Harry Lawson has drawn us some grim pictures of life in the back blocks. It is often bad enough for the large landowner and his womenkind. But they have books, and papers, and motors—which have revolutionized country life in Australia more than anything else. They can take occasional runs up to town, and have friends to stay with them, so that existence becomes endurable in a way that it never could become to the small settlers, and it seems to me that before such people are uprooted it would be well to face clearly the question as to whether those who replace them will ever be able, or willing, to endure the life which they must face—conditions which will appear far more appalling to strangers than to people who have been bred and born in the country, and who possess, as all Australians seem to do, the most amazing powers of rebound. “John Barleycorn got up again and sore surprised them all” might be said of many a man and many a district in Australia. One of the most extraordinary things about the people being that they will live in absolute loneliness, facing drought, heat, and loss, toiling incredibly to get their stock fed and watered, watching them die day after day during a bad season; and then, when good times come, start again at the very beginning, with as gay a spirit as ever, absolutely unembittered by all the hardships through which they have passed.
Usually the spring might be expected, in its rebound, to fly too far in the opposite direction; but, oddly enough, men who have hardly seen a woman, or sat down to a decent meal for months; or known what it was to have a moment’s relaxation, or pleasure, or sport, will come up to Melbourne and enjoy themselves in as well-ordered a fashion as though they had been living in the very lap of civilization and luxury. In most countries where men had lived as these men had lived, there would be the wildest orgies and excesses, and all sorts of tragedies to follow; but the Australian possesses more than his share of “horse sense”—he also possesses a sense of humour which is mainly, I believe, the greatest reason for his not making a fool of himself.
Of course, men still go “on the bust,” cheques are planked down, and “shouting”—the Australian equivalent for “treating”—indulged in till all the money is finished. But, even so, the men are good-tempered, and it is not a case of shooting everyone who does not happen to be as thirsty as they are; while on the Australian gold-fields, from the very beginning, the record of crime and lawlessness has been far less than in other countries. I remember one story which shows the inspiring joy—even in anticipation—of planking down a cheque that strikes me as delightfully characteristic. A new-chum arrived at a shearing-shed and asked his way to a township some thirty miles distant. None of the men were able themselves to direct him, as they, too, were new to that district, but referred him to the cook, who, they declared, had been there. “Why, yes,” acknowledged that worthy when appealed to; “I’ve been there right enough; but I’m blessed if I remember the road. Ye see, mister, it was like this: I wur only along that way once, an’ I wur goin’ ter cash a cheque.”
An old book by an early Australian settler tells another characteristic story. A clergyman arrived at a far-away station at shearing-time, and was put up there for a few days, which happened to include a Sunday, when he expressed himself very desirous of holding a service for the shearers. As one may imagine, his host was rather torn in two between his desire to please his guest and not set all his men’s backs up. Anyhow, on Sunday morning he proposed riding on to the wool-shed—three miles’ distance—in advance, and preparing the congregation. As he expected, none of the men had a moment of time to spare; there were shears to sharpen, clothes to wash and mend; one man declared he was a Catholic, and had never been inside a church in his life; and the cook and his boy had dinner to prepare for thirty men.
Then the boss changed his tone, and declared: “Every man who attends the service in the wool-shed in half an hour’s time, and behaves himself in an orderly and respectful manner, shall have a glass of rum served out to him after the service.”
It was the greatest success. The men—as such men will—played fair; and years after that very clergyman, then become a high dignitary of the Church, described in a book on the Colonies the picturesque incident: the service in the wool-shed, with the wool-press as a pulpit, and the absorbed congregation of shearers and washers.
On another occasion it struck a visiting clergyman, who was merely travelling through the country, that there must be an enormous number of children who had never been baptized. As it was a slack season, he somehow inveigled the squatter at whose homestead he was staying to start out with him on a sort of camping expedition, during which they rode close on a hundred miles, meeting with several families of shepherds, whose children they baptized, often to the great indignation of the parents, who imagined some slur was thereby cast on the management of their progeny. One matron, however, declared that she was quite willing that her brood should be christened if only they could be caught. They were as wild as kangaroos, and as they had bolted into the scrub at the first sight of strange faces, the only thing possible was to ride them down and literally drag them by force into the Church’s fold. The highly amused squatter officiated at this ceremony both as godfather and godmother, and, I presume, whipper-in, though he declared himself as thankful never to have met any of his god-children in after-years.
The Australians, up to this day—though they are as good as most, and better than many—do not trouble themselves overmuch about the forms of religion, while just the same strenuous efforts are still made to gather wandering sheep more securely into the fold. Some years ago Parliament actually dared to attempt to interfere with the people’s Sunday, and an Act was passed which stopped all local and excursion trains running on Sunday mornings. Needless to say this law was short-lived, and endured, I forget exactly for how long, but certainly only a month or two. At the present time there is no Sunday post, and no second delivery of milk; but these regulations stand more for the benefit of the workpeople than the Church, I believe; while now the Postmaster-General is absolving all men in his department from Sunday labour who can plead “conscientious objections.” I believe that inquiries as to how these objectors spend their Sundays have been set on foot, with the result that fishing, cricket, and billiards have been found to rank highest in their esteem. Apparently it has not occurred to the Postmaster to try rum, as the more man-wise squatter did.
Oddly enough, even the Boer War has not diffused an idea, which is very general, that the Australian working-man is divided into two types—the luxurious, lazy, arrogant holiday-maker and the rollicking cow-boy sort of person. For myself, I should say that the town man, artisan or labourer, is much the same as in any other country, with the added—but quite unimportant—defects and virtues of his time and place. He is more cocksure, but he is also more self-respecting, than the labourer at home. He works less uninterruptedly, but he works harder while he is at it, though with less appearance of sweat and fever, merely because he is better fed, and all the conditions of his life are more wholesome, while his hours are shorter; but otherwise he is much the same as elsewhere.
In the country districts the difference is far more pronounced. “Away back” the shepherd and cattle-man is more ignorant than most of his fellows at home, but he is more resourceful; he has more spirit and more pluck. If the country is not new to him, it was new to his father or grandfather, and it needed all their power of resource and adaptability to get on in it.