FOOTNOTE:[1]When this paragraph reached Melbourne, some reporter interviewed Mr. Deakin on the subject and endeavoured to make a grievance out of it against the writer. But the Right Honourable gentleman refused to see the matter in that light, and behaved with his usual kindly courtesy; otherwise the passage should have been deleted, much as I feel its importance.
[1]When this paragraph reached Melbourne, some reporter interviewed Mr. Deakin on the subject and endeavoured to make a grievance out of it against the writer. But the Right Honourable gentleman refused to see the matter in that light, and behaved with his usual kindly courtesy; otherwise the passage should have been deleted, much as I feel its importance.
[1]When this paragraph reached Melbourne, some reporter interviewed Mr. Deakin on the subject and endeavoured to make a grievance out of it against the writer. But the Right Honourable gentleman refused to see the matter in that light, and behaved with his usual kindly courtesy; otherwise the passage should have been deleted, much as I feel its importance.
Fortunately for me one of the fine ships of the Orient-Royal Mail Company was available at the time that I wished to leave for Sydney, so that I was able to travel in the pleasantest possible way according to my ideas, long train journeys having no charms for me. TheOrtonawas due to leave Port Melbourne railway pier at 8 in the evening, but owing to various hindrances of the usual character she did not get away until nearly midnight. But I looked my last upon the brilliant city at the time appointed, and having made myself comfortable on board did not care to go back again. Besides, I knew that I should have an opportunity of bidding a final farewell on my return journey, as it is inevitable that I pass this way, and there is always a day to spare. So that whatever points about it I have missed I shall be able to pick up in a later chapter.
At last the whole of the outward cargo is out, the last slingful has been lowered into the railway truck alongside, and immediately the clang of the engine-room gong "Stand by!" is heard. No matter what the size of the ship or the distance she may be going, her departure has no more of fuss in it than a man makes leaving his own front door for work in the morning. And in our service at any rate the tendency is to work ever more quietly, so that you shall see the whole vast fabric glide away seaward, and hear nothing save an occasional whistle or the clang of a telegraph gong. To-night, for instance; theOrtonais 9,000 tons, a huge monster lying stern to seaward, and secured to the wharf, alongside of which she towers, by sundry steel hawsers. One whistle and those hawsers are cast off, men on the wharf slipping their bights off the mooring-posts. A responsive whistle informs the bridge that she is free. There is a clang in the engine-room, and the great shadowy mass glides astern until clear of the pier. Then another clang orders the port propeller to go ahead, and the ship revolves almost upon her axis in ghostly fashion without the aid of the rudder. As soon as she is round far enough another message is sounded in the engine-room, "Ahead starboard!" and with both propellersrevolving the same way and the helm over to starboard she comes round to her course and is away in more than stately wise, but just as easily as a motor-car leaving a garage.
The superb management of the modern mail and passenger ocean steamers in all departments renders it possible for even the least experienced voyager to feel completely at home within an hour of the vessel's leaving the pier, even when she goes straight out to sea at once (sea-sickness, of course, always excepted); but your Australasian passenger around the coast is seldom inexperienced. The distances are great between the principal cities, but the fares are quite moderate, and the vessels are so comfortable that there is an immense and incessant passenger traffic, the percentage of travellers coastwise being at least twenty times what it is at home. And I do not see that the connecting up of the cities by railway, with its great saving of time, has lessened that percentage much—it has merely increased the numbers of those who desired to travel, but dreaded the sea journey. So, as usual, we had a large number of short-distance passengers; in fact theOrtona'shuge accommodation was rather severely taxed, and yet within, as I say, one hour from Port Melbourne nearly all of them were snugly in bedand asleep, while the captain and pilot on the lofty bridge guided the big vessel through the mirk along the tortuous deep-water channel leading from Port Melbourne to Queenscliff, the Heads of Hobson's Bay, some fifty miles distant.
Daylight found a few of us kindred spirits on deck in pyjamas sniffing the keen ozone-laden air, and watching with awe and admiration the amazing miracle of the sunrise. And here let me say that while I have often experienced terrific weather in these waters, I know of no other part of the world where, when the weather is fine, a man can feel the zest of living more keenly than he can here even in summer if he be up early. But now, in what they call winter, it is delightful beyond expression. It is revivifying to the invalid who withers under a cold blast and languishes in the warm airs, but having the air exactly tempered to the happy medium cannot but feel the desire of life return, the malaise of feeble health passing away until existence puts on bright hues and the greyness of things disappears as do the morning mists before the conquering sun. We linger on and on, trying to pick out once familiar headlands from the blue outlines of the land far on our port beam, until the warning bugle sends usscurrying below, etiquette demanding that alldéshabillebetabuafter 8 a.m. But only fools and ladies linger long over their toilet on board ship. Experience soon teaches the landsman to be like the sailor in that respect, and so most of us are on deck again in a few minutes, unwilling to miss the gorgeous panorama of Bass's Straits near Wilson's Promontory, which we are rapidly nearing. Here is that marvellous dome of rock rising sheer from the sea to a height of about 400 feet, and almost as symmetrical as St. Peter's, except that on the southern side a huge cavern, whose floor is 40 feet above high-water and whose roof is over 100 feet high, has been scooped out by the hand of Nature—a cave inaccessible save by the sea-birds, whom, however, I have never seen entering it: a place that impels the beholder to dare all dangers in order to investigate its mysteries, but even on a day like this, when the ocean is peaceful as the bosom of a sleeping child, the gigantic swell of the South thunders up against those sheer walls of rock, and says, in unmistakable language, that for any intruder it is the place of death.
But we glide rapidly past it at our sixteen miles an hour, round the much-dreaded Wilson's Promontory, which seems to be a gathering-point of storms, and along the picturesquecoast, passing on our way many inter-colonial steamers befouling the bright air with their black columns of smoke, the coal they burn being native, and not of a quality conducive to clean burning; that is reserved to the coal from Wales which we are still using, and in consequence showing but a misty feather from our twin funnels hardly discernible against the sky. This is the invaluable fuel which we are so eagerly selling to our enemies to be used against us in the near future. But, of course, when we give away our trade with both hands, when we send abroad our best bone and muscle, and employ wastrel alien labour instead, a little thing like selling our incomparable naval coal to the enemy is a mere detail. I was asked the other day why Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and his henchmen did not, while in power, make short work of their opportunities and invite the Germans to take possession of South Africa, tell the Colonies to look after themselves, and suggest that it was unchristian to keep Great Britain under British rule, since it was manifestly more righteous, according to Bannerman, Massingham, Stead & Co. that it should be run by Michael or Uncle Sam than by John Bull & Co. This question I could not answer, but it was a fair sample of whatevery nation in the world thinks of us to-day. It is about the only thing they are agreed upon—that Britain is a sort of Jubilee Juggins, in the common slang, who stands in the market-place and invites the tricksters and the shysters of the world to come and divide between them not merely the contents of his pockets but his heritage. It is fast becoming difficult to avoid being ashamed to bear the name of Englishman.
But we are nearing Sydney and all my interest is at concert pitch, for with the exception of a couple of days, while on my passage South from Brisbane in '80, I have not been here for thirty-five years. Of course I know that the amazing beauties of Port Jackson cannot be altered by the hand of man, but I am very curious to see what the superficial changes are. In the glory of a perfect morning we draw near the Heads, so close in that I am able to pick out the track of the electric cars going to Bondi or Botany Bay, the only alteration that I can see. When to me comes a young gentleman with an awful (yes, I can't help the word) collar that almost decapitates him, and seizing me by the arm, exclaims with almost frenzied eagerness, "D'you see that gap there? That's where theDunbarwas lost, lemme see, ever so many years ago. Y'ore a stranger, come inthe smoke-room and have a drink, an' I'll tell you all about it." (At 7.30 a.m.!) I gaze upon him benignantly, allowing no facial sign to betray the fact that when lamp-trimmer of the old A.S.N. Co.'s boats out here thirty-five years ago I had made many grateful shillings and eke half-crowns retailing that yarn to wondering passengers. And he beams upon me through his gold-rimmed spectacles as he retails a mass of distorted fact, what time I cling to the rail and refuse to be drawn smoke-roomwards at any hazard, for I want, in the words of Wan Lung, "makee looksee go in." He finally concludes with the encomium, "Well, old chap, you're a good listener, anyhow. Come and dig me out, won't you? I room at so-and-so, and I'll show you Sydney, real; I was born here." I compose my features and accept his card, never once, thank goodness, losing command of my features; but I am equally grateful to say that I never saw him again, knowingly.
A swift pilot steamer ranges alongside, drops a boat as smartly as heart could wish, and (I timed it) in eight minutes from our "slow down" bell we were going full speed for the entrance and the boat was rehoisted on board the pilot steamer, she making frantic efforts to keep up with us as we swept grandly infor the narrow entrance. And then came the old familiar thrill as, sweeping round the South Head with the helm almost hard a-starboard, we open the harbour, so cunningly hidden by nature that even our greatest navigator sailed past it and did not realise what lay within. The frowning scarp of the North Head towered above us in all its grim majesty, the wake made a perfect semicircle on the glassy sea, and, behold, the opening closed in behind us and all the lovely panorama of the most beautiful harbour in the world unfolded before us as we glided swiftly towards our goal. My longing eyes saw little change as yet. All was as it had been—a few dwellings dotted here and there as if haphazard among the wooded eminences, except that the trolley lines showed up here and there. A pause for the doctor, a merely perfunctory visit anyhow, and away we went again, turning a sudden corner which showed me what a splendid city Sydney has become. But a spasm of horror went through me as I noticed that the city was enshrouded in a pall of filthy smoke belching from a forest of chimneys and hiding its beauties most effectually. And I wondered mightily at the gall of Sydney folks whom I had met in London complaining about our atmosphere! However, that is a reflection thatwill continually occur to the Londoner, abroad especially, after he has grown to accept it as unanswerable that London is the grimiest, gloomiest, and altogether most uninhabitable city in the world. I suppose it is a part of our national magnanimity to acquiesce in all the hard things that are said of us and the vaunts of our visitors, but I don't know whether the time has not arrived when we might with advantage talk back, in some directions at any rate.
It is now that the visitor, returning after the lapse of many years, realises for the first time what immense changes time has wrought in the appearance of a place once so familiar. Adelaide, and even Melbourne, do not impress one until close attention has been paid and improvements pointed out by residents, for in their general aspect they remain the same as they did a quarter of a century ago. But Sydney bursts upon the view, dominating its magnificent bay as the veritable Queen of the Waters, and when seen in the early dawn, before the aforesaid disfiguring pall of black smoke has been spread, beautiful and picturesque to the limit of expression. But it is in the aspect of the harbour itself that a seafarer will find the greatest change. When I came here first, thirty-five years ago, Sydneywas most noticeable for the magnificent fleets of noble sailing ships that lay reposing in all their stately beauty on the waters adjacent to the city, or were ranged all around the Circular Quay. All the grand old classic names which thrill the hearts of old sailors with memories of wonderful ocean races are associated with Sydney as with no other port in the world. The splendid fleets of Devitt and Moore, of George Thompson, the Duthies, Greens, Wigrams, represented by such flyers as theThermopylæ,Sobraon,Parramatta,Brilliant,Abergeldie,Superb, and a host of others whose names leap to the memory, lay here as much at home as they were in London, and of course seen to much greater advantage. For Sydney lends itself so easily and naturally to maritime display, and its visitors were almost invariably of the aristocracy of the sea. No ship could hope to compete successfully for the immense valuable freightage of wool unless she were of the highest class and speed, and had also good passenger accommodation. And so the noble company of vessels which burst upon the beholder's gaze as his vessel rounded the quaint little island fort of Pinchgut impressed him mightily.
Steam was in those days only just beginning to make itself felt in shipping out here. TheP. & O. sent an infrequent ship, and a company had just crept into being which was endeavouring to institute a steam service from the Old Country with a few vessels of poor size and low power; but the dainty clippers ignored these grimy interlopers, looking down upon them as if with conscious pride in their own beauty from their splendid panoply of tophamper soaring into the skies. The Australasian coasting trade was beginning to be dominated by steamers which, however, in those days, were a collection of the quaintest freaks ever seen outside of a naval museum of antiquities. Yet such as they were they earned golden harvests for their owners in spite of their evil accommodation, their snail-like pace, and general unpunctuality. The food supplied was good and plentiful, if fairly rough in its preparation, and in any case the Colonial coasting passengers had not then learned to be fastidious. But these vessels used to sneak into Sydney and past the splendid host of sailing ships into their own out-of-the-way corner, as if ashamed of their ungainly hulls and their habit of befouling the bright air with the belching black clouds from their funnels—the result of burning native coal. They never dared to aspire to an honoured glance at the swagger curve ofCircular Quay or Sydney Cove; that was reserved for sailing ships alone. It is a beautifully-shaped indentation in the shores of the harbour, the bow of which comes into what might be called the heart of the city. Its waters are deep and uniform; in fact, it is a natural dock of the most perfect type and in the most suitable place. But in those days its shores were sloping and unembanked, so that the ships were moored as close to as they could get, and long, massive stages connected them with the bank, for it was so sheltered that this primitive arrangement was quite undisturbed by weather.
That is all altered now. There is as great a change as from theDidoandBasilisk, ancient men-of-war of the Australasian Squadron of those days to thePowerfulandChallengerlying in Farm Cove adjacent, which we have just passed. The few sailing ships that are here now are anchored in out-of-the-way coves far from the city, and they look as if pitifully aware that they are only here on sufferance, that their day of pride and power has gone, never to return.
Circular Quay, Sydney, is now embanked and faced in permanent and enduring fashion throughout its entire length of shore, and such splendid ships as theMoldavia, of the P. & O., theOrontes, of the Orient-Royal Mail, and the huge ships of the North German Lloyd's lie close alongside as if in dock, while all along the Circular Quay to the Darling Harbour Bridge there is splendid wharfage for the big steamships of Messrs. Howard Smith & Co., the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, and the A.U.S.N. Co., in whose hands are practically concentrated the Inter-colonial (or, as they prefer to call it, the Inter-state) trade. Here is to be found a most wonderful development of Australasian energy, and it is especially a credit to Sydney, which has always taken the lead in shipping matters out here, althoughthere is something very wonderful in the rise and progress in the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand. The vessels to be found lying at these wharves would be a credit to any country and any trade in the world for size, speed, and comfort of passengers. They are equipped not merely for coastal trade, but for a whole-world trade, some of them being far finer in every way than the liners from home were twenty years ago.
However, in spite of the development in the shipping trade and the rise in power of the shipping companies, there has been practically no falling-off in the status of the men who do the work. In this favoured land Jack is no inarticulate helot, doomed to spend his strength for the benefit of others, and take just what they choose to fling him contemptuously in return. The seafarers here are a highly organised body, able and willing to speak with the enemy in the gate, and the conditions under which they live are little, if any, inferior to any enjoyed by their fellow-workers ashore. The standard wages for seamen is £6 10s. per month, with, of course, an eight hours' day when in port, and a shilling per hour overtime, while firemen and trimmers get 30s. and 10s. per month more respectively. And the food is not merely good andplentiful, it is excellent, and lavish in its profusion. It should be, of course, this being the land of plenty, especially in the matter of eatables. Altogether, I should be inclined to say positively that in no part of the world is the seafarer so well off in every respect as in Australasia, and certainly there is nowhere in the world where the seafarer has so much Parliamentary and Governmental influence at work for his benefit—influence which is energised by the fact that the men who use it are mostly men who have had practical experience of a seafaring life themselves.
I know I shall be confronted with a question as to whether I do not consider the position of the workers in vessels on the great American lakes superior to any others. Well, I know of those conditions, highly democratic as they are, and I unhesitatingly say that they are far inferior to those obtaining in Australasia. Assuming that the Lake business is seafaring at all and not ferrying on a fairly large scale, it must be remembered that, as in every other American institution, the men are the victims of corrupt combinations, that they cannot have good food because it does not exist—that is, according to our ideas of what constitutes good, wholesome food—and lastly, that while the wages are not higher, navigation is closed throughoutthe long and terrible winter by ice. Then the prudent worker lives on his savings, the imprudent majority starve or join the ranks of the hoboes, or fight for charity, as do the other victims of that terrible city, Chicago, to which place the great majority of the vessels belong. No, there is no comparison between the two services possible.
And yet, in spite of these favourable conditions, there are always efforts being made for further improvements. I have just received a Parliamentary paper, the Report of the Royal Commission on the Navigation Bill for the Commonwealth of Australia, and its terms made me rub my eyes. Here are all the possible grievances, limitations, and disabilities of the seafarer set forth in judicial and impartial language by men who obviously know what they are talking about, and who have no fear of shipping papers, living upon shipowners' advertisements, attacking them, and defaming their characters, as some of the reptiles do who write for some of the shipping papers at home. Of course we hear the same story out here that always sounds so cynical to me, of shipowners being driven out of business by the incessant demands of the men for decent treatment, which it is impossible to grant and pay dividends, but we do not readhere, as we so often may at home, of these impoverished shipowners dying and leaving fortunes of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
In view of this satisfactory condition of things, I am extremely delighted to see that the Report already referred to contains a strong recommendation to the Government to reserve the coasting trade of Australasia to itself, excluding all oversea coming vessels of every other nation. One blot upon this sensible suggestion is, that it is proposed to treat British-owned vessels as foreigners, which is a blunder, especially in view of the tremendous fact that the British Navy constitutes the only defence against foreign aggression that Australasia possesses. And yet it is difficult to justify our claim to come upon the coast from England with our poorly paid men and much more cheaply run ships, which, after discharging their outward cargo, may go from port to port all around Australasia, carrying Inter-state freight and passengers in unfair competition with Australasian-owned vessels. But I feel sure that a compromise could be arrived at in our case—must be.[2]As for the Germans and Frenchand Japanese and Americans, who so rigidly exclude all other nations from participating in what they call their coasting trade—from New York to the Philippines, for instance—they should not be allowed to carry an ounce of cargo or a single passenger from one Inter-state port to another under any pretext. Germany, for instance, which pays the Nord-Deutscher Lloyd £115,000 a year subsidy for its line to Australia, on condition that it does not bring Australian produce to Germany! That is the sort of country that needs a lesson in retaliation—a lesson that I rejoice to see our Southern brethren have the wisdom to compile and the pluck to put into practice.
But all this time theOrtonais lying at anchor off Sydney Cove, for her meeting ship, theOroya, is at her wharf, and so there must be a transshipment of passengers into a tender for conveyance ashore. This delay, which fills me with joy as affording ample opportunity for observing the changes of which I have been writing, seems to goad many of my unhappy fellow-passengers to madness, one especially who dressed himself with great care for going ashore at 7 a.m., and has ever since breakfast been carrying a case of golf-clubs and a small valise about, being specially incensed at the delay. I may say inpassing, that I arrived at my hotel at the same time as this gentleman, who, having seen his room, descended to the lounge and lolled there all the rest of the day—which thing is mysterious, but usual with fussy folks.
Every berth at Circular Quay was filled with a big steamship, and I noticed that, as in Liverpool, Prince's landing-stage is the exchange, as it were, from whence all the ferry steamers to the Cheshire shore radiate, so here at the head of Circular Quay are the same conditions in full force. Quite a fleet of fine fast boats run from the comfortable series of piers to the various points across the harbour, and for the same ridiculously small fares. The boats are naturally not so large as at Liverpool, but they are beautifully built, engined, and kept, and I noticed with great pleasure that they were almost without exception produced locally. As a very large number of Sydney's workers live in the beautiful suburbs across the bay, or bays, the morning and evening traffic is very great, as, of course, it is also at holiday-times; for your Sydney folks are not only intensely proud of their harbour, but they use it, enjoy it on every possible occasion. On landing I found another profound likeness to Liverpool, in that the great electric car system in that city centres upon the pier-head,that is the landing-stage, so here I found a congeries of electric cars arriving from and departing to all parts, their common centre being Circular Quay. But the difference between Sydney and Melbourne is very great—greater indeed than can be described; it is to be felt immediately on landing. Sydney is a typically English city, with tortuous streets, not too wide, and wonderfully irregular buildings—a city which has grown up as our home cities have, and shows no sign of regular planning as do Melbourne and Adelaide, especially the former, which is as faultlessly regular as Philadelphia, only, of course, on a much smaller scale. And so, in spite of the long time which has elapsed since my last visit, fully twenty-six years ago, I feel at home at once but for one thing—those trolley-cars. What it is I cannot tell, but never before have I seen the overhead system so full of offence as it is here. The cars are of the American type, entered at the side and with no seats on top, and on routes where the traffic is heavy three of them will be linked together, in order to make them hold as many as one of our huge London conduit cars. But the nerve-wrenching, horrible uproar that they make, for some unexplained reason or another, is, in myexperience, at least, unparalleled. I thought it would be impossible for trolley-cars to make more row than those in Turin, but that was due to banging of the badly laid metals, and to the drivers' insane craving for performing on the huge gongs. But here the rails do not jump up and down, nor do the drivers abuse their privilege of gonging. They need not. The car itself makes a hideous combination of uproars that puts every other sound out of court in its vicinity. All conversation indoors and out must cease until it has passed, and even a brass band in full blast is silenced.
It appears as if, since the conversion of the trams into electrics, the City Fathers have not been able to agree upon the method of repaving the streets, so that the roadways, after the magnificent paving and grading of Melbourne's highways, give one a shock. They are frankly very bad, and the fact that the great main thoroughfares of Pitt and George Streets are only about half the width of Bourke and Collins Street in Melbourne, aggravates this objectionable feature. Really, the condition of Sydney thoroughfares is a great blot upon this beautiful city, which ought to be removed as speedily as possible, since, as I have often observed before, most people form their opinionof the character of a newly visited city from the state of its roads. One point, however, I specially noticed in the management of the street-car lines which certainly puts us to shame at home. At converging and intersecting comers there will be found a small kiosk, in which sits a man whose duty it is to shift the points for cars going in different directions. This he does by moving a little lever no bigger than a man's finger, which at the same time shifts the points for a coming car and shows a light at the summit of the kiosk, as a signal that the road is clear. At home, as you all know, either the conductor or driver has got to get down and shift the points by a clumsy manipulation of a sliding knob of steel with a rod which he carries with him, or a boy who sits shivering on a stool at the roadside comes and does it, generally in imminent deadly peril of his life where the cars follow one another rapidly. In addition, there is the utter inhumanity of keeping these boys or men standing or sitting about in all the many weathers of our inclement climate for many hours, laying up for themselves an awful harvest of pain and misery by and by. The Sydney system shows how this can all be avoided and bettered, and there is absolutely no reason why it should not be followed at home.
FOOTNOTE:[2]At the time of going to press with this book the Colonial Navigation Conference has met, and these questions have been settled, almost entirely in favour of the Colonies.
[2]At the time of going to press with this book the Colonial Navigation Conference has met, and these questions have been settled, almost entirely in favour of the Colonies.
[2]At the time of going to press with this book the Colonial Navigation Conference has met, and these questions have been settled, almost entirely in favour of the Colonies.
Sydney is a city that grows upon a visitor immensely. Not merely from its almost ideal situation as the commercial capital of a great and growing country, or from the reminders which greet you on every hand of the fight which its people have waged to make their city worthy of its splendid environment, but from its amazing likeness to our cities at home, and from the general air ofhomeness, if I may coin a word, which pervades it. This one may say without any suggestion of detriment or derogation of or to the other Australasian States, because it comes as a natural consequence, Sydney being the Mother City of them all. There is, I find, among Sydney-siders the same diffidence of self-assertion that we have at home, with one exception—their harbour. Don't, as you valueyour happiness, say a word of dispraise of Port Jackson even in fun, it cannot be said in earnest. It will be taken most seriously, and will certainly be accounted unto the utterer for anything but righteousness. In other matters you may have your little joke and find your friends not at all thin-skinned, but please don't joke about the harbour.
Yet the citizens of Sydney need not fear comparison of their beloved city with any other in the world, except, as I have said, in the matter of the roads and the noise of the trolley-cars. The buildings are truly splendid, the two chief, the Post Office and the Town Hall, being certainly the finest in the whole of Australasia, and worthy to take rank with any similar buildings at home. Indeed, it is nothing short of marvellous how so comparatively small a population can manage to erect and maintain such splendid buildings as these, and many others which greet the eye on every hand. It has been said, and I believe with truth, that the vast majority of the Australasian population is to be found in the cities and towns on the seaboard, engaged in the work of distributing the imports and exports. But if this be true, what amazing energy must be manifested by the people "out back" who produce, and what would be thecondition of these cities if only they had a population behind them able to cope with the teeming wealth of the soil? Which raises again the eternal question of population of this vast country—a country which has as yet only been played with, but which has shown such immense productive capacity, that its possibilities fairly stagger calculation, supposing them to be dealt with intelligently.
That, however, seems past praying for—as yet, at any rate. Can you imagine anything more unutterably foolish, short-sighted—oh! the dictionary does not contain adjectives to fit the situation—than the action of the Government which has been presented to all the world this week? The Japanese squadron, of which I wrote in Melbourne, has arrived here, and has been received with a perfect tempest of acclamations, both by Press and people, with the sole exceptions of theBulletin, which in its charmingly witty and brilliant manner persistently refers to the heroes of Port Arthur and Tsutshima as "monkeys," and one other newspaper, of which I can only say that its publication is a disgrace to New South Wales, and would be a disgrace to Paris, which is not squeamish. At ball and banquet and reception the Japanese were rightly received with immense enthusiasm—a reception they have earned by their deeds,if ever men did. All honour to Australasia that, in spite of its intense dread of and antipathy to the yellow people, has thus recognised transcendent merit, both in civic and martial virtues. But while these festivities were going on, there happened to enter Port Jackson a certain steamship, thePacifique, conveying six Japanese passengers to Japan. They were to be transferred to theKumanu Maru, a fine mail steamer of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, lying at the Circular Quay, but as their period of waiting extended over three days, they were naturally anxious to see the sights of Sydney and witness the reception accorded to their countrymen. They were not allowed to land! In spite of the fact that they were in transit, were clear of all suspicion of disease or anything of the sort, they were forbidden to set foot upon the sacred soil of Australia, where their naval heroes were being treated as demigods. Comment here is impertinence, but it may be pointed out that not one man in authority appeared to think that possibly a few of the 2,000 Japanese who were being thusfêtedand made much of might be taking voluminous notes of this occurrence, and compiling a bill to be presented in the near future. I ventured to point this out to several influential people, who admitted that it savoured of idiocy on the part of the powers that be, butalso gave me to understand that it was none of my business, and that when the time came for that bill to be presented, they and the Australasian States might be trusted to—although they didn't use these exact words—muddle through it somehow. Which gave me quite a pang of home-sickness, for I recognise the speakers as veritable chips of the old block.
Of course I know that these remarks will be fiercely resented, because your Australasian (it will be noted that I no longer dare to say Colonial), while intensely eager to criticise all the rest of the world, is fully persuaded that no one has any right to criticise him, or at least the doings in his particular State. This, of course, implies that while you may in any one State criticise any other as severely as you choose, you may not criticise Australasia as a whole. This, equally, is very strange to an Englishman, who is so accustomed to having the shortcomings of his own country held up to scorn by all the rest of the world, and of calmly accepting the remarks made about her, that he is amazed when an expression of candid opinion by himself or his country's public men is taken as almost a personal insult.
The plain, unvarnished truth about the attitude of the Australasian Colonies generally towards the Mother-country is that they areand will be intensely loyal to her as long as they may do as they like without any interference, which freewill they interpret to mean also that if the Mother-country does anything to which they object they may not only protest against it but repudiate it as not binding upon them. That they may treat Britain in the matter of trade no better than any foreign nation, while at the same time enjoying as of right all the protection that the British Empire is capable of affording them, for which they do not consider it incumbent upon them to give anything in return. I asked a prominent editor out here the other day, who was very strong in his remarks about the Old Country, what benefit he supposed she derived from the Australasian Colonies. His answer will live in my memory. He said, with an air of gracious condescension, "Why, we send you all our produce!" I was so amazed, as well as amused, that I could say nothing for a little while, and when I did it was merely to remark, "That is an advantage, certainly; but whether to you or Britain is another question."
Please let it be understood that in the foregoing I have been speaking throughout of the professional politician, whom I cannot profess to admire in whatever country he may happen to be, and not of the general public, which isloyal, lovable, and level-headed. All the best traditions of our dear land are carried on here, and it is almost impossible for even the most nervous, morbidly sensitive man or woman to feel themselves strangers. And what strikes one as being quite touching is the way the Motherland is continually being spoken of affectionately, regretfully as "Home." You will hear it on the lips of grey-headed people who were born here (and it is surprising how many of them you meet), and have never been out of the Colony, "Ah! how I should like to go home for a trip." But the strangest of all is the way in which foreigners, such as Germans, Italians, citizens of the United States, &c., who have been domiciled out here for many years, will speak of Great Britain as home in the same way as do the Australasians.
A remarkable feature of Sydney, as of Melbourne, is the way in which the city has run over, so to speak, into suburbs; but there comparison ends between the two. For Melbourne suburbs, fine, prosperous-looking townships as most of them are, cannot be called beautiful, except where they are on the Bay, the country around being so very flat. But Sydney has every variety of scenery for which the heart could crave—hill and vale, rock and wood, while no residential suburb need be more than a fewminutes from either one of many of the beautiful bays which run into the country from the main harbour like the tentacles of some gigantic but beneficent octopus, or the shore of the mighty Pacific itself. And communication with all these places by steamer, electric car, or train is at once cheap, rapid, frequent, and easy. So that housing of Sydney folks is never likely to become a problem, and overcrowding (although there are still a few slums) is entirely unnecessary, and would not exist if a certain type of people did not insist upon violating all hygienic laws and crowding together as closely as they can get. There will always be overcrowding unless the most drastic laws are passed to prevent it, as may be seen in any English or Scotch village, where, goodness knows, there is room enough and to spare, but the villagers persist in huddling their cottages close enough together to step across the lane from the front door into another opposite.
Yes, Sydney has every scenic, natural, and healthful advantage that a city can be favoured with, while architecturally, it must be admitted, its citizens have done their duty as far as possible, remembering their limitations. Like us, they do not believe in defiling their cities with skyscrapers, but keep their buildings of a reasonable height, in accordance with the widthof the thoroughfares. Two buildings especially cannot fail to impress the most careless and casual observer—the Town Hall and General Post Office. I do no injustice to Melbourne, but only state the bare fact when I say that not only are these two really magnificent edifices far finer than the corresponding municipal erections in Melbourne, but in their position they are much more highly favoured, in spite of the fact that Melbourne's thoroughfares are so much wider and straighter than those of Sydney. But Sydney's Town Hall has what every civic structure should have, a vast open space in which to stand manifesting its glories—a position, in fact, like St. George's Hall, Liverpool, and the Town Halls of Glasgow, Manchester, and Leeds. Melbourne Town Hall, while undoubtedly a noble building, suffers much from its position at an angle of Collins and Swanston Streets, with other buildings crowding in behind it, so that from no point can more than a small portion of it be visible, and no view of it can be obtained from any farther away than across the street. And the same remarks apply exactly to Melbourne Post Office, which is at the corner of Bourke and Elizabeth Streets, and but for its grand tower would hardly be noticeable. Sydney Post Office is so magnificent in itsoutlines that it entirely puts to shame the similar buildings in such great cities as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, or Glasgow, which have nearly double Sydney's population. And its situation is a peculiarly advantageous one in that, although it is in the heart of the city and bounded on two sides by the comparatively narrow yet noble thoroughfares of Pitt and George Streets, it has an exceedingly wide space on its immense frontage which already has some grand companion buildings on the opposite side of it, and will doubtless soon be completely edified and in full keeping with the stately façade of the Post Office, which fills the entire front of the block between the two main thoroughfares of the city. A curious but pretty feature of the fine promenade along the front of the Post Office, the busiest part of the city during the day, is the number of flower-sellers (all men), who stand at the edge of the pavement with huge baskets of glorious blooms before them. These they vend in great bunches, tightly tied up and as large as a medium cabbage, at a uniform rate of sixpence each, which leads to the belief that everything which grows in this marvellous country is characterised by a uniformity of cheapness. And of course I was told that, being winter, the show was nothing compared with its summer beauty.
To-day I have had a veritable treat. By the courtesy of a few friends I was privileged to go and visit theSobraon, that grand old flyer which, under Captain Elmslie, brought out from England to this Colony so many of her leading citizens. She is in her way almost as classic as theMayfloweror theArgo, although towering mightily above them in beauty, size, and comfort for those who sailed in her. And she has met a far happier fate than have the majority of the celebrated old clippers of the bygone days. It gives the old sailor's heart a severe pang when he occasionally comes across a ship which in her day of glory was an honour to command; to be her master conferred brevet rank and dignity which nothing could rob a man of, even though, as, alas! was often the case, he descended from her wreck to a beggaredold age; sold to the Norwegians, Italians, or even to some Indian coasting firm for a drudge and a byword. Some of these old flyers perished gloriously, but most of them were degraded into timber droghers or country-wallahs, without even the consolation that their shame was hidden under a change of name.
Not so theSobraon. Trim and taut as ever she was in her prideful days as the premier shipsailingto Sydney from England, she now lies snugly moored in one of the most beautiful bays of that most splendid of all harbours. She belongs to the Government of New South Wales, and it is her grand mission to receive and deal with those waifs and strays who in this country, with its floating and polyglot population, have drifted or may readily drift into crime. She is at once a reformatory, an elevator, and a school of the best type. And the proof of her usefulness is found in the splendid results shown from most unpromising material. For not only are many of the boys here the result of the most curious miscegenation, Chinese, negroes, aborigines, and every European race being mingled and producing some extraordinary blends, but they have, by reason of neglect and freedom of the wild, often become literally young savages. Yet so wise is the rule and so excellent the training that from this queer raw materialthere is turned out a really fine finished product. All the officers are enthusiasts. I protested against the boys being put through their facings to make a show for me, but I found that to refuse to witness what they could do would give not only the officers but the boys entirely unnecessary pangs of disappointment. So of course I yielded, and was exceedingly glad I did, for the spectacle I was treated to was an inspiring as well as an illuminating one. Also, the fates being propitious, during the exercises the Premier of the Colony, Mr. J. H. Carruthers, with the Japanese Admiral Shimamura and his staff, and a host of representative ladies and gentlemen, came alongside in a steamer andassistedat the function.
I have never seen anything better done, and as for the singing of the boys, well, there must be something in Australian air that makes for excellence of the vocal powers. I have never heard children sing as they sing here. I heard the children sing at rehearsal in the Town Hall for Empire Day, and was astounded at the purity and volume of their voices, and the same characteristics were noticeable here in the vocalisation of these whilom waifs. Be it remembered that they do not all become sailors; many of them go into other employments, for which they become eminently fitted here, beingtaught trades in addition to the peculiarly saltwater training, which fits a man to help himself, to cook, wash, mend, and rise to the occasion whatever it may be.
The food is, as might be expected here, super-excellent and plentiful, but even then there are certain luxuries, such as boys love, which may be earned by good behaviour and diligence. There are other privileges, too, as well as rewards, which may be earned in the same way, and in consequence the percentage of punishments is so low that it savours of necromancy how such boys can so readily be brought under the wholesome standard of sea discipline. And to crown all, theSobraonhas now a tender called theDart, which is rigged as a topsail schooner and has besides a set of engines and boilers, in which the boys who wish to go to sea are trained under actual sea conditions to become deck hands or firemen, as the case may be. To sum up, the institution is a great credit to Australia, not merely to New South Wales alone, for the practical way in which it deals with the waif problem, for the object-lesson in discipline and its value which it daily presents to a people never enamoured of discipline and continually growing more impatient of the slightest restraint, and for the excellent results it shows.
Of course they (the powers that be) have been exceptionally fortunate in securing so perfectly adapted a ship as theSobraon, and also in their superintendent of this fine enterprise, Captain W. H. Mason, whose ability, energy, and enthusiasm for his work is beautiful to witness, while it is also very pleasant to hear him speak of the manner in which his efforts are aided and backed up by the Government, no matter of what political complexion it may happen to be at the time when supplies are being voted.
And now the time draws near when I must leave Sydney for that wonderland of the South, New Zealand—leave it, too, without having had more than the slightest opportunity of visiting the interior of the country. But to tell the truth, with the exception of a few points, such as the marvellous Jenolan Caves, I have little desire to do so, knowing full well the conditions that obtain and that everywhere I shall see the same problem presenting itself, the same reason why, with all this vast area of rich country, half of the population shall be gathered within the area of a few square miles on the shores of Port Jackson.
The dire want of tillers on the soil, the men to take advantage of all that bounteous Nature has provided, is manifest everywhere outside thearea of great cities like Melbourne and Sydney, while at home we have the endless cry for work, in order that those willing to work may live. It is intensely saddening to see, but there are not wanting signs that the people are awaking to what they are beginning to find is a deadly danger to their future in the coming great struggle for Empire. If only the politicians could or would cease their squabbling and hit upon some sensible plan in the working of which they could all agree! But as they very justly say, they get no object-lessons in political agreement or sensible adoption of workable plans for the removal of difficulties in the way of reform from Governments at home, pointing sarcastically to the Education Act imbroglio. And then the English visitor is fain to remain silent for very shame's sake.
Since coming to Australia, although I have met and conversed with active politicians of both parties, I have never heard a political speech until coming here. It is true that at a private official dinner tendered to Admiral Shimamura and his staff by the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, Mr. Alfred Deakin, I heard the latter make a speech, but it was scarcely political, nor was it for publication. It was a magnificent panegyric upon the prowess in war and virtues in peace of theJapanese, delivered with great force and fluency and entirely extempore. Compared with the mumbling, halting, exasperating delivery of some of our principal legislators at home, it was a performance to fill one with envious admiration; but of course it could not be forgotten that the speech was not being reported, and that in any case the issues at stake were not in any sense momentous.
But I was invited to a banquet given in the Hotel Australia, where I was staying, by the New Zealanders in Australia to Mr. R. J. Seddon, who has just arrived here on a visit, and, curious to see the uncrowned King of New Zealand, I went. A massive man with a leonine head in front, but sloping curiously forward from the nape of the neck to the occiput, as if the back of the head had been sliced off diagonally. A hearty man who ate and drank vigorously and was almost boisterously jolly. The chairman of the banquet in his speech of welcome to their distinguished guest was in serious difficulties, being essentially a man of action rather than speech, and it was hard to say whether he suffered most in delivery or his hearers in listening. At the conclusion of the drinking of his health Mr. Seddon rose to reply, amid yells of "Kia ora! Haeremai! Ake, Ake," and other Maori salutations, and a perfecthurricane of stamping and hand-clapping. He began to speak portentously, uttering the baldest platitudes with a force and gravity that almost compelled belief that these commonplaces were now being uttered for the first time, having sprung into being there and then from the mighty brain of the speaker. For an hour he went on thundering out nothings which were received with rapturous applause whenever he paused for breath, and dispensing grave personal advice to the bunglers at Government in Britain, who were personally responsible for all the grave social evils that abound, all of which might be removed by wise legislation such as the speaker had been so largely responsible for in New Zealand. At last he sat down amid frenzied plaudits, having literally hypnotised the bulk of his audience by his magnetic and powerful personality, while taking an hour to utter what could easily have been stated in five minutes.
That, however, was but the beginning of his labours. In proposing some healths and responding for others he made four more speeches of about a quarter of an hour each before the meeting broke up, and then descended to the winter garden, where a reception had been arranged, the guests to which had been waiting for over an hour for the great man'sappearance. He was greeted with rapturous applause again, and proceeded to make another long speech which I only heard the echoes of afar off, for I fled to a restful corner and meditated. But it lasted fully three-quarters of an hour. Yet I learn that he has come over here for a rest from his arduous official labours in order to avoid a breakdown! Curiously enough, this man on his vacation literally dominated the Australian politicians, talked to them as if they were well-meaning but ignorant beginners, and wasfêtedto the highest point. He got no rest, but that seemed to trouble him not at all. I was fain to ask some of his New Zealanders if they could tell me the secret of his power, and without exception their replies resolved themselves into this: that he never forgot a friend, however humble, and had a rare art of first browbeating and then conciliating his opponents; that he always had his ear to the ground to find out what the people wanted, and when he knew he bent his whole strength to give it to the party that was strong enough to demand it. This and his genius in being hail-fellow-well-met with even the raggedest loafer whom he had ever been friendly with, and that in any place, however public; gave him a popularity, in a land where men and women have adult suffrage, that nothing could shake.And on top of it all he had, like Mr. Gladstone, a beautiful and sympathetic home-life, lived in the open air of public scrutiny. There were no skeletons in his family cupboards, and this feature has always been and will always be an immense factor in any public man's success in Britain or a British Colony.
I have said enough for the present about Mr. R. J. Seddon, although just now he seems to be the one force which counts out here, all the other political personages being but pigmies beside him, although the whole country which he rules so successfully has not nearly double the population of either Melbourne or Sydney. He certainly is a portent, a man whom even his bitterest opponents are bound to admire and respect for his many wonderful qualities, and perhaps most of all for his amazing vigour at a time of life—sixty-one—when, especially with his corpulent figure, he might reasonably be expected to slow down a bit. Instead of which he is making a triumphal tour of the Australasian States, being everywhere received with the honours usually accorded to a great potentate.
The day arrives when I am due to leave Sydney for Auckland, and reluctantly I tear myself away from all the delights of this most beautiful and hospitable spot; only to find that the fine steamer of the Huddart Parker Line,which divides with the Union Company of New Zealand the monopoly of the Australasia-New Zealand trade, in which I was to sail, has been suddenly held back a day for no other reason obvious but the pleasure of the managers. Oh, they carry matters with a high hand out here, and if you object, well, you can so amuse yourself if you will, but it comes to nothing! I went down and had a look at the vessel though, and was filled with admiration at her fine proportions and splendid passenger accommodation. She is quite as large and far more finely fitted than the ocean liner of a quarter of a century ago, being nearly 3,000 tons register, and having all her appointments for the comfort of passengers up to date. But this business of Inter-colonial shipping has grown to stupendous proportions and cannot be dealt with casually at the fag end of a chapter, so it must stand over.
As I mentioned in a previous chapter, your Australasian is essentially a wanderer, and the huge distances involved have no terrors for him. Land travel, except where the railways run, is slow, painful, difficult, and often dangerous, although essentially romantic. But where business is concerned romance has little scope, and delay is to be avoided at all costs. Consequently, from the very earliest days of the Colonies there was an attempt made to satisfy the needs of the travelling public by making communication by sea as safe and easy as could be. The efforts of the pioneers in this direction met with great and well-deserved success, but side by side with their growth in power and wealth came the demands of the seamen and firemen to share. These demands were favoured by successive Colonial Governments, which havealways had the interests of the workers at heart, being usually composed of men who had been hand-workers themselves. Of course, in the result the workers always won, amid the plaints of the shipowners who predicted ruin to their enterprises if such wages and such food were made compulsory. But the lugubrious prophecies of evil have not been fulfilled, even in the remotest sense, for to-day the coastal trade of Australasia is without a parallel in the world.
Indeed it seems almost miraculous, remembering the paucity of the population, how so immense a fleet can be maintained. Take, for instance, the Union Company, which, when I was in New Zealand thirty-three years ago, was just a babe in swaddling clothes with four or five small steamers. To-day it has a fleet of fifty-five fine steamships, including a veritable ocean flyer, the turbineMaheno—a pioneer, really, in ocean navigation for this part of the world. The headquarters of this giant Company are at Dunedin, a city of less than 60,000 inhabitants or one-fifth of the population of the Borough of Camberwell, in London. Yet, great as this Company is and splendid as are the services it renders, it has not been able to keep the whole of the coasting trade of these islands, with their population of less than 900,000, in its own hands. It has to share the trade with another growingfirm, that of Huddart, Parker & Co., and smaller local firms like the Northern Steamship Company. Of course, the efforts of these firms are not alone confined to New Zealand. They maintain a constant communication between Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, and the Union Company sends its ships farther afield with great success to China, Japan, San Francisco, and Vancouver. It would not, I think, need a very great stretch of their energies for them to compete for the home trade (to Britain, I mean) with such giants as the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company, the New Zealand Shipping Company, and Messrs. Tyser & Co. But I do not think they will bother about that as yet, since the Intercolonial trade is in so prosperous a condition, in spite of the high wages and good conditions of life accorded to the sailors and firemen.
In Australia, while there is no such phenomenally large Company working as the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, we have wonderful evidences of the virility and enterprise of the seafaring element. Not only in the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company, and Howard Smith & Co., with several minor Companies to serve the coast, but there are such Companies as Messrs. Gibbs, Bright & Co. and Messrs. Currie & Co., who devote themselvesto trade with India, China, and Malaysia, and, of course, possess steamers capable of holding their own with any deep-water ships owned by any other nation. I only mention this to show how, in spite of the short-sightedness of the rulers of this wonderful country in keeping the population down, the breed holds true and the mercantile fleet of Australasia is, in proportion, far greater than that of Great Britain—in proportion, that is, to population; any other comparison would be manifestly unfair. It is really difficult to realise how, in a city with a population of less than 60,000 inhabitants Dunedin, not by any means the first, but the fourth, in point of population in a land that numbers less than 900,000 all told, there should be owned a fleet of steamships worthy to take its place with those of any great Company in the world.
It is, I think, a portent of considerable magnitude that these Antipodean States are reaching out so vigorously after the oversea trade, as distinguished from the Intercolonial business. Messrs. Archibald Currie & Co., of Melbourne, trade with India, and are building ever larger and larger steamers to sustain the bulk of their rapidly growing business. Messrs. Gibbs, Bright & Co., and Messrs. Burns, Philp & Co., reach out after the Polynesian trade and the immensebusiness that is being done in the Eastern Archipelago, Singapore, Malaysia, and China. The Union Company goes even farther afield, connecting the Northern Island up with AustralasiaviâVancouver, and straining every nerve to make the mail service in this direction as effective, despite the increased distance, as that carried on by the jerry-built ships of the American O.S.S. Company. By the utter short-sightedness and supineness of our rulers at home, the beautiful Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands became the property of the United States, who, in pursuance of their fixed policy, immediately declared them to be a portion of the United States coast, and excluded foreign—that is British—trade, between them and San Francisco or any other Yankee port. Is it any wonder that everybody out here grows restive at the unaccountable oscillations and vacillations of British policy, if the treatment of the Society Islands, Navigator Islands, New Hebrides, and New Guinea questions could be called a policy of anything else but drift and relinquish? It seems impossible for our rulers to realise that every port annexed by a foreign power means its being practically closed to British trade whether home or colonial. But these things are fully and practically realised here, and are bitterly resented.
At present, however, I am principally concerned with my departure from Sydney in this fine shipZealandia, which is as perfect in her equipment, as up-to-date in every respect as any ocean liner, and, as I before mentioned, fully as large as the early ships of the Orient Line, such as theGaronne,John Elder,Lusitania, orCuzco. As she slips away from her wharf and we glide quietly seawards, my mind flies back to the days of thirty-five years ago when I used to make the trip we are now on twice a month in a ship that, although only about one-third the size of this, was one of the finest coasters in the whole of Australasia, theWentworth. I look somewhat wistfully at the beautiful panorama, wondering whether I shall ever behold it again, but thankful that I have once more been privileged to renew my acquaintance with one of the most beautiful spots on earth.
My almost invariable luck still holds, for the sea is like a mill-pond, this stretch of ocean between Australia and New Zealand not being aMare Serenitatisby any means, as a rule. We have a fairly large number of passengers, many of whom belong to a theatrical company on tour, my first introduction to a travelling troupe. As there are only two classes in these ships, first and steerage, we have a curious gathering in saloon and smoke-room of scene-shifters,actors, and all the rest of the extraordinary "push" that goes to make up a theatrical company. But it is a typical little democracy, the manager of the whole show being on the best and most intimate possible terms with every member of his company down to the least important. To my mind, however, the most remarkable feature of this business is that there is a company of thirty children, of ages ranging from eight to fourteen, who are a study in themselves. They are the most precocious small people I have ever met, and yet not offensively so, like that terror in miniature, the American child. They are evidently as happy as it is possible for children to be, and every grown-up member of the company without exception is devoted to them, although they really seem to be unspoilable. They have, of course, a matron and a doctor in attendance upon them, and I understand that when they are ashore they attend school every forenoon. Healthier, happier, brighter children I never saw, their very business being a supreme delight. But glad as one must feel at seeing a lot of small folks having such a manifestly good time, the thought would persistently obtrude itself—what about their future? This gadding about from place to place in the company of people who, however kind, are notnotable for a sense of responsibility, is most unsettling, and few indeed of these youngsters, either boys or girls, will be able to settle down again until middle age; while what is going to become of them during that awkward interregnum during which they are too old for their present business and not old enough, assuming they have the talent, for ordinary actors and actresses nobody seems to know or care. At present they are certainly living up to the letter of the Gospel injunction to take no thought for to-morrow, and, at any rate, they are having a splendid time.
In a blaze of golden sunset we sight the Three Kings, those outlying northern sentinels of New Zealand which will now always be remembered for the horrors attendant upon the wreck of theElingamiteonly a few years ago. Curiously enough that terrible story—as it was so fully reiterated about the civilised world I need not now re-tell it—completely overlaid my early recollections of the Three Kings, all fortunately very pleasant. As a small boy in a Sydney steamer bound to Auckland I often saw them and always in fine weather, while again in a whaleship as a young man I have circled around their grim pinnacles, and never saw them veiled in the tempest spray which these stern seas can always raise upon the slightest provocation. Be sure Iwas up early in the morning, for the view along the north-east coast of New Zealand if the weather is fine is not to be beaten anywhere, more especially as you near the Hauraki Gulf and begin to approach Auckland. The fine weather still held, and the sun, blazing out of a cloudless sky, illuminated every crag, islet, and beach as we sped up the splendid sound to where grim Rangitoto waits like a stern sentinel over the smiling harbour, whose entrance he guards. I suppose living constantly within sight of a volcano, whether it be active or extinct, as long as its activity is not pronounced, tends to oblivion of its potentialities. But I confess that in my youthful days I never entered or left Auckland without glancing fearfully upwards at the crater of Rangitoto, as do visitors to Naples at Vesuvius, and wondering whether some day or other the giant Enceladus would awake from his slumbers and involve all that busy, beautiful environment in one heap of smoking ruins,Absit omen, and yet remembering the gigantic upheaval which caused the ruin of the pink and white terraces a quarter of a century ago, and, as geologists tell us, was only prevented from overwhelming this beautiful town by an extraordinary barrier of strata beneath the soil which shed the earth tremors off as a breakwater sheds the waves, it is impossible for anoutsider who has been a frequent visitor to avoid having some such reflections as these. Fortunately for the progress of the world, the condition of mind of dwellers in seismic districts is closely akin to that of consumptives. It is a truism how a poor fellow in the last stages of phthisis will look commiseratingly upon a fellow-sufferer perhaps not nearly so far gone, and say, "Poor chap! he can't last long." When you anxiously inquire after the speaker's health he assures you, between bursts of coughing, that it is vastly improved, and really he has hardly ever felt better in his life. And so, in spite of St. Pierre, of Vesuvius, or of San Francisco, the volcano-encircled towns of the world go steadily on their way without apparently giving a thought to what may happen at any hour. Which, of course, is just how it should be, if our life is to be lived at all in decent fashion.
Ah! here we are in Auckland. But, dear me, I hardly know the place, and have to look back to Rangitoto to get my bearings. There is, of course, the same splendid land-locked harbour, but in my day there was one wharf with a "T" at its end, and the smaller fry of schooners and such-like, which in those early days Auckland was famous for building, had to be content with tiny jetties or an outer berth in the anchorage. And now the wholewater-front of the city is a labyrinth of wharves, which, being yet all too small, are being extended with the utmost energy. No docks are needed in this entirely peaceful and land-locked bay, but wharves, wharves, and ever more wharves, to accommodate the trade of the Britain of the South. It is a splendid object lesson in the maritime instincts of the British race that this city, whose total population is about one-fifth of a big London parish, should have an oversea trade of such enormous dimensions as to require the expenditure of millions on the wharfage accommodation!