harbour?[1] Means of communication are required for the purposes of exchange. But there can be no exchange without surplus produce; that is, produce over and above what is consumed by the producers. In order to raise a great surplus produce, or in other words a great produce in proportion to the amount of capital and the number of hands employed, it is necessary that capital and labour should be skilfully employed; and the skilful employment of capital and labour in a new colony depends, not on the existence of natural means of communication, but on the mode of colonization adopted. For the present case, in which it is hoped to maintain in the colony the same skilful application of capital and labour as takes place in England, good natural means of communication are most desirable. The attention of the reader is, therefore, particularly directed to the form of the southern coast of Australia. Between the limits of the colony, which in a straight line comprise a distance of 500 miles, the extent of coast, including the coasts of Kangaroo Island and the shores of Lake Alexandria, amounts to about 2,150 miles; and between
- ↑ 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. For a particular account of the causes of the failure of the Swan River Settlement, the reader is referred to 'England and America.'
