738 CONDITION OF THE ABORIGINES IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

ABORIGINES. The state of the aboriginal to better their condition, and inclined to inhabitants in Western Australia is far supe- look with contemptuous superiority upon rior to that attained by them in any other the laborious habits of their new associates. Australian colony. This most honourable "White fellow," say they, "fool, too much! peculiarity, however, though doubtless attri- work, work, always work! Black fellow butable, in the first instance, to the per- play, plenty play!" They appear, neverthesonal character and conduct of the early less, to be attached to the "white fellows," settlers, of whom an unusual proportion and are a merry, harmless, idle, goodbelonged to the better classes of society, natured race; sometimes very useful, often and to the judicious policy pursued by the most provoking; on the whole, honest, but local government, appears to have been, afflicted with a constitutional preference of nevertheless, in no small degree brought mutton to kangaroo, which is the fertile about by the very fact in other respects so source of compulsory labour on the roads.* injurious to the colony, namely, the sudden Schools have been established for the chilcessation of immigration, which not only dren, and an institution is maintained by left the same individuals to carry out the the Wesleyan body, assisted by government, original system with regard to the savage, at which indefatigable and judicious efforts but rendered caution and forbearance, as are made to infuse into their minds the well as firmness, obviously indispensable. principles of religion and social improveThe settlers are reaping their well-merited ment. Their quickness of apprehension as fruits, in the perfect tranquillity they enjoy, shown in the facility with which they learn and the very considerable assistance they reading, writing, arithmetic, &c., is said to receive from the coloured population. So completely have the natives learned to appreciate their rights as British subjects, that they now appeal to the tribunal of the law in their differences with the "white fellows," and occasionally even in those with each other.

Of these, many are employed about the farms as herdsmen and messengers, and occasionally in reaping and harvest work, some, more regularly as servants; but in general, they refuse all hard or steady work, and no wages will induce them to forego any amusement, or to settle permanently in one place. They are essentially creatures of impulse, absolutely devoid of any desire In a recent letter from Western Australia, dated March, 1850, is the following statement:-"We run the mail to York, to Bunburry, and to Vasse once a week, with natives only. The York native is mounted, and costs us some £36 a year. The Perth and Fremantle and the Guildford mails are run daily, with the utmost punctuality, and cost but the natives' rations, as they are prisoners on their parole, and there is a spare man in case of the sickness of any of these

greatly surpass that of the white child, and the mere experience of the schools would warrant the highest expectations of their future acquirements; with puberty the inherent idleness, and the restless longings after the wild and wandering life of the bush, are developed-and the clean, bright, intelligent child, able, not merely to read, but to understand what he reads, merges into the filthy, lazy savage, gorging himself to stupidity, and basking under a gumtree. In some instances, however, the persevering care of the teachers has succeeded in inducing a few to remain on the establishment, to marry, and cultivate land for their own support.

The classified occupations of the white population in 1848 was, in

Agriculture.-Occupiers, employing labourers, 124; ditto, not employing labourers, 176; agricultural labourers and gardeners, 476. Grazing.-Employed in the care of sheep, 121; of cattle, 24.

Trade.-Shopkeepers, and other retail dealers, and their assistants, 64; bricklayers and masons, 32; smiths, 22; carpenters, joiners, plumbers, and glaziers, 98; tailors and shoemakers, 39; sawyers and splitters, 49; other non-agricultural classes, capitalmen: these are all brought from Rottnest. The men who go from Fremantle to Mundurah, Bunburry, and Vasse, are also prisoners. We have no less than four native prisoner boys generally serving on board the Champion. You would be surprised to see one of them steering the vessel, going aloft to reef a topsail or furl a royal. The governor has one now for a body servant, and a number of our teams are brought into town by them."

POPULATION, CULTIVATION, AND STOCK IN EACH DISTRICT.

739

ists, bankers, professional, and other edu- | &c., 241; domestic servants (male), 55; cated men, their clerks and assistants, 44; military men, 103; all other males, above civil officers, their clerks and assistants, 69; fourteen, not included in the above, 106. labourers, employed in labour not agricul- Residue (women, children, and others), 2,690. tural, including mariners, boatmen, fisher- The state of each of the settled districts

men, toll-collectors, road-makers, carters, is thus shown on the 10th October, 1848:

Note. The total of the return of European population includes the troops stationed in the colony, their wives and children, numbering altogether 162. It also includes 77 males and 12 females: = 89, on board colonial vessels and on emigration parties. Of the aborigines 418 males and 123 females are regularly or casually employed by the Europeans.

GOVERNMENT.-The colony is at present | Assembly (see note, p. 554): the qualifiruled by a governor, aided by an executive cation of voters is fixed at the possession council, consisting of the colonial secretary, of a freehold estate, of the clear annual advocate-general, surveyor-general, and col- value of £100; a £10 household franchise; lector of revenue. There is also a Legis- or the possession of a leasehold estate or lative Council, composed of the above, in licence to depasture lands from the governconjunction with the civil and criminal ment, of the value of £10 sterling per judge, and with three non-official members annum. Under the amended bill, the coloappointed by the crown; but it is probable nial Legislative Councils have power to alter that a more popular form will soon be the qualifications of electors, and to divide adopted, under the provisions of a bill for the Legislative Council into two chambers; the "better government of her Majesty's but they have not the power to declare Australian colonies," which has undergone there shall be a single legislative chamber, full discussion in both houses of the Impe- or that the nominees of the crown, whether rial Legislature, while this volume has been official or non-official, shall be altogether passing through the press, and received its excluded from that chamber. A Legisfinal decision in the House of Commons on lative Council may be established in Western the 1st August, 1850. The provisions of Australia, as in the other Australian colothis bill, as first introduced to parliament, in nies, if petitioned for by not less than oneMarch last, are stated at pp. 555-560: third in number of the householders within since then, the bill has undergone several the colony, provided the province undertakes modifications in the House of Lords. The to defray the expenses of the civil establishproposed power to create a Federal Assembly ment, which have been heretofore borne by of the Australian colonies, which, I feared, the Imperial Parliament, such sums to be would prove a source of contention (see p. permanently granted to the crown out of 558), has been withdrawn, as also the power the colonial revenues, and to form a civil to dispose of the crown lands by the said list.

RELIGION, EDUCATION, CRIME, TAXATION, REVENUE.

EDUCATION. The governmental schools are under a board of education; the instruction is entirely secular. In the Roman catholic schools the Irish national system is Duties on spirits adopted.

EXPENDITURE, COMMERCE, PRODUCTS OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 741

The civil expenditure in 1848 was—

Parliamentary Fund.

Grant.

£681

£293
127

177

-

63

891

£293
808

150 150
376 668

water; and pearls as large as peas have been recently collected there. An island covered From Colowith guano, equal to that of Peru, has been nial Total. recently discovered in the same neighbourhood; where the raspberry (an acacia, so called from the odour of the timber), sandal, and red ebony woods have been found grow63 ing within 200 yards of the beach. The 177 sandal wood of Western Australia is a lu891 crative article of export; some sent by the Vixen to Singapore, for the China market, 100 1,218 sold for £21 per ton, leaving a net profit 512 of £17 per ton. Her Majesty's dockyards 536 are now contracting for the excellent ship timber of Western Australia, some of which 596 (the jarrah) endures any time in water, and 845 is not eaten by that destructive worm the 20 teredo navalis; ships built with it require no coppering; a plank may be cut of any size; and there is enough of timber and knees, of the best kind, to supply the British navy for centuries.

Customs revenue

292

Governor's office

1,118

A forest of the jarrah, or mahogany, at a distance of eighteen miles from Perth, and 827 twenty from the sea, extends over a tract of at least 140 miles from north to south, 7,692 10,194 17,886 with a known width of four miles from east to west. The trees are very fine; and it has been computed that this forest alone contains sufficient of this invaluable timber to build 17,920 line-of-battle ships, reckoning the largest amount of timber ever required for a ship as the average. Twenty navies equal to that of Great Britain might, therefore, be constructed from this single forest.

Total expenses. Total expenditure of the troops in Western Australia, during 1848, for pay, allowances, pensions, supplies, exclusive of the salt meat and candles sent from England, and transport, £10,501; repairs to military buildings, lodging money, &c., £1,044 = £11,545; add Parliamentary grant for civil expenses, from military chest, £7,128 = 18,673.

COMMERCE is increasing, and the exports fast rising to a level with the imports. The details of trade in 1848 were

Staple Products.-Wool, timber, oil, fish; to which will, probably, soon be added copper, lead, and other metals.

A Geraldine Mining Company has been established at Perth; capital £6,400, in 1,280 £5 shares. A silver-lead mine, in the Toodyay district, yields five ounces of silver to the ton of ore, roughly assayed.

Mother-o'-pearl shells, which are worth from £20 to £70 a ton, cover a district of Sharks' bay having six to twelve feet

The jarrah, and indeed all the heavy timber of the colony, is included in the genus eucalyptus; but the species are very numerous of these, that called the tuart ranks next to the jarrah in value, and is indeed, in some respects, superior to it, but is not nearly so abundant.

The white gum much resembles the tuart, and partakes in its remarkable quality of scarcely shrinking in the process of drying; but it is looked upon with an evil eye by the settlers, as indicating the predominance of ironstone and clay in the soil.

The red gum, one of the most common, but also the most beautiful, of its tribe, though of no great value as timber, being subject to dry rot, is easily worked, and much used in the colony for spokes of wheels and split fencing of all descriptions.

The morrel, chiefly found in the Toodyay district, is highly esteemed for its toughness and strength.

742 COLONIZATION ASSURANCE COMPANY FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

The great blue gum is found in perfection in the neighbourhood of Nornalup and the Deep river, between Augusta and King George's Sound, where it attains the extraordinary height of from 100 to 150 feet, and measures fifty feet in circumference. There are, besides, the black butt, salmon gum, and many others.

The ornamental woods of the colony are numerous, and many of them very beautiful in grain and figure. The sandal wood has been before mentioned. The raspberry, or jam wood, which somewhat resembles rosewood in grain and colour, grows generally in the country within the range. The casuarina, or the oak, found mostly in the sandy districts near the coast, when well worked up, is a very pretty wood.

Besides these, there are several other kinds of ornamental woods, as the banksia, and various species of dryandria, one of which is called satin-wood by the colonial cabinetmakers.

It remains for me now only to notice two important features connected with the colony. I have already adverted to the advantages possessed by colonies which have public companies in England connected with their welfare. Western Australia, excepting in the short-lived instance of the Australind Association, has not hitherto had this collateral benefit. Earl Grey, however, with a view to the remedying of this defect, has sanctioned the formation, by act of parliament, of a Colonization Assurance Company, in London, whose operations for the promotion of colonization are to be directed to Western Australia. The corporation, under the provisions of the act of the imperial legislature (13 Vic. c. 24), has rightly ordained that the responsibility of its shareholders be limited to the amount for which they have severally subscribed. The capital authorised to be raised in the first instance, is £100,000 in £10 shares, with power of increase, subject to the consent of the Lords of her Majesty's Treasury. The corporation is authorised to purchase and to hold lands to any extent in the colonies and dependencies of the British Empire: any emigrants conveyed or caused to be conveyed to Western Australia by the company, shall BANKING AND MONETARY AFFAIRS.-An entitle them to receive land scrip to the excellent institution termed the Western value of £20 for each emigrant, male or Australian Bank, was established in June, female, above fourteen years of age, or for 1841, with a subscribed capital of £20,000, every two emigrants under that age. The in 2,000 £10 shares. The capital paid up land-scrip is to be taken in payment of is £5,544, by about 100 proprietors. The crown lands in Western Australia, at the dividend paid for the last five years has rate of 20s. per acre; corporation may reaveraged twelve and-a-half per cent. per quire the governor to put up crown lands, annum. The paper circulation in July, under certain provisoes. Accounts of cor1849, was £2,652; the bills under dis-poration are to be annually reaudited by count, £10,360; and the deposits not bear- the registrar of joint-stock companies, and ing interest, £13,718. Coin of all descriptions in the colony, about £11,000.

Fisheries.-At present, only one vessel and about eighteen boats are employed. The Americans and French carry on extensive whaling pursuits in the very harbours of Western Australia, whose fisheries are among the finest in the southern hemisphere. The entire coast swarms with snapper, whiting, mullet, bream, kingfish, mackerel, &c., of the highest quality. The snapper weighs from 10 lbs. to 40 lbs. and dried, sells for £16 per ton, at the Mauritius.

Exchange.-Bills on her Majesty's Treasury, and on agents of Western Australian Bank, London, at par in 1848. Private bills on London, at thirty days' sight, five per cent. discount.

;

Prices of Produce in Western Australia in 1848:Wheat, per bushel, 58.; barley, 4s.; oats, 4s.; horses, £20; horned cattle, £6; sheep, mixed flock, 48.; goats, milch, 5s.; swine, 10s. each; flour, per ton of 2,000 lbs., £16; wheaten bread, per lb. 24d.; milk, 4d. per. quart; butter, 1s. 6d. ; cheese, 1s. 2d.; beef,

the annual report to be sent to the Board of Trade. The operations of the company are not to extend beyond Western Australia, except the consent of the local legislature of the colony in which it is proposed to commence operations, and that of her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies, shall have been previously obtained. Taken altogether, the act is liberal, and may be beneficially worked for the interests of the shareholders of the company, and of the colonists.

It is understood that the cor