Australian people

“ The Australian national character is the English national character of, say, seventy or eighty years ago, subjected to isolation from all foreign influences, and to general conditions much easier and milder than those of England; given unlimited breathing-space, and freed from all pressure of confined population; cut off also, to a very great extent, from the influence of tradition and ancient institutions. For the lover of our British stock and the student of racial problems, I always think that Australia and its people offer a field of unique interest. ”

“ For the first time in history, as Sir Edmund Barton pointed out with apt terseness during the campaign for federation, there has been 'a continent for a nation and a nation for a continent.'
Such a country, so situated and with these resources, should have a great destiny, provided that its people are well directed and possess a clear conception of their public duty. What, then, is the Australian people? And what the aims and methods of its politics?
The Reaction.
English sentiment toward Australia is suffering from a cold fit. People are a little 'tired' of her! ”

“ Then this year, 1963, I came to Australia to take part in Canberra's 50th anniversary celebration. These are all vitally important milestones in Australia's history because they represent progressive steps.
The rivalry between the States, the intense local patriotism of cities and districts is a typical sign of a healthy and vigorous democratic people, but Australia's future and prospects turn on the whole Australian nation.
Of all the continents, Australia has the unique distinction and advantage of being one people under one Government. ”

“ Such pictures of human life enable us to understand the condition of savagery, the grade of its usages, the degree of material development, and the low level of the mental and moral life of the people. Australian humanity, as seen in their cannibal customs, stands on as low a plane as it has been known to touch on the earth. And yet the Australians possessed an area of continental dimensions, rich in minerals, not uncongenial in climate, and fairly supplied with the means of subsistence. ”

“ Australia, though a continent, is a part of the Empire of Great Britain. A few years ago it was a wild country, where no white people lived, filled with Blacks, who were man-eating savages. These are fast dying out, but in this story you will learn something about them, and of the lives of your Australian Cousins. ”

“ THE AUSTRALIAN IN SOCIETY.
There is no work for the phrase noblesse oblige to do in Australia. The nearest one can get to it is noveau riche. For in Australia the parvenu is paramount.
The people have no ancestry to boast of; all its nastiness is near the surface. ”

“ I have never yet met a British man or boy who was of the right manly type who did not love Australian life after a little experience. The great distances, the cheery hospitality, the sunny climate, the sense of social freedom, the generous return which Nature gives to the man who offers her honest service—all these appeal and make up the sum of that strong attraction Australia has to her own children and to colonists from the Motherland. ”

“ The coming Australian is to enter upon the stage freed from all the wretched impedimenta of the historic past. His advent is to mark an entirely new era. When he takes over his patrimony, Australia, from his father, the "foreigner," the astonished Old World will see something very like a new revelation upon this earth. ”

“ It was really the outward sign of the affection and love for the Old Country and home inherited by the colonists. Indeed, the rising Australian generation realized what a glorious and magnificent heritage the Mother Country had so generously and freely entrusted to the care of the early pioneers, their forbears. From the day when the first Englishman set 189 foot in Australia and the first settlement was founded, right up to the year 1884, when the offer was made, no enemy had ever threatened Australia’s shores.
Australians rejoice that theirs is the only “virgin” continent in this world. ”

“ For Australia, if the fact were only recognised, is a country in which it is possible to enjoy oneself finely, or to deny oneself greatly, as the mood pleases, independently of the world.
One characteristic of Australian society is its vulgarity ”

“ Loyal Australians pooh-pooh these prints and entreat the stranger within their gates to believe that they are despised and without influence. The stranger has only to travel to learn better than this. The strongest current of Australian feeling is setting with the tide of growing power against the mother country. ”

“ In Australia, there is rapidly growing up a set of conventions and a habit of speech founded on a close study of the older community. There is such a thing as Australian society. It exists. It is ambitious. It aspires to be recognised. It wants to grow. Some of its members have been presented at Court and have brought back with them large social aspirations. Certain of its women have been taken into dinner by members of the British peerage. ”

“ Broadly speaking, what was represented in the noble assemblage was worth. The worthiest of Australia were there—the men who hold their distinguished positions because they have won them, and because they deserve them. All that is best in politics, in commerce, in industry, in the arts, in the Church, in the school, in the public service of Australia was represented there, and every heart beat high with pride and with hope. ”

“ The only vocabulary of Australia, where the numerals run beyond five, is that of King George's Sound, as given in Mitchell's Australia.
The political constitution (if so it can be called) of the Australians is preeminently simple, exhibiting a society of families rather than of tribes; and one of the facts connected with the evidence in favour of the unity of the Australian division of mankind is the remarkable distribution of families bearing the same name. ”

“ With equal heartiness we can appreciate and we can reciprocate the feelings of brotherliness and of respect and esteem, we for the Australians, that the Australians through his lips have told us they have for us, and when he goes back to Australia, after having seen something of our country, and speaks to his own kin there, he can carry to them just as warm appreciations from Canada as his eloquent can tongue put into language. ”

“ Which, after all, is the better or the worse, illusion or delusion? Is Victoria never going to perceive that logicians and engineers are not the highest product of civilization? Will New South Wales never shake off the British architect, spiritual and material, and begin to evolve an individual life of her own? Is Mr. Marcus Clarke right when he tells us that “in another hundred years the average Australasian will be a tall, coarse, strong-jawed, greedy, pushing, talented man, excelling in swimming and horsemanship. ”

“ None of their former acquaintances came within their circle now, for the iron ungodly hand of class distinction has settled surely down upon Australian society--Australia's democracy is only a tradition of the past. ”

“ The first effect in point of importance, though some time may elapse before the effect is fully felt, will be the creation of an Australian Nation, forming a distinct constituent part of the British Empire, having one mind, speaking with one voice instead of the six, often discordant and sometimes inarticulate, voices now heard, consulted on all matters of Imperial concern, and exercising a powerful influence in the political affairs of the whole world. ”

“ For the British reader to be able to grapple with these Australian problems, it is, above all things, necessary that he should keep steadily before his mind the utterly different social conditions of the two communities. ”

“ These are products of generations. In Australia, they are turned out while you wait, with all the uncouthness of their fathers. Australia alone of all the countries in the world has lingual hobnails on its culture. ”

“ Each Australian acting on his own initiative, and all in their togetherness, created the Australian spirit, which again reacting upon each Australian induced him to act in accordance with that spirit. And so in time Australia, assimilating individuals from outside and absorbing them into its texture, and imbuing them with the Australian spirit, grew up into manhood in the Great War and astonished the world by its strong individuality, its character, intelligence, determination, and good comradeship. ”

“ But such a young 'gum-sucker' must not be confounded with the ordinary middle-class Englishmen who form the majority of the professional and business men one comes in contact with in the present day. The native Australian element is still altogether in the minority in everyday life, and the majority of adults are English-born colonists. What modification then, you will ask, does the middle-class Englishman undergo in Australia? ”

“ Australia still affords a fine field for settlers, but they must be industrious, persevering, and energetic; idlers, rogues, and vagabonds will starve there, as everywhere else. As in most parts of the world so in Australia; trust in God, industry, and perseverance will conquer all difficulties and lead on to success. ”

“ For the Australian here has plunged straight into an existence more like that of a duck in a farmyard drain than to any other condition known or dreamed of in his own sunny land. He is resisting it not only passably but well. And if you want to know the reason—as far as any general reason can be given—the motive, which [Pg 190] keeps him trying day after day, is the desire that no man shall say a word against Australia. ”

“ Their intellectual capacity appears to be very small, and their physical structure is extremely feeble. In some respects the Australian peculiarly assimilates to two of the five varieties of the human race. ”

“ Morally and intellectually, at all events, the colonies are thriving. A literature is springing up, a national character is being grafted upon the good English stock. What shape the Australian mind will take is at present somewhat doubtful. In addition to considerable shrewdness and purely Saxon capacity and willingness to combine for local objects, we find in Australia an admirable love of simple mirth, and a serious distaste for prolonged labor in one direction, while the down-rightness and determination in the pursuit of truth, remarkable in America, are less noticeable here. ”

“ There are a number of local causes, a number of nationalities, a number of racial prejudices helping to build up the little Australian. But for the present the Imperialists of the continent can afford to smile at him. They know that his day is not yet. ”

“ Australian, like the greatest of living poets in his youth, had, as we have seen, "dipped into the future far as human eye could see;" and perhaps, if one may be allowed to say so, somewhat further. The old Pioneer, after the pathetic manner of men who have turned the solemn side of fifty, prefers to look in the opposite direction. ”

“ I am not one of those who consider that the Australian is not susceptible of anything like such permanent improvement as may be termed civilisation, although it appears to have been sufficiently proved that his intellectual capacity is of a very low order. ”

“ It has inherited all that was finished in the knowledge and culture of the continental world; what the people of that world have toiled for years to win, becomes at once the birthright of the Australians. ”

“ There is abundance of shrewdness to hand, and finger and thumb wisdom, but who sees that the great necessity is sheer knowledge? Australia was made by men of this stamp, and they still rule it, but their rule is passing, as it was bound to pass, before the unruffled intelligence of the Time-Spirit. These were the men who gave us our absurd nomenclature of birds and flowers. ”

“ Before leaving Australia (though politics are not within my province) , I must say that throughout Australasia there is a strong feeling among all classes for a closer union with the mother country. The loyalty of the people to the Crown and the Empire is unbounded; but Australia finds herself strong, and should any coldness be displayed by the Home Government, a cry for separation may soon be raised, and we should never forget that, "as a field for British [199] trade, as an outlet for our surplus population, and as producers of our food, our colonies are to us indispensable." ”

“ If we admit, and it is admitted by all whose experience best qualifies them to give an opinion, that the Australian is fully equal in natural powers and intelligence, to the generality of mankind; it is very evident, that where so little success has hitherto attended any attempts to improve him, either morally or socially, there must either be some radical defects in the systems adopted, or some strongly counteracting causes to destroy their efficiency. ”

“ Happily, it is not an unusual circumstance to find an Australian possessing qualities which enable him to reach the top of the commercial and the professional world when competing against those of wider experience from Europe and Great Britain. ”

“ The chief interest of Australian politics lies in their relation to those of the Mother Country. Having imported their whole constitution and law books holus-bolus from England, each colony has been engaged ever since its foundation in fitting them to its circumstances. The legislative equipment of the young Australias corresponded pretty nearly to the tall hats and patent-leather boots which fond mothers provided for the aspiring colonists. ”

“ Half a million men left Australia for Europe and other sections of the globe. And if Australia knew what she was about she would now send the rest of her men and women abroad with the same end in view,—the education of the people for the place they occupy in the world.
Much criticism is flung at Australia because her young men and women are inclined to enjoy life rather than burden themselves with a succeeding generation. ”