Finally, a measure, passed in 1896, aimed at the protection of pastoralists, farmers, and other cultivators of the soil by providing machinery by which the State might grant loans to them, upon adequate security, at a low rate of interest, with a sinking fund extending over a long period of years.
The salient features of Victorian legislation are the strong note of humanity and the confidence in the wisdom and efficiency of State action. If this confidence has sometimes been misplaced, there is no reason to suppose that the Victorians have imposed upon themselves a burden that they are unable to bear. They are an energetic race, who have not only developed the resources of their own country, but have obtained large interests in New South Wales and Queensland. If in the past { 155} they were too much inclined to draw bills upon futurity, they have had a sharp lesson which has taught them the necessity of retrenchment and compelled them to reduce their annual expenditure by a third of the total amount. It is impossible to form an unfavourable estimate of the prospects, or of the high average prosperity, of a population of less than 1,200,000 persons, which includes 185,000 freeholders and has accumulated at the Savings Banks £7,300,000 divided among nearly 340,000 depositors.
_THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA_
Constitutional history--The relations of Church and State--Natural impediments to development--The construction of railways--The scarcity of water--The promotion of the mining and other industries--The absence of parties in Parliament.
Western Australia received the privileges of Responsible Government many years after the other Australasian Provinces; otherwise, its constitutional development has proceeded upon similar lines. The first Governor was appointed in 1829, and administered the affairs of the country with the assistance of an Executive Council. Two years later a Legislative Council was established which consisted solely of the members of the Executive Council, but it was subsequently widened by the admission, at first, of unofficial nominee members, afterwards of a sufficient number of elected members to form a majority of the whole body. Then an agitation sprang up in the Province in favour of Responsible Government, and in 1889, after a unanimous vote of the Legislative Council, a Constitution { 157} Bill was submitted by the Government, considered by the Council, and forwarded to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. In the House of Commons it met with considerable opposition, on the ground that the Crown Lands of the Province should not be handed over to a population of only 46,000 persons. But, upon a favourable report of a Select Committee and representation made by the Agents-General of the other Australasian Provinces, the point was decided in the sense desired by the Province, and, as the Bill passed rapidly through the House of Lords, it received the Royal Assent in August, 1890.