William Johnson Galloway

“ In no other country, not in the most advanced of the communities of the old world, are law and order more assured, public tranquillity less disturbed, the standard of living for the whole people higher, provision for education more liberal; in none is self-government, the distinctive gift of our race, more admirably illustrated. ”

“ The classic description of Australian forest scenery was written by Marcus Clarke, the author of the most widely-read Australian novel, "For the Term of His Natural Life." He says: "The dominant note of Australian scenery is a weird melancholy. The Australian mountain forests are funereal, secret, stern; their solitude is desolation. They seem to stifle in their black gorges a story of sullen despair. No tender sentiment is nourished in their shade. In other lands the dying year is mourned. The dying leaves drop lightly on his bier. In the Australian forests no leaves fall. ”

“ Statesmanship, eloquence, sound common sense, lofty patriotism, have never been wanting even in the smallest of the Australian Parliaments; and now, looking forward to the future, and remembering all you have done in the past under difficult circumstances and the rivalry of separation, who shall measure the achievements which may be accomplished by your united efforts? You will be greatly strengthened for defence, your trade will grow by leaps and bounds, common credit will sensibly lighten the public charge, all petty jealousies will disappear. ”

“ The best of the public buildings in Sydney is the Chief Secretary's office, the exterior of which is decorated with statuary. The Town Hall is not merely the finest in Australia, but one of the largest in the world. It has a magnificent vestibule, and includes amongst its equipments one of the largest organs ever built. The Corporation of Sydney, though fortunate in its home, is not otherwise quite a happy family, and its affairs of late years have become so entangled that there is some talk of an inquiry by a Royal Commission. ”

“ In New South Wales the reverse happened. And there the working men are clamorous in their defence of their favourite doctrine of Free-trade. Nothing is more surprising, to the traveller, than to hear the working men of Melbourne "boo-hoo" whenever Free-trade is mentioned, and to hear the same class of men in Sydney cheer it lustily. The truth is that in Australia the question has never become one of principle, but has been considered rather, as, after all, perhaps, it ought to be, as a matter, for the balance of local and immediate expediencies. ”

“ I do not propose to write a history of gold mining in Western Australia, but will in preference devote some attention to the results up to the present. There can be no doubt that many of the mines which were floated as companies were utterly worthless. This always happens in Australian mining, and is in some measure due to the fact that all mining is of necessity an uncertain and peculiar business. A scientific prospector, with all the learning of the geological schools at his finger ends, may err widely, whilst an ignoramus blunders on to a rich lead or a highly payable reef. ”

“ Deep ravines are crossed on lofty iron bridges, and the shoulders of the hills are tunnelled through frequently; so that the scene is constantly changing, and one passes from an extended view of the great plain on which Adelaide is situated, with the city in the middle distance and the Southern Ocean beyond, into total darkness, to emerge a minute later and catch a passing glimpse of a long winding mountain gorge. ”

“ A journey up this river is simply delightful, fresh pictures meeting you at every turn, while the glimpses one gets of the Maori in his native home give an added charm to the trip. But the real wonderland of New Zealand is Roturua and the adjoining district. Forests of extraordinary luxuriance and beauty clothe the mountains and border the extensive plateaux, and hot lakes, boiling geysers, and thermal springs are met with everywhere; in fact, hundreds of hot springs exist within the district, besides numerous mud volcanoes, fumaroles, and solfataras. ”

“ Passing to political topics, the traveller finds in South Australia one of the most democratic constitutions in the world. The colony boasts that it leads the way in Australia in radical legislation, and runs a dead heat, in most matters, with New Zealand itself. The boast is probably justified. Politics, at all events, with churchgoing, seem to be the principal recreation of the Adelaide man, as gambling in Kalgoorlie mining shares is his business. ”

“ But Sydney is unquestionably the centre of Australian intellectual life, and during the last few years has enriched the prose and poetry of Australia by a succession of notable volumes, though there is yet, perhaps, a tendency to dwell upon station life and customs as giving the only typical Australian colour, overlooking much that is characteristic, and will yield matter for treatment in the literature of the future. Sydney artists establish camps by the water side, and study all the fleeting impressions of the sunlit harbour ”

“ A procession of white-headed, semi-blind, tottering men and women passes before them—made up of applicants for a pension of £18 per year, or for some fraction of it. The magistrate has to inquire sternly into the moral character of the applicants; to ask some saintly old woman if she has ever been in gaol; to demand of some decent white-haired veteran how often he has been drunk, and whether he ever deserted his wife. The process of securing a pension, in brief, is a sort of secular and human version of the Day of Judgment. ”

“ But when Victoria built a protective wall about itself, much of its outside capital was diverted to Sydney, which has grown steadily at the expense of the sister city, and become infected with that American bustle which was once the characteristic of Melbourne only.
But even now, in New South Wales, there is something left still of the true colonial simplicity, which you will scarcely find near Melbourne. In Tasmania, for example, when the girls are of a fair age, the mistress of a house will often do without a servant, and, with her daughters, take the household duties on her own shoulders. ”

“ Mining, altogether, is an extraordinary industry. But almost more extraordinary than the ignorance of London Boards, and the recklessness of British investors, is the haphazard way in which engineers and managers are selected. ”

“ The river Torrens, originally a dingy stream, divides the city into North and South Adelaide, which are connected by five massive iron bridges. An embankment across the stream has turned it for a mile or two into a beautiful sheet of water. The cleanliness of the city is a very pleasing feature. This effect is heightened by the fact that a light-coloured stone, of excellent quality for road-making, is found in abundance in the neighbouring hills. In hot weather the white appearance of the streets is perhaps somewhat trying to the eyes, but it strikes the stranger very agreeably. ”

“ Everywhere the working man has full power, and a very hearty disposition, to try all conceivable or suggested means to better himself. The fact that there are Radical laws on the statute-book of one colony is the means of raising a clamour for the adoption of similar measures elsewhere. Only an extended trial can disclose what the result of any measure will be, but whatever legislation can do for the improvement of the position of the working classes in Australia will be done. In all the colonies there is a demand for rapid extension of the functions of the State. ”

“ Tasmania has been looked on mainly as a health resort, with her quays often covered with a glut of fruit, and with no more exciting question to debate than whether her capital should be called Hobart, Hobart Town, or Hobarton. But all this may be changed by the growth of the mineral output, and by the stimulus of the Federal markets: and it is highly probable that more than nine thousand acres of new land may be broken up annually for many years to come. Federation has been, all along, mainly a commercial question for Tasmania. ”

“ A few years back the sugar growers of New South Wales declared that, unlike their Queensland competitors in the business, they could make the industry a success without the help of coloured labour; but that principle is being slowly abandoned, and black labour is largely employed. It is a question, however, by no means settled in the minds of the planters themselves whether, with expensive machinery to maintain, white labour is not in the long run the cheaper. ”

“ South Australia is now a great agricultural community, where it pays to harvest a crop of wheat of no more than five bushels to the acre; but where the average production is considerably more than that, for the colony comprises a very large area of splendid wheat-growing land. The cheap system of cultivation and harvesting which is carried on enables the farmer to make good profits from light crops. The land is more fertile than, and as easily tilled as, the prairies of Western America, while a cheaper system of harvesting is adopted. ”

“ The people to be united are of the same race and tongue. They are sprung from the same source, and enjoy the same free institutions. Geographically, they are all united, and the political lines which divide them are still merely abstractions set out on a map. They are all, with the exception of Tasmania and New Zealand, on the one continent ”

“ But it is a curious feature of Australian politics that everyone is in favour of federation—even its most determined opponents. It is always only to the particular form, time, or conditions of federation that ostensible objection is taken, Mr Reid's position, then, was simply that the movement was premature. He thought there was no occasion to hasten towards federation, and he thought also, at the moment, maybe, that New South Wales had more to lose than to gain by it. He is an ardent free-trader, as free-traders go in Australia ”

“ Western Australia, in effect, is a colony which has been brought very prominently under the notice of the English public during the past four or five years, on account of the remarkable gold discoveries which have taken place there. But no traveller, who is not also an explorer and is prepared to devote years to the task, can hope to take anything but a hasty glance here and there in passing at this great area, which comprises nearly one-third of the whole Australian continent, and is equal to one-fourth of Europe, with Great Britain and Ireland included. ”

“ Not even a single volume of verse published in Sydney, however, dwells upon the beauties of the harbour beside which the poets live. As an illustration of the difference in the intellectual calibre of the two cities, it is worth noting that while Ethel Turner and Louise Mack—two charming young Sydney writers, who have made child life a special study—are known to every one in their own city, and much honoured, scarcely any one in Melbourne is aware that Ada Cambridge, a lady with an established reputation in fiction, has been for years resident there. ”

“ The Town Hall is a large edifice, occupying a central position: and the city appears to be thoroughly well governed;—to be proud of and contented with the dignified and efficient traditions of its mayor and councillors, who, while occasionally, perhaps, using municipal politics as a stepping-stone to public life, have never allowed their desire for popularity to override their duty to the ratepayers. ”

“ In a colony like New Zealand, chiefly devoted to pasture and agriculture, the system under which the lands of the colony are administered is a matter of supreme importance. The distinguishing feature of the present land system of the colony is State-ownership of the soil with a perpetual tenancy for the occupier—in fact, a considerable portion of the Crown lands is disposed of for terms of 999 years. Settlers may, however, take up land for cash, or on lease with a purchasing clause, or on lease in perpetuity, at a rental of 4 per cent, on the capital value. ”

“ Yet the Australian democracy, and more especially the native-born Australians, who are, as has been seen, the very soul of the federal movement, are resolute not to allow any part of Australia to be over-run, as it easily might be, by swarms of such Chinese, Japanese, Cingalese, Javanese, Malays, and Kanakas, as have already secured a foot-hold in Queensland. The danger is far from being imaginary. Japanese women fill the brothels of the colony; Japanese men employ white labour in the pearl fisheries and on sugar plantations ”

“ One may be engaged, again, in manual labour, and yet not cut off from society. It is possible to meet in the morning a man dressed like a navvy, working on his farm or in his orchard, and to see him again in the evening in his dress clothes, and not concerned for his roughened hands. ”

“ The mass of the population was to be kept strictly in the employ of the members of this artificial landed class, who, by settlement and high farming, were to be able (how, and by close recourse to what market, Mr Wakefield never troubled to explain) not only to pay good wages, but to keep themselves in civilised comforts. Nothing was so foreign to the ideas of this philosopher as to allow every man who landed in an unpeopled, untamed, and almost unlimited waste to make the best he could of its vast, though attenuated, resources. ”

“ Government without representation is foreign to the spirit of the constitution. The less Parliament interferes with India and the Colonies, the better it will be for the Colonies, for India, and for the Empire. The Crown conducts our foreign policy through its advisers of the Privy Council, who possess the confidence of Parliament. Sir John Macdonald understood the theoretical position when, in shaping a Canadian Privy Council, he foreshadowed a Kingdom of Canada ”

“ When, on a summer night, the gardens are lit up for some vice-regal fete, and one sees beneath, on the one hand, the illuminated hulls of the near ships in Farm Cove, and on the other the scores of little passenger launches rushing away from Circular Quay to the marine suburbs, the spectacle is satisfactorily brilliant, and has something of Venetian colour in it. ”

“ It is far easier, and often more immediately profitable, to mutilate than to make a mine. On the other hand, it is not, perhaps, so generally understood as it might be, that under the conditions of mining in Western Australia, £30,000 for developing, or £50,000 for equipping, a mine, is by no means too large an allowance of working capital. ”

“ Although large herds of cattle are depastured on the eastward side of the range, the great stations of Queensland, both for cattle and sheep, lie on the cretaceous formation of the broad and slightly elevated inland plateau. The cattle from inland are easily distinguished at the meat works by their larger carcases; and vast flocks of sheep graze on the saline pastures of the interior, the squatter not infrequently numbering his sheep by the hundred thousand, while the grazing farmer, pursuing the same industry on a smaller scale, contents himself with a flock of ten or twenty thousand. ”

“ The drawback to production is the deficient or uncertain rainfall. A great deal of the northern territory is sterile, uninviting desert, which will possibly never be of any service; but there are also great breadths of pastoral and agricultural land; and the tapping in recent years of vast stores of artesian water in the northern parts of Queensland and South Australia gives hopes that, in a not distant future, the periodical Australian droughts will be deprived of their terrors, for the farmers will be able to keep their cattle and sheep alive. ”

“ Nowhere has this rivalry been so manifest as between Sydney and Melbourne. So strong is it, even now, on the part of Sydney residents more especially, that if the Convention had decided that the federal capital was to be fixed in Melbourne, New South Wales would not have consented to enter into the federation. On the other hand, Melbourne residents would be very reluctant to see Sydney chosen, as it is considered that great importance would be given to the rival city if the residence of the Governor-General was fixed in that capital, and the Houses of Parliament held their sitting there. ”