King Edward's realm: Story of the making of the Empire

by C. S. Dawe

8. The natives as a rule were few in number, weak, timid, and harmless; but on this occasion they gathered, to the number of six hundred, in a well-chosen position on a shallow reach of the river to dispute its passage, and made their intention clear by yelling and brandishing spears. "As we neared the sandbank," Captain Sturt relates, "I stood up and made signs to the natives to desist, but without success. I took up my gun, therefore, and cocking it, had already brought it to the level. A few seconds more would have closed the life of the nearest savage, for I was determined to take deadly aim, in the hope that the fall of one man might save the lives of many. But, at the very moment when my hand was on the trigger, my purpose was checked by my companion, who directed my attention to another party of blacks on the left bank of the river."

9. "Turning round, I observed four men running at the top of their speed. The foremost of them, as soon as he got ahead of the boat, threw himself from a considerable height into the water. He struggled across the channel to the sandbank, and in an incredibly short time, stood in front of the savage against whom my aim had been directed. Seizing him by the throat he pushed him backwards, and driving all who were in the water upon the bank, he trod its margin with a vehemence and agitation extremely striking. At one time pointing to the boat, at another, shaking his clenched hand in the faces of the most forward, and stamping with passion on the sand, his voice that was at first distinct and clear, was lost in hoarse murmurs." After a river journey of thirty-two days, from this spot, Sturt reached, without further adventure, the coast of South Australia. He observed that near the sea, it widened into a shallow lagoon, which he named Lake Alexandrina, and that its course thence to the sea, was, by shallow channels of shifting sand, difficult to navigate.

10. Colonists followed close on the heels of the explorer. As fast as the news spread of the discovery of suitable lands for crops or sheep-runs, men moved on from less favoured districts to take possession, and the lands thus left vacant, were soon occupied by immigrants from Britain. The arrival of so many free labourers made convict labour no longer necessary, and the feeling of the colonists against the reception of our rogues and scoundrels constantly grew stronger. Accordingly, in 1840, the transportation of convicts to New South Wales came to an end, and a few years later, every colony in Australia shut its gates against them.

(6) REMARKABLE INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS.

1. We must now return from following the fortunes of our kinsmen on the opposite side of the world, and see what had been going on, meanwhile, at home. There is a vital connection between what was happening here and what we have stated about events out there. If our countrymen were permitted to settle down quietly in Australia, and to take undisputed possession of the whole continent, it was not because no other nation had a desire to appropriate any part of it, but because we alone commanded the great highway that led to its shores. And this command of the seas our forefathers had with might and main to fight for while our countrymen were laying the foundations of a new British state in the Southern Seas.

2. When the Treaty of Versailles was signed (1783), by which Britain acknowledged the independence of the United States, it was widely thought that she was ruined, and that she had fallen for ever from her proud place among the nations. The real greatness of a nation is never so well seen as in her conduct after defeat and disaster. In seven years from the loss of the American Colonies, the Prime Minister was able to say, "The country at this moment is in a situation of prosperity greater than in the most flourishing period before the last war." The world was startled to find that Britain, instead of being ruined by her loss, was fast becoming stronger and greater than ever.

3. This marvellous recovery was due, partly to the enterprising character of our countrymen; partly to the vast resources of our country in its stores of coal and iron; and partly to a number of remarkable inventions that enabled us to make the most of those resources. Indeed, the ten years that followed the Treaty of Versailles saw a display of industrial activity in England such as the world had never witnessed before.

4. Owing to inventions by Arkwright and others of machines for the spinning and weaving of cotton, England began to manufacture calicoes and cotton prints for half the world. About the same time Josiah Wedgwood set his wits to work to make porcelain as good as that from China, and became the father of the potteries of Staffordshire. The iron manufacture now began its prosperous career; for the mode of smelting iron with pit-coal, instead of charcoal, had lately been discovered.

5. But the extraordinary advance in British manufactures was due more than to anything else to the improvements made in the steam-engine by James Watt. Under his clever hands the steam-engine became the most powerful and obedient servant of man; and steam became, in consequence, the great motive-power in most of our factories. It would hardly have been possible, however, to make an extensive use of this steam-power unless there had been some cheap way of conveying coal to the seats of manufacture. There were in those days, we must remember, no railways, for no locomotive engine had yet been invented. The place of railways was supplied, in respect to the carriage of coal and other heavy goods, by a network of canals.

6. The introduction of the cotton machines had, at first, a cruel effect upon the work-people. In the long run, however, it brought them vastly more work; for machine-made things being much cheaper than those made by hand, it usually happens that the demand for the cheapened article becomes so much greater as to give more employment than before in its production. But even if this were not so, it is well known now-a-days that it is useless to fight against the introduction of machines. What, for instance, would be the result, if the shoemakers of Northampton set their faces against the introduction of certain labour-saving machines commonly used in America? Unless such machines were used here, the English masters would be undersold by those in America, and the trade in consequence would fall into American hands; for, of course, people will buy where they can get most for their money.