V SANE SOCIALISM
Adelaide may well be described as a staid city where the religious and intellectual element is exceedingly prominent and there is a noticeable absence of haste and bustle. There are, for the size of the city and its environs, an enormous number of literary and musical societies which keep the younger members of the community together by providing them with centres of interest. I cannot honestly say that this tends to narrowness of mind or outlook either, because so many of the members of these societies, both male and female, have travelled, if not at Home—as I gratefully note the Motherland is still called—to India, to Japan, or throughout the Australasian States. In fact, extended travel prevails here to an extent which is amazing compared with that of people with the same incomes and of the same class at home. A very large amount of the money which at home would be spent upon utterly valueless society functions and entertaining people who go away and make invidious comparisons, is here invested in travel; and so you shall find the daughters of a man whose income is only just over four figures telling you in the most casual way of their visits to the Temple of Shion-in, of the marvels of the Inland Sea, of the Taj, of Fiji, or of dear, wonderful, incomprehensible London.
And then so many of the young men were through the war in South Africa, with its wonderful effect upon the enlargement of their minds. And here comes a paradoxical state of affairs. Side by side with their utter contempt for most of the British officers as leaders of men blazes up their passionate love for the old land, and I have often wished that Messrs. C. B. & Co., with their foul "methods of barbarism" slanders and the like, could hear the opinion of alert young Australia upon them and their methods. Especially now, when there looms awfully before us, in the opinion of every one out here that I have had an opportunity of conversing with, the near prospect of another terrible South African war, directly due to the work of the present Government, aided by Messrs. Stead, Aked & Co. I say nothing upon hearing all this, for I feel ashamed that such men should be allowed to play ducks and drakes with a great nation's interest. There is, however, another side to this, to which I will allude later on.
For the present the main thought in my mind is that I am due to leave Adelaide for Melbourne. I must return again on my way home and say farewell to all these splendid folks, who have carried on the best traditions of our true hospitality at home to me. But this morning I have had a great treat. I met by invitation Mr. Watson, a great leader of the Labour party, who has been Prime Minister, and will, if I am any judge, soon be so again. He addressed a meeting last night in the Exhibition Building, at which it is estimated that some four thousand persons were present, for, as I have before said, in this land of adult suffrage, both male and female, people take their politics seriously, and the politician, professional though he be, must lead the strenuous life. This gentleman, who calls himself a Socialist, presents a curious contrast to the so-called Socialists at home of the Keir Hardie type. He is sane and gentlemanly, and from his public utterances, as well as his private conversation, I cannot imagine him lending himself to the despicable spoliation of the lower middle class that is the direct outcome of every Socialistic scheme of legislation at home. I find that Socialism here is of a very different type indeed to the brand that is presented to us in England. There are the usual cranks and Anarchists, who, bat-like, think that the remedy for all social ills is the disruption of society and the elevation of the noisy unfit to the position of equals to or masters of the quiet fit. But they are very small potatoes and few in the hill, and their meetings are farces which have to be protected by the police against the attacks of larrikins who regard them as fair game.
But then we have none of the conditions obtaining here which are so luridly described in Upton Sinclair's book upon Chicago, "The Jungle"—a book which should make the soul of every decent man everywhere to take fire, a book that shows the American magnate in his true colours, and in which the only gleam of hope is that he and his horrible class may be swept from the earth which they defile and destroy. I earnestly hope that this book may have an immense circulation in England, so that our people may really understand what is going on in the United States to-day. I have been accused of saying hard things about the United States, and with reason, but the worst I ever dreamed of after my personal acquaintance with the people is eulogy compared with this frightful catalogue of horrors of which every page contains a nightmare. It has made me look with a most benevolent eye upon the legislation here in this country, which is popularly supposed at home to be in the grip of the enemies of all human progress, but which is at any rate entirely free from the truly damnable methods of the Chicago plutocrat.
Once more, before I face the train journey, let me record the absolute perfection of the weather ever since I have been here to a visitor from home. The air has been so pure, so bracing, even keen at times, yet with none of that congealing bite in it which is the terror of weaklings both young and old at home. Of course the South Australian calls it cold, and greets me always with the remark that it is very cold to-day, with the result that I have no difficulty in finding a fruitful topic of conversation, since to me it is as nearly perfect as it can be. And with the spectacle daily before me of oranges, olives, lemons, grapes, and figs flourishing luxuriantly in the open air, the remark "very cold" seems sarcastic. But then there can be no question of the great heat here in summer, although there is no need to believe the careless dictum of men whom I occasionally meet, that 120° Fahr. in the shade is a common summer temperature here. That only shows the haziness of the average mind with regard to temperatures. With such heat as they do have here in summer, however, there is little wonder that the native-born or the acclimatised citizen does feel as very cold weather that which to us fresh from Britain is delightful beyond adjectives.
And now, at 4.30, I bid goodbye to beautiful Adelaide with its hospitable, genial citizens, and in a cosy compartment of the train watch the lovely landscape glide by as we ascend the hills on our way to Melbourne.
It is delightful travelling, especially as at stated stations there are refreshment-rooms where good and ample meals of well-cooked food are ready, and ample time is allowed for eating them. All prices in these restaurants are fixed by the Government, who own the railways and lease the catering to speculators under most stringent rules as to quality and prices. The result is the best railway meals that I have ever eaten in the world, and also by far the cheapest, indeed the prices are marvellous in their moderation as compared with Europe or America. The rate of travelling is not so rapid, but as the journey is mainly at night that matters little as long as the traveller reaches Melbourne in time to begin business as early as possible in the morning. We had, so I was informed, being personally entirely unconscious of it, a breakdown during the night which delayed us an hour in arriving at Ballarat, some three hours' journey from Melbourne. But we were there at 7.30, and found a hot and copious breakfast awaiting us, of all those things which are peculiarly associated with that meal; the charge was one shilling, or the impecunious could have a huge cup of coffee and a roll and butter for sixpence—a much dearer bite than the full breakfast of sausages, or fish, or ham and eggs, or chops or steaks, with potatoes and bread for double the money. But then it is a lavish land in the matter of food. There are no niggling extras here.
We had only twenty minutes here, so that any extended observation of the flourishing town of about forty thousand inhabitants which stretched away on the level plain on either side of the railway line was impossible, but I looked eagerly around on the well-built houses and wide streets of the town which for its size has probably produced more gold than any other spot in the world. I thought of the wild days of the rush when Port Philip was congested with ships denuded of their crews, when Melbourne was merely a place through which the panting, fiercely eager crowds toiled on their way to the new Eldorado, or returned flushed with success to waste in most hideous debauchery and riot what had cost them such terrible toil to win. All that frenzied fight for gold has gone now, except an occasional fit of madness on a Stock Exchange on the report of one of the companies having "struck it rich"—reports that I believe are sometimes engineered by interested parties for the purpose of unloading worthless shares upon that vast confiding amorphous body, the public.
No, the fat days of the individual gold miner have gone and the workers are now paid and employed in much the same way as they would be if the spoil they sought were coal or iron instead of gold. All the resources of science must be called in to make the business pay at the high price of labour, and the depths to which the burrowing men go in search of the thin veins of payable material is measured now by thousands of feet; and still they go deeper. But Ballarat and its sister gold-producing town, Bendigo, have long ago sowed their wild oats and are as quiet and church-going and generally respectable as any places in the Australian States. They look it too, and I have only to mention the fact that eleven o'clock is closing time for all public-houses (hotels the wise them call out here), and that the Sunday Closing Act is in full operation, to show that the purveyor of intoxicants has many hindrances placed upon his liberty to do as he likes. Gambling is rife, of course, but alas! where is it not in this country eating the heart out of all classes, but especially, as at home, out of those who are least able to afford it, the mechanics? However, as this is the subject I must refer to continually because of its tremendous prominence and effect upon the people, I will leave it now as we are speeding along towards Melbourne through immense areas of level, rich land studded with stumps and supporting flocks of scattered sheep. The approach to Melbourne by rail is so level that almost before you have realised that you are near the city the masts of the huge sailing ships lying in the Yarra Docks are visible, to my utter confusion of locality, because in my recollection the place where such ships lay was Sandridge, Geelong, or Williamstown, the first-named and nearest being about four miles from the city and situated, like the other two, on the shores of Hobson's Bay. But as we draw nearer, and I see the towering buildings apparently grouping themselves about the ships, it occurs to me that I have heard of the deepening of Melbourne's little river until ships of almost any tonnage can come right up into the city itself and lie there as they do in London.