city can be favoured with, while architecturally, it must be admitted,
its citizens have done their duty as far as possible, remembering their
limitations. Like us, they do not believe in defiling their cities
with skyscrapers, but keep their buildings of a reasonable height,
in accordance with the width of the thoroughfares. Two buildings
especially cannot fail to impress the most careless and casual
observer--the Town Hall and General Post Office. I do no injustice to
Melbourne, but only state the bare fact when I say that not only are
these two really magnificent edifices far finer than the corresponding
municipal erections in Melbourne, but in their position they are
much more highly favoured, in spite of the fact that Melbourne's
thoroughfares are so much wider and straighter than those of Sydney.
But Sydney's Town Hall has what every civic structure should have, a
vast open space in which to stand manifesting its glories--a position,
in fact, like St. George's Hall, Liverpool, and the Town Halls of
Glasgow, Manchester, and Leeds. Melbourne Town Hall, while undoubtedly
a noble building, suffers much from its position at an angle of Collins
and Swanston Streets, with other buildings crowding in behind it, so
that from no point can more than a small portion of it be visible, and
no view of it can be obtained from any farther away than across the
street. And the same remarks apply exactly to Melbourne Post Office,
which is at the corner of Bourke and Elizabeth Streets, and but for
its grand tower would hardly be noticeable. Sydney Post Office is so
magnificent in its outlines that it entirely puts to shame the similar
buildings in such great cities as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool,
or Glasgow, which have nearly double Sydney's population. And its
situation is a peculiarly advantageous one in that, although it is in
the heart of the city and bounded on two sides by the comparatively
narrow yet noble thoroughfares of Pitt and George Streets, it has
an exceedingly wide space on its immense frontage which already has
some grand companion buildings on the opposite side of it, and will
doubtless soon be completely edified and in full keeping with the
stately façade of the Post Office, which fills the entire front of
the block between the two main thoroughfares of the city. A curious
but pretty feature of the fine promenade along the front of the Post
Office, the busiest part of the city during the day, is the number of
flower-sellers (all men), who stand at the edge of the pavement with
huge baskets of glorious blooms before them. These they vend in great
bunches, tightly tied up and as large as a medium cabbage, at a uniform
rate of sixpence each, which leads to the belief that everything which
grows in this marvellous country is characterised by a uniformity of
cheapness. And of course I was told that, being winter, the show was
nothing compared with its summer beauty.
XI
THE KING OF NEW ZEALAND
To-day I have had a veritable treat. By the courtesy of a few friends
I was privileged to go and visit the _Sobraon_, that grand old flyer
which, under Captain Elmslie, brought out from England to this Colony
so many of her leading citizens. She is in her way almost as classic as
the _Mayflower_ or the _Argo_, although towering mightily above them
in beauty, size, and comfort for those who sailed in her. And she has
met a far happier fate than have the majority of the celebrated old
clippers of the bygone days. It gives the old sailor's heart a severe
pang when he occasionally comes across a ship which in her day of glory
was an honour to command; to be her master conferred brevet rank and
dignity which nothing could rob a man of, even though, as, alas! was
often the case, he descended from her wreck to a beggared old age;
sold to the Norwegians, Italians, or even to some Indian coasting
firm for a drudge and a byword. Some of these old flyers perished
gloriously, but most of them were degraded into timber droghers or
country-wallahs, without even the consolation that their shame was
hidden under a change of name.
Not so the _Sobraon_. Trim and taut as ever she was in her prideful
days as the premier ship _sailing_ to Sydney from England, she now lies
snugly moored in one of the most beautiful bays of that most splendid
of all harbours. She belongs to the Government of New South Wales, and
it is her grand mission to receive and deal with those waifs and strays
who in this country, with its floating and polyglot population, have
drifted or may readily drift into crime. She is at once a reformatory,
an elevator, and a school of the best type. And the proof of her
usefulness is found in the splendid results shown from most unpromising
material. For not only are many of the boys here the result of the most
curious miscegenation, Chinese, negroes, aborigines, and every European
race being mingled and producing some extraordinary blends, but they
have, by reason of neglect and freedom of the wild, often become
literally young savages. Yet so wise is the rule and so excellent
the training that from this queer raw material there is turned out
a really fine finished product. All the officers are enthusiasts. I
protested against the boys being put through their facings to make a
show for me, but I found that to refuse to witness what they could do
would give not only the officers but the boys entirely unnecessary
pangs of disappointment. So of course I yielded, and was exceedingly
glad I did, for the spectacle I was treated to was an inspiring as well
as an illuminating one. Also, the fates being propitious, during the
exercises the Premier of the Colony, Mr. J. H. Carruthers, with the
Japanese Admiral Shimamura and his staff, and a host of representative
ladies and gentlemen, came alongside in a steamer and _assisted_ at the
function.
I have never seen anything better done, and as for the singing of the
boys, well, there must be something in Australian air that makes for
excellence of the vocal powers. I have never heard children sing as
they sing here. I heard the children sing at rehearsal in the Town
Hall for Empire Day, and was astounded at the purity and volume of
their voices, and the same characteristics were noticeable here in the
vocalisation of these whilom waifs. Be it remembered that they do not
all become sailors; many of them go into other employments, for which
they become eminently fitted here, being taught trades in addition to
the peculiarly saltwater training, which fits a man to help himself, to
cook, wash, mend, and rise to the occasion whatever it may be.
The food is, as might be expected here, super-excellent and plentiful,
but even then there are certain luxuries, such as boys love, which may
be earned by good behaviour and diligence. There are other privileges,
too, as well as rewards, which may be earned in the same way, and in
consequence the percentage of punishments is so low that it savours of
necromancy how such boys can so readily be brought under the wholesome
standard of sea discipline. And to crown all, the _Sobraon_ has now a
tender called the _Dart_, which is rigged as a topsail schooner and
has besides a set of engines and boilers, in which the boys who wish
to go to sea are trained under actual sea conditions to become deck
hands or firemen, as the case may be. To sum up, the institution is a
great credit to Australia, not merely to New South Wales alone, for
the practical way in which it deals with the waif problem, for the
object-lesson in discipline and its value which it daily presents to
a people never enamoured of discipline and continually growing more
impatient of the slightest restraint, and for the excellent results it
shows.
Of course they (the powers that be) have been exceptionally fortunate
in securing so perfectly adapted a ship as the _Sobraon_, and also in
their superintendent of this fine enterprise, Captain W. H. Mason,
whose ability, energy, and enthusiasm for his work is beautiful to
witness, while it is also very pleasant to hear him speak of the manner
in which his efforts are aided and backed up by the Government, no
matter of what political complexion it may happen to be at the time
when supplies are being voted.
And now the time draws near when I must leave Sydney for that
wonderland of the South, New Zealand--leave it, too, without having had
more than the slightest opportunity of visiting the interior of the
country. But to tell the truth, with the exception of a few points,
such as the marvellous Jenolan Caves, I have little desire to do so,
knowing full well the conditions that obtain and that everywhere I
shall see the same problem presenting itself, the same reason why, with
all this vast area of rich country, half of the population shall be
gathered within the area of a few square miles on the shores of Port
Jackson.
The dire want of tillers on the soil, the men to take advantage of all
that bounteous Nature has provided, is manifest everywhere outside the
area of great cities like Melbourne and Sydney, while at home we have
the endless cry for work, in order that those willing to work may live.
It is intensely saddening to see, but there are not wanting signs that
the people are awaking to what they are beginning to find is a deadly
danger to their future in the coming great struggle for Empire. If only
the politicians could or would cease their squabbling and hit upon some
sensible plan in the working of which they could all agree! But as they
very justly say, they get no object-lessons in political agreement or
sensible adoption of workable plans for the removal of difficulties in
the way of reform from Governments at home, pointing sarcastically to
the Education Act imbroglio. And then the English visitor is fain to
remain silent for very shame's sake.
Since coming to Australia, although I have met and conversed with
active politicians of both parties, I have never heard a political
speech until coming here. It is true that at a private official dinner
tendered to Admiral Shimamura and his staff by the Prime Minister of
the Commonwealth, Mr. Alfred Deakin, I heard the latter make a speech,
but it was scarcely political, nor was it for publication. It was a
magnificent panegyric upon the prowess in war and virtues in peace of
the Japanese, delivered with great force and fluency and entirely
extempore. Compared with the mumbling, halting, exasperating delivery
of some of our principal legislators at home, it was a performance
to fill one with envious admiration; but of course it could not be
forgotten that the speech was not being reported, and that in any case
the issues at stake were not in any sense momentous.
But I was invited to a banquet given in the Hotel Australia, where I
was staying, by the New Zealanders in Australia to Mr. R. J. Seddon,
who has just arrived here on a visit, and, curious to see the uncrowned
King of New Zealand, I went. A massive man with a leonine head in
front, but sloping curiously forward from the nape of the neck to the
occiput, as if the back of the head had been sliced off diagonally. A
hearty man who ate and drank vigorously and was almost boisterously
jolly. The chairman of the banquet in his speech of welcome to their
distinguished guest was in serious difficulties, being essentially
a man of action rather than speech, and it was hard to say whether
he suffered most in delivery or his hearers in listening. At the
conclusion of the drinking of his health Mr. Seddon rose to reply, amid
yells of "Kia ora! Haeremai! Ake, Ake," and other Maori salutations,
and a perfect hurricane of stamping and hand-clapping. He began to
speak portentously, uttering the baldest platitudes with a force and
gravity that almost compelled belief that these commonplaces were now
being uttered for the first time, having sprung into being there and
then from the mighty brain of the speaker. For an hour he went on
thundering out nothings which were received with rapturous applause
whenever he paused for breath, and dispensing grave personal advice to
the bunglers at Government in Britain, who were personally responsible
for all the grave social evils that abound, all of which might be
removed by wise legislation such as the speaker had been so largely
responsible for in New Zealand. At last he sat down amid frenzied
plaudits, having literally hypnotised the bulk of his audience by his
magnetic and powerful personality, while taking an hour to utter what
could easily have been stated in five minutes.
That, however, was but the beginning of his labours. In proposing
some healths and responding for others he made four more speeches of
about a quarter of an hour each before the meeting broke up, and then
descended to the winter garden, where a reception had been arranged,
the guests to which had been waiting for over an hour for the great
man's appearance. He was greeted with rapturous applause again, and
proceeded to make another long speech which I only heard the echoes of
afar off, for I fled to a restful corner and meditated. But it lasted
fully three-quarters of an hour. Yet I learn that he has come over
here for a rest from his arduous official labours in order to avoid
a breakdown! Curiously enough, this man on his vacation literally
dominated the Australian politicians, talked to them as if they were
well-meaning but ignorant beginners, and was _fêted_ to the highest
point. He got no rest, but that seemed to trouble him not at all. I was
fain to ask some of his New Zealanders if they could tell me the secret
of his power, and without exception their replies resolved themselves
into this: that he never forgot a friend, however humble, and had a
rare art of first browbeating and then conciliating his opponents;
that he always had his ear to the ground to find out what the people
wanted, and when he knew he bent his whole strength to give it to the
party that was strong enough to demand it. This and his genius in being
hail-fellow-well-met with even the raggedest loafer whom he had ever
been friendly with, and that in any place, however public; gave him a
popularity, in a land where men and women have adult suffrage, that
nothing could shake. And on top of it all he had, like Mr. Gladstone,
a beautiful and sympathetic home-life, lived in the open air of public
scrutiny. There were no skeletons in his family cupboards, and this
feature has always been and will always be an immense factor in any
public man's success in Britain or a British Colony.
I have said enough for the present about Mr. R. J. Seddon, although
just now he seems to be the one force which counts out here, all the
other political personages being but pigmies beside him, although the
whole country which he rules so successfully has not nearly double the
population of either Melbourne or Sydney. He certainly is a portent, a
man whom even his bitterest opponents are bound to admire and respect
for his many wonderful qualities, and perhaps most of all for his
amazing vigour at a time of life--sixty-one--when, especially with his
corpulent figure, he might reasonably be expected to slow down a bit.
Instead of which he is making a triumphal tour of the Australasian
States, being everywhere received with the honours usually accorded to
a great potentate.
The day arrives when I am due to leave Sydney for Auckland, and
reluctantly I tear myself away from all the delights of this most
beautiful and hospitable spot; only to find that the fine steamer of
the Huddart Parker Line, which divides with the Union Company of New
Zealand the monopoly of the Australasia-New Zealand trade, in which
I was to sail, has been suddenly held back a day for no other reason
obvious but the pleasure of the managers. Oh, they carry matters with a
high hand out here, and if you object, well, you can so amuse yourself
if you will, but it comes to nothing! I went down and had a look at the
vessel though, and was filled with admiration at her fine proportions
and splendid passenger accommodation. She is quite as large and far
more finely fitted than the ocean liner of a quarter of a century ago,
being nearly 3,000 tons register, and having all her appointments
for the comfort of passengers up to date. But this business of
Inter-colonial shipping has grown to stupendous proportions and cannot
be dealt with casually at the fag end of a chapter, so it must stand
over.
XII
TOWARDS MAORILAND
As I mentioned in a previous chapter, your Australasian is essentially
a wanderer, and the huge distances involved have no terrors for
him. Land travel, except where the railways run, is slow, painful,
difficult, and often dangerous, although essentially romantic. But
where business is concerned romance has little scope, and delay is to
be avoided at all costs. Consequently, from the very earliest days of
the Colonies there was an attempt made to satisfy the needs of the
travelling public by making communication by sea as safe and easy
as could be. The efforts of the pioneers in this direction met with
great and well-deserved success, but side by side with their growth in
power and wealth came the demands of the seamen and firemen to share.
These demands were favoured by successive Colonial Governments, which
have always had the interests of the workers at heart, being usually
composed of men who had been hand-workers themselves. Of course, in the
result the workers always won, amid the plaints of the shipowners who
predicted ruin to their enterprises if such wages and such food were
made compulsory. But the lugubrious prophecies of evil have not been
fulfilled, even in the remotest sense, for to-day the coastal trade of
Australasia is without a parallel in the world.
Indeed it seems almost miraculous, remembering the paucity of the
population, how so immense a fleet can be maintained. Take, for
instance, the Union Company, which, when I was in New Zealand
thirty-three years ago, was just a babe in swaddling clothes with
four or five small steamers. To-day it has a fleet of fifty-five fine
steamships, including a veritable ocean flyer, the turbine _Maheno_--a
pioneer, really, in ocean navigation for this part of the world. The
headquarters of this giant Company are at Dunedin, a city of less than
60,000 inhabitants or one-fifth of the population of the Borough of
Camberwell, in London. Yet, great as this Company is and splendid as
are the services it renders, it has not been able to keep the whole
of the coasting trade of these islands, with their population of less
than 900,000, in its own hands. It has to share the trade with another
growing firm, that of Huddart, Parker & Co., and smaller local firms
like the Northern Steamship Company. Of course, the efforts of these
firms are not alone confined to New Zealand. They maintain a constant
communication between Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, and the
Union Company sends its ships farther afield with great success to
China, Japan, San Francisco, and Vancouver. It would not, I think, need
a very great stretch of their energies for them to compete for the home
trade (to Britain, I mean) with such giants as the Shaw, Savill, and
Albion Company, the New Zealand Shipping Company, and Messrs. Tyser &
Co. But I do not think they will bother about that as yet, since the
Intercolonial trade is in so prosperous a condition, in spite of the
high wages and good conditions of life accorded to the sailors and
firemen.
In Australia, while there is no such phenomenally large Company working
as the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, we have wonderful
evidences of the virility and enterprise of the seafaring element. Not
only in the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company, and Howard
Smith & Co., with several minor Companies to serve the coast, but there
are such Companies as Messrs. Gibbs, Bright & Co. and Messrs. Currie &
Co., who devote themselves to trade with India, China, and Malaysia,
and, of course, possess steamers capable of holding their own with
any deep-water ships owned by any other nation. I only mention this
to show how, in spite of the short-sightedness of the rulers of this
wonderful country in keeping the population down, the breed holds true
and the mercantile fleet of Australasia is, in proportion, far greater
than that of Great Britain--in proportion, that is, to population; any
other comparison would be manifestly unfair. It is really difficult
to realise how, in a city with a population of less than 60,000
inhabitants Dunedin, not by any means the first, but the fourth, in
point of population in a land that numbers less than 900,000 all told,
there should be owned a fleet of steamships worthy to take its place
with those of any great Company in the world.
It is, I think, a portent of considerable magnitude that these
Antipodean States are reaching out so vigorously after the oversea
trade, as distinguished from the Intercolonial business. Messrs.
Archibald Currie & Co., of Melbourne, trade with India, and are
building ever larger and larger steamers to sustain the bulk of their
rapidly growing business. Messrs. Gibbs, Bright & Co., and Messrs.
Burns, Philp & Co., reach out after the Polynesian trade and the
immense business that is being done in the Eastern Archipelago,
Singapore, Malaysia, and China. The Union Company goes even farther
afield, connecting the Northern Island up with Australasia _viâ_
Vancouver, and straining every nerve to make the mail service in
this direction as effective, despite the increased distance, as that
carried on by the jerry-built ships of the American O.S.S. Company.
By the utter short-sightedness and supineness of our rulers at home,
the beautiful Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands became the property of the
United States, who, in pursuance of their fixed policy, immediately
declared them to be a portion of the United States coast, and excluded
foreign--that is British--trade, between them and San Francisco or
any other Yankee port. Is it any wonder that everybody out here grows
restive at the unaccountable oscillations and vacillations of British
policy, if the treatment of the Society Islands, Navigator Islands,
New Hebrides, and New Guinea questions could be called a policy of
anything else but drift and relinquish? It seems impossible for our
rulers to realise that every port annexed by a foreign power means its
being practically closed to British trade whether home or colonial. But
these things are fully and practically realised here, and are bitterly
resented.
At present, however, I am principally concerned with my departure
from Sydney in this fine ship _Zealandia_, which is as perfect in her
equipment, as up-to-date in every respect as any ocean liner, and, as
I before mentioned, fully as large as the early ships of the Orient
Line, such as the _Garonne_, _John Elder_, _Lusitania_, or _Cuzco_. As
she slips away from her wharf and we glide quietly seawards, my mind
flies back to the days of thirty-five years ago when I used to make
the trip we are now on twice a month in a ship that, although only
about one-third the size of this, was one of the finest coasters in the
whole of Australasia, the _Wentworth_. I look somewhat wistfully at the
beautiful panorama, wondering whether I shall ever behold it again, but
thankful that I have once more been privileged to renew my acquaintance
with one of the most beautiful spots on earth.
My almost invariable luck still holds, for the sea is like a mill-pond,
this stretch of ocean between Australia and New Zealand not being a
_Mare Serenitatis_ by any means, as a rule. We have a fairly large
number of passengers, many of whom belong to a theatrical company on
tour, my first introduction to a travelling troupe. As there are only
two classes in these ships, first and steerage, we have a curious
gathering in saloon and smoke-room of scene-shifters, actors, and all
the rest of the extraordinary "push" that goes to make up a theatrical
company. But it is a typical little democracy, the manager of the
whole show being on the best and most intimate possible terms with
every member of his company down to the least important. To my mind,
however, the most remarkable feature of this business is that there is
a company of thirty children, of ages ranging from eight to fourteen,
who are a study in themselves. They are the most precocious small
people I have ever met, and yet not offensively so, like that terror
in miniature, the American child. They are evidently as happy as it is
possible for children to be, and every grown-up member of the company
without exception is devoted to them, although they really seem to be
unspoilable. They have, of course, a matron and a doctor in attendance
upon them, and I understand that when they are ashore they attend
school every forenoon. Healthier, happier, brighter children I never
saw, their very business being a supreme delight. But glad as one must
feel at seeing a lot of small folks having such a manifestly good time,
the thought would persistently obtrude itself--what about their future?
This gadding about from place to place in the company of people who,
however kind, are not notable for a sense of responsibility, is most
unsettling, and few indeed of these youngsters, either boys or girls,
will be able to settle down again until middle age; while what is going
to become of them during that awkward interregnum during which they are
too old for their present business and not old enough, assuming they
have the talent, for ordinary actors and actresses nobody seems to know
or care. At present they are certainly living up to the letter of the
Gospel injunction to take no thought for to-morrow, and, at any rate,
they are having a splendid time.