Few countries can, I think, show a more favourable account of their public financial matters than that exhibited by South Australia. Custom duties are the only taxation to which her people are subject, and the amount paid by them in that shape averages no more than 25_s._ a head. On the 31st December, 1871, the population was 189,018, and the duties levied in 1871 had amounted to £234,980. The total revenue in that year had been £785,489, and the total expenditure, £759,339. But the revenue so stated is made up of various sums, which have no reference whatever to taxation. It includes the gross amounts received from the post-office, from the railways, from the telegraph offices, and from the water-works;--whereas the total of the expenditure includes the expenses of those establishments. The revenue includes also the money carried to the public credit for the sale and lease of lands, which I find estimated for 1872 at £145,000. The public debt amounted to £1,944,600 on the 31st December, 1871, which had been chiefly,--I believe entirely,--expended on public works. One hundred and thirty-three miles of railway had been opened in the country, the working of which in 1871 had cost £88,000,--and which had produced £111,000 by its traffic, thus giving £23,000 as dividends on the cost, and paying about a quarter of the interest on the total of the public debt. In what I have said it will, I fear, be thought that I have intended to depreciate the parliament of the colony. I have not sought to do so, but I am merely giving my personal impressions of what I heard and saw. Parliaments, like puddings, should be judged by the proof of their results, as shown in the eating. One of the main works of all parliaments is so to adjust the financial affairs of the country entrusted to it, that the people shall not suffer from over-taxation, that the public credit shall be maintained, and that a sufficiency of revenue shall be collected to insure the safety and general well-being of the community. If this be adequately done, a parliament need certainly not be ashamed of its doings. And this is adequately done in South Australia. WESTERN AUSTRALIA. [Illustration: MAP OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA _Stanford’s Geog^l. Estab^t London._ London: Chapman & Hall.] WESTERN AUSTRALIA. CHAPTER I. EARLY HISTORY.