de Janeiro, intending to immediately return to Scotland. But at Rio he contracted the yellow fever; for many days he lay between life and death, and in his convalescent period was able to while away dull hours in musing upon the rapid, exciting changes of the previous few years. He had seen the fertile plateaus of the eastern slopes of South America, that fructive land denuded from the western mountains by storms of wind and rain and in casting down reclaimed space from and impinged on the dominion of the oceans; he passed up and down and across the great waterways, and admired the abnormal, bright, and supremely beautiful tropical vegetation; he saw insect life in all its myriad forms of brilliancy and banefulness; strange, mysterious peoples, wandering aimlessly over the continent; innumerable of his own countrymen garnering all the latent wealth of the golden west; the garden islands of the Pacific, and the great Australian continent. He recovered from his sickness, sailed to Scotland, and took a well-earned rest amid his native bracken.
Once more Mr. Alexander left Scotland for Queensland, where he was associated with commercial affairs. In 1887 he made a tour to the west of our continent and visited Western Australia. His experience told him that there was a prosperous future before this colony, but the time was not yet. He again took up his duties in Queensland. The agitation for responsible government in Western Australia and the likelihood of a successful issue to them soon attracted capital from the eastern colonies, and in 1890 Mr. Alexander paid a second visit to the colony. On this occasion he resolved to take up his residence here, and, selling out his interests in Queensland, in 1891 he permanently settled in Western Australia. He invested his money in a business, and also in real estate. He reckoned that the prosperity so long expected would soon arrive, and be purchased properties in Perth. In Hay Street he erected large two-storey buildings, which at the time astonished local people and made them believe that Mr. Alexander was throwing away his money on such expensive structures. But he knew better than they; in the next three or four years numerous large buildings began to rear their heads in the capital. To-day Mr. Alexander's properties return him lucrative rentals, and those who told him five years ago that he was twenty years before the times now envy his enterprise. His investments have nearly all resulted to his advantage, and now his income is a large one. The mining industry came in for a share of his attention, and he invested fairly heavily in ventures on the different goldfields. He fitted out prospecting parties, and now holds interests in the districts extending from Cue and Lawlors to the various Coolgardie fields and Menzies. No one will deny but that Mr. Alexander considered with reason in 1891 that the time of Western Australian prosperity had arrived. Mr. Alexander watched the course of local politics with interest. His mind, which is apt to dwell on political problems to disintegrate them, led him into the busy arena. In 1895 he was elected to the Legislative Council to fill a vacancy, caused by the death of Mr. Henty, in the Central Province. During the two subsequent sessions he has been an active member of the Chamber and has spoken with effect on many matters of great importance to the colony. His further career in Parliament should be a successful one. He has given great satisfaction to his constituents, and represents their interests to their profit. About twenty years ago Mr. Alexander married at Toowoomba, Queensland. Although his life has brought him numerous hardships, they appear to have had no ill effects. He is a well preserved man, astute, enterprising and industrious.
EDWARD TIMOTHY HOOLEY, J.P., M.L.A.
CLOSELY akin to exploration work is the task which falls to the lot of the pioneer pastoralist. The explorer flits, so to speak, like a bird of passage, bides not in any place, but moves on until he reaches his desired goal. No-one will gainsay the hardships which an explorer goes through on his travels, much less will he deny the extremities and privations and solid, hard uphill work which the early pastoralist undergoes. The explorer maps out a country, and after him comes the sturdy pioneer to develop it and prove its possibilities and make it yield forth the bounties of nature.
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Photo by E.T. HOOLEY, J.P., M.L.A. Greenham & Evans. |
The opening up of a new country is necessarily arduous. Progress is tardy on account of the absence of material wherewith to carry out development work. Many weeks of toilsome travel must be endured before the pioneer comes in hail of the "busy haunts of men." Picture him away in the heart of a country, known perhaps only in name, pushing on his work as best he can in the plodding industry of the typical Britisher. He is a recluse to all intents and purposes, for save the company he meets at the head station and the dusky sons of the soil he is shut in from the world at large. There is a romance in these lives; not the common gilt-edge romance of the city—brick and
