Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/47

 Beverley does not show the lands of the West Australian Com­pany to advantage, for the line is taken along the ironstone ridges, so that the land in its immediate neighbourhood affords no criterion of the fertility of the lower country further afield, which, about Katanning and Broome Hill especially, is very great indeed. The minimum sale price is now from 12s. to 15s. per acre, whilst small areas in choice spots have realised as much as £5. Town sites are also proclaimed in the vicinity of stations, and have realised as much as £35 for the eighth of an acre lots; profits of as much as 500 per cent. having in favourable instances been made on the re-sale of the latter by sagacious purchasers at the original auctions. From Beverley I travelled with Sir Henry Wrenfordsley, who in his youth twice unsuccessfully contested Peterborough in the Conservative interest. He has discharged judicial functions in five colonies, and years ago was Chief Justice of Western Australia, which, in view of its rising fortunes, he must regret having exchanged for the dubious fleshpots of Fiji, where he was disabled by illness and compelled to retire. Since then he has been utilised as a sort of "emergency man," and at the time I speak of (May, 1891), was Acting Chief Justice of the colony, in the absence of Mr. Onslow.

As the part of the south-western district which is bisected by the Great Southern Railway is a part which is primarily available for settlers, I took some pains at a later period to see sample portions of it, and fair samples, too, as far as I could gather. I will begin by giving a sort of official description of the country, which was drawn up by Sir Malcolm Fraser, K.C.M.G., the present Agent-General, who was one of the first, if not the first, to advocate the construction of this railway, when the line, now successfully completed, was only in contemplation. "The sections of the country under re­view," so the report runs, "is a plateau having a mean surface level of about one thousand feet above the sea, though in places the river beds and valleys below and above this general level are found cropping up ranges and peaks, which, however, with the exception of the Stirling Range, are not of any considerable height. From this plateau flow all the