Part 31 (1/2)
Australian manners, like the American, resemble the French rather than the British--a resemblance traceable, perhaps, to the essential democracy of Australia, America, and France. One surface point which catches the eye in any Australian ball-room, or on any race-course, is clearly to be referred to the habit of mind produced by democracy--the fact, namely, that the women dress with great expense and care, the men with none whatever. This, as a rule, is true of Americans, Australians, and French.
Unlike as are the Australians to the British, there is nevertheless a singular mimicry of British forms and ceremonies in the colonies, which is extended to the most trifling details of public life. Twice in Australia was I invited to ministerial dinners, given to mark the approaching close of the session; twice also was I present at university celebrations, in which home whimsicalities were closely copied. The governors' messages to the Colonial Parliaments are travesties of those which custom in England leads us to call ”the Queen's.” The very phraseology is closely followed. We find Sir J. Manners b.u.t.ton gravely saying: ”The representatives of the government of New South Wales and of _my_ government have agreed to an arrangement on the border duties....” The ”my” in a democratic country like Victoria strikes a stranger as pre-eminently incongruous, if not absurd.
The imitation of Cambridge forms by the University of Sydney is singularly close. One almost expects to see the familiar blue gown of the ”bull-dog” thrown across the arm of the first college servant met within its precincts. Chancellor, Vice-chancellor, Senate, Syndicates, and even Proctors, all are here in the antipodes. Registrar, professors, ”seniors,” fees, and ”pet.i.tions with the University seal attached;”
”Board of Cla.s.sical Studies”--the whole corporation sits in borrowed plumage; the very names of the colleges are being imitated: we find already a St. John's. The Calendar reads like a parody on the volume issued every March by Messrs. Deighton. Rules upon matriculation, upon the granting of _testamurs_; prize-books stamped with college arms are named, _ad eundem_ degrees are known, and we have imitations of phraseology even in the announcement of prizes to ”the most distinguished candidates for honors in each of the aforesaid schools,”
and in the list of subjects for the Moral Science tripos. Lent Term, Trinity Term, Michaelmas Term, take the place of the Spring, Summer, and Fall Terms of the less pretentious inst.i.tutions in America, and the height of absurdity is reached in the regulations upon ”academic costume,” and on the ”respectful salutation” by undergraduates of the ”fellows and professors” of the University. The situation on a hot-wind day of a member of the Senate, in ”black silk gown, with hood of scarlet cloth edged with white fur, and lined with blue silk, black velvet trencher cap,” all in addition to his ordinary clothing, it is to be presumed, can be imagined only by those who know what hot winds are. We English are great acclimatizers: we have carried trial by jury to Bengal, tenant-right to Oude, and caps and gowns to be worn over loongee and paejama at Calcutta University. Who are we, that we should cry out against the French for ”carrying France about with them everywhere”?
The objects of the founders are set forth in the charter as ”the advancement of religion and morality, and the promotion of useful knowledge;” but as there is no theological faculty, no religious test or exercise whatever, the philosophy of the first portion of the phrase is not easily understood.
In no Western inst.i.tutions is the radicalism of Western thought so thoroughly manifested as in the Universities; in no English colonial inst.i.tutions is Conservatism so manifest. The contrast between Michigan and Sydney is far more striking than that between Harvard and old Cambridge.
Of the religious position of Australia there is little to be said: the Wesleyans, Catholics, and Presbyterians are stronger, and the other denominations weaker, than they are at home. The general mingling of incongruous objects and of conflicting races, characteristic of colonial life, extends to religious buildings. The graceful Wesleyan church, the Chinese joss-house, and the Catholic cathedral stand not far apart in Melbourne. In Australia, the mixture of blood is not yet great. In South Australia, where it is most complete, the Catholics and Wesleyans have great strength. Anglicanism is naturally strongest where the race is most exclusively British--in Tasmania and New South Wales.
As far as the coast tracts are concerned, Australia, as will be seen from what has been said of the individual colonies, is rapidly ceasing to be a land of great tenancies, and becoming a land of small freeholds, each cultivated by its owner. It need hardly be pointed out that, in the interests of the country and of the race, this is a happy change. When English rural laborers commence to fully realize the misery of their position, they will find not only America, but Australia also, open to them as a refuge and future home. Looming in the distance, we still, however, see the American problem of whether the Englishman can live out of England. Can he thrive except where mist and damp preserve the juices of his frame? He comes from the fogs of the Baltic sh.o.r.es, and from the Flemish lowlands; gains in vigor in the south island of New Zealand. In Australia and America--hot and dry--the type has already changed. Will it eventually disappear?
It is still an open question whether the change of type among the English in America and Australia is a climatic adaptation on the part of nature, or a temporary divergence produced by abnormal causes, and capable of being modified by care.
Before we had done our talk, the s.h.i.+p was p.o.o.ped by a green sea, which, curling in over her taffrail, swept her decks from end to end, and our helmsmen, although regular old ”hard-a-weather” fellows, had difficulty in keeping her upon her course. It was the last of the gale, and when we made up our beds upon the skylights, the heavens were clear of scud, though the moon was still c.r.a.ped with a ceaseless roll of cloud.
CHAPTER XV.
COLONIES.
When a Briton takes a survey of the colonies, he finds much matter for surprise in the one-sided nature of the partners.h.i.+p which exists between the mother and the daughter lands. No reason presents itself to him why our artisans and merchants should be taxed in aid of populations far more wealthy than our own, who have not, as we have, millions of paupers to support. We at present tax our humblest cla.s.ses, we weaken our defenses, we scatter our troops and fleets, and lay ourselves open to panics such as those of 1853 and 1859, in order to protect against imaginary dangers the Australian gold-digger and Canadian farmer. There is something ludicrous in the idea of taxing St. Giles's for the support of Melbourne, and making Dorsets.h.i.+re agricultural laborers pay the cost of defending New Zealand colonists in Maori wars.
It is possible that the belief obtains in Britain among the least educated cla.s.ses of the community that colonial expenses are rapidly decreasing, if they have not already wholly disappeared; but in fact they have for some years past been steadily and continuously growing in amount.
As long as we choose to keep up such _propugnacula_ as Gibraltar, Malta, and Bermuda, we must pay roundly for them, as we also must for such costly luxuries as our Gold Coast settlements for the suppression of the slave-trade; but if we confine the term ”colonies” to English-speaking, white-inhabited, and self-governed lands, and exclude on the one hand garrisons such as Gibraltar, and on the other mere dependencies like the West Indies and Ceylon, we find that our true colonies in North America, Australia, Polynesia, and South Africa, involve us nominally in yearly charges of almost two millions sterling, and, really, in untold expenditure.
Canada is in all ways the most flagrant case. She draws from us some three millions annually for her defense, she makes no contribution toward the cost; she relies mainly on us to defend a frontier of 4000 miles, and she excludes our goods by prohibitive duties at her ports. In short, colonial expenses which, rightly or wrongly, our fathers bore (and that not ungrudgingly) when they enjoyed a monopoly of colonial trade, are borne by us in face of colonial prohibition. What the true cost to us of Canada may be is unfortunately an open question, and the loss by the weakening of our home forces we have no means of computing; but when we consider that, on a fair statement of the case, Canada would be debited with the cost of a large portion of the half-pay and recruiting services, of Horse Guards and War Office expenses, of arms, accouterments, barracks, hospitals, and stores, and also with the gigantic expenses of two of our naval squadrons, we cannot but admit that we must pay at least three millions a year for the hatred that the Canadians profess to bear toward the United States. Whatever may be the case, however, with regard to Canada, less fault is to be found with the cost of the Australian colonies. If they bore a portion of the half-pay and recruiting expenses as well as the cost of the troops actually employed among them in time of peace, and also paid their share in the maintenance of the British navy--a share to increase with the increase of their merchant s.h.i.+pping--there would be little to desire, unless, indeed, we should wish that, in exchange for a check upon imperial braggadocio and imperial waste, the Australians should also contribute toward the expenses of imperial wars.
No reason can be shown for our spending millions on the defense of Canada against the Americans or in aiding the New Zealand colonists against the Maories that will not apply to their aiding us in case of a European war with France, control being given to their representatives over our public action in questions of imperial concern. Without any such control over imperial action, the old American colonists were well content to do their share of fighting in imperial wars. In 1689, in 1702, and in 1744, Ma.s.sachusetts attacked the French, and, taking from them Nova Scotia and others of their new plantations, handed them over to Great Britain. Even when the tax-time came, Ma.s.sachusetts, while declaring that the English Parliament had no right to tax colonies, went on to say that the king could inform them of the exigencies of the public service, and that they were ready ”to provide for them if required.”
It is not likely, however, nowadays, that our colonists would, for any long stretch of time, engage to aid us in our purely European wars.
Australia would scarcely feel herself deeply interested in the guarantee of Luxembourg, nor Canada in the affairs of Servia. The fact that we in Britain paid our share--or rather nearly the whole cost--of the Maori wars would be no argument to an Australian, but only an additional proof to him of our extraordinary folly. We have been educated into a habit of paying with complacency other people's bills--not so the Australian settler.
As far as Australia is concerned, our soldiers are not used as troops at all. The colonists like the show of the red-coats, and the military duties are made up partly of guard-of-honor work, and partly of the labors of police. The colonists well know that in time of war we should immediately withdraw our troops, and they trust wholly in their volunteers and the colonial marine.
As long as we choose to allow the system to continue, the colonists are well content to reap the benefit. When we at last decide that it shall cease, they will reluctantly consent. It is more than doubtful whether, if we were to insist to the utmost upon our rights as toward our southern colonies, they would do more than grumble and consent to our demands; and there is no chance whatever of our asking for more than our simple due.
When you talk to an intelligent Australian, you can always see that he fears that separation would be made the excuse for the equipment of a great and costly Australian fleet--not more necessary then than now--and that, however he may talk, he would, rather than separate from England, at least do his duty by her.
The fear of conquest of the Australian colonies if we left them to themselves is on the face of it ridiculous. It is sufficient, perhaps, to say that the old American colonies, when they had but a million and a half of people, defended themselves successfully against the then all-powerful French, and that there is no instance of a self-protected English colony being conquered by the foreigner. The American colonies valued so highly their independence of the old country in the matter of defense that they pet.i.tioned the Crown to be allowed to fight for themselves, and called the British army by the plain name of ”grievance.”
As for our so-called defense of the colonies, in war-time we defend ourselves; we defend the colonies only during peace. In war-time they are ever left to s.h.i.+ft for themselves, and they would undoubtedly be better fit to do so were they in the habit of maintaining their military establishments in time of peace. The present system weakens us and them--us, by taxes and by the withdrawal of our men and s.h.i.+ps; the colonies, by preventing the development of that self-reliance which is requisite to form a nation's greatness. The successful encountering of difficulties is the marking feature of the national character of the English, and we can hardly expect a nation which has never encountered any, or which has been content to see them met by others, ever to become great. In short, as matters now stand, the colonies are a source of military weakness to us, and our ”protection” of them is a source of danger to the colonists. No doubt there are still among us men who would have wished to have seen America continue in union with England, on the principle on which the Russian conscripts are chained each to an old man--to keep her from going too fast--and who now consider it our duty to defend our colonies at whatever cost, on account of the ”prestige”
which attaches to the somewhat precarious tenure of these great lands.