A MODEST DEMAND.
THIRTY-THREE thousand people, seated on the South- Western edge of the Australian continent, have sent in a polite request that they may have control over the vast resources of an area eleven times as large as Great Britain. Such is the meaning of the petition for responsible govern- ment which has been forwarded to the Colonial Office by the Legislative Council of Western Australia. Mr. Mother- country, as the Home Government used to be called in the day of heated conflicts about Colonial policy, has received and granted many big demands, but there are few in the long list which quite come up to this striking illustration of the modesty of what was styled in 1826 the Swan River Settle- ment. We ought to say that the Governor, Sir Frederick Broome, has given his fullest support to the first resolution, asking for responsible government, and to the second, declaring that the Colony should remain one and undivided in the new Constitution, with two modifications. He stipulates that pro- tection shall be afforded to the native races, and that the right of the Crown to set up a separate Colony within the present huge limits shall be reserved. The first proviso must be taken as a matter of course ; the second seems to be in conflict with the unanimous resolve of those who represent the thirty- three thousand who are the claimants of a Colony that shall be one and indivisible. We do not wonder that the Governor should have thought fit to put in this reservation. Western Australia, so called, is what remained of the continent after the arbitrary line separating it from South Australia, and ex- tending from the ocean on the South to the ocean on the North, had been marked on the map. It consists of an enormous territory, the greater part of which, on the coast as well as in the interior, has never' been explored. The colonists, con- sidering their numbers, do a fair amount of trade in wool, wood, and metals ; they manage to keep their revenue pretty close to their expenditure ; and they have a debtof some three- quarters of a million. They have one railway, and they are eager to have more ; and, on the whole, their prospects are said to be improving. Moreover, they are ambitious of rivalling their sisters in the South, East, and North. This little, thinly inhabited settlement on the shores of the sea is spread over the South-West angle of the continent, and it is practically a handful of colonists who want to have the final word respecting the terms upon which such portions of the expanse of land beyond the boundaries of their farms as may prove to be habitable, shall be allotted to emigrants. That is really what is meant by the demand for responsible government and a Colony one and indivisible.
Now, there is no objection in principle to the wish of the West Australians. The Imperial Government has given abounding proofs of its readiness to endow the energetic creators of Colonies with institutions similar to our own; so that, as Patrick Smyth, in an eloquent and barely reported speech, said, "the ringing of the division-bell," not less than "the tap of the morning drum," marks the track of England round the globe, and testifies to the progeny of the mother of Parliaments. That question, therefore, need not be discussed, since it is already decided irrevocably. Neither need we consider whether the band of aspirants for power are too few for constitutional government, even if we only regard the small extent of ground over which they have spread. We can readily imagine a rela- tively small and compact Colony so situated as to require and deserve autonomy. But the question here at issue is far larger in its character. At present, the lands, known and unknown, included in an area which must be expressed in thousands of miles, belong to the Crown, the trustee of the millions who swarm in the United Kingdom and its Colonies and Depen- dencies. Is the trustee to surrender control over nearly a million square miles to the few thousands of persons who have
found their way into a little corner of this spacious realm I' It is said, indeed, that " out of the million square miles in the country, less than three thousand have been alienated by the Crown ; while of the residue, only about one- quarter has been occupied even on pastoral leases." The niece number of the actual population, considered in its relation to the long coast-belt imperfectly settled, shows the vast dis- proportion of land to people. What is their real claim to domineer over nine hundred and seventy-three thousand square miles ? To put the question is to answer it. There are not now so many untenanted spaces on the globe suitable for human habitation, that we should endow a small com- munity with this magnificent gift, and shut out from its pale all who are not ready to accept the conditions which may be imposed by the thirty-three thousand folk who are dotted about between Cape Arid and Sharks Bay. Every one of the other Colonies contains nearly ten times, and some two hundred times, the population of West Australia, and are big enough to manage for themselves. But not one of them, at least since 1850, ever pretended to lordship over such a stupendous territory as that now modestly claimed by the Legislative Council at Perth. Let us put the question in another shape. It is estimated that there are 2,957,000 square miles in Australia, with a population exceeding two millions. The thirty-three thousand people in West Australia, as their share of the grand total, ask for nothing lees than one-third !
It is true, no doubt, that vast inland tracts of this huge cantle of a continent may be, while some expanses certainly are, desert wastes, devoid of water; and that there is a strong probability, if not actual assurance, that the depressed central region is wholly uninhabitable. But against this assumption must be put the fact that the frontiers of available land are continually advancing, and that no one ran say where the final barrier will be reached. Nor can it be said that exploration has exhausted the possibilities and probabilities of the North- Western maritime angle and inland heights. At any rate, there is some fair chance that a considerable portion of the coveted million square miles may be suitable for settlements ; and whether that be so or not, it would be impolitic and unwise to give away the probabilities, and place dominion over them in the hands of a few settlers who do not fill, or nearly fill, the area which they inhabit. None can say whether or not new gold-fields may not be discovered in the untrodden wastes west of Queensland and north of the sparsely settled portion of West Australia ; nor that other minerals may not be found by some daring adventurer. Here is nearly the third of a continent the greater part of which is practically unknown, and surely it should be kept open to the Queen's subjects, and free for all comers. It has been often remarked that the unused regions grow less and less. Even the United States has learned the secret that hundreds of thousands of square miles within her bounds are not fitted for the dwellings and labours of men. The Government of the Republic has recently taken strong measures in limitation of the rights of aliens to have and to hold, and has shown plain indications of an intention to select immigrants. The reten- tion of West Australia as a Crown Colony would preserve intact the advantages of settlement on reasonable terms ; and if it be true, as seems to be authoritatively alleged, that West Australia is big enough to absorb our surplus population for centuries, or even only for one century, then, we take it, the Imperial trustees will not be fulfilling their trust if they abandon a rightful claim to control, and surrender this magnificent domain to a few persons on the bare chance that they will be just and reasonable in their dealings and regulations.
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