This particular committee was elected by a company which proposed to purchase land in Western Australia, and from which the Australind settlement received its beginnings. It approached the Government in 1838, prior to the departure of Mr. John Hutt. The company comprised, besides that gentleman, Messrs. William Hurt, M.P., Charles E. Mangles, Louis Samson, Edward Barrett Lennard, Spencer Starthope, and E.G. Wakefield, and was subsequently augmented by such well known gentlemen as Sir James Stirling himself, Captain Bunbury, Hon. Colonel Talbot, Sir J. P. Boileau, with Messrs. William Tanner, T. A. Russell, and J. W. Hardey as Western Australian members. The Earl of Lovelace and Lord Worsley were honorary members.
The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies wrote, under instructions from Lord Glenelg, on 5th January, 1839, declining to accept their proposals. While he was anxious to facilitate emigration to Western Australia, he apprehended that selling colonial lands in England would result in inconvenience and would involve the abandonment, in favor of a particular company, of the principle applying in all the Australian Colonies of disposing of Crown lands by public sale at a minimum price. Dissatisfaction would probably arise, and the Government be exposed to the accusation of partiality. But Lord Glenelg was willing to meet them so far as to permit an arrangement by which the parties could pay into the hands of the agent-general for emigration in London a certain sum to be expended by him in the transmission of a proper class of emigrants to Western Australia. The parties could receive in return a certificate of such payment, to go towards the payment of any Crown lands which they might purchase in the colony. Option was given to those capitalists who forwarded emigrants, approved of by the agent-general for emigration, of a similar certificate, to be calculated on the prevailing passage rates of labouring classes to Australia. The company did not pursue the question further.
Another committee or association was formed in England in 1839, and is referred to as the "Association in Bedford Street." Its specified objects were to advance the interests of Western Australia in England by soliciting the Government to award a bounty on the importation of labour; by obtaining an amendment of the land regulations so that unsurveyed land might be made available for purchase until the Survey Department was strong enough to survey in advance; by taking measures for the circulation of correct and useful information concerning the colony; by encouraging the formation of companies to invest in Western Australian land and stock, and by establishing a connection between Western Australia and colonial banking institutions whose head offices were in England. Sir James Stirling, who continued a warm friend of the colony, was a leading spirit in this association, and he was assisted by Mr. Wm. Hutt, M.P., and Mr. T. Bland. In April, 1840, a public meeting was held in Perth, which formally appointed these three gentlemen agents for the colony in London to disseminate information and to subserve its general interests.
As some result of the agitations carried on by these committees, Lord Glenelg, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, determined to promulgate a new regulation designed to encourage emigration. A despatch dated 12th October, 1839, was forwarded to Governor Hutt and made public in Western Australia in June, 1840. By a system of bounties emigrants might be introduced and land acquired. In the first place, to acquire the bounty the intending emigrant was required to lodge say £100 in the hands of the Emigration Board, which then chose the number of emigrants which this amount would carry to the colony, estimated on the basis of £18 for every person of fifteen years of age and upwards, £10 for children between the ages of seven and fifteen years, and £5 for children between the ages of one and seven years. On the emigrating capitalists' arrival in the colony with the number of labourers prescribed, and on his satisfying the local Government that he had complied with all the conditions, he received a certificate entitling him to the equivalent of £90 in land. The amount of £10 was reserved to defray expenses.
The Secretary of State initiated this regulation as an experiment, and directed that it should expire in the colony two years after the date of application. The opportunity it afforded was not availed of to any appreciable extent, and the regulation was practically a dead letter. Several people emigrated, but did not carry labourers with them.
About this time the Secretary of State appointed three Land and Emigration Commissioners in London, to control emigration and to advise on colonial affairs. The official instructions to this board, consisting of T. F. Elliott, Colonel Torrens, and the Hon. E. E. Villiers, were given under seal on 14th January, 1840. Among other things the commissioners were required to collect and diffuse accurate statistical information of the colonies, and to render periodical accounts, both pecuniary and statistical, of their administration as a board. Beyond its work in the emigration department, the board did not do very great service to Western Australia, and one, at least, of its recommendations was resented by settlers.
Soon after came still other Imperial instructions, directing an increase of the minimum price at which Crown lands could be sold at public auction. There had been several advocates of this change—men who were desirous of curtailing the dimensions of estates, and who wished to secure more revenue from land sales for general purposes. The despatch was dated 19th March, 1840, and raised the minimum upset price of land at public sales to 12s. per acre. The people of the colony accepted the change without undue murmuring, and, indeed, the regulation made little difference either to them or to new comers. The landholders under the original grant system, were more likely to obtain buyers for what areas they desired to sell, and the buyers were able to secure properties at a much cheaper rate than the Government minimum. It was where newly discovered country was opened up that he regulation gave dissatisfaction. Some settlers considered that to curtail the dimensions of estates was desirable and wise enough, but by the regulation an unfair advantage was given to the man of wealth. He could still obtain land to the extent of his capital, whether one acre or one hundred thousand. Had all estates been kept within reasonable dimensions, subsequent generations in Australia would not have been hampered by obstacles which retard efficient development and the utilisation of latent wealth of soil.
As convincing proof that land could be purchased cheaply enough from private persons, in 1839 over 15,000 acres were sold at 2s. 6d. per acre; and in the same year Mr. Peel sold to Mr. Singleton 10,000 acres of choice land, on the Dandalup River, for £1,250. He was well satisfied with his deal, because it was to his interests to attract enterprising settlers to develop land within his huge estate. In the following year a large area of land was sold privately for a small price.
The Perth Gazette looked askance at the determination of the
