It has been in this manner that all the settlers who have really made money have acted, while those who have confined themselves strictly to farming and wool-growing, and attempted nothing else, have but seldom done more than just to keep their heads afloat. And now I must speak of the prospects offered to the immigrant who has nothing but his own hands and arms to trust to, the agricultural labourer or the artisan.
I may say at once that any man who is steady, honest, and sober, and who is not afraid of hard work, will have every prospect of doing well, and of raising himself to the position of a small proprietor in the course of eight or ten years. The great objection to the colony in his case would be the necessity for associating with convict fellow-labourers. That this is a great drawback to the colony in the eyes of respectable immigrants it would be useless to deny. It is proved by the eagerness shown by the majority of them to leave for Melbourne or Sydney as soon as they have saved sufficient money to carry them thither.
The whole number of convicts landed in Swan River, from the commencement of the system in 1851 up to its cessation in 1868, has been about ten thousand. Of this number many have died, some have left the colony, and others have become merged in the general population by the expiration of their sentences. According to the census of 1870 the number of men still under the charge of the authorities is about four thousand, including those still in confinement; expirees being classed as free men.
Now as the total population of the colony is only 25,000, and that out of that number only 9300 are free
