THE GOLDEN WEST
Passengers from England to Australia via the Cape generally touch
Australian soil first at Albany. They thus miss the true “gateway”
into the country, Fremantle. This latter city is the port for Perth;
it is the traveller’s first introduction to Australia if he travels
via the Suez and Ceylon. And glad is he to behold land once more
after the monotonous voyage of ten days across the Indian Ocean. A
languid air steals over the ship during the time it is in the region
of the Equator. At night the decks are strewn with mattresses for the
accommodation of passengers who prefer to “sleep out” rather than be
stifled in intolerable cabins. Then, if the season be that of the
Australian winter (June to August), the heat gradually moderates, and
by the time the boat reaches Fremantle all white clothing has been
discarded, and men are thankful once more to take to blankets and
heavier dress.
The development of Western Australia has been remarkable. For many
years it lay practically stagnant; then in a moment its progress
commenced. The discovery of gold made all the difference. Twenty years
ago Perth was a mere village, with all the disadvantages of a village.
Many of its houses were primitive and ugly. A few relics of that period
still survive. Certain houses were built of kerosene tins; many more
of wood. A neglected look characterised the place. “Squalid,” one old
inhabitant calls it; but that is probably an exaggeration. It had a
beautiful natural situation, being built upon a slope of the lovely
Swan River. Yet the city at that time was badly lighted and badly
drained. It brought little credit to its fair surroundings. In the long
ago the French, the Portuguese, and the Dutch had in turn visited the
West, named it, and then passed on. And now it seemed but a few years
ago as if the British, in the persons of their Australian children, had
determined to leave no mark upon the same West.
It was the discovery of gold, I say, that made the difference. Just
twenty years ago Coolgardie was a desert. But into its wilds two men
had penetrated, prospecting for gold. There came a day when, quite
suddenly, the desert was transformed into a treasure house. In one
evening these men possessed themselves of 500 ounces of pure gold.
Aladdin’s chamber had been found at last. The news of the discovery
spread with amazing rapidity. A frenzy seized the people. Men threw
down their tools, broke up their homes, abandoned their situations, and
proceeded in a mad rush to the goldfields. There was no road for them
to travel over, nothing but a wild track. Each man made his own path.
Whatever conveyance happened to be within reach was requisitioned for
the conveyance of such conveniences as the goldfields might require.
One man, unable to procure anything better, seized a wheel-barrow, in
which he pushed his few goods along the terrible 350 miles of desert.
From every State steamers brought hundreds and thousands of men who
were seized with the lust of gold. Australia turned out its gamblers
into the desert. A city soon sprang up; a strange medley of human
elements. Land which yesterday was worse than worthless now fetched
pounds per foot. Saloon keepers made easy fortunes by selling drink at
fancy prices. Houses of every kind sprang up like mushrooms. The most
curious house of all was built of bottles, cemented together with some
kind of mortar. A year later Kalgoorlie was discovered--an earlier
Klondyke. The new field speedily eclipsed the old. Coolgardie lost its
prestige, and, while it continues to thrive in certain directions, it
has given place to its brilliant rival. A splendid story this, of the
discovery of gold, and as sordid as it is splendid. In the easy gaining
of gold men have lost themselves. The stories I have heard from men who
were on the fields cannot be set down in print; no newspaper or book
dare give publicity to them. This camp of men, with no idea but that of
gaining as much gold as possible, men without ideals and often without
pity, with the beauty of humanity crushed out of them, as the machinery
of the goldfields crushes to dust the quartz that passes beneath its
wheels, living only for gold, spending much of it in drink and lust,
consumed with the fever of getting--ah! the story of the world’s
goldfields is largely a story of hell upon earth, of the abasement of
the soul to the lust of the eye and the pride of life. There is another
side to it, and that is the prodigious folly of allowing this precious
metal--the standard for the world’s commerce--to be scrambled for by
the first-comers, upon conditions that are as economically ridiculous
as they are morally pernicious....
After the frenzy, the reaction. After the rush to the goldfields, the
cultivation of the land. The real prosperity of the Golden West lies
not in the quantity of gold secured by adventurers, but in the honest
work put into the soil. Prospecting continues all the time. Old reefs
are still being worked and new ones sought for. In these vast spaces
there is hidden an enormous quantity of gold. At any moment some new
reef may come to light, and then will follow a new rush to the fields;
yet another outbreak of the fever which renders men delirious, and for
the time destroys all their higher ideals of life. Meanwhile, Australia
is becoming golden in another and a better sense. By means of honest
labour its millions of acres are yielding the most remarkable crops of
cereals, roots, and fruits. Gradually the enormous spaces are being
subdued and inhabited by a race of men and women who rejoice in the
golden sunshine, and who abandon themselves with the zest of children
to the magic of life.
And it is in this direction that the West is now prospering. The
people generally are really well off. The State revenue for last year
was about four millions sterling. These 300,000 people have invested
in the State Savings Bank no less a sum than £4,387,639. This means
an average per head of the population of £14 10s. 4d., and an average
per depositor of £45 8s. 9d. Such figures are eloquent of what may be
called the general prosperity of the community. The real source of
wealth, however, is the land. This year there are more than one million
acres of ground under crop. More than a quarter of a million acres
have been “cleared” and prepared for ploughing and sowing during the
present year. There are 788,349 acres of wheat and 77,488 acres of oats
growing at the present time. Last year nearly four and a half million
bushels of wheat and a million bushels of oats were produced from the
land. This means immense prosperity. The State is rich enough to spend
much money in reclaiming waste land and in rebuilding the old houses.
During the last twenty years Perth has been practically rebuilt. I was
astonished to behold its beautiful buildings. It possesses splendid
Government offices, a fine museum and art gallery, a noble Mint, and
almost palatial public buildings. Warehouses and stores, suites of
offices, banks, insurance buildings, business premises, and the like,
are imposing. Perth promises to be one day a great and noble city.
Already the capital is extending. Within a radius of twelve miles
one-third of the entire population of the West resides. Sir John
Forrest declared that the time would come when Perth and Fremantle and
all between would become one vast city. I can quite believe it. Perth
is the San Francisco of Australia.
As another evidence of prosperity, the following wages table may be
adduced: Bakers get 63s. per week; barbers 55s.; barmen and barmaids
65s.; bootmakers 13½d. an hour; carpenters 1s. 6d. an hour; butchers’
shopmen 60s. to 80s. per week; drapers’ assistants (at Coolgardie)
70s. per week; engine-drivers 1s. 6d. an hour; night watchmen 54s.
per week; tailors 70s. per week; and waiters 25s. a week and board.
It is all very attractive, but on the other side let these facts be
considered: Potatoes are 4d. per lb.; peas 9d. per lb.; cauliflowers
from 1s. to 2s. 6d. each; apples (grown on the spot) 6d. and 7d. per
lb.--at the present time. One needs a large income to keep pace with
these ridiculous prices, which are due largely, I understand, to the
manipulations of a “ring.”
And yet, with it all, life here for working men is infinitely more
tolerable than in England. It is in truth an El Dorado.
The story of this Golden West is thus a veritable romance. Yet this
State has the smallest population of all the States, fewer than 300,000
people covering its million square miles. Its territory is eighteen
times as large as that of England and Wales. Imagine this enormous
space occupied by a handful of people, about as many as are found in
the single city of Bradford, Yorkshire. And these 300,000 people are
confined to one or two places in the State. For the rest, there are
vast and terrible deserts awaiting the exploring skill of man. Already,
in the remarkable water scheme undertaken on behalf of the goldfields,
it is demonstrated that science can overcome the almost insuperable
difficulties presented by Nature in these deserted regions.
In Western Australia nearly every variety of climate is experienced,
from the insufferable tropical heat of the North to the delightful cool
of the South. At the seaboard the sky and the climate are delightful.
Winters are practically unknown. Children born in the land have no
idea what snow is like. Even in the depth of winter the days are warm,
and often hot. Overcoats are used only as a protection against rain,
and when rain falls protection is needed. The water descends, not in
drops, but in bucketfuls. Here Nature seems partial and extreme. The
rainy season is well defined, and when it ends it ends. Not a drop of
rain falls between October and May. There is need, therefore, for the
exercise of human science in order to conserve the precious liquid
which descends so plentifully in the season for use in the arid season
of the year.
And yet Western Australia is at present cut off from the rest of
Australia. To reach Adelaide, the capital of the neighbouring State, it
is necessary to voyage by steamer across the dreaded “Bight”--a journey
of five or more days. In two or three years, however, this isolation
will be ended.
A wonderful forward step was taken in 1912 by the cutting of the first
sod of the Trans-Continental Railway. The line begins at Port Augusta,
in South Australia, and ends at Kalgoorlie, on the goldfield in Western
Australia. In length it is over 1,000 miles, and when it is completed
there will be direct railway communication between Queensland and
Fremantle--a line of 3,000 miles. But if Australia as a whole is to
benefit by it there must be a uniform gauge of rail. Insensate jealousy
between the States, and a short-sighted policy on the part of the
leaders, resulted, in earlier days, in the establishment of various
gauges on the different railways, with the result that there can be
no through service of trains from the North-East to the West without
change of carriage. This, however, will certainly be remedied. When all
is completed, and a fast service of trains established, England and
Australia will be brought much nearer to each other than they are at
present. With an accelerated speed of steamers across the Indian Ocean,
it ought to be possible to bring Fremantle and Marseilles within three
weeks of each other.