Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/140

 But perhaps the greatest evil of all has been the manner in which the introduction of railways or even tramways into the colony has been affected. To take our own district as an example: the country to the eastward of the Darling Range is the first agricultural district, of any considerable extent, which is met with when travelling from the sea-coast at Fremantle directly into the interior. It ought, therefore, to become the chief granary of the capital. The whole district is a wide one, and might, if fully cultivated, furnish sufficient corn to supply not only all colonial wants, but a large export demand also.

These eastern districts are usually spoken of by the collective title of "over the hills," and contain the little towns of York, Northam, Newcastle, and Beverley—Barladong being one of these, though for reasons which have been already stated, I have given it its native name in these pages. These places lie at distances varying from ten or fifteen to twenty or thirty miles from one another; but the country which intervenes is most of it occupied, and settlers' houses occur pretty thickly, that is, about every three or four miles.

The inhabitants are all employed in the same pursuits, chiefly agricultural farming combined with sheep and cattle breeding, and have therefore similar interests and similar desires. A railroad from some part of the district to Perth is that public work which they wish for most earnestly, and in comparison with which every other work appears to them to be almost useless. Now were there a fair amount of population upon the line of country between Perth and the eastern settlements, there would