Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/52

 and if the evident risk is also considered, it will, it is apprehended, be generally admitted, that few who would regard the enterprise solely as a commercial speculation, would have accepted the grant on the terms represented as so favourable to Mr. Peel.

After observing upon this grant, this writer proceeds to state the conditions on which other settlers obtained land in the following passage:—“It was declared that all the world should be entitled to unlimited grants on either one of two conditions, as the grantee should prefer; either an outlay of one shilling and sixpence per acre in conveying labourers to the settlement, or the investment of capital on the land at the rate of one shilling and sixpence per acre.” These conditions, he goes on to contend, are at variance with each other; but on this point his information has been erroneous. No land could be obtained on the second condition; and, on the first, land was assigned in occupancy only (it still continuing crown land), until the improvement required by the second condition was effected, when the occupant became entitled to the fee-simple; but, if he failed to effect the improvement within a stipulated period, his grant reverted to the Crown.

The above remarks will equally apply to the work on South Australia, already noticed (which quotes from “England and America” most of the statements here animadverted upon), and also to a paper in the Literary Gazette for November 1831, containing similar errors, and which article is quoted by the first-mentioned work.

Some allusion may here be expected to the statements that have been made on the subject of labour. The writer of “England and America,” in a passage already quoted, asserts, that in this colony—“there never has been a class of labourers.” The Literary Gazette of November 1831 states, that “to the want of labour, and to that alone, may