Advance Australasia: A Day-to-Day Record of a Recent Visit to Australasia. / Second Edition.

by Frank Thomas Bullen

XIII THE PARADISE OF LABOUR

Upon landing from the steamer, and strolling up the pier towards the well-remembered Queen Street, I was puzzled to account for the fact that the pier seemed shorter than it used to be. But I set it down to my being so much younger then, and to having seen so many big things of late years. I could not, however, help feeling that the rows of big warehouses crowding along the front were much closer to the water's edge than any buildings had been in my time, and I seemed to remember also that the water used to come up into the town unhindered until it chose to retire. Now, however, its entry was severely restricted, and I was not at all surprised to learn that, along the whole water-front, over half a mile at least, one hundred yards in width of land had been reclaimed and built upon. It may be asked why, in a new country like this, it should be worth while to spend money in reclaiming land from the sea when there is so much land unoccupied. But when you learn that the price of land in the city of Auckland ranges from £20 per foot frontage up to a figure which closely approximates to that in most parts of London, and that building land in even the remote suburbs of Auckland is fetching to-day £400 per acre, you will not be surprised, however much, like myself, you wonder at the reason for this state of things.

Nevertheless, Auckland as a city is disappointing—distinctly so. It has one fine street, a really splendid wide and straight thoroughfare, but in that street there are only two decent buildings, one of which is, appropriately enough, the Auckland Savings Bank; all the rest, though some of them are pretentious enough, are mean, and unworthy of the first city of New Zealand in point of population (and some say of wealth), being either jerry-built of brick and stuccoed over, or of wood. Now, of all mean shams that my soul abhors, it is the imitation stone-building of which the early Victorian era in London furnished so many hideous examples. Good honest brick-work, or even wood-work that looks what it is, I like, but stucco, hiding, as it always does, the most slovenly and unreliable brick-work, and showing after a few weeks its misery in the shape of numberless cracks, and even crevasses (I saw one public building, before I had been five minutes ashore, which had to be propped up as if there had been an earthquake), is beneath contempt, and should never be encouraged by an independent and outspoken people. I know I shall be reminded of the lack of suitable building stone in this volcanic country, and the cost of getting stone here from other parts of New Zealand where it is abundant; but that is not to the point. There is plenty of brick—the best of brick—and abundance of the most beautiful timber the world grows, wherefore stucco, the sham of shams, should be anathema. Fortunately I shall be out of the country before the Plasterers' Union can be out after me, so I do not care.

Then there seems to be something lacking in so prosperous a city in that there are so many mean streets and only one really good thoroughfare. The city looks unkempt, dishevelled, as if it had not yet made up its mind whether to rise to the height of a metropolis or sink to the depth of a village. It looks fortuitous, and although it certainly does not fall to the level of the average American city of its size, it does not rise to the occasion like Perth, Western Australia, for instance, although comparisons are odious; but I would like to know why! On every hand may be heard tales of the abounding prosperity of the country, and I have ever found that when business men are contented with the way things are going, and say so, the visitor, more especially if he be not one to whom something may be sold in order to get rid of it, may depend upon it that things are even better than they seem. Wages are high, food is plentiful and cheap, and, indeed, all the necessaries of life are cheap in comparison with the standard of wages. Only land seems dear out of all proportion to the prosperity of the country.

This is indeed the paradise of labour. Practically all legislation is shaped with an eye to what the worker with his hands will think of it, and men who at home are classed with the demagogues, and treated as dangerous subverters of law and order, here make the laws, administer them, and rule the roost generally. I have been introduced to several men whom I should at once have recognised anywhere as journeymen carpenters, masons, plasterers, &c., with horny hands and an utter absence of the graces or delicacies of speech, and told that they were J.P.'s., members of the House of Representatives, or leaders of societies wielding enormous power. It is not necessary, nay, it is almost impossible, for strikes to occur, since every question of hours and wages is submitted to Courts of Arbitration having all the powers of legal tribunals. Strangely enough, the capitalists profess to like this state of affairs. I anxiously looked for some sign of insincerity in their remarks to me upon the subject, but could not detect any at all. So I was, and am, compelled to believe that they are at least contented to acquiesce in this condition of matters. Then it must also be remembered that many quite large employers of labour are themselves what we are pleased to call working men, that is, they still work at the bench with hammer and saw, lathe and file, among the men whom they employ, and their distance from employed to employer is not yet great enough for them to have lost touch with their men.

One splendid result of this close equality of capital with labour is that there is no room for the whining rascal who gets so much utterly undeserved sympathy and the lion's share of pauper-making doles at home, the workshy or unemployable. He could not exist here. I do not quite know what they would do with him, but I am perfectly sure that he could not live here for any length of time. It is a land of workers, not loafers; and while for the worker who is unfortunate in any way there is every help and encouragement, for the class for which our sentimentalists who call themselves socialists at home are mainly responsible, there is nothing available but elimination, and that very swiftly. This goodly position of the worker is not confined to the outside workers only, the journeyman mechanic, labourer, &c., but it extends to the class which at home with us is so terribly handicapped in small business and in large wholesale houses, counter-salesmen and clerks. The majority of shops close at six, only a few refreshment-houses, tobacconists, &c., remaining open. No such spectacle is possible here as that which I have often seen at home at certain seasons of the year, when employees must work practically all night as a set-off to the fact that they get a fortnight's holiday in the year without pay. Or of the shops which, under the stress of competition, keep their pale slaves on their feet from eight in the morning until ten at night, and on Saturdays until twelve. Everything that can be done is done in the direction of early closing, even to the hotels (there are no public-houses here) whose bars are closed rigidly at ten o'clock, and on Sundays may not open at all. Nay, so far is this carried that, if you are staying in an hotel, you may not have a visitor to see you after ten, or on Sundays at all, lest you should be tempted to offer him fluid hospitality, and thus evade the law which declares that no man may drink intoxicants during prohibited hours, except in the privacy of his own permanent or temporary home. Local Option is carried out to its fullest extent, and has some queer results where a district closed to the sale of liquor ranges with one that is open. But there is no gainsaying the fact that all that can or may be done by what we at home know by the opprobrious epithet of grandmotherly interference to discourage the consumption of strong drink, is done.

In many other ways what we call the liberty of the subject is interfered with, the distinct proviso being laid down that the law may punish any person for doing anything which is harmful to his neighbour. Which, of course, strikes at the root of monopolies, and of all those evils which usually accompany the building up of enormous fortunes out of the woes of the wage-earner. And yet, of course I suppose, there are evils attendant upon all this dry-nursing—evils which I have heard liberally descanted upon by citizens, but will not enlarge upon myself because, in the first place, I am not likely to come here to live, and next because I am too grateful for the removal of many of the horrible diseases of the body politic which are rampant at home, and can there, alas, only be cured now by drastic remedies involving much suffering to innocent people. Of course you have heard all about the old-age pension system out here, which is now about to be extended to Australia. I am not sufficient of an actuary to know what it will eventually cost, but I do know that at present it is hailed with intense satisfaction by all classes, who pride themselves upon having solved a problem that has baffled all the civilised nations. More than that, a public-spirited citizen of Auckland has erected and endowed a really beautiful building in one of the most romantically picturesque suburbs of Auckland, which is called the "Costley" home for aged people, and is on the lines of what we at home should call an almshouse or set of almshouses. Here with their pensions the old folks can, and do, live most comfortably, having entire liberty to do what they please, just as if they had retired upon a competency of their own earning. And, indeed, they are led to regard the old-age pension in that very light. In such a practical community as this it is, perhaps, superfluous to add that every care is taken to exclude from the benefits of the pension scheme all those whose habits of drunkenness and laziness have made them unworthy of its provisions. It really does not put a premium upon wasteful debauchery.

When I was last in Auckland, thirty-five years ago, I used to be much amused and interested in watching the Maories, both men and women, strolling about the streets with a lordly air of indifference to everything under the sun but their own ease and comfort. The idea of work of any kind seemed entirely foreign to their nature, and although they were gratefully taking to the white man's style of dress, it was very slowly, and the mixture of native and European costume produced some grotesque effects. It was very funny to see a Maori belle dressed from top to toe in what she had been led to consider was the height of European fashion, plump suddenly down on the nearest convenient spot and hastily remove the tight boots which had been making her hobble like a Chinese lady. Tying them together with a piece of string, she would sling them over her shoulder, then producing and lighting a short, black pipe, she would resume her leisurely way sublimely indifferent to what anybody thought of her carefree proceedings. And the older natives were often dressed in a complete native garb, save that they wore trousers. It helped one to realise how near to the native times of supremacy we were to see these calm-eyed Maories strolling along the streets gazing at the strange sights but never manifesting any surprise or even interest.