WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2079, 31 July 1890, Page 2

WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

The Western Australian Enabling Bill has received the Eoyal assent, and therefore that colony has been granted a constitution. It has now what we may call Home Eule. Hitherto Western Australia was governed by a Governor and a Legislative Council, consisting of 26 members, nine of whom were nominated and 17 elected by the people. No one who had not £IOOO worth of land could have been a member of that council, and no one whose annual rental was under£lo had a vote. The Governor had, great power, as besides being Governor, he also exercised administrative and executive functions. To put it plainly he was Governor, Premier, and Ministry rolled up into one, in the discharge of which duties he was assisted by a Secretary, Treasurer, Attorney-General, Surveyor-General, and the Director of Public Works. It was only natural that Western Australia was not, satisfied with that form of Government, asunder its guidance it was not keeping pace with the times. Western Australia is ten times as large as New Zealand, three times as large as New South Wales, and considerably larger than any, of the other colonies, and yet she has less population than any of them, and her trade is proportionately insignificant. The land of Western Australia is, we believe for the most part very bad, but there is some good land there. For 200 miles inland from the sea, the land is good, and some of it is excellent, but beyond that it is very bad, being regarded as almost a desert waste. The country is very level and it is not well supplied with water, the rivers being small and at great distances apart. The climate in the extratropical parts is extremely pleasant and healthy, and cereals and crops of all kinds grow there to perfection. On the whole it is a colony not to be dispised, and there cannot be the slightest doubt but that it will progress rapidly for some years under the guidance of Constitutional Government. Much as we growl and grumble at the blunders and mistakes of our Legislators they are better than the Conservatism of a beauocraey such as that which * has hitherto governed Western Australia, and the standstill position of that colony proves it. No doubt the policy will be to borrow and spend money on public works, like all the other colonies for a time, and there will be the extravagant expenditure, the artificial progress, and the fictitious prosperity which characterised this colon v in the goldep age of railway making, The effect of this will be that it will very soon absorb large numbers of the population of this and other colonies. Without doubt if any one desires a change that will soon be the country to go to, if, as we expefit, it will follow in the footsteps of th® sister colonies, This ought to be a warning to us, and we ought to profit by it. What we want is population ; we ought, therefore, to make ©very effort to keep our people at home. This alone can be don© by settling them on the land—rooting them to the soil—and if we do not do this we shall find the exodus of 188$ was nothing compared with what it will be when Western Australia commences to spend borrowed money. '