Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/135

 "The value of a goldfield in attracting population to a colony is well understood in Australia, but the miner is a very migra­tory creature, and, unless he happens to strike something really good, he is always ready to move on towards some rumoured fresh discovery. And when he has 'made his pile' the hardships and the bareness of his surroundings do not invite him to settle down an d spend it on the spot. For the immigrant that Western Australia wants, the man whose mission is to make the wilderness blossom as the rose, the two private railways, built on the land-grant system, have been the necessary precursor. Take the Great Southern line as an example of how these com­panies have paved the way for settlement. The railway, ad­mirably built, carefully maintained, and well furnished with first-class rolling stock, traverses a country that ten years ago was practically unknown. From two or three centres settlement is changing the face of the country, and the interminable eucalypt is giving place to green pastures, and waving fields of grain. The townships are, as a rule, rudimentary and prosaic, but it is quite startling to find that one of these embryo towns, Katanning, possesses an hotel lighted throughout by electricity. The company has sold many thousands of acres, sometimes in large blocks, to English investors, who are building up estates of great future value, sometimes in small holdings to sturdy yeomen, who mean to wrest out of the willing soil the means to meet their deferred payments. The price realised ranges from 10s. to £2 per acre, and the terms upon which purchases can be made are so easy as to be within the reach of all but the absolutely destitute.

"In New South Wales and Victoria there is no disguising the fact that the so-called 'working classes regard any material addition to the population with undisguised hostility; but, away from the presence of concentrated city population, in the sparsely settled, and almost illimitable territories of the 'far west' a more generous feeling prevails towards the 'new chum' immigrant. If he knows anything about agriculture, understands the value of thrift, and possesses industry and health, he will be sure of a welcome; and even without appreciable capital will have no difficulty in getting started on the