WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 614, 23 January 1874, Page 3

WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

A Intel whiter from AVestern ’ Australia gives the following description of that colony- - d J 0 .1 J < < li *■ The colonisation, so far as the development of the natural resources ,of this colony are concerned, seemed likely, to be just now assisted efiVctive’y, like a modernised compound steamengine, by the expansion of some of the capital of Victoria, which, after having been worked there at high pressure, finds much may be done acre at a low, With great results and large returns. The thin edge of the wedge is in —timber companies, lead and copper mining companies, smelting works, pearling enterprises, and so on, are either being initiated, constructed, or wolke I by Arictoriau money, and really i believe no fairer field exists at present in Australasia torthC investment oi capital. The quartz reefs which permeate our colot y from south to north up; car likely to prove payable, -specimens «nd parcels which have be li eat both to Meßourne and Sydney sh-.w -hat a return of over an ounce to the ton of stone was obtained, a d th-re is no reason for believing that any of this was especially picked s’ohc. The four parties of prospectors now oat, three of whom are from Vietoiia anil the other from the Northern Territory, seem satisfied, as far as they have fgnne, and sangui"e of the u tima'e results. A company is now being formed to work the Kendenup Reefs, which are situate on the p ivate property oi Mr. Hassell, of Albany, fn m which they are about forty miles distant. A five six-hun-dredweight stamper is now, I understand, being constructed at Ballarat for our Government, for the purpose of testing the stone from the reefs generally. A large quantity will, no doubt, be sent for trial. Ii is estimated that this battery will put through fifty tors a week. The opening of the railway at Champion Bay, now about tube contracted for, will assuredly establish the working on a, large scale of the ! huge lodes of lead and copper, in a way that will command success. | AVe have a prospect now of having the port of FreaUuiitle improved. As I re card it the chief reason the principal settlcmcur of th s colony has attrac ed so little attention is its remoteness and inao. cossibi ily. The proposed extension i f the telegraphic system of the world via Adelaide into our colony is another great step in the right direction. Ic may not be generally known that all our cC-ntr's of population ar- abcady connected by between eight and nine bundled miles of v. ire. Oar territory is an immense one, rivalling nearly Rusklt in Europe. True, there are vast sau ly wast s, but there exists amidst those, very muiy pleasant and fertile oas s, and the land is full of minerals ; iiematis ir-rn ore ii mountains ; copper and lead in lodes that may be measured in thickness by the f ithom, illimitable in theft snpeificial extent; forests of jarrah that would build everlasting navies for the world, if the ironclads of the period had not knocked tho wooden walls out of time. The ta-k before us now is the manipulation of our minerals an lour timber. Gold—the previous metal which has gilde 1 in turns all tho colonies and countries and sates of tho wmld in whi'-h it Lr.o been found—would no doubt immediately help to gi* ei s all vc v ant ; 1 nt, to ny mind the persistent and steady mining for tho baser metals would really be better for this colony at this time, though I fear no coinnist hoie would support me in this, and 1 m\ self f.Vn afraid I might be made an easy pervert from my own philosophy. The sheepowner? arc prospering b >tli fn m rood returns and from the rat mal i: crease favoured by a element season, and pearl shelling in tbc north seem nourishing as industries. Mr. A. Trollopi e professes to think, judging ly la's look, that we AA estem Australians do no'hing Tut eat, drink, and bask in our glorious shnshinc. But looking at onr exports and imports, which amounts together to neaVly Cod,ooo/. this year, with a good prepondcnnce on the side < f II e exjertf, I tl ink At maybe allowed 11 at son ebody must 1)6 up and doii g, though the rest are sleep-ing-perimps Bristol fashion, with one eye open. Si me ratftalto wotk tho mines, some good experienced miners to work them ;and an universal Will in the part of the colony not to call on Hcrcnli s, but to put i'e shoulder to tbc wheel, will make this, just now the biggest and poorest of the Australasias, a phasaut land.