Chapter XVII: Loyalty and Cynicism 200 (5)

This state of things is not cheering. Men of by no means conservative or retrograde instincts will tell you sadly that it was not always so, that sixteen or seventeen years ago, in the days of mixed government, not only was the colony better governed, but it was in many respects in a sounder and healthier condition generally. The wealthy were not so wealthy, but neither were the poor so poor. There was work for all who wanted it, and at high wages. Now there is not a little pauperism and distress. Immigration was steadily increasing then; now it has almost ceased.

What is the cause? It is always dangerous to attempt to couple cause and effect in political matters, especially when events are so nearly contemporary. But there can be no doubt that the discovery of gold, if it has conferred wealth and brought advantages, has also brought serious temporary disadvantages which have not yet passed away. It would be hard to strike a balance between them. The population was greatly increased. But the whole framework of industry was put out of gear, and has hardly yet recovered the shock; and the stream of immigration was not, as in Victoria, so great as to give an entirely new character to the colony and its population, and to build the framework afresh. It gave, too, a sudden and undue impulse to extreme democratic tendencies; and I think that the majority of well-informed men look upon the extreme democratic character of the existing constitution as amongst the principal causes of much of the misgovernment and corruption that exist. There are indeed few who ever say so publicly, and withstand Demos to his face; but at least one man, long the foremost champion of the anti-bureaucratic or popular party, to whom that party, in the days when they had real grievances to complain of, owed more than to anyone, has not shrunk from saying openly what he thinks or from deploring publicly the evil results of universal suffrage in the colony.[14]

It is bad enough to have bad legislation. But it is a much worse matter when those who originate it do so from weak or selfish motives, _knowing_ that it is bad. In view of much that has been done, it is almost impossible to doubt that this has not infrequently been the case of late years in some of the Australian colonies, when we consider the comparatively high intellectual abilities of some of the leading statesmen, and consider also the notoriously low character of the various Legislative Assemblies with which they have had to deal. I believe the worst measures, amongst which the land-laws are pre-eminent, will in general be found to have been simply bids for popular support at the expense of common sense, common honour, and common patriotism, by men clinging selfishly to office for its own sake, and indifferent to the ultimate consequences of their policy.

In Tasmania things are not so bad. And that colony is at the present time singularly fortunate in possessing a Colonial Secretary whose name is a guarantee of fair and honourable dealing in the conduct of public affairs, who, unlike too many Australasian Colonial Secretaries, does not live with the love of office and the fear of Demos ever before his eyes. But the religion of Demos is not without a footing even there. I will give an instance, slight in itself, but significant. The Tasmanian climate does not admit the wine being made. Beer is made, but it is almost as dear as imported English beer. There is no cheap beverage, and as the climate (compared with that of England) is hot and dry, it would be a great boon, one would think, to be able to get the excellent, cheap light clarets and hocks of New South Wales. Unfortunately, there is an import duty of eight shillings a dozen, which, added to other charges, is, of course, simply prohibitory. Customs’ revenue is sorely needed, as the returns have been falling off alarmingly for some years; and it is indisputable that a reduction of the duty on light wines would increase the amount of revenue from that source. But Demos does not drink light wine. His particular libation is rum. And so it is admitted that no one could venture to propose the reduction, because Demos, though his own pockets would gain by it, would raise an irresistible outcry at anyone getting wine cheap which he does not care for, unless at the same time the duty on rum were lowered, which the revenue cannot afford.

Great is the god Demos of the Australians! He is lavish in his rewards to his votaries while his favour lasts. But he is fickle, and must be humoured to the top of his bent, and worshipped with unswerving devotion. As long as statesmen bow at his shrine, so long will there be danger that Legislative Assemblies will be contemptible, individual members corrupt, magistrates incompetent, and the mass of the people tempted to lose reverence and regard for Queen, country, and law; so long also will successive ministries be compelled to go from bad to worse, to foster class prejudices and jealousies, to persistently misstate points at issue between them and their opponents, as the Victorian Ministers are doing at the elections now going on; so long also will their supporters not shrink even from exciting sedition by using language like the threat uttered the other day by the ministerialist candidate for North Gipps Land that ‘the crack of the rifle may yet be heard beneath the windows of the Legislative Council.’

Some day or other, it may be, the question will be asked, Who destroyed a great empire? Who prematurely broke, or indolently suffered to be broken, a dominion that might have endured for generations? It will not, indeed, be easy to apportion the blame justly. Doubtless it would have been as practicable to dam up the river Hawkesbury in flood as to have simply defied the torrent of popular impulses in Australia. But all need not have been given up without a struggle. Something might have been saved, as by a little courage and skill a homestead here, an acre of corn there, is rescued from the flood. A Pitt, a Cromwell, even a Wellington with his simple straightforward love of good government in any form, would surely have done, or at least tried to do, something, whether popular or unpopular, to secure the ‘carrying on of the Queen’s government’ firmly and honestly in her Australian colonies. But for the last sixteen years or so, since the old traditions of the conservative party have been abandoned, and it has been bidding for popular support by seeking to outdo its opponents in democratic concessions, the government of Australia by the Colonial Office has been gradually tending to become a simple ‘cutting of straps,’ and attempting, with very little regard to ultimate consequences, to please everybody, and fall in with the popular cry for the time being, whatever it might happen to be.

It is true that there were no aristocracies worthy of the name in the Australian colonies in whom a restraining power could be reposed (although in Victoria an aristocracy of mere wealth—perhaps the least desirable form of aristocracy—has by its representatives, the Legislative Council, just made a conspicuously steadfast and honourable stand against lawlessness and wrong). But surely some substantial power might have been left to the Governors. It would not have been difficult to have established some plan for so doing, with which the great majority of the colonists would have been well satisfied. It has been suggested to me by one who has had great colonial experience that the simple expedient of giving the Ministry for the time being _ex-officio_ seats in the Legislative Assembly, would have had considerable effect, especially in the less populous colonies, in increasing the political influence of the Governor.

If this is not apparent at first sight, a little consideration will perhaps make it so. It must be remembered that in a colony where the population is comparatively small and public questions less numerous and intricate long parliamentary experience and skill in debate are not so absolutely essential to a Minister. It is quite possible that the fittest man to be Colonial Secretary or Treasurer may have had neither the opportunity nor the desire to obtain a seat in the Parliament; for the worthiest and fittest men have ordinarily little temptation to seek for one. Under the present system the Governor’s choice of Ministers is practically confined to those who are in parliament. But if Ministers held seats _ex officio_, the Governor might choose anyone he liked and seat him at once. No doubt the Houses must so far ratify the Governor’s choice as to give his Minister a majority, otherwise he could not carry his measures or remain in office; and this would suffice to prevent any specially unpopular man or policy from being put forward. But, in the first place, the mere addition of from three to seven votes in a House of from thirty to seventy members would be some slight addition to the strength of Government. This, however, is but a small matter. What is more important is that it would do much to prevent the growth, and to interfere with the organisation, of a merely factious Opposition. This sort of Opposition, based, as is generally the case in the colonial parliaments, on no sort of political principle, but cohering merely with the selfish and almost avowed object of seizing an opportunity for ousting Ministers and occupying their places, is a serious impediment to good and honest government. It is always on the watch to catch any passing breeze of popular clamour as a means of tripping up the Government, and the Government is in self-defence obliged to be equally amenable and subservient. When the Administration appears strong, and seems likely to remain in, the Members of the House crowd their ranks for the sake of the loaves and fishes; and the Opposition is left scarcely strong enough to exercise legitimate control over the expenditure. But when the loaves and fishes are nearly all gone, and especially if there is any suspicion of ministerial insecurity, there comes a serious defection from their supporters. Thus the Opposition may be composed chiefly of disappointed deserters from the other side, and in a small colony may sometimes contain scarcely a single man of weight or ability, or who is in any way fitted to be entrusted with office. Yet it is worth while for them to persist and to watch their opportunities, for sooner or later every Ministry must fall, and under the present system the Governor has no choice but to send for the leader of Opposition, or, in the absence of anyone entitled to be so considered, for the mover of the motion the success of which has caused the crisis. Now the effect of giving _ex-officio_ seats to Ministers would be this. The knowledge that the Governor might, if he thought fit, make his next selection of advisers from outside Parliament altogether, would make the objects pursued by a merely factious Opposition too uncertain of attainment to be worth contending for with such persistence. The prospect of being possibly left out in the cold altogether would weaken their cohesion and diminish their strength; while to a corresponding extent the Government would be strengthened, and would be better enabled to dispense with those means of conciliating their supporters which are so fertile a source of one-sided class-legislation and of corruption.

In its Colonial Governors, England possesses a body of tried and faithful servants in whom it may well place confidence. Many of them have had experience and training from their youth upwards in the work of governing. The Home Government can select them from any profession; it can appoint them on the simple ground of fitness without any arbitrary or technical qualification; it can recall them at its pleasure. Gentlemen by birth and education, many of them picked men from the army or navy (almost the only callings in modern times where men learn to obey, and therefore the fittest for learning to command), impartial upon the petty local questions which vex colonial statesmen, they are (with an exception here and there) eminently well qualified for governing new and unsettled communities, and in three cases out of four infinitely superior in ability, as in everything else, to the Ministers whose advice they are now obliged to follow. Of course, there have been exceptions, and because of them no one would for a moment wish to see restored the almost absolute power which Governors possessed in the very early days when they had no one to rule over but soldiers and convicts. But surely it was a fatal mistake by a stroke of the pen to limit the functions of the not unworthy successors of the Phillipses, the Collinses, and the Bourkes, to holding levées and giving balls.

Sir Charles Hotham, when Governor of Victoria, foreseeing what would happen, when some modifications of the Constitution were sent home for ratification, wrote a despatch pointing out the powerless condition to which his authority was being reduced. It was not perhaps altogether a logical or judicious despatch. Sir Charles Hotham was a sailor, without any previous experience in government, promoted from the quarterdeck to a most difficult and responsible position, at a most critical time; and it was not surprising if he had not thoroughly mastered the intricate clauses of a Constitution Act. But if Lord John Russell (then at the Colonial Office) had wished to discredit the Queen’s Representative, he could hardly have done it more effectually than he did by publishing the despatch, to be a butt (which at that time, from its Conservative tone, it was sure to be) for the vituperation of the colonial press.[15] Up to this time the Colonial Governors had found it impossible to obtain from the Colonial Office at home even an outline of the course they were to pursue with reference to the new Constitutions. No instructions whatever were vouchsafed in answer to their enquiries. But at last the Secretary for the Colonies had spoken out. There was a significance about the publication of this despatch which could not be mistaken. Sir Charles Hotham died a few months afterwards, worn out by overwork, anxiety, and hostility on all sides. And since that time every Governor in a constitutional colony knows that his office is all but a cipher, and that the Colonial Office is content to have it so.

I have known a Governor ask his Ministers for a simple Return, for the information of the Home Government, for three years, without succeeding in obtaining it. Even their social power is curtailed. Marks of distinction, instead of being conferred according to their recommendation, are given at haphazard, often to the most unfit recipients. Perhaps as effectual and desirable a means, as far as it goes, of preserving a close union and sympathy between the colonists and the old country would be to induce the sons of colonists to serve in the British Army and Navy. It was accordingly suggested that Governors should have the power of recommending for a certain number of commissions. The Home Government approved, and expressed its approval by according to each of the Australian Governors the astonishing privilege of presenting to _one_ cadetship in the Navy _once in three years_!

XIII.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.

There exists in England a school of politicians, or economists, which considers it desirable that the Australasian colonies should at once, or before long, be cast loose from the Mother-country. There are doubtless some amongst the colonists who are of the same opinion; but I believe that they are very few in number, and that it will be England’s fault, more than that of her colonies, if—in our day at least—the Empire is broken up.

Of course it is easy to point to mistakes made by the Home Government in the old days when it had all the power and responsibility in its own hands. And since self-government has been accorded to the colonies, faults of a different kind have been committed on both sides. Latterly, and while Administrations in England have been displacing each other so rapidly, and throwing out feelers for all the support they could get, there has been an increasing disposition to yield indolently to every passing cry of the hour with too little regard to ultimate results, and sometimes to the discouragement of the most loyal, temperate, and far-seeing among the colonists. On the other hand, the colonists have now and then shown themselves eager to claim the privileges without bearing the responsibilities of Englishmen.

Chief amongst vexed questions, in old times, was that of transportation. For many years there was frequent vacillation in the policy of the Home Government. Each new Head of the Colonial Office had his own plan to carry out, and the consequence was either to flood the colonies with convicts, or else to stop the supply too abruptly. One unfortunately expressed despatch was misunderstood, and gave rise, not unnaturally, to a charge of breach of faith with the inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land.[16] The excessive and unreasonable number of convicts which had been poured in upon them gave the Tasmanians just cause for protesting as they did (not unanimously indeed, but by a large majority) against the continuance of transportation in any form to their own shores. But, on the other hand, it gave the Victorians no excuse for so unreasonable a demand, as that it should cease thenceforward to all Australia, lest a stray convict should escape now and then to their own colony. Western Australia, for instance, has an impassable desert between it and any other colony, and communication by sea is very infrequent; and its free inhabitants, like the free inhabitants of most of the other colonies in their early stages of development, have been asking for convicts as a boon. And there is still an enormous amount of coast-line and territory unsettled, where it is very probable that convicts may, at some future time, be an advantage. It is unreasonable that colonies should claim to draw from the able-bodied and politically untainted population of the Mother-country just as they choose; that they should have the power to bribe them out, or discourage their coming, just as it happens to suit their ideas of what will benefit themselves; and yet that they should exclaim against taking at least their share of the criminally-disposed, or even pauper, part, which their vast extent of country renders comparatively innocuous, and for the amelioration of whose condition it affords such advantages. It is as unreasonable and selfish and ‘colonial’ (to use the word in the bad sense which it sometimes bears in Australia), as if Torquay or Madeira were to refuse to admit consumptive patients among their visitors, or Belgravia object to afford a site to St. George’s Hospital.

If the wishes or demands of the colonists were in old times treated with too little consideration, the reaction has been excessive. When the colonies were given up under their new Constitutions, almost without reserve, each to its own local government, the arrangement under which it was effected was a most one-sided one. In its origin Australia, taken as a whole, is essentially a Crown settlement. But for Captain Cook, a king’s officer sailing in a king’s ship, and but for transportation, which followed soon after, it might not have held an Englishman till half a century later; or it might have been a French possession, as the Middle Island of New Zealand was within six hours of being. Phillip, Hunter, Collins, Flinders, Bass, the early heroes and discoverers of Australia, were king’s officers, military or naval. Millions from the Imperial treasury were spent in wharves, lighthouses, roads, bridges, public buildings. With this money, and by convict labour, was the country made habitable and valuable. Even Victoria, though no convicts ever were sent direct to Port Phillip, was colonised from New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, and it was by convict shepherds that it was first made productive and opened up—of which the discovery of gold was the consequence. All the public works, and the whole of the territory of each colony, occupied or unoccupied, surveyed or unsurveyed, were surrendered as a free gift. I say as a gift; for that a quarter or half a million of inhabitants should assert an exclusive claim to millions of acres never utilised and hardly explored, would be about as unreasonable as was John Batman’s claim to possess all the shores of Port Phillip because he was the first to pitch his tent there. What the value of the Crown lands thus given up may amount to in fifty or a hundred years it is impossible to give the wildest guess, but at any rate it will be measured by hundreds of millions. And for all this the only obligation given in return was the annual charge of the Civil List—a mere payment to the Governor and his staff. And even this has sometimes been grudged. The payment to the Governor of Victoria was reduced, and an attempt has lately been made to reduce that to the Governor of Tasmania, with as much reason as if half the price of a horse were to be claimed back by the buyer years after it had been bought.

Nor was any pledge asked or given that Australian markets should be kept open to English manufactures. The result already has been that one colony after another has been establishing and increasing protective duties, which as respects some articles are almost prohibitory to English goods. The only stipulation made was that duties charged to England should be charged equally to all the world, so as to let in English manufactures on the same terms with foreign and those from other colonies. Even this it is now sought to have relaxed, so as to establish intercolonial free-trade, in which the Mother-country is not to be admitted to share.

But there is no use in dwelling too long on past mistakes. As to the future, I must confess myself unable to understand how any Englishman could fail to feel it as a deep disgrace, if, unsolicited and for the sake of any real or imaginary commercial advantage, or from sheer laziness and unwillingness to bear an honourable responsibility, we were to renounce our inheritance in our colonies. Great as the loss would be to us, to them it would assuredly be far greater in every respect. Without the protection of a strong naval Power they would be simply at the mercy of the first powerful fleet and army which France, Russia, or the United States might send to take possession of them. The smallness of the population, the extent of coast, and the wide distances between the few large towns, would make defence, however resolute, against any considerable force altogether unavailing. The gold-mines of Ballarat and Bendigo and the copper-mines of Burra-burra are as rich and tempting to an invader as anything in Siberia or Persia, or in Algeria or Mexico.

No doubt it is possible that a Federation or union of some kind might be devised, not under the British Crown, but having an alliance offensive and defensive with it. But it is difficult to conceive of any such which would last. If Australia were to enter into distinct diplomatic relations with other Powers, European or other, it would soon become impossible for us to take up their quarrels, or for them to take up ours. As their union would not be very close, their policy would not be likely to be a very steady or consistent one.

For the climate of different parts of the continent differs widely, the productions are increasingly different; hence, and from many other causes, men’s habits, ideas, and tastes tend to divergence rather than to convergence. Already there are occasional manifestations of antagonism between some of the different colonies, which, though slight and comparatively harmless under a common but separate allegiance, might become more serious between members of a Federation. It was a good joke, and not an ill-timed one under the circumstances, for Melbourne, before Victoria was a separate colony, to elect Lord Grey as its representative to the House of Assembly at Sydney, by way of a hint that it really was time for them to be a colony by themselves. But it is a little too much, now that it has been all settled to their satisfaction years ago, and Melbourne has long since shot ahead of Sydney in population and importance, to keep ‘Separation-day’ as a general holiday and day of rejoicing, as if New South Wales were the one thing on earth from which they were thankful for deliverance. Such manifestations do not bode well for future union.

If anyone wishes to form a conception of the narrowing and deteriorating influences which must exist, even under the present or the most favourable circumstances, in a colony, for instance, of the size of Tasmania, let him imagine the inhabitants of any English provincial town amounting to nearly a hundred thousand, spread over a country as big as Ireland, and encircled by a wall through which there can only be communication perhaps twice a week with two or three neighbouring provincial towns, and only once a month with the rest of the world, from which, too, all communications must wait seven weeks till they are delivered. Would Nottingham or Bristol, or even Birmingham or Manchester, be likely to contribute much to the enlightenment of mankind under such circumstances? People in England do not realise what drops in the ocean of territory the Australian populations are. The wonder rather is how _much_ intellectual energy there is, and how favourably the population of many of the colonies would compare with that of many manufacturing towns at home. But of those who now go to Australia from England, an overwhelming proportion are from the labouring or comparatively unlearned classes. The proportion of clergymen, barristers, and university men who go out now is very insignificant compared with what it once was, and anything which caused it to diminish still more would be a misfortune. Local interests and local connections make it difficult for an emigrant from England any longer to compete in the race with the colonial-born in any profession with much chance of success. It was my good fortune to be present at a gathering at Melbourne of all old Oxford and Cambridge men who could be collected. There were about thirty present. They included the Governor, the Bishop, two or three leading politicians of the Opposition—the rest chiefly professors, clergymen, barristers, squatters, or doctors. Considering its small number it was a remarkably influential group. But I was struck with the regretful but unhesitating opinion expressed, that the number was likely to diminish rather than to increase, especially in the ranks of the clergy. In all the professions this is to be regretted, and amongst the clergy more particularly, because it is upon them as a class that any narrowness or incompleteness of education tells with most fatal effect. There are indeed both at Melbourne and at Sydney, Universities, which as far as I could judge are excellently managed and liberally supported, and unquestionably contain professors of the very first rank of ability. But it is impossible for any colonial university, in the midst of a small society in which almost all interests are swamped in the overwhelming one of commerce, to carry education to a very high point. A few people who are particularly anxious for a good education for their sons, send them home for five or six years; but most are content with a colonial university for them, and often remove them when they are still almost boys.

There are many causes to account for the diminishing supply of well-educated clergymen from home. A clergyman’s position in a colony is very different from what it is in England. For liberty and subsistence he is more at the mercy of others. To a certain extent (to what extent I do not know) there are fixed stipends attached to parochial cures, but in the absence of a regularly established and endowed Church, the clergy are likely to be much more than in England dependent for subsistence upon their popularity. Many high-minded clergymen are naturally reluctant to put themselves in a position where their very bread may depend upon their catering successfully for the tastes of their parishioners, and where they would be constantly under the temptation to devote their energies merely or chiefly to exciting or amusing their hearers once a week. The fixed annual grants originally given out of the State-funds to the clergy are being gradually withdrawn, either ceasing with the lives of the present holders, or having been commuted for a lump sum paid to a trust-fund. In one township in New South Wales it was satisfactory to find that the inhabitants had insured the life of the present incumbent, with whom ‘State-aid’ (as it is called) was to cease, and were paying the annual premiums, so as at his death to have a sum to invest in trust for his successors—to endow a living, in fact.

Happily for its peace, representatives of the extreme religious parties of the Church are rare in Australia. An underpaid and overworked clergy has not either time or money to spare for imitating Roman Catholic vestments or Exeter Hall invective. The Scotch often join in helping to build an English church, and are regular attendants upon its services. Hence, fortunately, it has seldom if ever been necessary to ascertain what the exact legal status of a clergyman of the Church of England in the various colonies is—how, for instance, and for what, and by whom he is removeable—and I never could get any very clear account of it. I believe it is at the present time somewhat undefined and uncertain. Ecclesiastical synods are held from time to time, and (especially at Sydney) seem to do a good deal of business, and to be possessed of considerable responsibility and power. But in general the bishop of each diocese appoints the clergy to their cures, and has, I believe, the absolute power of removing or suspending them. The bishops are naturally unwilling to exercise this last power except for flagrant moral offences, and for causes in which they and the parishioners interested concur. But it is a power so obviously liable to abuse that the right of appeal from it seems indispensable.

All these difficulties and evils are likely to be increased by separation from the Mother-Church at home. In Victoria the clergy almost without a dissentient voice subscribed to the earnest protest which was sent to England against any scheme of Church separation. Religious and ecclesiastical isolation is worse than secular in the same degree that religious and ecclesiastical life has a greater tendency than secular to narrowness and intensity. I cannot but think that the separation of the different colonial churches from the English Church would be a wilful removal of a precious safeguard against religious ignorance, bigotry, and intolerance, and that the substitution of the final authority of local synods or bishops or parish-vestries for that of the wide but definite limits of the Articles, interpreted by that bulwark of the liberty of the English clergy, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, would be, not to give liberty, but to bind on the clergy heavy fetters and grievous to be borne.

I cannot conceive it possible, as some do, that political and ecclesiastical separation could fail to promote isolation of ideas, to diminish the flow of intercourse and sympathy, and to breed jealousies and heartburnings between the new country and the old. The Mails might go as often, ships and steamers be as numerous, and commerce carried on as before. But if commercial intercourse unites countries in the bonds of peace and mutual interests, it also, when pushed too eagerly and too exclusively, may rouse the spirit of covetousness, selfishness, jealousy, and division. Those who have leaned upon commerce as a sufficient means of bringing peace and good-will upon earth have, sooner or later, found that they have been leaning on a broken reed. A glance at Australia will show how little ‘well-established and enlightened commercial principles’ are carried out by those who fancy they can gain a temporary pecuniary advantage by repudiating them.

That the attachment to the Old Country and to the Crown is strong, is abundantly evident everywhere. It is stronger of course with the English-born than the native-born, and hence it is particularly observable in Victoria. It is seldom that even the most contemptible demagogues venture to trifle with it. Amongst other small items of English news, the Mail once brought word that a leading Oxford Professor was going to leave England and settle in America. Such a thing would scarcely be noticed in an English newspaper, but it was thought worthy of being announced amongst the items of intelligence telegraphed from Adelaide in advance of the mail-steamer, and was alluded to by the leading Melbourne paper with a shout of satisfaction. Yet the paper had no complaint to make of him except one. He had made himself conspicuous amongst those who have declared themselves in favour of turning the colonies adrift.

It is in the nature of things almost inevitable that the second generation of a colony should be inferior to the first. The struggles and hardships which pioneer settlers have to encounter constitute a discipline and confer an experience such as scarcely any other life can afford, and are a great contrast to the routine life and physical comforts to which the next generation succeeds. These old colonists, too, have had an old-world training in addition to the experience of the new. They know well how much they owe to having been born and bred amongst the historic monuments and associations of the old country of their forefathers, and that it is not mere foolish sentiment that binds them to it. None feel so keenly how real and not sentimental is the loss which their children suffer by being removed from and in part deprived of them. None regret so bitterly the relaxing and severing of bond after bond, or (if it were in danger) would cling so closely to the last but strongest bond of all—allegiance to the English Throne.

XIV.

HOME AGAIN.

The voyage home from Australia is a less easy and pleasant one than the voyage out. Owing to the prevalence of strong westerly winds for the greater part of the year in the South Pacific and Southern Indian Ocean, homeward-bound ships almost invariably sail eastward round Cape Horn, though the distance that way is greater, instead of westwards by the Cape of Good Hope. In rounding Cape Horn they must go to at least 56° south, and these latitudes have a disagreeable reputation for heavy gales, fogs, icebergs, and intense cold. To get amongst the icebergs in a fog, and with half a gale of wind blowing, is a very serious business indeed; and in spite of the utmost precaution many good ships have had hairbreadth escapes in this part of the voyage. During January, February, and March, indeed, the westerly winds are not so regular—old Horsburgh noted this fact as much as fifty years ago—and a Melbourne ship now and then manages to get round Cape Leeuwin and to the Cape of Good Hope. And ships sailing from Adelaide, being already so far to the west, attempt this course at all times of year, so that you may get a passage home by the Cape by sailing from hence. But it is a tedious voyage at best. A hundred days is a quicker voyage this way than eighty days by Cape Horn.

Then there is the way home by New Zealand and Panama, which takes about eight weeks from Melbourne. And, lastly, there are the Peninsular and Oriental Company’s mail-steamers, which are in correspondence with the Calcutta and China mail-steamers, which they meet at Galle; and this is the quickest, the most interesting, and, from October to April, the pleasantest way of going.

Punctually to the hour the anchor of the trim little _Bombay_ is got up. A Peninsular and Oriental steamer scorns the contact, it seems, of almost any wharf but that of her own native Southampton, and waits with proper dignity in mid-harbour to take in her passengers not only at Melbourne, but even at Sydney, the starting-place of her voyage. So there is no shore-tackle to be loosed. In an instant the powerful screw is revolving, making the whole ship quiver and vibrate, the water in the glasses spirt up and spill, and the passengers at the saloon-table shake and nod over their luncheon as though they had the palsy. For the last time we pass through Port Phillip Heads, and steer straight across the Australian Bight.

One more glimpse of the new Southern world we have before striking straight across the Indian Ocean to the old Oriental one. At sunset about five days after leaving Melbourne the land is in sight again, and soon after the distant glimmer of the lighthouse which stands on a little rocky island at the mouth of King George’s Sound. In a few hours we enter the Sound, a large harbour or bay, land-locked except to the south and south-east, embraced by a confusion of long irregular promontories and islands between which the eye cannot distinguish, and bare of tree or house to disturb their undulating outline. So white they look in the moonlight, that they might be bare chalk hills, and even by daylight it is difficult to make out that it is only pure white sand which covers them. A few lights on shore ahead of us are the only sign of life. Even the pilot seems to be asleep, for we have to burn blue-lights and rockets to summon him as we steam on at half-speed. At last he comes on board, looking very sleepy; we enter the inner harbour, the anchor drops, and the twelve hours’ work of coaling is at once begun, and goes on continuously throughout the night.

Daylight reveals that in all the great natural harbour there is only one sea-going vessel, the Adelaide packet, which has come to meet us. There are still three or four hours left, and we land in one of the boats on the pretty sandy shore, and make our way through low scrub towards the settlement. The flowers are lovely, especially a large brilliant red bottle-brush, and a handsome white flower growing on a bush with slimy sticky leaves, which is the fatal poison-plant, or one of them, which has been so injurious to Western Australia, by poisoning the sheep and making the land valueless for grazing. As for Albany, the settlement, it is a pleasant, cosy little village of wooden houses, with three or four superior habitations for the Government officials and the Peninsular and Oriental agent; and considering that it is on a splendid harbour, and situated in the extreme corner of a great continent, it is about as quiet, dull, lifeless, and unprogressive a place as can well be conceived. For what is there to be done there? The climate is said to be particularly charming, but the soil is so poor and sandy that even the few hundred inhabitants can scarcely grow food for their own wants. There is an establishment of convicts here, and they are to be seen doing such work as can be found for them; and in one respect it is a good place for them, for there is little chance of their escaping. From the top of a hill we could see to a great distance inland, but there is scarcely a sign of habitation or even a large tree to be seen. The nearest station is fifty miles off, and Perth, the only considerable town, two hundred and fifty. The road to it is plainly visible for miles and miles, stretching straight across the plain. The native black-fellows frequent the place, and are to be seen more in their original condition here than in most other parts of Australia—repulsive-looking, dark-brown figures, their hair and bodies smeared with grease, boomerangs and spears in their hands, and opossum skins sewn together hung on them as on a clothes-horse, and making a poor apology for clothing.

It is hard to understand how the settlement contrived to exist at all before the days when the Peninsular and Oriental steamers made it a coaling-station, and a place for meeting the Adelaide steamer. But it is an old settlement, as I was reminded in a very unexpected and startling way by an object that I should as soon have expected to see in Belgrave Square as there—a common parish _Stocks_, in perfect repair!

But at noon the _Bombay’s_ gun booms over the dead silence of the sunny landscape, as a signal to go on board again, and we take our last look at Australia. In the _Bombay_ one seems to be already almost in India. The ship’s company are a medley of races from Europe, Asia, and Africa. The officers of course, and the quartermasters, and a few more, are English. But the great majority are black or bronze-coloured. The captain has a boat’s crew of nine fine sailor-like Malays, who cannot speak a word of English. Amongst the stewards in the saloon are two or three pure African negroes, and very good servants they are. The firemen and stokers are long, lean, gaunt, black Abyssinians. The rest of the crew is perhaps made up of Lascars or other natives of India, small feeble-looking men, whom one sees eating their meagre fare of rice and curry, half a dozen of them squatting on the deck round a bowl of it, into which they dip their long bony fingers. They have to make up by their numbers for their want of muscle. To see a dozen of them pulling at a rope you would think each of them was afraid of breaking it. It is a sight to see all the crew mustered on Sunday morning for inspection on the after-deck, ranged in order according to their different departments, and each dressed in his cleanest and best. Side by side with the English sailor’s dress are turbans, and tunics of green, red, or yellow silk, and bracelets, and all the brilliant colours of Oriental costume. Yet all this heterogeneous crew is in perfect discipline. The orderliness, cleanliness, and smartness of the decks, and of everything on board, is a great contrast to the ordinary condition of a merchant ship, and comes very near to that of a man-of-war.

It is about a fortnight’s run from King George’s Sound to Galle. Every day the heat sensibly increases. It is hotter, it seems, in the Indian Ocean than on the Atlantic. One day the thermometer on deck, with a double awning above, stands at 91°, and I cannot discover that there is any artificial heat to affect it. In the cabin it is about 87°, but with the ports open, and a wind-sail to direct a current of air in upon the berths, sleep is not difficult. The Lascars in their scanty linen clothing, who have been huddling miserably round the funnel for warmth, now squat on the deck and play at cards, flinging them down with great animation when their turn comes to play; but they still keep near the funnel as a pleasant friend and neighbour. Down the stoke-hole, where the Abyssinian firemen feed the fire, the thermometer is said to stand at 156°—I did not go down to try—and one of the long gaunt black figures, with scarcely a rag of clothing on and shining with moisture emerges to the upper regions from time to time, and a bucket of water is thrown over him to revive him. The mysterious little pulley-wheels near the saloon ceiling are explained now; for punkahs are put up, and little bronze-faced boys in white shirts and trousers squat in pretty attitudes, exactly like the figures which support French lamps, and pull away patiently at the punkah-strings to make the heat more tolerable for those who are sitting at table. The flying-fish know their latitude to a degree, and make their appearance as soon as the tropic is entered. But they are not so numerous as in the Atlantic, or else the steamer scares them away. One flying higher than usual and losing its presence of mind strikes one of the ship’s officers on the head, nearly knocking him off the bridge where he was walking, and breaking its own head with the force of the shock. Day by day the sunsets grow more gorgeous, and the crimson and purple lights on the calm oily water more dreamily beautiful. The concavity of the crescent moon turns more and more upwards till it is cup-like and horizontal. The Great Bear reappears, but in humble fashion close to the horizon, and draggling his poor dear tail in the water as if half ashamed, and languishing in these hot southern latitudes. At last a penknife stuck in the bulwarks at noon casts no shadow; for we are leaving the Southern Hemisphere.

One morning the screw has stopped, and the sun rises, and the morning mist lifts, to show us an open bay into which the surf dashes unrestrained, and which is fringed on one side with a thick wood of cocoa-nut palms and tropical undergrowth, with here and there a bungalow or a little hut, while on the other side of the bay a road runs along the base of stone-faced ramparts covered with the freshest, greenest turf, and leads up to a seventeenth-century gateway, by which a crowd of people are passing in and out. Within the walls are the red and purple tiled roofs, and strong tropical lights and shadows of Galle. It is an exquisite scene to wake up to from the formless solitude of mid-ocean. Paddling round about the vessel are swarms of small craft, barge-like boats, and long picturesque canoes scarcely more than a foot wide, made of a hollowed tree, and balanced on the tossing swell by a small beam fastened parallel to them by outriggers six or eight feet long and resting on the water. They are manned by natives vociferously vending newspapers, fruit, or trinkets, or bargaining to take passengers ashore.

Ashore all go as soon as possible, and through the gateway, and up a street shaded by a green avenue, till the great Oriental Hotel is reached, the large broad verandah of which is crowded with people in all the strange costumes and head-gear of Anglo-Indians, talking, flirting, smoking, eating, drinking, bargaining, and abusing the (at this time of year) more than Indian heat. They are passengers going to, or returning from, India and China. For Galle is the Rugby Junction of Anglo-Asiatic traffic, where the China and Australia steamers disgorge their passengers into the larger vessel from Calcutta and Madras—many rills flowing into one stream—and there are often a couple of days to be spent here waiting—days inexpressibly full of interest and enjoyment to those to whom the scenes of India and of the tropics are new and unfamiliar.

The streets are full of natives, clothed or half-clothed in white or coloured cotton dress. The driver of your hired carriage who sits close in front of you is perhaps bare to the waist; but the dark-brown colour of his skin prevents you from being keenly alive to the fact, and you are not much impressed with any deficiency in his apparel. Men as well as women wear their black hair long and tied in a knot, or confined by tortoiseshell combs. Indeed the general appearance of men and women is so much alike that at first sight one is almost puzzled to distinguish them. A lady lately arrived at Galle, talking to a friend who had been much in her house and knew all about her establishment, happened to mention her ayah. The friend expressed surprise, as he did not know she had an ayah; and after explanation, and summoning the servant in question, she was made aware that her servant was a man, and had never pretended to be anything else, though he had been acting as nurse, and washing and dressing the baby for a week or two.

Crowding round the verandah of the hotel is a host of importunate vendors of tortoiseshell, baskets, ivory boxes, and jewellery. As regards jewellery there is ample scope for their roguery, which is without limit. A fellow will ask you fourteen pounds for what he calls a real sapphire ring, and gladly let you have it, after a little bargaining, for two shillings. Europeans take unblushing rascality of this sort as a matter of course, and treat it, not with indignation, but with contempt. Even in a few hours one can understand a little why the natives are so often treated by Europeans much in the way that a good-natured man treats a useful dog.

The hotel is a great building, with the bedrooms for greater coolness separated by partitions reaching only part of the way to the ceiling, so that a word or a snore is sometimes audible in every room from one end to the other of the long corridor; and many are the reproaches, expletives, bolsters, boots, and other missiles, which are flung over the partition at anyone who offends in this latter particular. In some of the private houses the doors are for the same reason made so as to come within a foot of the ground, and consequently when anyone is coming into the room there is ample time and opportunity for inspecting his or her feet, &c. before any other part of the person is visible.

The heat does not admit of much going about in the middle of the day; but towards evening you can drive beyond town and suburbs, and see the palms on each side bending over the road, and the rich swampy soil teeming with rank vegetation, and feast your senses on the often-described wonders of a tropical climate. Beautiful as it is, it is not to be compared for beauty (one is told) with the interior. And there is no time or opportunity for seeing that, for punctual to its day the great black hull of the steamer from Calcutta and Madras, which is to pick up all the passengers for Suez, rounds the point and enters the bay, and by daybreak next morning she is off again.

A huge monster she is of two thousand six hundred tons or thereabouts, with a charming long flush deck from bows to stern of immense length. She is cram-full; for it is the end of March, and all Indians who can get away—officers, civilians, invalids, and young children—are on their way home before the hot season sets in. Some cabins have been reserved for passengers waiting at Galle, and we from Australia are a not very welcome addition to the already large number, and are probably set down as at best successful diggers, and as most likely holders of tickets-of-leave. But with or without tickets-of-leave we soon shake down, and get on pretty well with each other, for there is no room for quarrelling. There are some five hundred human beings on board, of whom more than half are passengers, and of these above fifty are children. They are pale, sickly, quiet little beings, these children, or one does not know how the ship would hold them, for they are under little or no control. Often half a dozen or more have been confided to the care of one invalid lady, who has about enough to do to take care of herself. As for the ayahs, of whom there are plenty, they have not a shadow of authority over their charges, and submit as a matter of course to thumps and abuse in answer to their feeble threats and entreaties.