West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), Saturday 19 June 1897, page 3


A HISTORY OF WESTERN

AUSTRALIA,

To the Editor,

SIR,- I would take it as a great favour if you will allow me, through your columns, to advert to this interesting matter upon which your leader of 12th June, and letters from Mr. Trant Chambers and Mr. Harris, have dwelt with such strong effect. No narrative of Western Australian events has been published; nothing to indicate the " sturt and strife" of the forefathers of the present generation. You will, perhaps, permit me to mention that for about 12 months Mr. J. J. Pascoe has been engaged on my behalf in compiling a book closely on the lines which you and Mr. Chambers laid down. Concurrent with a biographical work on leading Western Australian men, I intend to publish shortly a history of the colony, starting with the discoverers of Australia and finishing with the present decade. Pioneers of the colony yet sur-viving and public men have rendered me assistance most precisely of the kind sug-gested by Mr. Chambers. In compiling the history my editor has fortunately been able to glean here and there-from occa-sional official records, from original books of exploration, and by means of the evanescent memory of pioneers-a con-nected narrative of the early days so potent to these who struggled in them, apparently without the slightest prescience that the colony would yet be great, and so easily overlooked by young men to-day. And while there were not battles of world wide moment such as have taken place in Africa and America, there were deadly frays with natives of so absorbing an in-terest to settlers that they occasionally serionsly talked of abandoning the colony. There were also bitter struggles with

penury, constant striving to live down

misconception and original mistakes, and explorations over waterless and barren wastes-obstacles as sullen and dispiriting probably as any met by Livingstone and those who followed him. If I may make bold, I would also say that there were deeds done afar from the world's glamour by our colonists as bravely and well as any " Deeds that won the Empire "-they ex-tended the Empire. With these early annals the projected history will especially deal. Let me add, Sir, that I do not wish for more support from the Government than they, you and the public determine my work merits. I depend merely and

sheerly on that.-Yours, etc.

W. B. KIMBERLY.

Perth, June 14.