Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/95

Rh The extension of the timber trade by the formation of new companies and by grants of land, the erection of crushing machinery and working a quartz reef at Kendenup by the Plantagenet Gold Mining Company, the commencement of sericulture, the placing establishments on the Abrolhos for fishing, and on Barrow Island for turtle catching, the commencement of a system of assisted immigration and of the mines railway, and of the extension of the telegraph line to Eucla in connexion with the Government of South Australia, mark this period.

On the arrival in 1875 of Governor, now Sir Wm. C. F. Robinson, K.C.M.G., the Imperial Government decided against conceding Responsible Government to the Colony, considering that it was not prepared for so great a change. The removal of the convict prisoners from all other places to Fremantle, had given warning of further change in that department, and in 1877 it was intimated that there would be a reduction in the Imperial grant for police services. The year 1876 witnessed the necessity for a further loan of £26,000 for the completion of the Mines railway, in which great alterations and improvements were obviously necessary. The appropriation of £18,000 out of Revenue for the completion of the Telegraph to Eucla was the more satisfactory, because the line from Bremer Bay to Eucla was in process of survey by Mr. Price and a sufficient party, and was progressing rapidly.

The decision as to harbour works at Fremantle was now also brought to an issue. From the earliest days of the Colony it had been in contemplation to make at the principal port a more secure harbour for vessels than nature had provided, and numerous suggestions