My last letter was necessarily, from the nature of its subject, a little
flaky--a charge to which all these notes must more or less plead guilty.
Though the heading of this one differs slightly, it must practically be a
continuation of the same subject.
The first social relation, like charity, begins in the family circle, and
was incidentally touched upon in my last. Between husband and wife the
relations in Australia are, on the whole, probably as satisfactory as in
any other part of the world. Both generally marry from love, and whatever
may be the general effect of love-matches, it cannot be denied that more
than any others they tend to promote pleasant relations between the 'two
contracting parties,' as the French would call them. Amongst the wealthy,
as everywhere else, there cannot of course be the close marital intimacy
of the middle classes; but not only is infidelity less common than in
London, but moreover, the proportion of the wealthy who keep up the style
which produces the quasi-separation of domestic life is far smaller.
Husband and wife have grown rich together; they have taken counsel
together, and lived an open life, as far as each other are concerned,
ever since they were married. Against this the usages of society,
dressing-rooms and lady's-maids are of little avail. You may chase the
second nature out by the door, but it jumps in again at the window.
In the middle and lower class the comparatively cribbed, cabined, and
confined existence is also of the greatest service to that community of
thought and action upon which conjugal happiness to so large an extent
depends. Domestic occupations also occupy the thoughts of the wives, and
business those of the husbands, so continually, as to leave few moments
of mental vacuity for Satan to introduce mischief into. Of an evening the
clubs are almost deserted, and their few occupants are nearly all
bachelors, or married men who have left their wives in the country,
having come down to town themselves on business. Drink must be recognised
as a factor on the opposite side, and a by no means unimportant one; but
there are many women who have no objection to their husbands drinking, so
long as they either drink at home or come straight thither from the
public-house.
I wish I could give as favourable a view of the parental relations. They
are undeniably the weak point of family life in the colonies. During
childhood a certain obedience is of course enforced; but public feeling
is strong in favour of the naughty boy and wilful girl, looking as it
does upon these qualities as prophetic of future enterprise. So many of
our best colonists, it must be remembered, were eminently wild in their
younger days, that it is no wonder they think 'there is something' in the
self-willed child. Their own life has been too much of a struggle for
them to be able to appreciate at their true value the gentler qualities
which in themselves would have been of little worth, the victory in their
earlier days having been to the physical rather than to the intellectual.
The child is naturally--for surely disobedience is an 'original sin' with
nine children out of ten--only too disposed to take advantage of the
views held by its parents, and gradually as it grows older, disobedience
passes into disrespect and want of respect into want of affection. Such a
thing as perfect confidence, in the French sense of the word, between a
parent and his or her grown-up child is most rare. 'Everyone for himself,
and devil take the hindmost, is the motto of the young Australian. He
cares for nobody, and nobody need care for him, so far as his thoughts on
the subject are concerned. Maternal affection cannot, however, be easily
quenched, and consequently the child gets all the best of the bargain.
Social relations are wider, therefore less easy to speak about decidedly,
than family relations. In the early days there were but few social
distinctions. Everyone was hail-fellow-well-met with everyone else, and
the common struggle merged all differences of birth, wealth, and
education. In a charming little work called 'Some Social Aspects of South
Australian Life,' which was published in Adelaide about two years ago', a
most realistic description is given of the sympathetic mode of living of
the first settlers; and as it has never been reprinted in England, I
extract a few sentences here and there, which may give some idea of the
primitive existence there described:
'The necessaries of life were produced in abundance, the comforts were
slowly reached, and the luxuries had to be done without. There was very
little difference in the actual circumstances of different classes--some
had property and some had none' (this was before the gold-fever); 'but
property was unsaleable for money, and barter only exchanged one
unsaleable article for another' (and yet these are the people who
nowadays groan about _money_ going out of the colony, and would measure
its prosperity by the excess of exports over imports).* [* The
parentheses are my own.] 'Nobody employed hired labour who could possibly
do the work himself, and everyone had to turn his or her hand to a great
deal of miscellaneous work, most of which would be called menial and
degrading in an old community. . . Thus gradually the financial position
of the colony improved by means of the well-directed industry of the
settlers, and they owed much to the helpfulness and good management of
the wives, sisters, and daughters of each household. . . Perhaps, never
in any human society did circumstances realize the ideas of the community
of labour and the equality of the sexes, so fully as in South Australia
in its early days.' Youth and love, hope and trust, were the only stock
in marriage of young couples, so that a new-comer is said to have
remarked, 'Why, it is nothing to get married here! A few mats, and
cane-bottomed chairs, and the house is furnished.' A wife was not looked
on as a hindrance or an expense, but as a help and a comfort,' says Miss
Spence. 'Girls did not look for establishments; parents did not press for
settlements . . . There was only one carriage in the colony for many
years, which though belonging to a private person, was hired for such as
wanted to do the thing genteelly . . . .' Social position depended on
character, and not on income.
The same writer lays herself fairly open to the charge of being
_laudator temporis acti_ in her description of the present as compared
with the past social life of the colonies, though I am quite prepared to
agree with her remark, that 'in proportion as the conditions of life
become more complex, they should be met by more ingenuity, more culture,
and a deeper sense of duty;' and that 'the suddenness of our accumulation
of wealth has scarcely prepared our little community for some necessary
modifications of our social arrangements.' Therein lies the whole source
of both what is best and what is worst in the present social life of
Australia. Marriage, though still almost entirely an affair of love, has
yet learnt to take £. s. d. into consideration, and none but the lowest
class would be satisfied with the kind of furniture described above.
Education has improved and is improving still more, far as it yet is from
being up even to the English standard. More leisure has also produced
novel reading with its consequent affectation of aristocratic ideas and
prejudices and disproportionate estimate of essentials and superficials.
Already each Australian capital has its 'society,' distinguished from the
[Greek characters] almost as clearly as in London or Paris. In its own
way, indeed, these societies are more exclusive than those of the older
metropolises, which from their very size obtain a certain breadth of
view. For obvious reasons the component parts are not altogether similar,
but their governing idea is as much the same as the difference of
circumstances will permit. It would be difficult to define exactly what
opens the doors of Australian society, but is the shibboleth any more
definite in London? Distinction of some kind or other must be
presupposed. If that of birth, it must either be allied to rank or have
strong local connections. Is it not the same in London, though, of
course, on an infinitely larger and grander scale? If that of wealth, it
must storm the entrance by social expenditure and pachydermatousness to
rebuff. Wealth is, of course, the predominating factor here, as rank in
London; because while in the latter case birth calls in wealth to furnish
it with the sinews of war, in the former wealth calls in birth to teach
it how to behave itself. Position is of small account, though the line is
always drawn at shopkeepers _in esse_. Provided the candidate has cut
the shop and opened an office, he can be admitted on payment of the
social fees, but only gradually and laboriously unless his wealth is
beyond criticism. The man who sells you a dozen of wine in the morning
sits by your side at Government House or Bishop's Court in the evening,
and the highest officials are not unfrequently the least esteemed
socially. A happy consequence of this social jumble is, that with certain
exceptions, which are, of course, getting more numerous as we advance in
civilization, a gentleman can do anything here and still be considered a
gentleman, provided he behaves himself as such; and the semi-menial
employments of distressed gentlewomen do not bring with them one half the
loss of social position that they generally entail in England. The
smaller community is more narrow-minded than the large, but its sight is
keener and more accurate in details. It is true that art, science, and
literature are entirely without status in Australia, but then personal
distinction of whatever kind is far more get-at-able than at home.
If it strikes a visitor as utterly ridiculous that a society, the greater
part of whose members are essentially _parvenus_, should assume the
tone and mode of thought of an old-world aristocracy, we must yet
acknowledge that that society keeps up a great many traditions of
refinement which are in great danger of being lost sight of in colonial
life. The outward and visible sign may be absurd, but the inward and
spiritual grace is none the less concealed within it. That Australian
society keeps up a number of social superstitions which might with
advantage have died out during the journey across the ocean is
undeniable, but it is also true that it preserves at least an affectation
of higher civilization. It contains the majority of the gentlemen and
ladies by birth and education in each city, and they go far to leaven the
whole lump. The _parvenu_ has the merit of seeking after better things,
and his imitation of aristocracy, if it necessarily falls far short of
the mark, at least removes him a step or two above the way of thinking
common to the class he sprang from. His daughters, with that superior
adaptability inherent in women, are quick to catch the manners of the
gentlewomen who move in their circle, and become infinitely superior to
their brothers, even when the latter have been sent to finish their
education at Oxford, or Cambridge. It is wonderful how much more easily a
lady can be manufactured than a gentleman.
Of the hospitality of 'society' in all the towns it is impossible to
speak in too high terms. The stranger has but to bring a couple of good
introductions to people who are in society, and provided he be at all
presentable, the doors of the most exclusive houses will be opened to
him. Young men of education and manners are everywhere at a premium, and
the colonies are still small enough for it to be a distinction to have
just come out from England. Unless you know your company it is always
wise to avoid asking questions about or making reference to the earlier
days of the people you meet. For all that, you will hear everybody's
history, often, I suspect, with additions and exaggerations. In such
small communities everybody knows everything about everybody else, and
the man who has gone down in the world naturally delights in telling you
of the time when he bought half a pound of sugar at Jones's shop, or when
Brown worked in his garden while Mrs. Brown was his scullery-maid,
Jones and Brown being now two social leaders.
Amongst men social distinctions are very slight. It is lawful to be
friendly with everybody and anybody in town, so long as you do not visit
at his private house. And yet for very obvious reasons gentlemen
are--except amongst the rising generation--much more common than ladies.
A number of wild young men of good family and education have been poured
out of England into Australia ever since 1852, and many of them have
become amongst the most useful and respected colonists. But until
recently there was a paucity of ladies, and the majority of gentlemen had
but the choice between marrying beneath them or not at all. Hence
frequent _mésalliances_. You meet a man at the club, and are delighted
with him in every way. He asks you to his house, and you find that his
wife drops her h's, eats peas with her knife, and errs in various little
ways. I am purposely thinking of no one in particular, but fear at least
a dozen of my acquaintances will think I am writing of them in making
this remark. And it is a sad sight to see a man dragged down in this way,
for very few men who marry beneath them can keep up the manner and mode
of living to which they were born and educated, while those who do
generally retain them at the expense of their own married happiness.
Nowadays there are certainly plenty of young ladies in the towns, but for
all that one constantly hears of the sons of clergymen and army officers
marrying the daughters of grocers and farmers who were quite recently
day-labourers. With every freedom from caste prejudice, I am yet unable
to see anything but harm to the persons directly concerned in these
ill-assorted matches, whatever the good result to the community may be.
The centre round which society revolves is naturally Government House,
but a great many people go to Government House who cannot be considered
to be in society. To have been to a Government House ball is no more,
_mutandis mutatis_, than to go to a Court ball at home. Neither will
give you admission into the inner circle; and though that circle may not
offer any but specious advantages and have but little to recommend it in
preference to three or four other societies in the town, admission into
it is coveted, and inclusion within its boundaries is as much a reality
as if its walls were of stone. In Melbourne the scattered position of the
suburbs and the extent of the population splits up the _élite_ into
several local societies, but there is yet one _crême de la crême_. In
Sydney the same thing takes place, though the local societies are less
numerous; but in Adelaide there is practically only one 'society', the
local aggregations of individuals not being deserving of any more
dignified name than 'cliques.' Of the three societies, that of Sydney is
on the whole, I think, the best. At Melbourne there are probably a larger
number of cultivated persons, but the distance between the suburbs and
the more extravavagant mode of living limits their sphere. The
Adelaidians are perhaps the most English of all in their way of thinking,
but they are also by far the most narrow-minded. For pure Philistinism I
don't think I know any town that equals it. Shut up in their own little
corner, they imagine themselves more select than Sydney and Melbourne
circles, because they are necessarily smaller. And yet for
kind-heartedness these gossip-loving Philistines are not easily to be
surpassed. As long as things go well with you they will talk against you;
but no set of people are less open to the charge of neglecting friends in
misfortune.
Class relations are, on the whole, excellent; and this is the more to the
credit of the lower classes, because the plutocracy is utterly selfish in
character, and does not interest itself in those social duties, which are
proving so effectual a prop to the nobility and landed gentry of England.
A certain animosity subsists between the squatters or pastoral lessees
and the selectors who purchase on credit from Government blocks of land,
which were formerly let to squatters. At times this breaks out in Parliament
or at elections, but in spite of a determined attempt by a section of the
Victorian press to pit the 'wealthy lower orders' against the
horny-handed sons of the soil, class feeling rarely runs high for any
length of time. The reason is, that the working-class are too well off
for the occasional high-handed proceedings of the rich to affect them
sensibly. For an agitation to be maintained there must be a real
grievance at the bottom of it; and the only grievance that the Australian
democrat can bring forward is, that having obtained the necessaries, he
cannot without extra labour obtain also the luxuries of life.
From figures I have already given as to rents, wages, and prices in
general, you will have gathered that the cost of living is, broadly
speaking, cheaper than in England as regards the necessities of
existence, but dearer in proportion to the complexity of the article.
Anything that requires much labour, or that cannot readily be produced in
the colony, is, dearer; but, on the other hand, it should be remembered
that money is more easily obtainable. Protectionist duties and heavy
freights form an effectual sumptuary tax; and as most of the duties are
_ad valorem_, first-class articles are heavily handicapped, and a
premium put upon the importation of shoddy. The wine-drinker finds that
he has to pay ten shillings a gallon on all he drinks, which should
certainly entice him to drink good wine; but the only practical result
discoverable is the small quantity of wine drunk as compared with beer
and spirits. If few people keep carriages, there are buggies innumerable
in every town; and for every man who keeps a horse in England, there are,
proportionately to the population, ten in Australia.
But perhaps the greatest element in the cheapness of colonial life is its
comparative want of 'gentility.' The necessity to keep up appearances is
not one-sixth as strong as in England. The earthen pot cannot altogether
flow down stream in company with the tin kettle, but it can more safely
get within a shorter distance of its metallic rival. Rich men live in
miserable houses and wear coats which their valets would have nothing to
do with at home; struggling men are less ashamed of struggling, and are
not made to feel the defects of their condition so keenly. In a society,
the position of whose members is constantly changing, the style of life
is of less importance. The millionaire of to-day hadn't a sixpence
yesterday, and may not have one again to-morrow. His brothers, sifters
and cousins are impecunious, and in small communities poor relations are
not easily got rid of. Constant intercommunication is thus kept up
between class and class, rich and poor; they learn better to understand
each other's position, and a clearer understanding generally leads to
mutual respect.
Again, the distribution of wealth is far more equal. To begin with, there
is no poor class in the colonies. Comfortable incomes are in the
majority, millionaires few and far between. This is especially the case
in Adelaide, where the condition of the poorer class is better, and that
of the richer worse than in any of the other colonies. In Melbourne the
masses seem worst off, and the display of riches, if not the actuality
thereof, is most noticeable. In Sydney the signs of wealth are not
wanting to an examiner, but a superficial observer would say that there
were not half as many wealthy men as in Melbourne. Few South Australians
get beyond the comfortable stage, and, on the other hand, a greater
number reach it. 'Squatting,' of course, supplies the largest section of
the wealthy class; but, especially in Melbourne, gold-mining and commerce
have contributed a large quota.