. . . . . . . . .
Years passed on. The family of Banneret had become accustomed to living at the rate of four or five thousand a year—not by any means so difficult a task as declining from that desirable income to as many hundreds. They were accredited members of the ‘Upper Ten,’ as translated into Australian Society terms.
Their parents having belonged to well-known colonial families, the young people found themselves invited to all the gaieties going. They had many old friends and relatives—some in influential positions—who stood loyally by them, so that in all the more desirable festivities, from a Government House ball or garden party, to the [131] ]annual regatta in the harbour, the available members of the family were always in the front rank. Races, hunt clubs, tennis matches—golf—water parties—theatricals—church and hospital bazaars,—they enjoyed them all: in moderation, be it spoken, always. There was no reckless abandonment to pleasure, no love of excitement for that reason only. But their temperaments held a strong infusion of la joie de vivre, which, along with energy and intelligence above the average, rendered it possible for them to combine much healthy recreation with a reasonable outlook on the great issues of life. The mild but firm parental rule was always available to restrain enthusiasm, to check impulsive imprudence. Thus all things progressed satisfactorily, in an apparently well-balanced mean between comfort and extravagance.
All reasonable indulgence in the pleasures of youth for the young people, with the calm satisfactions of middle age for the seniors, seemed assured. Not only for the present, but for years in advance, their position was unassailable by fate. Mrs. Banneret, to be sure, could not help suggesting from time to time, in a mild, tentative way, that they were too happy, the sky was too bright, the outlook too fair to last—something adverse must happen—it was unnatural that this fairyland, lotos-eating state of matters should remain unchanged!
‘My dear,’ he would make answer, ‘surely you are not going to take the part of the—a—what’s-his-name—at the feast. Must I hire a slave to repeat at intervals, “Arnold Banneret, thou art mortal”? [132] ]I have never been unthankful for the blessings which in God’s great mercy have been showered upon us. My whole being is permeated with thankfulness. In our small way we have done good according to our lights, in the way of charity and benevolence, to our fellow-creatures. But I decline to be apprehensive, in advance of disaster—for which I may state that I shall not be wholly unprepared. If it comes, we can stand up to it, as we have done before—more than once—without repining or presumption. In the meantime let us enjoy ourselves while we may.’
It was strange—passing strange—as the members of this family had occasion to reflect full many a time and oft, in the aftertime—that immediately after this conversation the great banking disaster which smote cities, towns, villages, throughout Australia, broke like a tidal wave over the land. Ancient mercantile institutions—time-honoured banks—mortgage and agency companies—loan and building companies felt the blow.
Banks on deposit, offering high rates of interest, while chiefly unsound, swept thousands of the lesser investors into a whirlpool of ruin. Fine old crusted banks, whose solvency had never been questioned, were whelmed in one common cataclysm.
A panic set in. After the first few banks and loan agencies fell, other banks and institutions hitherto unquestioned thought it good policy to go down before the blast in good company, and so profit by the general overthrow to reconstruct. This latter process consisted in writing off as great a volume of inconvenient liabilities as the [133] ]shareholding public would permit, without too great an outcry, and starting on a new, unencumbered career—free from vexatious hindrance or liability. They were much in the position of the deeply laden bark that in stormy weather, amid mountainous seas, jettisons the cargo, the weight of which may disturb buoyancy at a critical moment. It is not asserted that all interest due on deposits or debentures was sacrificed. It went into a reserve fund of deferred payments, which, after a decent interval, were eventually paid up. But many of the humbler depositors lost the savings of years, and this was the hardest part of all—being no longer able to pay the calls which were necessary for the financial existence of the institution in question. Perhaps this unsparing treatment, though apparently harsh to individuals, was the safer policy. And at this eventful period, when long-trusted financial houses in Britain tottered to their fall, the Premier of the oldest Australian colony, himself a native-born Australian, took the strong, perhaps unprecedented step of declaring bank-notes to be a legal tender. To the ordinary citizen, much more to the rural depositor, a bank-note had always represented ready cash.
The movement was well timed. It inspired confidence and calmed the apprehension of general as well as individual wreck and ruin. In a sister colony the Government of the day, with paternally indulgent policy, directed all banks to close for three days—presumably to permit time for declaration of a policy. All the banks availed themselves of this, with the exception of four, who refused to [134] ]comply with the quasi-royal edict. Three of them were old and long-established—coeval almost with the birth of the colony and the infancy of the commercial system. The fourth was comparatively new and unknown. Yet it rode out the gale as gallantly as its more dignified compeers. The news was communicated to Mr. Banneret with startling suddenness by one of his school-boy sons, who, returning from town at lunch time, it being the holiday season, greeted him with the question, ‘Father, have you heard the news?’
‘No; what is it?’