9' 



their ventures successful. The advantages of co-operation were to 

 be securer! by the experimental farm in each locality purchasing 

 from the producers, milk, olives, and grapes, in order to manufac- 

 ture these materials into butter, cheese, oil and wine. The company 

 had other plans of land settlement which did not bear much fruit, 

 while the experimental farms never assumed a more tangible shape 

 than a descriptive report. For years, from 1884 till 1891, the 

 country along the Great Southern railway was locked up, pending the 

 selection by the company of its land grants in alternate blocks that 

 should equally divide the frontage to the line with the Crown, and 

 the progress of the district was greatly retarded. The old settlers 

 who had come from York in search of new pastures for their Hocks r 

 lost their security of tenure ; an excessive value was placed upon 

 the estate by the company, and the result was they obtained very- 

 few purchasers for a territory that has been looked to lor funds to 

 pay for the construction of the line. The shareholders received no 

 interest on their investment, and the land has not developed in the 

 way that had been expected and desired, because the land was 

 appraised at from i to 2, los. per acre, while the adjoining blocks 

 belonging to the Government, were to be had at the uniform price, 

 upon conditional purchase, of los. per acre, or as a free grant under 

 the Homesteads Act. To buy from the company also meant that 

 the settler was debarred from participating in the benefits of the 

 Land bank, and to be subject to what was for a long time a less 

 liberal freight tariff for the conveyance of produce than that which 

 was ruling on the Government railway service. From time to time 

 the company made overtures to the Government to purchase their 

 railway and land grants, but it was not until October, 1896, that the 

 Ministry saw their way to ask Parliament for the authority to enable 

 them to accept an offer. The price was fixed at ^"1,100,000. The matter 

 came before the Legislative Assembly on a motion moved by the Hon. 

 Sir John Forrest. The Premier urged that it was the policy of the coun- 

 try that the railways should belong to the people of the colony. Although 

 the land grant system of building railways had been adopted at a time 

 when the colony was not so prosperous as it had since become, it 

 was a matter for regret that one-half of a strip of country 80 

 miles wide, between Beverley and Albany, had been handed over to 

 a private company. The arrangement had not proved satisfactory 

 to the people of Western Australia, especially to the residents of the 

 district through which the railway ran. The 3,000,000 acres, com- 

 prising the land grants, were a large portion of the temperate part 

 of Western Australia, and of the south-western division, that had a 

 good rainfall. The time had come when it was advisable for the 

 country to hold these lands, in order that they might be developed 

 under the liberal land laws of the tate. The total quantity of land 

 sold, or ageed to be sold, by the company, up to the end of Febru- 

 ary, 1895, in round numbers, was a quarter of a million acres ; so 

 that there remained unalienated about two and three-quarter 



