The city of Perth is in a transition stage. Scattered over the low hills of the Swan River, its situation is magnificent, and its climate superb, but it is as yet only partly built, or rather it is undergoing the gradual process of rebuilding. As the municipality becomes more wealthy, handsome houses are replacing temporary structures, so that imposing white official buildings alternate with makeshift affairs hurriedly run up in earlier days, when need was urgent and money was scarce. Perth is, then, on its way to becoming a fine town, and its public buildings are being constructed from simple designs in good taste.
PERTH, FROM “THE NARROWS.”
But what most impresses the new-comer from Europe in Australian towns is not the buildings, but the people. Here is no miserable sordid fringe of the poor and wretched. In this happy country there is no poverty. Its people are well fed, well clothed, well housed, well-to-do. Whatever her problems, and they are many and difficult, and not to be lightly pronounced upon by the casual visitor, it is the glory of Australia that she has no poor.
It appeared to us, especially in the West, that a characteristic type is developing; lean, loosely hung, wiry, with eyes deep-set from the strong sunlight. In odd contrast to European towns, men everywhere preponderate over women in the streets. Perhaps because of its newness, the attitude of the other states to Western Australia is still a little patronising. Western Australians themselves are fully conscious of this, they on their part always talk about “the East” in tones of desire: “I hope we shall go to the East next year,” is often heard in Perth. At first we thought they meant China or Japan, but we soon found that in Western Australia “the East” means Melbourne or Sydney. They stand for London or Paris, and one lady said plaintively: “If I have a nice dress, when I go to see my sister in ‘the East,’ she says, ‘You didn’t get that made in Perth.’”
Perth, however, is looking forward. She knows the time will come when she can compete fearlessly with her elder sister the capital of “the East.” Meanwhile she has achieved the acquisition of the most attractive zoological gardens of any Australian city. They are small, but charmingly laid out, the animals left free to roam about in their own little grassy paddocks. The pleasant shady walks are lined by the pretty Cape lilac, which in July is bare of leaves, but covered with clusters of yellow berries, very decorative in effect. These gardens lie on the far side of the Swan River, and a ferry-boat plies across its shining blue waters. Numbers of black and white water-fowl swim alongside, diving below and bobbing up again, or settling on a row of posts that run out from the shore, each one like a little black and white carved ornament. The gardens are a few minutes’ walk from the landing stage. We found them charming, the darker evergreens everywhere lighted up by patches of golden wattle. The kangaroos and wallabies feeding in their little enclosures hop up and put gentle inquiring noses into your hand.
Perhaps it is because the little wild Australian animals are so pathetically confiding that they are becoming extinct. The authorities do all they can to preserve them, but it appears to be inevitable, though deplorable, that the native wild animals of Australia, charming little inoffensive creatures, are becoming rarer every year, in spite of large reserves or national parks, where everything is left untouched in its wild state. Unfortunately some of the most interesting cannot be kept in captivity. This applies, for instance, so we were told, to the koala, or little tree-bear, and to the curious duck-billed platypus, a little animal covered with a wiry brown fur, with the bill of a bird, and something of the habits of our river otter. The gardens possessed a one-eyed alligator that caught pigeons in its mouth with astonishing dexterity, and swallowed them whole in two gulps; and some fascinating cranes with beautiful vermilion legs, that danced as gracefully as any ballerina. Our own visit to the gardens was pleasantly concluded by tea, which an Australian lady was hospitably dispensing to ourselves and some other English visitors.
Tea is a most important feature of Australian life. Tea comes in with the maid and hot water in the mornings, and tea is drunk at breakfast; “Morning tea” is a settled social institution. We were invited to it on several occasions, it is served at eleven o’clock. Tea next appears at or after lunch. Afternoon tea is a matter of course everywhere; but it comes in again at or after dinner, and is very often drunk the last thing at night. One would think so much tea would undermine the strongest constitution, but it is made very weak with a great deal of milk. Australians themselves feel that their indulgence in tea-drinking is rather excessive but they account for it by saying that “In the bush you cannot get anything else to drink,” and neither seek nor offer other explanation.
It was at this Perth tea-party that we first saw the brown heavily scented “boronia,” for which West Australia is famous. The tables were decorated with that and the delicate pink Geraldstown wax flower. Boronia has a small chocolate-coloured flower, yellow inside, and is so sweet that its scent is overpowering in a room or on a dinner table. The genus was named after an Italian botanist. There are many varieties in Australia, which, to the uninstructed eye, do not in the least resemble each other. Boronia megastigma, the West Australian variety, is used for the manufacture of scent, and is cultivated for sale; it is one of the most characteristic spring flowers.
We were not long in discovering that Western Australia, whatever course its future development may take, is at present a paradise for the working-man. Nowhere else is life made so pleasant and easy for him in such matters as housing and education; nowhere else are his children given such facilities for making their way in the world in their turn. To begin with, education is provided free of cost, from the primary school to the University. In the primary schools boys are given manual training, and girls are taught cooking and domestic economy. Special facilities are provided by the Government to meet the needs of scattered settlers in the bush remote from centres of population; wherever it is possible to assure an average attendance of even ten children within a radius of three miles, schools are already established. The Education Act even takes into consideration the case of isolated families, where the muster of children is less than ten; the department pays £7 a year for each child on condition that the parents find a suitable teacher, and will supplement this grant, so that he may have a minimum of £30 a year over and above the cost of his board and lodging.[2] In effect the Government pays part of the salary of a private tutor. It can be easily imagined that the education grant must be a very heavy one, in proportion to the population. It amounts, in fact, to about £1 annually for every individual in the state.