Page:History of West Australia.djvu/173

 Rh whalebone, 107 cwt., £481 10s.; bark, 30 tons, £6; salt fish, 5 casks, £15; potatoes, 1 ton, £12; and miscellaneous goods, £505. It will thus be seen that whaling was a primary source of wealth, and down the west coast and at King George's Sound it was being followed with as much zest as formerly. The disparity between the amounts of exports and imports had become larger and more serious.

A disagreement took place between the Governor and the Committee of Ways and Means in the Legislative Council. The Governor's estimate of expenditure for the ensuing year was £8,886 12s. 6d., which was amended by the Committee and reduced £7,283 12s. 6d. The Committee proposed retrenchment in various departments in order to meet the depressed state of the revenue. As significant of the opinions held concerning the depression, members set down the revenue for the coming year to be derived from duties on spirits, etc., at nearly £9,000 less than that of the year just closed. They, moreover, proposed to increase the ad valorem duties on all goods without exception admitted to the colony in order to make up the deficiency between revenue and expenditure. Strong objection was raised to this policy by the Governor. A warm debate took place on 5th July. Finally, the proposals of the Committee were carried, whereupon there was a solemn pause in the House. The members silently awaited the Governor, who had the power of veto, to rise and signify his intention. His Excellency broke the silence by intimating that he would not oppose the views of the Council, although he was convinced that members had acted unwisely, and that their proposals would cause much mischief in the future. Continuing, he congratulated himself that he was not a settler, nor likely to live among them, as he believed that the "doom of the colony was sealed" now that colonists had taken to taxing provisions all round. He did not exercise the veto.

In order to meet the exigencies of the times the banks reduced their rates of discount, but even then the Western Australian Bank was able to pay substantial dividends. On January 4 a dividend at the rate of fifteen per cent. was declared on the half-year's transactions, and on July 4 a dividend of twelve and a half per cent. was declared. At the annual meeting, on the latter date, the report alluded to the state of the colony, and stated that more than ordinary precaution was called for. Shareholders expressed the hope that the directors would carry men of business through the depression until the following wool season, when the returns would "undoubtedly relieve the pressure."

While affairs were so dull in Western Australia, colonial matters in England were no less gloomy. The society formed in London to watch over and subserve colonial interests was dissolved, and those gentlemen who five years before had been so confident of the success of Western Australian settlement were dismayed at the local situation.

Every branch of local industry was affected by the bad times. The newspapers were among the first to feel the pinch. In June, 1844, the Inquirer, published in Perth, appeared in only half the usual size. It told a doleful tale of subscriptions not having been paid, and of other means of newspaper revenue being depressed. Even the celebrations held on 1st June had none of their old vitality, and impelled the Inquirer to forebodingly speak of the "untoward aspect of public affairs" and the "dulness of the times." The Governor announced in the Council that the situation called for diplomatic legislation from members, and he urged the people not to give way to despondency, but to combine and find a remedy for their ills. The editor maintained that the colony could not become rich with only its existing population, for it was absurd to expect a society of 2,000 adults to prosper in the same ratio as a society of millions of members.

The Financial Committee of the Legislative Council stated in their supplementary report on 18th July that the imports of goods far exceeded the reasonable wants of the population, and on 2nd August Mr. Peter Brown, the Colonial Secretary, addressed members on the "cause, effect, and cure" of the depression. His speech was a remarkable one. He presented to the House a number of carefully compiled tables designed to show that in the preceding seven years the cultivation of wheat had increased out of all proportion to the population. It followed, therefore, that farmers must either find a market for their wheat or suffer constant embarrassment and eventual ruin. An increase of labourers by emigration would only increase the production of wheat, and in the absence of a market still further reduce prices. In other words, the quantity of wheat-land cultivated would be larger, while consumers would increase only in a trifling degree. Hence to talk of more immigration was idle. It was necessary, he contended, for the success of any recently established colony that its merchants should be sufficiently numerous to relieve the agricultural and manufacturing population. Some colonists had stated that a protective duty would tend to encourage farmers, but he could not suppose that such assertions were made after mature deliberation. The whole of the wheat raised in the preceding year would scarcely fill a tolerably sized ship, and most decidedly would not be a sufficient quantity to constitute an ordinary speculation of a second-rate corn merchant in London. Vessels would not be bothered with taking such a small amount of wheat to the home country.

The balance of trade against the colony since its inception was large, but, fortunately, a substantial annual government expenditure had served to minimise the influence of the disparity. He assessed the liabilities at £81,949, and the assets at enormously above that amount. A gradual increase of population, including some capitalists, had previously rendered progression possible, but now that the alteration in the price at which Crown lands were sold had put an end to immigration the case was very different, and the colony felt its liabilities more and more every day as the specie and power of drawing diminished. For years colonists had been compelled to make up a heavy balance in trade, and as a natural result they were brought to the verge of ruin. "Although," he asserted, "we have plenty of real property and stock of every description, we have not a shilling which, as a colony, we can call our own. We have no balance in our treasury; the balance in the commissariat chest is the property of the Queen. As individuals we have loose silver in our pockets—but only as individuals—for as colonists it is the property of the foreign creditor."

The remedy was at hand if colonists chose to avail themselves of it—they must make the colony an exporting as well as an importing one in every sense of the word. Let them pull together, drop all selfish and interested feelings, throw aside all idleness, and persevere in their laudable intentions. Merchants must, to a man, declare their willingness and intention to receive for export, on fair liberal terms, every product the settler could supply, such as timber, grain of every description, oil, bone, wool, gum, bark, skins, cheese, hams, tongues, salted provisions, and preserves. Agriculturists and other settlers must, thus assured of a market, extend cultivation and every other branch of avocation to their utmost, so as to reduce by quantity the expense of producing. The merchants would then be able to compete with the outsider. There was no alternative—an immediate export trade or approaching ruin. Settlers weighted by