Page:History of West Australia.djvu/8

 PREFACE.

It would be curious indeed if inaccuracies are not found in the following narrative—the first yet published on Western Australia. At the same time, much care and nearly two years of labour have been devoted to its compilation, and every effort has been put forth to make it thoroughly correct and representative. Many obstacles, often insuperable, have been confronted. Only slight comment has been indulged in, the chief object being, while presenting a readable work to trace the growth of industries, to describe the peculiar circumstances which at first retarded general expansion, and to supply a record of Western Australian annals. From such points of view the reader is asked to form his judgment. A few letter-press inaccuracies, due to necessarily hurried revision, will be discovered in the first five or six chapters. The narrative is carried up to May, 1897; but for obvious reasons, mining statistics subsequent to that month have been included. Special thanks for assistance are tendered to the Government of Western Australia, to permanent heads of departments—such as Messrs. O. Burt, R. C. Clifton, J. B. Roe, H. Johnston, M. A. C. Fraser, R. Pether and H. C. Prinsep—to several early settlers, and to the Hon. R. S. Haynes, M.L.C.; Messrs. Edward Shenton, F. C. Broadhurst, W. M. Parker, and Thos. Burmingham. Two articles on the goldfields, by experienced men, are appended.

Part II. contains the biographies of the chief men of the colony, a feature of this production which should prove of general interest. Engaged on this section of the work have been J. M. Mackay, F. F. Macalpine, M.A., S. H. Whittaker, and other special writers.