Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/54

 The apparent contradiction between the high price of labour and the occasional want of employment, will be cleared up when the high price of provisions is considered, and also the want of capital to give employment to that labour—evils which have resulted from causes already adverted to.

It now remains for the author to offer a few observations,
 * (1.) On the failures that occurred among the early settlers.
 * (2.) On the origin of the reports so widely circulated to the prejudice of the country.
 * (3.) On the tardy progress of the colony, compared with what had been expected.

The following extract from one of the earliest dispatches of the Governor (written in January 1830, and addressed to the Secretary of State) will serve to preface these remarks, as it bears immediately on the first point. Adverting to the circumstances under which the first settlers came out, he thus proceeds:—“There could not be a great number with minds and bodies suited to encounter the struggle and distresses of a new settlement. Many, if not all, have accordingly been more or less disappointed on arrival, with either the state of things here, or their own want of power to surmount the difficulties pressing around them. This has been experienced, in the beginning, by every new colony; and might have been expected to occur here, as well as elsewhere. The greater part, incapable of succeeding in England, are not likely to prosper here to the extent of their groundless and inconsiderate expectations. Many of the settlers who have come, should never have left in England a