Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/136

 road that leads to independence, and in many cases to affluence.

"In the production of grain and fruit, in dairying, chicken­ farming, and market-gardening, two or three thousand families might readily find work without overtaking the local demand for their products. It is a severe reflection on the enterprise of the colonists that during last year £42,000 was expended in importing grain and flour, £21,000 in butter and cheese, and such items as bacon, potatoes, hay, and hops, figure for many thousands of pounds in the list of imports; and this in a country where from fourteen to twenty bushels of wheat to the acre from virgin soil is a common record, and where there is abundance of land that will yield from three to five tons of potatoes to the acre, with very little preparation. Surely the West Australians may cry aloud to the redundant population of Great Britain not, 'Come over and help us,' but, 'Come over and help yourselves.' The growth of a community that rests upon an agricultural basis is comparatively slow, but it is sure, and steadily progressive; and, in growing, it builds up a population "With staying qualities, with attachment to the soil, and animated by sentiments of respect for honest labour. The coming democracy of the west will have their theories of universal equality, but their practice" ill be tempered by the sense of responsibility which belongs to prosperity. The swarm of chevaliers d'industrie who prey upon the community in the eastern colonies, who poison the springs of confidence by their nefarious and wily speculations, will find small scope for their entangling devices amongst men who work hard for what they get and prize it accordingly. Nor need it be supposed that the enterprising immigrant who throws in his lot with the coming colony necessarily bids farewell to the comforts of civilisation. In Perth, Fremantle, York, Bunbury, and Albany there are all the necessary organisations for social enjoyment. There are clubs, literary societies and institutions, musical societies, horticultural societies, and a very pronounced leaning towards the turf and athletic sports. But most interesting of all to the artisan class, that great bugbear of the other Australian colonies, 'the unemployed,' is as yet an unknown quantity.