"And, behold, one half of the greatness was not told me." —2 Chronicles 9:6.
My intended postscript on Melbourne as I found it in 1888 has been delayed until I have seen Sydney also, so that I have a few words of comparison on the two great capitals of the southern section of our empire.
Allow me first to complete the outward passage. I concluded my "Recollections" when still at sea, within about a day of our ship's destination, Hobart. The Tasmanian shores gave us a salutation not usually associated with Australia, that, namely, of the snow, thickly sprinkled over the southern slopes of the island. I welcomed the scene, both as recalling that of Home, and as giving the promise of the highest of civilization, which, as Mr. Froude reminds us, belongs to the countries where the snow remains on the ground. We shortened our course by a few miles in taking D'Entrecasteaux Channel, and were, as I understood, the first of the large vessels from the other hemisphere to do so. We cast anchor off Hobart after nightfall, the many bright lights of the city gladdening our eyes, while the babble of English tongues from the boats around us reminded us once more that, after so many thousands of additional miles since at Cape Town, we were still within the British Empire.
My first salutation came from an exact namesake of mine, Mr. William Westgarth, whom I had known at Melbourne thirty-five years ago, and who, after varying fortunes, had for the last dozen years been conducting a superior class of boarding house or family hotel. It was called Westella, and was situated in Elizabeth-street, the chief thoroughfare of Hobart. The house I recollected as that of Mr. Henry Hopkins, a very early merchant of the city, whom I had met more than once between forty and fifty years ago. It was the undisputed palace of the city of its day; nor was it disposed, even now, to bend its head to any second position. As my friend conducted our party over the pretty scene of garden and cliff behind the house, we found it all wrapped in frost, except where the bright morning sun had struck, and we broke the ice, quite quarter of an inch thick, on a fishpond of the grounds. Thus Tasmanian ascendancy in the civilized world is secured.
Already we began in Hobart, and we continued as we went further north, to meet with indications of the progress of the age, quite abreast of, and indeed rather ahead of, all that we have been used to at Home. For instance, we were hardly settled comfortably within Westella, when the waiter announced that. Mr. Fysh, the Tasmanian Premier, wished to see me. I had met Mr. Fysh in London, and I quite expected that he wished to have a talk with me about Tasmanian Finance and Loans. "Is he waiting?" I asked, jumping up at once to go to him. "No, sir," was the reply, "but he is speaking to you through the telephone." I passed to the telephone room, and the signal being sent that I was in attendance, I was given two ear-caps and told to listen. A clear, but also "a still, small voice" came up as from the "vasty deep." Whether from the smallness of it, or from my being unaccustomed to that mysterious sort of thing, I did not catch the words, and had to relinquish the business to our hostess, Miss Westgarth, and thus a meeting was conveniently arranged.
Fortunately for us, we had arrived in a leisure season in the hotel way, so that our host was free to devote himself to us in sightseeing, and thus, with hardly a day and a half to spare, we got a fair idea of Hobart, including a drive along the Huon-road, in whose shaded valleys we found as much snow and ice as though we perambulated the Scotch Highlands in January. This had been, however, an exceptionally severe winter. On the way to Government House, my eyes were once more regaled with the gum trees, in the well-accustomed form of open forest, the ground being covered with grass, on which sheep were depasturing. This is the pleasing characteristic of much of Australian scenery.
The next day, Sunday, we had to leave for Launceston, by a special train of the Tasmanian Main Line, so as to be in time for the boat to Melbourne, on which we depended for arrival prior to the opening of the great Exhibition on 1st August. We formed a large and important party, including the Governor and lady, the Premier, Treasurer, and Attorney-General, while the Auditor-General and others were to follow a few days after. We understood there was to be a general concourse from all the surrounding colonies, and so far as regarded the official contribution to the concourse Tasmania had done its duty.
While we ran along this, the chief railway of Tasmania, I recalled something of the endless contentions between its proprietors or agents and the Tasmanian Government. The question requires some study, for the "literature" thereof has already swollen to most inconvenient dimensions. Any way of it, the Government would have done best for the colony if they had themselves built the line. As matters now stand, the company cannot be made to maintain the line in due efficiency, because, unfortunately, it has neither capital nor credit to do so. Nor can the amount needed for that purpose be permitted to be taken out of earnings, because that only increases the guaranteed interest properly payable on the bonded debt of the line by the Government. Nor can the Government keep back any of this latter amount, because the "innocent and helpless bond-holders," or the company as their advocate, are at once down upon them for such atrocity. Nor, lastly, can the colony buy up the line and thus be extricated from the mess, because the company utterly scouts the idea of a sale at mere valuation.
Next day we were steaming down the Tamar, famous for its beauty as a narrow inlet of the sea from Launceston downwards, rather than properly a river. A small boat took us the first twelve miles, and we were then transferred to the larger vessel in which we were to cross the Straits. In the former we were rather crowded, for some twenty-five youths of Geelong were returning from a football contest with some Tasmanian young folks. They kept us lively with songs and recitations, in which the praises of Geelong were dutifully mingled. I was delighted to see the small Geelong of my early memory turning out in such strength; and recalling in a parental way this said small past of the place, I might have maundered in the "bless you, my children," sort of vein, had I not been kept in check by the frolicsome humour of the boys.
Two disappointments awaited me on entering the Heads of Port Phillip: first, it was early morn, just before daybreak, and next, when the day did develop upon us half-way up the Bay, it was in such mist and rain as all but deprived us of any view. But the mist and cloud lifted somewhat as we approached Hobson's Bay, and thence I was rushed into the multitudinous shipping of Williamstown and Port Melbourne, the great harbour works going on all around, the New Cut, the crowded wharves, and all the other marvels of modern Melbourne.
Here apartments had been provided for us at Scott's Hotel, as Menzies', in its near neighbourhood, the more usual place for families, was quite full with Exhibition visitors. But although our hotel had the noise of ceaseless business below, we on the floor above were so quiet, with the best of attendance and cooking, and with every other comfort, that we are, by choice, to return to it after visiting the other colonies. Here, then, we opened our campaign amongst old scenes and old friends, separated for more than a generation. I had to ascertain who were dead and who still alive. A glance over the city soon revealed to me that one old friend—the oldest, I might say, upon the ground—had entirely passed away, and that was the old Melbourne itself which I had left behind me more than thirty-one years before. But happily the old street names remained, and thus I began to feel again at home.
Labours and honours opened at once. The day of my arrival I was to be the guest of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce for the honour of a dinner to their first President. My friend Mr. Cowderoy, the secretary, had telegraphed me to Hobart, in the hope that I might arrive in time to secure the dinner taking place prior to the Exhibition opening, with all its proposed engrossing after festivities. Mr. Robert Reid, whose acquaintance I had made at the grand Colonial Exhibition two years before, was now President of the Chamber, and received me most cordially. For the following day again there was the opening of the Exhibition, at which I was to march in the procession through the Avenue of Nations alongside of Mr. Francis Henty, now the sole survivor of the illustrious brotherhood who founded Victoria fifty-four years before.
So far from anticipating such honours, I had been preparing myself to plead, on any public occasion that might offer, the cause of the early pioneers; for although, as I proposed to put it, we were but the babes, and have since been succeeded by the men, we were surely to count for something, as without the baby there could never have been the man. But all fears on that head were promptly dispersed, and at every turn honours were poured out upon the "old pioneers" of the days of small things. I had repeatedly to confess, for myself as one of them, that it was a most pleasant and fortunate ACCIDENT to have been an early colonist.
But one disadvantage of these honours and attentions is that they are apt to excite the envy of your fellow-mortals. Human nature, even the very best, can never be perfect. My old friend James Stewart Johnston challenged my right to appear in the grand procession, where he and a good half-dozen other "old colonists" had equal rights. I replied soothingly, regretting that so glorious a band of early warriors, who had borne nobly all the rough battle of early progress (how eloquent people can be in their own praise!) should not have been super-added to honour and adorn the procession. But this not satisfying him, I was driven to bay, and fired my reserved shot, to the effect that I was the only old colonist who had come twelve thousand miles on purpose to attend the opening. That shut him up.
A busy time of public entertainments followed, during the intervals of which I visited energetically persons and places of old association. The Melbourne suburbs were quite as surprising as the city itself. Almost countless miles of streets had taken the place of the country roads or mere bush tracks of my recollection. While I stood wondering at these changes, I had to regret that the old features had so completely disappeared that I was at home nowhere, save that in an otherwise entirely unrecognizable area there would still appear the old name, such as the Sydney, the Richmond, or the Toorak Road. I had to be content with this scant remnant of the past, and to begin acquaintance with an entirely new set of occupant streets and dwellings.
Then I turned to the old and early friends of the past. Some of them kindly called; others, less able, I had myself to seek out. Thus I met, besides Mr. J.S. Johnston, already mentioned, Mr. J.A. Marsden, Mr. Alfred Woolley, Mr. E.B. Wight, Mr. Damyon, Mr. Brahe, Mr. John Barker, Mr. R.W. Shadforth, the Messrs. Ham, and Dr. Black. Mr. Germain Nicholson, another old and worthy friend, was in Sydney, where he called for us, but we have not yet met. I found time to reach Sir William Stawell at his pleasant suburban residence at Kew, and was most agreeably disappointed to find the veteran head of the law very much more like his former self than report had accredited him. Another old friend, Sir Francis Murphy, I have as yet failed to meet, and also Mr. David Moore. Mr. Francis Henty drove us to the St. Kilda-road to pay our respects to Mrs. Edward Henty, who pleasantly surprised us with as yet hardly the marks of age, and as though fully intending to see at least one generation more of the progress of the great colony which her departed husband had founded. Mrs. D.C. McArthur was still residing at Heidelberg along with her nieces, Miss Wright and Mrs. Were, the widow of my late old and intimate friend, Mr. J.B. Were. I saluted the former as the venerable mother of Melbourne society, and being thus one of her sons I claimed and exacted the full salutation of sonship. I claimed the same privilege from my other dear old friend, Mrs. A.M. McCrae, whom I found hardly changed, in vigour of mind at least, although now eighty-five years of age. Almost next door was Mrs. Henry Creswick, daughter of my old friend Dr. Thomson, of Geelong, of whom, as one of the very earliest, and only a few months behind Batman himself, I have already spoken. We enjoyed a chat over the very oldest Victorian times.
I had one opportunity of taking "old friends and fellow-colonists" in a wholesale fashion. The committee of the Benevolent Asylum complimented me by so pressing an invitation to visit an institution which I remembered and was interested in from its first commencement, that it was imperative on me to find the time to do so. The spectacle was alike most edifying and most interesting. The institution had enormously extended since my time, both in its accommodation and the number of its inmates. There were nearly 700 men and women, all of them helpless and destitute, and nearly all passed into old age. Some who were paralyzed in their lower limbs, and unable to move about, were put out in a sheltered place in the sunshine, to busy themselves in various ways of their own choosing, and we particularly noted two rather pretty young women, whose lively expression of face indicated no lack of happiness, and whose neat and nimble fingers turned out quantities of daily work. There was a considerable section of the blind, who were systematically treated, and had a library of their own. In one of the rooms were two dying men, one already past consciousness, the other still observant and even lively, but not expected to survive the night. Amongst so many and such aged people this sight was too familiar to greatly disturb the others. One of these was understood to be related to an English nobleman, and had passed through much adversity of colonial life. His face was still singularly indicative of the gentleman. Such cases are by no means rare in Australian experience.
Our inspection was completed by a view of the kitchen and larder, and the interesting spectacle of about 300 of the men engaged together under one roof at dinner, every one of whom revelled in solid beef to his heart's content. Included in their number were twelve Chinamen, who seemed as comfortably at home as any of the others, and whose presence, perhaps, helped to impress a Chinese Commissioner, who had lately visited the Asylum, and who had left his record in the visitors' book to the effect that such an institution was an honour to mankind.
The old Flagstaff Hill and the old cemetery were two objects which I sought for on the earliest opportunity, and as the business day-time was so full of work, I took the early morning. The Flagstaff Hill I had soon to give up as quite unrecognizable under new plantations and roadways, but the cemetery, in its close vicinity, was much as I had left it, and there the old friends, albeit voiceless now, cropped up at every turn. Let me select a few, commenting as I go along, and beginning with the earliest in date.
1841.
A series of the well-known early family of the Langhornes, some of whose members I often met. Let me begin with "The wife of William Langhorne," who died in this far back year, and end with Alfred, who used to amuse us all with interminable stories, who had a strikingly beautiful wife, and who died in 1874.
1846.
"The beloved wife of Joseph Raleigh, aged 32 years," whose funeral I attended, to be witness to the profound grief of the husband thus prematurely bereft of a wife who was, as I recollect, a rarely fine woman. Even Carlyle's indifference to "tombstone literature" might tolerate these lines, recorded on her monument, both for their own high quality, and as the eloquent expression of the heart of the bereaved husband:—
"Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee,For God was thy ransom, thy guardian and guide;He gave thee, He took thee, and He will restore thee,And death hath no sting, for the Saviour hath died."
1846.
"Allan K. Renny, of Dundee, Scotland, aged 24." A remarkably fine young man, who died thus early, to the grief of all his friends. He was one of the staff of the Union Bank of Australia. Although the favourite of everyone, he retained his unaffected simplicity of manner and character to the last. He died of consumption, in the house of Mr. Cassell, who had invited him there when he took ill, in order that he might be better attended to. Cassell, James Gill, Alfred Ross, and myself took the last night of the dying lad in relays of three or four hours each; and when the last breath passed from the fine young face, Mrs. Cassell, who stood by with the rest of us, and who had nursed him with the fondest mother's care, broke out into loud sobs of irrepressible grief. We decided upon a broken column as his monument—fit emblem of the life so early broken—and we settled his brief, simple epitaph, which Mr. Cassell drew up:—"Erected by his friends in this colony in testimony of esteem and regard."
1848.
"Edmund Charles Hobson, M.D., born 1814, died in his 34th year." The monument, erected by public subscription, commemorates also two sons and one daughter—all the family save one thus early carried off, for, alas! the father, although of large and well-filled mind, was a man of poor health and feeble physique. Mrs. Hobson, our old friend, still survives, but is at present in England. I have already alluded to the Doctor and his high qualities.
1850.
"James Jackson, of Toorak, who died at sea, aged 47." This was Melbourne's greatest merchant of his early time, although he died at so early an age. His house at Toorak, or rather the second house which he, with his enlarging fortune, built there, but which he did not live to enjoy, was long the finest of the place, and served for some years as the Governor's residence. It supplies a striking illustration of the sudden needs of the advancing colony after its golden era. A prominent Melbourne trader had leased it at 300 pounds a year, but in the mid-term of the lease, a demand suddenly arising in 1854 for a Government House for Sir Charles Hotham, Toorak was sublet at 10,000 pounds a year. I recall the early, happy, Toorak home, where personal beauty in mother and young children lost its edge by being so common. The remaining family are now all in the old country. Mrs. Jackson still lives, the honoured head of a surrounding of descendants, which, to me at least, have been long past counting.
1850.
"Isabella, widow of James Williamson, solicitor, Edinburgh, aged 70." This is the lady of whom I have already spoken, who gave up six fair daughters to the young settlement in its direst need, and who in turn have given to it multiplied sons and daughters.
1850.
"Edward Curr, aged 52. In your charity, pray for the soul of EdwardCurr, of St. Heliers."
This is my old friend, the "Father of Separation" (from New South Wales), with whom I marched for years towards attaining that object. He was a proud man, who, with his vigour of mind and body, grasped his world with a firm hand, and was not, perhaps, of the humour to ask the help or prayers of anyone. But his church, by enjoining the above formula over its dead, had its own way of humbling even the proudest, whether the great or the small, the prince or the peasant. I was surprised to find that one who held so commanding a position in our young community should have been, at death, only 52.
He took the chief charge of the separation movement, if, indeed, it did not originate with him; but, sad to say, he died, at this too early age, just the year before the great object of his later life had been attained. In considering this question practically as a merchant, my view of the determining principle as to the mutual boundary line was that the natural tendency of the trading, whether it took the Sydney or the Melbourne direction, should decide. Thus the hoofs of the bullocks, whether they indicated the northerly or the southerly direction, would decide the contentious question. When I mentioned this point to Curr, who, curiously enough, had wholly omitted it from a very long list of "my reasons for separation," he saw at once its importance, and, in incorporating it in his list, remarked that it was worth all the rest put together. Whenever we sat together afterwards at a separation meeting, he would pass me the joke about the "hoofs of the bullocks" deciding the boundary. Sir John Robertson has since told us that Melbourne missed its destiny in this fatal separation movement, for, had she remained within New South Wales, she would have been the capital of Eastern Australia. Well, that slap in the face to us is not altogether uncleverly or unfoundedly directed. The eventuality thus predicted for us might, indeed, have happened. And we, too, might have hesitated in our divisive course if we could but have foreseen two things: first, that the very next year Victoria should produce as much as fifteen millions of gold, and for some twenty years after between six and twelve millions yearly; and second, that our mother, Sydney, who had completely the whip-hand over us at the time, would have permitted us to use all our great resources in order to place ourselves, at her expense, the first in the race.
1853.
"The Honourable James Horatio Nelson Cassell, H.M. Commissioner of Customs, Member of the Executive Council of Victoria, born 1814. 39 years of age." I have already had to mention repeatedly one of my very best and most intimate friends. He died in November, 1853, while I was upon a Home visit. He left a message for me that he looked forward to resuming our most pleasant friendship in Heaven. What a reality of voice has this hope when it comes thus from the brink of the grave! What a strength of resistance to that tendency of modern science, which, as interpreted by some even of its greatest chiefs, is to abolish the hope of the life beyond the grave, and to class us all with "the beasts that perish."
Those who delight in contrasts may follow me now to the Melbourne Races. Although not, in any sense or degree, "a racing man," I could not forego this spectacle, so illustrative of the socialities and general progress of the colonists. This was a considerable occasion, as there were about 70,000 present; but it was not the grand "Cup Day," an occasion which can muster 150,000. The grand stand here seemed to me, from my recollection, equal to Epsom and Ascot together. The racing was in admirable style, the horses generally taking hurdles and steeples without visible hitch in their pace. I used to have a racing theory which was confirmed here—namely, that the horse should never be allowed ahead, or at least for more than a yard or two, till close on the finish, because he thus loses the highest of the excitement, and is more amenable to fatigue. In one splendid race, of a dozen or more, on this occasion, one man, who came in far ahead at the first round, I predicted was to lose the race; and so it proved, for at the second and final round he came in only sixth or seventh.
Sixteen days of Melbourne life had pleasantly glided away, and we must needs be off, because we had the rest of Australasia to see, and a very brief term for accomplishing so great a business. Honours had been heaped upon us. How we are to take it when we tumble once more to the common level at Home I hardly know or like to think about. One of the most gratifying of these honours was the railway free pass, which Tasmania first sent us, followed by Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, and Queensland. Later on I was accorded, through Mr. Labertouche's kind agency, the golden key or pass over the Victorian lines for life, which I was assured was my due as one of the original members of the first Victorian Parliament. From my old friend of nearly forty years standing, Sir Henry Parkes, I had a courteous note to the effect that our railway comfort should be looked after so soon as we crossed the frontier. The honour of these things is, by infinity, greater than the mere saving of money. This is to be literally the case, for our daughter is already counting up these savings, with the intention of claiming them for kangaroo and opossum cloaks and rugs.
We took the day train to Albury instead of the through night mail, so as to see Victoria, and have a few hours to spare to see Albury and its great wine business. We paid our respects to the Mayor of Albury, Mr. Mate, who, with Mr. Thompson, his son-in-law, showed us much attention; and we also inspected Mr. Fallon's great wine vaults, and tasted some excellent wine, including the pale, delicate tokay. Albury, with its population of 8,000, reminded me of Melbourne about 1845. There was an air of comfort and prosperity all about, and a leisurely way of it, which contrasted pleasantly with the hurry and bustle of larger places.
Transferring ourselves now to the night mail, and awaking with the broad daylight of a sunny morning between Yass and Goulburn, we looked out upon a country all white with hoar frost, while our carriage windows had an inside coating of ice. This recalled an inspiring discussion at the Chamber of Commerce dinner a fortnight before, on my introducing the question of the snow and the highest civilization it symbolized. I had said that Victoria as well as Tasmania presented the significant snow. Mr. Service, the leader of the federation movement, alike intercolonial and imperial, corrected me by substituting Australian for Victorian snow. But Mr. Macdonald Patterson, of Queensland, extended the snow line well over even northern New South Wales, as he told us of a heavy snowstorm he had encountered when travelling south from Brisbane, and which lay so thickly upon the ground as to tempt the passengers to a vigorous snowballing, which latterly concentrated upon the railway guard for his grudging attempt to end the sport by ringing his signal bell. But this snow and cold, however favourable to ultimate civilization, were by no means a pleasure just at the moment, and I had to put on the very warmest clothing I ever heaped upon me in an English or Scotch winter. Nor did I escape a severe cold withal, which is only now disappearing under the genial influence of the balmy air of Queensland, which, now as I write, comes to us off the land towards the end of our voyage from Sydney to Brisbane (19th-21st August). We are just passing the South Queensland boundary of 30 degrees latitude, and as a few more hours will land us amidst troops of new friends at Brisbane, I expedite my work, fearing that, as at Melbourne, our brief space of time will be otherwise occupied.
Having just seen Sydney as well as Melbourne, I feel bound to give my impressions of both, which will, I think, be best and most briefly done in the form of a comparative sketch. I must premise with the remark that the great extent of both cities, the great and solid basis of trade on which they appear to rest, and above all the quick and ready step with which they apply to practical purposes the progress, mechanical or scientific, of our age, are beyond anything I had expected to meet with, well prepared as I had previously been upon the subject. Thus the electric light, electric bells, and other electric uses, the telephone, and the lift system, all seem to me in more general use than in London and our larger Home cities. The lift, for instance, is, as the rule, in every bank or other large institution for the use of the staff or customers or visitors. It is certainly as yet the rare exception in such cases in London.
In Sydney I was first met by my old and esteemed friend the Honourable George Alfred Lloyd, who, besides many other attentions, took me to Sir Henry Parkes, with whom I enjoyed some interesting political and financial conversation. I afterwards met the Honourable Mr. Burns, the Treasurer, and discussed with him the prospects for consolidated Australasian three per cents—a prospect which, as he said, he feared might be still far off; owing to the perverse fancy of the other colonies to enter upon special protective systems of their own, which, after being established, they, or the interests protected, might not be disposed to give up even for the sake of a federated Australasia; next we called for one of our fellow-passengers per "Coptic", Mr. Sidman, at the grand offices of the "Evening News" and the "Town and Country Journal", for one or other of which he had been editorially engaged. This happily led to our introduction to the proprietor, Mr. Bennett, and to our being shown the wonders of the Press of our Southern Empire. And, here, again, I had to notice that all the latest steps of progress are taken up so promptly and so thoroughly. The time of our visit was between one and two o'clock, and the work of throwing off the "Evening News" of that day had begun. The machines, we were told, embodied the very latest improvements, and when we alluded to that of "The Argus", just then being fitted up, with every latest appliance, at the Melbourne Exhibition, Mr. Bennett assured us that the machinery before us comprised them all. We saw first the stereotyping process, by which copies of the one type-setting of the paper can be multiplied indefinitely. Then three machines were set in action, delivering 10,000 copies each per hour. A fourth machine was added shortly after, which delivered somewhat more; and this latter appeared to us the exact counterpart of "The Argus" machine, as already seen by us in London.
I recall a joke of many years back when mechanical contrivance was attracting much general attention, and arousing great hopes, to the effect that a sheep would some day enter the machine of the future at one end, and be delivered at the other as ready cooked food and broad cloth. What we saw was not a whit less wonderful. The great roll of paper unrolled itself into one end of the machine, and, even more quickly than one could walk the half-dozen yards of distance, it emerged in separate papers, dropped, as I said, at ten to twelve thousand an hour, printed, folded, cut, and numbered to the dispersing hand which received them. The circulation of the "Evening News" is 60,000 daily. That of "The Age", as I learnt on arrival at Melbourne, has now advanced in its inspiring career to 76,000. These are the papers of greatest circulation in the Southern Hemisphere. Such is already the Press of the infant Hercules of Australasia.
Another stirring sight next greeted our eyes ere we quitted the "Evening News" office, namely, the crowd of eager little newsboys waiting for their trade stock. Pressing to the small open window, where their tiny sums were paid to the cashier, they received their check, and forthwith proceeded to the fountains which were dropping out their supplies at the rate of four copies per second, all ready for delivery. They received twelve of the penny papers for ninepence. These poor little fellows would begin, perhaps, with ninepence as all their capital. They get their dozen papers, and, if smart, sell them possibly in not many more minutes. Then they are back with their increased capital, and so by quick degrees they get to be quite large dealers. We saw one little fellow, already a great capitalist in his way, with a load of papers which one would have thought he could hardly carry, but which, nevertheless, he managed with well-practised adroitness.
If comparisons are proverbially odious, they must be specially so if drawn out upon insufficient data. I must not, therefore, on such a flying inspection, go very deeply into my comparative analysis. And yet, under all the circumstances, the subject is one for which I feel not altogether incompetent. To begin with, I had not, perhaps, sufficient time in failing to note any material difference of physique due to the difference of latitude, Melbourne having the cooler temperature by 4 to 5 degrees of Fahrenheit. Tasmania and Southern New Zealand give notably the ruddy plumpness of the English face. Conversing with a young friend, who was interested in football, he remarked that latitude is important in a game which was mainly one of muscular strength. Thus, speaking generally, Hobart will beat Melbourne, Melbourne Sydney, and Sydney Brisbane. "But what as to New Zealand?" I said. "New Zealand," he replied, "will square with England, and the Southern Island may beat her."
The tide of general business in either city seemed to me equal, but the streets and the public and business buildings of Sydney were scarcely equal, either in number or style, to those of Melbourne, at least if the great edifices and other works of the latter, either just being finished or in progress of erection, be considered. The Melbourne Harbour is conspicuously one of these, and will surpass alike that of Sydney and those of most of the rest of the world. On the other hand, however, the grand natural harbourage of Port Jackson, not to dwell upon its surpassing scenic beauty, gives to Sydney a most decided economic advantage for all time.
Melbourne has two obvious superiorities—first in the systematic laying out of the streets, and second in the more conveniently level site. Thus no Sydney street can compare with Collins-street, where even the moderate rise of the eastern and western hills still adds to the commanding effect of the whole line. The Melbourne street tram system is also greatly superior to that of Sydney, and seems, indeed, to have attained to all that is possible in that direction. In point of population, Melbourne continues ahead, having, with the suburbs, about 400,000, while Sydney has about 350,000. On the other hand, New South Wales has rather the advantage over Victoria in the total population, as well as in the amount of external commerce, having lately, in these respects, overtaken her younger sister, after the latter had clean distanced her senior for a whole generation by help of the surpassing gold production. The populations are now about 1,050,000 respectively.
In estimating the future of these two great colonies and their respective capitals, I will endeavour to mark some distinctive considerations. Unquestionably the climatic difference, although it may not be serious, is in favour of Victoria, for the English race of both colonies and for English industries. Then, again, we have this ever-recurring Australian drought, from which Victoria does not indeed always or altogether escape, but to which, with her cooler sea-girt shores, she is certainly less liable than her sister colonies, including New South Wales. Even now, as I sail along the northern shores of the latter and along Southern Queensland, the severe drought which has prevailed for the past six months is indicated by the ascending smoke of bush fires in every direction, while Victoria, as I left it, was in universal green from the sufficiency of rain. Lastly, there is the disputable question as to how the much wider area of New South Wales than Victoria bears upon the question. Is that a help to her or a drag? With the present scant population to either, the advantage seems to me with Victoria, compact as she is, and full of fertile land. Fifty years hence, when the population of each has passed from one million to ten millions, and when a system of irrigation has fertilized the large proportion of now sterile areas of the larger colony, the latter will assert her precedence and, perhaps, easily pass her rival. But for the present she is rather handicapped than otherwise by her distances. Granting that she has throughout as many rich acres as Victoria, still she is, for the time being, under the disadvantage of having to draw her resources from greater distances—from an average, say, of more than 300 miles to Victoria's 100.
Against this collective relative handicapping in her race, New South Wales has happily still to oppose her good fortune in having adhered as yet to the impartial freedom of exchange for the labour products of all her workers, while Victoria has restricted that freedom, and has, consequently, by so much, reduced that product, by her protective enactments. Let me try to estimate this most important matter. Victoria has seen fit to protect certain interests, agricultural and manufacturing, at the expense of the whole of her public. Happily for her the agricultural protection is probably almost, if not indeed altogether, inoperative, as the climate and the soil of the country, and the vigour of her people, give to her, independently, the natural lead in agricultural products. But the manufacturing protection is confessedly effective, so that the manufactures would not be forthcoming without the extra price of protection. Let us average this protection at 25 per cent, and let us further suppose that one-fifth of all the people's requirements are thus extra-charged. This means that the Victorian public are made to pay in the proportion of 125 pounds for a class of their daily requisites which the New South Wales public, by virtue of their freedom of exchange for all the products of their labour, can secure for 100 pounds; and that this very considerably enhanced cost affects as much as the one-fifth part of all those requisites. Victoria, and the vigorous life which peoples her, will in any case ever present a spectacle of surprising progress. But if she is mated in a race in which, while the two rivals are otherwise equal, she is thus restricted in labour output by protection, while the other keeps herself free, she is as surely to be beaten in that race as if, on her grand Flemington racecourse, she were the seriously handicapped horse of a noble pair admitted to be otherwise equal.
My publisher affords me just time to record my arrival yesterday, at the capital of the youthful but already great Queensland, and to give some opinions of the place after a glance, which is, however, of necessity so cursory.
Brisbane is to me not less astonishing than either Sydney or Melbourne. From the adjacent heights of Mount Coot-tha, I looked over several square miles, mostly of thickly compacted streets and dwellings, comprising a town and connected suburbs of 75,000 busy people. While the suburban houses are chiefly of wood, the town proper already, in some respects, fairly rivals its senior sisters of the South. Thus Queen-street, in its general architectural aspect, and in the tide of business life which it presents, is but little short of the chief streets of these other cities; while the structures of two of the Queensland Banks, the Queensland National and the London Chartered of Australia, together with those of the Australian Mutual Provident Society and of the stores of Messrs. D.L. Brown and Co., Messrs. Stewart and Hemmant, and Messrs. Scott, Dawson and Stewart, seemed to me quite equal to anything of the kind, respectively, which I had met with since my arrival. Indeed, I am prepared to congratulate my friend, Mr. Drury, at the head of the former of these banks, upon an edifice which, in graces of structure, as well as in mere dimensions, seems to me to surpass all rivalry.
The Bank of England—the highly conservative "old lady of Threadneedle-street"—on the recent occasion of negotiating yet one more large Queensland loan, broadly hinted to her go-ahead client that her borrowing must, for a time at least, be more restricted. I do not deny the wisdom of this advice, for truly all Australasian borrowing has been utterly outside of all principle and precedent. But while the Home public is preoccupied with these colonies' great debts, my visit here has diverted the leading idea rather to the solid and expansive basis of trade and prosperity which I see around me. I have not yet seen South Australia or New Zealand, but, from what already reaches my ears, I have no reason to expect that my account of either colony is to differ materially, if at all, from that of the others. The ready facility to incur debt on behalf of colonial progress is due, as it seems to me, rather to consciousness of strength than to indifference about financial obligation. Each colony will "pay" with equal certainty and promptitude, although a New South Wales or a Victoria may do so with less strain than their sisters.