CONCLUSION
The thirty years covered by this chronicle came to an end with the
nineteenth century and the history of these colonies as such.
On the last day of 1900 I sat at my writing window to watch the drop
of the time-ball that regulates all the Government clocks--the clocks
which the morning papers had warned us to set our time-pieces by at 1
P.M., so as not to be a second out, if we could help it, when the
midnight hour should strike. I cannot describe the state of tension we
were in, the sense of fateful happenings that possessed us that day.
The New Year and the New Century were coming to all peoples, but we
could not think of them save as satellites of our New Commonwealth,
arranged for the purpose of fitly inaugurating the New Nation.
Australia believed herself on the threshold of the Golden Age. I
myself openly boasted of my happiness--reviewing my peaceful family
life, my little home circle, unbroken since 1876--when we began
wishing happy new years to one another.
The same scene lies before me now. Hobson's Bay in the
foreground--never professing to be picturesque, but to me as full of
variety and charm as a good, homely human face--and the long line of
city dividing it from the sky. In the sunset of a fine day--sunset
taking place behind me--that thread of crowded life is glowing
beautifully, isolated buildings, as they catch the direct gleam,
standing out as distinctly as if they were not leagues away. And after
dark it will shine a thick-set band of lights many miles in length.
And then, later, a clear moon will flood the whole. All as it was
twenty months and more ago, when our hearts were so confident and our
hopes so high.
But Fate has dealt with our hearts and hopes in the usual way. The
closing of this book synchronises with the ending of one of those
lives integrally a part of mine--that of my eldest son, in the prime
of his fine young manhood--which for me has altered the whole face of
the world and of the future, but yesterday so smiling for us both. I
took no account of the Ambushed Enemy when I said on that New Year's
night that I was happy.
And as for the country that went mad with joy on the same occasion,
how does it feel now? Where is the enthusiasm for Federation which
then turned every head?
Federation, so far as we can see, has put back the Golden Age. The
triumphant shout, "Advance, Australia!" has become a mockery in our
ears. "Australia for the Australians!"--that ignoble aspiration, which
even then meant "Australia for the Australians now in it"--less than
two to the square mile--now means that Australia is not even for them.
No, for the census returns of this state for 1891 gave us 446,195 young
persons of what census people call the marrying age (15 to 35), of whom
the excess of young men over young women was 17,047; and the census for
1901 shows 419,910, and the excess on the other side--16,742 more
young women than young men. Where are those lost young men? And why
have they gone from one of the gardens of the world, as Victoria should
be, with its temperate climate and its consequent potential fertility?
Most of them have gone since the new century came in, and the other
states have to mourn similar losses within the same short space of
time. There have been no gains. Immigration, even of the most desirable
"White Australia" brand, is discouraged in all possible ways, in the
supposed interests of the beneficiaries in possession--reapers of the
sowings of far different men--with their "work" and "wages" which no
longer correspond to the old meanings of those words. While as for our
coloured brothers--including Britain's ally, Japan--they are not
recognised as men at all. They are vermin, to be stamped out like
rabbits.
One third of Australia lies within the tropic belt, where manual
labour is incompatible with the white man's physique, and where no
industry could afford him, at the price he puts upon himself. What
matter? Let the Queensland sugar fields, and the seven millions sunk
in them, revert to the desert waste they were before. Let the pearling
industry go to foreigners, as it must go. Let the Northern Territory,
an area equal to that of France, Germany, and Austria combined, with
all its known potential wealth, lie waste and empty, while millions
upon millions of our co-inheritors of the earth swarm upon little bits
of land that do not give them room to turn round. What does it care,
this dog in the manger? It will starve itself--it is starving
itself--to keep the world out, to shut off competition with existing
interests, to nip back growth at every point. Oh, that we had a
Washington to lead our young nation in more righteous paths, to nobler
ends! Had "Australia for the World" been the watchword of the
Commonwealth, we might now be making a second great United States such
as only the glorious First could rival. Instead of that a stationary
population of less than four millions, from which the best elements
are being rapidly drained away.
For these four millions we have fourteen Houses of Parliament, with
over fifty ministers and little under a thousand members. They are
housed magnificently--in this State, at anyrate--regardless of
expense; they have billiard-rooms, and bowling and tennis grounds, and
every club luxury, the "keep" of the Victorian establishment alone
(the parliamentary bill for the year) running to L141,549. Each pair
of State Houses can pledge the credit of its section of the country as
it likes (what our public debt amounts to everybody knows); the
Federal Houses can pledge the credit of the whole. And what is there
to control them? "The State servants," says the _Argus_, "already
constitute almost a clear majority of the names on the electors'
rolls." Government "promises soon to become the sole employer of
labour in the community." The octopus of political rule holds the
private citizen--"pursued with regulations and prohibitions in his
uprising and his down-sitting," so that "there will soon be absolutely
no room left" for him--helpless in its grasp.
And who are they that work this Juggernaut of an engine, that run this
overgrown business of state? To quote again the authority
above-mentioned, not seldom "men who, in private life, would hardly
be trusted to run an apple stall."
There was a _Times_ correspondent with the royal party that recently
visited us, and he published his impression that "political
corruption" was amongst our little failings that he had noticed. That
was an observant man, worthy of his post. Here nobody had an idea of
such a thing, and the outcry that ensued upon the cabled report of his
report, the indignant protest of injured innocence, was almost
unanimous throughout the land. Every newspaper repudiated the foul
aspersion, and in good faith--because, as a fact, the parliamentary
candidate does not bribe and corrupt within the meaning of the act as
traditionally understood; he does not buy the individual's vote with
coin from his pocket or a pot of beer. But what he does--which
probably never strikes him as political corruption, although
recognised as that by the _Times_ correspondent--is to buy _en bloc_
the party which gives him his comfortable place and perquisites--his
trade and living, in fact; and that party will be paid in full or know
the reason why. They support each other--both at the expense of the
general community. There is a printed rule of a Political Labour
League which says that "before any person can be accepted as a
candidate for the Federal or State Parliament" he shall "place in the
hands of the executive of the league an agreement that in the event of
his acting contrary to the policy of the combined Labour
Organisation," and of their consequently "passing a vote of
no-confidence in him, he will resign his seat." Furthermore, he is to
"place his resignation (undated) in the hands of the executive,
together with a document authorising the executive to fill in the date
subsequent to the day on which the vote is taken." Parliament would
not be what it is if there were not plenty of men willing to subscribe
to such contracts as these--to sell their votes in the House
beforehand, in order to get there. We all know that they do so sell
them. We see the price paid when such legislation as the Minimum Wage
Act is concocted, that pitiable outrage upon the natural, the moral,
and the economic law which is visibly recoiling upon the heads of
those it was framed to benefit, killing their goose of the golden eggs
as well as ours.
It was to the Commonwealth Government that we looked for relief and
redress--that was the meaning of our wild jubilation when the union of
the states was consummated. Alas! Could we have foreknown the history
of its first couple of years, there would have been no federation in
our time. Could we be unfederated to-morrow, the _status quo ante_
would be restored the day after, beyond the shadow of a doubt. For the
Federal politician is but the State politician writ large. His wider
sphere of action means but greater opportunities for the exercise of
those political vices which are so ingrained in him as to have become
his second nature. The first act of the Federal Ministry was one of
sordid personal greed; every following act seems to have been worse.
Federation, so far, has but riveted our chains at home and darkened
our character abroad--and I do not know which we feel most keenly, the
latter, I think. For when six voices spoke for us there was a chance
that some of them would do us justice; when the one voice that speaks
for all betrays and disgraces us, we have to take the loss and odium
silently and seem to acquiesce.
However, the country itself is still, potentially, as fine a country
as the world contains--a huge manger, with provision for the
sustenance of myriads of happy homes--and it cannot always remain the
personal possession of a ring of unpatriotic self-seekers which may
more appropriately be likened to a vampire than to a dog. It was meant
to be a great country, and some day the hands that know how to make it
so will get hold of it, perhaps sooner than we think--possibly before
these pages see the light. I close my chronicle on the 18th of
September, 1902, at a moment when the political sky in this State is
brightened by a ray of hope such as it has not known for many a day,
and which may signify the approach of a new era, not for us only but
for the Commonwealth at large.
Some months ago a movement of revolt against the state of things was
started by a few farmers, humble representatives of the uncorrupted
manhood of the community; they met in their little country town and
formed themselves into a league, which in a few months had branches in
all the rural districts. The moral force generated was enough to put
in a Government pledged (although no one believed its word) to the
league's programme of Economy and Reform. Only the typical, the
professional, politician jibed and jeered at the country bumpkins who
thought to touch his long-established power and his State-filled
pocket. "Is not this mine ass?" said he in effect, and, as soon as the
Reform Government submitted its Reform proposals, voted against them
with a light and fearless heart. But then an unexpected thing
happened. That Government chanced to be in earnest. On that vote it
not only resigned, but applied to the Governor for a dissolution--and
got it. "People's Turn Now" says (in big capitals) a city daily,
repeating the phrase with the same emphasis in every issue; and the
fact does seem to have come home to them at last. On the first of
October we shall see what we shall see. The Labour Party and the Civil
Service are combining in defence of the old _regime_, and their
numbers may be overwhelming; on the other side are the patriots, one
and all, and at their backs the Press, never before united at such a
time.
I ought to have mentioned sooner--what everyone who knows this country
knows--how high and dignified is the moral and intellectual as well as
(comparatively speaking) the literary standard of our representative
journalism. It is beyond a doubt, and was never more so than at this
moment, that the Press of Australia has a consistent respect for
itself that is not found in some far greater nations. If there is a
"gutter" belonging to it, it is so small and inoffensive that no whiff
has reached my nose. With few exceptions (for which more or less can
be said on the score of other good qualities), there is nothing in
general circulation that is not almost austerely respectable. I have
been told of an editor of high position who, if "darling" appears in a
contributor's MS., crosses it out as an improper word, unfit for the
family circle. We are so respectable as that. The _Society Journal_,
vulgar spy and tale-bearer, cannot make a living here. In all the
papers, more or less, "social columns" are available for those who
wish to make public display of their frocks and entertainments, but
the old-fashioned lover of domestic privacy may count on being left
alone. As with some other of our national institutions, the founders
of our Press system were gentlemen. A standard of good taste and
high-mindedness was set in the beginning, and the tradition of it
remains a living force. When Edward Wilson of the _Argus_ bequeathed
the charge of his interests in that paper to the friend who for thirty
years conserved them so well--who for two-thirds of that time, until
his death, was my friend also and told me the story--the last
instructions of the dying man were: "Keep it gentlemanly, and never
let them be mean." The rival "great daily," the _Age_, is a power in
the State such as, I should think, no individual newspaper ever was in
any land, and the literary beauty and philosophical significance of
some of its Saturday leaders have reached a level that would have made
them notable amongst men of letters anywhere. And his daily newspaper
is as necessary as his meals to the average citizen, while the weekly
that belongs to it, a wonderful compendium of miscellaneous matter, is
drained to its last drop by the Sunday-resting Paterfamilias of the
rural districts, whose only book it is, and whom I have seen poring
over it luxuriously the live-long day.
The Press of a country leads it, but it follows also, if only for the
reason that it has its living to earn. And our newspapers being what
they are--capable of the almost incredible nobleness of sinking their
life-long quarrels and party policies to stand shoulder to shoulder
when the true welfare of their State demands it--is the best proof of
its inherent soundness that any country could show. For the example of
Victoria will be an inspiration to her sister colonies, which are all
one people with her, and all in like case.
It is indeed a good country, even as it stands. I can say with truth
and gratitude, homesickness notwithstanding, that nowhere could I have
been better off. And I am as sure as I am of anything that sooner or
later--this year or next year, or after my time--the day of
emancipation and enlightenment will come, to inevitably make it as
great as it is good.
THE END
_Colston & Coy., Limited, Printers. Edinburgh_
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End of Project Gutenberg's Thirty Years in Australia, by Ada Cambridge