Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/45

 The Architects ADELAIDE AND VICINITY 19 payment huge grants of lands in new countries. He contended that in all colonies an even balance should be preserved between land, labor, and capital ; that land should be sold at a fair price ; and that labor should be applied to land in a fair proportion. The projectors of South Australia, in drawing up their plans, were influenced by recent colonising experiences in Western Australia. That colony was launched in 1829, upon land incorrectly and extravagantly described by Captain Stirling, afterwards Sir James Stirling, and Mr. Charles Eraser. The British Government, although it considered it probable that Erance desired to acquire this territory, refused to incur any liability to relieve setders in the event of the experiment being un.successful. It was expressly stipulated in Colonial Office circulars that no convicts were to be landed there, and hence that colonists must not depend on forced labor. To found a colony at a minimum of expense, almost unlimited areas of land were alienated, in localities to be chosen by the purchaser, upon the number of laborers which each capitalist introduced. Thus, a man paying the passage to Swan River of ten servants, reckoned to cost ^30 each, received a certificate from Commissioners entitling him to .^300 worth of land. The price of land was set down at is. 6d. per acre, and the settler was awarded 4,000 acres. Land was also obtainable at the same rate on the value of goods introduced by each person. Thomas Peel, a founder of the colony, introduced laborers and goods in 1829 which entitled him to 250,000 acres. Troubles arose with the servants, who, because they constituted in an untilled country the supreme factor, demanded high terms. They quickly released themselves from their indentures, and, as land was cheap, purchased on their own behalf. Being without capital, it was practically valueless to them. The experiment was necessarily a failure, because land was alienated on an erroneous principle ; the hopes of colonists were not realised, and, as many of them . were unfit for pioneer work, they met with disaster. Persons used to luxury, and possessed of a classical education, were reduced to actual privation, and were as helpless in development work as the native who vainly begged for bread at their doors, or speared their cattle in the bush. It was against this sort of colonisation that Wakefield exerted his utmost influence, but even though his arguments might be sound, the successful application of his principles was dependent on conditions that were not always present. Schemes embracing his views for colonising Western Australia on a huge scale were proposed in 1835, and one was carried into effect with disa.strous results in 184 1. A company was formed, and purchased land on the picturesque region lying on the shores of the estuary running inland from Bunbury, Western Australia. Allotments of 100 acres were offered to the public at £ per acre, and plans of a splendid town to be named Australind were drawn up. Mistakes were made, and misapprehension arose concerning the fertility of the land. The .setdement was formed by a few hundred people, but was a failure, redeemed by few pleasing features. In a country thousands of miles from any market, and possessing a population aggregating only about 3,000, a family could not possibly earn a livelihood on 100 acres. The project was doomed from the beginning, and it ended in individual and collective ruin and in great bodily suffering. C2