Page:History of West Australia.djvu/98

74 people elsewhere led them to expect this. When they reached Western Australia and required ready money, they were compelled to sell some of their property, and because of nearly everybody else being similarly situated, they had to sacrifice at a great loss. The abnormal prices paid for provisions was one of their most important expenditures.

Dissatisfied people from the east received large grants, and, not successful elsewhere, they failed here, and laid the blame on the quality of the land. Several easterners also took up country for speculative purposes, hoping to benefit by an "unearned increment." Added to this, by the Imperial regulations, land was granted to numbers of officers of the Army and Navy in lieu of their pay. They were men, most of them, who knew nothing of agriculture, or of colonisation, for that matter. Several of these officers were evidently imbued with the speculative instinct, and thinking that by obtaining thousands of acres of land for their pay they could soon increase their hundreds of pounds to many thousands, they took up large tracts, but very few improved them in any way. Grants were made to people who were never in the colony, and to the captains of the Challenger and Sulphur, "and all the officers, to the captain's clerk, and to others." The Lieutenant-Governor received 100,000 acres, two other persons received over 100,000 acres, ten 20,000, eighteen 10,000, and fifty-two 5,000 acres each. The injurious principle of unlimited grants was the great cause of the whole depression, and although there were regulations providing for the nominal improvement of the land, they were not generally obeyed, and the soil remained idle. Lord Glenelg, in a despatch in 1837, admitted that the system of grants retarded the prosperity of the colony.

The three great forces in colonisation were not kept in due proportion—capital, land, and labour. Land was not apportioned according to the capital and labour the settler could concentrate upon it. Also, land was not only obtainable on the introduction of labourers and certain investments, but it could be procured on the application of capital to the land to the extent of one and sixpence per acre. While large numbers of servants were introduced into the colony they were in no way proportionate to the areas of land held, and were not placed on that class of work which ensured quick profits. Some of those who seriously wished to hold their land, merely improved it to all appearances so as to obtain the fee-simple of the grant at the expiration of the periods mentioned in the regulations. The Literary Gazette, issued by the Perth Literary Society, in November, 1831, asserted, that "to the want of labour, and to that alone, may be traced all the evils that have afflicted this infant settlement." This statement, in view of the numerous servants that were introduced during 1830 and 1831, was doubted by many settlers. A writer on South Australian colonisation, in instituting a comparison with Western Australia, voices these views when he says of this colony that the evils "may be traced, not to labour absolutely, for plenty of workmen were taken to the colony by the first emigrant capitalists; but to the want of arrangements for having constancy and combination of labour." The enormous size of some grants, the want of co-operation between settlers and their friends at home, the absence of the true colonising spirit, the inability of many to apply their capital and labour to the right channels, the speculative instinct which was so predominant, the lack of ready money, the injurious reports circulated far and wide, and the sins of many of the servants themselves, combined to retard progression and to precipitate distress.

Servants early became dissatisfied with their lot. At Swan River they suddenly found themselves in positions of power, for they recognised that success depended on their efforts. They took advantage of this, and, says Mr. Nathaniel Ogle, F.G.S., in 1839, were influenced by caprice and whim, and conducted themselves with much swagger. They were not allowed to take up land until released from their indentures, which extended from two to five years and more. Most of Mr. Peel's servants received wages at the rate of three shillings per day, from which food and clothing were deducted. The free men received much better pay; labourers earning from five shillings upwards, and artificers from eight to ten shillings per day. As a consequence, the indentured servants were not satisfied, and made frequent complaints against their masters, and if it were proved that the latter did not fulfil the necessary obligations, such as in wages, food, or other stipulations, they were released from their indentures. In 1831 they talked of forming a club. The masters repeatedly complained of the insolence of servants and of the impossibility of obtaining a fair day's work from them. They accused them of refusing to obey orders, of carelessness in the use of their employers' property, of striving to give annoyance so as to obtain their freedom. The Lieutenant-Governor often had to settle these disputes. Already there was a serious evil existing among servants, and among masters also—that of intoxication. It was provided that so much rum be allowed each servant once a day; before many months were passed, however, they demanded rum three times a day, and an allowance of beer as well. The unbalanced spent much of their wages at the inns, and cases of drunkenness became frequent in 1831. To such dimensions did this evil attain that the Lieutenant-Governor mentions it in his despatches, and Mr. G. F. Moore in that year refers to drink as "the bane of this country." In December, 1831, two men were drowned in Melville Waters while under the influence of drink. In the absence of good-fellowship and a proper spirit of mutual help between master and man, the community was bound to suffer, the more because of their isolated and dependent position.

The injurious reports circulated concerning the Swan River Settlement in 1829 and 1830, were even more pronounced in 1831, and did the colony material harm. Few of those leaving Western Australia, or who were compelled by indigence to remain here, were willing to admit that their failure was caused by their own want of exertion, lack of persistence, and unsuitability for colonisation. They laid the whole blame upon the quality of land. Settlements in other colonies encouraged these reports, and inflated them most consistently. Indeed, great jealousy existed between the young settlements of Great Britain, and, too often at the risk of truth, one tried to do as much harm as possible to the other. Captain Irwin, in his useful work on Western Australia, published in London in 1835, gives two instances, which are the cause and effect. An early settler, who had sold a good business in London, opened as a merchant at Swan River. He purchased no land, but devoted his whole attention to business; meeting with little encouragement, he became addicted to intemperance, squandered some, and sold the remainder of his property, and removed to the Cape of Good Hope. Although he had probably not seen more than the sandy districts of the coast, he there disseminated the worst reports of Western Australia, and industriously sought out those emigrants who touched at the Cape, giving them such a description of the