whose abilities were, or are now, of the very highest. From the ranks
of any profession, or from all the professions together, it would
be difficult to pick in Australia four men who could boast in the
aggregate a greater measure of natural or of practised ability. Each
of these four has, time after time, charmed, interested, and amused,
hundreds of thousands of perceptive and critical readers. Had they
given half the same talent to law or medicine, to science or politics,
each of the four would beyond doubt have become rich and famous. But
what has happened? One of them, possibly the most brilliant of the
brilliant quartette, died early, in some measure a victim to the
hospitality and conviviality that his own unique personality and charm
of manner invited. Journalists in Australia will not need to be told
that the reference is to the late Davison Symmons. The other three are
still living. One of them, whose work conferred lustre on the Sydney
_Morning Herald_ during the middle ’nineties, was in part the victim of
circumstances, in part the prey of his own temperament. The knowledge
that he was receiving 30s. or 40s. a column for his efforts, while
worse writers in England were getting paid for theirs at the rate of
shillings _a line_, drove him first to misanthropy, and afterwards to
other things. The third of the quartette is the writer who is known
throughout the continent by the pen-name “Oriel.” He is at the top of
the profession; he is one of the few men in Australia who have combined
social orthodoxy with newspaper brilliance; he has worked hard, and he
has not thrown himself away. But what prospects of a tangible monetary
reward are there for the gifted “Oriel,” or for writers like “Oriel,”
in comparison with those which always await the cattle dealer, the
rag merchant, or the bluffing attorney? The fourth of these typical
journalists is he who disguised himself in the columns of the Melbourne
_Argus_ and chronicled cricket, football, and other small beer for
quite a number of years. He might have continued to do so indefinitely,
had not the accident of the South African war given him a reputation
and a name.
These are only a few illustrations, but they will suffice. The
individual who launches out on the inky way must be prepared to be
judged critically on his merits, and to be treated without leniency or
favour. He must submit, for a time at any rate, to do the bidding of
a man who is also a journalist, and perhaps a less competent one than
himself. He must throw his illusions overboard; he must learn to give
and take; he must be watchful and ready, prompt to observe, and quick
to act; and he must be prepared to go without the richer prizes that
can be won in the warehouse, or in the domain of medicine, or at the
Bar.
Yet, if the would-be journalist possesses certain qualifications, in
addition to literary skill, he may be recommended to join the ranks of
the unlisted legion. If he has a saving sense of self-restraint; if he
has the faculty for seeing ahead; if he has a definite amount of moral
stamina; if he can treat the profession, not as an end, but as a means
to an end; if he can live through it and eventually rise above it--if
he can do this, the press is his most perfect and his ideal medium.
The monetary test is not the final one. The working journalists can at
least take to themselves one or two reflections. The ways of the grocer
and of the apothecary, of the lawyer and the bill-discounter, are not
their ways. Government House may not know them, and the drawing-rooms
of Toorak and Potts’ Point may forget their feet. But they have their
consolations. They are the rebels and the outlaws, and yet a strange
paradox--the entertainers, the instructors, the beacons of the whole
reading world.
IV
THE GAME OF POLITICS
Is it not better, youth
Should strive, _through acts uncouth_,
_Toward making_, than repose on aught found made?
The game of politics as played in Australia has a certain vogue with
almost every class. In numerous directions are to be found striking
evidences of the pervading character of this form of recreation. Every
state, including those whose population is only half that of a decent
sized English town, has its two Houses of Legislature, and all of the
states in unison have their double-barrelled Federal Parliament. Thus
we get a total of fourteen Houses of Parliament, and nearer seven
hundred than six hundred members to represent barely four millions of
people. The amount of space these fourteen Houses and these six hundred
and seventy odd members take up in the newspapers, and other chronicles
of the time, is enormous. Looking at some of the facts, one would be
inclined to say that the word “recreation” was a misnomer, that the
whole business was intensely and almost preternaturally serious. If a
man confined his reading to the journals of Australia, if he talked to
mechanics on their way home from work, or to business men over their
coffee, if he attended only a few of the open-air meetings that are a
feature of the life of the country, he would inevitably come to the
conclusion that the whole duty of man in Australia was to record his
vote, to watch his representative in Parliament, to burn incense to the
proved and faithful servant, and to hurl violently from his seat any
individual who ventured to tamper for a moment with the principles of
justice, equality, democracy, individualism, socialism, or whatever the
prevalent principle happened to be.
This would be a reasonable conclusion in certain circumstances, but
it would be an entirely erroneous one. As a matter of fact the game
is never really serious. In a land like Australia where many things
are dull, and lifeless, and mechanical, the tone and temper of public
affairs must be regarded as a pleasant relief. From the deadly
seriousness of cricket and horse-racing to the essentially humorous
quality of politics, is the most agreeable of transitions. It is an
incontestable fact that Australia is distinguished among all civilised
countries for the buoyant atmosphere, the mirth-provoking attributes,
and the Gilbertian features associated with its politics--features that
constitute, indeed, the whole substance and essence of the game.
To be a successful player, you require a certain amount of aptitude,
and a large measure of good fortune. Let it be assumed that you are a
spectator, and desire to be something more; that you are anxious to get
among the players, to handle the stakes, to hold a winning chance. The
task is easier--much easier--in Australia than it is in Great Britain,
but yet it is never altogether easy. The unwritten laws governing
success and failure are uncertain and peculiar. You are anxious to sit
at the table among the players. It remains to be seen what kind of hand
you have got. There are certain cards it is very desirable to hold;
others you can do without. Take it for granted that fortune has dealt
you enterprise, ambition, intelligence, power of grasping political
questions, faculty of speech, capacity for winning friends. This is a
useful hand, but will not of itself get you what you want. If somebody
plays the stronger card, that is to say the power of the purse, you
will go under in nine cases out of ten; you will remain always among
the onlookers in the outer ring, and will never get to the table. It
is necessary to make this point clear. To say that the moneyed man
can do what he likes in Australia, and that wit, eloquence, industry,
and the rest are always beaten by a large banking account, would be
to commit oneself to a foolish and palpable exaggeration. But no sane
man would deny that, in the game now under consideration, Power of the
Purse is the Ace of Trumps, and that to counterbalance it a very strong
collection of cards indeed is required.
There are many things that have to be reckoned with by the man who
desires to enter politics in Australia, but there is little outside
the cloven hoof of mammon that he can safely reckon on. The sands of
public opinion are shifting, changing. Even that useful attribute,
gift of speech, is by no means a certain passport to the post of
command. The crowd is jealous and suspicious of too much ability. It
is not pleasant for mediocrity to see itself outstripped by talent.
A man may talk himself into Parliament. On the other hand, he may
talk himself out of the possibility of ever getting there. So much
depends on the impression the crowd gets of the speaker’s sincerity,
of his earnestness, of his moral, social, and other qualities. It may
happen--in thousands of cases it has happened--that a man who can
speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and whose whole life has
been patriotically unselfish, has been unable to gain a place in the
counsels of the nation. For some reason the onlookers would not take
to him; they have disliked or misread his cards, disliked or misread
the man. The influence of the Trades’ Union is one powerful lever.
Many a man has succeeded in entering public life by its aid; but the
Trades’ Union is becoming to a greater extent each year a political
conglomeration of fiercely ambitious units, and nine-tenths of the
speakers who declaim at a Trades’ Hall or Union meeting have Parliament
in view. Every speaker watches, criticises, and mistrusts every other
speaker. In the rush for the spoils it is difficult to say who will,
and who will not, come eventually to the front. Capacity has to be
shown, friends have to be made, opponents have to be silenced, rival
interests have to be placated, cliques have to be frustrated, logs have
to be rolled, wires have to be pulled, and much else has to be done
before the goal can be attained. To the participant it is all very
exciting, and to the onlooker it is very droll indeed.
But it is in Parliament that the fascination of the game really begins.
So fascinating is it to the great majority of the participants who
have reached this stage, that you will scarcely find one in a hundred
who will offer to give up his place at the table, no matter how his
chances of winning a large stake may have dwindled, no matter how
much he may be out of pocket, no matter how his fellow-players may be
wishing him somewhere else. To say this is not to suggest the worst
kind of motive, or to cast reflections on individuals. The writer knows
a great many Australian politicians, and is inclined to think that on
the whole he likes them better than any other class. He regards them
as, for the most part, genial, pleasant fellows. Speaking broadly, they
are not dull-witted, and they are not corrupt. There was a time when
the average member of an English Parliament was both. The Australian
politician is usually a good sportsman: he can take his winnings
without boasting, and he can take his failures like a man. He is under
no illusions as to his own aims, or his own qualities. He knows that
it is to his interest to be considered as a patriot, and he knows
also, in his heart of hearts he knows, that he is only a player. Let
us quote Browning, and thank God that the meanest politician boasts
two soul-sides, one to face his constituents with, one to show to the
man or woman who knows him. Let us thank God, for if it were otherwise
the race of public men would cease to exist. They would be consumed in
the fires of their own simulated fervour. And some highly interesting
proceedings would be lost to the world.
It is assumed, then, that the first step has been taken, that you
have got to the playing table, that you are directly under the eye
of the marker who calls the game. The fun is now about to commence,
and with it the danger. You are untried, and practically unknown. The
first thing to do in the circumstances is to get into opposition. The
manner of doing this requires a great deal of tact and finesse. Many
a man, and many a possessor of a naturally strong hand, has spoilt
it irrevocably by playing a wrong card at this early stage. The
probabilities are that you were carried into Parliament on a wave of
enthusiasm for the Government. You were chosen to sit behind the front
Ministerial Benches. Your constituents expect this of you. Now, it is
just possible to do precisely what your constituents do not expect of
you, and yet, not only keep their good opinion, but rise very much
higher in it. This, I say, is possible, but so far from being easy,
it is distinctly the hardest piece of strategy in the whole political
manœuvre.
However, something has to be done. You are unknown, and far from
rich; you are ambitious, and cannot afford to remain for years
an obscure unit among the followers of the party in office. The
fascination of the play is upon you; there are tens of thousands of
spectators watching intently, keenly interested, waiting to applaud.
The temptation to catch their eye--that large collective eye which
overlooks the continent--is irresistible. You are invisible because of
the Ministerial phalanx in front of and around you, and it is necessary
to get clear, to break away.
The opportunity will almost certainly arrive before long. The clever
gamester is he who recognises the chance when it appears and makes
the most of it. You must have a certain amount of patience. It is
ruinous to be too precipitate, but it will almost certainly happen, and
probably before the end of your first triennial term, that the Premier
will come down with certain proposals to which you are not committed
before the eyes of your constituents, and which are intrinsically
important enough to arouse popular feeling. This is the opportunity
to break with the Government. But as you represent a government
constituency you must be careful. You must go to the electors and take
them into your confidence; you must explain that after a tremendous
and heart-breaking struggle between devotion to a political leader and
devotion to principle, the latter carried the day. It is well to point
out--as truthfully you may do--that your threats, tears, and entreaties
have been fruitless to turn the Premier from his fell purpose; that
your expostulations have fallen on deaf ears. Henceforth, you may
add, all personal attachments, all private longings, all political
amenities, are to you as nought; all the friendships of a lifetime have
been laid on the altar; for the future you live only in the endeavour
humbly but unswervingly to give effect to those eternal principles in
comparison with the majesty of which, the life and aspirations of the
individual are as the small dust in the balance, are a not worth naming
sacrifice.
Once in opposition it will be found that your sphere has extended,
your reputation increased. It is now possible to marshal all your
forces. Allusions can be made that would previously have been
inadmissible; words can be used that before would have been treason.
At this period of the game it is advisable to cultivate a method, a
manner of your own. It is desirable to be in some way _distinctive_.
There is much virtue in a particular look, in a mode of speech, in a
mannerism. If you have not the main thing, which is natural ability
and power of carrying conviction, it is possible to get something
else--something that will focus the attention of the spectators in the
outer ring. Every one knows the story of the man who laughed. He has
had his counterpart, and a very successful counterpart, in Australian
politics. It will be recorded of one man of obscure beginnings that
he was a genial, capable, extremely popular person, who laughed, and
became Premier of Victoria. If laughing is not your _metier_, if it
goes against the grain, it is just as effective, or even more so,
to cultivate a cast-iron demeanour. The “cool, calm, strong man”
has been played admirably on several occasions, by none more finely
and successfully than by Mr W. H. Irvine, of Victoria. Yet another
pose that will often be found extremely useful is that of the bluff
devil-take-you kind of individual, as impersonated by Mr Thomas Bent,
of contemporary fame, and by Sir George Dibbs, of happy memory. The
astute Cornwall in _King Lear_ says some words to the effect that this
kind of knave--the bluff, outspoken knave--has more craft than any
other kind that could be mentioned. However that may be, the gruffly
candid demeanour has proved useful in Australian politics in the
past, and is likely to prove useful again. Then there is the humorous
pose, of which Mr G. H. Reid furnishes the best living example. This
is invaluable at times, but its successful adoption is so difficult
that it cannot be generally recommended. Only the highest kind of
ability should venture to undertake this manner. It may be of advantage
to affect a plain, or even a dowdy, appearance. The first Federal
Treasurer wore an old suit of brown clothes for a lengthy period, and
with conspicuously good results. But, whatever you cultivate, whether
it is the manner of the sage or the buffoon, of the circus or of the
graveyard, it is necessary to cultivate something, and to cultivate it
well.
With a modicum of good luck, and a sufficiency of good management,
almost any one can rise to Ministerial rank in Australia, or for
that matter can obtain the highest post of vantage, namely the
Premiership. The comparative shade of private membership is no sooner
left behind than the game takes on still different phases. The cards
are reshuffled, the partners are altered, the rules are revised. The
play is as fascinating as ever--even more so--but it has become much
more difficult, much more complex. One has only to reflect for a
moment on the absence of any really live question in colonial politics
to understand the trouble that the head of a Government must have to
keep up some semblance of enthusiasm in the country, and to retain
his place. There is no large Imperial question. There is no Home Rule
question. There is no longer a tariff question, although there are
occasional murmurings and mutterings from one or two sections of the
people, and from one or two dissatisfied newspapers. It is impossible
to beat up a party, either in the State or the Federal Parliament,
on such lines as Imperialism, Nationalism, Jingoism, Fiscalism,
Conservatism, or any other “ism” belonging to the larger domain of
national affairs. What is there left to fight about? There is very
little. In three cases out of four the incoming Government takes
up the measures of its predecessor. In three cases out of four the
differences, other than the personal ones, are barely discernible.
In this political atmosphere of Australia, Amurath with Amurath is
eternally being confounded.
The rise of the Labour Party has been the most remarkable feature
of the situation during the past three or four years, and the whole
history of the Labour Party is the most conspicuous illustration of the
general truth of what has just been said. In Opposition it has been
magnificently strong and war-like. It has talked, through its leaders
and its units, firmly and finely of the necessity of checkmating
capitalistic greed, of nationalising industries, of abolishing the
large land-owner, of setting up a State Bank, of establishing a State
iron industry, of taxing the wealthy for the benefit of the poor,
of granting pensions to the aged workers, of saving the weak from
the strong, of improving industrial conditions, of giving every man
a fair return for his labour, of shortening hours, of widening the
avenues of employment, of adding something material and tangible to
the pleasures of the people. The Labour Party out of office has talked
impressively of all these things--so impressively, indeed, that it has
been taken at its word. During the last year or two, Labour Ministries
have been in power in the Federal Parliament, in Queensland, and in
Western Australia. What has happened? Where is the monopoly that has
been nationalised? Where are the wages that have been increased? Where
is the Bank that has been established? Where is the land tax that was
promised? Where are the old age pensions in Queensland, in Western
Australia or in the Federal Parliament? More than this: where are
the records of any serious attempt on the part of one of the Labour
Ministries of Australia to nationalise even one industry, to check
capitalisation, to pay old age pensions, to run a State Bank, or to do
anything that the average Liberal, or even the so-called Conservative
Opposition would not cheerfully undertake? Not only has there been
nothing revolutionary accomplished, but nothing revolutionary has been
even tried.
To keep your place at the inner table, to be able for any length
of time to set the pace for the rest of the numerous company, it is
necessary to remember that the other players, and not yourself, are the
actual masters of the situation. By proceeding warily, and by showing a
thorough knowledge of every unwritten rule and precept, you may get as
much as a reasonable man should require. You may have the appearance,
if not the substance of power, and all the honours, emoluments,
lime-light and other accessories connected with it. But to attempt
to run a crusade of your own, or to attempt to put into practice the
sentiments you preached in opposition, is merely to commit hari-kari,
to rush on your own doom. The Labour Party, or the more intelligent
members of it, have found this out. My own opinion is that the Labour
leader is a trifle less insincere on the whole, than the average leader
of any other party or section. Yet the difference between the fighting
Labourist’s word in opposition and his performance in office is great
and ghastly. It is not necessary to blame him. He has simply _had_
to realise that Australia is in a condition, politically speaking,
of being willing to listen to everything, and of being able to
accomplish nothing. It is always talking about its breathless speed,
and perpetually falling down in the mud.
Undoubtedly the most humorous, the most delightful, and at the same
time the most useful institution known to the continent is the Upper
House, or Legislative Council. What the Premier of the day would do
without this stand-by, it is barely possible to surmise. To the head
of an allegedly Radical government, the Tory Chamber is always a
God-send. Even the cleverest tactician finds now and again that he
must press forward when in office with measures that he advocated when
sitting on the left hand benches. It is an awkward predicament for
many reasons. He knows that if the reform is carried, it will probably
bring about a reaction, and that he himself will almost certainly be
hurled from office at the next election. Yet he dare not jettison the
principal plank in his fighting platform. What is he to do? Amid the
storm clouds that are all round him, out of the night that encompasses
him, above the tempest that is driving him irresistibly forward there
gleams one ray of light--the light of the Legislative Council. There
it is, straight ahead, standing between himself and swift and sudden
extinction. Confidently he presses on. His vessel triumphantly breasts
the waves of the Representative House, and is dashed to pieces on the
adamantine rock of the Council’s inaccessibility. But he himself is
safe. He gains breathing time while the fragments of his craft are
being pieced together again. His constituents are satisfied. He comes
back stronger than ever from the next election, and goes through the
performance again.
Will any one deny that all these possibilities, all these variations,
all these moves and countermoves, all these chances of success, all
these risks of failure, go to make the pursuit of the political prize
in Australia one of the most absorbing in which man can engage? The
governing fact as already stated is that the game is not confined to
a privileged class, as is practically the case in England. Subject to
certain conditions, it is open to all. It is true that the possessor of
a banking account has an advantage. In the language of pedestrianism,
he beats the pistol; he gets a certain start every time. But the start
is not so great that it cannot by a display of agility be overtaken.
And the fact remains that the chief attraction of Australia from the
player’s point of view, and one of the chief risks from the point of
view of the spectator, is that political competitions are conducted
actually, as well as nominally, irrespective of wealth, or rank, or
status in life.