CHAPTER XIII *
Eight Hours Day in Melbourne—The Australian Born—
Australians and the Mother Country—The Governor—The
Sydney Bulletin—The Englishman in Australia—Australian
Journalism—The Theatres—The Creed of Athleticism—The
Future.
It is many years since I saw a sight which so pricked and stirred my blood as the final episode of the procession of Eight Hours Day in Melbourne. The day was wintry and dismal. Early rains had threatened the dispersal of the patient crowds which lined the roads; the pavements were muddy and the sky was lowering. The march of the trades bodies did little to dispel the gloom of the day for the one onlooker concerning whose sentiments I am authorised to speak. The vast crowd gave each trade a reception as it passed, and sometimes the marchers passed below the Treasury windows and cheered the governor. There was plenty of noise and enthusiasm, but I was unawakened until the tail-end of the procession came. Two brakes drew up below the governor's standing-place, and some score of grey-bearded men rose up in these vehicles and waved their hats with vigour, whilst the whole orderly mob roared applause at them and Lord Hopetoun himself clapped his hands like a pleased boy at the theatre. All the men in the two brakes were elderly and grey-headed, but as far as I could see, they were all stalwart and able-bodied, and the faces of a good many were bronzed with years of sun and wind. Over the leading vehicle was suspended a strip of white cloth, and on this was painted the words, “The Pioneers.” These men were the makers of Victoria, the fathers of the proud and populous city which lay widespread about us. There is no need to be eloquent about Melbourne. Too many people have sung its praises already. But it is one of the cities of the world; it has a population of over half a million; it has its churches, its chapels, its synagogues, its theatres, its hotels; it is as well furnished in most respects as any other city of its size; and these grey men yet staunch in body, bronzed and bright-eyed, were among the beginners of it. When I first visited Melbourne I was introduced to a man who, between the present site of the Roman Catholic Cathedral and the present site of the Town Hall, had been “bushed” for a whole day and lost in the virgin forest. I knew already how young the city was, how strangely rapid its growth had been; but I did not realise what I knew, and these elderly strangers' bodily presence made my thought concrete. That beautifully appropriate and dramatic finish struck the same chord of wonder, but with a fuller sound.
* These Antipodean notes, dealing with the conditions of
some twenty years ago, have lost nothing of their vivid
interest by the lapse of time, and illustrate in a
remarkable manner the process of history being made for the
world, while it hardly has time to wait.
The city is commonplace enough in itself, but the Victorian, quite justifiably, refuses to think so. Men come back from London, and Paris, and Vienna, and New York, and think Melbourne the finer for the contrast. In reality, it is very very far from being so; but it is useless to reason with patriotism and its convictions. The men of Victoria run devotion to their soil to an extreme. I was told an exquisite story, for the truth of which I had a solemn voucher, though it carries its evidences of veracity and needs no bolstering from without. An Australian-born—he came of course from that Gascony of the Antipodes which has Melbourne for its capital—visited the home country. An old friend of his father was his cicerone in London and took him, amongst other places, to Westminster Abbey, and “There, my young friend,” said the Englishman, when they had explored the noble old building, “you have nothing like that in Australia.” “My word,” said the colonial export, “no fear! You should just see the Scotch church at Ballarat!”
The tale is typical. I would tell it, in the hope that he would find it an open-sesame to many things, to any fair-minded and observant man who was going out to Victoria. It is a little outrageous to the stranger, but in it the general public sentiment is drawn in grand oudines, magnified many times, but not in the least caricatured. The patriotic prejudice goes everywhere. It lives at the very roots of life. Truthful men will tell you that London is vilely supplied with cabs in comparison with Melbourne. They believe it. They will tell you that the flavours of English meats, game, fruits and vegetables are vastly inferior to those they know at home. And they believe it. To the unprejudiced observer Melbourne is the worst cabbed city in the world, or amongst the worst. A gourmet would find a residence in Australia a purgatory. For my own part, I have learned in a variety of rough schools at whatsoever meat I sit therewith to be content. In matters of gourmandise I am content wi' little and cantie wi' mair.
But, Shade of Savarin! How I relish my morning sole, after two years banishment from that delicious creature! How I savour my saddle of mutton! What a delightful thing I now know my English strawberry to be! But to the New South Welshman my doctrine is a stumbling-block and to the Victorian it is foolishness. Mr Sala preached it years ago and the connoisseurs of the Greater Britain of the south have never forgiven him.
Another patriotic delusion is the glorious climate. The plain fact is that there is no such thing as a climate. They take their weather in laminae, set on end. You walk from the tropics to the pole in five minutes. A meteorological astonishment lies in wait at every corner of the street. It blows hot, it blows cold, it scorches, it freezes, it rains, it shines, and all within the compass of an hour. Yet these wonderful Australians love their weather. Other people would endure it. They brag about it. I think they must be the happiest people in the world.
By the way, I must qualify, before I forget to do so, the judgment expressed above with respect to the Australian table. I tasted in Adelaide a favourable specimen of the wild turkey, and I believe it to be the noblest of game birds. Its flavour is exquisite and you may carve at its bounteous breast for quite a little army of diners. And the remembrance of one friendly feast puts me in mind of many. Is there anywhere else on the surface of our planet a hospitality so generous, so free and boundless, as that extended to the stranger in Australia? If there be I have not known it. They meet you with so complete a welcome. They envelop you with kindness. There is no arrière pensée in their cordiality, no touch lacking in sincerity. This is a characteristic of the country. The native born Australian differs in many respects from the original stock, but in this particular he remains unchanged. You present a letter of introduction and this makes you the immediate friend of its recipient. He spares no pains to learn what you desire and then his whole aim and business in life for the moment is to fulfil your wishes. Your host will probably be less polished than an Englishman living in a like house and boasting an equal income, but his bonhomie is unsurpassed. I used to think there was nothing like an English welcome. Australia has killed that bit of English prejudice.
This very openness of welcome, the sincerity of heart in which your host stands before you, is the means whereby the traveller first learns to be dissatisfied. He has come out with his own judgment of things raying from him in all directions—a very porcupine of pre-conception. He is not merely persuaded that the colonies are loyal but he is certain they are loyal after his own conceptions of loyalty.