West Australia.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 873, 23 November 1888, Page 9

West Australia.

Having given in previous articles some fairly full account of the great wool-growing, cattle-raising region of the North-West of the Colony—of the rolling plains of the Gascoigne and the Murchison—it is about time that something was said about the Southwest portion of the Australian ‘ Cinderella let us say, that district which lies between Perth (already known to your readerß as the capital) and the noble harbour of Albany,

situated on King George’s Sound. This will he found by the intelligent map-scanner to he comparatively no ir the dreaded Cape Leeuwin, ’be south-westerly coiner of thC island continent, an!,' although at present not the capital of tnc colony ;•§ it exiftSnow, is the chief town of tbe Fiautagenet; or south-west division of VWst; Australia-a division which it itny ciiuli etl'.lv be expected from the average quadsy .f i a soil arid the marvellous xdubrity of its deligh’fnlClimate, will be ti.o lir-t portion of the 'huge area of West Australia z- > ‘ wake up ’ aud develop in a South Australian or Victorian fashion. Albany harbour, further, has a much greater importance than tkat merely local ; it is the ‘key of Australia,’ and the first and last port of call for the nihil steamers of the P. and O. and Orient steamers. Very shortly, too, its land-locked deep waters will be defended by batteries erected hy the Colonial Government, and armed with, ordnance of the rao.it recent character by the Home authorities. Moreover, the deep water jetty or pier of .the now-being-constructed Great Southern Railway of Western Australia will ultimately be the terminus of a direct north and south railway system within the Colony of some 600 to 700 miles. For all these reasons, and many more, gold-fields or not, the • future iu the distance’ belongs to the little township whose white houses nestle under the green hills of Mo iuts Clarence and Melville, aud whose plaoid waters in the harbour of the Ro : al protected just outside its narrow entrance from the sounds or outer harbour by the sentinel-like islets of Breaksea and Micha-lmas. On the first-named of these is a lighthouse connected with Albany by submarine cable. ’• Most of the very few authors who'have written intelligently ou West Australia’have devoted much space, and therefore many words, to a glorification of Perth and the treeless, harbourleas waste to which the‘port’ of Fremantle is supposed to be near. Whatever be their reasons for thus proceeding I know not. It’ ink the districts that rear the sheep, and the ouly port that oan accommodate the ooean liners of tile' hour and the bigger ones yet to be, are of infinitely more importance to the world at'large for descriptive purposes, than a dissertation ou the beauties of the sand-swept streets of the seaside village with the town hall, or on the architectural .proportions of the place where the governor resides. The town of Albany is on the northern shore of the Princess Royal Harbour, an inlet of King George’s Sound, a noble piece of water five miles long from north to south. The entrance to Princess Royal Harbour is just a quarter of a mile wide between the points called Possession and King’s; the harbour itso f 13 ahout four miles and a half long, spreading to the N. W., and it is about two to three miles wide. The town looks pretty enough from the promenade deok of the steamer. On the right or starboard hand the visitor will notice the 1785 ft long ’jetty of the Great Southern Railway; which from this point will extend to Beverley, 249 miles away to the north. At Beverley the new trunk railway will connect witu the West Australian Government s eastern system of iron roads, the western portion of which leads to Perth, and the distance between the two places of Beverley and Perth being 110 miles, the metals Irom Albany jetty to the present capital of the cdlony will' be by rail 358 miles. This 1 railway'jetty is built of karri timber, with steel girders, and ia altogether a most substantial affair. Whether karri stands' the effect of'water as well as jarrah is, however,'a matter 1 of opinion. I am personally inclined to' the opinion that jarrah (Edc'>lyptus iiiargiuata) is' the better wood for the 'purpose, and I think that opinion will be endorsed by many 'engineers, those of the Perth Government included. The last IOOOf of the jetty has water 13ft to 33ft deep always alongside. A deck extends for the last 700 ft, 42ft wide, and on this four pairs of rails will be laid. This is, or will' be, 13ft shove high water. Two ocean-going steamers of the largest class could lie alongside together, and four smaller craft in the shallower water.' No seas' affect the (placidity of Princess Royal • Harbour, and vessels will be almost motionless alongside the jetty. Patent buoys will be laid fqr vessels to moor to, and there will be ampfe mooring arrangements on the jetty itsqlf. The trains to and from the north will run alongside and discharge direct into the ship’s held if necessary. • ’ 5

The inception of this first really trunk railway, which here has its terminus, ib due mainly to the late Mr Anthony Hordern, of Sydney, .who foresaw the importance of Albany and the future enhanced value of land iu the south-west of Western Austra? lia. Going th'London with hig idea, he succeeded in forming the West Australian Land Company, whof concluded arrangements with the Colonial Governm-ut to construct 'thp railroad on the land-grant principle', fijr which is meant that''tli ! e company, on the completion of the line, has the pick’ o! some 3,000,000 acres Of land, to bfl selected from a'zone of'Bo liiiles wifie; i.e.. ‘forty miles on each side o# the railway. Half the'railway frontage mu-t, hdW'-gr, he' left for the Goyenmeutj bfitr thejccfiipagy' has the first pick. The Government may not, however, sell any land jn the said Zone till 189li The rails of abqut two-thirds of the distance between Albany and Beverley are no\y laid, and the whole road will be completed early in lßßfl ; it would fiaye been opened towards the enfl of this year but'for the insensate jealquay of tfie Perth-Fremantle folk, who by weight of numbers in the L e gislative Council, insisted qn much of the railway material coming via the last-named place with a roadstead, in te«d of going direct to Albany. The critio in We t Australia who oai-cs for recording such wretched exhibitidns of childish jealousy as these will have plenty of material.for his * copy,’ but to my mind they are indigestible reading and sicken the soul. Ever courteous Mr S.'S. Young, the managing director resident at Albany, told me that fch’ l-’.bonr of supervising so great a woik as th) Gre t Smthern was as nothing ‘o his' miud when compared with the wretched obstacles placed'in his way by political jobbers and hungrymouthed storekeepers, over whose feducation aud intelligence, broadly considered, the charitable-minded would draw a veil. The gauge of the Beverley;’Albany 'is 3ft. Gin , that, unfortunately, 'being the gauge of Western Australia. In this matter of gauges they are erratic in'Australia; For

instance, the gauge of , the sister colonies of South Australia and Victoria is sft. 3in., or what I believe is known as the Irish one ; ■whereas New South Wales has the British one of 4ft. BJin., and Queensland revels in the independence of 3ft. Gljin. once again. The inconvenience of these systems at the border Junction stations of the respective colonies will be appreciated by anybody who has graduated in railroading. The time is rapidly approaching when railway communication, either via the coast or from some part nearer Perth, will strike the South Australian network of lines at their westernmost part. Trains on a gauge of 3ft. 6in. can never travel at the high speed allowed to the wider ones ; so it is at least open to doubt, with the twenty knot steamers of the near future, whether, if a railway was made across the land at the back of the Great Australian Bight, the Australian mails wonld save time by being landed at Albany, if they are only to be trudged along a narrow gauge line at the funereal paoe of fifteen miles an hour, stoppages inoluded. Messrs C. and E. Millar, of Melbourne and Adelaide, are the contractors for the Great Southern, and a word must be said for the unvarying kindliness of their officials. The navvies have been quite a superior class, earning from Bs. to 10s. a day, and fairly comfortable in their * camps,’ pushed forward ns the road progresses. There lias been a plentiful supply of these from Englaud—‘ now chums ’ and many of these, fresh from the madding crowds of big British cities, soon tire of the deathlike silence of the bush, and so, after a few weeks' labour ‘ up the line, they take themselves and their belongings off to Adelaide or Melbourne, where once again they are face to face with the glare of the gaslights and in general ‘town life. Just abovo the shore end of the jetty is the house and garden of Capt. Batcher, the harbour-master and pilot of King George’s Sound. Hailing from fish-curing Lowestoft, the jolly old mariner’s face brightens up with mora than its usual geniality when von talk to him of the garden he has made* of his ‘ sand patch for boasts he not three crops of large potatoes a year, and onions that would make mouth as well as eyes water ? And then he says sententiously. ‘ They say, you know, neither potatoes nor onions will grow near Albany ; but what do you expect from people who know nothing of elbow grease and its value’’ . ■ Further up the harbour is a disused coal jetty, which was erected for the P. and O. Company, and then the town pier or jetty, built ever so many years ago. On it are a line of rails with a few trucks for baggage transportation, and for the use of this pier and tracks they do not forget to charge. The coasting steamers to and from Fremantle and Adelaide, which call at Albany about once a fortnight, lie alongside ; bnt the ocean steamers, pending the completion of the railway structure, remain out in the harbour, and communication is kept up with the Bhore by means of steam launches, chief of which is the Jessie, owned by Mr Douglas, who, though his visage i 3 not always wreathed with smiles that grace the beautiful, is doubtless a most worthy and praise-deserving gentleman. Looking southward are the scrub and sand covered hills on the opposite aide of the harbour, whose field of liquid azure spreads out before you like a map, dotted here and thei'e by the white wing-like canvas of small sail, iug craft, or perhaps on a windy day, with the snowy crests of the miniature waves. Though the Albany climate is abont as absolute perfection as is possible on earth —being, in' fact, a regular sanatorium for the average invalid—yet, when it blows and when it rains, business is meant. The north wind, the hot breath of which is felt now and again in summer, is tempered by tho cool breezes which come up from the southern sea. Fires, even so far as the Antipodean summer as November, are required in the cool evenings. At all times blankets are used at nights, and the same clothing that one wonld wear, say, in. Devonshire in England is required by the waters of King George’s Sonnd. The health of the inhabitants is uniformly good, and the children look pictures of rosy life. Considering that the population is, with the circumjacent suburbs, short of two thousand, A bany is well to the fore in matters municipal. There is a mayor and a , council, who meet often and talk a great deal; but, on the whole, they deserve well of the people who return them to office. Great is the town hall of the Albanians ; small, bnt well used, is the Mechanics’ Institute. The Anglican church is ivv-grown and' picturesque; perched on a commanding hillside is the edifice belonging to those who recognise in that of Home the Mother and Mistress of all Churches —the light that cannot be hid. In a quiet corner is the ohapel of the Wesleyaca, but the war of creeds affects not West Australia. She may, indeed, still, feel the convict taint of the 10,000 unfortunates she had incorporated into her body politic, but the Catholio lion and the Protestant lamb lie down together in peace throughout every colony of the empire, and no better example of complete toleration can be found than in West Australia. The two leading hotels are on Stirling-terrace, and both the Freemasons’ and the London are a credit to the colony, considering the difficulties Mrs Wbodman and Mr and Mrs Edwards have at times in getting supplies. The tables at both hostelries are fairly good, and the board and lodging rate of 425. a week well earned, for rents are very high in Albany, both for public and pr.vate houses. Mrs Norman conducts a a quiet private hotel, and there are minor hostelriesj like Mr Watt’s Railway, where accommodation for those studying economy can be had f<Sr a reduced.figure. Quite a revelation to many would be one of the navvies’ boarding houses, where the bed and board is 21s. a week, the board consisting of three good meat meals a day, and comfortabl-: clean beds. Fancy for a second, if you can, reader, a body of stalwart railroad men, sitting down with perfectly clean faoes and hands, about 6.30p.m.,,t0 nbotmeal of meat, vegetables, and tea, served on a table with a snow-white cloth, which was decorated by vases holding what in England would be called hot-house flowers ; and yet I can only sqy that I have witnessed this scene again and again. Now and then a little wild-cat music, accompanied by the hope-destroying sounds of a damaged concertina, is heard to issue from the bars of some of the hotels ; but the workers on the Great Southern! are a

| poaccful, law-abiding body, and, if only m- \ structod a little more, would perhaps prefer I an aria from the last opera to the musical joys of * Pull down tho blind.’ Albany is the veritable keyport of a vast region, shortly to be opened to the immigration of the world at large, and therefore I make no apology for carefully condensing a little extra information, in the space of a few short years much more about the little port will be wanted by the public, and I can only venture, at this distance of time, to discount, as far as may be, that knowledge ; and many of the remarks that are made here in regard to Albany will apply to the other settlements in West Australia. The stranger from the throbbing life of European cities, or those of the Eastern colonies, will be struck by a general listless indifference on the part of the inhabitants. A keen interest in the outside world is conspicuous by its absence in their conversation, and ideas of initiating new phases of development for themselves are never thought of. All the life that at present exists comes from the new blood that the splendid work of the West Australian Land Company has attracted to the colony. The old identities live too much on the past, and mournfuilv regret the days when a schooner four times a year arrived from Adelaide, aud railways to Perth and weekly steamers to and from London were not thought of. These were the fine old times for the storekeepers—the squatters in the interior were, by the chains of debt for provisions, hopelessly at their.mercy, and tho American whalers paid handsomely for th.eir stores. Rum aud brandy in the hearty old fashion found its way into the township by the underground railway of smuggling—Mr McNee, the careful guardian of the Customs, was not as yet; there was plenty to get and little to do ; tho sunshine was plentiful and good; and, resting their backs against a fence, these enterprising followers of the motto ‘ Advance Australia,’ had a high old time of it. While they were blinking in the pleasant summer weather, the orchards were neglected, the fields nutilled, and what at one time in the very early days had been fruit and vegetable gardens, teeming with all earth products in true West Austral-an profusion, became howling -wastes, many of which can be inspected at this hour. Steamers commenced running to Adelaide, and then the dependence on the fair city on the Torrens oommenced. Self-reliance was thrown to the winds. ‘ Give us plenty of stuff from Adelaide—we will pay for it somehow or other—let us eat, drink, and be merry ; for to-morrow we die.’ And so it is that, even in this year of grace, beef and mutton, potatoes and flonr, vegetables and fruit, chaff, butter, eggs, cheese and bacon, jams and preserved fish are imported regularly into Albany and Fremantle from Adelaide. Yet all these imports should be exports, as they will be when oapital and brains direct the ceaseless ‘elbow grease’ of new blood. Princess Royal Harbour swarms with fish of various kinds ; but it is difficult to procure any except by being a disciple.of old Izaak Walton yourself. A man supplies the P. and O. steamer with their supply ; but'it is * not worth his while ’ to cater for his fellow townspeople. The old flourishing gar. dens (with a few exceptions, notably that of Mrs Woodman, at the Freemasons’) having gone to rack and ruin, the cultivation of vegetables is mainly in the hands of Johnny Chinaman, whose charges for bis products are the reverse of moderate. It is fortunate that he exists, however, as, with him about, green meat is at times possible in a country where fruit and vegetable export canneries should exist in numbers. Poultry is to be had at respectful intervals, and now and then the Albany gourmets rejoice in the wild geese of Esperance Bay, a bluish-grey coloured bird, whose flesh has the tenderness of early love abont it. There are two breweries in the town, and two aerated water factories, and in the summer time there is much consumption of sodas aud ginger ales ; but the imports of many brands of indifferent whiskey are not inconsiderable. Water is suggested by the mention of whiskey, and Albany is well off in this respect, the rainfall being greater in the south-western portion of the colony than in any other. Bnt, alas and alas ! and O, grievous scandal for Australia’s key I the hotels do not possess any baths beyond the hip or tin order, and then difficult to use in the small rooms. There are no public baths nor any reserved place for a good wash in the harbour—the word ‘reserved’ is used, as occasionally sharks affect its waters. Yacht and cricket clubs exist, and also a volunteer corps, under the command of Lieut. John Moir, one of the most genial and bestliked merchants in Albany. The Albany Defence Rifles are physically a fine set body of men ; but whether it is modesty or laziness, their uniform musters are generally pool; indeed. ‘ General ’ apathy seems more than a match for the zeal of ‘Lieut.’ Moir and that of the indefatigable Serjeant-Major firotheridge.. .• The fourth estate is represented by the biweekly Albany Mail, which refleots in its decorum the township by the Sonnd. A kindly true-hearted English gentleman edits the publication, which to a great extent lets *1 dare not wait upon I would.’ Still it must be admitted that the Albany Mail has, in years gone by, done good service for the town it represents. As to the social life of Albany, as at present existing, the remarks of the gentleman who headed a short chapter ‘ On the Snakes of Ireland,’ and then cautiously added ‘There are no snakes in Ireland,’ may be truthfully followed. It knows nothing of the glorious Bohemianism of the islands of the great South Sea, where planter meets planter ; It cannot, or will not, afford to be like the growing bush townships of the Eastern colonies ; and as to the unwritten laws of hospitable society, as understood in the larger centres of European civflisation, its ignorance is unequalled. Magna eet veritaß, and it seems to me, as it has seemed to many other observers, that through the various strata of humankind in Western Australia, the chilly suspicions of ‘lag’ days still linger; walls of ice separate people who should bo working in common for a oomrnon good. Evil traditions, and stories that had far better have been buried and forgotten, are raked up most carefully for the newcomer’s ear, and the poison of deliberate and sometimes infamous scandal exists with a luxuriance that the plant so called cannot rival. Cui bono? Passing away are the generation that remember the hateful' ohal-

lenge heard after nightfall in West Australian towns— ‘ Who goes there ? Bond or free ? ’ Passing away, I trust, with all their convict.day traditions, their ingrained nar-row-miDdedness, and their cross-headed selfishness. They will, after all, have only prepared the way for a new Western. Australia, full of the really free life which is the British inheritance. When her lands, by railways or otherwise, are deliberately opened up by means of well-organised corporations of British capital; when those lands, locked up, unsold, and nntilled, on the dog-in-the-manger policy, are wisely appropriated for the benefit of hundreds of thousands of cared-for and instructed immigrants, whether paupers in England or not—all relics of feudalism notwithstanding - the hour will be approaching when the Cinderella of Australasia will be within measurable distance o? taking a proud position alongside of her sisters, for she has in her* self the making of a nation of the first rank. Bear always these figures in mind—one million square miles of territory, and Ibbs than forty thousand inhabitants —and think of it too, ye who know the overorowded squalor of London, L verpool, Glasgow, and the need of new outlets for British capital, new markets for our manufacturers. West Australia is indeed a possession of value, and its future should be an imperial concern. From the verandah of the Freemason’s Hotel I am now watching with interest a glorious sunset in the western sky ; the sun, all ‘ veiled and mystic like the host descending,* is slowly passing behind the dim shadows of the hills ; but the oalm waters of the Princess Royal are flooded with a blaze of gold and purple, which may be or may not be royally emblematic of the imperial inheritance which the mother of nations has in the least regarded of her southern daughters. H. Stonehewer-Cooper. Albany, W.A., February, 1888.