state of things can form any right judgment of the whole system. In Perth or Fremantle so many of the residents are in Government employ that payments in money are far more frequent than in the country districts, and prices are, in consequence, far lower than in the little inland towns. Moreover even in the inland districts competition has arisen during the last few years, and new stores have been established wherever there appeared to be a good opening, so that prices have been considerably lowered in comparison to what they were ten or twelve years ago. At that date the storekeeper in each country district enjoyed a virtual monopoly. His prices were fixed, not so much by any consideration of the actual cost of his goods to himself, as by the distance of his nearest competitor and the amount of profit which that competitor was charging.
From eighty to a hundred per cent, upon the larger and heavier goods, up to even a hundred and fifty per cent, upon smaller articles, was commonly charged, as profit upon the London invoices, in the country stores, so that he who had nothing to offer in exchange, but was obliged to pay in money for all his supplies, soon found his store bills run up in a manner which his fixed income as a Government employé was by no means calculated to meet. In short I think that all those who have ever lived for a few years in the country districts in Western Australia will agree with me in saying that it is by no means a colony in which a small fixed income, such as the two hundred or two hundred and fifty a year received by the chaplains, can be depended upon to procure anything more than the very barest necessaries of life.
