LAND COMPANY’S CONCESSION

Land Company’s Concession. Land Company’s Concession. Land Company’s Concession. Land Company’s Concession. Land Company’s Concession.

The West Australian Land Company and the Great Southern Railway
Description of West Australian Land Company’s Concession.

From a book :
The Coming Colony – Practical Notes on Western Australia”
by Philip Mennell F.R.G.S.
August 1st, 1892

Sir Anthony Hordern

Thanks to the initiatory genius of the late Anthony Hordern (whose monument has recently been reared on a conspicuous site overlooking King George’s Sound) and the complementary enterprise of the West Australian Land Company, the traveller from Albany to Perth is no longer compelled, as was the case when another great Anthony, Mr. Anthony Trollope, visited Western Australia, to ride or drive the whole 300 miles or so which divide the port from the capital.

By railway over the Great Southern and Eastern lines the distance is about 339 miles, of which the company have constructed 243 miles in consideration of a land grant of 12,000 acres per mile, and the Government the remaining ninety-six miles out of the public funds.

The junction of the company’s line, the Great Southern, with the Government’s Eastern line is at Beverley, a mere “bush” station, where the traveller north or south, in the case of the ordinary trains, is compelled to pass the night at one or other of the two hotels, which seem to be the only excuse for the existence of the township. There are, however, weekly special trains which run the mails to and fro in about nineteen hours.

By one of these I started for Perth. There are no sleeping-cars on the line, which is a single one of three feet six inches gauge, but I found the travelling smooth and easy, and the line has been managed with so much economy that though it showed a small loss in the first of its two years of existence it is now paying working expenses.

In the meantime, settlement is progressing, and there has been a considerable return from the purchase moneys of alienated areas. No dividend was anticipated by the English speculators who found the needful capital – £300,000 in shares, and £500,000 in debentures – for a period of ten years, but it looks very much as if their period of patience would be considerably abridged at the rate things are going at present.

Travelling through the night we reached Beverley (evidently so named by some expatriated Yorkshire-man reminiscent of his home in the old country) at about six o’clock in the morning. Not having walked through the real “bush” since 1882, I spent the time whilst breakfast was being prepared in a ramble through the forest, encountering for the first time a genuine specimen or two of the West Australian aboriginal – of course of the tame order – who are very much like the remnant of their brethren in the other colonies.

There is great sameness about the scenery of the “bush,” but its silence and its vastness are supremely impressive. The denizens of the “bush” are not, perhaps, able to gush about its charms, but they feel them all the same; and this will account for the love of the bush which those who have had to make their home in “Australian wilds” retain for it ever afterwards.

The Great Southern line is, as I have said, managed with a great regard to cheapness. The porterage is about in the same proportion to the traffic as the population of the colony to its acreage, there being only one porter employed on the whole length of the line between Albany and Beverley. The stationmasters handle the goods, and their wives sell the tickets. There is thus an air of admirable domesticity about all the arrangements.

To the casual voyager the stoppages seem unnecessarily prolonged, and better calculated to suit the convenience of the caterers along the line than of their customers, who desire to see the last of it. It must, however, be borne in mind that, as all the trains are “mixed,” a great deal of shunting is involved in taking up and discharging goods, whenever there is anything to take in or to take out. On occasion, at some of the stations there is a dearth of either, but it would not do to alter the timetable, which must be regulated on the principle of the average strain.

The run from Albany to Beverley does not show the lands of the West Australian Company to advantage, for the line is taken along the ironstone ridges, so that the land in its immediate neighbourhood affords no criterion of the fertility of the lower country further afield, which, about Katanning and Broome Hill especially, is very great indeed. The minimum sale price is now from 12s. to 15s. per acre, whilst small areas in choice spots have realised as much as £5. Town sites are also proclaimed in the vicinity of stations, and have realised as much as £35 for the eighth of an acre lots; profits of as much as 500 per cent, having in favourable instances been made on the re-sale of the latter by sagacious purchasers at the original auctions.

From Beverley I travelled with Sir Henry Wrenfordsley, who in his youth twice unsuccessfully contested Peterborough in the Conservative interest. He has discharged judicial functions in five colonies, and years ago was Chief Justice of Western Australia, which, in view of its rising fortunes, he must regret having exchanged for the dubious fleshpots of Fiji, where he was disabled by illness and compelled to retire. Since then he has been utilised as a sort of “emergency man,” and at the time I speak of (May, 1891), was Acting Chief Justice of the colony, in the absence of Mr. Onslow.

As the part of the south-western district which is bisected by the Great Southern Railway is a part which is primarily available for settlers, I took some pains at a later period to see sample portions of it, and fair samples, too, as far as I could gather.

I will begin by giving a sort of official description of the country, which was drawn up by Sir Malcolm Fraser, K.C.M.G., the present Agent-General, who was one of the first, if not the first, to advocate the construction of this railway, when the line, now successfully completed, was only in contemplation.

“The sections of the country under review,” so the report runs, “is a plateau having a mean surface level of about one thousand feet above the sea, though in places the river beds and valleys below and above this general level are found cropping up ranges and peaks, which, however, with the exception of the Stirling Range, are not of any considerable height.

From this plateau flow all the principal storm-water channels of the southern part of the colony, including the Swan River, the upper portion of which is called the Avon, and its branches. The Murray River, with the Hotham, the Williams and affluents, break through the Darling Range by a series of gorges and canons, and empty themselves into the sea on the western coast. The Blackwood River, with the Arthur, the Beaufort, and the Balgarrup, find the sea east of Cape Leeuwin, at Flinders Bay. The Frankland, with the Gordon as its main tributary, finds a mouth at Nornalup Inlet, near King George’s Sound.

The physical geography on this side of the Australian continent, in respect to the condition of its rivers or storm-water channels, shows a reverse to those of the eastern side, and which are found existing in most other parts of the globe.

The so-called rivers merely serve to bear away seawards the surplus storm-waters from the by no means infertile interior which they drain, which is a belt extending in different parts fifty miles in width up to a distance of two hundred miles from the sea coast. The best land is high up away from the coast, whilst in other countries the rivers have made the lowlands fertile by what they have borne from the highlands.“

This, then, was the field of enterprise which attracted the eager mind of the late Mr. Anthony Hordern, a Sydney merchant whose aspirations soared far beyond the restricted limits of the ledger and counting house. His prophetic eye saw in this neglected region vast future possibilities; and as he pondered its future over in his imaginative mind, he saw it peopled with a prosperous multitude who would hail his name as the founder of their fortunes.

I have often sat with him in his dingy London office, and listened with somewhat too much of the scepticism of “the impartial critic,” to the glowing picture which he painted of happy homes and prosperous settlements in the land which he looked on in the transfigured light of his sanguine but by no means wholly dreamy temperament.

Perhaps he dwelt too much on the gardened and terraced city which he saw rearing its stately head as the centre and cynosure of the great settlement of his dreams. Hordernsville was, perhaps, somewhat of a chimera, and he possibly overlooked a little the toils of the march in dwelling on the glories of the goal.

Still, there was a strong vein of practicality running through all his idealisations, and he induced others to participate in a guarded way in his enthusiasms. Given permission to construct the railway, and getting in return a substantial land grant, this born projector proposed, by pouring in a steady stream of emigration, to fertilise the adjacent territory, to the equal benefit of himself and his co-partners, and of the industrious population which he meant to plant upon the soil.

In 1886 he went out from England with the view of organising the operations of the West Australian Land Company, which he had initiated for the execution of his scheme. As fate would have it, however, he died on board the steamer, almost in sight of the promised land of so many eager hopes and sanguine calculations.

The emigration scheme which he had projected as an essential concomitant of his design dropped through after his death, and it is affixing no stigma on his coadjutors and successors to say that it probably failed as the consequence of his demise. Had he lived no mere emigration scheme would have been attempted, but one of thorough going colonisation on comprehensive lines. Lacking his personal supervision, the influx glutted the labour market instead of developing the agricultural resources of the country, and it had to be abandoned. Soon, however, in some shape to be revived under the more favourable conditions which now obtain.

In this respect Mr. Hordern seems to have found a worthy successor in Mr. James Martin, the chairman of the West Australian Land Company, who has visited the colony, and, in a manner equally broadminded and businesslike, given the necessary fillip to the practical realisation of Mr. Hordern’s conceptions.

To return to the conditions under which the railway from Albany to Beverley was constructed. The West Australian Land Company received a land grant of 12,000 acres for every one of the 243 miles of line they built. This they were permitted to select within a belt of 40 miles east and west of the line, subject to the important condition that the Government retain half the frontage to the line in blocks alternating with those chosen by the Company. The latter thus had a wide area of selection for the 3,000,000 acres odd of which their concession consists.

The West Australia Land Company have sold the comparatively small acreage of which they have yet disposed at an advance of about 50 per cent, on the Government price of 10s., but they have done “bigger” things out of the town-sites, which they have laid out at judicious intervals along the line. These are up to date eight in number, and in each case give their names to stations, viz.: Lakeside, Mount Barker, Cranbrook, Broomehill, Katanning, Wagin, Narrogin and Pingelly.

Albany Railway Station c1895

Taking them in order:
Lakeside, so called from being situated on a large fresh-water lake, is about nine miles from Albany. Here a town-site has been laid out upon the northern slopes of the lake, affording a healthy and excellent site for residential purpose. A reserve of 100 acres, on the west side of the lake, has been set apart by the Company for a public park and for recreation purposes, and land has been offered to the Albany Horticultural Society as a show ground. Steps are also being taken to make Lakeside a holiday resort, the banks of the lake, which is admirably suited for boating, affording capital facilities for picnickers.

A distillery has been established for the extraction of oil from sandalwood, &c, within sight of Lakeside. The station is the junction for a branch line constructed by the contractors for the Great Southern Railway, Messrs. Millar Bros., of Melbourne, with the view of establishing connection with and developing a great timber concession which they have taken up at Torbay, a few miles away on the coast to the west of Albany. Here they have a large freehold, and their idea is, after clearing the ground of the timber, to dispose of the land to small cultivators in a partially prepared state.

Mr. C. G. Millar, the head of the firm, is the owner of the fine yacht Saide, and is a member of the Royal Yacht Club, to whom he has recently offered for competition a fifty-guinea cup, to be known as the Australian Cup. He is plucky in all his ventures, and it was due to his pecuniary fostering that Mr. Louis Brennan, C.B., the able mechanical inventor, was enabled to bring to fruition the well-known torpedo which bears his name.

The tidbits of this district (as a whole, a somewhat barren land), which the Company has been able to secure, consist principally of alluvial flats of humus, or peaty mould, well-watered and sparsely timbered, and specially suited for root crops, garden produce, and dairy farming. The close proximity to Albany, with its present and, still more, its prospective markets, are the main attractions at this point.

Mr. T. W. Powell, of the firm of Heseltine & Powell, 1 Drapers’ Gardens, London, is one of the largest shareholders in the West Australian Land Company, and was the first Chairman of the Board of Directors in London.

He came to Western Australia in 1889, and was so impressed with the character of the country traversed by the railway for agricultural purposes that he resigned his chairmanship, purchased large areas of land from the Land Company, and is now engaged in making such improvements as will enable farmers with moderate capital to start at once by putting in crops on land ready prepared for their reception, thus saving the pioneer the usual heavy primary outlay, and ensuring him a quick return for his money.

One of Mr. Powell’s purchases is the “Eastwood” Estate, of 5,000 acres, situated in the Lakeside district, about seven miles from Albany, on the Great Southern Railway. It has been cut up into farms varying from 10 to 100 acres. The land in the valleys is a rich peaty soil suitable for potatoes, onions, and all sorts of market garden produce, maize, oats, barley, lucerne, and rye grass. The hills are timbered with banksia, sheoak, and jarrah.

The soil on them is of a lighter nature but owing to the heavy rainfall it is very productive, and well adapted for the growing of fruits of all sorts. The terms on which the improved farms can be obtained are easy. The land can either be bought outright, leased, or paid for by equal installments on the deferred payment system. The climate is everything that can be desired; in fact, it is admitted to be about the best in Australia.

As Mr. Powell has gone to great expense in improving and laying out the Eastwood estate, he naturally seeks to recoup himself in the price of the land, and it thus requires capital to come to terms with him. As, however, the better parts of the property are rather suitable for gardens than for farms, a small area only is requisite, and the returns are likely to be much heavier than in the case of ordinary agriculture.

I cannot disguise from myself that Mr. Powell will have more or less to act the philanthropist in relation to this portion of his land purchases, as he has gone to an outlay with steam ploughs, and other “latest” cultivators, for which he is hardly likely to be speedily or, indeed, ever recouped.

His work at Eastwood has been one of experiment and exploitation, and I do not think I misjudge him in believing that it was not wholly the idea of personal profit which induced him to go in for a venture which, he may have the satisfaction of feeling, will benefit the colony even if it leaves him somewhat out of pocket.

I may add that in addition to the general local and colonial market for garden produce, there are the mail and other steamers to be supplied with fruit and vegetables by the future horticulturists of Eastwood and other similar localities. It is true that at present the P. & O. and other great liners replenish their stocks at Adelaide and the eastern ports; but this has only grown into a custom through the impossibility of getting regular supplies at Albany, which, as the last and first port of call on the Anglo-Australian voyage, should very soon be able to establish a flourishing traffic with the shipping.

Mount Barker, the next combined station and town-site, is about 40 miles from Albany. The land in this neighbourhood consists of several qualities of soil and is specially adapted for fruit-growing and general produce. Mr. C. G. Millar has purchased 5,000 acres in this district, which he intends clearing, improving, and putting under cultivation.

About seven miles to the east of Mount Barker is the Porongurup Range, covered with a remarkably fine growth of karri timber. Many of the trees are of immense size, some measuring 100 feet to the first branch and being 18 feet in girth. From Mount Barker onwards there is a great improvement in the quality of the country.

Cranbrook is the third station and town-site on the railway, and here the traffic from the Blackwood River district will join the line. A large tank, containing 2,250,000 gallons, has been excavated by the Company for the purpose of the railway, and is full of pure fresh water, showing how easily water can be gathered and conserved at a moderate outlay. From indications in the ranges in this district, it is confidently anticipated that valuable mineral deposits will be discovered.

Broomehill, the fourth station and town-site, is 104 miles from Albany, and is the centre of a fine agricultural district. Three miles to the west of the line is the settlement of Eticup, where there are several fine farms, the principal being Goblup, recently purchased by Lord Brassey. The climate and rainfall in the district are so regular that settlers state they are always certain of an abundant crop, eighteen to twenty bushels to the acre being looked upon as an ordinary occurrence.

On the east of the line is the Martinup district, where Mr. Powell and Mr. Hassell have together purchased 34,800 acres, which are being cleared, fenced, and brought under cultivation. In Mr. Hassell’s purchase water has been obtained, by ordinary sinking, within twelve feet of the surface. The Company contemplate establishing a training farm here, where young men will be trained to colonial life, and be placed on farms suited to their means when considered capable of managing on their own account.

At present, to quote from the prospectus, no system is adopted with a view of placing young men on suitable colonial farms when they have completed their course of training at the agricultural colleges in Great Britain, the students being left to select their own colony, land, &c. This want the Company proposes to supply.

Believing it is impossible to give a complete colonial training on English soil, and in an English climate, the Directors of the West Australian Land Company, with a view of working in connection with these colleges, have established, at Broomehill, a training farm, at present 1,000 acres in extent, but capable of unlimited expansion, where students will receive one or more year’s practical training, prior to being placed on selected farms suited to the amount of capital they have at command.

It is assumed that the scientific and theoretical part of the students’ education will have been acquired before leaving England. It is therefore intended to give a thoroughly practical training in clearing, fencing, ring-barking, tank excavating, erecting their own houses, out-buildings, &c. Also sheep-farming, wheat-growing, dairying, vine and fruit culture, and general agriculture.

The services of a practical man as farm manager have been secured. Part of the students’ training will consist of clearing and preparing portions of the land selected for purchase by the senior students, so that each one on starting for himself shall have a house erected and a certain number of acres cleared and prepared for cultivation. The intention being to place the students on their own selected farms as soon as the Company’s farm manager considers they have acquired sufficient experience to be trusted to start on their own account. At the same time, they will always have the great advantage of being able to fall back upon the farm manager for advice and assistance whenever required.

The students will be met at Albany, and at once taken up to the training farm, thus placing them under control from the time of their arrival in the colony, the railway company granting them free passes to their destination.

The moral well-being of the students will be carefully looked after, and arrangements made for clergymen of various denominations to periodically visit the farm and hold religious services. Farms can be selected suited to a capital of £200 and upwards. The Directors propose that parents or friends shall, if they so think fit, deposit with the Company the amount of capital they can give the youths.

The Company undertaking to select and place them on farms suited to their means, and after paying the purchase money, or the first installments thereof, hand over the balance as required for the further development of the property. Parents and friends would thus be certain of their money being judiciously expended for the object intended, which might not always be the case if the lads were entrusted with the capital. As it is not wished to make the training farm more than self-supporting, it is intended to fix the annual charge for board, residence, and tuition of students, at a very low figure.

The pecuniary necessities of the Company in the embryo stages of its operations induced it to alienate several large blocks of its territory to single large holders, with the view of obtaining an immediate return in ready cash. Lord Brassey, at Eticup, a settlement three miles away to the west of the line, has thus become possessed of 26,000 acres at, I understand, 13s. 3d. per acre, Mr. Hassell (who manages for Lord Brassey), and Mr. Powell, of London, dividing another area of nearly 35,000 acres to the east of the line at Martinup.

Lord Brassey is fencing his property, and erecting dams for water storage, and it is understood that he is willing to set an example in the way of subdividing his large holding into suitable farming lots, and assisting the right class of tenants to take them up on a basis of time payments, both for the land and the needful primary improvements. Lord Brassey has always shown himself a public-spirited as well as a practical man, and great hopes are entertained that he may see his way to illustrate both characteristics by initiating a colonisation scheme which will benefit the colony, a deserving class of immigrants, and his own pocket into the bargain.

The thing could be managed on much the same lines as have been so successfully followed in the case of his lordship’s Canadian properties. From what Lord Brassey himself has told me, I gather he is by no means adverse to assisting a well-considered scheme of the kind.

It is essential to the interests of the West Australian Land Company that small settlements should be encouraged along the route of their railway, as what they want to make traffic for their line is not a few wealthy proprietors, but a numerous and thriving population, embracing all sorts of interests in addition to the pastoral. Then, too, as regards the fructification of their estate, there is all the difference in the world between the value of arable as distinguished from mere grazing land.

Katanning
One hundred and eighteen miles from Albany one comes across a settlement which is not only the sample one on the West Australian Land Company’s concession, but is destined, it is to be hoped, to be the model for many such another all over south-western Western Australia. Katanning is not only the central station of the Great Southern line, but it is the centre of what bids fair to be in the near future a splendid agricultural district, supplying any amount of corn for conversion into flour at the newly erected roller mills, which are the boast and pride of the township.

Original Katanning Railway Station c1900

Without being over-sanguine, one may assert that this district in the course of a few years will do great things towards reducing and, in fact, altogether obliterating that humiliating import of £150,000 worth of rural produce which stands recorded against the colony in its truth telling statistics.

It is not to be supposed that everything in this district is virgin in the shape of agriculture. On the contrary, some of the oldest farm holds in the colony are situated in this vicinity, and I should be accused of  exaggeration if I were to put down precisely as I was told them the yields of wheat per acre which the settlers hereabout have drawn year after year, for a score of years past, from lands wholly innocent of manure and only rarely recuperated by fallowing.

Twenty-three miles to the westward of Katanning is the old settlement of Kojonup, on the now little-used main road from Albany to Perth. Here, too, are a number of settlers to whom the innovations of the Land Company and the rapid rise of Katanning can be little less than revolutionary. As yet, of course, Katanning is a mere nucleus of the town that is to be. The weatherboard store, hotel, school, and blacksmith’s shop are of the regulation pattern of the “bush township,” with all the present crudeness and future potentialities of the type.

Despite its go-aheadism, too, I noticed on the hotel verandah a more perfect specimen of the torpid young rustic than I dare be bound, could be produced in the most antiquated Sleepy Hollow in Old England, for when the Australian, especially the young Australian, does “loaf” he “loafs “with a vengeance.

Nowhere is this sample of bush humanity to be seen to more advantage than at a roadside railway station, where, if anything so objectless could be credited with an object, he is trying to put himself forward as the antipodes of all that the train advent typifies in the way of movement and progress.

If anything could justify the land grant railway system from the attacks of its opponents the progress made by Katanning in the less than two years of its existence ought to do it; and though at present it is the high-water mark of what has been achieved in this line in Western Australia, there is no reason why Katanning should not be indefinitely multiplied along the course, not only of the Great Southern and Midland Railways, but of the various lines which the Government is on the eve of constructing.

The Company have been lucky in securing coadjutors such as the Messrs. Piesse (relatives of the famous Bond Street scent manufacturer of that name), who have started a store, iron foundry, and roller mills in the infant township. The result being that, with the railway facilities afforded for transport to the port of Albany, the conditions of settlement have been revolutionised throughout the district. A district which boasts a large area of good red loamy soil, previously very imperfectly tilled and persistently over-cropped.

Mr. F. C. Piesse, the Member for the district, is a firm believer in the desirability of some scheme of colonisation being adopted on the lines I have suggested, but which will have to be worked out by experts. Could a score or so of colonists of the same type as this gentleman and his brother be scattered about the colony at suitable intervals, and be backed up by a suitable immigration, there would not be much doubt as to its future prosperity. The fact that the colony has produced men like the Piesse’s effectually gives the lie to the idea too common amongst a certain class of the old residents that no good thing can come out of Western Australia,either in the shape of men or material.

The next three stations and town-sites combined on the Great Southern line are Wagin, 148 miles, Narrogin, 180 miles, and Pingelly, 211 miles from Albany. Of these embryo townships no more need be said then that they are centres of a fine agricultural and wheat-growing country, as much as thirty bushels of wheat to the acre having been taken off a small farm at Pingelly.

Another thirty miles of easy travelling through similar country brings the passenger to Beverley, to which I have already alluded as the junction of the Great Southern and Government Railway lines. Here passengers between Perth and Albany are compelled to pass the night in rough bush quarters, both going and returning  – a primitive arrangement which might suit the old slow pace in Western Australia, but is hardly in keeping with the go-ahead notions now coming into vogue.

It may be added, for the information of would-be settlers, that the rainfall on the Company’s territory averages thirty-six inches at Albany, diminishing to seventeen inches at Beverley. So regular is the supply of moisture, and so reliable the climate, that from eighteen to twenty bushels of wheat to the acre can be reliably counted on. It is needless, however, to multiply details, but I think I have said enough to put those in the old country who desire a change of condition on inquiry.

The curtain has at length been lifted on this long-buried Land of Promise, and those who have the pluck to throw in their lot with the renascence of Western Australia may, I honestly think, do so with the reasonable hope of reaping the harvest of a steadily rising tide in its development and  prosperity.

Every day brings news of fresh discoveries of the precious metal, and if even the greater number of the fields prove failures, sufficient permanent finds are likely to eventuate to furnish fresh consuming centres for even the largest accession of producers which the coming years are likely to witness in Western Australia.

It may be interesting to the would-be settler to know that an abundant supply of stone suitable for building can be obtained almost throughout the whole of the West Australian Land Company’s concession, whilst timber for building, fencing, and firewood is very plentiful.

As regards climate, the south-western portion of Western Australia is believed to be one of the healthiest countries in the world, not subject to excessive heat or cold, but temperate and healthful. Water is readily secured by tanks and dams, and sufficient rain falls during the winter to last the summer through when stored. In most parts water can also be obtained at a depth of from 10 to 25 feet, and in districts where ring-barking has been carried out not only does grass grow in profusion, but springs frequently make their appearance.

As the Company point out in one of their prospectuses – “A great variety of fruits are grown in the colony, amongst which maybe mentioned the grape, apple, orange, lemon, pear, fig, peach, apricot, gooseberry, Cape gooseberry,  plum, loquat, banana,  quince, strawberry, melon, mulberry, currants, cherries, almond, and olives.

All these are capable of being produced in large quantities, particularly grapes, oranges, apples, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, &c. Large areas of the Company’s lands are highly suitable for fruit growing, and one day fruit-preserving will be a profitable industry.”

To quote from the same source – “The vine grows anywhere well between latitudes 29° and 34°, and the Company has a large extent of land suited for the various kinds of grape required for the white and red wines, raisins, currants, &c.”

Viticulture is at present in its infancy. In 1888 only 891 acres were under cultivation, producing 135,888 gallons, or an average on the whole (including newly planted vineyards) of 152 gallons per acre. One grower writes that his are the ‘Muscatel’ variety, and his average yield is about eight tons of grapes and about 400 gallons to the acre. Another that this consist chiefly of the ‘Burgundy’ and Hermitage’; that he gets about three tons of grapes and 250 to 300 gallons per acre.

Someday the manufacture of wine is destined to assume very large proportions, as the climate and soil are specially suited to its production, and it is notorious that West Australian grapes are finer and better than those grown elsewhere.

The olive grows luxuriantly in the same districts, and olive oil will no doubt form an important item of export. Sheep, horses and cattle thrive well throughout the colony. India provides a ready market for any number of good horses fit for military purposes.

The export of wool is increasing rapidly. In 1881, 4,107,038 pounds were exported, whilst in 1888, it had reached 8,475,240 pounds, and it is a fact that West Australian wool fetches a very high price in the European markets.

A great deal of misapprehension has been raised in the other colonies against Western Australia on account of the poison plant growing in certain districts. The lands selected by the Company are to a very great extent free, but where it does exist it can be easily and cheaply eradicated, in proof of which a large employer of labour recently offered to clear the Company’s land at sixpence per acre.

Western Australia is celebrated for its valuable timber forests, the most useful being Jarrah, Karri, York gum, Yate, Sandalwood, and Jam tree. In the Company’s selection several ranges of extensive forests have been included, and the timber will form a valuable article of commerce.

The area of the colony is so great and the population so small that practically very little is known as to its mineral resources, but rich gold discoveries are continually being made, showing that this colony is likely to prove as rich in reef gold as Victoria, thus bearing out the opinion of Sir R. Murchison that Western Australia would prove to be very rich in precious metals. Tin, lead, and copper have also been found of great richness, and coal has been discovered in various parts of the colony. In the Company’s selection of land are included some ranges in which there is every indication of valuable mineral properties, including tin and gold, offering great inducements to prospectors and others.

The Government of Western Australia allows immigrants to introduce to the colony, free of duty, tools and instruments of trade to the extent of £10 value for each statute adult.

Having generally described the quality and situation of the West Australian Land Company’s lands, it only remains to say that the terms on which allotments, varying in size, may be acquired by would be settlers, are fully set out in Appendix G.

The casual visitor may get a good general idea of the country through merely driving or riding through it, but when he comes to the responsible task of advising others he is glad to have his opinion supplemented by the pronouncements of expert authorities. The following is therefore taken from the report of Professor Brown, for many years head of the Ontario College of Agriculture, Canada, and now Principal of the Longerenong Agricultural College, Victoria: –

“During the month of February, 1890, I had an opportunity of examining a considerable portion of the extensive lands that belong to your Company in West Australia, ranging all the way from Albany to Beverley, a distance of 243 miles.

The first most noticeable fact is the judicious selections made by the company. In a country of such extent there is necessarily great variety in the character of the soil and herbage, and anyone familiar with these and the other things that go to make up the most suitable conditions for settlement cannot fail to recognise how well the selections  have been chosen for your Company, so that without doubt you hold a great deal of the best of that district of the colony.

I have ascertained from official sources and the evidence of several old settlers, as well as from personal observation, that the southern portion of your property possesses a climate of the most delightful character for residence and certain agricultural productions. An examination of the map will show how this is secured.

As all the southern portion has a large water frontage in the proportion to the area of land thereby affected, with much timber, and a great variety of aspect by hills and valleys, there are some of the most favourable conditions for rainfall and its conservation. The average annual is about 40 inches, and is distributed over no less than130 days, which, with the unusual fact, for Australia, that the thermometer seldom gets over 85°,and never under 35° in the shade, tells of a south of  England climate. Further north it gradually increases to the ordinary seasons of this continent.

A prominent feature of a great deal of the country is quantity and value of timber, with the other flora so characteristic of West Australia. The smaller herbage in some parts is not the most suitable for livestock, but in the more open lands and along the plains the natural grasses are increasing in quantity and value.

But the question is not one of want of favourable conditions for the best pasture, but simply of nature having to be brought under in order to give it a chance. The karri and jarrah timbers occupy a place of high value upon your property, which, with the sandalwood, are already developing into great wealth.

There are soils of all kinds, from the pure sand up to the brick-making clay, and a large proportion consists of that light clay loam so suitable for a variety of purposes. The conformation of the country into numerous hills and valleys gives in many cases a variety of soil in small area, and also affords abundance of water.

There are several valuable fresh water lakelets and creeks that never go dry all the seasons through. The natural drainage of the country is, therefore, of a decided kind, and will aid materially the reclamation and settlement of the valley soils that are made up principally of vegetable deposit with the sand. With such a geographical range, then, as you possess, the variety of soil and shelter, the water supply, sea coast resorts, together with abundance of timber and open valleys, there are attractions of the most substantial sort for settlement.

Indeed, the question is one of ‘What is it you want’ and not of ‘What can I get’. Of course, as in all lands of great extent, there are poor soils and unfavourable conditions for settlement, but I have no hesitation in saying that these are not what your extensive domains.

It is evident, then, that any branch of farming and gardening can be entered upon under proper choice. On the seacoast and along the southern selections English grasses and green fodders will luxuriate, and thus induce to dairying a sale adding pursuit, though there are also culinary crops and some fruits will be successfully cultivated.

The international seaport of Albany cannot fail in drawing out the capabilities of that district. Mount Barker, with its more suitable soil and climate, will unquestionably look to the production of fruit; the Stirling Range is decidedly one best adapted to sheep raising; while those of Broomehill and Katanning are evidently for the cereals, and, indeed, if required, for any other thing in agriculture and gardening.

The latter selections are of high value. I have pleasure in acknowledging that my examination of your property has entirely swept away my own preconceived views, and those of many others, of the possibilities of agriculture in Western Australia, for much ignorance still prevails about this new colony. Very little has yet been done to show that a great deal of it is one of the best portions of this continent.“

I have entered at more length than would otherwise have been justified into the particulars of the West Australian Land Company’s concession on the ground that what applies to their land applies equally to a considerable portion of the far greater area in the same locality which the Government retains in its own hands, and which is obtainable on the terms and conditions.  

When the Government railway from Perth to Bunbury is completed there will be a second line running parallel with a great portion of the Great Southern Railway, and between it and the coast. The whole of the intervening country to the westward will thus be opened up and given optional access to the ports of Albany and Fremantle, to say nothing of Bunbury itself, which a reasonable expenditure would vastly improve as a harbour.

The Land Corporation of West Australia, too, which possesses a territory extending in blocks from south-west of Broomehill to north-east of Perth, has planned a connecting railway from Broomehill on the Great Southern line to Bunbury, which would afford additional facilities for the opening up of this fertile portion of the South-western District.

It would also have the additional advantage of connecting it with what may, if the investigations now being conducted under the auspices of the Government eventuate in success, become a great coalfield on the Collie river. It lies on the track between Broomehill and Bunbury, and specimens of the coal taken from it have been favourably reported on by English experts. If the latter is proved to be obtainable in reliable quantity and quality the conditions of life in this portion of Western Australia would be revolutionised after a fashion which would petrify the old identities.

Amongst the pioneer land companies of Western Australia this Land Corporation of West Australia, Limited, occupies an important position. The Company was incorporated in 1885 under the Joint Stock Companies Acts, and is managed by a London board of directors, at No. 5, Copthall Buildings, London, E.C.

The Company had the good fortune to obtain from the Government in 1885, under the old land regulations of 1878, leases for about 1,250,000 acres, situated on the main Perth-Albany road and in proximity to the Great Southern Railway on the east and the Perth-Bunbury Railway on the west.

Under these regulations the terms to purchasers were made very easy with a view of inducing settlers to take up and work the land, leases being granted for twenty-one years, subject to the nominal rent of £1 per annum per thousand acres, and on the condition of the lessees erecting a fence round each block and eradicating the indigenous poison shrubs which grow more or less over the colony. The leases thus granted are known as “conditional freeholds,” and are readily transferred on payment of some small charges.

The Land Corporation had the advantage of being associated with Mr. Alexander Forrest and Mr. W. H. Angove, who certainly showed sound judgment in selecting the lands in the South-West District. The quantity of land surveyed and selected by the Corporation was more than 1,800,000 acres, but the Government, in view of the very favourable terms on which they would be alienating their good land, hurried the Act of 1887 through the Legislature, the time allowed for obtaining the freehold being thereby reduced from twenty-one years to three years. It also refused to grant leases for about 600,000 acres, thus reducing the quantity to be acquired by the Land Corporation to about 1,250,000 acres.

Now that the colony has its own Government, and so many buyers of land are coming in, the granting of further similar leases has been discontinued on any terms whatever. The directors of the Corporation have turned to account a considerable portion of their leases at prices which have enabled them to pay during the past two years large and regular dividends.

The tenure of the land acquired by the Land Corporation of West Australia was granted by the Government of Western Australia in 1886 in one hundred and eleven separate and distinct leases, containing from 1,000 to 164,000 acres. Each lease is a separate contract in itself, and is readily transferred on payment of a small ad valorem duty and fee, so that the work of clearing and fencing can be carried out on any block without reference to any other part of the estate.

The land acquired under each lease has been accurately surveyed and measured, the plan with every line marked being attached to each lease and signed by the Commissioner of Crown Lands. The boundary posts are easily found on the land and purchasers from the Company of their rights have no difficulty in identifying blocks and erecting their fences.

The Land Corporation have dealt with several sub-companies, of which the most important is the West Australian Pastoral and Colonisation Company, Limited, which was incorporated in November, 1890. It was set up in order to acquire certain lands from the Corporation, with a view to clearing and fencing, and acquiring the freehold title, and cutting up into farms suitable to meet the requirements of intending settlers. Their idea is to import settlers who will carry out the Government conditions as to the extirpation of the poison plant, &c, and who in return will receive long leaseholds at nominal rents.

As we travelled along the Great Southern Railway towards Beverley, I saw something, and heard more, respecting the vast jarrah forests of the south-western portion of the colony. As regards the character of the jarrah wood (Eucalyptus marginata), which seems the prince of Australian timbers, it is of straight growth, attaining 100 feet in height, and yielding solid timber 40 feet long by 2 feet square. In appearance it somewhat resembles mahogany, and, like that wood, is capable of a very high polish, and having enough figure to make it suitable for cabinet makers’ work.

It is chiefly adapted for piles, sleepers, dock work, and shipbuilding, the peculiarity being its resistance to the teredo and white ant, so that copper sheathing in shipbuilding is rendered unnecessary. It is classed at Lloyd’s (for twelve years) in the third category of timber used for shipbuilding purposes.

It has recently been employed with success for street-paving purposes in London, and the surveyor of one of the great vestries writes thus regarding the respective qualities of jarrah and deal for that purpose :- “Jarrah is more expensive, and, therefore, a smaller area can be provided at the same cost, but is more uniform in texture and quality, which makes it wear with much more evenness than deal, as deal varies considerably even in the length of a plank, and is liable to wear into holes where soft or sappy. Jarrah will wear much longer, and, taking this into account, it will be found the more economical in the end, besides having the advantages of less scavenging and requiring little or no repairs. This, combined with infrequent renewal, causes considerably less inconvenience to the public.“

The WA Land Company’s land concession for building the Great Southern Railway

CONCESSION DISPUTE
Towards the end, the WA Land Company disputed what land it could and could not claim in the Albany townsite area. Both the Albany Advertiser and the West Australian newspapers of the day took up the fight against the WA Land Company. Read their reports here

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