Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/103

 and protective works, to keep open a deep channel through the rock barrier after the latter had been formed. Accompanying this condemnation of a scheme to which every loyal Perthite naturally inclined, Sir John made a recommendation that Fremantle should be constituted the principal harbour of the colony under plans which would, in the first instance, provide efficient harbourage for vessels drawing from 24 to 26 feet, and which by a process of extension might ultimately be made to accommodate the largest vessels of the P. and O. Company, with a depth of 34 to 36 feet. It is in the direction of Sir John Coode's project that the amount included in the schedule of the loan, of which a part has already been floated, will probably be applied, though recently the Government favoured a wholly different scheme, which was also endorsed as practic­able by Sir John Coode before his death. That eminent engineer considered that fair harbourage should satisfy the wants of the present generation; but the people of Fremantle are not likely to be long content with any improvement which will still keep them in the rear of Albany as a port of entrance for ocean-going steamers, especially in view of the tempting advances which the Orient Company are believed to have made in the direction of constituting Fremantle a regular port of call on the passage between England and the Australian colonies if safe harbourage is guaranteed. I interpose these allusions to the harbour question as they formed the topic of much heated discussion between the advocates of Fremantle and all sorts of other supposititious harbours before I found myself on board the little steamer Flinders bound for Geraldton, which promising port, with its population of 1,000, we did not, however, reach by this method, the weather proving sufficiently fine to allow of our putting in at Dongara, 41 miles south of Geraldton, where we availed ourselves of the opportunity of travelling along the finished section of the Midland Railway to Walkaway, and thence by the Government line to Geraldton itself.

From the point of view of the Company the original syndicate no doubt committed a mistake in agreeing to make a line which left in the hands of the Government the key of the