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.
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