Of course I am here addressing those who have in their own hands the means of emigrating. Not only will the £15 a head be wanting in bringing out his family, but also something on which to live when the new country is first reached. But, presuming that a working man with a working family can raise £200,--a very strong presumption I fear,--I do not know that he could do better than establish himself as a farmer in Western Australia. I believe that Western Australia has no agent at home, as have the other colonies, a part and perhaps the chief part of whose business it is to facilitate the emigration of those who intend settling themselves in the new colony. Why should we pay an agent to send us emigrants when no emigrants will come to us? That no doubt is the feeling of a desponding Western Australian. And yet the colony has, as I think, with much wisdom offered most alluring terms to emigrants. At present, however, I do not see how these terms are to be made known to persons at home. I say this as an apology for the insertion here of details which cannot, I fear, interest the ordinary reader. It is admitted on all hands that Western Australia cannot be made to thrive until her population shall be increased by new-comers. Twenty-five thousand people may perhaps live together in comfort within confines which shall be sufficiently extended to afford to all a sufficiency of land, and at the same time compact enough to bring them together. But Western Australia is an enormous country, and its scanty population is spread about it by hundreds. The so-called settled districts are twelve in number, and the average area of each is more than half as big as England. The average population of each district is only just above 2,000. Let the English reader conceive the ten northern counties of England with 2,000 inhabitants between them! And in saying this I am speaking of the settled districts,--not of the distant regions which are claimed by the colony as belonging to it, and which will remain probably for centuries, perhaps for ever, uninhabited. An influx of population is necessary to Western Australia, not only that there may be enough of men and women to form a community and administer to each other’s wants, but that the very nature may be changed of those upon whose industry the colony now depends. In its deep distress it accepted convicts, and was saved, as I think, from utter collapse by doing so. But the salvation effected was not healthy in its nature. I have given the figures over and over again. To make up a population of twenty-five thousand souls, ten thousand male convicts have been sent! Life and property are fairly safe. Work is done. The place is by no means a lawless place. Those who emerge from their sentences reformed are encouraged to prosper. Those who come out unreformed are controlled and kept down. But nevertheless the convict flavour pervades the whole,--to the great detriment of that part of the working population