburbs is between a
third and a fourth of that of the entire colony, and in each case the
proportion of urban to rural population is unusually high.
It may, perhaps, be taken as a rule,--though a rule with very wide
exceptions,--that the produce of a country comes from the industry of
those who live out of the metropolis, and that they who live in the
metropolis exercise their energies, and make or mar their fortunes,
in the management of that produce. Politicians, lawyers, merchants,
government officials, and even retail dealers, with the concourse of
people who are got together with the object of providing for them,
form a community which can hardly be said to be, itself, productive,
though it gives to the products of a country very much of the value
which they possess, and which they would not possess without such
metropolitan arrangement. I do not know that any political economist
has as yet cared to inquire what proportion of the population of a
community should be metropolitan,--so that the affairs of the community
might be ordered in the very best manner. Nor could such inquiry be
made with any exact result, as the circumstances of countries and of
towns vary very greatly; but the proportions of population as shown in
the Australian cities above named cannot be taken as showing a healthy
state of things. It goes towards proving that what we may perhaps call
the pioneer immigration into these colonies has been checked,--a fact
of which we have much other proof. The men who are here, and the men
who come afresh, prefer the city, and eschew a life of agricultural
labour. The nomadic race of miners will rush after tidings of gold,
and will form communities of their own; but the fields of Australia,
the vast territories of the continent which we would fain see bearing
crops of wheat and Indian maize, as do the vast prairies of the central
States of America, do not entice the population. It will be said, and
said truly, that if a people can find a living in a city, with all
their wants supplied to them by caterers near at hand, why should such
a people encounter the hardships of the backwoods,--or bush, as it is
called in Australia? Why should not a man stay in town, if he can live
in town? We all feel that, as regards any individual man, the argument
is good;--but we feel at the same time that cities without country to
feed them cannot long be continued; and that a community with extensive
means of management, and sparse powers of production, is like a human
body without arms or legs. What is the use of the best stomach which
nature ever gave to a man without the means of filling it?
It seems to be the case that immigrants coming to the colony stick
too closely to the towns,--and are unwilling to encounter the rough
chances of agricultural or pastoral life, as long as any means of
living is open to them in the cities. The evil, if it be an evil, must
cure itself as rural wages advance in proportion to city wages. In the
meantime, it is worthy of remark,--and of speculation as to the causes
of the fact,--that the city populations of Australia are excessive. As
the excess in Adelaide is greater than elsewhere, I have raised the
point while speaking of the capital of South Australia.
Perhaps no city, not even Philadelphia, has been laid out with a
stronger purpose of regularity and order than has been shown in
the founding and construction of Adelaide. Adelaide proper, as
distinguished from North Adelaide,--which has been allowed to deviate
somewhat from the good manner of the parent city,--stands in exact
conformity with the points of the compass. The streets all run north
and south, or east and west. There are five squares,--or open spaces
so designated,--one in the centre, and the other four at certain fixed
intervals. At the extremities of the town, on the northern, southern,
eastern, and western sides there are four terraces. That, however, on
the eastern side has been allowed to take a devious course, as the city
to the south is longer than it is at the north. But there is a precise
regularity even in this irregularity. This terrace on the map of the
town takes the form of a flight of steps, for nothing so irregular as a
sloping or diagonal line has been permitted in the arrangement of the
streets. To me the Quaker-like simplicity of such urban construction
never renders easy any practical conception of the topography. I find
it quite as easy to lose my way in Philadelphia or Adelaide as I do
in the old parts of Paris, or in the meandering lanes of such a city
as Norwich. I forget which is north and which west, and what set of
streets run at right angles to what other set. I never was able to find
my way about Adelaide. But for a man with a compass in his pocket, a
clear calculating brain, and a good memory, the thing must be very
easy. The northern half of the town is the West End. About midway on
the Northern Terrace is Government House, and opposite to it is the
Adelaide Club. The Houses of Parliament are close, on the same terrace.
King William Street, the High Street of the town, runs at right angles
from the North Terrace to Victoria Square, which is the centre of the
city. Here, in King William Street, is congregated the magnificence
of Adelaide,--comprising the Town Hall, the Public Offices, the Post
Office, and various banks, and many of the most money-making shops.
The one building in Adelaide on which the town most prides itself,--and
of which at the same time the colony is half ashamed because of the
expense,--is the Post Office. I was gratified by finding that the
colonies generally were disposed to be splendid in their post-offices
rather than in any other buildings,--for surely there is no other
public building so useful. At Brisbane, when I was there, they were
building a fine post-office. At Sydney they had nearly completed a
magnificent post-office, of which I have spoken in its proper place.
At Melbourne I found a very large post-office indeed,--though, as I
thought, one not very convenient to the public. And here at Adelaide
the Post Office is the grandest edifice in the town. It is really a
beautiful building, with a large centre hall, such as we had in London
as long as we could afford ourselves the luxury. We have built up our
hall, compelled by exigencies of space and money,--compelled as I
think by a shabby regard to space and money. It will be long before
the authorities of Adelaide will be driven to perpetuate a similar
architectural meanness,--for surely such a post-office will be more
than ample for the population for many a year to come. I went over
the building, and knowing something of post-offices, I regret to say
that the arrangements might have been improved by consultation with
English officials. As regarded the building as a building, it is a
credit to Adelaide, and would be an ornament to any city in Europe. The
government offices are not magnificent,--but are pleasant, commodious,
and sufficient. The Town Hall is a fine room, and forms a portion of
a very handsome building. In such luxuries as town-halls, large public
concert-rooms, public ball-rooms, and the like, the Australian cities
greatly beat our own. I do not say that there is any such an edifice
on the Australian continent as St. George’s Hall at Liverpool,--but
then neither is there any town with half the number of inhabitants that
Liverpool contains. Adelaide itself has less than 30,000, and I doubt
whether there be any town in England with double that number which has
such a chamber for public purposes as that of which I am speaking. I
am sure there is none with four times the number that has a theatre
so pretty, so well constructed, and so fit for its purpose as the
Adelaide Theatre. Even little Perth with its 6,000 souls has a grand
town-hall. In almost every municipality,--even in those of the suburbs
of such a town as Adelaide,--halls are erected for public purposes,
for speeches, balls, concerts, and the like. In this respect our
children in Australia take after their cousins in the United States.
In regard to banks also Adelaide flourishes greatly. I must not name
any one in particular, lest it be thought that I am making return for
accommodation given; but, such was their grandeur, that I felt of them
generally that the banking profits in South Australia must be very
great, or such edifices could not have been erected.
On the farther or southern side of the square are the Law Courts, as to
which I was informed that that intended for the Supreme Court was not
used as intended, being less convenient than an older building opposite
to it. I did not go into either of them.
Adelaide is well provided with churches,--so much so that this
speciality has been noticed ever since its first foundation. It was
peculiarly the idea of those who formed the first mission to South
Australia, that there should be no dominant Church;--that religious
freedom should prevail in the new colony as it never had prevailed
up to that time in any British settlement; and that the word dissent
should have no meaning, as there should be nothing established from
which to disagree. In spite of all this the Church of England has
assumed a certain ascendency, partly from the fact that a liberal and
worthy Englishwoman, now Lady Burdett-Coutts, endowed a bishopric at
Adelaide; but chiefly from the indubitable fact that they of the Church
of England who have flocked into the colony have been higher in wealth
and intelligence than those of any other creed. It would be singular
indeed had it not been so, seeing that the country from which they came
had for centuries possessed an established and endowed Church. But the
very fact that the Church of England boasted for itself even in this
colony a kind of ascendency, and the other fact that the colony had
been founded with the determination that there should be no ascendency,
have together created great enmity among the rival sects. While I was
in Adelaide a motion was before parliament,--as to which I heard the
debate then in progress,--for taking away the right of precedency
belonging by royal authority to the present bishop. Both Houses had
passed a bill, with the purpose of taking away from the prelate the
almost unmeaning privilege of precedence. It had been reserved by the
governor, with undeniable propriety, for the decision of the government
at home. The Secretary of State for the Colonies had returned a
dispatch, intended to be most conciliatory, stating that the Crown
would be happy to consider any proposition made by the colony, but
that the legislature of the colony could not be permitted to annul the
undoubted prerogative of the Crown to grant honours. But the matter was
again argued as though a great injury had been inflicted. It was well
understood by all men that in the event of a vacancy in the bishopric
no successor would be appointed by the Crown; and that any future
bishop,--appointed as he must be by a synod of the Church,--would have
conferred on him by his appointment no privilege of walking out of
any room before anybody else. But such is the feeling of the colony
in regard to religious freedom, and such the feeling especially in
the city of Adelaide, that a politician desirous of popularity felt,
not without cause, that a stroke of political business might be done
in this direction. Of all storms in a teacup, no storm could be more
insignificant than this. That the present bishop, who has the good
word of everybody, should be allowed to wear to the last the very
unimportant honour conferred upon him, would have seemed to be a matter
of course. He has, since, resigned the right. It was, however, thought
worth while not only to fight the question, but to re-fight it. The
matter is worthy of notice only as showing the feeling of the people on
the subject. I may here remark that Adelaide has been called especially
a city of churches, so strong has been the ambition of various sects to
have it seen publicly that their efforts to obtain places of worship
worthy of their religion have been as successful as those of their
sister sects. The result has tended greatly to the decoration of the
town. Among them all, the Church of England is, at the present moment,
by no means the best represented. A cathedral, however, designed by
Butterfield, is now rising as fast as its funds will permit.
All round the city there are reserved lands, of which I may best
explain the nature to English readers by calling them parks for the
people. These reserves are of various widths in different parts, but
are full half a mile wide on an average. They are now being planted,
and are devoted to air and recreation. I need hardly explain that they
cannot as yet rival the beauty and the shade of our London parks: but
that they will do so is already apparent to the eye. And they will
have this advantage,--which, indeed, since the growth of the town
towards the west belongs also to our London parks,--that they will be
in the middle, not on the outside, of an inhabited city. As Adelaide
increases in population, these “reserves” will be in the midst of the
inhabitants. But they will have also this additional advantage,--which
we in London do not as yet enjoy, in spite of efforts that have been
made,--that they will not be a blessing only to one side or to one end
of the city. They will run east and west, north and south, and will be
within the reach of all Adelaide and her suburbs. There are here also
public gardens,--as there are in every metropolis of the Australian
colonies. The gardens of Adelaide cannot rival those of Sydney,--which,
as far as my experience goes, are unrivalled in beauty anywhere.
Nothing that London possesses, nothing that Paris has, nothing that New
York has, comes near to them in loveliness. But, as regards Australian
cities, those of Adelaide are next to the gardens of Sydney. In
Melbourne the gardens are more scientific, but the world at large cares
but little for science. In Sydney, the public gardens charm as poetry
charms. At Adelaide, they please like a well-told tale. The gardens at
Melbourne are as a long sermon from a great divine,--whose theology is
unanswerable, but his language tedious.
I have said that the city has a background of hills called the Mount
Lofty Range,--so called by Captain Flinders when he made his first
survey. The only pretension to landscape beauty which the city
possesses is derived from these mountains. It was indeed said many
years ago by one much interested in Adelaide, that she was built on a
“pretty stream.” The “stream” is called the Torrens, after one of the
founders of the colony, but I utterly deny the truth of the epithet
attached to it. Anything in the guise of a river more ugly than the
Torrens it would be impossible either to see or to describe. During
eleven months of the year it is a dry and ugly channel,--retaining
only the sewer-wards property of a river. In this condition I saw it.
During the other month it is, I was told, a torrent. But the hills
around are very pretty, and afford lovely views and charming sites for
villa residences, and soil and climate admirably suited for market
gardens. As a consequence of this latter attribute Adelaide is well
supplied with vegetables and fruit. By those who can afford to pay the
price already demanded for special sites, beautiful nooks for suburban
residences may still be obtained.
The city receives its water from an artificial dam constructed about
eight miles from it, but the reservoir used when I was there had been
deemed insufficient for the growing needs of the town. A larger dam,
calculated to hold innumerable gallons, had been just finished as
far as the earthworks were concerned, and was waiting to be filled
by the winter rains. A tunnel had been made through the hillside for
its supply,--so that it might water Adelaide and all her suburbs for
generations to come. But generations come so quickly now, that for
aught I can tell Adelaide may want a new dam and infinitely increased
gallons before one generation has entirely passed away. If it be
so, I do not doubt but that the new dam and all the gallons will be
forthcoming. While speaking of water, I must acknowledge that during
three months of the year water is a matter of vital consideration to
the inhabitants of Adelaide. I was not there in December, January, or
February; but from the admission of inhabitants,--of Adelaideans not
too prone to admit anything against their town,--I learned that it can
be very hot during those three months. I liked Adelaide much,--and
I liked the Adelaideans; but I must confess to my opinion that it
is about the hottest city in Australia south of the tropics. The
heat, however, is not excessive for above three months. I arrived in
the first week of April, and then the weather was delightful. I was
informed that the great heats rarely commence before the second week in
December. But when it is hot, it is very hot. Men and women sigh for 95
in the shade, as they, within the tropics, sigh for the temperate zones.
But in all respects such as that of water,--in regard to pavements,
gas, and sewers, in regard to hospitals, lunatic asylums, institutions
for the poor, and orphanages,--the cities of Australia stand high;
and few are entitled to be ranked higher than Adelaide. I had an
opportunity of seeing many of these institutions, including the gaol
inside the city and the gaol outside; and I saw some of them under
the auspices of one who was perhaps better entitled to judge of them
than any other man in the colony. It seemed to me that they were
only short of absolute excellence. When I remembered how small was
the population, how short a time had elapsed since the place was a
wilderness, how limited the means, how necessarily curtailed were the
appliances at the command of what we should call such a handful of
men,--and when I remembered also what I have seen in our own workhouses
at home, what I have heard of some of our own gaols, what but a few
years since prevailed in many of our own lunatic asylums,--I could not
but think that the people of Adelaide had been very active and very
beneficent. Of course every new town founded has the advantage of all
the experience of every old town founded before it. It is easier for
a new country, than for an old country, to get into good ways. No man
has visited new countries with his eyes open without learning so much
as that. But, not the less, when the observer sees 60,000 people in a
new city, with more than all the appliances of humanity belonging to
four times the number in old cities, he cannot refrain from bestowing
his meed of admiration. I will now finish my remarks about this town
with saying that no city in Australia gives one more fixedly the idea
that Australian colonisation has been a success, than does the city of
Adelaide.
CHAPTER III.
LAND.
I have said that Adelaide has been called a city of churches. It has
also been nicknamed the Farinaceous City. A little gentle ridicule
is no doubt intended to be conveyed by the word. The colony by the
sister colonies is regarded as one devoted in a special manner to the
production of flour. Men who spend their energy in the pursuit of gold
consider the growing of wheat to be a poor employment. And again the
squatters, or wool-producers of Australia, who are great men, with
large flocks, and with acres of land at their command so enormous that
they have to be counted, not by acres, but by square miles, look down
from a very great height indeed upon the little agriculturists,--small
men, who generally live from hand to mouth,--and whose original
occupation of their holdings has commonly been supposed to be at
variance with the squatters’ interests. The agriculturists of Australia
generally are free-selecters, men who have bought bits here and bits
there off the squatters’ runs, and have bought the best bits,--men,
too, whose neighbourhood, for reasons explained before, has not been a
source of comfort to the squatters generally. In this way agriculture
generally, and especially the growing of wheat-crops for sale, has not
been regarded in the colonies as it is certainly regarded at home. The
farmers of South Australia are usually called “cockatoos,”--a name
which prevails also, though less universally, in the other colonies.
The word cockatoo in the farinaceous colony has become so common as
almost to cease to carry with it the intended sarcasm. A man will tell
you of himself that he is a cockatoo, and when doing so will probably
feel some justifiable pride in the freehold possession of his acres.
But the name has been given as a reproach, and in truth it has been and
is deserved. It signifies that the man does not really till his land,
but only scratches it as the bird does.
Nevertheless,--and in spite of any gibes conveyed in the words
farinaceous, cockatoo, or free-selecter,--South Australia is especially
blessed in being the one great wheat-producing province among the
Australian colonies. The harvest of 1870-71,--which was, no doubt,
specially productive, but is quoted here because it is the last as to
which, as I write, I can obtain the statistics,--gave 6,961,164 bushels
of wheat, which at 5_s._ 3_d._ a bushel, the price at which it was sold
in Adelaide, produced £1,827,305. In the same year, that is, up to
31st December, 1871, which would take the disposal of the crop above
mentioned,--for wheat, it must be remembered, in Australia is garnered
in our spring, and not in our autumn,--104,000 tons of bread-stuff
were exported, and sold for £1,253,342. So that the colony consumed
not a third of the breadstuffs which it produced. The population of
the colony up to 31st December, 1871, was 189,018 persons. So that the
value of the breadstuffs exported in that year was something over £6
12_s._ 6_d._ a head for every man, woman, and child within it. With
such a result, South Australia need not be ashamed of being called
farinaceous.
It must not, however, be supposed that the year above quoted shows
a fair average. The following table will give the amount of wheat
produced, with the area from which it was produced, the average crop
per acre, and the value per bushel, together with the amount of
bread-stuff and grain exported for the year above named, and the four
preceding years:--
WHEAT PRODUCED. | AREA UNDER WHEAT. | AVERAGE CROP PER
| | ACRE.
Year. Bushels. | Year. Acres. | Year. Bsh. lb.
1866-7 6,561,451 | 1866-7 457,628 | 1866-7 14 20
1867-8 2,579,894 | 1867-8 550,456 | 1867-8 4 40
1868-9 5,173,970 | 1868-9 533,035 | 1868-9 9 42
1869-70 3,052,320 | 1869-70 532,135 | 1869-70 5 45
1870-71 6,961,164 | 1870-71 604,761 | 1870-71 11 30
VALUE PER BUSHEL. | VALUE OF BREAD-STUFFS
| AND GRAIN EXPORTED.
Year. s. d.| Year.
1866-7 4 5 | 1867 £1,037,085
1867-8 7 1 | 1868 568,491
1868-9 5 0 | 1869 890,343
1869-70 5 3 | 1870 470,828
1870-71 5 0 | 1871 1,254,444
In the following year, 1871-72, the decrease of production was very
great. There were 692,508 acres under wheat-crops in the colony. The
produce was only 3,967,079 bushels, and the average produce per acre 5
bush. 44 lbs. What was the amount of wheat exported up to the end of
1872 I am unable to say. In reference to the above table, I must call
attention to the fact that the exported articles of which the value is
given are not only breadstuffs, but breadstuffs and grain, and the sums
named as their value are, therefore, in excess of the real value of the
wheat. But the other grain exported is very little. In the year 1871
the total value of the agricultural exports was £1,254,444, whereas the
value of the breadstuffs was £1,253,342, leaving the value of all other
grain at £1,102. The amount is not sufficient materially to affect the
comparison made in the above table. Of this wealth of wheat sent away
from South Australia, the other Australasian colonies, including New
Zealand, consume the greatest quantity, New South Wales being the best
customer. In 1867, when the average produce of the last harvest had
exceeded fourteen bushels to the acre, Great Britain was the largest
buyer. The price realised was only 4_s._ 5_d._ a bushel, and it was
worth while to send it home;--but, generally, South Australia is the
granary of the colonies around her. She sends supplies also, small
indeed in amount, to Cape Town, the Mauritius, and New Caledonia, and
even to India and the ports of China.
So far I have ventured to say what South Australia does in producing
wheat, but I dare not venture to say what she might do. English farmers
will not think much of a system of farming which does not produce an
average crop of above ten bushels to the acre,--nor will they think
much of an average price of 5_s._ 4_d._ a bushel. The English farmer
could hardly pay his rent, and manure and crop his land, and get in his
harvest and take it to market, with a total gross result of £2 13_s._
4_d._ an acre,--more especially as he would only repeat his wheat crop
once in every four years. The answer to this is, of course, that the
circumstances of the farmer in the two countries are very different.
In South Australia the farmer pays no rent, does not manure his land,
pays but little wages either for getting his crop in or out of the
land, and grows wheat every year, instead of once in four years. The
operations of the two men are distinctly different, and must continue
to be different. But it may be well worth while to inquire whether the
South Australian farmer might not learn a lesson in his business which
would greatly increase his profits.
There can, I think, be no doubt that the cockatoo of South Australia
is a very bad farmer,--and that he is so because he has hitherto been
able to make a living by bad farming. With reference to the amount of
produce, it must be admitted at once that the existing combination
of soil and climate in the colony, though it has shown itself to be
favourable to the growth of wheat in a country of vast area, is not
only unfavourable to heavy crops, but is prohibitory in regard to a
high average. Every now and then an average produce of fourteen bushels
to the acre may be obtained, as in 1864 and 1867,--and there are
districts in the colony in which the produce has on such years exceeded
twenty bushels to the acre. In 1867 the average in the Robe district
was twenty-three bushels to the acre. But there are, at any rate at
present, sources of injury to the wheat crop which make the business of
farming very precarious. In one year the red dust will almost destroy
the crop, in another year,--as happened during the harvest-time of
1872,--the year last past,--a cloud of locusts will come and eat up
wheat and grass throughout the country. That the red rust might be
conquered by skill in farming at some future time is probable. And
it is not impossible that altered circumstances of soil and climate,
produced by population and cultivation, may be unfavourable to the
locusts. With the drawbacks as they at present exist, the average
produce of wheat must continue to be small. But it might probably be
very much higher than it is.
Nearly two-thirds of all the cultivated land of the colony are under
wheat every year. In 1870-71 there were 959,000 acres under cultivation
in the colony; of these, 200,000 acres were under crops other than
wheat; 154,000 were fallow, or laid down with artificial grasses; and
605,000 were under wheat. So that every acre of cultivated land is
expected to bear wheat twice in three years. With us the best approved
rotation of crops requires the land to give wheat only once in four
years. But in fact the expectation and practice of the regular cockatoo
farmer demands a crop of wheat every year from his land. The figures
above given include, of course, cultivated land of all kinds,--and
in all hands. There are agriculturists in South Australia who are
endeavouring to give the soil a chance of being permanently productive,
and who sow wheat at any rate not more than every other year. There
are, too, growers of vines, of potatoes, and hay,--all of whom add
their quota to the total of cultivated acres, and deduct materially
from the favourable side of the above figures. The ordinary cockatoo
knows nothing of the word fallow, and attempts to produce nothing but
wheat. Year after year he puts in his seed upon the same acreage, and
year after year he takes off his crop. He is the owner of a section
of land which may be something between one hundred and two hundred
acres,--which is his own, though he has not probably as yet paid for
it the entire price. He does his work without any attempt to collect
manure, or to give back to the land anything in return for that which
he takes from it. He even burns the stubble from his field, finding it
to be easier to do so than to collect it, that it may rot, and then
be ploughed in. He ploughs his land, sows it, and then takes off his
crop by a machine called a stripper, which as it passes over the land
drags the corn out of the ear, leaving all the straw on the ground;--so
that the corn is, as it were, threshed as it is taken off the ground.
His labour, therefore, is very small. This last manipulation of the
grain,--which would be impossible in England, where the climate
demands that the grain should become dry before it can be taken from
the ear,--is made practicable in South Australia by the great heat
prevailing when the wheat is cut. The effect of all this is deleterious
both to the man and to the land. The man has but one farming
occupation,--that of growing wheat. He ploughs, and reaps, and sells;
and ploughs, and reaps, and sells again. He employs his energies on the
one occupation, with no diversification of interest, and with nothing
to arouse his intelligence. Consequently the South Australian cockatoo
is not a pushing or a lively man,--though it should be acknowledged on
his behalf that he is orderly, industrious, and self-supporting. But
the effect on the land is worse than that on the man,--for the land
clearly deteriorates from day to day. No practical farmer will require
figures to make him believe that it is so;--but the figures show it.
The yield of wheat in South Australia has always been poor, but it has
greatly fallen off. In six years, from 1860-61 to 1865-66, it averaged
about twelve bushels an acre, and in the six subsequent years it
averaged only nine bushels an acre.
The farmer usually owns the land. The system of tenant-farming is by
no means unknown in the colony, but it is not popular either with
tenant or landlord. The landlord obtains none of those side-wind
advantages from his position as owner,--advantages over and above the
rent,--which are so valued in the possession and are so dear to the
imagination among ourselves. There is neither political power nor
political prestige attached to such ownership. It has no peculiar
grace of its own as it has with us. The privileges of a squirearchy
are quite unknown in the colonies, or, if they exist at all, belong
to great graziers and squatters,--or to men who hold large tracts of
land in their own hands, and not to those who let their acres. There
are game laws,--for the protection of birds in the close season,--but
there are no game laws on behalf of the landowner. There is nothing
picturesque attaching to the receipt of rural rents, no audit dinners,
no dependency grateful alike to the landlord and to the tenant, no
feeling that broad acres confer a wide respect. What percentage can a
man get for his money if he let land to farmers, and what security will
he have for his income? Those are the considerations, and those only,
which bear upon the question. As well as I could learn details on the
subject,--as to which no accurate information can be obtained because
the arrangement is not sufficiently general to produce it,--a landlord
may let cleared and enclosed land, worth for sale in the market about
£6 an acre, for 10_s._ an acre;--and he may thus obtain, if he get his
rent, something more than nine per cent. for his money. This would do
very well as a speculation, if he were sure or nearly sure to get it,
as are our landlords at home. But when bad years come the tenants do
not pay. It is regarded almost as a matter of course that the payment
of agricultural rents is to depend on the season. If the land refuse
her increase, why is the loss to fall on the tenant harder than on the
owner? The owner, no doubt, has the law on his side; but the tenant
understands very well that when the land is barren, the law will be
barren also. Unless his rent be remitted in such years, or at least in
part remitted, he simply gives up his holding and goes elsewhere,--with
his children and his plough, or without his plough if the landlord or
other creditor should have seized it. The result is that the landlord
is satisfied to remit half the rent in bad years, and the whole rent
in very bad years. The further and final result is that the system of
letting land to tenant farmers is unpalatable and unprofitable,--and
therefore unusual.
The farmer therefore owns the land. He has bought it probably on
credit, beginning simply with savings made from two or three years
of labour, and owing the price, or the greater part of it, to the
government. I will presently say a word as to the system of deferred
payments for land which prevails. His homestead is too frequently
bare and ugly, without garden or orchard or anything like an English
farmyard around it; but it is substantial, and it is his own. The price
of the land has probably been something between 20_s._ and 40_s._ an
acre,--and he calculates that by growing wheat under the existing
agricultural circumstances around him, he can live, and bring up his
family, and free himself from his debt within ten years. If he be
steady and industrious he can do so,--and he does do so. He does not
confine his industry to his own farm; but in shearing-time he shears
for some large squatter, or he keeps a team of bullocks and brings
down wool to the railway station or to the city, or perhaps he takes a
month’s work at some gold-digging,--for even in South Australia there
are gold-fields, though they be not prominent among the resources of
the colony. In this way he lives and is independent;--and who will
dare to find fault with a man who does live, and becomes independent,
and makes a property exclusively by his own industry? His life is not
picturesque, but he cares nothing for that. His children go to the
public school,--at which he pays perhaps 2_s._ a week for three of
them,--and they have plenty to eat and drink. His wife has plenty to
eat and drink, and has a decent gown, and material comforts around her.
He has plenty to eat and drink, and a decent coat if he cares for it.
And he is nobody’s servant. Nevertheless he is a very bad farmer, and
unless he mend his ways soon the land which he now ploughs will cease
to give him the plenty which he desires. It may not improbably come
to pass that a considerable portion of the land occupied by farmers
for the purpose of growing wheat, will, under the present system,
cease altogether to give sufficient increase on the seed to pay even
for the labour of ploughing and reaping. In that case it will go back
to pastoral purposes and the farmer will remove elsewhere,--as has
already happened in certain districts of the colony. But, though the
area is immense, the area which will produce wheat is limited; and thus
the well-being of South Australia may be much affected, unless a less
wasteful use be made of the land.
The laws under which land has been sold in South Australia have been
altered frequently,--as has been the case in all the colonies. The
free-selecter, of whom I have been speaking, probably bought his land
from the Crown at some price varying from 20_s._ to 40_s._ an acre,
and was allowed four years,--or latterly five years,--to pay the sum,
being charged interest at the rate of five per cent. Before entering
upon his land he had only to pay one year’s interest in advance. He
has thus been enabled to buy his land with money produced by the crops
he has grown. In other words, he has paid simply a rent for a term of
years, and at the end of that term the land has become his own. And
this system, though never as far as I am aware clearly expressed in
words, seems to have been the ruling policy as to the alienation of
agricultural land in all the Australian colonies. If the new settler
will come and live upon the land, will till it and fence it, and pay
for its use, during a sufficient time to prove that he is in earnest
as to the use of it, the land shall be his. The idea of drawing from
the land the funds required for government, so that taxation should be
unnecessary, which was once dear to the minds of many colonists, has
gradually faded away. Great as has been the possession of the land,
it has not been a source of wealth available for any such purpose. If
only it could be used to attract serviceable immigrants, if only it
could be equitably distributed among men who would really use it,--not
take it for the purpose of bargaining and gambling with it,--if only it
could be converted into homes for people who would accept such homes
and thus become a nation, the land would then have done all that it
should be expected to do. This seems to have been the real gist of Mr.
Wakefield’s scheme, and to this theory all the land ministers of the
various colonies have been tending; though, as it seems, their progress
thitherwards has for the most part been an unconscious progress. But in
this attempt to bestow the land there has still been the necessity of
exacting Mr. Wakefield’s “sufficient price.” The land, if absolutely
given, would be worthless. If it were to be had for nothing, it would
be worth nothing. There must be a price upon it such as shall in some
degree fix its value, and induce settlers to use with some economy
and discretion that which can only be obtained for a stipulated sum
of money. But the fund so raised has never been a source of wealth
to a colony, and the colonies now cease to look for wealth in that
direction. If the money raised will suffice to pay for surveys, to
make roads, in any way to prepare the land for those who are to come
and take it, all will be done that should be expected. “For a term of
years you shall pay the colony such a rental as will enable the colony
to make its land serviceable to you;--and then it shall be yours.”
Such, in fact, are the terms offered to free-selecters.
When I was in South Australia a new land bill was under the
consideration of parliament,--as, indeed, I found new land bills
either just in operation or under consideration wherever I went in the
colonies. The matter has been one which has required many changes,
and as to which no two colonies have been able to agree. As I think
it probable that the bill proposed to the South Australian parliament
will become law, I will endeavour to explain that instead of referring
in detail to the law existing at this moment;--premising that here, in
this chapter, it is my purpose to refer to the proposed measure only
as far as it relates to the sale of lands to intending farmers, or
free-selecters.
I must first explain that South Australia is a country peculiarly
subject to drought,--more so than are the other colonies,--and
is especially so subject in the interior. This is a fact so well
acknowledged, that all who know the colony are aware that wheat can
only be grown in certain parts of it. In order that the government
might have some guide to tell it what portions of the land it would
be expedient to throw open to agriculturists, and from what portions
it would be expedient to exclude them as being unfit for agricultural
purposes, a line has been drawn. The surveyor-general, Mr. Goyder, has
drawn an arbitrary line across the map of South Australia, which is now
known as Goyder’s line of rainfall. It is anything but a straight line.
It runs from a point on the eastern confines of the colony somewhat
south of the city of Adelaide, in a direction north-west nearly as
high as to the top of Spencer’s Gulf. Then with irregular curves it
comes south half-way down the Gulf, which it crosses below Moonta and
Wallaroo, and then runs north by east till it loses itself in unknown
deserts. North of this line, or rather beyond it, no farmer should
locate himself. South of this, or within it, he may expect sufficient
rain to produce wheat. Of course Mr. Goyder gives no guarantee as to
precise accuracy, but I found it to be admitted in the colony that
the line had been drawn with skill and truth. North again of the dry
and rainless region is a tropical country, which is subject to the
usual conditions of tropical latitudes;--but on that Mr. Goyder’s line
has no bearing, and of that district I shall not speak in attempting
to describe the agricultural condition of South Australia as now
existing. All land within Goyder’s line not hitherto sold, will, by
the proposed law, which is called the “Waste Land Alienation Act,”
be opened to purchase, and on that land would-be farmers in South
Australia are invited to locate themselves. The lands will be thrown
open to selection, and will be purchasable on a credit of sixteen
years, at an interest which is computed to amount to 3⅗ per cent. per
annum for that term. The settlement of the price to be paid will be in
this wise:--The government will fix the upset price of all the areas
offered for sale at what is supposed to be the present maximum value of
the best land in the area,--which, for the sake of illustration, we may
call £2 an acre. I was informed that £2 an acre is in fact the price
at which the majority of the land will probably be first offered. It
will then be in the power of any would-be purchaser to take it at that
price. If there be no such purchaser, the commissioner of lands will,
on the part of the government, reduce his demand by 5_s._ to 35_s._,
and then to 30_s._, then to 25_s._, and if necessary to 20_s._,--at
intervals of perhaps a fortnight. Below 20_s._ an acre the price will
not be reduced. According to the nature of the land will be the desire
of purchasers to buy it at 40_s._; or to wait till it be offered at
30_s._ or at 20_s._ It is impossible not to see that even this plan is
open to the machinations of “land agents;”--land sharks, I have heard
them sometimes uncourteously called. The land agent, whose special
business it is to know who are disposed to buy this or that section of
land, will offer to renounce his own intention of buying, we will say
at 30_s._, on receiving 1_s._ or 1_s._ 6_d._ an acre on completing the
purchase for his victim at 25_s._ The victim will feel himself obliged
to pay the black-mail, as hundreds of victims have done, and the land
shark,--I hope he will excuse my discourtesy,--will receive a very
large payment, for which he will perform no service whatever.
And the payment of the money is to be arranged in this wise. On making
his application for the land, at any fixed price,--say 30_s._ an
acre,--the applicant will pay into the Treasury 10_s._ per cent. on
the whole purchase-money. Presuming the land in question to be 200
acres in extent, the price would be £300, and he would pay down £30 as
interest in advance for three years;--and would then be allowed to go
in upon the land, and occupy it. He must effect certain improvements,
and cultivate a certain portion, and must either live on it himself
or by deputy. If he have not done so at the end of three years, he
forfeits his £30. If he have done so, he pays another £30, and goes
on for another three years. These payments are in place of interest,
so that at the end of the six years he will have paid no part of the
principal. He may then pay the whole principal, if he has it, and the
land will be his; or he may postpone the payment for ten years, paying
2_s._ each year for each pound of the purchase-money, with interest at
the rate of 4 per cent. for the further credit given. The payment for
these last ten years would average something under £40 per annum, but
would recur yearly. The purchaser of the 200 acres would thus pay £30
as advance rent on entrance; £30 again as advanced rent after three
years; a rental of £40 a year annually for ten years further; and then
the freehold would be his own.
The selecter may buy under this bill any amount from 1 acre up to 640
acres;--but in cases in which the land lies untowardly for division
into exactly 640 acres, he may select as much as 700. If he should
attempt to select more, to make applications in other names, or to
defraud the land commissioner as land commissioners have been defrauded
in all the colonies since the alienation of public lands commenced,
terrible is to be the example made of that would-be free-selecter.
All the money advanced by him for first payment or payments will be
forfeited to the Crown.
The new land bill which I have attempted to describe does not vary
very much from that now in operation. Its chief objects are, perhaps,
to extend the area of land opened for selection, and to obviate the
existing necessity of personal residence. No doubt the proposed terms
are somewhat easier than the present to the proposed selecter. I think,
however, it is obvious that the terms offered are such as should be
attractive to men with small capitals, who are able to work with their
own hands. To such I say again, that the South Australian “cockatoo,”
though he be a cockatoo, is an independent man, living on his own
freehold in plenty, and knowing no master.
On the other hand, I would not advise farmers to try South Australia
with the intention of having their work done for them by paid
labourers. Wheat at 5_s._ 4_d._ a bushel will not pay for labour at
the rate of 22_s._ a week, which may be quoted as about the rate at
which rural labour may be obtained. When it is wanted throughout the
year, as it would be wanted by any grower of wheat intending to farm
his land as land is farmed at home, the labourer is paid about £40 per
annum, and also receives his diet, which is worth to the farmer about
£18 per annum, making a total of £58 per annum. Twenty-two shillings
a week throughout the year amounts to £57 15_s._ per annum. No doubt
the South Australian free-selecter does pay something in wages during
his harvest, unless he be specially blessed in the matter of sons who
can work; but he pays wages at no other time, and then the demand is
higher,--rising probably to 5_s._ a day, or 4_s._ with diet. For this
expenditure he provides himself by wages earned by himself in the
manner I have already explained.
In writing of the agricultural products of South Australia, I should
be wrong not to mention the vineyards of the colony. On 31st December,
1871, there were 5,823 acres under vines, which during that year had
produced 896,000 gallons of wine, being at the rate of 154 gallons
to the acre. I was informed that South Australia produces more wine
than any other colony, but have no figures by me which would enable me
to test the accuracy of the information. There can be no doubt that
the climate is admirably suited for the growth of the grape, but the
cultivation of it has not hitherto proved to be remunerative. It seems,
indeed, to be retrograding. In the year ended 31st March, 1871, there
were 6,127 acres bearing vines. In the subsequent year the number
had been reduced to 5,823,--from which it appears that 304 acres of
vineyard had been grubbed up.
I cannot say that I liked the South Australian wines. They seemed to me
to be heady, and were certainly unpalatable. I came across none that I
thought comparable to the Victorian wine of the country made at Yering.
I was told that I was prejudiced, and that my taste had been formed
on brandied wines, suited to the English market. It may be so;--but,
if so, the brandied wines suited to the English market not only suit
my palate, but do not seem to threaten that a second or third glass
will make me tipsy. The South Australian wines had a heaviness about
them,--which made me afraid of them even when I would have willingly
sacrificed my palate to please a host.
It must, however, be borne in mind that the making of wine is an art
which, as far as we know, has not been learned quickly in any country.
The perfection to which Spanish, German, and French wines are now
brought, has probably come as much from observation and experience as
from the peculiarity of soils or climate. There are many who believe
that Italian, Greek, and Hungarian wines will soon rival those of
France. If so, the wines of Australia and the United States will
probably do the same, when the cultivation and manufacture shall have
been long enough in existence for experience and skill to have been
created.
In the meantime the one thing desirable in reference to Australian
wines, is that the people of the country should drink the produce of
the country, not only because it is wholesome, but also because it is
cheap. The usual drink now consumed at public-houses is brandy,--so
called,--which is a villanous, vitriolic, biting compound of deadly
intoxicating qualities, and is sold at 6_d._ the glass. Though I
found the South Australian wine to be “heady,”--drinking it after the
fashion in which wine is drunk,--it is a beverage absolutely innocent
in comparison with the spirits which the publicans sell; and it can
be sold with profit at 2_d._ a glass,--the glass being a small,
false-bottomed tumbler, about as big as an ordinary claret-glass at
home. The wine can be sold by the grower fit for use at 2_s._ 6_d._
a gallon, and the gallon in the hands of the publican would run to
twenty-five “nobblers” of wine. This would give a profit satisfactory,
we may suppose, even to an Australian publican. A nobbler is the
proper colonial phrase for a drink at a public-house. It would be
very desirable that the men of the country should acquire a taste for
drinking their own produce. As men have done so in all vine-growing
countries, they will probably do so in South Australia, and when that
time shall come the growing of grapes will be profitable.
Already the acreage under vines is very large. It must be remembered
that grape-growing,--as is also hop-growing,--is an agricultural
pursuit requiring great capital, and that the produce from the acre is
very large. A grower with a hundred acres of vines on his hands has
probably as great a stake in his vineyard as a farmer with a thousand
acres of wheat has in his farm. In South Australia the acreage under
vines exceeded that devoted to gardens, orchards, potatoes, lucerne,
or artificial grasses. I annex a table, showing the number of acres
under cultivation in South Australia in the year ended 31st March,
1871, with the number devoted to each class of growth,--premising with
reference to the second mention of wheat, that cereals throughout all
the colonies are grown for forage for cattle. They are cut green, and
made into hay, and then stacked.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA, YEAR ENDED 31ST MARCH, 1871.
Total average under cultivation 957,482 acres.
Acres.
Wheat 604,400
Barley 22,474
Oats 6,184
Peas 3,713
Hay 139,807
Wheat, cut green for forage 2,598
Lucerne 3,441
Permanent artificial grasses 3,712
Flax 182
Potatoes 3,370
Orchards 2,762
Gardens 4,330
Vines 6,127
Other crops 816
Fallow land 153,566
The proportion of wheat to that of any other crop grown,--which
is so great as to make all the other cereals sink into utter
insignificance,--shows very plainly what the South Australian farmer
regards as his special business.
CHAPTER IV.
WOOL.
Whatever interests may for the moment be uppermost in the thoughts and
words of Australian legislators and speculators, wool still remains
and for many years will remain the staple produce of the country at
large. In Victoria, indeed, wool is for the present second to gold. And
in South Australia wool is second to wheat. The wheat grown in South
Australia during eleven years up to 1871 has fetched an average of
£1,283,630 per annum, whereas the wool exported from the colony,--in
which is included a small amount exported from South Australian ports
but grown in other colonies,--has fetched an average of £987,194
per annum. The wool produced has, in fact, been worth no more than
three-fourths of the wheat grown. But the produce of a country which is
exported always receives more attention than that which is consumed at
home. Who thinks anything of the eggs that are laid around us, or of
the butter made? In calculating the wealth of the country, who reckons
up the stitching of all the women, or even the ploughing and hedging
and ditching of the men? The calico and cutlery and cloth which we
export, and the ships which take these things away, are to our eyes
the source of our commercial wealth. I remember being told in America
that in the year before the war the hay produced in the single State
of Maine had been worth more than all the cotton exported from all
the cotton States in that year. South Australia is perhaps in a safer
condition than any other of the Australian colonies, because she can
feed herself. But not the less on this account does she regard wool as
the staple of the country. It is the business of Australia to supply
fine wools to the world, and South Australia thinks that she performs
her part of that business very well. South Australian farmers simply
live comfortably and die in obscurity by growing wheat; but South
Australian squatters make splendid fortunes or are ruined magnificently
by growing wool.
In the last two years things have been going well with the
wool-growers; but for some years before that things were not going
well, and there was much magnificent ruin. Owing to the drought to
which the country is subject, and to the very limited rainfall in
the large northern pastoral districts, squatting,--which is always
precarious,--is perhaps more precarious in this colony than in others.
In 1865 there was a great drought. In 1864 very little rain fell in
the districts north of Goyder’s line, and in 1865 none fell. When 1866
came many of the South Australian squatters were ruined,--and others
were broken-hearted. The records of this time are terrible to hear. It
was not so much that sheep were perishing from want of water. The wells
did not run dry, and in that district no squatter trusts to surface
water for his sheep to drink. But there was not a blade of grass, and
the animals were starved. The owners did not know in what direction
to stir themselves. Hundreds of thousands of sheep were driven south
in order that they might find pasturage as they wandered. It must be
understood that a squatter may drive sheep anywhere over unpurchased
land,--that is, over land which is simply leased by other squatters
from the Crown. But he is bound to give notice of the coming of his
flocks, and to move them along at the rate of not less than six miles a
day. It has not been an uncommon thing in any of the colonies for small
squatters, when short of grass, to have their sheep driven about over
hundreds of miles,--say in a wide-spread circle, so that at last they
should be brought home again,--in order that thus they might be fed.
In ordinary years this is not regarded as a thoroughly honest kind of
grazing. It is difficult to prevent the usage, as the owner, though he
must give notice of the coming of his sheep, is not bound to explain
why they are on the road. They may have been sold and be travelling to
the purchaser, or they may have been sent out for sale. But though the
practice cannot be stopped, it is known and understood, and the large
squatters who are the sufferers are often indignant. But in 1865-66
the larger the flocks were, the more urgent was the necessity which
compelled the owner of them to send them forth, lest they should be
starved at home. Mob after mob of wretched animals streamed down from
the then barren plains, 300 miles north of Adelaide, to the southern
districts near the sea and round the lakes,--perishing by the way, or
doomed to perish when they got there. Those who started first,--whose
owners, either by themselves or their servants, had been the first
to see the necessity of going,--were saved. I heard one squatter’s
overseer tell how he had taken some 10,000 sheep down to the sea-side
and brought them all back again. When I suggested to him, before his
tale was at an end, that he had lost many of them,--I had heard more
then of what had been lost than of any that were saved,--he answered me
with indignant denial. He at that time had been a hero. But there were
few such heroes. As the mobs followed, one upon the heels of another,
the grass disappeared before them. They were driven hither and thither,
till they died; but there was no grass. And it is easy to conceive
the sort of welcome which these intruders would receive at such a
time,--how the shepherds would be desired to move on, and do their six
miles a day whatever might become of them afterwards, how hated they
would be, coming with their flocks like locusts upon a country that was
bare enough at that time even without such strangers! And the life of
those who followed their flocks week after week and month after month
could not itself have been very pleasant. Among Australian graziers
young men are accustomed to this work. It is no uncommon thing that a
flock of sheep,--they call them mobs in Australia,--perhaps four or
five thousand strong, should have to travel six hundred miles, either
being brought home by a purchaser or taken to some city for sale. There
must be necessarily five or six men to accompany them, with seven
or eight horses, and probably a cart. They kill their own meat as
they go; but they carry their flour and tea, and perhaps a tent. They
enter no houses and spend little or no money. They travel on their six
miles a day;--and though their work be very tedious, it is endurable
as long as each day’s work is a portion of a successful commercial
operation. But at this terrible time there was no idea of commerce.
As they went along, the country was strewed with the bodies of the
useless animals, and the only effort was to move on in some district
giving still sufficient grass to keep the flock alive. Thousands were
slaughtered to reduce the numbers in the scanty herbage, and I heard of
one flock-owner who at last adopted the course of drowning a thousand
in the sea. In Adelaide a large flock was offered to a merchant, who
was also a squatter, at 1_s._ a head. He offered 6_d._ for them, and
rejoiced afterwards that his bidding was not taken. At that time sheep
were simply an encumbrance. There was imposed on each owner the duty
of trying to save his property, but without the hope that he should
succeed in doing so. It was a bad time then, in South Australia, for in
the same year,--the season of 1865-66,--the wheat crop was also low.
But the price of wool was high;--and therefore, though many squatters
fell,--they who were already weak on their legs or in debt,--the strong
men won their way through, and survived their losses.
After that came a great depression in the price of wool, and the colony
was again at a low ebb. In March, 1866, unwashed South Australian wool
fetched 1_s._ 2½_d._ a pound. In March, 1869, it fetched 8_d._ In
looking at the difference between these times, the reader must remember
that the squatters’ liabilities were the same with the low price as
they had been with the high. The normal squatter generally owes money
to his banker or merchant, for which he pays some rate of interest
varying from 8 to 11 per cent.,--and not unfrequently a percentage
even higher than that. I have endeavoured in the former volume to
explain his condition in this respect. With unwashed wool at 1_s._
2_d._ or 1_s._ 3_d._ a pound not only will his interest not trouble
him, but his debt will diminish apparently without any effort on his
own part. But with wool at 8_d._ his debt, if it be at all heavy, will
grow. The sum he realises from his wool will not pay the expenses of
his men, keep himself, and pay his interest. After a year or two with
such a result the merchant will feel that he is becoming insecure
and will foreclose. Then the squatter is no longer a squatter, but
takes probably to the care of sheep for some more fortunate man. In
March, 1869, 8_d._ a pound was the price for unwashed or greasy South
Australian wool; in 1870 it was 8½_d._; in February, 1870, it was again
8_d._ These had been three bad years, and many men were either ruined
or on the brink of ruin; but in July, 1871, it had risen to 11_d._ a
pound; in September, 1871, to 1_s._ 0½_d._; and in March, 1872, it
was as high as 1_s._ 2_d._ and 1_s._ 3_d._ Twenty thousand sheep is
by no means a large flock. On the contrary a squatter with no more
than 20,000 is a small man. But a difference of 6_d._ in the pound on
unwashed wool from 20,000 sheep amounts to about £3,000. It will be
exactly that sum if each sheep give 6 lbs., which is a high but not
an excessive average for unwashed wool. The expense of maintaining a
run with 20,000 sheep, including the cost of the squatter’s own home,
may be put at £2,000 per annum, being £100 for every thousand sheep.
It will at once be seen how rich the poor man may at once become by
such a change in the circumstances of the wool trade. And it will be
seen also how speculative and precarious such a business must be. The
wool-grower of Australia watches the price-list for England with an
intense and natural anxiety. He can do little or nothing to regulate
the market. He cannot understand why it is that the fluctuations should
be so great. But he obeys the market, too often with an implicit
confidence which it does not deserve. When prices are high he increases
his flocks,--and with his flocks he increases his debt also. He is
almost negligent how much he may owe if wool be high. The temptation is
so great that if his credit be good he will almost assuredly increase
his flock to the bearing capability of his run. Three years of high
prices will, perhaps, make him a rich man. But a fall again,--a speedy
fall,--will bring him to the dust. It must be remembered that many of
these men are dealing not with 20,000 sheep, but with more than five
times that number; sometimes with more than ten times that number.
When the large squatter really owns his flocks,--when he owes nothing
to his merchant,--then even at the worst of times, with wool even at
8_d._, he does well; and in that condition, when wool rises he becomes
a millionaire. Things, as I write now, are all rose-coloured with the
squatters;--but it may well be that before these words are published
there shall come a change.
I went about two hundred miles north of Adelaide, so that I might get
outside of Goyder’s rain-line, and see something of the country in
which rain is so scarce. I cannot say that the country is attractive to
a visitor. There is very little to gratify the eye, and almost nothing
to satisfy the taste. The South Australian free-selecter makes for
himself a plentiful and I hope a happy home;--but he does not surround
himself with prettiness or even with neatness. The greatest part of
our journey, however, was beyond the free-selecter’s limits, through
a country that was brown, treeless, and absolutely uninteresting.
I was frequently told that the run through which I was passing was
excellently well adapted for sheep, and that the squatter who owned
it was doing well. But I saw no grass and very few sheep. A stranger
cannot but remark, throughout the pastoral districts of Australia,
how seldom he sees sheep as he travels along. As in this country they
do not carry above one sheep to ten acres, and as the animals would
hardly be observed if each sheep maintained solitary possession of his
own ten-acred domain, the result is not wonderful. But the traveller
expects to see sheep and is disappointed. It may be that he will also
expect emus and kangaroos, and he will generally be disappointed also
in regard to them. Kangaroos I certainly have seen in great numbers,
though by no means so often as I expected. An emu running wild I never
did see. Tame emus round the houses in towns are very common, and
of emus’ eggs there is a plethora. On this journey I saw hardly any
living animals. We went with four horses, at about six miles an hour,
through a brown ugly district, which was bounded, nearly the whole
way, by low hills, and on which there is no sign that timber has ever
grown there. We put up for the night at the station of a non-resident
squatter, in seeking which we lost our way in the dark. For an hour or
so I felt uneasy, thinking that we should have to “camp out,” without
any preparation made for such a picnic;--but at last we were attracted
by lights, and a party of us who had gone forth on foot reached the
house. We met there a young man who was waiting for a companion, with
whom he intended to make his way from the centre of Australia to the
western coast. It seemed that his party would be lamentably deficient
in means for such an expedition, and that he had hardly the energy for
such an undertaking. In this work of Australian exploring men have to
carry flour and tea with them, and to be satisfied to live upon flour
and tea,--to protect themselves from the blacks,--to run the risk
of failing water,--and to be constant, from month to month, without
excitement to keep their courage warm. Our new acquaintance seemed to
be going because he might as well go as let it alone;--but it may be
that under that deportment were hidden all the energies of a Marco
Polo, a Columbus, a Sturt, or a Livingstone. We fared sumptuously at
the absent squatter’s station, and went on our way the next morning.
I had not then seen a salt-bush country, though I subsequently passed
through such a region in a part of New South Wales, of which I said
a few words in speaking of that colony. Here, in the salt-bush of
South Australia, there was not a blade of grass when I visited it. The
salt-bush itself is an ugly grey shrub, about two feet high, which
seems to possess the power of bringing forth its foliage without
moisture. This foliage is impregnated with salt, and both sheep and
cattle will feed upon it and thrive. It does not produce wool of the
best class,--but it is regarded as being a very safe food for sheep,
because it rarely fails. At the period of my visit the country was in
want of rain; and I was assured that when the rain, then expected,
should fall, the surface of the ground would be covered with grass. I
can only say that I never saw a country more bare of grass. But for
miles together,--over hundreds of square miles,--the salt-bush spreads
itself; and as long as that lives the sheep will not be starved.
Sometimes this shrub was diversified by a blue bush, a bush very much
the same as the salt-bush in form, though of a dull slate-colour
instead of grey. On this the sheep will not feed. There is also a
poisonous shrub which the sheep will eat,--as to which there seemed to
be an opinion that it was fatal only to travelling sheep, and not to
those regularly pastured on the country.
The run which I visited bears about 120,000 sheep,--and they wander
over about 1,200,000 acres. For all these sheep, and for all this
extent of sheep-run, it is necessary to obtain water by means of wells,
sunk to various depths from fifty to one hundred and twenty feet. The
water can always be found,--not indeed always at the first attempt, but
so surely that no land in that region need be deserted for want of it.
The water when procured is invariably more or less brackish;--but the
sheep thrive on it and like it. The wells are generally worked by men,
sometimes by horses; but on large runs, where capital has been made
available, the water is raised by windmills. Such was the case at the
place I visited. The water is brought up into large tanks, holding from
30,000 to 60,000 gallons each, and from these tanks is distributed into
troughs, made of stone and cement. These are carried out in different
directions, perhaps two or three from each tank, and are so arranged
that sheep can be watered from either side. If therefore there be
three such troughs, the sheep in six different paddocks can be watered
from one tank,--the well being so placed as to admit egress to it from
various paddocks, all converging on the same centre. In this way 10,000
sheep will be watered at one well. As these paddocks contain perhaps 40
square miles each, or over 25,000 acres, the animals have some distance
to travel before they can get a drink. In cold weather they do not
require to drink above once in three days;--in moderate weather once
in two days;--in very hot weather they will lie near to the troughs
and not trouble themselves to go afield in search of food. On the run
which I visited there were twenty of these wells, which, with their
appurtenances of tanks, and troughs, and windmills, had cost about
£500 each;--and there had been about as many failures in the search of
water, wells which had been dug but at which no water was found;--and
these had not been sunk without considerable expenditure. It may
therefore be understood that a man requires some capital before he can
set himself up as a grower of wool on a large scale in South Australia.
The state of the meat market in England is already affecting the
South Australian squatter very materially,--as also the squatters in
the other colonies. I left England in May, 1871, and at that time
Australian meats had only begun to make their way in the London
markets. In speaking of the Queensland meat-preserving companies as I
found them in August and September, 1871, I spoke almost with doubt
of the trade;--for there was doubt when I was in Queensland. But when
I was in South Australia in April, 1872, the trade was established,
and squatters were already calculating that the carcase should not in
future be made to give way altogether to the wool. Meat, which is in
round figures 10_d._ a pound in London, costs but 2_d._ a pound in
South Australia. Then arises the question whether meat can be carried
half-way round the globe in a good condition, or whether its nature
makes it impossible that good mutton should be imported from Australia
as well as good wool. That bad mutton may be imported,--that is, mutton
which has been changed from good to bad by processes of cooking and
packing previous to exportation,--we have known for some time. That any
Australian meat has as yet reached the English market in a state that
would enable it to compete with English meat, I do not believe. I feel
sure that none has done so. But every mail during the latter months of
my sojourn in Australia brought out tidings that the trade was on the
increase,--so that when I left the colonies sheep were worth 3_s._ or
4_s._ a head more for butchers than they were twelve months earlier,
when I arrived at Melbourne. Three shillings a head is certainly not
much on a sheep in England,--where the animal at twelve months old may
be worth from £3 10_s._ to £4. But in Australia, where 10_s._ a head
is even now a good price, the difference is very large. When I reached
Melbourne in July, 1871, I was told at a meat-preserving company that
they could not afford to give more than 6_s._ a sheep. All that goes
home to England is, after all, but a morsel to the markets of that
little island; but to this wide continent the preparation of that
morsel is most important.
In the district of which I am speaking the sheep are all
“paddocked,”--that is to say, kept in by fences,--so that shepherding
is unnecessary. I hope that I have already made clear to my reader the
difference between shepherding sheep and paddocking sheep. I found
that brush fences had been made at the rate of about £23 a mile. A
brush fence, made of loose timber and wood, is not so neat as a wire
fence, but it is equally serviceable for sheep;--and when fences
have to be made by hundreds of miles, the difference in expenditure
is considerable. A wire fence that will keep in sheep and lambs, can
hardly be put up for less than £40 a mile. Five wires would suffice for
sheep, but the lamb requires a lower wire to restrain his innocence.
Nothing, I think, gives a surer proof of the wealth of the Australian
colonies generally, than the immense amount of fencing that has been
put up within the last ten years. A run of twenty miles square, or
containing 400 square miles, equal to 256,000 acres, is by no means
excessive in size, though it is about as big as a small English
county. The squatter who intends to paddock his sheep instead of
hiring shepherds to go about with them, has to divide his area into
perhaps twenty different paddocks. Should he do this, with the smallest
possible amount of distance of partitions, he would have to make 240
miles of fencing. At the station which I visited we had come again upon
timber, though the country was by no means thickly wooded. But when
there is no timber near, the cost of fencing is more than doubled.
It is of course understood that the normal squatter is a tenant of the
Crown. In Victoria the great wool-growers now own for the most part
their own lands;--and the purchase of pasture lands has become general
elsewhere under the pressure of the free-selecter. But the genuine
squatter is he who sits upon government land for which he pays a rent
to the colony; and in South Australia such is still the condition of
the larger wool-growers. Outside of Goyder’s range,--which is the South
Australian squatter’s proper region, the rental varies according to
the value of the land and the nature of the pasture. A computation is
made of the number of sheep the land should carry, and the squatter is
charged 6_d._ a sheep on the best land, 4_d._ on the second best, and
2_d._ a sheep on the poorest. If he should keep more sheep than the
number computed, he pays at the same rate for the excess. But for the
number computed he must pay, even though he should not keep so many. I
found that this arrangement gave satisfaction even to the squatters,--a
result which has certainly not been common in the Australian colonies
generally. On runs within the line of rainfall, this rule as to
the rate at which sheep are pastured does not prevail; but such
runs have generally been purchased, and are the freehold property
of the wool-growers, or are occupied as commonage by the owners of
neighbouring freeholds.
I feel it to be impossible to describe with accuracy the effect upon
pastoral speculators of a rise in the price of wool amounting to 80 per
cent., the whole difference going to profit. My readers may perhaps
be able to imagine the present condition of the squatter’s mind. “Non
secus in bonis Ab insolenti temperatam Lætitia,” are words which not
unfrequently rise to the minds of the observer. It is, however, very
much to the advantage of the colony at large that this prosperity
should be continued. When wool is low every interest in Australia
is depressed. Even mining shares do not go off so readily under the
verandahs when the pockets of the squatters are not full of money.
I also visited a large cattle station in the south of the colony, on
the eastern side of the lakes. It belongs to a rich Scotch absentee
landowner who sits in our parliament, and I will only say of it that
I think I ate the best beef there that ever fell in my way. Like
other things beef must have a best and a worst, and I think that
the Portalloch beef was the best. I heard that there was beef as
good,--perhaps even better,--up at a large cattle station far north;
but the information reached me from the owner of the northern station
who was with us at Portalloch. As I found his information on all other
subjects to be reliable, I am bound to believe him in this. If it
be so, he must be the very prince of beef-growers. On the road from
Adelaide to the lakes,--on the lake side of the Mount Lofty hills,--we
stayed a night at the little town of Strathalbyn. Afterwards, on my
route back to Victoria, which I made by steamer from Port Adelaide to
Macdonnel Bay, and thence overland across the border, I stayed also at
the little town of Gambier-Town, under Mount Gambier. I mention these
places because they were the cleanest, prettiest, pleasantest little
towns that I saw during my Australian travels. I would say that they
were like well-built thriving English villages of the best class, were
it not that they both contained certain appliances and an architectural
pretension which hardly belong to villages. When the place in question
is dirty, unfinished, and forlorn,--when the attempt at doing something
considerable in the way of founding a town seems to have been a
failure,--the appearance of this pretension is very disagreeable. But
at Strathalbyn and Gambier-Town there had been success, and they had
that look about them which makes a stranger sometimes fancy in a new
place that it might be well for him to come and abide there to the end.
They are both in South Australia. Perhaps I was specially moved to
admiration because the inns were good.
The country around Mount Gambier is very pretty, and un-Australian.
There are various lakes,--evidently the craters of old volcanoes,--lying
high up among hills. And among them and about them the grass is green,
and the ferns grow wild,--much to the disgust of the owners of the
land, upon whom they have lately come as a new infliction. And the
trees stand about in a park-like fashion. The country here was some
time since given up to agriculture, and the Gambier-Town people were
proud of their wheat. But the grass grows again now,--artificial grass,
and a large herd of Lincoln sheep is in fashion,--partly from the
increased price of mutton, but chiefly because at this moment the long
coarse staple of the Lincoln wool is high priced. The weight of wool
given by these sheep is very much greater than that of the Merino.
Squatters say just at present that the Lincoln sheep pay better than
the Merino, where the land will carry the former. I doubt, however,
whether this state of things will last.
I was told, when in the neighbourhood, that the farmers from
Gambier-Town had gone across the border into Victoria, tempted by the
terms on which free-selecters there were allowed to buy land. Many no
doubt had done so, settling themselves in the western district of that
colony. But when I was again in Victoria, I was told that there was
another exodus of farmers commencing, and that men were going back to
South Australia under other temptations offered by the South Australian
laws. Considering the condition of the population and its sparseness,
considering also the great blessing of settled prospects, I could
not but feel daily how great was the pity that there should be six
different sets of Australian laws for the people of the six colonies.
There are in all about 1,700,000 of them, and they agree to be united
on no subject.
I will venture here to allude to a matter very far removed indeed from
the general scope of this book. Before leaving England a friend of mine
had put into my hand a volume of ballads, which had been sent home to
him from Australia, called “Bush Ballads, or Galloping Rhymes.” He told
me that the author had been a young Scotch gentleman who had gone out
young, but had not done well. He had taken to a sporting life, and had
then fallen into a sad melancholy, and had--died. I read the ballads,
and was greatly struck by their energy. It was evident that the writer
of them had lived out of the literary world, and that he had lacked
that care and spared himself that labour which criticism and study will
produce, and which are necessary to finish work;--but of the man’s
genius there could be no doubt. There was one called “Britomarte,”
which alone entitled him to be called a poet. I found that he had lived
in this neighbourhood, near to Mount Gambier, and that he had been
well loved by many friends. For a while he was in the South Australian
parliament, but parliamentary work had not suited him. He was given
to the riding of racers,--and was prone to write about horses and
the race-course. In the literary traces which I found of him in the
neighbourhood, there was but scanty allusion to other matters, except
to racing, and to the melancholy, thoughtful, solitary, heart-eating
life which a bushman lives. His horse had been his companion when he
was alone,--and when he got back to the world horses were his delight.
They are seldom safe companions for a man prone to excitement. I heard
wondrous tales of the courage of his riding. As a steeple-chase rider
he was well known in Melbourne; but few seemed to have heard of him as
a poet. It is as a poet that I speak of him now. His name was A. L.
Gordon.
CHAPTER V.
MINERALS.
South Australia is a copper colony. Victoria, New South Wales, and
Queensland are pre-eminently golden. Tasmania is doing a little
business in gold, but by no means enough to give her importance.
Western Australia has lead-mines, though as yet she has derived but
little wealth from them; she also is waiting for gold, hoping that
it may yet turn up. South Australia is undoubtedly auriferous. Not
only have specks of gold been found as in Western Australia, but
diggers have worked at the trade, and have lived upon it, and the
industry is still continued. At a publican’s house I saw bottles of
gold, which he made it a part of his trade to buy from diggers. At a
certain bank in Adelaide I saw a cabinet with drawers half full of
gold, which it was a part of the business of the bankers to buy from
publicans or other intermediate agents. But this was all digger’s gold,
not miner’s gold,--gold got by little men in little quantities from
surface-washing. Of gold mines proper there are none as yet in the
colony. That there will be such found and worked up in the northern
territory, within the tropics, is now an opinion prevalent in Adelaide.
Whether there be ground for such hope I have no evidence on which to
form an opinion; but should this be the case, the northern territory
will probably become a separate colony. Of this, however, I shall
have to speak again in another chapter. Up to the time of my visit to
Adelaide gold to the value of three-quarters of a million sterling had
as yet been found in South Australia. This, of course, is as nothing
to the produce of the three eastern colonies, and therefore South
Australia is not hitherto entitled to consider herself as a golden land.
But what she has wanted in gold she has made up in copper. And in some
respects the copper has, I think, been better than gold, as affording
a more wholesome class of labour. There is less of gambling in the
business,--less of gambling even among the shareholders and managing
people, and infinitely less temptation to gamble among the workmen. The
fact that the metal must be dealt with in large quantities, that vast
weights must be moved, and that heavy machinery must be employed, that
no man can find enough to support himself for six months by a stroke
of luck and carry it away in his waistcoat pocket, gives a sobriety to
the employment which the search after gold often lacks. It is quite
true that latterly the great discoveries of Australia have needed works
as ponderous, shafts as deep, and machinery as costly, as any other
description of mining enterprise; but, nevertheless, the enormous
wealth which may be represented by a small quantity has a direct
tendency to create a speculative spirit in the minds of all employed.
The miner who earns his £2 10_s._ a week by blasting a quartz reef may
work as steadily, and certainly does work as hard, as he who is picking
up coal or copper-bearing dirt, but he is conscious all through that it
is gold upon which he is working, and his imagination, aroused by the
richness of the metal he is seeking, is ever pushing him on to personal
speculation;--till the goal before his eyes is not the few hundred
pounds which he certainly could save by industry as a miner, but the
fortune which he might possibly make by some happy circumstance in his
favour as a speculator. The circumstance now and again does occur; but
the result is not always happy. There is much less of such incentive to
gambling among copper mines;--though it is not altogether absent, for
copper mines are also worked upon tribute.
The Kapunda copper-mine is the oldest in the colony, having been
discovered in 1843, by two gentlemen engaged in squatting operations.
It was considered to be a great day in the colony when the first ore
was raised from this mine on January 8, 1844. The Kapunda mines are
still worked; but their celebrity was soon eclipsed by the famous Burra
Burra mine, and has now been altogether cast into the shade by the
mines at Wallaroo and Moonta. I did not visit Kapunda, but I was told
that the town itself is prosperous and well ordered.
The Burra Burra copper-mines, if not the next discovered in South
Australia, were the next of any magnitude, and were for some years the
great source of South Australian mining wealth. They have had a much
wider fame than those of Kapunda. They are about ninety miles nearly
due north from Adelaide, and they have the advantage of a railway for
the whole distance. The one great railway of the colony runs from
Adelaide to Kooringa, the name of the town close to which the Burra
Burra mines are situated, with a branch to Kapunda, of which place I
have already spoken. Copper therefore may be said to have made the
existing railways of the colony. The copper at Burra Burra was first
found by a shepherd, named Pickitt, in 1845. What became of Pickitt I
never heard; but two companies were at once formed for the purchase
from the government of 20,000 acres under special survey. This was the
land in which the copper was known to lie, but its exact whereabouts
was still a mining mystery. Of these two companies one was called the
Nobs, as being specially aristocratic; the other, which was plebeian,
were the Snobs. They combined, as neither could raise sufficient money
alone, and the government could not or would not grant a special survey
under a fixed amount which either separately was unable to pay. The
land was then divided, and the two companies drew lots. The Snobs got
the northern portion and all the copper, and the Nobs were driven to
resell their moiety for pastoral purposes. Where the copper did lie, it
lay absolutely on the surface. There was as it were a rock of copper,
so that deep sinking was not necessary. During the first six years of
the mine’s history 80,000 tons of ore were shipped to England, giving a
profit of nearly half a million sterling. The company had begun with a
capital of only £1,500 over and above the sum expended on the purchase
of the land. Those were the palmy days of the Burra Burra mines, of
which we used to hear much in England.
In 1851 the miners, attracted by the new gold of the next colony,
rushed away to the Victorian gold-diggings, and the Burra Burra were
almost deserted. But after a time the men returned, and English miners
were got over from Cornwall, and the success was continued. In 1859,
1,170 persons were employed there. But gradually the surface copper was
worked out, and the great attraction of other and still richer mines at
Wallaroo and Moonta paled the ineffectual fire of Burra Burra. For a
time the works were almost ceased. When I visited the place in 1872 new
operations under a new management had commenced, and many in the colony
believed that a complete resuscitation would take place. There were,
however, not a great number of hands employed, and the works going
on,--which were on a large scale,--seemed to be preparatory to copper
production rather than themselves productive. There are three towns
adjacent to these mines, Kooringa, which I have already named, Redruth,
and Aberdeen. Thrown together they make one broken, meandering,
unfinished street, which is by no means tempting to the ordinary
traveller. It is hard to say how these things arrange themselves; but
the wealth of the great Burra Burra mine certainly has not succeeded in
making a great Burra Burra city.
But Wallaroo is now the greatest name in South Australian copper-mines,
and Moonta is second to it. Between Gulf St. Vincent and Spencer’s Gulf
there lies a large outstretching territory, bearing nearly as close a
semblance to a man’s leg as does Italy, called Yorke’s Peninsula. At
the top of this, at the part of the leg farthest from the foot, close
on the shore of Spencer’s Gulf, and therefore on the outside of the
leg, is Wallaroo. Here, previous to 1860, a squatter held a station
for sheep, which even for that purpose was by no means encouraging. As
a spot to be inhabited by men and women nothing could be more dreary
or unfortunate. There was no water, and even the wells when dug gave
forth water so brackish that it could not be used. The vegetation was
stunted and miserable. The ground was sandy and barren. Here, on 17th
December, 1859, a shepherd, named Boor, found a piece of copper, and
brought the tidings to his master. Within a few months £80,000 had been
advanced for working copper-mines by a mercantile firm in Adelaide. The
squatter was in the way to become a very rich man, and the shepherd had
become a mining hero. In the very next year another shepherd, named
Ryan, found another piece of copper at a place called Moonta, about ten
miles from Wallaroo, on the same sheep station,--and this was at once
worked by the same persons. This other shepherd was also enriched, and
the squatter became a millionaire. Perhaps few mines were ever opened
in which there has been a quicker, and at the same time a steadier,
mercantile progress than in those of Wallaroo and Moonta.
There are five distinct towns, all created by these mines, standing
within ten miles of each other, containing together about 17,000
inhabitants; and previous to 1860 there was no house in the district
but a wretched cottage, hardly better than a hut. The two townships
laid out by government are Kadina, near to the Wallaroo mines, and
Moonta, close to those bearing that name. But these mines had the
inestimable benefit of being near the sea;--and now there is a third
town, called Port Wallaroo, from which the copper is shipped, joined
both to Kadina and to Moonta by railway. Port Wallaroo is a thriving
harbour, and is perhaps the largest of the five, as here are built the
smelting works at which the ore is turned into copper. For a time the
ore was sent over to Swansea and was smelted there,--but as the two
companies became rich and powerful, smelting works were opened, and
the copper is now sent to England in bars. But the miners do not live
either at Kadina, at Moonta Town, or at Port Wallaroo. They have built
habitations for themselves round the very mouths of the shafts, and
in this way two other vast villages have sprung up, called Wallaroo
Mines and Moonta Mines. Very singular places they are,--consisting of
groups of low cottages, clustering together in streets, one street
being added on to another as the need for them arises, not built with
any design such as is usual in the towns of new countries, but created
by the private enterprise of the inhabitants,--and in fact put up
in opposition to the law. The surface is government land leased out
specially for mining purposes, and not for building purposes. No one
is entitled to build on it. There are the townships, duly laid out
in accordance with the law, close by, on which any one may build who
desires to live there, purchasing his lot for the purpose in the proper
way. But the workman’s need to be near his work has been too strong for
the law, and these towns, much bigger than the towns of the townships
proper, have established themselves.
In no instance is the centralizing tendency of the government in young
countries and amidst scanty populations more visible than in their
management of new towns; and it never struck me more forcibly than
at Wallaroo and Moonta. It is either necessary, or the government
thinks that it is necessary, that everything should be arranged for
the new-coming inhabitants, and that they should be called upon to
manage nothing for themselves. Roads and bridges are made from the
taxes. The land is divided out into its sections by the government.
Any comer may buy his section at a certain price, and may build his
house,--but he must deal with the government officers, and must build
his house according to specification. The idea, no doubt, is not only
compatible with freedom of action, but is intended to encourage it, and
springs from a theory of democratic equality. It is the duty of the
government to see that one man does not ride over another, that the
smallest and the poorest may have their share of the public wealth of
the community,--that as far as possible there shall be no very small
men and no very big men. The Utopian politician travels as far as he
can away from the despotism of patriarchal rule, but he travels in a
circle and comes back to it. The minister, though he be chosen by the
people, becomes a despot; and, like other despots, he is forced to rule
so that he may please his favourites. The favourites of the minister
in a democratic community are they who can support him in parliament;
and on their behalf he finds himself too often forced to read the law
either this way or that. In these mining townships the land sold for
building had been sold with certain protective privileges. They who
bought were not only entitled to keep shops, but were encouraged to buy
land by the assurance that no shops should be kept by others within a
certain distance outside the township. Consequently no miner’s wife
can buy an ounce of tea, or a yard of ribbon, or a delf cup, without
going out of the bigger concourse of people to the lesser to make her
purchase; nor can the miner, if he fancies that the prices at Kadina
or at Moonta are too high for him, try the question by opening a rival
shop for himself in his own immediate locality. In these large mining
villages nothing can be bought and nothing sold. In reality the man
when he has constructed a house has not even a house to sell. He should
have built it in the official town if he desired to avail himself of
his property.
The matter is mentioned here chiefly because I thus get an opportunity
of alluding to general interference of government in matters which
with us are altogether beyond its scope. No doubt such interference
is necessary in new communities. Government must do more when nothing
has already been done, than it can do with an old-established nation.
It must make roads. It must apportion the land. It must take upon its
shoulders for a while the duties which fall afterwards upon local
officers. But the tendency is to centralize power, and to put a
privilege of interfering into the hands of individuals, which privilege
can be and is improperly used for political purposes, and which to an
observer from an old country seems to be antagonistic to liberty. I do
not know that the miners at Wallaroo and Moonta suffer very much from
their restricted rights. I do not think that they know that they suffer
at all. But I groaned for them in spirit when I found that not one
among them could put up a penn’orth of barley-sugar for sale in his own
cottage windows. Such restriction would very quickly create a rebellion
in England.
I went down a mine at Wallaroo, finding it always to be a duty to go
down a shaft on visiting any mining locality,--and I came up again.
But I cannot say that I saw anything when I was down there. The
descent was 450 feet, and I felt relieved when I was once more on the
surface. I walked below among various levels, and had the whole thing
explained to me;--but for no useful purpose whatever. It was very hard
work, and I think I should have begged for mercy had any additional
level been proposed to me; as it was, I went through it like a man,
without complaint,--and was simply very much fatigued. As I rose to
the air I swore I would never go down another mine, and hitherto I
have kept my vow. I found that miners working for simple wages could
earn about £1 18_s._ a week, and that men on tribute would realise
something more,--perhaps about £2 5_s._ The “tribute” men undoubtedly
worked harder, as they were toiling on their own behalf, reaping the
advantage of their increased labour. In speaking of the Victorian
gold mines, I have endeavoured to explain the system of tribute,--by
which the miner is enabled to share both in the profit and in the
risk of the speculation. No doubt the result in the raising of copper
is the same as in the finding of gold; but the transaction is by no
means equally speculative. The man who works for gold on tribute may
find none, and be called upon not only to work on, but also to defray
expenses. Whereas the miner on tribute in a copper-mine does not go
into the affair till it is known that the copper is there. According to
the percentage of ore which is extracted, his earnings will be higher
or lower;--but his earnings are assured, and, as the result of the
arrangement, by working harder than he would otherwise work he simply
earns more than he would otherwise earn.
At the Wallaroo mines I found a set of black natives employed on the
surface work, at regular wages of 4_s._ 4_d._ a day, or 26_s._ a week.
There were about ten of them, and I was told that they had been there
for three months, and had been as regular in their attendance as white
men. This was the only instance I found in Australia in which I myself
came upon any number of these aborigines in regular and voluntary
employment. I have seen a man at one station and a woman at another as
to whom I have been told that they were regarded as part of the regular
establishment,--but it always seemed that their work was of a fitful
kind. I learned also that in one or two of the colonies, in Western
Australia and in Queensland, they are drilled and used as policemen for
the control of their own countrymen;--but such service as this I can
hardly regard as steady, regular work. Here the experiment was said
to have answered for the period that I have named. I came across one
of these men, who was supposed to be a little ill, and therefore not
on duty at the moment. He was dressed in a very genteel manner,--with
clothes softer and finer than a white miner would wear even when on a
holiday. He was very gentle and civil, but not very communicative. He
bought clothes with his money, he said, and food,--and the rest he put
away. He did not resent the impertinence of my inquiries, but was not
quite willing to gratify my curiosity. My desire was to learn whether
he had realised the advantage of laying up and permanently possessing
property. I doubt whether he had, although he did mutter something as
to putting away his wages. He seemed much more willing to talk about
the cold in the head under which he had been suffering than of his
general condition in life.
At the smelting works of Wallaroo men were earning higher wages than in
the mines;--something like an average of £2 10_s._ a week;--but their
hours of labour were longer. The miners work day and night, by shifts
of eight hours each. The smelters work also throughout the twenty-four
hours,--but they work only in two sets. I should think that twelve
hours by a furnace must be worse than eight below ground. The smelters,
however, probably do not keep at it during the whole time. The smelters
I found had, almost to a man, come from Wales, whereas so many of the
miners were Cornish men as to give to Moonta and Wallaroo the air of
Cornish towns.
Coal for the smelting is brought from Newcastle, in New South Wales;
but the inferior ore is sent to other smelting works at Newcastle,--so
that the ships which bring the coal may go back with freights. The
copper therefore is sent to the European markets, not only from Port
Wallaroo, but also from Newcastle.
When I was in the colony in April, 1872, copper, which in April, 1871,
had been worth only £74 per ton, rose to £105,--so that the happy
owners of mines in a working condition were revelling in a success not
inferior to that of the squatters. Copper and wool were both so high
that the fortune of the colony was supposed to be made. I found that
there were no less than 70 “reputed” mines in the colony at the close
of the year 1870, of which 38 were reported to have been then at work.
But sundry even of these 38 were not supposed to be remunerative. Many
of the 70 so-called “reputed” mines are mere mining claims, which are
held under government as possible future speculations. Those which are
distant from the sea and distant also from railways cannot be worked
with a profit, let the ore be ever so rich. The cost of the carriage
destroys the wealth of the copper. At present when men talk of the
mining wealth of South Australia they allude to Wallaroo and Moonta.
I have said that these places are joined together by a railway,--but
they are not joined to any other place by rail. The traveller to
Wallaroo is forced to go from Adelaide either by coach or by steamer
round the Gulfs. I was taken there by one of the great copper-mining
authorities of the colony, and we elected to go by coach, in order
that I might see something of the country. The coach was a mail-coach,
with four horses, running regularly on the road every day;--but on our
return journey we were absolutely lost in the bush,--coach, coachman,
horses, mails, passengers, and all. The man was trying a new track,
and took us so far away from the old track that no one knew where we
were. At last we found ourselves on the seashore. Of course it will be
understood that there was no vestige of a road or pathway. Travellers
are often “bushed” in Australia. They wander off their paths and are
lost amidst the forests. In this instance the whole mail-coach was
“bushed.” When we came upon the sea, and no one could say what sea it
was, I felt that the adventure was almost more than interesting.
CHAPTER VI.
THE NORTHERN TERRITORY.--TELEGRAPH AND RAILWAY.
There are not a few in the colonies who declare that South Australia,
as a name for the colony which uses it, is a misnomer. Nearly the whole
of Victoria is south of nearly the whole of South Australia. Adelaide
is considerably to the north of Melbourne, and but very little to the
south of Sydney. Consequently those foolish English people at home are
actually making the stupidest mistakes! Letters have been addressed to
Melbourne, New South Wales, South Australia. The story is very current,
and is often told to show the want of geographical education under
which the old country suffers. I have not, however, been able to trace
the address to later years, and at any time between 1837 and 1851 the
details as given by the letter-writer were only too correct. Melbourne
did belong to New South Wales, and certainly was in the most southern
district of Australia. But if the name South Australia was bad, or
falsely describing the colony, when first given, it is infinitely worse
now. Then the proposed confines of the young settlement lay around
Spencer Gulf, and Gulf St. Vincent, and Encounter Bay, which armlets of
the sea break up into the land from the eastern extremity of the Great
Australian Bight,--as the curve in the sea line of the southern coast
of the continent is called. The new colonists had settled themselves,
or, when the name was chosen, were proposing to settle themselves, at
the centre of the south coast, and the name was fair enough. But since
those days South Australia has extended herself northwards till she
has made good her claim up to a line far north of that which divides
Queensland from New South Wales, and now she is supposed to run right
through the continent up to the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Indian
Ocean, so that she thoroughly divides the vast desert tracts of Western
Australia from the three eastern colonies, Queensland, New South Wales,
and Victoria. As far as area is concerned, she is at present as much
northern as southern. In some of our maps the northern half of these
territories is separated by a line from the southern, as though it
were a separate colony;--but it has had no name of its own yet given
to it; its lands are at the disposition of the government of South
Australia; its very few inhabitants are subject to South Australian
laws; and it is in fact a part of South Australia. It contains over
500,000 square miles; but, with the exception of one or two very small
settlements on the coast, it has no white population. The aborigines
who wander through it have been little disturbed, and nothing was known
of it till the great enterprise of running a telegraph wire through it
from south to north had been conceived and commenced. Now the northern
territory has come into fashion, men talk about it in the colonies, and
it is becoming necessary that even here in England the fact should be
recognised that there is such a land, which will probably before long
demand to be instituted as a separate colony.
The telegraph posts and wires by which the Australian colonies are now
connected with Great Britain are already an established fact. This line
enters the Australian continent from Java, at a point on the northern
coast called Port Darwin. At Port Darwin there is a small settlement
called Palmerston, around which land had been sold to the extent of
500,000 acres when I was in the colony, and this has been selected as
the landing-place of European news. The colonisation of the northern
territory is thus begun,--and there can be little doubt but that a
town, and then a settlement, and then a colony, will form themselves.
When the scheme of the telegraph was first put on foot the colony
of South Australia undertook to make the entire line across the
continent,--the submarine line to Java and the line thence on to
Singapore and home to Europe being in other hands. It was an immense
undertaking for a community so small in number, and one as to which
many doubted the power of the colony to complete it. But it has
been completed. I had heard, before I left England in 1871, that an
undertaking had been given by the government of South Australia to
finish the work by January 1, 1872. This certainly was not done, but
very great efforts were made to accomplish it, and the failure was
caused by the violence of nature rather than by any want of energy.
Unexpected and prolonged rains interfered with the operations and
greatly retarded them. The world is used to the breaking of such
promises in regard to time, and hardly ever expects that a contractor
for a large work shall be punctual within a month or two. The world
may well excuse this breach of contract, for surely no contractor ever
had a harder job of work on hand. The delay would not be worth mention
here, were it not that the leading South Australians of the day, headed
by the governor, had been so anxious to show that they could really do
all that they had undertaken to perform, and were equally disappointed
at their own partial failure.
The distance of the line to be made was about 1,800 miles, and the work
had to be done through a country unknown, without water, into which
every article needed by the men had to be carried over deserts, across
unbridged rivers, through unexplored forests, amidst hostile tribes of
savages,--in one of the hottest regions of the world. I speak here of
the lack of water, and I have said above that the works were hindered
by rain. I hope my gentle readers will not think that I am piling up
excuses which obliterate each other. There is room for deviation of
temperature in a distance of 1,800 miles,--and Australia generally,
though subject specially to drought, is subject to floods also. And
the same gentle readers should remember,--when they bethink themselves
how easy it is to stick up a few poles in this or another thickly
inhabited country, and how small is the operation of erecting a line
of telegraph wires as compared with that of constructing a railway or
even a road,--how great had hitherto been the difficulty experienced
by explorers in simply making their way across the continent, and in
carrying provisions for themselves as they journeyed. Burke and Wills
perished in the attempt, and the line to be taken was through the very
country in which Burke and Wills had been lost. The dangers would of
course not be similar. The army of workmen sent to put up the posts
and to stretch the wires was accompanied by an army of purveyors. Men
could never be without food or without water. But it was necessary that
everything should be carried. For the northern portion of the work it
was necessary that all stores should be sent round by ships, and then
taken up rivers which had not hitherto been surveyed. If the gentle
reader will think only of the amount of wire required for 1,800 miles
of telegraph communication, and of the circumstances of its carriage,
he will, I think, recognise the magnitude of the enterprise.
The colony divided the work, the government undertaking about 800 miles
in the centre, which portion of the ground was considered to be most
difficult to reach. The remaining distances, consisting of 500 miles in
the south and 500 miles in the north, were let out to contractors. The
southern part, which was comparatively easy as being accessible from
Adelaide, was finished in time, as was also the middle distance which
the government had kept in its own hands. But the difficulties at the
northern end were so great that they who had undertaken the work failed
to accomplish it, and it was at last completed by government,--if I
remember rightly, somewhat more than six months after the date fixed.
The line did not come into immediate working order, owing to some
temporary fault beyond the Australian borders.
The importance of the telegraph to the colonies cannot be overrated,
and the anxiety it created can only be understood by those who have
watched the avidity with which news from England is received in all
her dependencies. Australia had hitherto been dependent on one arrival
monthly from England,--and on a very little credited monthly dispatch
reaching her shores via New York, San Francisco, and New Zealand. The
English monthly mail touches first at King George’s Sound, in Western
Australia, but thence there are no wires into the other colonies. The
mail steamer then passes on to Melbourne, while a branch boat takes
the mails to Adelaide. As the distance to Adelaide is considerably
shorter than to Melbourne, the English news generally reaches that
port first, and is thence disseminated to the other colonies. That
happens once a month. Then comes, also once a month, the so-called
Californian telegrams, not unfrequently giving a somewhat distorted
view of English affairs. This is now changed for daily news. We who
have daily news,--as do all of us in England every morning at our
breakfast-table,--are sometimes apt to regard it as a bore, and tell
ourselves that it would be delightful to have a real budget on an
occasion after a month of silence. The only way to learn the value of
the thing, is to be without it for a time. In the single item of the
price of wool in the London market, the Australian telegraph will be of
inestimable value to the colonies. When the scheme was first brought
forward there was a question whether the line through the Australian
continent should be made by the joint efforts of the colonies or by the
energy of one. South Australia is justly proud of herself, in that she
undertook the work, and has accomplished it.
The telegraph line has certainly been the means of introducing the
northern territory into general notice; and now a much larger project
has been formed,--which, if it be carried out, will certainly create
a new colony on the northern coast. The proposition is to make a
railway along the telegraph line, a railway from Adelaide right across
Australia, over the huge desert of the continent, to Port Darwin! Who
will travel by it? What will it carry? Whence will the money come? How
will it be made to pay? And as it cannot possibly be made to pay,--as
far as human sight can see,--what insane philanthropists or speculators
will be found able to subscribe the enormous sum of money necessary for
such a purpose? These are of course the questions that are asked. The
distance to be covered by the new line is very nearly 1,800 miles, and
the money said to be necessary for it is £10,000,000! There are no
inhabitants in the country,--at any rate none who would use a railway,
and at the distant terminus there is no town,--not as yet a community
of 200 white inhabitants.
I soon found that the railway was but a portion of the plan,--and
indeed the smaller portion of it. The scheme is as follows:--The
parliament of South Australia is to pass a bill authorising the
formation of a small preliminary company, which company shall be
empowered by the colonial legislature to make over no less than two
hundred millions of acres in freehold to the shareholders of the
proposed railway company. The small company is to give birth to a
large company, the residence of which is to be in London, and this
large company is to consist of shareholders who will subscribe the
money needed for the railway, and take the land as bought by their
money. The great object of the promoters, who, when I was in Adelaide,
were chiefly gentlemen having seats in the parliament of the colony,
was to open up to human uses an immense track of country which is
at present useless, and in this way to spread the reputation and
increase the prosperity of the colony at large. There can be no doubt
that population would follow the railway, as it has always followed
railways in the United States. The pastures would be opened to sheep;
and contingent advantages are of course anticipated,--such as mineral
fields of various kinds. Within 250 miles of the southern end copper
exists in large quantities, and the expense of carriage alone suspends
its extraction. At the Port Darwin end, on the northern coast, gold has
been found, and they who are hopeful declare that a few years will see
the richest gold-fields of Australia near the banks of the Victoria and
the Roper Rivers. A world of hopes rises to the mind of the sanguine
proprietor as the largeness of his scheme endears it more and more to
his heart, till he sees the happiness of thousands and the magnificence
of himself in the realisation of his project.
That such a railway should be made on the speculation of trade returns
is impossible; but if the South Australian parliament be in earnest,
and if the colony will give her land,--land which she at present
has in such abundance that she cannot use it,--it may be that funds
sufficient for commencing the railway will be produced. It is proposed
that the land shall be given as the line is made,--so many acres for
every mile of railway. The entire territory contiguous to the line
is not to be given. The land is to be divided into blocks, of which
alternate blocks are to be surrendered, and alternate blocks retained,
by the government, so that the new owners of the territory may be
constrained as to price and other terms of sale. Of course the company
would fail in selling if it charged more than the government, or
proposed terms less advantageous than those offered by the government.
But there seem to lack two ingredients for the thorough success of
such a scheme,--a town at the end, such as was San Francisco when
the railway was proposed across the Rocky Mountains from Chicago
to that city, and a wheat-growing country for its support, such as
California,--and such as Oregon is, and the Utah territory.
I do not believe that I shall live to see a railway made from
Adelaide to Port Darwin, or even that younger men than I will do so.
The greatness of many accomplished enterprises is now teaching men
to believe that everything is possible; and they who are sanguine
are falling into the error,--directly opposite to that of our
grandfathers,--of thinking that nothing is too hard to be accomplished.
I cannot believe in the expenditure of £10,000,000 on the construction
of a railway which is to run through a desert to nowhere. But I do
believe in the gold-fields and pastures of Port Darwin, and in the
beauties of the Roper and Victoria Rivers; and, hot though the country
be, I think that another young colony will found itself on the western
shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria.
CHAPTER VII.
LEGISLATURE AND GOVERNMENT.
With some small variations the scheme as to parliament and executive
government is the same in South Australia as in the other colonies.
There are king, lords, and commons,--or in other language, Governor,
Legislative Council, and House of Assembly. The most remarkable
variation is to be found in the mode adopted for getting together the
Legislative Council or House of Colonial Lords,--which mode I regard
as the worst ever yet invented for summoning a chamber of senators. In
England our House of Peers is hereditary, the Crown having the power to
add to its number as it pleases,--and thus, at any rate, the country
does acquire the services of a body of legislative magnates without
any trouble to itself. It is a great thing to be a peer, and the peers
as a rule live up to the position which the country assigns them. In
the United States the senators of the National Congress are elected
from their different States by a complicated machinery which certainly
effects its object, by bringing the leading politicians of the day
into the Upper House, and by conferring on that House dignity and
reputation. In some of our colonies, in New South Wales for instance,
and in Queensland, the members of the Upper House are nominated by
the Crown,--or rather, in fact, by the responsible ministers of the
day, who are accountable for the selections which they make, and who
confer the honour on men anxious and for the most part able to take
a part in public affairs. As one party becomes stronger than another
in the colony, so does the minister of one party have more frequent
opportunities of introducing his friends into the Legislative Council
than the ministers of the other party,--and the preponderance of public
opinion is represented by the Upper as well as the Lower Chamber. In
other colonies, as in Victoria and South Australia, the members of
the Legislative Council are elected by the people,--but the manner of
doing so is different. In Victoria the whole colony is divided into
provinces, and each province periodically elects its members. Even
then the interest felt is not very great, as I endeavoured to explain,
when speaking of the Victorian legislature,--but the provinces do in
some sort identify themselves with their own members; and, though
the political feeling in the matter is mild, it exists and has its
influence. In South Australia the members of the Upper Chamber are
elected by the colony at large, and therefore when elections come
round, no political feeling is excited.
This Upper House consists of eighteen members. Every fourth year six
members retire, in February, and the votes of the entire colony are
taken as to the election of their successors,--so that the members
are elected for twelve years. There is a property qualification for
voting,--£20 leasehold, £25 household, or £50 freehold. Very slight
interest is taken in the elections,--as might be expected from such a
scheme. The distances in the colony are enormous, and each district
feels that as the election is to be made by the colony at large, its
own effect must be very small. When the result of a national election
is of extreme importance to parties,--as is the case with the election
of a President in the United States,--the country can be awakened to
the work; but no political animation can be aroused by the national
importance of sending six members to the Upper House. As a consequence
men do not vote except in the towns, and do not vote there with any
regularity. At the election of 1869, 4,468 votes only were cast, by
a body of 15,773 electors. Certain members who have long been in the
House keep their seats when the day for their re-election comes round,
because no one cares to disturb them; but every now and then some
obscure but ambitious and probably absolutely unfit individual puts
himself forward, and is elected, to the scandal of the House,--because
there has been no interest felt in the matter. The expenditure of a few
hundred pounds would almost certainly carry an election,--not because
a few hundred pounds have much force in the colony, but because the
amount of antagonistic force used is very small. I look upon this as
the very worst plan yet adopted for maintaining the existence of a
legislative chamber.
The Lower House consists of seventy-two members, who are elected by
thirty-six districts,--two members for each district. They sit for
three years,--or would do but for dissolutions. Manhood suffrage,
with vote by ballot as a matter of course, prevails; but residence
for six months is required for an elector,--so that the nomad tribe
of wandering vagrants who call themselves workmen, but are in truth
beggars, is excluded. The competition for seats in the House of
Assembly is sufficiently lively to show that a seat is desired, but it
is not very keen. At the time of the election for the House of Assembly
in 1870, there were 39,647 men in the colony entitled to be electors,
but only 17,233 voted.
I found the ballot to be generally popular,--because it tended to make
things quiet at elections. Sir James Fergusson, the governor of the
colony,--who as a Conservative member for a Scotch county, and as one
of the Conservative government at home, cannot have loved the ballot
here, in England,--thus expresses his opinion on the subject to the
Secretary of State:--“I am bound to state that the ballot is generally
and remarkably popular in the colony. To the people of the colony it
appears to give entire satisfaction.” I am bound to report this as the
opinion which I found to prevail among almost all classes as to the use
of the ballot in Australia. I give my evidence unwillingly, because I
myself very much dislike the ballot for English use, and believe that a
mistake is made by those who argue that because it suits the colonies,
therefore it will suit ourselves. With us the object is secrecy, which
I think should not be an object, and which I think also will not be
obtained. In the colonies secrecy is not desired, but tranquillity
is felt to be a blessing. It is clear that the ballot does assist in
producing tranquillity.
But it may be questioned whether even tranquillity at elections
is to be regarded as an unmixed blessing. Apathy is certainly not
desirable, and it may be that tranquillity will show itself to be
akin to apathy. Men are always eager as to that in which they are
truly interested, and real human eagerness will produce excitement
and noise. Broken heads are bad things, but even broken heads
are better than political indifference. They who have framed the
Australian constitutions and have selected the modes of election
for the legislative chambers of the colonies, have had before their
eyes an idea of human political excellence which has never hitherto
prevailed, and never will prevail till that good time comes which we
call the millennium. They have desired to produce great vitality in the
electors without any excitement at the elections. Men are not to rush
to the polls,--certainly not to go thither under stress of fear, or
bribery, or drink; but all men are to walk there in orderly strings,
under the pressure of a high sense of national duty. They are to be
debarred from the interest of personal contest by the ballot and other
means,--but are nevertheless to be constant in voting. The ballot,
and the other means, are successful for the required ends,--but the
people are indifferent as to the results. It is the boast of Australian
politicians that the elections are quiet. They are often too quiet. If
it be the case, as a great man once said, that any first six men caught
walking through Temple Bar, would make as good members of parliament as
any other six men, the South Australian scheme of voting for members of
the Legislative Council may be good,--but under no other theory.
I doubt whether South Australia can boast that its parliament contains
its best men. Neither do members of the government or members of
parliament in any of the Australian colonies have that relation to the
country at large which they certainly hold in England. In England the
premier is the head man of his country for the time; and in common
estimation with us, a member of parliament is felt to be a man who
has achieved honourable distinction. It is not so in the Australian
colonies generally, and certainly is not so in South Australia
specially. Prime ministers there have succeeded each other with
wonderful celerity. The first parliament with responsible government
was opened in Adelaide, on April 22nd, 1857,--not yet sixteen years
ago as I write,--and since that date twenty-seven different ministries
have been formed. I found that no less than six of these combinations
had been made by Mr. Ayres, who was the chief secretary or head of the
government when I was in Adelaide,--but even he has succumbed again.
There is, however, always this comfort to be extracted from such speedy
reverses,--that a quick return of triumph may be expected. When last
I heard of the colony Mr. Ayres was out; but very probably he may be
again in before this is published.
The real work of government is done in South Australia by the Governor
in Council with a cabinet of five. Of these one always sits in the
Legislative Council, and the other four are supposed to have seats in
the House of Assembly. The constitution requires that no minister shall
be in office above three months without a seat either in the Upper or
in the Lower House.
The debates are fairly well conducted,--at any rate without riot
or that personal abuse and continual appeal to the Speaker which
I have witnessed elsewhere. There is much useless and quite vapid
talking,--members making speeches without even an attempt at a new
point or a new argument, to which no one listens, but which are endured
with patience. It is understood that when a gentleman has taken the
trouble to get a seat, and is willing to sacrifice his time, he should
be allowed to air his voice, and to learn by practice to speak with
fluency. Mr. Lowe and Mr. Childers have taught colonial legislators the
possible results of such lessons; and why should any man throw away a
chance? I heard a debate on the great question of cab-lamps,--whether
legislation should content itself with requiring simply cabs to be
lighted at nights, or whether it should extend the precaution to
other vehicles,--on which two-thirds of a full House were eloquent.
I heard impassioned eloquence on the question whether the excellent
Bishop of Adelaide should be allowed to retain his right of walking out
of the room before other people,--a right which, as it came from the
Crown, the parliament could not take from him, but which he gracefully
abandoned when it gave annoyance to scrupulous politicians. Their minds
were much excited on this question. And I heard another debate as to
the governor’s salary, carried on with much energy. The Lower House,
with hot parliamentary zeal expressed in fervid words, decided on
cutting off £1,000 a year from the salary of future governors. But the
measure of retrenchment, though essentially a money measure, was lost,
because no seconder could be found for it in the Upper Chamber.
There was another great debate when I was in the colony,--of which,
however, I only heard a small portion, and it gave rise to an incident
which I will mention as giving an idea of the feeling displayed
towards the House. It was decided, as a new measure, that there should
be after-dinner sittings,--and on a certain evening there was an
after-dinner sitting. There was a spirited debate, which was conducted
with a fair amount of parliamentary animation. One of the leading
Adelaide newspapers, giving its history of the affair on the following
morning, described the speakers in round terms of having been--unfit
for parliamentary work, because they had dined. On the following day
one of the gentlemen attacked brought the matter forward on a question
of privilege, and there ensued a debate in which it was at any rate
shown that the accusation was altogether groundless. But nothing
was done. No one seemed seriously to think that the writer of the
article, or the editor, proprietor, or printer of the paper, should be
punished for the insinuations made. On the next morning the newspaper
in question ridiculed the complaining members for having adopted the
only meaning of the words of the article which they would bear. I could
not but think that had the “Times” or “Daily Telegraph” accused the
House of Commons of being generally unfit for its duties because it
had--dined, that the House of Commons would in some way have made its
displeasure felt. But I was anxious to know why such an unwarranted
attack should be made by one of the leading newspapers of the colony
upon the parliament of the colony,--and I received information on the
subject. The newspaper in question had to report the debates, and
disliked the trouble and expense of keeping reporters late into the
evening.
Few countries can, I think, show a more favourable account of their
public financial matters than that exhibited by South Australia.
Custom duties are the only taxation to which her people are subject,
and the amount paid by them in that shape averages no more than 25_s._
a head. On the 31st December, 1871, the population was 189,018, and
the duties levied in 1871 had amounted to £234,980. The total revenue
in that year had been £785,489, and the total expenditure, £759,339.
But the revenue so stated is made up of various sums, which have no
reference whatever to taxation. It includes the gross amounts received
from the post-office, from the railways, from the telegraph offices,
and from the water-works;--whereas the total of the expenditure
includes the expenses of those establishments. The revenue includes
also the money carried to the public credit for the sale and lease of
lands, which I find estimated for 1872 at £145,000. The public debt
amounted to £1,944,600 on the 31st December, 1871, which had been
chiefly,--I believe entirely,--expended on public works. One hundred
and thirty-three miles of railway had been opened in the country, the
working of which in 1871 had cost £88,000,--and which had produced
£111,000 by its traffic, thus giving £23,000 as dividends on the cost,
and paying about a quarter of the interest on the total of the public
debt.
In what I have said it will, I fear, be thought that I have intended
to depreciate the parliament of the colony. I have not sought to do
so, but I am merely giving my personal impressions of what I heard
and saw. Parliaments, like puddings, should be judged by the proof
of their results, as shown in the eating. One of the main works of
all parliaments is so to adjust the financial affairs of the country
entrusted to it, that the people shall not suffer from over-taxation,
that the public credit shall be maintained, and that a sufficiency of
revenue shall be collected to insure the safety and general well-being
of the community. If this be adequately done, a parliament need
certainly not be ashamed of its doings. And this is adequately done in
South Australia.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
[Illustration: MAP OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
_Stanford’s Geog^l. Estab^t London._
London: Chapman & Hall.]
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 1_s._ 6_d._ 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 3_s._
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 5_s._ an acre.
In July, 1841, the price of the crown lands was raised to 12_s._ an
acre; and subsequently, in the same year, to 20_s._ 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 20_s._ 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 10_s._, 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
10_s._ 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 20_s._ per 1,000 acres, and in another
10_s._,--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 5_s._ an acre was charged, then 12_s._
then 20_s._, then 10_s._,--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 12_s._ 6_d._ 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 3_s._ a day without rations, or from
30_s._ to 40_s._ a month with rations. I was told that a man’s rations
cost 10_s._ 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 40_s._ a month, with rations, would be
supposed to receive 80_s._ a month, although he would not cost his
employer above 68_s._
The wages of mechanics are about the same here as in the other
colonies: masons, carpenters, and blacksmiths earning about 7_s._ 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 6_d._ to 1_s._ 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 4_d._ instead of 10_d._ a pound,
and wages are higher;--for in no agricultural county in England do they
rule so high throughout the year as 18_s._ a week. In the colony 18_s._
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 15_s._ an acre, land at 10_s._ an acre, and especially
land with deferred payments,--with payments taking the shape of rent,
perhaps 1_s._ 6_d._ or 1_s._ 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 5_s._ to 20_s._ an acre,--but there has been no deferred
payment. At last 10_s._ 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 10_s._ 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 1_s._ 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
25_s._ 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.
INDEX.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
Aboriginals at Work, 65
Acres under Cultivation for various Crops, 43
Act of Parliament under which the Colony was formed, 11
Adelaide, Capital of the Colony, 19, 21, 28
Albert, Lake, 5
Alexandrina, Lake, 5
Angas, Mr., 12
Ballot, 77
Barker, Captain, Mountain named after him, 6
Burra Burra Copper-mines, 60
Church of England, 24
Cockatoo Farmers, 33
Constitution given to the Colony, 15-18
Coorong River, 6
Copper, 58
Darling River, 5
Debates in Parliament, 79
Droughts prevalent, 38, 45
Early History of the Colony, 3
Farming badly done, 32
Gambier-Town, 55
Gawler, Colonel, second Governor, 12
Gold, 58
Gordon, A. L., the Poet, 57
Goyder’s Line of Rainfall, 38
Great Northern Railway through the Colony, 72
Grey, Captain, Governor, 13
Hindmarsh, Captain, first Governor, 12
Hutt, Sir William, 12
Kapunda Copper Mines, 59
Kooringa-Town, 60
Land, Price of, as regards the Colonies generally, 10
Land, Sale of, 36-38
Legislature, 76
Light, Colonel, Surveyor-General, 12
Mail Coach “Bushed,” 67
Meat, Price of, and Exportation, 52, 53
Moonta Copper-mine, 61, 62
Mount Gambier, 55
Murray River, 5
Murrumbidgee River, 4
Nepean Bay, 12
Nobs and Snobs, 60
Northern Territory, 68
Pastoral Rents, 54
Population, 19
Portalloch Cattle Station, 55
Port Darwin, 74
Port Wallaroo, 62
Religious Sects, 25
Revenue, 81
Robe, Colonel, Governor, 14
Salt-bush, Pasture for Sheep, 50
Sheep, Loss of, for Want of Rain, 45
Sinnett, Mr., his Account of the Colony, 12
Smelting Works at Wallaroo, 66
Strathalbyn-Town, 55
Sturt, Captain, his Discoveries, 4
Telegraph Wire from Adelaide to Port Darwin, 69
Torrens, Colonel, 12
Torrens River, 26
Victoria, Re-emigration to, from South Australia, 14
Vineyards, 41
Wakefield, Mr. Gibbon, 8-11, 37
Wallaroo Copper-mine, 61, 65
Water Supply, 26
Wheat, Staple of the Colony, 30
Wine, 42
Wool, 44, 47
WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
Aborigines, 89
Albany, Town of, 122
Cathedrals, 125
Certificate needed on leaving the Colony, 114
Coal, 95
Convicts, Condition of, 96, 99, 110, 113
Convicts, Effect of, 96
Convicts, Native, 107
Convicts, Petitions that they may be sent out, 93, 94
Corroboree, Native Dance, 109
Emigrants, Allowance to, in Land, 140
Emigrants cannot be sent out by Government, 135
Eyre, Mr., Explorer, 94
Farming badly carried on, 104, 127
Freemantle, Captain, of the “Challenger,” 87
Freemantle, Town of, 109
Free-Selecters, 137
Future Prospects of Colony, 131
Gas, 95
Gold, 100, 132
Government, Form of, 120
Grapes, 93, 123
Hargreaves, Mr., searches for Gold, 100
Jarrah-Wood, 103
Journey to Perth, 123
King George’s Sound, 86, 94, 123
Knight, Mr., his Book on the Colony, 115
Land, Grants of, 115
Land, Modes of Sale, 116, 137
Land selected for Special Occupation, 139
Lockyer, Major, 87
New Norcia, Roman Catholic Establishment for Native Children, 90
Newcastle, 127
Nickol Bay, 101
Nuyt, Peter, afraid of Frogs, 124
Pearls, Fishery, 101
Perth, Capital of the Colony, 112, 125
Poisonous Shrub, 103
Population, 115, 141
Provisions, Price of, 133
Rottnest, 106
Sandal-Wood, 103
Schools of the Colony, 129
Sheep, Number of, 102
Stirling, Governor, 87, 93
Squatters, 128
Ticket-of-Leave Men, 126
Toodjay District, 95, 127
Wages, Rate of, 129
Weld, Governor, 104, 119, 121
Wine, 144
Wool, Staple of the Colony, 102, 128
THE END.
PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., CITY ROAD, LONDON.
Transcriber’s notes
Page 95 - Corrected 9th January, 1860 to 9th January, 1868
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other
spelling and punctuation remains unchanged, unless otherwise noted
above.
Italics are represented thus _italic_.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUTH AUSTRALIA AND WESTERN
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