Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/49

 little the toils of the march in dwelling on the glories of the goal. Still, there was a strong vein of practicality running through all his idealisations, and he induced others to participate in a guarded way in his enthusiasms. Given permission to construct the railway, and getting in return a substantial land grant, this born projector proposed, by pouring in a steady stream of emigration, to fertilise the adjacent territory, to the equal benefit of himself and his co-partners, and of the industrious population which he meant to plant upon the soil. In 1886 he went out from England with the view of organising the operations of the West Australian Land Company, which he had initiated for the execution of his scheme. As fate would have it, however, he died on board the steamer, almost in sight of the promised land of so many eager hopes and sanguine calculations. The emigration scheme which he had projected as an essential concomitant of his design dropped through after his death, and it is affixing no stigma on his coadjutors and successors to say that it probably failed as the consequence of his demise. Had he lived no mere emigration scheme would have been attempted, but one of thoroughgoing colonisation on comprehensive lines. Lacking his personal supervision, the influx glutted the labour market instead of developing the agricultural resources of the country, and it had to be abandoned; soon, however, in some shape to be revived under the more favourable conditions which now obtain. In this respect Mr. Hordern seems to have found a worthy successor in Mr. James Martin, the chairman of the West Australian Land Company, who has visited the colony, and, in a manner equally broadminded and businesslike, given the necessary fillip to the practical realisation of Mr. Hordern's conceptions.