Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/412

Rh but only by an allowance in their books of equal amount to the wood supplied, and reckoned as a set-off against the stores supplied to them on account.

As long as the distance from Perth was only forty or fifty miles the trade was a good one for all parties, and many of the smaller settlers were kept afloat by it alone; their horses could do the journey to Perth and return again to the bush within the week, and, even if they obtained no back load in place of the sandalwood, the cost of the hay and corn (which they usually had to carry with them) and of the wagoners' wages was repaid, and a good profit remained. But now things are altered. All the sandal-trees of any size within a radius of a hundred miles of Perth have been cut down, and the woodmen must now go to much greater distances to obtain a supply of good logs.

The supplies of food to the men who are cutting are rendered expensive by carriage out; the wood when cut and trimmed has to be conveyed over mere bush tracks for perhaps thirty or forty miles before a well-made road is reached; a team and wagon therefore, instead of returning from Perth for a fresh load within the week, is obliged to be absent a fortnight or even more, so that all the expenses are increased while the value of the wood remains the same. The truth is that the trade may now be said to have come pretty nearly to a stand-still. The cost of carrying the sandalwood to Perth and of putting it on board ship now all but balances any profit to be made of it by sending it to China.

Next to a trade in timber the whale fishery ought to be the most obvious source of wealth to Western Australia;