Part 18

Thus ended my trip to the goldfields, upon which I look back with considerable satisfaction in spite of the obvious discomforts which it entailed. I found that all with whom I came in contact in Western Australia, and, I might add, in Australasia, whether they were custom-house officials, railway employes, {314} hotel proprietors or servants, had done their best to be obliging. Of the kindly hospitality of all whom I met on the goldfields I cannot speak in sufficiently high terms. They were uniformly straightforward, generous, energetic men, who gave me the impression of a good moral standard. I do not speak of the adventurers who congregate in any place where money can be made rapidly by unscrupulous methods, but of the managers, foremen and others, who are directly engaged in the development of the mines. The great curse of the mining districts, and also, to some extent, of Perth, is the absence of sufficient means of recreation. This state of things may be inevitable in the case of towns of very recent growth, but its result is, that men who have worked all day, requiring some form of diversion, find it in drink. But, in spite of the large consumption of liquor, drunkenness is rare and rowdiness almost unknown. At Coolgardie on a Saturday evening the streets were perfectly quiet; beyond some discordant strains of music, scarcely a sound was to be heard. In spite of one or two recent burglaries, life and property are scarcely less safe than in England. A bank manager who travelled with me from Kalgoorlie told me that, in starting a new branch of his bank at an outlying township, he had been obliged at first to live in, and keep his money in, a tent, but that on no occasion had he been menaced by the slightest attempt at robbery. I shall long remember {315} the sight of townships which have sprung up where a few years ago was nothing but bush, and promise to become the scene of great industrial activity, and my intercourse with some of the pioneers of the mining movement, men who have penetrated hundreds of miles into the interior of the country, have endured for years the terrible hardships of life in the bush, and have, by their untiring exertions, seconded by the influx of capital following upon their success, done much to raise Western Australia to a prominent position among the Provinces of the Southern Hemisphere.

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INDEX

Aborigines: Constitution Bill for establishing Federation, special provisions for, 220 Maoris of New Zealand [see that title] Protection of, 158, 305 Right of possession not recognised in Tasmania and Australia, 85

Absentee Tax, assessment of in: New Zealand, 91 South Australia, 19

Adelaide, Agricultural Bureau and Agricultural College in, 20, 21

Adult Suffrage: Lower Houses of South Australia and New Zealand elected on basis of, 2, 192 Liquor legislation in New Zealand, Local Option and Licensing Committee polls placed on basis of, 198

Advances to Settlers Act, New Zealand, 99, 118

Agricultural Bureau and Agricultural College, Adelaide, 20, 21

Arbitration and conciliation in industrial disputes: New South Wales, 281 New Zealand Act, 283 Awards under, 286 Queensland, 76, 282 South Australian Act, 24, 283

Assisted Schools Abolition Act, 159

Australasian Federation Enabling Act: Queensland Bill, rejection of, 235 Victorian Act, provisions of, 230 Western Australian Act, provisions of, 233

Australasians, character of, 302

Batchelor, Mr. E. L., 5 Plebiscite, Bill for establishing introduced by, 29

Benevolent asylums for aged and incapable persons, 255

Betting and gaming, suppression of: New Zealand, female voters in favour of, 196 Tasmania, Parliamentary measures for, 170

Board of Land Purchase Commissioners, New Zealand, 97

Braddon, Right Hon. Sir E., 177

British capital in Australia: Co-operative enterprise due to, 248 Dependence on, causing ill-feeling towards Great Britain, 296 Financial activity arising from, 246

British fleet's protection, Australians' appreciation of, 297

Broken Hill, strike of 1891, 1892, 281

Building societies, Australian labouring classes availing themselves of, 260

Byrnes, Hon. T. J., 75

C.D. Act, Repeal of, advocated by female voters in New Zealand, 196

"Caucus" meetings of New South Wales Labour Party, 51

Central and Northern Queensland's separation from the South [see title Queensland]

Character of Australasians, 302

Charitable Aid expenditure for 1896, New Zealand, 116