SOCIAL LIFE IN AUSTRALIA
It is intensely interesting in a new country like Australia to watch
the evolution of the aristocracy. The process is very rapid. That old
idea about ten generations being necessary to make a gentleman has no
countenance in that part of the world. Ten years or less now suffice.
It is all a question of money-bags, and money is made with great ease
and rapidity in Australia--at least by some. A heavy gamble in land
will change a man of moderate fortune into a wealthy person. Indeed,
when one comes to look into the matter, quite a large number of the
people in Australia who are to-day extremely rich owe their wealth not
to trading of any kind but to a gamble with land. They came out in the
early days, and obtained land for nothing at all, or next to nothing.
The Government of that time had no foresight, nor backsight either.
Criminally forgetful of the iniquitous land laws of the old world,
they did not scruple to transfer these to the new soil, and so lay
the foundation of serious trouble in the days to come. Men who paid a
ten-pound note for a piece of land were enabled to sell it some years
later for a fabulous sum, with the consequence that to the end of time
the public must pay increased prices for the wares it purchases. In
Collins Street, for example, land which was once ten pounds an acre is
now sold at twelve hundred sovereigns per foot, and at the chemist’s
shop in that street we must pay half-a-crown for a bottle of mixture
which in England would be sold for ninepence!
But, of course, the public does not count; it merely looks on, suffers,
and--pays, while the land gambler is clothed with purple and fine
linen, and fares sumptuously every day. And that brings me back to
this gentleman, now in the guise of an aristocrat, but often bearing
marks of the clay out of which he has fashioned himself. The evolution
of the aristocrat out here, I was saying, is rapid. A few years, and
his children obliterate all traces of their father’s former life. The
old deal is stained and varnished, and appears as excellent mahogany.
As I gaze upon this throng of well-dressed people, and remember their
beginnings, I perceive a mirror of the world, “Queen Anne in front
and Mary Ann behind.” It is not their success that offends so much
as their veneer and pretence. These people conveniently forget their
humble origin. They assume important airs which ill fit them. They
gather themselves together into a close corporation from which the
unmoneyed are excluded. When they marry their weddings are described as
“fashionable” weddings. A nod from Government House is their beatitude.
An English title is worshipped by them. It is all very comic to an
Englishman, this bid for place and fame. Aristocratic pretence in
England is bad enough, where family pedigrees count for something; it
is vulgar here, where many of the pretenders have no pedigree at all.
Australia has the chance to maintain a pure and wholesome democracy of
the highest type; it will be a pity if she forfeits it.
Over against this crowd of would-be aristocrats there must be placed a
smaller and nobler company of people who, ascending from humble life,
have nevertheless preserved their simplicity, their modesty, and--their
Christianity. They are amongst the very best men of Australia, admired
by all who can appraise worth.
The great social season begins at the end of October. Everybody who is
anybody must now go to milliner, dressmaker, tailor, and bootmaker, and
henceforward, until the end of the season, appear in public places with
the great. Dinners, luncheons, “five o’clocks,” balls, and all kinds of
reunions serve to assemble our new aristocracy. Government House, of
course, sets the pace and the fashion. It is the ambition of all who
aspire to a place among the chosen to be received at Government House.
The Melbourne spring season begins with Henley-on-Yarra. It is
an imitation of Henley-on-Thames, and it fairly rivals the older
institution. The dresses are quite as smart, the social life quite as
gay, and the boats quite as attractive as those “at home.” What is
lacking is the Thames, with its locks and banks and exquisite green
surroundings. The Yarra can never rival, in these respects, the English
river. But it has a charm of its own. Scores of thousands of people
attend it. It is a people’s holiday, and anyone can procure a boat and
join the procession. It is a pretty spectacle--the best and the most
innocent of all Australian open-air functions.
Henley is followed by a carnival of racing which centres in the
famous “Cup.” There is money enough in Melbourne for prize-fights,
boxing-matches, and sports of all kinds. It is not much to the credit
of this class of people that they cheerfully pay big prices for their
lower pleasures, while the Hospital Saturday and Sunday Fund suffered
last year to the extent of a thousand pounds. We have long since
discovered that these pleasure-lovers have not only little love for the
Church--they give very little to ordinary charity. Were the much-abused
Churches to withdraw from Hospital Sunday, some of the philanthropic
institutions would be compelled to close down.
The craze of the ordinary Victorian is horse-racing. He is simply mad
on it. “Meetings” are frequent throughout the year. Hundreds of men
live for nothing else. We have a number of parasites who live on the
community, contributing nothing to its wealth or progress, and who are
interested alone in betting and gambling. Gambling is one great vice of
the Australian people. It has infected every class of the community.
An attack upon gambling evokes no kind of enthusiasm; too many people
are involved in the matter. Even some Church members will ask, with
naïve innocence, “Where is the harm in gambling if you can afford it?”
Taking the community as a whole, it would be an exception to find an
ordinary man who did not dabble a little in gambling. The people see
no harm in it. This is why the “Cup” holds such a place in the public
mind. For weeks before the race all conversation turns towards Cup Day.
Milliners, dressmakers, opticians, and tradesmen of every class lay
themselves out to cater for “Cup” customers. The newspapers are full
of it. More space is devoted in the Melbourne papers to a description
of the great race than is ever given in the London journals to a
description of the Derby at Epsom. If a visitor from the planet Mars
came to the city he would not receive more attention than the “Cup”
receives. It is a species of madness, an obsession. One-sixth of the
population of the city witnesses the actual running of the race. The
Governor-General is there, together with the governors of other States,
who journey to Melbourne expressly for the occasion. And all to witness
a race that endures exactly three minutes!
It is urged that a function of this kind is a social magnet which
brings together people from all over the country; that, in fact,
it is a grand opportunity for the reunion of friends. We all admit
that. And there is no reason why the Melbourne Cup should not have a
social significance pure and simple. If it had, it might be a healthy
thing for the community. But, handicapped as it is with the gambling
element, it becomes, for a number of people, a social nuisance. It
is the entanglement of all our sports with the practice of betting
that has ruined what might easily have become an excellent means of
social cement. And it goes without saying that the wrong horse won
last year. Thousands of persons had staked their all on Beragoon. The
usual excuses were given for the defeat of the favourite, but the
unexpected happened and Posinatus won. “It is the fortune of war and of
horse-racing,” was the comment; but it is not at all likely that the
fools who lost their money will learn anything as the result thereof.
If Australia had but the courage to clear itself of the gambling
parasite which is sapping its best life! For so young a country to
have embarked upon this dangerous path is not good. Strong nations are
not built up of men to whom pleasure is the very first consideration,
especially when that pleasure is tainted with betting. A sudden
reverse of national fortune would sober this people and start it
upon a more noble path. Pity if it does not learn without that stern
necessity. What the country needs is a religious revival of a deep
and genuine kind. The men of fine minds and loftier ideals, who are
better patriots than the gamblers, and who desire to see healthy and
pure sport encouraged and unhealthy sport discouraged, are rewarded by
being dubbed “wowsers.” Undoubtedly some are too puritanical in their
protest, but with many Australians there is no _modus vivendi_--it is
all or nothing.
The zest for sport is, I imagine, even a little keener than in England.
It is no uncommon thing to see at the best football matches, where,
for example, the university team is playing, a considerable number
of medical and other professional men. The better educated classes
patronise open-air sport to a greater degree than do the corresponding
classes in England. And Australian football is a little more scientific
than either Rugby or Association. It is a game entirely alone. The
man who seizes the ball with his hands may not run with it unless he
bounces it every few yards as he runs. This is a distinct improvement
upon the old game. But even here there is far too much rough play, and
even brutality, in the playing of the game.
It need scarcely be said that life out here is largely an open-air
life. The numerous suburbs are filled with people who come to and from
the city on business. From the nearer to the remoter suburbs there
is abundant space in which men and women can breathe without fear
of stifling. Large, airy streets, a clear atmosphere, gardens and
parks galore--everything makes for an open-air life. And the hours
of business are so arranged that the invitation to the open is not a
hollow mockery. From Monday to Thursday all shops close at six o’clock.
On Friday they remain open until ten o’clock. On Saturdays every shop
is closed at one o’clock midday. Thus business becomes service, and is
never allowed to degenerate into slavery. Might not the Mother Country
learn a lesson from her Southern daughter? If Melbourne can transact
its business, in large and small shops alike, within reasonable hours,
why cannot London do likewise? Thousands of small tradesmen in the
Old Country are condemned to late hours without any reason save that
of stupidity and selfishness on somebody’s part. In Australia they do
not leave it to the parochial “conscience” to decide whether the shops
in a given locality shall close early or not. They know human nature
too well to yield to that folly. No! The hours of closing are fixed by
Parliament, and the law leaves no loophole for selfish tradesmen to
advantage themselves at the expense of their neighbours. You close at
the appointed hour, or are subject to a heavy fine. This ampler liberty
is the radical reason for the Australian’s freer, open-air life and
love of sport.
Both Adelaide and Melbourne possess beautiful public gardens. Here,
even in midwinter, there is a rosery in the centre of the gardens,
with roses of every hue still flourishing. And in these beds a mass of
splendid colour. And it is midwinter! The difficulty for a new arrival
is to get accustomed to this topsy-turvydom. The good folk here are
talking about the “shortest day” arriving on June 21. Day does not
break until a little after seven o’clock, and it is dark before six at
night. On Saturday afternoons in June football is being played, and
in October cricket commences. And when Christmas arrives we shall be
sweltering in the heat of midsummer. South here is the equal of north
at home, and an Australian east means an English west. It is all Alice
in Wonderland, a life of topsy-turvy, and it is not at all easy at
first to adjust oneself to the new conditions.