The Australians are really a very good-natured people. It runs through the whole race, high and low. A very exalted person, the Minister of War, shares our flat in the hotel, his bedroom being imbedded among our rooms. This is General Sir Granville Ryrie, a famous hero of Palestine, covered with wounds and medals – a man, too, of great dignity of bearing. As I was dressing one morning I heard some rather monotonous whistling and, forgetting the very existence of the General, and taking it for granted that it was my eldest boy Denis, I put my head out and said, "Look here, old chap, consider other people's nerves and give up that rotten habit of whistling before breakfast." Imagine my feelings when the deep voice of the General answered, "All right, Sir Arthur, I will!" We laughed together over the incident afterwards, and I told him that he had furnished me with one more example of Australian good humour for my notes.
On October 13th I was at the prosperous 50,000 population town of Bendigo, which every one, except the people on the spot, believes to have been named after the famous boxer. This must surely be a world record, for so far as my memory serves, neither a Grecian Olympic athletic, nor a Roman Gladiator, nor a Byzantine Charioteer, has ever had a city for a monument. Borrow, who looked upon a good honest pugilist as the pick of humanity, must have rejoiced in it. Is not valour the basis of all character, and where shall we find greater valour than theirs? Alas, that most of them began and ended there! It is when the sage and the saint build on the basis of the fighter that you have the highest to which humanity can attain.
I had a full hall at Bendigo, and it was packed, I am told, by real old-time miners, for, of course, Bendigo is still the centre of the gold mining industry. Mr. Smythe told me that it was quite a sight to see those rows of deeply-lined, bearded faces listening so intently to what I said of that destiny which is theirs as well as mine. I never had a better audience, and it was their sympathy which helped me through, for I was very weary that night. But however weary you may be, when you climb upon the platform to talk about this subject, you may be certain that you will be less weary when you come off. That is my settled conviction after a hundred trials.
On the morning after my lecture I found myself half a mile nearer to dear Old England, for I descended the Unity mine, and they say that the workings extend to that depth. Perhaps I was not at the lowest level, but certainly it was a long journey in the cage, and reminded me of my friend Bang's description of the New York elevator, when he said that the distance to his suburban villa and his town flat was the same, but the one was horizontal and the other perpendicular.
It was a weird experience that peep into the profound depths of the great gold mine. Time was when the quartz veins were on the surface for the poor adventurer to handle. Now they have been followed underground, and only great companies and costly machinery can win it. Always it is the same white quartz vein with the little yellow specks and threads running through it. We were rattled down in pitch darkness until we came to a stop at the end of a long passage dimly lit by an occasional guttering candle. Carrying our own candles, and clad in miner's costume we crept along with bent heads until we came suddenly out into a huge circular hall which might have sprung from Doré's imagination. The place was draped with heavy black shadows, but every here and there was a dim light. Each light showed where a man was squatting toad-like, a heap of broken debris in front of him, turning it over, and throwing aside the pieces with clear traces of gold. These were kept for special treatment, while the rest of the quartz was passed in ordinary course through the mill. These scattered heaps represented the broken stuff after a charge of dynamite had been exploded in the quartz vein. It was strange indeed to see these squatting figures deep in the bowels of the earth, their candles shining upon their earnest faces and piercing eyes, and to reflect that they were striving that the great exchanges of London and New York might be able to balance with bullion their output of paper. This dim troglodyte industry was in truth the centre and mainspring of all industries, without which trade would stop. Many of the men were from Cornwall, the troll among the nations, where the tools of the miner are still, as for two thousand years, the natural heritage of the man. Dr. Stillwell, the geologist of the company, and I had a long discussion as to where the gold came from, but the only possible conclusion was that nobody knew. We know now that the old alchemists were perfectly right and that one metal may change into another. Is it possible that under some conditions a mineral may change into a metal? Why should quartz always be the matrix? Some geological Darwin will come along some day and we shall get a great awakening, for at present we are only disguising our own ignorance in this department of knowledge. I had always understood that quartz was one of the old igneous primeval rocks, and yet here I saw it in thin bands, sandwiched in between clays and slates and other water-borne deposits. The books and the strata don't agree.
These smaller towns, like the Metropolis itself, are convulsed with the great controversy between Prohibition and Continuance, no reasonable compromise between the two being suggested. Every wall displays posters, on one side those very prosperous-looking children who demand that some restraint be placed upon their daddy, and on the other hair-raising statements as to the financial results of restricting the publicans. To the great disgust of every decent man they have run the Prince into it, and some remark of his after his return to England has been used by the liquor party. It is dangerous for royalty to be jocose in these days, but this was a particularly cruel example of the exploitation of a harmless little joke. If others felt as I did I expect it cost the liquor interest many a vote.
We had another séance, this time with Mrs. Knight MacLellan, after my return from Bendigo. She is a lady who has grown grey in the service of the cult, and who made a name in London when she was still a child by her mediumistic powers. We had nothing of an evidential character that evening save that one lady who had recently lost her son had his description and an apposite message given. It was the first of several tests which we were able to give this lady, and before we left Melbourne she assured us that she was a changed woman and her sorrow for ever gone.
On October 18th began a very delightful experience, for my wife and I, leaving our party safe in Melbourne, travelled up country to be the guests of the Hon. Agar Wynne and his charming wife at their station of Nerrin-Nerrin in Western Victoria. It is about 140 miles from Melbourne, and as the trains are very slow, the journey was not a pleasant one. But that was soon compensated for in the warmth of the welcome which awaited us. Mr. Agar Wynne was Postmaster-General of the Federal Government, and author of several improvements, one of which, the power of sending long letter-telegrams at low rates during certain hours was a triumph of common sense. For a shilling one could send quite a long communication to the other end of the Continent, but it must go through at the time when the telegraph clerk had nothing else to do.
It was interesting to us to find ourselves upon an old-established station, typical of the real life of Australia, for cities are much the same the world over. Nerrin had been a sheep station for eighty years, but the comfortable verandahed bungalow house, with every convenience within it, was comparatively modern. What charmed us most, apart from the kindness of our hosts, was a huge marsh or lagoon which extended for many miles immediately behind the house, and which was a bird sanctuary, so that it was crowded with ibises, wild black swans, geese, ducks, herons and all sorts of fowl. We crept out of our bedroom in the dead of the night and stood under the cloud-swept moon listening to the chorus of screams, hoots, croaks and whistles coming out of the vast expanse of reeds. It would make a most wonderful hunting ground for a naturalist who was content to observe and not to slay. The great morass of Nerrin will ever stand out in our memories.
Next day we were driven round the borders of this wonderful marsh, Mr. Wynne, after the Australian fashion, taking no note of roads, and going right across country with alarming results to anyone not used to it. Finally, the swaying and rolling became so terrific that he was himself thrown off the box seat and fell down between the buggy and the front wheel, narrowly escaping a very serious accident. He was able to show us the nests and eggs which filled the reed-beds, and even offered to drive us out into the morass to inspect them, a proposal which was rejected by the unanimous vote of a full buggy. I never knew an answer more decidedly in the negative. As we drove home we passed a great gum tree, and half-way up the trunk was a deep incision where the bark had been stripped in an oval shape some four foot by two. It was where some savage in days of old had cut his shield. Such a mark outside a modern house with every amenity of cultured life is an object lesson of how two systems have over-lapped, and how short a time it is since this great continent was washed by a receding wave, ere the great Anglo-Saxon tide came creeping forward.
Apart from the constant charm of the wild life of the marsh there did not seem to be much for the naturalist around Nerrin. Opossums bounded upon the roof at night and snakes were not uncommon. A dangerous tiger-snake was killed on the day of our arrival. I was amazed also at the size of the Australian eels. A returned soldier had taken up fishing as a trade, renting a water for a certain time and putting the contents, so far as he could realise them, upon the market. It struck me that after this wily digger had passed that way there would not be much for the sportsman who followed him. But the eels were enormous. He took a dozen at a time from his cunning eel-pots, and not one under six pounds. I should have said that they were certainly congers had I seen them in England.
I wonder whether all this part of the country has not been swept by a tidal wave at some not very remote period. It is a low coastline with this great lava plain as a hinterland, and I can see nothing to prevent a big wave even now from sweeping the civilisation of Victoria off the planet, should there be any really great disturbance under the Pacific. At any rate, it is my impression that it has actually occurred once already, for I cannot otherwise understand the existence of great shallow lakes of salt water in these inland parts. Are they not the pools left behind by that terrible tide? There are great banks of sand, too, here and there on the top of the lava which I can in no way account for unless they were swept here in some tremendous world-shaking catastrophe which took the beach from St. Kilda and threw it up at Nerrin. God save Australia from such a night as that must have been if my reading of the signs be correct.
One of the sights of Nerrin is the shearing of the sheep by electric machinery. These sheep are merinos, which have been bred as wool-producers to such an extent that they can hardly see, and the wool grows thick right down to their hoofs. The large stately creature is a poor little shadow when his wonderful fleece has been taken from him. The electric clips with which the operation is performed, are, I am told, the invention of a brother of Garnet Wolseley, who worked away at the idea, earning the name of being a half-crazy crank, until at last the invention materialised and did away with the whole slow and clumsy process of the hand-shearer. It is not, however, a pleasant process to watch even for a man, far less a sensitive woman, for the poor creatures get cut about a good deal in the process. The shearer seizes a sheep, fixes him head up between his knees, and then plunges the swiftly-moving clippers into the thick wool which covers the stomach. With wonderful speed he runs it along and the creature is turned out of its covering, and left as bare as a turkey in a poulterer's window, but, alas, its white and tender skin is too often gashed and ripped with vivid lines of crimson by the haste and clumsiness of the shearer. It was worse, they say, in the days of the hand-shearer. I am bound to say, however, that the creature makes no fuss about it, remains perfectly still, and does not appear to suffer any pain. Nature is often kinder than we know, even to her most humble children, and some soothing and healing process seems to be at work.
The shearers appear to be a rough set of men, and spend their whole time moving in gangs from station to station, beginning up in the far north and winding up on the plains of South Australia. They are complete masters of the situation, having a powerful union at their back. They not only demand and receive some two pounds a day in wages, but they work or not by vote, the majority being able to grant a complete holiday. It is impossible to clip a wet sheep, so that after rain there is an interval of forced idleness, which may be prolonged by the vote of the men. They work very rapidly, however, when they are actually at it, and the man who tallies most fleeces, called "the ringer," receives a substantial bonus. When the great shed is in full activity it is a splendid sight with the row of stooping figures, each embracing his sheep, the buzz of the shears, the rush of the messengers who carry the clip to the table, the swift movements of the sorters who separate the perfect from the imperfect wool, and the levering and straining of the packers who compress it all into square bundles as hard as iron with 240 pounds in each. With fine wool at the present price of ninety-six pence a pound it is clear that each of these cubes stands for nearly a hundred pounds.
They are rich men these sheep owners – and I am speaking here of my general inquiry and not at all of Nerrin. On a rough average, with many local exceptions, one may say that an estate bears one sheep to an acre, and that the sheep may show a clear profit of one pound in the year. Thus, after the first initial expense is passed, and when the flock has reached its full, one may easily make an assessment of the owner's income. Estates of 10,000 acres are common, and they run up to 50,000 and 60,000 acres. They can be run so cheaply that the greater part of income is clear profit, for when the land is barb-wired into great enclosures no shepherds are needed, and only a boundary rider or two to see that all is in order. These, with a few hands at lambing time, and two or three odd-job men at the central station, make up the whole staff. It is certainly the short cut to a fortune if one can only get the plant running.
Can a man with a moderate capital get a share of these good things? Certainly he can if he have grit and a reasonable share of that luck which must always be a factor in Nature's processes. Droughts, floods, cyclones, etc., are like the zero at Monte Carlo, which always may turn up to defeat the struggling gamester. I followed several cases where small men had managed to make good. It is reckoned that the man who gets a holding of from 300 to 500 acres is able on an average in three years to pay off all his initial expenses and to have laid the foundations of a career which may lead to fortune. One case was a London baker who knew nothing of the work. He had 300 acres and had laid it out in wheat, cows, sheep and mixed farming. He worked from morning to night, his wife was up at four, and his child of ten was picking up stones behind the furrow. But he was already making his £500 a year. The personal equation was everything. One demobilised soldier was doing well. Another had come to smash. Very often a deal is made between the small man and the large holder, by which the latter lets the former a corner of his estate, taking a share, say one-third, of his profits as rent. That is a plan which suits everyone, and the landlord can gradually be bought out by the "cockatoo farmer," as he is styled.
There is a great wool-clip this year, and prices in London are at record figures, so that Australia, which only retains 17 per cent. of her own wool, should have a very large sum to her credit. But she needs it. When one considers that the debt of this small community is heavier now than that of Great Britain before the war, one wonders how she can ever win through. But how can anyone win through? I don't think we have fairly realised the financial problem yet, and I believe that within a very few years there will be an International Council which will be compelled to adopt some such scheme as the one put forward by my friend, Mr. Stilwell, under the name of "The Great Plan." This excellent idea was that every nation should reduce its warlike expenditure to an absolute minimum, that the difference between this minimum and the 1914 pre-war standard should be paid every year to a central fund, and that international bonds be now drawn upon the security of that fund, anticipating not its present amount but what it will represent in fifty years' time. It is, in fact, making the future help the present, exactly as an estate which has some sudden great call upon it might reasonably anticipate or mortgage its own development. I believe that the salvation of the world may depend upon some such plan, and that the Council of the League of Nations is the agency by which it could be made operative.
Australia has had two plants which have been a perfect curse to her as covering the land and offering every impediment to agriculture. They are the Spinnifex in the West and the Mallee scrub in the East. The latter was considered a hopeless proposition, and the only good which could be extracted from it was that the root made an ideal fire, smouldering long and retaining heat. Suddenly, however, a genius named Lascelles discovered that this hopeless Mallee land was simply unrivalled for wheat, and his schemes have now brought seven million acres under the plough. This could hardly have been done if another genius, unnamed, had not invented a peculiar and ingenious plough, the "stump-jump plough," which can get round obstacles without breaking itself. It is not generally known that Australia really heads the world for the ingenuity and efficiency of her agricultural machinery. There is an inventor and manufacturer, MacKay, of Sunshine, who represents the last word in automatic reapers, etc. He exports them, a shipload at a time, to the United States, which, if one considers the tariff which they have to surmount, is proof in itself of the supremacy of the article. With this wealth of machinery the real power of Australia in the world is greater than her population would indicate, for a five-million nation, which, by artificial aid, does the work normally done by ten million people, becomes a ten-million nation so far as economic and financial strength is concerned.
On the other hand, Australia has her hindrances as well as her helps. Certainly the rabbits have done her no good, though the evil is for the moment under control. An efficient rabbiter gets a pound a day, and he is a wise insurance upon any estate, for the creatures, if they get the upper-hand, can do thousands of pounds' worth of damage. This damage takes two shapes. First, they eat on all the grass and leave nothing at all for the sheep. Secondly, they burrow under walls, etc., and leave the whole place an untidy ruin. Little did the man who introduced the creature into Australia dream how the imprecations of a continent would descend upon him.
Alas! that we could not linger at Nerrin; but duty was calling at Melbourne. Besides, the days of the Melbourne Cup were at hand, and not only was Mr. Wynne a great pillar of the turf, but Mr. Osborne, owner of one of the most likely horses in the race, was one of the house-party. To Melbourne therefore we went. We shall always, however, be able in our dreams to revisit that broad verandah, the low hospitable façade, the lovely lawn with its profusion of scented shrubs, the grove of towering gum trees, where the opossums lurked, and above all the great marsh where with dark clouds drifting across the moon we had stolen out at night to hear the crying of innumerable birds. That to us will always be the real Australia.