Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/33

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If, after what has now been stated, anything can still be considered wanting to establish the position that Western Australia is well calculated for colonization, it is furnished in the following extract from an authority the most disinterested and unbiassed that, for this particular purpose, can well be appealed to: viz., a work drawn up under the sanction of the committee of the South Australian Association,[1] who have for their chairman Mr. W. Wolryche Whitmore, the late member for Wolverhampton, a gentleman who has displayed extensive knowledge on the subject of colonization:—“For fear that these remarks should be attributed to a disposition, which is common amongst colonists, to praise their own settlement at the expense of other settlements, this opportunity is taken to express an opinion, that Western Australia is, as respects soil and climate, one of the finest countries in the world, and one of the most fit for supporting a prosperous colony. That the colony there settled is not prosperous, is, we believe, owing not at all to any defects of climate or soil, but entirely to a bad system of colonization, which may be reformed; or rather to the want of a good system, which may be supplied.”

  1. The publication is entitled “The New British Province of South Australia,” and the passage is quoted from a note inserted at page 19 of it.