south; over the hills, at York; on the River Murray; at Augusta, and at King George's Sound,-settlement was industriously spreading. Governor Stirling, in a despatch to Sir George Murray, G.C.B., then Secretary for State for the Colonies, writes of the colonists about this time as working with a cheerful confidence in the qualities of the country, and a general belief in its future prosperity; and for a time the young settlement really did progress with a slow albeit steadfast growth.

In comparison with the eastern colonies, however, which progressed by leaps and bounds, Western Australia seemed to advance with very halting gait. Still, it must be remembered that the western colony was the victim of a peculiar set of circumstances. In the first place, as previously mentioned, the early colonists were not the best fitted for pioneer work in a new country. Then, again, the colony was in an isolated position, cut off by 2,000 miles of unknown country from the eastern settlements, and rarely visited by the ocean carriers of commerce. The discoveries, too, of valuable mineral deposits which had brought wealth and progress to the eastern colonies, had yet to be made in Western Australia. Moreover, the land, except in comparatively restricted areas, was barren, and in many places infested with a plant which poisoned flocks and herds feeding on it, while nearly all the best land was locked up in large grants, owned by persons who were for the most part at little pains to develop them. However, despite all these drawbacks, the small community of settlers was, generally speaking, so united, and consisted of people of such cultured tastes, that the earlier years of the colony's history were, socially, the brightest.

Captain James Stirling, R.N., who held the rank of LieutenantGovernor, administered the affairs of the settlement from the 6th June, 1829, to September, 1832. The next Lieutenant-Governor was Captain Irwin, the Commandant of the Forces, who continued in office till the month of September, 1833. Then followed Captain Richard Daniell, up to May, 1834, when for a fortnight the colony was administered by Captain Picton Beete, Daniell resuming control of affairs and continuing in office till August, 1834, at which date Captain Stirling (afterwards Sir James Stirling) entered upon his second term, this time as Governor with full rank, which closed at the end of the year 1838.

In the meantime the free-grant land system of settlement, which had been inaugurated with the first days of colonisation, had been working out in anything but a satisfactory manner. Magnificent estates had been lavishly squandered upon propertied immigrants during the first few years of the colony's existence, and the splendid territorial munificence of the Government soon began to show its retarding influence in the country's progress. All the best land, the "eyes" of the districts watered by the Swan, the Canning, and the Avon, as well as the finest patches in the vicinity of the more southern settlements, were gone beyond recall. It is now recognised that if the conditions originally imposed in the making of these grants had been rigidly insisted upon

no abiding mischief might have been inflicted upon the young colony. The Orders in Council, under which the Governor was empowered to act, offered land in extent proportioned only to capital invested in the colony for purposes of absolute improvement. Practically, however, grants of land were made for any and every kind of property for which the immigrant who imported it might choose to make a claim in the form of acreage. Even articles of furniture, art, and plate, were assessed as valuable accretions to the colony's wealth, and acknowledged in donations carved from the public estate. Again, the occupation obligations were carried out neither in the letter nor in the spirit. It is recorded that full and unconditional titles were readily obtained, and that over a million acres of the best portions of those districts which, from the nearness to the chief township and the seaport of the colony, might most easily have been brought into profitable cultivation, became "locked up" in a huge land monopoly. When the poorer emigrants--the labourers and the mechanics, and such servants as had achieved freedom from their indentures-sought to establish themselves upon the soil, they found that they were shut out from these very areas where their enterprise and their labour would have been most productively and usefully applied.

Sir James Stirling gave up the reins of Government at the end of the year, 1838. He was succeeded by Governor John Hutt, whose administration lasted from January, 1839, to December, 1845. The next Governor was Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Clarke, from February, 1846, to February, 1847. Then came Governor Lieutenant-Colonel Irwin, from February, 1847, to July, 1848, and Captain Charles Fitzgerald, from August, 1848, to June 1855; and the term of office of the last-named officer ushers in a new era in the history of Western Australia. When the colony was founded, the Imperial authorities had made an agreement with the first settlers that no convicts or prisoners were to be transported to the new settlement, as was the case with regard to New South Wales and Tasmania. Some twenty years had rolled by, and Western Australia numbered close upon 7,000 inhabitants; 4,000 acres had been brought into cultivation, sheep had increased to 140,000, cattle to 11,000, imports had reached a value of £45,000, and exports £30,000. Nevertheless, the struggle to make a living was becoming harder and harder, trade was languishing, labour was difficult to obtain, and immigrants did not appear to find the country attractive enough to bring them thither-a result, doubtless, of the manner in which the land was locked up in big estates. "Widespread depression prevailed amongst the colonists, and at last, though with dire misgivings on the part of many, they decided to petition the Home Government for the introduction of convicted prisoners, hoping thus to obtain cheap labour, an abundant expenditure, and a market for their cheap produce." The colonists of Western Australia had no difficulty in gaining a complaisant answer to their petition; for, at this juncture, the Imperial authorities were feeling the pressing necessity of having some oversea settlement suitable for the deportation

thereto of criminals. The first batch of convicts was landed at Fremantle on the 1st June, 1850. Transportation to the colony was continued for about eighteen years, during which time some 10,000 members of the criminal class were added to its population. In the earlier years of the "transportation system" the convicts who were landed in Western Australia did not by any means belong to the worst type of criminal. Some of the shipments, indeed, were selected with special care, and with a view to meeting the requirements of a labour-starved colony. Although there was undoubtedly a sprinkling of hardened villains, a great proportion of those sent out consisted of agricultural labourers who were transported for some petty infraction of the game laws. Prisoners of this class were of great use during their term of sentence, and later on developed into an excellent body of settlers.

Governor Fitzgerald retired from office in June, 1855, and was succeeded in the administration by Arthur Edward Kennedy, afterwards Sir Arthur Edward Kennedy, and Governor of Queensland. Kennedy's term of office came to an end in February, 1862; for ten days or so the Government was administered by Lieutenant-Colonel John Bruce, as Acting-Governor; and then John S. Hampton, took over the control of the colony.

The complaints against the use of bond labour in injudicious directions which were frequently made in Governor Fitzgerald's time disappeared with Hampton's assumption of office. His admirers declare that there was an absolute change for the better all round. He had qualified himself for the position of Governor of a penal settlement by holding an office of authority in Tasmania connected with the convict system of that colony. He was a stern disciplinarian, and was able to gauge to a nicety how to get the maximum of work from the human muscle, and how to employ convict labour to the best advantage. He set to work with a will to improve the colony's means of communication, and succeeded so well that it has been said of him: "The remembrance of Mr. Hampton's administration is perpetuated in miles upon miles of macadamised road, in the covering of many a heavy sand-stretch with well-laid metal, and in bridges and causeways innumerable over. river and swamp, from one end of the settled districts to the other."

Governor Hampton surrendered his office in the month of November, 1868, and with the termination of his régime the era of convictism was closed; but with the cessation of transportation, and the maintenance of prison labour, passed away also the large Imperial expenditure-although the withdrawal was gradual. The settlers at first felt this rather keenly, for though willing enough to be cleansed of the convict "taint," they were far from pleased at the loss of its solatium in currency. The "system" had reigned in the colony for about eighteen years; and the settlers' expectation of material advantage accruing from its continuance in their midst had been

fairly satisfied. Nevertheless, beyond giving cheap labour, and a large circulation of money, transportation had done nothing for the general advancement of the colony, and had rather fostered than removed its chief bane-isolation. Transportation had ceased in the case of New South Wales in 1849; in that of Tasmania, in 1852; it had never been introduced into Victoria, South Australia, and (since its birth as a colony) Queensland. The eastern and southern colonies, therefore, looked askance at the distant western settlement.

After the conclusion of Governor Hampton's term of office, the colony was administered, from November, 1868, to September, 1869, by Lieutenant-Colonel John Bruce, the Commandant of the Forces, as ActingGovernor. Frederick A. Weld, was the next Governor, and he ruled the Colony from September, 1869, to December, 1874. During his régime, and by an order of the Queen in Council, dated the 3rd April, 1871, the Executive Council was remodelled. The Governor remained President; the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Senior Officer in command of the Land Forces, and the Surveyor-General retained their seats, whilst those of the Comptroller-General and Collector of Revenue were abolished.

Governor Weld, who had been trained to political and public life in the progressive and restless colony of New Zealand, saw with dismay the condition of stagnation in which Western Australia seemed perfectly contented to remain. He had been accustomed to a country which enjoyed a considerable measure of freedom and prosperity. Filled with enthusiasm, he conceived it to be his duty to break down the barriers which shut in the colony from intercourse with the outside world, as well as to provide more adequate means of communication between the centres of settlement within it. His first task was to arrange for regular steam communication between Albany, the Vasse, Bunbury, Fremantle, and Geraldton. This was the beginning of a trade which steadily grew, and later on all the intermediate ports between Albany and Cambridge Gulf enjoyed the advantages of a regular and efficient steam service. The Governor next turned his attention to the question of telegraphic communication, and in spite of the apathy of the colonists on the subject, had the satisfaction, before his departure, of seeing all the principal centres of population connected by telegraph lines. The closing act of this energetic Governor and true benefactor to the people whom he governed, was the planting of the first pole of the line of wire which has since brought Western Australia into direct communication with the other colonies of Australasia and with the world. During Mr. Weld's term of office he made a strong attempt to move the colonists in the direction of railway construction, and, though this could not, considering the colony's limited resources, be carried out on anything like an extensive scale at that time, he had the satisfaction of seeing a beginning made with two distinct railway systems, one commencing at Geraldton and the other at Fremantle.

Western Australia owes much to Mr. Weld's practical and progressive administration. In addition to the works already alluded to as carried out during his term of office, various industries, notably mining, were developed; a partially representative Legislature was established; municipal institutions were introduced; an Education Act was passed; and important explorations were successfully conducted by Mr. (now Sir) John Forrest.

It must not be forgotten, however, that useful explorations had been previously carried out, and had greatly furthered the extension of settlement. As far back as the year 1831, Captain Bannister had made an overland journey from Perth to King George's Sound, and his track afterwards became the regular overland route.

In 1837 Lieutenant Grey (afterwards Sir George Grey) set out on an expedition, having for its objective the north-west and western portions of the continent, and although the work was hindered by the opposition of the natives, and by sickness among the exploring party, important additions were made to geographical knowledge. Lieutenant Roe, Surveyor-General of the Colony, made several journeys eastward, and he was followed by various other explorers, but their discoveries were not of great practical utility. In 1839 Grey set out on his second expedition northward, and on this occasion again the members of the party suffered great hardships. Grey claimed to have discovered the Gascoyne, Murchison, Hutt, Bower, Buller, Chapman, Greenough, Irwin, Arrowsmith, and Smith Rivers, but the difficulties and privations met with on the expedition prevented him from making any detailed surveys of his discoveries.

Edward John Eyre's tremendous effort to march round the head of the Australian Bight, with a single black boy, in 1840-1, belongs rather to the history of South Australia than to that of Western Australia. Nevertheless, his exploratory expedition was of value in giving a more thorough and detailed knowledge of the geography of the coast of the latter colony, than that before possessed.

The colonists of the Swan River settlement believed that although their little colony was encircled by a belt of desert land, beyond the desert lay rich agricultural and pastoral country. Various efforts were from time to time made to penetrate this surrounding waste. In 1843 Messrs. Landor and Lefroy made a short excursion from York, but nothing tangible resulted from their exploration. Again, in 1846, three brothers named Gregory set out from Bolgart Spring, the farthest stockstation eastward, with the object of discovering fresh pastoral land. The country passed over in their eastward journey was found, however, to be barren and inhospitable, and interspersed here and there with numerous salt lakes. The explorers next turned their attention to the streams crossed by Grey in his disastrous expedition to Shark's Bay, and, at the mouth of one of these, the Arrowsmith, a seam of coal was discovered.