A prevalent cause of distress among the early settlers arose from their having generally brought out with them little ready money, compared with their other property. This was chiefly owing to the Government regulations admitting of land being assigned to those only who introduced labourers, and various kinds of property required by farmers. Many of the settlers, therefore, to the extent of their means, were in this way amply provided; but having understood in England that money would be of little use in a new country, numbers, without questioning what they wished to be true, incautiously expended most of their means in the property that would entitle them to obtain land in the colony. However, when they had been some time in the settlement, they discovered that there, as in other places, money was needful; and on wishing to procure some by the sale of part of their property, they found it difficult to do so without loss, in consequence of most other settlers having brought out similar investments. Another cause of depression, which has borne seriously on the settlers, has been the occasional high price of the necessaries of life. With a view of remedying this evil, cargoes of provisions have been repeatedly imported by the Local Government--the actual cost alone being charged to the settler. Even a shipload of bullocks and pigs was introduced from Java. But, numbers of the bullocks and pigs getting loose, soon became as wild and difficult to recapture as if they had been natives of the woods, whither they had betaken themselves. Experience has shown that the system of free grants, which was the first adopted in Western Australia, is decidedly injurious to the prosperity of a settlement, from the facility it affords to persons possessed of comparatively little capital to acquire extensive tracts of land, the greater part of which, for want of means, they cannot use for agricultural or pastoral purposes. It also occasions the too wide dispersion of the settlers; thus necessarily increasing the expense of Government, and, at the same time, producing serious inconvenience to the farmer. WAKEFIELD'S SCHEME OF COLONIZATION +Source.+--A Letter from Sydney. E.G. Wakefield (Gouger, 1829), Appendix The failure of the first attempt to settle Western Australia gave rise to much thought upon the theory of colonization. The ideas most generally accepted were those of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who summarized his theory as follows: OUTLINE OF A SYSTEM OF COLONIZATION It is suggested: Article I. THAT a payment in money of---- per acre, be required for all future grants of land without exception. Article II. THAT all land now granted, and to be granted, throughout the colony, be declared liable to a tax of---- per cent. upon the actual rent. Article III. THAT the proceeds of the tax upon rent, and of sales, form an EMIGRATION FUND, to be employed in the conveyance of British labourers to the colony free of cost.