of all compelled to regret my inability to visit many Australian towns
of great interest, more especially in Queensland and the northern part
of New South Wales, several of which I knew well, such as Newcastle,
Grafton, Brisbane, Rockhampton, Gladstone, and Maryborough. Also that
I had neither time nor opportunity to see many of the inland towns of
Australia such as I have had in New Zealand, although in their case it
certainly would not have been a revisit. Neither have I been able to
visit beautiful Tasmania. But in the course of my six months' tour I
have been unable to get much more than a passing glance at the country,
and also, by meeting all sorts and conditions of men, to get a fairly
comprehensive idea of the conditions of things generally. Passing all
these matters in review for a general summary, the first thing that I
would like to notice is the high level of excellence and independence
maintained by the Press. The newspapers of Australasia, with but two
or three exceptions, are the equals of any of our newspapers at home,
and in some respects their superiors, as, for instance, in political
controversy. I gratefully miss that virulence of attack upon prominent
men which is so painfully evident in many of our home journals, more
especially so, strange to say, in those which profess to maintain a
high religious standard.
That form of argumentative abuse and reckless slander is out here left
to certain lewd journals of the baser sort--which indeed would seem to
be their obvious place.
Daily Journalism is, as I say, of a very high order, and this applies
not merely to the matter but to the paper and format also. And while
the Colonial news is very full in detail and interest, home and foreign
affairs are most comprehensively dealt with, and widely disseminated
in the form of cablegrams and occasional London letters. In bulk, of
course, these journals do not rank with the American newspapers, that
hideous agglomeration known as the Sunday Edition being unknown here,
but in quality the Colonial newspapers are so immeasurably superior
that no comparison is possible, with such notable exceptions as the
_Tribune_, _Outlook_, _Saturday Evening Post_, and a few others out
of the many thousands of newspapers with which the great Republic is
afflicted.
But the most marvellous feature of Australasian journalism is its
illustrated weekly Press. Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland,
Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin, all turn out splendidly written
and illustrated journals, in which, except in the small matter of
paper, the original pictures may safely challenge the world. A special
feature of these fine papers, without exception, is the enormous amount
of good reading matter which they contain for sixpence. I have just
taken up one haphazard. It contains eighty pages of reading matter
exclusive of advertisements. Fully half of this great space (the pages
are _Graphic_ size but the printing is closer) is taken up with matter
of intense interest to Colonials, such as the state of the markets for
their produce, the conditions of agriculture, mining, manufactures,
employment, sport, education, art, and science. Politics are fully
dealt with, not merely Colonial, but worldwide.
There are twelve pages of illustrations, four serial stories by
well-known authors, twelve short stories, and about fifty storyettes.
The only thing you may search its pages for in vain is anything
objectionable or suggestive. This holds true of all, and it is indeed
a high standard. Such papers as these are a sweet boon to dwellers
up-country, who are thus kept in full communion with the great outside
world in the pleasantest way. What I have said may seem too eulogistic,
but I know that I have barely done the great Australasian illustrated
Press justice, and have besides left uncatalogued a number of minor but
most interesting items.
There are also a number of magazines which, in defiance of scanty
circulation because of the small populations, persist in appearing and
flourishing, such as the _Review of Reviews_, _Life_, the _Red Funnel_,
&c. These offer a fair and welcome field for the development of budding
Colonial literary talent such as has already thrown up several writers
of a very high class, notably Louis Becke, John Arthur Barry, Henry
Lawson, "Banjo" Paterson, Mrs. Campbell Praed, and others. I hope no
idea of invidious selection will be attributed to me in mentioning
these names, I do but give them as they occur to me.
The very delicate question of political matters must of course be
dealt with, but circumspectly as becomes a casual visitor from the
Homeland. The one thing which strikes me most forcibly is the daring
way in which these new communities deal with what are burning and most
difficult questions at home. I am afraid that they are often much too
apt to forget, in their enviable position of writing upon an almost
clean slate, the difficulties of dealing with home problems. This
lack of perspective often leads politicians out here into intolerance
of British slowness, as they term it, in handling such fundamental
questions as those of dealing with the land, and the unemployed, for
instance. They do not realise what it means to have the dead drag
of past centuries, nor the paralysing effect upon the Old Country
of free imports, both of cheap labour and manufactures. Securely
entrenched behind their own prohibitive laws, they cannot see, nor
can they understand, why Britain has so many paupers, nor how it is
that we cannot do as they do--look after their own people first, and
afterwards--a very long way--consider the foreigner. The Socialism
which at home is so real a danger because it ever tends in the
direction of more making of paupers and the survival of the unfit, in
contravention of Nature's most obvious laws, assumes quite a different
character here. As nearly as I can make out Socialism out here means
the inalienable, incontrovertible right of every man to live and enjoy
life, providing that he can justify his claim to be fit to live. At
home, as far as I have yet been able to understand the pronouncements
made by Socialists, every human being born has a right to live whether
he will work or not, and if he beget children he may be as selfish, as
improvident as he will, he has a right to have his offspring educated
and maintained at the expense of the State, that is, being translated,
at the expense of those who are striving with all their might to do
their duty to their own families and to the State of which they are
components.
In consequence of this difference Labour legislation, or even
Socialism, does not strike me out here as presenting any dangerous
features. It is, of course, strange and pleasant to see labour meeting
capital upon a purely equal basis, and to see the working of the
Arbitration Courts where capital has no power beyond what the judge
deems to be for the greatest good of the greatest number. But stranger
still it is to see how men of wealth and position will concede that it
is not all bad that the men they employ shall be placed, by the law,
upon an entirely equal footing with themselves as regards questions
of abstract justice. These things give furiously to think, but always
there lies behind the knowledge that what is not merely possible but
practicable in a new country, is both impossible and impracticable in
an old one.
One thing that must give a sincere patriot grave qualms upon visiting
a new country like this is the terrible effects of that canker known
as _sport_--save the mark!--upon the people. It is, as we all know,
the curse of our own country; not real sport, but that foul business
which, in its gambling outcome, keeps the best of our workers poor, and
has raised an immense body of utterly worthless parasites to prey upon
the community. This abominable thing flourishes here as ill weeds do,
especially in new countries. Its worst form is, as usual, horse-racing,
which always attracts the very worst elements of the people, and
occasionally results in some such scene as that recently witnessed
on the Flemington Racecourse, where one of the harpies was kicked to
death. This paralysing mania pervades every class, takes precedence of
business, of religion, of morality, and is responsible for a whole host
of minor evils. It is simply incomprehensible how so many otherwise
sensible people can be led, apparently helplessly, from all that makes
life worth living into this vile vortex, which defies all law, all
order, and creates a class of beasts of prey, all the more dangerous
because human and intelligent.
The development of these wonderful countries is sure but slow. What it
would be but for "sport," even with the present ridiculously inadequate
population, I cannot imagine, seeing what it already is, but one thing
stands out most prominently, and that is the large margin left for any
careful workman between his earnings and his necessary expenditure.
No one here in the possession of brains and vigour need hawk them
round fruitlessly for hire, nor having let them to an employer need
he despair of ever being able to raise himself from the position of a
hired man. Education is not merely free, it is of very high order, and
ever tending more and more in the direction of common-sense inculcation
of those things that are useful, while the ornamental is certainly
not neglected. In consequence it is quite usual to meet men, while
travelling, whose appearance is--well, shabby, according to Old World
ideas--that is, they are in ordinary working clothes--who will talk
most intelligently upon many subjects, and will not interlard their
conversation with senseless expletives. These men, and they are a very
large class indeed, form the backbone of the country, and will, in due
time, a good many of them, develop into its rulers.
What tends more to the dissemination of ideas and breadth of thought
out here than anything else, I think, is the amount of travelling that
is done. There are very few people that I have met on my journeyings to
and fro who do not know these Colonies personally, very well, in spite
of the immense distances. This, of course, is one of the causes as well
as one of the results, of the great, the truly marvellous development
of the Australasian Mercantile Marine. Another is that so large a
proportion of the men have either been sailors or have never quite
got over the effect of their long passage out from the Old Country.
The spirit of the seafarer, his self-helpfulness, his adaptability
to whatever circumstances he may find himself in and his indomitable
optimism is over all. Which also accounts for a great many things
otherwise mysterious and hard to understand.
But I am told that there is another factor largely in evidence to
account for the really slow development of this vast area of habitable
and valuable land besides their invincible repugnance of being flooded
with cheap labour. It is the spirit of content. I give this for what
it is worth, and it was told to me by many. When a man who has known
what it is to toil hopelessly at home with only the prospect of the
poorhouse before him, comes out here and finds that half the amount
of labour will provide him with a comfortable living and a nest-egg
for the slope of age, he is very apt to say, "Why should I strive for
wealth? I am quite comfortable, and can now earn all I need or wish for
with a slight expenditure of energy, while, should misfortune overtake
me through no fault of my own, the State will support me without
pauperising me." This feeling, it is said, robs a man of the burning
desire to get on which makes a country possessing such men great in the
sense of being wealthy. "People are too jolly comfortable to work hard
out here," said a working man to me the other day, and I had nothing to
say about the matter at all. It is a problem for far wiser heads than
mine. But it is based upon the root idea that the possession of more
than a man feels that he wants, brings not happiness, but misery. The
cynic may say that there are few men who possess more than they feel
that they want, but I can assure him that they are a far larger class
than he wots of, especially out here.
Well, there are many things which leap to the pen, especially at
the close of a book like this, but they must wait more fitting
opportunity. What must not be omitted is mention of the deep and
abiding feeling of the love for and the loyalty to the dear old land
manifested by everybody, affection which coexists most comfortably with
an almost passionate devotion to the new land which is, indeed, their
own. No other passport to their hearts is needed than the fact that the
visitor comes from the Homeland and loves it, he only is disliked and
discredited who is ready to decry and belittle Britain in all things
after the fashion of many curiously-minded folks at home. My best love
and best wishes for Australasia. Root and branch, may she flourish for
ever!
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.