I learn from a little book, written by Mr. W. H. Knight, and published in Perth, on the history, condition, and prospects of Western Australia, that the colony, “as defined by her Majesty’s Commissioners, includes all that portion of New Holland situated to the westward of the 129th degree of longitude, and extends between the parallels of 13° 44′ and 35° south, its greatest length being 1,280 miles from north to south, and its breadth from east to west about 800 miles. The area is about 1,000,000 square miles, or about eight times the size of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.” The total population on December 31, 1871, as given in the Blue Book published in 1872, was 25,353. On the 31st March, 1870, the population, as taken by the census, had been 24,785. For a young colony that can only thrive by an increasing population, the figures are not promising; and they are the less so, in that the latter number may be probably taken as exact, whereas the former, showing the increase, has been matter of calculation. In such calculations there is always a bias towards the more successful side. With an area so enormous, and a population so small, the value and distribution of the land form together the one all-absorbing question. The new-comers arrive intending to live out of the land, which at any rate is plentiful;--and as new-comers are not plentiful, it is necessary to tempt them with offers of land. In all the Australian colonies the system has been the same, although it has been carried out with various limits and various devices. In the early days of Western Australia very large grants indeed were given on compliance by different individuals with certain stipulations as to the number of emigrants imported and value of stock and goods brought into the colony. The following grants were made:-- To Mr. Thomas Peel 250,000 acres. To Colonel Latour 103,000 ” To Sir James Stirling 100,000 ”