This also applies to any remarks about social conditions. As I said before, Lord Derby was most regular in writing, and begged for any news which I could send him. Having been Colonial Secretary, he retained great interest in the Dominions. He told me in one letter that he was keeping mine, as he thought they might be of use hereafter, and after his death a number were returned to me. I have also preserved many of his; but looking through them, both his and mine refer so largely to topics of the day in both hemispheres that I hardly think that voluminous extracts can be of much present interest.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD DERBY
I, however, quote a few. In one of his first letters he says:
“Writing to Australia is no easy matter. What can one say to a friend who has met with reverses? And surely there is no greater reverse in life than being turned upside down. Does it pay to be a constitutional monarch turned wrong-side up?”
To which I replied:
“Your reversed friend was delighted to get your letter; though, as my little boy says when told that he is upside down, ‘No, we are standing straight, it is the people in England who are standing on their heads now,’ which shows that he is rapidly imbibing Australian theories, and believes that whatever be the follies of the Old World, we in New South Wales must be all right.”
I do not think that I felt upside down, but nevertheless I had from time to time the feeling of having been buried and dug up again. Born and brought up in a very old house, and having both lived and travelled almost entirely among what was ancient, it was a strange experience to live where there were no relics of an Old World, and hardly any spot where history had been made in the long ago. On the other hand, Australia looked bravely forward, and was, and is, building for the future. As Lord Derby put it in another letter:
“I trust you enjoy colonial society and antipodean politics which at least have the charm of greater hopefulness than we can indulge in in this used up old country.”
Some of his accounts might almost have been written to-day; for instance, July 1891:
“The Labour party seems quite as lively with you as it is here. Questions of that class will play a considerable part at the coming elections, and many candidates who call themselves conservative will swallow pledges more than half socialistic.”