Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/131

 average wages for the last two years there are calculated at from 28 l. to 30 l. for the best hands; while for the nine years preceding, they have been but from 18 l. to 20 l. Married shepherds, besides the product of the sheep, have a cow’s grass worth 6 l., a free house and garden in value 5 l. or 6 l., and oatmeal to the extent of 5 l. more. By the mode of payment adopted on the borders, the vigilant superintendence of the shepherd is in a great measure secured, by his interests being combined with those of his employer.

The emigrant should resolutely avoid engaging to supply his servants with rations of spirits; a practice which has been productive of very baneful results in the demoralization of servants, while it inflicts a heavy tax on the master. Good colonial beer would form an excellent substitute, and it might be a stipulation in the indenture that the servant should be supplied with it whenever there was any ready means of obtaining it; but the settler, after the second year, ought to brew for his own establishment.

For the first two years the emigrant should be satisfied to live in such a cottage as he could erect with the aid of his own people—one of a description similar to that mentioned in pp. 52 and 53. This he will find a sufficiently comfortable dwelling both in summer and winter. The cottage should be contiguous to the best site the land affords for a permanent residence, so that it might serve for a kitchen and servants’ apartments when the farm-house was completed; but the prudent settler will not undertake this latter work till he is enabled to do it out of the profits of his farm, whether pastoral or agricultural; and then it should be a good substantial building of stone or brick. It need not then be expensive, as the settler could in the intermediate time be procuring the materials, either by the labour of his people, or by barter from his neighbours. If the means of the emigrant are ample enough to render it unnecessary for