Part 3

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY MELBOURNE AND VICTORIA.

AN INTRODUCTORY MEDLEY.

"Pleasure and action make the hours seem short."--Othello.

I had long looked forward to one more visit to Victoria, perhaps the last I should expect to make, and the opportunity of the opening of the great Centenary Exhibition at Melbourne on 1st August of this year was too good to be lost. Accordingly, having been able to arrange business matters for so long a holiday, I took passage, with my wife and daughter, by the good steamship "Coptic" of the "Shaw, Savill New Zealand Line," as it is curtly put. She was to land us at Hobart about 27th July, in good time, we hoped, to get across by the Launceston boat for the Exhibition opening, and she bids fair, at this moment, to keep her engagement. We would have taken the directer route, with its greater number and variety of objects, via Suez and Colombo, but we feared the sun-blaze of the ill-omened Red Sea in summer. We purpose, however, to return that way towards the coming winter.

More than thirty-one years have elapsed since I left Melbourne, after a residence there of seventeen years, broken, however, by two intermediate visits "Home." I think with wondering enjoyment of what I am to see in the colony and its capital after such an interval. Previously, when I returned after only a year or two's absence, I was wont to mark with astonishment all that had been done in that comparatively brief time. I am thankful to Mr. Froude, whose delightful work, "Oceana," I could read to all full enjoyment during the leisure and quiet of the voyage, for somewhat preparing me for what I have to see, for I must infer from his graphic accounts, especially of interior progress--while already three more years have since elapsed--that even my most sanguine anticipations will be exceeded. Our great Scottish poet and novelist has finely said:--

"Lives there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said-- This is my own, my native land?"

But is there not a formidable rival to the force of this sentiment in that with which one clings to the land where so many of the most vigorous years of life have been actively spent? And a land, besides, of surpassing sunny beauty and of rare romance. Business calls are usually held to be imperative, even if they send us, willing or unwilling, to "Ultima Thule or the Pole." Accordingly, my later lot has been to return to the older, and not to continue in the newer, part of the common empire. But, at any rate, that rather enhances the enjoyment of this re-visit.

According to the usual custom, I now write my introduction last of all. I have most pleasantly occupied several hours of the complete leisure of each day in writing these "Recollections," and now, as we get within almost hours of our destination, I am putting this last hand to my labours. I cannot hope that their light sketchiness can go for much, save with those who, familiar with the great Melbourne and Victoria of to-day, may enjoy the comparison of the small things of a retrospect extending to almost half a century, and all but to the birth of the colony.

The voyage has been extremely pleasant, with a good and well-found vessel, fairly fast as the briskly competitive speed of these days goes, and above all with a head in Captain Burton who has proved first-class in every requirement. He has just complimented us by saying that we are the best behaved lot of passengers he ever took. That was due very greatly to himself; and I think that all of us are well able to reciprocate his compliment by regarding him as the best of captains. Officers and crew also have been, to our view at least, faultless; but then, again, all that so much depends upon the captain.

Touching the important matter of speed, let me say a little. All important it is, indeed, in this age of fast progress. When I first sailed for Australia, in 1840, we were, I think, 141 days on the way. Nor was that a very inordinate passage then. This time I expect, within that interval, to go and return, besides having nearly two and a half months to spare--a space of time which now, with rails and fast steamers everywhere, will enable me to visit all South-Eastern Australasia, including even New Zealand. Of course, that means hardly more than "to see," but still that is better than not to see at all, those wonderful parts of our empire.

But yet again, on this point of speed, our "Coptic's" daily run averaged rather under 300 nautical miles. In justice to the good ship, we should credit her with rather more, for during the latter half of the voyage she was meeting or anticipating the sun by six or seven degrees of longitude daily, and thus clipping about half an hour off each day. But turn now to the latest like exploit between Liverpool and New York--the case, I think, of the s.s. "Umbria", whose unprecedented record is of 455 to 503 miles daily. Granting this to be subject to abatement for running this time away from the sun, and thus prolonging the day, there is enough of difference to give us, at this speed, the hope of a three weeks' Australian service by the straightest available line. It has already been effected to Adelaide in 29 days. We Australians must hope that ere long Melbourne and Sydney, together with all about them, will weigh, with ourselves at least, as heavily as New York. The coal question is, of course, an awful difficulty for three weeks instead of five to six days, but not, we hope, insuperable. Our "Coptic" burns but fifty tons a day, but the New York liners require three hundred.

When a man has passed seventy-three, as I have done, he may be excused in doubting his chance of yet another Australian visit. But while he has been waiting these many years, he has seen such vast improvement in inter-communication facilities of every kind, as to establish, he might say, a complete counterbalance to the increasing infirmities of years. Imagine, therefore, the Australian liner of the next few years to be a great and comfortable hotel, as though one went for three weeks' fresh sea air to Brighton or Bournemouth, with the additional charm that, on quitting your pleasant marine apartments, you stepped out upon Australia.

This brings up yet another subject. When attending, four years ago, the very successful and most interesting meeting of the British Association at Montreal, I was very curious as to the possible prospect, now that this body had made so good a first outside step, of a like meeting in Australia. But, not very long after, an invitation to the Association was actually sent from Melbourne. The year asked for had been pre-engaged for Home. My distinguished friend, Mr. Service, told me, when on his late Home visit, that no doubt the invitation would go again. I may usefully mention here that the Association is usually engaged, or as good as engaged, two clear years in advance, so that the third year, at least, in advance should be dealt with for Melbourne. This besides would afford sufficient notice for the busy men of all classes and all vocations at Home to arrange conveniently for the necessarily long absence. I do not doubt of complete success. Indeed, it is such a further chance as that which might tempt even the oldest of us into visiting the far-off but bright and sunny South.

MR. FROUDE'S "OCEANA."

I feel that my introductory medley would still be incomplete if I did not allude, somewhat more than I have already done, to Mr. Froude's recently published "Oceana," a work which, in its vigour and high literary style, marks quite an era in its Australian field. I had regretted before embarking that, from the pressure of other things, my acquaintance with it had been limited to the reading of many reviews and the hearing of much criticism. But I have been well compensated by a perusal during the peace and ample leisure of this long voyage. I must confine my remarks to two points only, which, however, are amongst the most prominent in the book. These are--first, the terms in which he has alluded to the present condition of New Zealand; and, second, his ardently loyal remarks, so often repeated, upon that rising question of the day, the political unity of the empire--a subject which had been advanced at the time into a most significant importance to the Australian colonies by the apparent imminence of war with Russia.

NEW ZEALAND.

I am not inclined to repeat the scolding which, it is understood, my zealous friend, Sir Francis Bell, Agent-General for New Zealand, under his high sense of duty, administered to the brilliant author of "Oceana" for this sole dark spot of his book. I see no sufficient cause. On the contrary, he has given us such a charming account of the aspects and prospects of this, the most magnificent of our colonies--for I agree with him in believing that it is to be "the future home of the greatest nation of the Pacific"--that certain loose or inaccurate words addressed to him about the finances, and which he had deemed worth recording, may well be expected to have in comparison the most evanescent effect. "One gentleman," he says, "amused me considerably with his views," the said views being to the effect that New Zealand would be ready, when the final pressure came, to repudiate her heavy public debt. Another equally vivacious informant stated that, besides the 32 million pounds of colonial borrowing, "the municipal debts were at least as much more as the national debt." Now this is six times overstated for municipal and harbour debts together. No doubt the actual case is bad enough, for New Zealand has far over-borrowed. But as to repudiation, there is not a hint or notion of it in any responsible quarter whatever, any more than with regard to our British Consols, although the colony is, for the time, in the extremity of a depression, ever recurrent in such young, fast-going societies, caused by a continuous subsiding of previous too-speculative values. To this I may add, in reference to the smaller issues of colonial municipalities, that of the very great number of these, New Zealand's included, brought for many years past upon the London market, there is not, in my recollection, as a matter of my own business, one single instance of default, as to either principal or interest, if we except the sole and quite special and temporary case, above thirty years ago, of the city of Hamilton, in Upper Canada.

UNITY OF THE EMPIRE.

This question has been in a course of rapid clearing during the last few years, and the successful establishment of the Imperial Federation League has given an orderly procedure in every way promising. The object aimed at is, that the empire shall have that political binding which will give to it the maximum of power and influence possible under all its circumstances. Above fifteen years ago some few of us--very few they then were--first seriously raised this question at Home in the Royal Colonial Institute. We had the smallest of audiences then. It is marvellous to look back now upon that indifference. I recollect that about ten years ago, when the movement was just beginning to look serious to those outside of us, a leading Paris paper devoted an article to the subject, remarking that if Great Britain persevered so as to unite her empire as sought, the balance of the world's power would be so seriously disturbed as to call for an international reconsideration of that subject.

The progress as yet has been chiefly negative, but it has been great. Modes entertained at first have been discarded. This may be said of superseding the present Imperial Parliament by a pro re nata Federal Assembly; and it may be equally said of an influx of proportionate colonial representatives into the Home House. Councils of colonial ambassadors, agents-general, and so on, have, I think, definitely gone the same way. These are chiefly Home views, for Home is at length aroused as well as the colonies to their common question; and the summons by the Secretary for the Colonies of the Colonial Conference which sat in London two years ago marks alike the most prominent and most promising feature in the movement.

Mr. Froude has given, most usefully, the views of the colonists. Let us take Mr. Dalley's, which is also that of most others, namely, that the nascent but increasing colonial navies should be all under one imperial command--that is, be a part of the British navy. There is one more step--namely, to dispose of all colonial military force in the same common-sense way, and then we have a politically united empire. But we are "constitutional" or representative in our polity, so that something else is still wanted. In short, the unity of the empire requires two things. First, that all its force be under one executive, and, next, that the colonies be proportionately represented in that executive. The Cabinet seems to me the adaptable body we can operate upon to this end. That body would then be actually, as well as legally, the empire's executive. Nothing should--nothing need--prevent the attainment of this grand end. The tariff bugbear concerns only commerce, and need not arrest nor even interfere with the empire's political unity. All other matters of the common interest can be leisurely settled by mutual consent, as the empire, in its united state, sails along the great ocean of the future. The mother will then, in emergency, have the sure call of her children; while every colony, even to the very smallest, will know that in case of need the whole empire is at its back. When the rest of the world knows that fact, it will thenceforth probably not trouble our empire either about international rearrangements or anything else.

EARLY PORT PHILLIP.

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot And the days o' lang syne." --Burns.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder." --Haynes Bayly.

Entering Port Phillip on the morning of the 13th December, 1840, we were wafted quickly up to the anchorage of Hobson's Bay on the wings of a strong southerly breeze, whose cool, and even cold, temperature was to most of us an unexpected enjoyment in the middle of an Australian summer. A small boat came to us at the anchorage containing Mr. and Mrs. D.C. McArthur and others who had friends or relations on board, and who told us that for some days there had been excessive heat and a hot wind, which had now reacted in this southerly blast, to go on probably into heavy rain, the country being excessively dry.

MY FIRST NIGHT ASHORE.

"The Hut on the Flat." --James Henry.

"How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude." --Cowper.