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(And the full value allowed for Bottles tvhen returned.) And of all W. & A. GILBEY'S AGENTS THROUGHOUT THE KINGDOM. €^ JOHANNIS n THE KING OF HATURAL TABLE WATERS. DIRECT FROM THE JOHANNIS COMPANY, Ltd. London Offices : 25, REGENT STREET, 8. W. ; and at LIVERPOOL, NEW YORK, and BRUSSELS. 8pring»-Z0LLHAU8, QBBMANY. ADVERTISEMENTP. ui The colonial COLLEGE AND THfliNiNO FflHlvis, Ltd., JHOLLESLEY BAY, SUFFOLK. pOUNDED in January 1887, under the auspices of Agents- General for the Colonies, leading Members of the Eoyal Colonial Institute, the Head Masters of Eton, Westminster, Shrewsbury, Marlborough, Clifton, Haileybury, and other dis- tinguished persons. The College is situated on its own beautiful estate by the seaside. A most invigorating climate, dry air and soil, and splendid facilities for bathing, boating, &g., tend in the highest degree to promote tho physical development of its Students. Farms of over 1800 acres are carried on by the Collcgo for tho instruction of its Students, who thus have unrivalled facilities for becoming practically, as well as theoretically, acquainted with all branches of Agriculture, and with Horse, Cattle and Sheep Breeding, &c., on a large scale. Instruction is also regularly given in Dairying, Veterinary Science and Practice, Chemistry, Geology and Mineralogy, Forestry, Horticulture, Land Surveying and Buildina Construction, Book-keeping, Engineer's, Smith's, Carpenter's, Wheelwright's, and Harnessmaker's Work, Riding, Ambulance, and various other subjects necessary to the young Colonist. Many Students from the Colonies and from foreign countries, as well as English Public School and University men, have passed through the College, and are now settled in all parts of the world. The work of the Institution has been periodically recognised as of great value by Statesmen of the highest rank at home and in the Colonies. Prospectus may be obtained from the Director at above address, or from the London Office, 6, Victoria Street (adjoining Westminster Palace Hotel), S.W. A 2 IT ADVERTISEMENTS. THE ADSTRALIAH IRRIGATION COLONIES (MILDXJBA, VICTOBIA; and BENMARK, SOUTH AUSTBALIA), on the BIVEB MUBBAY. CHAFFEY BROS., LIMITED. 4- Land may be acquired by intendinfr settlers or absentee proprietors at £26 per acre, payable (if desired) by in- stalments extending- over five or ten years. In the case of an absentee owner the Company undertake the cultivation and development of the land purchased, charering: only a small percentaere on the actual outlay. The climate and soil are pre-eminently adapted for intense culture with irrig-ation. The Orange, Lemon, Qrape, Fig-, Pear, Peach, Apricot, Plum, Apple, Olive, and other fruits,with every table esculent, may be g-rown to perfection. The MELBOURNE AR9U8 reports :—" Between Chaffeys and the Settlers an enormous work has been accomplished. The original wilder- ness of five years asro has been transformed into a charming country of well-ordered orchards and vineyards. . . . Altogether it may be reckoned that fully a million of money has beeu laid out in the Settlement" (of Mildura alone). The TIMES Special Correspondent in Australia, in April and May, 1803, referred to "the great enterprise at Mildura" and the advantages of irrigation generally. The followiDg are extracts from l-Jtters :~"\Vhat I have had to say has, I hope, made it clear not only that the country dis- tricts are perteccly sound, but that they offer an outlet for English as well as Victorian enterprise. . . . Crops grown under irrigation are so heavy as to double and treble the value of the land. . . . The profits of an orchard or vineyard at present prices are verj nigh." TUOVt LATEfST FBGGBSSS BEPOBT:- Atthe Mildura Settlemert, where u^.vard8 of lO.OOi) acres of land are already under cultivation by irrigation ; being thus transformed from an arid country into thriving and beautiful orchards ; the first substantial return yet made (the last season's) amounting to £46,000, or about thirty per cent, on the outlay, which is productively remunerative, made by the settlers up to the present time. It is anticipated that the Kress value of the products for the ensuing season will be more than double t^e above amount. At a recent Intercolonial Fruit Growers' AsBociation's Citrus Fair, held at Mildura, there was a magnificent display of frui's and vege- table products in great variety. It was admitted by the judges that the divplay of orangas and lemons of Mildura growth was the finebt that had been made in Australia. During the past year Mildura has heen visited by prominent men from Europe, the United States, and the Australian Colonies, including some of thomost distinguished horticulturists, etc., who have freely expressed and published highly favourable opiLions of its progress and prospaojs in the colurana of the leading papers. The Renmark Colony has been developed up to the present time to the extent of about one-fourth that of Mildura, but it is contemplated lu dov te special efibrts to bringing this South Australian irrigationcolony up to the same point of progress v?itbin a short period. Ziondon Offioee : CORNWALL BUILDINGS, 85, QUEEN VICTORIA ST., LONDON, E.G. J. E. MATTHEW VINCENT. Chief CommissioneF. THE SISTER DOMINIONS Through Canada to Australia by the new Imperial Highway BY James francis hogan, m.p. ADTHOB OF <'TI1E IRISH IN AU8TKALIA," "THE LOST EXPLORER," "ROBERT LOWE, VISCOUNT 8HERBROOKE," "THE CONVICT KING," ETC. LONDON WAUD AND DOWNEY Limited, 12 YORK BUILDINGS, ADELPHI, W.C. 1896 \All rights reserved^ 237088 CANADA NATIONAL LIBRARY BIBLIOTHEaUE NATIONALE J CONTENTS. Intboduction FAQB . 1 I.- -The Ocean Ferry . 31 II.- -In a Catholic City . 36 III.- —A Colossal Convent . 47 IV.- -In the Canadian Capital . . 59 V.- -The Queen City .... . 71 VI.- -The Metropolis op Manitoba . . 77 VII.- —The Prairie Province . . 84 VIII.- —Over the Eockies . 91 IX.- -The Newest Eepublic . . 98 X.- —A Crown Colony . . . . 106 XI.- —The Centennial City . . 112 XII.- -The Australian G.O.M. . 119 XIII.- —Premiers, Past and Present . 128 XIV.- —Religious Sydney . 136 XV.- -Theatrical Sydney . 143 XVI.- —A City op Fallen Greatxess . . 150 XVII.- —Three "Boss Boomers" . 157 XVIII- —The Parliament op Victoria . 164 XIX.- —Literary Melbourne . . 172 XX.- —Religious Melbourne . . 180 xxr.- —Theatrical Melbourne . 187 XXII.- —Some Melbourne Notabilities . . 195 XXIII - —Some Melbourne Institutions . . 203 XXIV.- —Sport in the Southern Hemisphere . 210 xxv- -A Couple op Golden Cities . 217 XXVI.- —Australian Facts and Prospects . 223 1 Indbx . 232 ^^p INTEODUCTION. After a continuous residence of seven years in London, I utilized the last Parliamentary recess to revisit the section of Greater Britain in which nearly the whole of my previous life had been passed. In addition to the personal desire to meet old friends, revive old memories, and bring ray colonial knowledge up to date, I was specially anxious to see and investigate for myself the seri- ous and even startling changes that, according to report, had come over the face of the Antipodean colonies since my departure. Australian visitors had brought to London lurid and sensational ac- counts of the ruin and desolation that had been brought upon Melbourne by the land-boom mania and its after-consequences, while the effects of the financial crisis and banking collapse of 1893 all over Australia were depicted in hardly less vivid and disquieting colours. How far these reports repre- sented the reality of things, and how far they were the outcome of panic-stricken excitement, was what I principally wished to ascertain. I elected to travel by the now Canadian route, along that great B INTRODUCTION. Imperial highway which has recently been opened up by the liberality of the Government of the Dominion, in association with the energy and enter- prise of one of the leading Australian shipovnera, Mr. James Huddart. As a result of this happy and potential combination, it will soon be possible to run a swift mail and passenger service between the Mother Country and her Australasian possessions, without touching an inch of foreign soil, or losing for an instant its distinctively and essentially Imperial stamp or character. Two links of the service are complete, and in full working order — the Canadian Pacific Kailway and the line of steamers that Mr. Huddart has established between Vancouver and Sydney — and the remaining third, or Atlantic link, is in rapid process of manufacture. The Government of the Dominion of Canada has guaranteed Mr. Huddart a subsidy of £150,000 per annum for ten years to enable him to establish a fast line of steamers on the Atlantic, as well as the Pacific, and if the Imperial Government can see its way to contribute a subsidy of £75,000, as recom- mended by Lord Jersey in his report on the pro- ceedings of the Ottawa Conference, the "all-through British service " will be a fully accomplished fact in the early future. On every ground, of principle, patriotism, and policy, the Home Government is called upon to co-operate with the Canadian and Australasian Governments in establishing this in- Introduction. 3 valuable link of inter-Imperial communication on a permanent and mutually satisfactory basis. Apart altogether from sentimental considerations — and it would be a great mistake to underrate the impor- tance of these in a matter vitally affecting the unity and cohesion of the Empire — the obvious value and the peculiar advantages of this route from the standpoint of strategy and Imperial defence, entitle it at the very least to the modest subsidy from the Imperial Exchequer that has been suggested by the Earl of Jersey, after hearing the debate on the sub- ject at the conference of colonial statesmen in the Canadian metropolis. The Dominion has unquestionably suffc ed severely in the past from the lack of speedy, direct, and up-to-date steam communication with the Old World. None of the existing lines attempt to compete with the superb " ocean greyhounds " that course across the Atlantic from Liverpool to New York in the space of five or six days. The K.M.S. Parisian, on which I was a passenger, is understood to be the fastest and best-equipped steamer in the Canadian service, and yet it took her ten days in fine and favourable weather to cover the distance between the Mersey and Montreal. No doubt it is true, and it was emphasized in a recent correspondence in the Times, that steamers must " slow down " in the fog-infested waters around the Straits of Belleisle, and proceed B 2 Introduction. cautiously up the St. Lawrence, but that admission affords no explanation of, or justification for, the grievous loss of time in traversing the open and unimpeded waters of the Atlantic. From Montreal to Vancouver is a six days' jourr' V by rail from east to west through the vast and 1. pressive expanse of the Canadian Dominion, within almost constant view of all the evidences of progress and advancing settlement, countless farm- ing areas and numerous embryonic cities of the future. Winnipeg, the half-way house in this trans-continental trip, is a large, attractive, and populous city, that was absolutely non-existent when Lord Wolseley camped on the spot, then known as Fort Garry, a far-a vay outpost of civili- zation, in 1871, as commander of the force told ofE for the suppression of the Red Eiver rebel half- breeds. Winnipeg is a characteristic example of the striking progress and prosperity that followed in the wake of the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, that beneficent and monumental enterprise which, by bringing the scattered Pritish North American provinces into closer communica- tion and more intimate relationship, pioneered the way for federal union, and contributed more than any other agency to the creation aud consolidation of the Canadian Dominion. The final section of the railway is not only a miracle of engineering skill, but also the source of endless delights, for it climbs Introduction. 5 the Rocky Mountains in the face o£ seemingly overwhelming obstacles, and in doing so reveals a long and entrancing succession of natural wonders. The sublime and majestic scenery of the Rocky Mountains in Western Canada, embracing all the panoramic succession of sky-piercing peaks, lofty glaciers, foaming torrents, precipitous ravines, and deep-nestling valleys, ought of itself to go a long way towards popularizing the new Imperial high- way with tourists en route to the Antipodes. At Vancouver, the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and already a city of considerable size and importance, I took passage for Sydney in the R.M.S. WarrimoOi one of the comfortable and well-appointed steamships that Mr. Huddart has placed on the Pacific, in fulfilment of his contract with the Canadian and Australasian Governments. The voyage across the Pacific is a pleasing one in every respect, and is agreeably diversified by stoppages at Honolulu, the pic- turesque metropolis of the Hawaiian group, and Suva, the seat of Government for the Crown colony of Fiji. Amongst my fellow-passengers were several representatives of Canadian firms and manufacturing houses, who had been despatched to Australia to found branches, study the local products and markets, and generally to co-operate in bringing Canada and Australia into closer com- mercial and fraternal relations. Indeed, in all the .^iii- I mm I ! I \ 6 Introduction. principal Canadian centres — Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, etc. — I found the prospects of the development of reciprocal trade with Australasia a prominent topic of eager and sympathetic discus- sion. Sydney seemed to me but little changed after seven years' absence. There was certainly nothing in the general aspect of the parent city of the Antipodes to corroborate the lugubrious stories of universal colonial collapse that were current in London. The main thoroughfares were as crowded and as busy as ever ; the world-famed harbour rejoiced in a forest of shipping ; the wharves and wool-stores were roaring hives of industry ; extensive building operations were in progress in the very heart of the city ; and, in short, there were hardly any superficial indications of exceptional depression, beyond, perhaps, an appreciable increase in the number of idlers and homeless, who, from time immemorial, have been privileged to camp in the Sydney parks and public reserves. Whatever changes were apparent were decidedly changes for the better, notably the wide, well-planned, and well- built thoroughfare that bisects the business quarter of the city, and reveals the architectural beauties of the General Post Office with excellent efEect. Previously, this finest of Sydney public buildings — although disfigured to some extent by a series of grotesque attempts at sculpture up to date — was so Introduction. hemmed in by narrow streets and alleys that it was impossible to see it to advantage from any point of view. This important and eminently desirable civic improvement was eflPected during the mayoralty of Sir W. P. Manning, and, by the judicious applica- tion of the principle of betterment, the new street has been constructed at practically no cost to the city funds. It has been made to pay for itself. Under the energetic regime of Sir W. P. Manning (who, by the way, manages the Australian properties of Lord Eosebery, and other titled investors in colonial real estate) a considerable portion of old Sydney has been demolished and rebuilt by muni- cipal decree. Thousands of aged and dilapidated houses have been compulsorily effaced, and new, sanitary, well-built dwellings erected in their stead. The process, though somewhat Czar-like, is de- lightfully simple and effective. The Mayor and the Corporation officers sally forth from time to time, and wherever they come across houses which they consider to be in hopeless disrepair, or unfit for further human habitation, the order for destruc- tion and re-erection goes forth, and has to be obeyed without a whisper or suggestion of compensation. By this direct and summary course of action. Sir W. P. Manning has largely done for Sydney what Baron Haussmann achieved for the Paris of the Second Empire. The last general election in New South Wales, of f 8 Introduction. i which Sydney is the metropolis, resulted in the overthrow of Sir George Dibbs and the Protec- tionists, and the return of the Free Traders to power, under the premiership of the Hon. G. H. Keid, Q.C. Although Mr. Keid had ably led the Free Trade party during the latter portion of the previous Parliament, after the veteran Sir Henry Parkes had retired from the headship of the Opposi- tion, it was genorclly anticipated that the Harting- ton-Gladstone precedent would repeat itself, and that the octogenarian statesman would resume office as Premier when his party came into power again. But this prevailing expectation was not realized, and Sir Henry, in consequence, feels not a little chagrined and disappointed. He contributed materially to the Free Trade reaction by his vigorous rallying speeches all over the country during the week preceding the appeal to the constituencies, and it is certainly regrettable that Mr. Reid and himself were unable to agree on a basis of Ministerial co- operation after the victory had been won by their joint efforts. Very early in the course of the inter- view with which I was favoured by Sir Henry Parkes, I realized that the veteran was distinctly dissatisfied with the unexpected turn that affairs had taken. His severe criticisms upon the Governor (Sir Robert Duff, late member for Banff),* and upon * Since the above was written, the sad news of the sudden death of this amiable gentleman has been received. Introduction. the Liberal Government for sending that gentleman to represent Her Majesty in New South Wales, were probably coloured by the incidents attending the formation of Mr. Keid's Ministry. Venerable in mien, keen in glance, with a patriarchal wealth of glossy, white hair, a still massive and unbent frame, and an utterance slow, clear, distinct, and impres- sive, Sir Henry Parkes, the head of half-a-dozen Ministries and an active participant for more than half a century in the public life of the parent Australian colony, is certainly the most interesting statesman and the most picturesque personality in Greater Britain. "Without any of the benefits of a regular education, a Birmingham foundry-hand at eleven, and an ordinary farm labourer after emigra- ting to Australia in his early manhood, his colonial career is a remarkable example of what can be achieved by constant self-instruction, untiring industry, and unconquerable determination. Fifty years have well nigh passed since ho first came prominently before the Sydney public in the capacity of secretary to the election committee that returned Eobert Lowe (the late Viscount Sher- brooke) as representative of that city in the local legislature. And when Eobert Lowe recrossed the equator to dazzle the House of Commons with glittering paradoxes, to cast eloquent diatribes at the British democracy, to predict all forms of national ruin and disaster if the masses were en- T I 10 Introduction. franchisedj and to become a very unpleasant thorn in the side of the Liberal party, it was his erstwhile political secretary who soon succeeded him as member for Sydney. Since then Sir Henry Parkes has ever been in the forefront of Australian politics, and has contributed a highly interesting and important chapter to the history of colonial progress. Lowe, who was so abusively anti- democratic in after years in England, was a decided Radical during his Sydney period, and did not disdain to address enthusiastic crowds from the roofs of omnibuses. He was the idol and the exemplar of the Mr. Parkes of half a century ago, but the matured judgment of the Sir Henry of to- day is naturally less reverential and more judicial and discriminating. Lowe, Sir Henry told me, was a man of exceptional oratorical power, immense erudition, and brilliant repartee, but he was deficient in two of the essential elements of great- ness. No man could be truly great who was with- out heart and broad human sympathies. The secret of Mr. Gladstone's wonderful and abiding power and popularity resided in his all-embracing sympathies, his intense humanity, and his eagerly- responsive heart to the cries and claims of the weak, the down-trodden, and the oppressed of every clime. Sir Henry Parkes is a passionate admirer and a devoted disciple of Mr. Gladstone, whom he first met at dinner in the London house MMMHiliiiHMH Introduction. II of Robert Lowe. There is a book called the " Wit and Wisdom of Lord Beaconsfield," but it is not gererally known that Sir Henry Parkes is the auihor of a similar compilation under the title of "Wise Words of William Ewart Gladstone,*' in which he manifests a remarkably intimate acquaint- ance with the voluminous writings and speeches of the retired leader of the Liberal party. He has also found time to produce three volumes of poems, which, although derided by local critics and political opponents, secured him the high honour of Lord Tennyson's friendship and esteem. A series of gracious letters from the late Poet Laureate> and a similar book of correspondence from Carlyle, with whom the foundry lad who grew into a Prime Minister was also a great favourite, constitute two of Sir Henry's most treasured literary possessions, A volume of his impressions of England during a tour in 1862, a bulky collection of speeches, and an autobiographical retrospect of his long and event- ful colonial career, are the principal prose works associated with the name of the octogenarian Australian statesman. Mr. Reid , the new Premier, is an ex-civil servant of the col -' whose destinies he has be«Ti called up( to guiau. He is a man of solid and steady rather than brilliant or striking qualities. He has now his first opportunity of distinction as a con- structive statesman, and it remains to be seen how I 12 Introduction. r he will turn it to profitable account. Sir G. R. Dibbs, tbe late Premier, leads a strong Pro- tectionist minority, and a coalition between his forces and the discontented Free Trade following of Sir Henry Parke s was regarded as a not unlikely development when I was in Sydn 3y > Sir George is a colonial giant, brusque in m inner, energetic in action, fluent in speech, frank and out- spoken on all occasions, and not unduly sensitive to J considerations of cast-iron consistency. After figuring for years as the friend and champion of Australian Bepublicanism, his instantaneous trans- formation into a full-blown titled Royalist during a recent visit to England filled the ultra-democratic Australian natives with dismay and astonishment. Indeed, but little has been heard of the Australian Republic since he backslided. If Dibbs, they said, cannot be relied upon to resist the blandishments of royalty, who can ? Cardinal Moran has added a new, noteworthy and imposing institution to Sydney in the shape of an immense seminary for the training of Catholic priests for all the Australian colonies. Hitherto the ranks of the colonial Catholic clergy have been almost entirely recruited from the Irish colleges, but in the opinion of the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney the time has arrived for the colonies to bestir themselves in the direction of developing and educating a local and native priesthood. >V^ith that . . HI ' Introduction. tf intent his Eminence has erected on a commanding and spacious site near the entrance to Sydney Harboar a large, handsome, and well-equipped college which is a conspicuous landmark for many a mile. At the time of my visit there were fifty- five students in residence, representing all the Antipodean colonies with the sole exception of Western Australia. While resident in vhe northern hemisphere, Cardinal Moran was an enthusiastic antiquarian, devoting himself in a special manner to the early history of the British and Irish Churches, a subject on which he is recognized as one of the highest of living authorities. During the past few years his Emi- nence has pursued a similar line of industrious in- vestigation with respect to the early history of the Catiiolic Church in the colonies, and the results of his ::esearches among the archives of Rome, London, Paris, and Dublin, as well as the various colonial capitals, are about to be given to the world in a couple of illustrated volumes, to be published simultaneously in Sydney, New York, and London. Up to quite a recent period there was a constant and vigorous rivalry between Sydney and Mel- bourne, each claiming to be the *' queen-city of the southern hemisphere." But, for the present, at least, that contest for supremacy is at an end. The ascendancy of Sydney in respect to population, 14 Introduction. commercial pre-eminenoe, and shipping activity, is clear and unmistakable to the most casual eye. Melbourne's retrogression, stagnation, collapse — call it what you will — is no less striking and mani- fest. As I walked through the streets of the Victorian metropolis, after an absence of seven years, and beheld the startling and dismal change that had come over the scene — the desolate aspect of once prosperous thoroughfares, the host of un- tenanted oflfices and shops, Ihe wilderness of derelict houses in the suburbs, the utter absence of all the former abounding life and energy, and the general suggestion of deep depression and departed great- ness — I found myself mentally ejaculating, "The London stories were true, after all." But I do not for a moment believe that the progress of Mel- bourne has been [permanently arrested, although the accents of despair are now very frequently, too frequently altogether, on the lips of her citizens. Melbourne has, undoubtedly, received a severe shock, and has been thrown back in the irace for several years, but thero is no earthly reason why the capital of a colony like Victoria, possessing such a variety of undeveloped mineral and vegetable resources, should not be able to retrieve the errors of the past and recover no small portion of her former prosperity. Melbourne is now paying the penalty for indulging in a season of insane and un- bridled dissipation on her own account, in addition i ' I Introduction. if to sharing the general load of misfortune that has been brought on the colony at large by years of disastrous legislation and ruinous extravagance on the part of successive Governments. The more im- mediate and responsible cause of the present afflicted condition of Melbourne is to be traced to the reckless and unprecedented land-boom, which commenced there in 1888, and led to a saturnalia of wild specula- tion that literally demoralized the whole community, and brought untold evils in its train. Suburban lands were artfully forced up by interested individuals to nominal prices that were a hundred, and even a thousand times in excess of their real value; syndicates were formed in all directions for the acquisition, the sub-division and re-selling, at an enormous profit, of desirable estates; people bought lands and properties in the morning and sold them again early in the afternoon at an advance of thousands of pounds ; eligible corner blocks were secured in the business quarter of the city, and on them were rapidly erected huge many-storied edifices, that in their desolate emptiness stand to-day as ghastly monuments of human folly and short-sighted credulity ; scores of mushroom banks and financial corporations were swiftly generated in the noisome soil of universal sp julation; a number of new, and now mostly unoccupied, suburbs of vast extent sprang into being under the fostering influence and patronage of rashly- f^. i6 Introduction. adventurous building societies, determined to make hay while the land-boom sun was shining ; evon the old-established conservative banks, after resisting the temptation for a while, found the intoxicating atmosphere of excitement too much for them, and plunged headlong into the whirlpool ; a veritable mania took possession of all grades and classes in the community, and everybody was making a colossal fortune — on paper. Of course there could be but one inevitable ending to all this senseless, clamorous, and well- nigh universal gambling in fictitious land- values. Such an immense superstructure of reckless specula- tion, built up from a foundation of fraud, deceit, villainy, sharp practice, and unscrupulous devicos of every conceivable description, was bound to topple over sooner or later, and overwhelm all who were not lucky or far-seeing enough to " stand from under" in time. When the gigantic bubble did burst, the consequences that ensued were deplor- able in the extreme, involving the degradation and ruin of public men of the highest standing, who were amongst the most active promoters of the boom, the trial and conviction of an array of bogus bankers, the revelation of an appalling crop of embezzlers and criminal speculators with their employers' money, the failure of a number of the leading building societies, in which the accumulated savings of thousands of thrifty workers had been invested, Introduction. If and — most grievous blow of all— the collapse of nearly all the long-established legitimate banks, by which business was practically paralyzed, the cash of the community locked up, every form of laudable enterprise brought to a standstill, and an era of panic-stricken distrust and general loss of confi- dence inr rated. Land and real estate that had so recer / run up to fabulous prices now became absolutely uDsaleable ; an exodus of the working population commenced in consequence of the lack of employment, and steadily drained the suburbs of their vitality ; the daily lists of " New Insolvents" assumed proportions far beyond all local precedent ; unfortunate shareholders in the collapsed banks and financial corporations were in many instances reduced at one stroke from affluence to penury by the necessity of responding to relent- less calls; and, in short, the dark pall of deepest depression settled over the "Marvellous Mel- bourne *' of former days, and has not yet appre- ciably lifted. On the top of the local misfortunes that have just been enumerated, and which Melbourne may not uncharitably be said to have largely brought upon her own head, were piled the additional disastrous consequences that resulted from the serious con- dition into which the general finances of the colony had been allowed to drift. Melbourne, as contain- ing within its limits more than a third of the It Introduction. I i i ! inhabitants of Victoria, would necessarilT suffer most from the mistakes, the deficiencies, and the incompetent management of the central Govern- ment. Excessive borrowing, and the reckless dis- sipation of the capital thus acquired, are respon- sible to no small extent for the serious financial situation in which Victoria now 'stands. Million after million has been raised in London, until the public indebtedness of the colony has reached the formidable figure of fifty millions, the periodical nterest on which represents a heavy drain upon the diminishing local revenues. If this immense amount of borrowed money had been carefully and reproductively expended, the colony might have had little or no reason to regret having borrowed to so large and injudicious an extent, but unfortu- nately it has been too often sunk in the construction of erratic and nnremunerative railways undertaken for political and party ends ; the erection of numerous ornate and wholly unnecessary public buildings in every city and town, also to oblige and conciliate the local member ; the building of elaborate and costly defence works that are ludicrously out of proportion to the people and property they are supposed to protect ; and the multiplication of Government schools all over the colony, in pursuance of the idiotic craze for ultra- secular teaching that has so disastrously dominated the State system of primary instruction in Victoria Introduction. 19 during the past twenty years. Millions would have been saved, and one-half of those expensive schools would never have been required if the State, instead of insisting so arbitrarily upon, and clinging so tenaciously to, the policy of godless education, had accepted the fair, just and reasonable compromise of recognizing the voluntary schools, to the extent of paying a capitation rate for the secular instruc- tion imparted in them. Many of the State schools are now being closed, or amalgamated with others, in obedience to the stern decrees of hard times and enforced economy ; but that so much public money should have been literally thrown away on a vain attempt to de-Christianize the rising generation, is perhaps the most discreditable and reprehensible feature of tht financial diflSculty in which Victoria now finds herself. The enormous entent to which the public service has been crowded with employees by successive Ministries constitutes another very appreci- able and important factor of the situation. A careful calculation shov»^s that, on the average, one person out of every twenty in Victoria is in receipt of Government money, and so thoroughly and systematically organized is the large body of public servants that they are practically the masters of the public while nominally servants, and un- disguisedly control the fate of Ministers and Ministries. At the last general electiou the 20 Introduction. I ti ii Government of Sir James Patterson was defeated and overthrown avowedly by the votes and political influence of the public servants, because Sir James had made stern and rigorous retrenchment in the Civil Service a cardinal feature of his policy. Mr, Turner, who succeeded Sir James in the premiership, naturally refrained from grasping the nettle of retrenchment as long as he possibly could, but he has been forced by the desperate condition of the finances into taking up the policy of his pre- decessors in this respect, and striving his utmost to reduce the vast and extravagant army of Victorian civil servants to reasonable and economical pro- portions. Whether he will thus succeed in lighten- ing 1- ^B decks of the Victorian ship of State, and navigating her into smooth financial waters, thj course of events during the current year will enable us to judge. I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Turner deliver his first financial statement in the Parliament Houses at Melbourne, an elaborate archi- tectural pile which cost a million of money in construction, and is not the least shocking example of the reckless, unbridled extravagance that has so largely contributed to bringing the colony into its present pecuniary straits and embarrassments. Mr. Turner is an amiable, courteous, fluent, intelli- gent, and well-meaning member of the lower branch of the legal profession ; but he has had no practical experience of financial administration, and, while wishing him every success in the herculean task Introduction. di which he has undertaken, I cannot dispel a doubt that he is hardly strong and commanding enough to cope successfully and satisfactorily with the very difficult and exacting situation that has arisen in Victoria. The plain fact is that the colony was never so deficient in sound, clear-sighted, and well- informed statesmanship as at present. Previous Victorian Parliaments possessed men of the highest capacity and qualifications: Sir William Stawell, Sir John O'Shanassy, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Sir George Verdon, Sir James McCulloch, Sir Ar«^hibald Michie, Sir Andrew Clarke, the Hon. George Higinbotham, the Hon. Peter Lalor, and their contemporaries ; but they are now either dead or retired from public life, and the new generation of Parliamentarians, with one or two exceptions, have so far not evinced the possession of the statesmanlike character, insight, and ability that distinguished their predecessors. A strong, cap- able, and practical financier is the crying need of the hour in Victoria, and in view of the dangerous delay in developing one on the spot, the colony is to be sincerely congratulated on the appointment of Lord Brassey as its new Governor. True, the Governor of an autonomous colony is debarred from official interference in its party politics or its financial concerns, but under the very exceptional circumstances of the case, the advice and sugges- tions of such a shrewd, sensible, level-headed, experienced, and successful man of business as Lord J. U.-IJH t2 Introduction. '*i li Brassey, will assuredly be of the utmost value and assistance to Ministers in rescuing the colony from a humiliating and perilous position. Once the present unpleasant situation is successfully sur- mounted, the finances placed on a solid and business-like basis, expenditure brought well within the limits of income, and the bloated civil service compressed to its proper and natural bulk, there is no reason why, under careful guidance and the rigorous avoidance of the errors of the past, Victoria should not enter on a revivified career of steady progress and well-ordered prosperity. At a time when the rival merits and the respective demerits of Local Option and the Gothenburg system of the municipal management of public- houses are being eagerly and energetically can- vassed in England, the experience of the colony of Victoria in the matter of temperance reform is both interesting and instructive. The temperance party in Victoria, numerous, active, and well organized, succeeded in carrying a Local Option law through both Houses of Parliament, but they are now bitterly disappointed with its practical working and the smallness of its results, and the Act to all intents and purposes has become a dead letter. It was put into operation in some half-dozen centres of population ; the ratepayers voted for the reduction of the public-houses in their respective districts to a certain figure ; effect was given to this popular vote by the police authorities, who selected the u. mmm i.i 32 The Sister Dominions. R.M.S. Parisian, on which I travelled, is the finest vessel of the Allan fleet, but none of the numerous steamers running between Great Britain and Canada are equal in speed and attractiveness to the "greyhounds" that race between Liverpool and New York. An enterprising Melbourne man, Mr. James Huddart, intends to revolutionize the steam communication between Canada and the old land by building a fleet of fast steamers that will be second to none on the New York route. Most of my felMw-passengers on the Parisian were Canadian and Yankee holiday-makers returning from England and Europe, with a fair sprinkling of Australians getting back to the southern hemi- sphere by way of Canada. When I crossed the Atlantic in 1887, I had a number of Mormons as companions. This time I was accompanied by some members of the newest and most eccentric of American religions — the " Holy Rollers." '^ou sometimes get into very queer company when you are travelling. As we approached the coast of Newfoundland we sighted two enormous icebergs — one presenting the appearance of a colossal cathedral, with numerous spires glistening in the sunshine ; while the other was a huge, towering, shapeless mass, suggestive of ruin and destruction to the luckless ship or steamer that came in contact with it. Beautiful and interesting as icebergs are by day, they become very ugly and dangerous The Ocean Ferry. 33 neighbours by night. They constitute, perhaps, the greatest peril of Atlantic navigation, for at night they cannot be discerned, and the crash of the collision, with tons of ice thundering down upon his decks, is often the first intimation of their presence that a captain receives. In foggy weather the danger is intensified, and the only warning of the proximity of icebergs that a navigator is vouchsafed is the sudden coldness of the atmo- sphere. Whales, too, although they have become somewhat rare during recent years, have not yet been banished from the North Atlantic. I saw one leviathan come to the surface, quite close to the steamer, energetically "blow" for a moment or two, and then disappear into the depths of the ocean. Perhaps the greatest of the federalizing forces now in active operation within the British Empire is the cheapness and the ease with which the principal Colonies can visit each other, as well as pay their respects to the parental home from time to time. The facilities for travelling all over the Queen's dominions are now so abundant and so accessible that people who twenty years ago would never have dreamed of personally touring the Empire, now think as little of a visit to Australia or Canada as they formerly did of a trip to Margate or Harwich. Similarly, Australians and Canadians now re- visit the Mother Country every ih |l 7 34 The Sister Dominions. n ! -■'! s year in numbers that would have been considered fabulous a few decades ago, and thus the enormous development of our great steamship companies during recent years, and the wholesome rivalry that has naturally and necessarily sprung up amongst them, are silently but substantially doing the work of Imperial Federation, and doing it more effectively than any number of political leagues aiming at the realization of more or less shadowy ideals. The opinion on board the Parisian was universal that Mr. Huddart^s spirited project deserved to succeed, for while it was admitted that tbe Allans had done good service in the past, it had also to be confessed that they had not kept pace with the times, and that Canada had appreciably suffered from the want of a fast steam service to and from the Mother Country. No small share of the conversa- tion amongst the saloon passengers was devoted to a comparison of notes as to the personages seen and the places visited in Great Britain and Ireland. These home-going Canadians were evidently deeply and sincerely interested in the historic memorials of the Old Land and the leading men in the British public life of to-day. They lingered over the recol- lections of what they had seen and heard, exchanged ideas and opinions, and made it manifest to all within earshot that their interest in all that per- tained to British national life was of a singularly keen, patriotic, and intelligent character. Asked wm The Ocean Ferry. 35 whether there was any strength or significance in the movement for the annexation of Canada to the United States, they replied that this so-called " movement " was of the most contemptible and insignificant character, and was not countenanced by a single Canadian of standing or influence. No one, indeed, can mix with Canadians, either on land or sea, without being struck by their deep- seated attachment to the Old Land and its in- stitutions, and their rooted determination to hold fast to their Imperial inheritance. Prominent amongst the passengers on the Parisian was Mr. J. G. Colmer, the Secretary to the Canadian High Commissioner in London. Mr. Colmer was the life and soul of the social gaieties of the saloon, and a concert he organized resulted in a contribution of close on £30 to the funds of the Liverpool Seamen's Orphan Institution. \v D 2 I IL IN A CATHOLIC CITY. On Friday, August 24th, we entered the broad expanse of the St. Lawrence, running for the greater part of the day within sight of hilly, beautifully- wooded shores, with clearings at intervals, in which villages of the whitewashed houses that are almost universal amongst the French Canadians were seen snugly nestling. Next day we arrived at the grand olr" historic city of Quebec, the cradle of colonization in Canada, built around a craggy height, down which rivers of blood have streamed during the long and desperate struggle between France and England for supremacy in Canada. England conquered in the end, but had to pay a terrible price for the victory. The last great battle was fought at Quebec, and there the op- posing generals, Wolfe and Montcalm, both bit the dust. A national monument to perpetuate their mutual memory now stands on the field where they perished, equal honour being done to the victor and the vanquished. Quebec, being a strong In a Catholic City. 37 natural fortress, was quickly occupied by the French pioneer settlers. It enabled them to hold their ground against the hostile Indians ; it became their great centre of trade and commerce, and developed into the recognized metropolis of New France, as Canada was originally designated. It held this position of pre-eminence for many years, but latterly it has been appreciably retrograding, in consequence of the great advantage given to Montreal by the dredging and deepening of the St. Lawrence. Formerly it was the principal dis- tributing centre of Canada, but now Moutreal enjoys that enviable and lucrative distinction. Formerly most of the ships and steamers loaded and discharged at Quebec; now it pays them better to go up the St. Lawrence to Montreal. Still, in spite of this adverse turn of fortune's wheel, Quebec continues to be a large, populous, and important city, and nothing can rob it of its pre-eminence as the most historic and intrinsically interesting of Canadian centres. Irregular, sinuous streets, bordered by quaint old houses, straggle around the base of the precipitous mount, but on the heights overhead an imposing modern city has sprung up, and from the citadel that crowns the whole a splendid prospect of the valley of the St. Lawrence and the surrounding country is obtained. Eight hours' delightful steaming up the St. I li ia I 38 The Sister Dominions. Lawrence, past a constant succession of smiling, prosperous-looking towns and villages, brought ua to Montreal, the most populous and commercial of Canadian cities. It is not only populous and commercial, but pre-eminently Catholic — perhaps the moat Catholic city on the face of the earth. It has a remarkable and romantic history. Jacques Cartier, the renowned French navigator and discoverer of Canada, rowed up the St. Lawrence as far as the site of Montreal in 1553. It was then occupied by the Indian village of Hochelaga, whose chief and attendant warriors came forth to meet and to greet the first white men they had ever seen. Cartier conciliated the Indians in every possible way, distributed presents amongst them, and soon gained their confidence and good- will. At his request they accompanied him to the summit of a peak, about a mile and a half distant, from which such a splendid and variegated prospect of river, valley, forest, hill, and island opened out before him, that he was immediately inspired to name the spot " Mount Royal," and, in the abbreviated French form of Montreal, the name was destined to be perpetuated by the great city that grew and developed beneath the mountain on which Cartier delightedly stood. On returning to France, Cartier published a glowing account of his visit to Hochelaga, and strongly recommended it as a most advantageous site for a settlement. But In a Catholic City. 39 it was not until May 18th, 1642, that Cartier's re- commendation was actually carried into effect. On that day there landed at Hochelaga a pioneer band of forty -fire colonists, one of whom, a soldier- statesman, the Sieur de Maisonneuve, had been appointed governor of the little colony. He was the first to spring ashore, and, on bended knee, to raise a hymn of praise and thanksgiving. Soon an altar was erected in the open air, and around it there knelt the forty-five pioneers, while the chap- lain of the expedition, Fr. Vipond, ofiered the first Mass in Montreal. After Mass the new settlement was specially dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and Fr. Vipond preached a prophetic sermon from the parable of the grain of mustard-seed. ** Ye are few," he said, " but your work is the work of God. His smile is upon you, and your children shall fill the land." The Iroquois Indians became furiously hostile when they rear /d that a permanent white settlement was being established in their midst, and throughout the early years of Montreal's existence the settlers had a hard and perilous time in repelling the constant attacks of Indian war parties. But the white men gradually made their footing firm and secure > the Indians exhausted their strength, and ceased to be a standing menace to the community, and Montreal, growing in size and importance, developed into a great centre of the lucrative fur trade with the vast regions of T 40 The Sister Dominions. I Western and North- Western America, .t trade was the foundation of the fortunes o^ .creal, the primal source of the wealth and pi jrity of the handsome modern city that we see to-day at the head of navigation in the St. Lawrence. Marks of its Catholic origin and the distinctively Catholic character of its development are conspi- cuous on every side in Montreal. Churches are so numerous that Mark Twain, the American humorist, has perpetrated a pleasantry to the effect that " you cannot throw a half-brick in any direction in Mon- treal without breaking a church window." Another would-be humorist thought he v/as saying a smart thing when he maliciously observed that " there are a great many saints' days in Montreal, and very few washing days." Needless to say, the latter portion of this impertinent remark is a gratuitous libel. The streets of Montreal ore made picturesque by the number of priests and members of the religious orders in their distinctive dress. Nuns, both walking and driving, are also numerous. The streets themselves are largely religious in their nomenclature. The leading thoroughfare is called Notre Dame, and other important streets are named after St. James, St. Paul, St. Catherine, St. Antoine, St. Denis, St. Lawrence, St. Peter, St. Francis Xavier, St. Hubort, St. Helen, etc. The cathedral is the glory of Montreal, and the largest church in America. It is an exact copy, on a In A Catholic Citv. 41 reduced scale, of St. Peter's in Borne. It is not yet quite completed, the total cost of construction exceeding a million dollars. The imitation of — " The well-proportioned dome, The world's just wonder, and even thine, Rome " — is remarkably successful and striking. From every point it is the dominating and the moat picturesqu'^ architectural feature of the city. Notre Dame, at the other end of the city, is a massive and beautiful church of cathedral proportions, seating ten thou- sand worshippers, and displaying a most artistically decorated interior. The Jesuits occupy a large and imposing block of ecclesiastical and scholastic buildings on an elevated site at the top of Bleury Street. Their church is also a capacious edifice, and is specially attractive by reason of its beautiful mural paintings. The French Jesuits, by the way, have an exceedingly high and honourable record as the pioneers of civilization in Canada. True to the genius of their order and the spirit of their mighty founder, they were amongst the first to penetrate the trackless forests of the Canadian interior, facing countless perils, and enduring terrible privations, while converting the Indians to Chris- tianity, and leading the van of progress and enlightenment in the great North-Wesi of America. The population of Montreal may be practically divided into two main bodies, French Catholics and I 42 The Sister Dominions. Irish Catholics. The latter are principally usta- blished in Central Montreal, where they have a large and beautifully-decorated church dedicated to Ireland's patron saint. One r 1 the most eloquent and distinguished of the men of '48, the Hon. Thomas D'Arcy M'Gee, was their leader and Parliamentary representative for many years. Since 1882 they have been represented in the Dominion House of Commons by the Hon. J. J. Curran, Q.C., LL.D., now Solicitor-General of the Dominion. Mr. Curran has been a valuable bulwark both of Irish nationalism and Catholic progress in Canada during the past two decades, and I am personally indebted to him for many kindnesses and much useful information while I was visiting Montreal and Ottawa. In the course of a very interesting historical survey of the rise and progress of the Church in Montreal, his native city, Mr. Curran says : — " To-day the position of the Irish-Catholic community of Montreal and its vicinity is one of influence, power, and prestige. The assessment rolls are evidence of the interest they command, to the extent of millions of dollars. Their hold on commerce and manufactures, their representation in the judiciary, in the Senate and Commons of the Dominion, in the local legislature, at the aldermanic board, in the various offices of trust and emolument connected with public affairs, and their place in the learned professions, by men V' In a Catholic City. 43 of their race and creed, leave no room for cavil. Census returns are scarcely needed to establish numerical strength, when not only the throngs that worship at St. Patrick's from early morn until noon at the successive Masses, but the congregations of St. Anne and St. Anthony, St. Gabriel and St. Mary, may be viewed every Sunday, and are the living evidence of how the Irish Catholic population of this great and growing city have increased and multiplied, and preserved the inestimable boon of the faith of their fathers." Montreal is the headquarters of that great insti- tution which was so largely instrumental in cement- ing the scattered provinces of British North America into one strong and compact federated Dominion. Without the Canadian Pacific Railway, which con- nects Halifax in the farthest east on the Atlantic shore with Yanconver in the farthest west on the Pacific coast, the British North American Con- federation would certainly not be the potent and praiseworthy reality that it is to-day. The C.P.R., as it is familiarly designated, is now, has been for years, and will be for a long time to come, the dominating factor in the opening up, development, and permanent settlement of the vast interior and North- West of Canada. It has already achieved much in these respects, but there are still many millions of acres within the sphere of its influence to be turned to profitable account, not to mention '! 44 The Sister Dominions. (■ the mineral wealth that every day is now disclosing along the route of the western section of the railway. The potentialities of progress and development that lie at the doors of the C.P.R. are so vast and so countless that it bids fair to stand in the not distant future at the head of the great railway corporations of the world, while at the same time the Dominion of Canada will consequentially reap all the advantages of a largely-increased population and a regularly rising revenue. Sir William Van Home is the guiding brain and the governing chief of this colossal railway enterprise. His Dutch ancestry reveals itself in the square-built solidity of his frame; and the expressive character of his keen blue eyes. But there is also a smartness and vivacity about his movements, a shrewdness of perception and promptness of decision, a fluency of speech and raciness of comment, that seem to point to an early apprenticeship and business training amongst the go-ahead people of the neighbouring Republic ; and such, indeed, is really the case, for Sir William was brought from Chicago, where he had a lengthened experience of responsible railway management, by the founders of the C.P.R. to take the control of their new trans-continental line and give them the benefit of his accumulated knowledge and expcience of railway matters. The wisdom of his selection has been amply demonstrated by the success and prosperity which the C.P.R. has attained under his In a Catholic City. 45 able and energetic management. After holding the position of general manager for several yearSj he was promoted to the vice-presidency of the company, and on the retirement of Lord Mount- Stephen he succeeded to the presidency. He is still in the prime of life, and he will in all proba- bility rule the destinies of the C.P.B. for many a year to come. The knighthood recently con- ferred upon him by the Queen was a well- deserved recognition, not only of his personal merits and achievements, but also of the valuable pioneering and colonizing work that has been done in Canada by the corporation over which he presides. Sir William has a remarkably efficient and courteous coadjutor in the direction and manage- ment of the immense and far-reaching business of the C.P.R. in the person of the vice-president of the company, Mr. T. G. Shaughnessy, the son of an Irish emigrant, and a striking instance of the height to which industry, integrity, and native ability, unaided by friendship, influence, or patronage, may raise their possessor in the new world, where every man has a fair field and no favour. Montreal has built a large an ay of stone quays for the accommodation of its extensive shipping j and additional testimony to its trading pre-eminence is borne by the number of enormous warehouses and grain elevators that line the river 46 The Sister Dominions. n •: side. A beautifal blue-grey limestone aboands in the neighboarhood, and has been largely used in the construction of the public buildings and the shops in the principal streets. The only objectionable feature about this romantic and peculiarly Catholic city is the system of street locomotion-electric tramcars running continually at a prodigious and dangerous speed through all the leading thorough- fares. This high pressure style of travelling is now the rule in all the chief cities of Canada and the United States, but it is abominable to people who have no desire to be whirled about in such a helter- skelter fashion. A story is told of a Chinaman, just arrived from the Flowery Land, who stood stock still in amazement when he first beheld one of those electric cars tearing through the streets of an American city. He thus soliloquized to himself — " No pushee, no pullee ; go like hellee. Great man Mellican man.'' III. A COLOSSAL CONVENT. The greatest and the most interesting of the sights of Montreal is the " Grey Nunnery," which is pro- bably the largest and most populous conventual institution on the face of the globe. This immense establishment, or cluster of affiliated charities, fills one of the finest blocks of the city, and another block belonging to the convent is covered with shops and houses, whose rents enable the good Grey Nuns to carry on their manifold beneficences and charitable activities with a continuity and com- pleteness that might not be attainable without some such regular source of revenue. A mere list of the charities and educational institutions under the constant management and sympathetic supervision of the Grey Nuns of Montreal is sufficient of itself to indicate the enormous area covered by their energetic and self-sacrificing labours. Here are some of the principal charities and educational agencies in this great conventual colony : — St. Joseph's Asylum, for orphan girls ; St. Joseph's 48 The Sister Dominions, Infant School; St. Patrick's Asylum, for Irish orphan boys and girls ; St. Bridget's Asylum, for homelesij girls and servants out of situations ; the Nazareth Inbiitution, for the blind ; the Nazareth Infant School ; the Bethlehem Asylum, for orphans of both sexes ; the Bethlehem Infant School ; the Hospice of St. Charles, for aged and infirm men and women ; the Hospital Notre Dame ; and the Ophthalmic Hospital. There are 524 professed sisters, and the novices and postulants bring the number up to the grand total of 763. This colossal convent has a very interesting history of close on two hundred years. Like other phenomenally successful institutions, it was tried in the fire of adversity and calumny during its early struggles for existence. Its foundress was Marie Marguerite Lajemmarais, the daughter of a dis- tinguished Frenchman, who settled in Canada. Educated at the Ursuline Convent in Quebec, and possessing the three attractive accomplishments of beauty, wit, and amiability, she soon commenced to shine in Canadian society, and in her twenty- first year she became the wife of M. Fran9ois d'Youville, a good-looking young gentleman of high family, who proved a frightful failure as a husband. He went irretrievably to the bad, shamefully neglected his wife, spent his nights habitually with drunken and dissolute companions, and finally killed himself by unbridled dissipation. i mmmmm A Colossal Convent. 49 Thus after eight years of marital misery, Madame d'Youville was left a widow with two sons. The years of sorrow, suffering, and humiliation that she endured as a patient, sorely-tried and uncomplain- ing wife, were a probation that admirably fitted her for the great work that she was destined to establish and build up in Montreal. Wheu her two sons went to college to study for the priest- hood, she commenced her career of benevolence and good works by clothing herself in a coarse, black garb and systematically visiting the sick and the poor. After a time Father Normant, the then parish priest, and Vicar-General of Montreal, in- duced three other ladies to join her in the perform- ance of these works of Christian ch(*rity. The little community secured a small house, and took posses- sion of it on October 30th, 17b8. That was the germ and beginning of the gigantic " Grey Nunnery " that now covers a big block in the city of Montreal. At all times, and in every quarter of the world, anything in the nature of a new Order of nuns seems to have had a curiously inflammable effect on the popular mind, and to have set many mis- chievous tongues a-wagging. Even Australia has not been free from manifestations of this painful and peculiar phenomenon. The now well-known and highly-respected Sisters of St. Joseph had to pass through a cruel and slanderous time in South . '■ 50 The Sister Dominions. I Australia, the colony of their original foundation. Madame d'Youville and her three companions were no exceptions to the rule. When they first appeared in the streets of Montreal, clad in their distinctive costume of grey — a dress now held in the highest honour and esteem in the self-same city — they were actually hooted and pelted with stones by excited crowds, acting under the influence of some demoniac impulse. It would really seem as if Satan, at times, can persuade Catholics to join him in a determined effort to destroy new agencies for good that are specially obnoxious to him, for Montreal was as Catholic a city then as it is to-day. Amongst the absurd and calumnious charges that were concocted and circulated about the Grey Nuns, and which served as fuel to the popular fury, were accusations of supplying the Indians with strong drink, and indulging in it pretty freely themselves. Considering how much Madame d'Youville had suffered from being tied for eight years to a drunken and dissipated hus- band, the levelling of such a cl rge against her simply shows to what lengths of improbability unthinking prejudice and sudden malevolence may go. But even at the height of the persecutions she was not without consolation and encourage- ment, for three young ladies were inspired to ro- inforce the oppressed little community at the moment when popular hostility was most bitter A Colossal Convent. 51 and active. Things were beginning to improve, and the Grey Nuns were just emerging from the storm of calumny and insult that their first appear- ance had excited, when a great misfortune befell them, their humble convent being burnt to the ground on a cold winter's night. Madame d'You- ■^ille, the sisters, and the inmates barely escaped with their lives, everything they had in the world having been destroyed by the fliames. In this deplorable crisis of their fortunes a Montreal mer- chant proved a friend in need by placing one of his houses at their disposal, and after a time of great anxiety and uncertainty as to the future, the Grey Nuns found a home again in an old and dilapidated building given to them by the Governor, on condition that they would put it in thorough repair. This was their headquarters for many years to come, and in it they established wards for the reception of aged men and women, invalided soldiers, the victims of incurable diseases, and orphans of both sexes. During the long and sanguinary war between England and France on Canadian soil, the Grey Nuns actively ministered to the wouuy..ed on both sides. Indeed, one wing of their convent came to be known as the " Eng- lishman's Ward," from the fact that it was nearly always occupied by wounded English soldiers. In September, 1760, Montreal was invested by an English army of 32,000 men, and the general in E 2 52 The Sister Dominions. command, fancying the convent; of the Grey Nuns to be a fortification of some sort, gave the word to open fire upon it. The cannon were being placed in position when a soldier stepped from the ranks, saluted the general, and respectfully in- formed him that the building in question was not a fort, but a convent, adding that the nuns in residence there had once saved the lives of himself and several of his comrades. The general immediately countermanded the order, and the convent was saved. From the first the Grey Nuns established friendly relations with the Indians, who would never harm them, even when out on the war-path or on a scalp-hunting expedition. A Miss O'Flaherty, who became a Grey Nun herself, was actually rescued from the Indians at the very moment when she was bound to the stake and doomed to a horrible death. When Madame d'Youville passed to her reward on December 23rd, 1771, in the seventieth year of her age, she had the consolation of knowing that her institute had triumphed over all its early diflBculties, had lived down popular hostility and slanderous tongues, had been firmly established on a per- manent foundation, and would perpetuate the good work which she had commenced for centuries to come. In 1847, the terrible year of the great Irish famine^ the Grey Nuns of Montreal rendered noble i A Colossal Convent. 53 and memorable service. Flying from their famine- stricken native land across the Atlantic in thou- sands, an appalling number of the unfortunate people fell victims to the ship fever, and either found graves in the caverns of the deep, or were cast, more dead than alive, on the shores of the United States and Canada, where, huddled together in extemporized sheds or makeshift hospitals, they presented a picture of afl&icted humanity almost without parallel in the history of the world. At this horrible period the Superioress of the Grey Nuns was Sister M'MuUen, an accomplished and wonderfully energetn) woman. She soon woke up the Canadian authorities to a sense of their duty, obtained official permission for her nuns to take charge of the sheds, and .threw the whole resources of the convent — sisters, novices, and outside helpers — into the work of relieving and saving as many as possible of the fever-stricken immigrants. " Sisters, the plague is contagious. In sending you there I am signing your death-warrant, but you are free to accept or to refuse." In these words Sister M'MuUen addressed the assembled Grey Nuns after returning from her visit to the sheds. Need- less to say, they one and all accepted what proved to be the sentence of death for many of them, a considerable proportion of them caughi; the fever at the sheds, and nobly perished at their posts of duty. Four of the Grey Nuns who went through ii 54 The Sister Dominions. 1? this terrible ordeal, who caught the fever, but were providentially preserved, still survive, one being the present Superioress-General. Immense as is the institution, or, rather, the long series of institutions, governed and directed by the Grey Sisters in the chief Canadian city, Montreal by no means monopolizes their Christian and charitable activities. Madame d'Youville's original foundation is now the mother-house of more than a score of similar convents. There are ten in other Canadian centres and nine in the United States. The Grey Sisters, too, were the pioneer nuns of the great North- Western Territories of the Canadian Dominion, where they first estab- lished themselves fifty years ago, when there were very few white settlers in these parts, and very many wild Indians. There is preserved at the mother-house in Montreal a very interesting letter from one of the pioneer nuns of the North- West, in which she thus describes her journey over the prairies : — " Our mode of conveyance is an antique cart, with high, wooden wheels, and drawn by an ox. For days we travel through the midst of vast prairies, the bright sky overhead, seas of waving grass as far as the eye can reach, one of nature's primeval forests in the distance, a few streamlets, and finally a river to interrupt our progress. Neither bridge nor boat existing, we must devise means to reach the opposite shore. When the current is strong in A Colossal Convent. SS and the river wide, the men construct a small raft made of the branches of trees. On this raft we and all the baggage are carried across. The frail con- struction is guided and sent onwards by men swimming on each side. If no wood be found in the vicinity of the river, a cart wheel is taken off a vehicle, a buffalo robe thrown over it, and on this Thetis car we brave Neptune's wrath. A half- breed or Indian has to draw or push our frail boat forward. If the men of the caravan be not nume- rous enough, a cord is fastened to the wheel and then to the horns of an ox, the other end is given us to hold and guide our bark to the best of our ability. So long as the weather continues favour- able our caravan proceeds onward in this manner, halting each day about sunset. The oxen are then let loose to graze, search is made for fuel, the fire is lighted, the kettle put on, and the evening meal prepared. After the repast, prayers are said, our tent put up, and our beds — a buffalo robe — spread on mother earth. On this soft couch we repose as best we may, to rise again at three next morning. The tent is lowered, morning prayers offered up, the men go in search of the oxen, the fire is re- newed, the morning meal prepared and eaten. Breakfast over, dishes washed, the fire is carefully extinguished, the order to mount and proceed issued, and our caravan begins another day's journey. On through the boundless solitudes, 56 The Sister Dominions. whose silence is relieved only by the song of the birds, the chirping of the locusts, the murmur of the breeze, the rustling of the leaves, the creaking of the cart-wheels, the call or shout of the drivers, the cracking of their whips as they urge on some weary or stubborn beast. Such is life on the prairies when the sun shines; but when the tempest rages, with the wind blowing, the light- ning flashing, the thunder pealing, and the rain pouring in torrents, a halt in the prairie or in the wild woods, under a simple tent that every gust threatens to carry off, and no other bed than a buffalo robe on the wet ground, pleasure is no longer a reality. Even when the weather is fine we are followed, surrounded, swarmed, and literally devoured by the most gluttonous creatures in crea- tion. They stalk about in daylight, they revel during t.yilight, respect not even the shades of night, yet have the effrontery to sound their own trumpet. I allude to the mosquito, that venomous mite whose sting condemns its victim to perpetual motion. It is nothing blit scratch, scratch, scratch all the time, till we are literally scarred from the process." A tour of the immense block of buildings that constitute the Grey Nunnery of Montreal is an enterprise that severely taxes one's powers of walk- ing and endurance. The wiry little nun who showed me round was evidently accustomed to the A Colossal Convent. 57 business, for she trotted upstairs and downstairs, and through a bewildering maze of courts, corridors, dormitories, playgrounds, and gardens, finishing up as fresh and lively as when she started. From my experience, I would recouiiucnd succeeding visitors to take this immense and versatile institution one frontage at a time. Trying to crowd the whole of it into a single visit means a long and toilsome tramp, followed by a mass of confused impressions. The Grey Nuns have a printing-press and book- binding establishment that turns out excellent work. Fancy cards, flowers, pictures, statues, scapulars, and rosaries are all prepared by the skilful hands of the nuns ; they have, also, a com- plete pharmacy and dentist's shop ; they manufac- ture beautiful processional banners, altar decora- tions, and church vestments ; they have a big boot- maker's shop, and a room near at hand where six nuns are hard at work with knitting machines; and as for the laundries, there seems to be room and appliances enough on the premises to take up a contract for the washing of Christendom. There are departments for babies, boys, girls, old men, and aged women; and so comprehensive is the establishment that visitors to Montreal who would rather stay in a convent than in an hotel or a boarding-house have here their wishes and require- ments catered for in the most complete and satis- factory style. In the centre of the conventual block 58 The Sister Dominions. ri In the Canadian Capital. 67 As the originator and the chairman of the Imperial Conference that recently deliberated at Ottawa, the name of Sir Mackenzie Bowell has become familiar to the British public. He will live in history as the organizer and the president of the first gather- ing of the statesmen of Greater Britain that has assembled in a Colonial metropolis. Sir Mackenzie Bowell thus narrated to me the circumstances that impelled him to suggest a Colonial Conference at Ottawa : — " As the result of Mr. Huddart's enter- prise in starting a direct line of steamers between Australia and Canada, we discovered and realized great possibilities for the development and ex- pansion of Canadian trade with the Australasian Colonies. Sir John Thompson advised that I should visit Australasia and confer with the various Governments there as to the best means of mutually developing trade between Canada and Australia. I went out to Australia, but soon after landing there I discovered that I had undertaken a bigger contract than I could possibly carry out within the limited time at my command. There was no federal authority with whom I could negotiate and exchange ideas. On the contrary, I found seven independent Governments, some with their Parliaments in full activity, others in recess. I met a number of leading Australian statesmen, and received from them every kindness, sympathy, and encouragement. But there was no getting F 2 68 The Sister Dominions. away from the fact that I could not possibly cover the ground during my visit, and that to secure practical results a little formal deliberation would be better than any amount of informal interviews ; and so I struck in boldly "with the suggestion that we should have a regularly-organized Inter-Colonial Conference at Ottawa. The idea was taken up splendidly by all the Colonies, and it assumed dimensions that did not enter into my contem- plation at the outset. But the Conference, as you know, was a remarkable success. It was attended by the most eminent statesmen of Australasia, the Cape, and Canada, and the delegate of the Imperial Government, Lord Jersey, gave us most valuable assistance by his experienced advice, and the promptings of his cautious Conservatism." " Ho acted as an Imperial brake on your Colonial pre- cipitancy," I interposed. "Well, yes, something of that sort," Sir Mackenzie laughingly replied. Pending the publication of the ofl&cial report of the proceedings of the Conference, he was precluded from entering into details, but he was satisfied that the Conference had done good work, and would have far- reaching results in the direction of Colonial cohesion and Imperial unity. Sir Mackenzie Bowell was bom at Rickinghall, SuflFolk, seventy-one years ago, but as a boy of ten he was brought by his parents from England to Canada. He took to journalism when he grew up to man's estate, became editor In the Canadian Capital. 69 and proprietor of a couple of Canadian papers, and was elected to the Presidency of the Ontario Press Association. He has been in the Dominion Parlia- ment since 1867, and Sir John Macdonald made him Minister of Trade and Customs in 1878. From 1870 until 1878 he was the "Most Worship- ful Grand Master and Sovereign of the Orange Association of British America." The fact that Orangemen and Irish Catholics get along very comfortably and harmoniously together in Canada was brought under my notice by Sir Mackenzie Bowell himself, who emphasized his long and intimate friendship with his Ministerial colleague, Mr. Curran, Solicitor-General, as a case in point. As a further illustration, it is worthy of note that the Dominion Ministry brings into brotherly embrace the Hon. N. C. Wallace, the present Grand Master of the Orangemen of British America, and the Hon. John Costigan, an ardent Irish Nationalist, and the mover of the Address to the Queen from the Dominion Parliament in 1882, praying her Majesty to grant Home Rule to Ireland. The fact is, that when Orangemen and Nationalists find themselves standing shoulder to shoulder in the work of building up a great Dominion, they naturally, and almost of necessity, learn to be tolerant and conciliatory towards ear!* other, while adhering to their respective opinions on the sub- jects of Ireland and the Pope. The root of the IT 70 The Sister Dominions. ** Ulster difficulty " is to be found in the fact that the Orangemen and Nationalists o£ Ireland have little or no opportunity of standing shoulder to shoulder for the promotion of the prosperity of their common country. Mr. Currau, who has been the Conservative Member for Central Montreal for a dozen years, is one of the principal chiefs of the Canadian Irish Nationalists, and has done much by his voice, pen, and purse to promote the Home Rule cause. He is an excellent platform speaker, and a lawyer of the highest repute. Frank, genial, courteous, and hospitable, Mr. Curran is an admir- able type of the successful Irish colonist. He is widely popular with all parties and creeds in Canada. \ \ i ■':» V. THE QUEEN CITY. Toronto, which is colloquially known by this superior and somewhat ambitious title, avowedly aspires to supremacy amongr.t the cities of Canada, and bids fair to realize her hopes at no distant date. She is rapidly overtaking Montreal in size and population. At present the latter has fifty thou- sand people to the good ; but if Toronto continues its recent rate of progress the next census returns will probably show that the Queen City has forged ahead of its rival in the race for the civic premier- ship. Splendidly situated on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, and served alike by the New York and St. Lawrence routes, the commercial possi- bilities of Toronto are so vast and varied that not much prophetic insight is needed for the prediction that it is destined to become the Canadian Chicago. Already it is a wonderful city, palpitating with life and energy, full of colossal business establish- ments, and presenting all the evidences of abounding material prosperity in the present, and the promise of far greater progress in the future. Both as ■1 72 The Sister Dominions. regards race and religion, Toronto is the antithesis of Montreal. The latter is mainly peopled by the French and the Irish, and Catholicism is every- where in the ascendant, whereas in Toronto, the English and the Scotch constitute the great majority, and Protestantism is the prevailing creed. Toronto is a Mohawk Indian word, signifying " a place of meeting," and, as a French trading post, a good many business meetings with the Indiana were held there during the eighteenth century. When General Simcoe entered into possession for the British, in 1794, he christened it York, and York it remained until 1834, when, on being incor- porated, it resumed its old Indian name. Its popu- lation then WPS less than ten thousand; now it rejoices in a quarter of a million. The Toronto- uians are fully conscious of the supreme excellence of themselves and their city, and they are not dis- posed to be taciturn on the subject. In the intro- duction to the current issue of their official City Directory a pretty lofty note of adulation in honour of " our noble selves " is sounded : — " There is no doubt Toronto is the finest city on the continent for its size. Our citizens generally are more respectable in appearance ; our laws are better ob- served and more strictly enforced ; we have more beautiful residence streets, with substantial and comfortable homes surrounded by fine lawns, ornamental shrubs, and shady trees ; we have more The Queen City 7$ handsome and healthy-looking ladies ; and our female clerks, stenographers, factory girls, etc., have a finer appearance than those of any other city." There is a good deal of truth in these alle- gations, but they would come with more grace and conviction from the impartial and admiring stranger within the gates. From the letters of that distinguished citizen of Toronto, Professor Goldwin Smith, to the Times , and from the fact that Toronto has very intimate and important com- mercial relations with the great republic on the other side of the lakes, I expected to find an appre- ciable current of opinion in favour of annexation to the United States ; but careful and extensive in- quiries led to the conclusion that the pro-annexa- tion movement has little or no depth, significance, or substantial influence in Toronto. Toronto possesses one of the finest and best- appointed public libraries and reading-rooms in the British Empire. The stafif is composed of bright and intelligent young ladies, who do their work with a smartness and precision that pointedly indicate this as a peculiarly appropriate sphere of feminine usefulness. The establishment is a very extensive one, embracing a circulating library of eighty-five thousand volumes, to which constant additions of the newest literature are being made; a large newspaper-room, displaying the latest journals from Great Britain and all the TTT 1 , 74 The Sister Dominions. leading Colonies ; a separate reading-room for ladies^ and a reference library of a most complete and up-to-date description. Furthermore, branches have been opened in different parts of the city, and the people of Toronto have certainly every reason to congratulate themselves on the exceptional facilities for literary culture and recreation that they enjoy. These facilities are evidently appre- ciated and turned to the best account. The central institution, brilliantly illuminated with the electric light, is crowded every evening with earnest, thoughtful, well-conducted students and readers, while the ladies in chargj of the circulating library are kept busy throughout the day receiving and exchanging books. Toronto, as the capital of the province of Ontario, is the residence of a Lieutenant-Governor, and the meeting-place of a provincial legislature. Colonel Kirkpatrick, the present local Governor, is a native Canadian of Irish parentage, a silver medallist of Trinity College, Dublin, and was one of the Canadian Commissioners to the Indian and Colonial Exhibiion, held at South Kensington in 1886. Sir Oliver Mowatt, the Premier and Attorney- General of the province, is a veteran of seventy- four, of Scottish descent, and was a fellow-student of the law with Sir John Macdonald. Ue has been a barrister since 1841, and a Q.C. since 1856. For twenty-two years he was the President of the 'HE Queen City. 75 Evangelical Alliance of Ontario. Sir Frank Smith, a member of the Dominion Senate, and one of the most prominent figures in the commercial life of Toronto, is a native of Armagh, Ireland, and is now in his seventy-second year. His name is associated with almost all the business activities and joint- stock enterprises that have been instiumental in building up the commercial greatness of Canada's "Queen City." An eminent citizen and public men of Toronto has since 1892 figured on the larger and more conspicuous stage of Westminster, in the person of the Hon. Edward Blake, who shares with Mr. Justin McCarthy the representa- tion of the county of Longford in the Imperial Parliament. Mr. Blake's election to a seat in the House of Commons has by no means terminated his active connection with Canadian affairs. He still retains the Chancellorship of the University of Toronto, and a large share in a local long-estab- lished lefal business. Mr. Blake^ who was for some time Premier of the province of Ontario, holds that the future of Canada is largely dependent on the development of the great North-West Territory. He is also of opinion that the present form of connec- tion between uhe Mother Country and Canada does not possess the element of permanence. As the child grows into the man, so, he says, the State will come to maturity, and notwithstanding the enormous difficulties that surround the ideal of Imperial 76 The Sister Dominions. Federation, he believes there is a pos^ lity and a hope of reorganizing the Empire on a Federal basis, so as to reconcile British connection with British freedom. VI. THE METROPOLIS OF MANITOBA. FoET William, on the western shore of Lake Superior, which is reached after a couple of days' delightful steaming over the great inland seas of North America, is not now the handful of huts that it was in 1870, when Colonel (now Lord) Wolseley assembled his army here to march to the Red River, and suppress the rebellion of the half-breeds under Louis Riel. It has grown into a thriving, progressive town of between three and four thou- sand inhabitants, with numerous hotels and shops, several churches, a couple of newspapers, and a town-hall. One of its journals is called the Echo, and I was somewhat amused at the ooiiditions under which this Canadian copy of the Catherine Street original was produced. It was edited, printed, and published in the upper storey of a plain weather-board building, whose lower ^alf was occupied as a Chinese laundry, three indus- trious Mongolians being visible through the open doors and uncurtained windows, hard at work on 78 The Sister Dominions. v t ; shirts and collars, while seated at a window over- head was a severe-looking gentleman, plying a pen with vigour, and seemingly determined to correct some crying local grievance or die in the attempt. And this is a reminder of a fact that I noticed in nearly all the Canadian cities and towns, the extent to which the Chinese are rapidly monopolizing the laundry business. In Montreal, Toronto, and other places, you come across Chinese laundries in almost every street you traverse, and before long the Mongolian will capture the clothes-washing industry as com- pletely in Canada as he has already done in the United States. From Fort William — which was literally a fort in the old days when it was a fur- trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company, and when the Indians around were fond of white men's scalps — to Winnipeg, the metropolis of the province of Manitoba, the railway line runs within view of tumbling rivers, peaceful lakes, thickly-timbered ranges, the beginnings of townships, periodical clearings, where pioneer farmers have commenced cultivation, saw-mills on a gigantic scale, and, as Winnipeg is approached, a succession of smiling farms and embryonic cities. Winnipeg is another striking example of the rapidity with which favour- able conditions will transform a little insignificant hamlet into a populous and prosperous metropolitan city. When Lord Wolseley arrived at Fort Garry, as it was then called, in 1870, the population was The Metropolis of Manitoba. 79 only 200. Ten years afterwards it had mounted up to 6500, last year it was 80,000, and to-day it is over 35,000, with every indication that the increase will bo similarly continuous in the future. As I write these words I can see from the window of my Winnipeg hotel new streets in process of formation at various points, and new houses going up in all directions. My eye wanders over a compact, well-built, bust- ling city, with wide, tree-bordered streets, through which electric cars are perpetually careering ; lofty business houses and extensive factories, church spires, and handsome public edifices. Situated at the junction of the Red River with the Assiniboine, the advantages of the site for trading purposes were realized and utilized at an early period of the white occupation of British North America, but it was not until the rich agricultural lands of Mani- toba and the North-West Territories were taken up and occupied, that Fort Garry began its rushing career of progress and prosperity, and developed into the now famous and flourishing city of Winni- peg. The secret of Winnipeg's rapid rise and constantly-growing greatness is to be found in the fact that, by reason of its unique geographical position, it is the receiving dep6t and the distri- buting centre for nearly the whole of Manitoba and the North- West. The settlement of these vast and fertile territories involved almost of necessity a great and brilliant future for Winnipeg. As the 8o The Sister Dominions. i: Marquis of Lome very truly and felicitously charac- terized it, Winnipeg is "the heart city of the Dominion/' adding that " nowhere can you find a situation whose natural advantages promise so gpreat a future." Eailways converge on Winnipeg from all points of the compass, and thousands of miles of river navigation supplement the resources of the rail, and contribute largely to the volume of business transacted daily in the Manitoban metro- polis. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company have extensive workshops here, and a considerable amount of labour is employed in the numerous manufactories of all the machines and implements requisite for the large and growing farming popu- lation of Manitoba and the North- West. In addition to its commercial pre-eminence, Winnipeg is politically important as the residence of the Lieutenant-Governor and the seat of the Manitoba Legislature. The Parliamentary build- ings constitute a handsome and commodious whitish brick pile on Broadway. As at Ottawa, they embrace an excellent library and reading-room. In the Ifitter I was pleased to see files of all the leading A.ustralian newspapers, showing the intimate relations that have been developed be- tween Canada and Australasia by the new direct steam service connecting Vancouver and Sydney. On the block adjoining the Parliamentary buildings stands the official residence of the Lieutenant- I ! I The Metropolis of Manitoba. 8i I-'-; t Governor, a handsome and bright-looking brick mansion, with a cannon on the lawn and a Union Jack flying from the tower as outward and visible symbols of lawful delegated authority. To judge from his name alone, Governor John Christian Schultz would perhaps not be regarded at first sight as a British subject. But he is, nevertheless, a native Canadian, born in Essex, Ontario, fifty- four years ago. His foreign name is accounted for by the fact that his father was a Norwegian, who married an Irish lady, Miss Elizabeth Riley, of Bandon, County Cork. Governor Schultz is a medical man by profession and a scientist by inclination. In the latter character he came to Fort Garry in 1860, collecting botanical specimens, so he ranks among the living pioneers and veterans of Winnipeg. Deciding to settle down in the district, he took an active and prominent part both in its commercial and educational development. He was a powerful and conspicuous advocate of the confederation of the Canadian provinces, and when the North-West was added to the Dominion, in 1869, he became the special target for the hostility of the disaflfected elements of the popula- tion. The latter attacked and captured Fort Garry ; he stood a siege for some time in his own house, but when all supplies were cut off by the insurgents, he and his garrison of thirty-nine were taken prisoners. After two months of imprison- 82 The Sister Dominions. ment he managed to escape^ and notwithstanding that a reward was offered for his capture, dead or alive, and all the ordinary routes were vigilantly guarded by the insurgents, he succeeded, although with much toil, danger, and difficulty, in making his way to Ottawa. When matters had quieted down and Manitoba became a regularly organized province of the Dominion, he was returned at the first General Election to the Dominion House of Commons, and held his seat until 1882, when he was raised to the Senate. He has been the Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba since 1888. The Premier of the Province, the Hon. Thomas Greenway, is a native of Cornwall, and came to Canada just half a century ago, when he was a boy of six. He is not such an aggressive-looking Cornishman as the Eight Hon. Leonard Courtney, but the solid common-sense and unwavering deter- mination that are conspicuous elements of the Cornish character reveal themselves in the con- versation and career of Mr. Greenway. He has been actively associated with Canadian politics since 1875, and his Premiership of the Province of Manitoba dates from January, 1888. His hands are pretty full, for he is not only Premier, but President of the Council, Minister of Agriculture and Immig^tion, and Commissioner of Eailways to boot. Mr. Greenway comes of a colonizing family. He has near relatives in Melbourne, and I.' The Metropolis of Manitoba. 83 he informed me that he intends embracing the earliest opportunity to run across the Pacific and see them. Formerly it was a matter of considerable delay and difficulty for a Canadian to visit his Australian cousins, but now, thanks to the enter- prising Mr. Huddart, who has built a bridge between the two dominions, the trip can be accom- plished at an almost inappreciable loss of time and money. 6 2 VII. THE PRAIRIE PROVINCE. No portion of the British Dominions during recent years has been more conspicuously connected with emigration from the Old World than Manitoba. The " Prairie Province/' in point of fact, has become a sort of synonym for " the land to emigrate to." When Mr. John Morley, in Opposition, described the Irish policy of Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour as one of " Manacles or Manitoba," everybody recognized at once that he meant to suggest that the Conservatives were placing two extreme alternatives before the Irish people — either stay at home and submit to coercion, or clear out to the " Prairie Province." The Irish settlers in Manitoba are fairly numerous, but the population of the province, as a whole, is best indicated by the word cosmopolitan. All the peoples and nationalities of Europe and America are represented in this fertile and progressive province of the Canadian Dominion. The reason of this rush from every country in the world to Manitoba is not far to seek. Here was an immense area of the richest agricultural land IM The Prairie Province. 85 in existence, presenting no pioneering di£Bculties whatever, but ready for occupation and cultivation the moment the settler arrived in any part of it. When one remembers the tremendous up-hill diffi- culties that pioneer settlers have had to resolutely face and wearily conquer in other portions of the British Empire — the clearing away of encumbering forests, the perils of fire and flood, the privations of solitude, and the constant fear of attacks from savages — there is no occasion for surprise that these millions of fertile acres of treeless prairies, bisected by the Canadian Pacific Eailway and within easy reach of both the Atlantic and the Pacific seaboards, should have been rushed by people from every clime. The dimensions of this rush may be gauged from the fact that while the last Canadian census showed that the population of the Dominion, as a whole, had increased by 11 per cent., that of the Province of Manitoba alone had increased by no less than 148 per cent. But this progress, marvellous as it is, does not satisfy tho Manitoban Premier. When I expressed my aston- ishment at such a rapid rate of increase, Mr. Green- way assured me that he was somewhat disappointed that the population did not come much faster. And, no doubt, if people generally knew as well as Mr. Greenway knows the immense amount of wealth that lies on the surface of the soil of Mani- toba, and the unprecedented ease with which that IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) V / O // W- [/ 1.0 I.I IIIM IIIIIM IIIM MP IIM 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 ■« 6" ► V] a ^ ^-^ If'x fc= m?< w.- Q'r T'ssanp^naBanm WBnwn 86 The Sister Dominions. '. wealth can be garnered and stored, the Prairie Province, big as it is, would very soon be filled up from end to end. The Premier is a successful Manitoba farmer himself, and he wonders why Old World farmers should be perpetually complain- ing that they cannot make agriculture pay, when they have only got to move to Manitoba and share the prosperity of the most prosperous agricultural community on the face of the globe. A score of expert witnesses have borne high testimony to the agricultural capabilities of the Prairie Province. For instance. Professor Tanner, of the Department of Agriculture, South Kensington, does not hesitate to say that "in Manitoba are to be found the champion soils of the world, and we may rejoice that they are located within the British Empire." There are several colonies of Scotch crofters in Manitoba, and they are all now thoroughly settled down and doing well. Scandinavians and Germans have also established themselves in Manitoba in considerable numbers, and I was ofiQ.cially assured that they make excellent colonists. A significant feature is the large influx from the neighbouring republic. When Manitoba first commenced to attract atten- tion as an eminently advantageous field for emigra- tion, the Americans were exceedingly sceptical, and even openly depreciatory, but now they have changed their tune, and are crossing the border to the new land of promise in thousands. The Prairie Province. 87 The visits of the farmers' delegates from Great Britain and Ireland, and the laudatory character of their reports, have done much to stimulate emigra- tion from tht British Isles to Manitoba. As a typical sample of these reports, that of Mr. Robert Pitt, Ilminster, may be cited : — " I have en- deavoured to describe the state of things in Mani- toba and the North-West, which is undoubtedly the country for an English labourer to go to. If he has but SI. or 91. he can pay his passage, and, by arriving out there at seeding or harvest-time, he can be assured of work from that moment at a figure which will vary according to his competence ; and if he will only keep himself to himself, and keep his eyes about him, he is safe to be a landlord in three years, and an established man for life." Rarely, if ever, has Hodge had such a rosy prospect as that brought within the purview of his pos- sibilities. A very appreciable element of the English emigration to Manitoba consists of young fellows who come out with a hazy idea of becoming gentleman-farmers. A number of them do settle on the land and prosper, but, as might have been expected, a proportion of them soon get tired of the uncongenial life, and drift into the cities and towns. I was informed that many of the clerks and shop assistants in Winnipeg belonged to this class. Dr. Barnardo has made Manitoba the theatre of his philanthropic and reforming experiments 88 The Sister Dominions. with the street boys of London and other large English cities. At Russell, some forty miles to the north of Winnipeg, he has established a large farm and agricultural training-school. Here the lads are received and put through a regular course of practical agricultural education. When they are deemed proficient in all that pertains to agricultural operations, they are drafted out to farmers who have applied for their services. It is yet too early to say whether good permanent colonists can or will be developed out of such unpromising material as the waifs and strays of the London streets. The local testimony on the subject is conflicting. Whilst the officials who have special supervision of land settlement in Manitoba declare that the " Barnardo boys " (the phrase in common use in the Prairie Province) get on well, and give satisfaction as a body, unofficial observers shake their heads, and allege that many of the youngsters relapse and drift away into space, unreformed, and apparently uninfluenced for the better, by the Barnardo course of moral treatment. Some of the Canadian news- papers, I notice, are endeavouring to put a stop to the immigration of "Barnardo boys," not on the ground that the lads are failures or morally undesirable, but because Canada has enough boys of her own to meet the requirements of her farms. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company is one of the most extensive agents for the promotion of ^www^ The Prairie Province. m British settlement in Manitoba. As part payment for the construction of the iron road from the Atlantic to the PacifiCj the company owns some twenty-five millions of acres in alternate blocks abutting on the track. These peculiarly-favoured areas are being largely taken up, and it will not be long before the steam-engine will run righ^ through Manitoba without ever losing sight of a farm or a homestead. At Winnipeg the coopany has a large land office in connection with its railway station, and it would be hard to say which of the two departments was the busier. After running for hours and hours along the level but luxuriant expanse of the Prairie Province, the railway enters the great North- Western region, where ranching, or sheep aad cattle raising, is the principal pursuit. Not that farming ceases when Manitoba is left behind. On the contrary, the farmers are pushing their way beyond the Manito- ban boundary and picking out the farming areas in close proximity to the railway. Lord Brassey, for instance, has established two splendid farms near the Indian Head Station, one of them bearing the title of his famous yacht, the Sunbeam. Still farther West, the Earl of Aberdeen, before he be- came Governor-General of Canada, entered into business as a fruit cultivator on a colossal scale, and he still continues the industry- by deputy, most of his time boing now necessarily passed in the iHIn 90 The Sister Dominions. metropolis of the Dominion. Law and order in the North- West are maintained by the mounted police, a splendid body, a thousand strong, largely com- posed of young Englishmen. They wear a striking military uniform, and have an unmistakably soldier- like bearing and aspect. Their headquarters is at Begina, a rising city of 3000 inhabitants, the residence of the Lieutenant-Governor, and the meeting-place of the legislative body of the North- West Territories. In this little Parliament of twenty-two members, an Irish peer, then known as Viscount Boyle, sat as member for Macleod. There are more scions of nobility and young Britons of good family leading a free, airy, open, healthy, and romantic life on the ranches of tha North- West Territories — a sort of high-class corps of amateur cowboys — than in any other quarter of Greater Bri^m'ii. , ' ./• ■t:\. i««q " n. VIII. OYER THE EOCKIES. From Regina to Calgary, a stretch of about 500 miles, the Canadian Pacific Railway runs through a splendid ranching country, great heaps of buffaloes* skulls and skeletons, visible at intervals from the carriage windows, telling of the success and com- pleteness with which the great animal monarch of North America has been practically exterminated in order to make room for horses, sheep, and cattle. The ranches continue in almost unbroken succession right up to the base of the Rocky Mountains, covering the foothills, and occupying the interven- ing valleys. The scriptural allusion to cattle graz- ing on a thousand hills is at once recalled to the memory and realized with literal accuracy as the train commences its long and arduous climb to the summit of the great dividing range. At Calgary, a handsome and ^o-ahead town of 5000 inhabitants, called into bein^ by the requirements of the numerous ranches for hundreds of miles around, the ascent of the Rockies may be said to begin. 92 The Sister Dominions. although their snow-clad peaks and serrated lines, stretching away as far as the eye can travel along the southern and western horizon, are by no means so close at hand as they look. The iron horse has to puff and pant for several hours yet before the Rockies are strictly and actually reached. Another engine is there in readiness to assist the train up the steepest sections of the formidable series of mountain barriers that seem to set all engineering skill and science at defiance. But here, as else- where, man has proved himself more than a match for the most Titanic forces of Nature. Tremendous yawning abysses have been successfully bridged, pathways for the passage of the locomotive have been hewn and blasted out of the sides of appalling precipices; long, narrow, and sinuous gorges, environed by walls that shoot up straight for hundreds, and in some places thousands, of feet, have been compelled to pay a sufficient tribute of territory to the conquering engineer ; and the host of obstacles thrown in the way of his advance by rushing rivers, foaming cataracts, snow, ice, and colossal rocks have been overcome and removed by patience, perseverance, and scientific ingenuity. The scenery throughout these 500 miles of moun- tain locomotion is indescribably grand and impres- sive — snow-clad ranges, sun-illumined glaciers, beautifully-wooded mountain-sides, awe-inspiring oafions, fantastically-shaped peaks, raging torrents, Over the Rockies. 9i and charming cascades succeeding each other in panoramic variety and interest. To enable the passengers to enjoy this glorious scenic banquet to the full, an " observation car/* or carriage open on all sides, is attached to the train, and aflfords facili- ties for an unobstructed and satisfying view. The stations in this Alpine region represent either spots of special attractiveness, where hotels have been erected for the accommodation of excursionists, or mining townships that have sprung up in the vicinity of gold, silver, or coal deposits, for the Eocky Mountains constitute a rich and still largely undeveloped mineral region, as well as a theatre of unsurpassable scenic wonders and delights. The province of the Canadian Dominion that lies between the Eocky Mountains and the Pacific may claim the credit of having practically called the great Trans-continental railway into existence, for British Columbia, before agreeing to join the Cana- dian Confederation, stipulated that a railway should be constructed to connect her with the Eastern Provinces, and, furthermore, that it should be com- menced within two years from the date of joining the Dominion. Sir John Macdonald (the father of the Federation) persuaded the first Parliament of the Dominion to agree to these terms, although the proposal was strenuously opposed by the Liberals, who contended that the projected line had never been properly surveyed, and that the cost of its 94 The Sister Dominions. construction would tie a tremendous mill-stone of debt around the neck of the infant Dominion. Sir John, having carried a Bill to provide for the con- struction of the railway, dissolved the House, and appealed to the country to ratify his policy in the matter. The country endorsed his action, strengthened his hands, and solidified the growing federation. Thus the Canadian Pacific Eailway was started into being — a permanent bond of union between the scattered provinces of the Dominion, as well as a monumental piece of successful engineering — in the teeth of the most formidable and terrific of natural difficulties. British Columbia did good business for itself, as well as the Dominion, in stipulating for the construction of the railway as an indispensable condition to its entering the Union. By the Rocky Mountains barrier it was practically isolated from the rest of British America, and the avenues for trade and commerce open to it in other directions were not particularly promising. The Canadian Pacific Eailway has not only brought it into close and regular communication "^l^h the Eastern Provinces, but has enabled it to estab' 3sh a very profitable connection with China, Japan, and Australia. The large and prosperous city of Van- couver has been created by the railway. It is the western terminus of the line, and from its capacious and picturesque harbour luxurious steamers are now regularly plying to Chinese, Japanese, and )'( Over the Rockies. 95 Australian ports. Wall^ing through the streets of this extensive city, bordered with long rows of well- appointed shops and business houses, with suburbs full of charming residences, and electric railway cars racing through all the leading thoroughfares, it is very difficult to realize that a few years ago the whole site was covered with a dense forest. Victoria, at the southern extremity of Vancouver Island, is the political capital of British Columbia, and also a place of considerable trade. It is a much more compact and English-looking city than Van- couver, but the latter has a much superior com- mercial position, and is obviously destined to rival San Francisco, and to develop into the most impor- tant British centre on the American side of the Pacific. There is a large Chinese quarter in Victoria, and the Mongolians appear to have captured a considerable amount of the business of the place. At Vancouver I noticed a number of shops displaying announcements that Chinese were not employed on the premises, and were in no way concerned in the business, a straw significant of an effort to divert public opinion into a channel hostile to the continued employment of the " heathen Chinee." But nothing short of a prohibitory poll- tax will keep Chinamen out of British Colonies. Once they get there, the amazing adaptability of their race, the readiness with which they pick up trades, their rigidly economical modd of life, their The Sister Dominions. capacity for living and sleeping in the smalleBt possible space, and their freedom from domestic ties and responsibilities, give them an immense and unique advantage over all other competitors in the various fields of labour and industry. In addi- tion to Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia possesses a third important centre in New West- minster, whose inhabitants plume themselves on the fact that the title of their city was specially selected by Her Majesty the Queen. When I arrived in British Columbia, I found the leader of the Liberal Party in the Dominion Honse of Commons, the Hon. Wilfred Laurier, engaged on a political speaking tour through the principal towns of the West, a rally being deemed advisable in view of the approach of a General Election. The Liberals have not been in power in Canada since 1878, and they naturally think it is about time for their long period of banishment from the Treasury benches to come to an end. Sixteen years* exclu- sion from office is the penalty they have had to pay for their uncompromising adherence to the prin- ciples and policy of Free Trade. Some bye-elections they have recently won have encouraged them in the hope that the ardour of Canadian devotion to Protection — the "national policy" adopted and legalized by Sir John Macdonald and the Conserva- tives — ^is beginning to cool. Free Trade has been the key-note of all Mr. Lanrier's speeches in the I» Over the Rockies. 97 West. Canada he compares to a young giant shackled with the fetters of empirical economists. If the Liberals are returned to power at the coming General Election, he says they will "cut off the head of Protection and trample on its body." Mr. Laurier has made the most of the recent victory of Free Trade in New South Wales, and he exhorts the Canadians to go and do likewise when the opportunity arrives. From the enthusiasm with which he has been everywhere greeted in the West, the large crowds that have thronged to hear him, and the small majorities by which a number of the Protectionists were elected last time, it is evident that the creed of Gobden and Bright has far more adherents in Canada than the present fitate of parties at Ottawa would lead one to suppose. Mr. Laurier is a gentleman of fine presence, the pink of graceful courtesy and easy affability, and a platform orator of considerable power and eloquence. Although of French ancestry, he speaks English with unexceptionable purity and remarkable fluency. He is a descendant of one of the first families that colonized New France, as Canada was originally designated. In 1865, when he was in his twenty-fourth year, Mr. Laurier was called to the Canadian Bar, and he graduated as a Q.C. in 1880. He has been a member of the Dominion House of Commons continuously for twenty years, and is ac- counted one of the ablest debaters of Greater Britain. ij\ IX. THE NEWEST EEPUBLIC. ; [• From Vancouver to Honolulu, the metropolis of the newly-proclaimed Republic of Hawaii, is a very pleasant seven days' steaming excursion over the deep blue waters of the Pacific. The R.M.S. War- rimoo was patronized by a full complement of passengers this trip. There were Australians re- turning home by the " New Imperial Highway " ; Canadians availing themselves of the facilities now afforded them to visit Australia, either for business or pleasure — mostly with the former intent ; and a pretty considerable contingent of residents of Honolulu, getting back from the United States and Canada. These latter had a good deal to say about the Lcest revolution and the deposition of the dusky Queen of Hawaii. We invariably asso- ciate the word revolution in our minds either with the hurried flight of kings fud queens or with their capture and decapitation on the scaffold. But there is nothing of that tragic description in the late revolutionary episode at Honolulu. The Queen of Hawaii wes simply told by a committee of lead- Ilf The Newest Republic. 99 ing citizens that the monarchy was doomed, and that she must therefore be good enough to consider herself erased from the current list of reigning sovereigns. She naturally protested with womanly vehemence and indignation Lgainst such a sudden regal extinction, but vrith admirable tact, pru- dence, and common sense, she made no prolonged or exasperating fuss abou*^^ the business ; she bowed to the inevitable, retired from the palace before superior force, and took up her residence in a private house not far distant, where she is awaiting the next turn of the wheel of fortune, a.nd where she will be ready to re-ascend the throne as soon as the fickle populace get tired of the Re- public.i She has two of the Honolulu papers on her side ; the native Hawaiians, who constitute the vast majority of the population, are understood, in a general sort of way, to be her sympathizers and adherents, but are apparently too lazy and unintelli- gent to organize and strike on her behalf; and there is, moreover, an influential section of English and American settlers, who took no part in the revolution, who disapprove of the change of govern- ment, and who are collectively referred to in the newspapers as the " Royalist Party." On the eflforts ]^ * Shortly after this was written, a Royalist restoration was attempted, but it proved a failure. The ex-Queen was arrested, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. H 2 r jismsmm 100 The Sister Dominions. 'u-'' and influence of this body, combined with the friendly intervention of the President of the United States, the ex-Queen's hopes of early restoration are founded. President Cleveland did, in point of fact, decree her restoration, but when he found that the execution of his mandate would meet with armed re- sistance, he unceremoniously backed out, and ungal- lantly left the lady in the lurch. As one of the Hono- lulu passengers on board the Warrimoo succinctly put it, in conversation with me. President Cleveland " miserably messed the business." There were quite a number of theories amongst the passengers as to the generating causes of the revolution. Some alleged that the determination of the Queen to make Honolulu a Pacific Monte Carlo was the source of her downfall ; others ascribed the trouble to the Queen's systematically ignoring her responsible advisers, and allowing herself to be made the puppet of an ob- jectionable clique ; while a third group would have it that the Queen was conspiring to undermine the Constitution of the realm. A Yankee passenger opined that " they got up the revolution just for the fun of the thing," and possibly his guess may not be so wido of the mark as it looks. However that may be, certain it is that on the fourth of July (was it by accident or design that appropriate date was hit upon ?) the Eepublic of Hawaii was formally and officially proclaimed at Honolulu. At the time of our arrival, towards the close of Sep- » The Newest Republic. lOI tember, the oath of allegiance to the new Republic was being administered to the servants of the State, and oflficials of Royalist proclivities who declined to take it were being summarily dispensed with. The Hawaiian Star, the leading organ of the revolu- tionists, was writing very strongly on the subject : — " It is not to be supposed for a moment that the men and the political forces at the back of the Re- public of Hawaii are playing make-believe in the establishment of a new form of Government, in which, perhaps, their lives, and certainly the majority of the financial interests of their country- men, are concerned. The oath which is reqt^ed as a pre -requisite for citizenship under the Re- public is a fact representing individual responsi- bility under new conditions. It means that each individual taking it becomes a supporter and de- fender of a political reality, in place of an imprac- ticable political theory." The new Republican Constitution provides that all male citizens twenty years of age who can fluently speak, read, and write either the English or the Hawaiian languages, are qualified to vote for the H ouse of Representatives ; thatall lotteries and the sale of lottery tickets are pro- hibited; and that after the beginning of 1896 no public moneys be devoted to the support of any sectarian, denominational, or private school, or any school not under the exclusive control of the Government. But the most significant provision of the Constitu- ili f^r mm 102 The Sister Dominions. tion is this : — " The President, with the approval of the Cabinet, is hereby expressly authorized and empowered to make a treaty of political or com- mercial union between the Republic of Hawaii and the United States of America, subject to the rati fication of the Senate.'* From this clause it is obvious that the Republic is only regarded as a tem- porary arrangement, and that the revolutionists look forward to annexation to the United States as soon as n. more sympathetic president than Mr. Cleveland comes into power. The Americans constitute the bulk of the white population, but there is also a respectable colony of British settlers, and a con- siderable Portuguese element. Chinese and Japanese are also numerous, and are found very serviceable on the sugar plantations. The metropolis of Hawaii is one of the most charmingly-situated cities on the face of the earth. Embowered in all the luxuriance of tropical foliage right down to the water^s edge, and backed in the immediate distance by a lofty and precipitous mountain range, it presents to the admiring eyes on the approaching steamer the aspect of a care- fully-protected garden of delights. Such is the wealth and all-pervadingness of tropical vegetation that most of the town is shut out from the view, although quite close at hand. The wharf at which our steamer was moored was thronged from end to end, the arrival of the mail steamer being the great The Newest Republic. 103 event of the week. It was a cosmopolitan crowd, thoroughly representative of the varioufa nation- alities that have emigrated to the r^oup on which the greatest of English navigators and discoverers, Captain Cook, lost his life. For the quarter of an hour that elapsed before our steamer was snugly placed in her appointed berth, she was surrounded by scores of active brown-skinned Hawaiian boys, all expert swimmers and divers, who secured the silver coins thrown from the deck long before the money had a chance of touching bottom. Going ashore, I soon perceived considerable improve- ments in Honolulu since I was last there in 1887. The streets were then villainously paved. They are not yet all that could be desired, but the prin- cipal thoroughfares are now very pleasing and satisfactory to pedestrians. The tramcar service is also an efficient reform, and I noticed that the buildings in the commercial quarter of the city were much larger and more substantial-looking than on the occasion of my former visit. H.M.S. Eyacinth was lying at anchor a hundred yards from the shore — a visible reminder to all concerned that British interests would not be allowed to suffer or British lives and property to be endangered by the quarrels of Eoyalists and Republicans. Several of the British residents with whom I conversed ex- pressed the hope and the belief that if any annexa- tion was to be done, England ought to do it, but, % aa 104 The Sister Dominions. having regard to the fuss and ontcry raised over the occupation of Egypt, Uganda, etc., I had to make the discouraging reply that, in my opinion, no British Government would feel disposed to take up another embarrassing contract of tbe like character in the North Pacific. The Australian Governments are very angry with the new Hawaiian Republic for taking formal possession of Necker Island, which had been designated as a desirable station on the route of the proposed British Pacific cable. They have energetically protested, but there is no use crying over spilt milk. Apart from the fact that Necker Island has always been regarded as within the Hawaiian sphere of influence, the representatives of the new Republic were undoubtedly the first to perform the cere- mony of annexation. It was an indiscretion on the part of the Ottawa Conference to allow it to transpire that they contemplated Necker Island as a factor in the construction of the all- through British cable across the Pacific, before they had formally converted Necker Island into British soil. That the Hawaiian Government should have promptly taken advantage of this indiscretion is only natural, and what might reasonably h ^i been expected under the circumstanceL As tL^ Hawaiian Star observes : — " The Australian Gov- ernments were preparing to take advantage of the fact that Hawaii had never taken possession of The Newest Republic. 105 Necker Island, and it had already been proposed at the Canadian Conference that Hawaii should be cut out of the proposed cable route by empha- sizing the point that a Pacific cable should only touch at British territory, and, at the same time, including Necker Island as one of the proposed routes. To have refLsed to take formal possession of Necker Island, under the circumstances, would have been for the Republic to have shut its eyes to Hawaiian iiterests." There can be no doubt that the young Republic has scored a point in this business. When the work of constructing the Pacific cable is seriously taken in hand, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia must either pur- chase Necker Island outright, or compromise the situation by conceding a branch line from Necker Island to Honolulu. iii X. A CROWN COLONY. Seven days after the infant Republic of Hawaii had vanished from our view, we steamed between long lines of coral reef into the harbour of Suva, the metropolis of the Crown Colony of Fiji. Suva, without possessing the mountainous background that sets oJBf Honolulu to picturesqiie advantage, is remarkably prepossessing in its aspect when surveyed from the centre of the harbour,, The town is literally embosomed in verdure, Cioming right down to the water's edge, and it gives cbvious indications of future expansion over the hills that environ the harbour on every side. No sooner had we anchored than we were surrounded with boats manned by the brown-skinned natives of Fiji. These boats were filled with bunches of bananas and boxes of pineapples, and for the greater part of the day the Fijians, clad in the abbreviated costume of the sulu, or loin-cloth, were busily and vociferously engaged in transferring these pleasant and palatable fruits from their boats A Crown Colony. 107 to our steamer for exportation to and consumption in Australia. Subsequently they gave us a per- formance of native solos and choruses, the latter being decidedly euphonious, and rendered remark- ably efEective by appropriate and graceful gesticula- tion. Most of the Fijian natives have been, at least nominally, evangelized, the Wesleyans and the Catholics having had missionaries at work amongh^t them for half a century. There is a dearth of good building stone in Fiji, and consequently Suva is mainly built of wood. An airy, open style of architecture prevails on every hand, the cool- ness and ventilation so desirable in a tropical climate being the objects chiefly aimed at by architect and builder. The population of Suva is of a somewhat miscellaneous character. There are about a thousand British inhabitants, but Fijians, Samoans, East Indians, half-castes, etc., are fre- quently encountered in the streets. At one time a large number of English settlers and a considerable amount of British capital were employed in de- veloping the plantations of cotton, sugar, tea, coffee, and tobacco in Fiji, but during recent years the planters have been materially reduced in numbers, mainly in consequence of the difficulty of getting a regular and adequate supply of suit- able labour. Another serious obstacle to the progress of the Colony is the fact that nearly all the land is held by the natives on the communal or >"il r I08 The Sister Dominions. tribal system, which results in protracted nego- tiations and ruinous delays before the intending settler can secure the land he desires. To this latter drawback Mr. S. M. Solomon, Q.C., the editor and proprietor of the Fiji Times, with whom I had a long and interesting conversation, attri- buted the comparatively unprogressive condition of the Colony during the past few years. However, it is not unlikely that the golden magnet will attract a considerable population to Fiji at no distant date. The precious metal has been known to exist in Fiji for some years, and at the time of our visit the most likely spots were being sys- tematically prospected, with very satisfactory results. The parcels of gold that were sent down to Suva a few weeks ago certainly encourage the belief that our Crown Colony in the Pacific will soon take rank amongst the auriferous regions of the Empire. Fiji is a Crown Colony of the severest type. The elective element is wholly and conspicuously absent from its administration. True, there is a small body called the Legislative Council, presided over by the Governor, but it has practically no power or authority ; it simply registers the decrees of the Governor and of Downing Street. It passes legislative ordinances as a matter of form, these ordinances having been previously drawn up either by the Governor or the Colonial Ofl&ce in London. A Crown Colony. 109 It consists of tea members, five of whom hold their seats as heads of the principal departments of the Civil Service, the other five being leading citizens nominated and appointed by the Governor as mem- bers of his Advisory Council. The latter frequently oppose the Governor's policy, but unavailingly, for, of course, the Governor and the ofiicial members can always command a majority when a division is challenged. The leading British settlers are anxious for some reform that would give them an effective voice in the government of the Colony; but until their numbers are appreciably increased, their desire for legislative emancipation is not likely to be attained. They are watching with great and sympathetic interest the progress of the Feder- ation movement in Australia. Indeed, delegates from Fiji have taken part in the Federation con- ferences that have been held from time to time in Australia. The accomplishment of Australian Federation would undoubtedly involve a con- siderable change in the Constitution of Fiji. Its days as a rigid Crown Colony would be numbered, as the introduction of the elective element into its governing body would be an essential preliminary to its admission into the Australian Dominion. Governc. Sir J. B. Thurston, who now reigns with Czar-like authority over Fiji, has been connected with the Colony in various capacities for close on .thirty years. A native of Gloucestershire, he emi- ■t i& U la '•1 1 .1! I: I TO The Sister Dominions. grated to Now South Wales while a young man, and entered on a business career. While on a trading voyage amongst the South Sea Islands, his vessel was wrecked, and it was in a small boat containing the survivors of the catastrophe that he first entered the Colony where he is now the Queen's representative. He was appointed to r humble post in the British Consulate of Fiji, tl: group being at that time a native kingdom, under the rule of Thakombau. This dusky monarch tried the experiment of ruling on British lines, with a Parliament and responsible Ministry. Mr. Thurston became Chief Secretary and head of the Govern- ment in 1872, and he was largely instrumental in bringing about the annexation of the group to Great Britain two years later. Sir Arthur Gordon (now Lord Stanmore) was the first British Governor of Fiji, and Mr. Thurston became his right-hand man in the administration of the affairs of the new Colony. After holding the various offices of Colonial Secretary, Auditor-General, Consul- General, and Assistant High Commissioner, he suc- ceeded to the Governorship in 1887. In addition to his duties as Governor of Fiji, he exercises a wide jurisdiction as Her Majesty's High Com- missioner for the Western Pacific. Contrary to the rule and practice of the Colonial Office not to keep a Governor more than six years in the same Colony, Sir J. B. Thurston has had his term of A Crown Colony. Ill office extended for a further period of four years, from which it would appear that Downing Street is desirous of availing itself as long as possible of his unique knowledge and experience of the Pacific Islands. Suva rejoices in an excellent cricket-ground, and England's national game is now thoroughly accli- matized in Fiji. As this is a land of perpetual summer, the game is played practically the whole year round. But they are not such gluttons for cricket in Fiji as in the neighbouring group of Samoa, where matches of sixty or seventy a side, lasting a week, or even a fortnight, are not un- frequent. In Suva the principal patron and per- former of the game is the Attorney-G-eneral, Mr. J. S. Udal, barrister of the Middle Temple. So proficient have they become with the bat and ball, natives and settlers alike, that a side was being organized for a tour of New Zealand and the Australian Colonies. Six members of the side, I was informed, would be Fijian chiefs. So it will be seen that a " Fijian Eleven " is one of the possibilities of the early future at Lord's and the Oval. m 111 I mm«Mm \': r XI. THE CENTENNIAL CITY. if ;. Sydney, the starting-point of the British occupation of Australia, and the scene of several of the most impor- tant events recorded in colonial history, can now lay- claim to comparative antiquity, for it has completed its first century, and has celebrated the occasion by the erection of the Centennial Hall, a monumental building ranking amongst the colossal edifices of the world. The western end of this capacious hall is occupied by the largest organ in existence, built specially by Messrs. Hill and Sons, of London, taken out to Sydney under the supervision of a member of that firm, and erected there at a total cost of 14,000^. To start this immense instrument on its career of glory and renown, Mr. W. T. Best, one of the most eminent of English organists, was brought out at considerable expense, and he delighted large audiences for some months with the wealth of harmony he evoked. Organ recitals continue to be given every Wednesday and Saturday in the Centennial Hall, and are The Centennial City. "3 extensively patronized. M. Augusta Wiegand, formerly of the Italian Church, Hatton Garder, London, now holds the office of City Organist of Sydney. After an absence of seven years, I do not per- ceive any very striking changes in the external aspect of nihe parent Australian city. The most noteworthy, perhaps, is the invasion of American insurance companies, who are apparently competing with one another in the matter of erecting the tallest, the most expensive, and the most Chicago- like structures in the very heart of tho business quarter of Sydney. These towering and eye- compelling edifices are, of course, mainly designed as costly advertisements. Each of them proclaims aloud : " Only a solid, substantial, prosperous, and enduring insurance company could afford to put up such a magnificent sky-scraper as this" But I heard on all sides that these enterprising Yankee insurance companies are very likely to burn their fingers in Sydney, and that there is not much probability of their diverting business to any appreciable extent from the old, steady-going, modestly-housed British and Colonial companies that have been established in Australia for many years. In Castlereagh Street, Lord Rosebery, who is a Sydney ground landlord as well as an Imperial statesman, has built a handbome establishment for the members of the Athenseum Club. Unlike '41 f-^^m ii' ' '.',!> 1H 114 The Sister Dominions. its London namesake, the Sydney AtlienaBum is not composed in the main of bishops and "littery gents." A Colonial club, to fulfil the requirements of Mr. Micawber's balance-sheet that worked out satisfactorily, must aim at a comprehensive roll of membership. Hence, at the Sydney Athenaeum Club one meets the foremost men in the political, journalistic, artistic, and commercial circles of the Centennial City. The late Premier, Sir George Dibbs, practically lives there during the currency of the parliamentary session, and many of the M.P.s find the Athenaeum Club a very serviceable institution, for it is only a stone's throw from the unprepossessing, undignified, and uncomfortably cramped collection of ^"Ooden buildings, intended in the first instance for hospital purposes, where the collective wisdom of New South Wales has so long boen accommodated. The contrast between the palatial freestone structures in which the Grovern- ment Departments are housed in Sydney, and the meagre, unsightly rooms provided for both Houses of the Legislature, is certainly a tribute to the modesty, the self-denial, and the contempt for luxurious surroundings evinced by successive generations of chosen representatives of the people of New South Wales. Although progressive and up-to-date in many respects, Sydney has not improved its system of street locomotion and suburban communication. The Centennial City. 115 The same old hideously -ugly steam motors are still seen noisily and smokily drawing tramcars through the leading thoroughfares, in some places approaching within a few feet of the sidewalks, and constituting everywhere a ceaseless menace and a constant eyesore. The rivalry between Syd- ney and Melbourne is so keen and so pronounced that it is surprising to find the senior city allowing the younger one to monopolize the advantages and the benefits of noiseless, pleasant, and comfortable tramcars worked on the underground cable system. However, Sydney has made a beginning with this much-needed reform, and the work of reformation ought to be prosecuted vigorously until not a solitary steam-engin^ is seen running through the streets. The advertising letter pillar-boxes are another abomination to the sensitive eye. These obtrusive outrages have been invented since I was last in Sydney. They are more than twice the height of the pillar-boxes standing in the streets of London, and the circumference is 'considerably enlarged as well, in order to provide as much advertising space as possible. Each advertiser, apparently, has the right of painting the space he has leased from the Postmaster-General any colour he pleases, and the inevitable consequence is a maddening medley of conflicting hues. You see somebody's soap ex- tolled on a bright blue ground, while underneath I 2 ii6 The Sister Dominions. I the virtues of somebody else's pills arc proclaimed on glaring red, and overhead a third party's boots are eulogized on a startling yellow surface. By similarly farming out the pillar-boxes of London and the principal provincial centres, the Imperial Postmaster-General could no doubt obtain an in- crease of revenue that would enable him to docree and to establish Imperial penny postage by one stroke of his pen and without the slightest danger of departmental loss, but I question very much whether the British public would consent to acquire even so great a boon at the cost of a new and ever-present advertising horror in their streets. All thi) world over the ruthless and aggressive advertiser is now despotically asserting himself, and there is a growing conviction that he ought to be summarily arrested and limited for the future to his legitimate sphere of operations. As most people are aware, Sydney Harbour is one of the most glorious pictures of panoramic loveliness that the earth can present, and yet some of its fairest spots are at this moment marred and dis- figured by the irreverent and soulless advertiser, who regards the rocks and the headlands merely as good natural hoardings for the dissemination of information concerning his pills and his soap. Misconduct of this character, such offensive defile- ment of the beauties of nature, ought to be made a criminal ofifence. The Centennial City. "7 During my visit Sydney was in a high state of indignation at the candid criticisms of Max O'Rell in his new book on the Colonies, copies of which had just arrived in Australia. The genial French humorist spent a couple of years in the Austra- lian colonies, lecturing to lucrative and attentive audiences, and passing a very pleasant time. No- where was he received more cordially or listened to more respectfully than in Sydney, and it is there- fore not surprising that the Sydneyites should feel hurt at the unkind things he has said about them in his book. For instance, he suggests that Sydney is an exceptionally immoral city, and this is indig- nantly repudiated by the Sydney press and public as a hasty generalization based on imperfect in- formation and casual observation. There can be no doubt that disedifying and repulsive scenes ob- trude themselves in the Sydney streets and parks both by day and night, but too much might easily be made of such unpleasant incidents, the fact being that from a moral standpoint Sydney is neither better nor worse than any other largo and populous city of the British Empire. As regards the prevalence of drunkenness, to which the French critic-humorist also pointedly alludes, that is unquestionably a conspicuous feature of colonial life. The influem e of the fifties and the sixties, when gold was plentiful and lucky diggers were legion, when conviviality was universal, and to refuse li'l n 'w uw ivmmm'm^im ■*■ Il8 The Sister Dominions. I' 4 ! ii^ to drink with anybody, even with a total stranger, was regarded as a personal insult, survives to a considerable extent, and is largely responsible for the sociable n '^e-and-easiness and the habitual readiness with wh tch the Australians gather into drinking groups. " Shouting," the gold-diggers* slang expression for inviting all and sundry to drink, continues to be a colloquial phrase, and to typify a too general colonial custom in spite of all the eflforts of temperance reformers to lessen and eradicate it. The evil is undoubtedly a very serious one, but local legislators do not seem dis- posed to treat it seriously. A Speaker of an Aus- tralian Parliament, who was remonstrated with for not putting the question from the chair in a loud enough voice, replied : — " It is no part of my duty to shout for honourable members." " I am sorry to hear you say so," came a voice from the back benches, and then the House laughed uproariously. XII. i'l THE AUSTRALIAN G.O.M. Although he is at present neither Prime Minister nor leader of the Opposition, the veteran octo- genarian Australian statesman. Sir Henry Parkes, is still one of the most potent, and certainly the most picturesque figure in the political arena of Greater Britain. I found him decidedly dissatisfied with the sequel to the General Election in New South Wales, when, after having contributed powerfully to the overthrow of Protection and " enthused " the country from a score of platforms in favour of a return to the principles of Cobden and Bright, a Free-trade ministry was formed without his co-operation or concurrence. Sir Henry naturally resents what he regards as an unwarrantable piece of sharp practice, and the old parliamentary hand is credited with a determina- tion to upset the ministerial apple-cart of the Hon. G. H. Reid, Q.C., at the first favourable oppor- tunity. The alleged antipathy or lukewarmness of Mr. Reid towards the federation of the Australian m a r I 1 20 The Sister Dominions. colonies is being strongly emphasized by Sir Henry, and a coalition between liimself and the leader of the straight Opposition, Sir George Dibbs, has been formed on a federal basis. It is true that Sir George is the leader of the defeated Protectionist host, and that Sir Henry was the man who mainly inflicted the defeat, still, that battle is over and gone, and as victor and vanquished are both out of office, they have agreed to bury the hatchet, join their forces, and form a coalition with Federation as its principal plank, watchword, and battle-cry. Sir Henry Parkes laving intimated that he would be pleased if I could spend an afternoon with him, I duly presented myself at his new resi- dence, Kenilworth, Annandale, a pleasant Sydney suburb that offers two distinct advantages to a literary statesman — a pervading quietness by day and an easy distance from the halls of legislation. Kenilworth is one of a series of five detached villa residences, all built exactly alike, and each sur- mounted by a tapering spire — an architectural peculiarity suggestive of a little ecclesiastical group. As you ascend the staircase to the recep- tion-room, you pass a splendid bust of Lord Tennyson, who for many years was the admiring friend and correspondent of Sir Henry. The late Poet Laureate entertained the Australian statesman- versifier more than once at his home in the Isle of The Australian G.O.M. 131 Wight, and their correspondence is both interesting and cordial. As Sir Henry enters and gives me a kindly greeting, I notice that while his figure is not so upright as in days of yore, and his voice is somewhat weaker and shriller, he has nob appre- ciably altered during the seven years that have elapsed since I last set eyes upon him. The same capacious head, the same patriarchal profusion of impressive white hair, the same keen searching thought-reading glance, the same high-pitched voice, slow and deliberate utterance and wonder- fully well-constructed sentences, considering that the speaker never had three months of consecutive schooling in his youth. Sir Henry is above all a self-educat:.d man. He has graduated in the great school of lii9 experience, the university of hard persistent up-hill work from foundry-hand in Birmingham and agricultural labourer in Australia to Prime Minister five times in succession, and the most influential personal force in Greater Britain. After conversing for a few moments on Australiar. federation, which in Sir Henry's opinion is advanc- ing steadily towards the destined goal, the subject changed to Lord Kosebery, in whom the octo- genarian is deeply interested. He was anxious to ascertain the prospects of Lord Rosebery's per- manent leadership of the Liberal Party and the nature of the opposition to hie Premiership within the Liberal ranks. I spoke optimistically as to the \lf i: "X, 122 The Sister Dominions. former, and added that the latter had been con- siderably exaggerated, whereupon the veteran looked pleased and went on to recall reminiscences of a very pleasant sojourn at The Durdans, Epsom, where he was the guest of Lord Rosebery, and one of a brilliant house party that embraced amongst others three literary Americans of high standing in the persons of James Russell Lowell, Henry James, the novelist, and G. W. Smalley, of the New York Tribune. Lord Rosebery drove Sir Henry all around Epsom in a dog-cart, and the veteran loves to linger over the recollections of these drives and the charming conversation of his host. Lord Carrington is another peer of whom Sir Henry entertains a high opinion. He expressed to me his great surprise that Lord Carrington had not received a better ofl&ce in the Ministry than that of Lord Chamberlain. Sir Henry was Prime Minister during most of Lord Cirrington's reign in New South Wales, and his opinion is that " Lord Carrington has far greater ability than the public or the leaders of the Liberal Party give him credit for/* He added that he was much impressed by the tact, the discernment, and the statesmanly skill with which Lord Carrington had managed several difficult and delicate matters while Governor of New South Wales. As regards Robert Lowe (the late Viscount Sherbrooke), of whose election committee in Sydney in 1848 Sir Henry Parkes The Australian G.O.M. 123 was secretary, I was somewhat astonished to hear the veteran expressing a not altogether flattering estimate. " Lowe was entirely wanting in two of the essential elements of real greatness. No man can be truly great who is without heart and sym- pathy. Lowe had neither. He had great readiness of repartee, a wonderful power of invective, an unsurpassed capacity for marshalling the facts of his case to the best possible advantage, and a vast mine of erudition to draw upon for similes, phrases, and historic parallels, but he was ever and always the professional advocate, and never once, even in his greatest and most memorable orations, did he touch the heart or the human emotions. Therein he was the exact antithesis of Gladstone. The secret of Gladstone's wonderful and long-continued power and popularity is to be found in his great heart and universal sympathies." While speaking thus Sir Henry was careful to point out that personally his relations with Lowe had always been of the friendliest kind. It was largely owing to the energy and canvassing ability of Mr. Parkes that Lowe was elected member for Sydney in 1848, and when Lowe had subsequently attained high rank in the Imperial Parlf ament he was always very gracious to Lis old Sydney friend when the latter visited England. After some further conversation. Sir Henry asked Lady Parkes (who is an accomplished, well-informed, i m -A J 24 The Sister Dominions. I and vivacious conversationalist herself, and the possessor of a singularly musical voice) to produce those volumes of letters from celebrities of the century which are his greatest piize and delight. They are all handsomely bound, the name of the celebrity whose correspondence it contains being printed in large letters of gold on the cover of each. The Carlyle correspondence is the bulkiest of the series, for between the sage of Chelsea and the artisan Australian Premier there was a natural afl&nity which developed into a particular friendship, resulting in a most interesting correspondence covering a long peiiod of years. The volume of Lord Tennyson's letters is next in size, and the one that is labelled "Gladstone" is also pretty thick, but of the latter it has to be observed that all the letters in it were not addressed to Sir Henry. He is an enthusiastic admirer of the English G.O.M., and has collected everything he possibly could that bears the signature "W. B. Gladstone." The first of Mr. Gladstone's letters in Sir Henry's collection is dated 1833, and the last was written during this present year of grace. There is also a letter from Mr. Gladstone's father. Sir John Gladstone. Sir Henry possesses one tremendously long letter from Daniel O'Connell, covering no less than eight largo-sized sheets of paper, and in showing it to me he mentioned that he had heard O'Connell deliver three splendid The Australian G.O.M. 125 speeches. John Bright, John Stuart Mill, Robert Browning, H. W. Longfellow, General Grant, and Richard Cobden also figure in Sir Henry's corre- spondence volumes, and he has besides a very large collection of autographed portraits of celebrities that must be of considerable monetary value ; but although Sir Henry is notoriously a poor man, and has never succeeded in mastering the art of feathering one's own nest, notwithstanding that he has been at the head of five Ministries, and has been longer in power than any other public man throughout the Empire, yet he never means to part with any of these mementoes of his friend- ship and intercourse with the great men of the nineteenth century. In a room downstairs, opening into a charming fernery arranged and constantly supervised by Lady Parkes, Sir Henry does his daily work, for though an octogenarian, he continues to ply his pen industriously and to produce sheets of neatly and closely-written manuscript with almost as much readiness and celerity as in the days of forty years ago when he was editing the Sydney Empire. This room is literally crammed with books, seemingly in utter confusion, but the octogenarian has a marvellous memory and can always put his finger on the book he wants. In a locked case standing in a corner are preserved a number of first editions and special presentation volumes. itil 126 The Sister Dominions. Tennyson ian and otherwise. On opening this case the first volume on which Sir Henry happens to alight is a first edition of Lord ByronV. first volume of poems — " Hours of Idleness " — that was so savagely reviewed in the Edinburgh. Byron is one of his favourites, and he said he was sorry to hear it when I remarked that I did not think the author of '* Childe Harold " was much read or appreciated in England nowadays. Then Sir Henry produced a first edition of his own little pioneer volume of verses — " Stolen Moments " — and with pardonable pride pointed out that it now ranked amongst valuable literary curiosities, a copy recently changing hands in Sydney at fifty times the original published price. Sir Henry has a complete collection of early editions of Leigh Hunt, whose writings he holds in the highest esteem. Sir Charles Gavan Dutt;y he admires as a "writer of luminous and clear-cut English." They are old Australian friends and fellow-statesmen, and more- over it was to Sir Gavan that Sir Henry was indebted for his first introduction to Carlyle. Unquestionably an afternoon spent in the com- pany of Sir Henry Parkes is a recollection to be treasured, for there is no other public man in the British Dominions who has triumphed so splendidly over the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and who has made good to so large an extent the accidental deficiencies of early education. By his The Australian G.O.M. 127 own exertions Sir Heni-y has risen from the very lowest rung of the ladder to the very highest, he is entitled to take a place in the front rank of the Empire-builders of the century, he has materially moulded the destinies of the great branch of the Anglo-Saxon race dwelling beneath the Southern Cross, and has powerfully assisted in laying broad and deep the foundations of the future Dominion of Australia. U H V I I * i 1 1. 1' IiBA' ^1 I XIII. PREMIERS, PAST AND PRESENT. The late Prime Minister of New South Wales has apparently suffered not the slightest loss of good spirits, or the smallest diminution o:' his exuberant vitality, by the recent overthrow of Protection, and his Protectionist Ministry, at the polls. Calling upon him at his room in the ramshackle series of sheds that do duty for a Parliament House in Sydney, I found the legislative giant in a most affable, entertaining, and conversational mood. He is far from regarding the result of the late General Election as a knock-down blow to the principle of Protection. On the contrary, he believes that the State stimulation of local industries, with a view to providing constant employment for the people, is a policy that will be emphatically endorsed by the electors of New South Wales in the light of greater knowledge and wider experience than they now possess. He is not surprised that Sydney should have pronounced overwhelmingly in favour of a return to Free Trade, for, as the leading Aus- Premiers, Past and Present. 129 tralian seaport, its profit and its interests obviously lay in that direction. " I would be a Fr<3e Trader myself, if it was a matter of Sydney alone," lie said to me, "but, when I consider the best interests of the country as a whole, my honest conviction is that Protection is the wisest and most salutary policy." As regards federation, Sir George still holds strongly to his scheme of unification between New South Wales and Victoria, and maintains that once these two most important of the Australian Colonies federate on the lines he has suggested, the inclusion of the others in the new Dominion would inevitably follow at no distant date. He was much pleased at the attention his unification scheme received in the English press, and he handed me, with evident satisfaction, a sheaf of extracts re- ceived the day before from a London Press-cutting Agency. Undoubtedly a great advance towards the goal of federation has been made sincg I was last in Sydney. The people then were lukewarm, indifierent, and apathetic ; now they seem to realize the importance of this great national issue, and they manifest their awakened interest by crowding to the numerous meetings organized by the local Federation League for its promotion. It is beginning to be perceived that federation means a substantial reduction in the public burdens, a more economical administration of Governmental departments, and a sensible diminution of the ex- 1 ' t V. Hi i ,1 130 The Sister Dominions. " travagant absurdity of keeping up seven complefce sets of Civil Services for less than four millions of people. At a time like the present, when the Aus- tralian Colonies are passing through a period of the severest depression, consequent on the unprece- dented banking crisis of 1893, this argument from the standpoint of economic common sense in favour of federation comes home with a force and direct- ness and conviction that were not possible in former years of abounding prosperity. At the Mayor's luncheon in the Sydney Town Hall in October last, I was cordially cheered when I contrasted the economical administration of the federated Canadian provinces, through which I had just travelled, with the multiplied, overlapping, and costly Civil Services that prevailed amongst a much smaller but non-federated population in Aus- tralia. I agreed with Sir George Dibbs that Victoria and New South Wales ought to sink their minor differences, and set a good federal example to the rest of the Colonies. The jealousy that formerly openly and violently raged between New South Wales and Victoria, and more particularly between their respective capitals — Sydney and Melbourne — has undoubtedly cooled down con- siderably during recent years, and the efforts of Sir George Dibbs to completely extinguish the smouldering embers, and pave the way for a fra- ternal federal union, are deserving of success and Premiers, Past and Present. 131 entitled to the thanks of all well-wishers of Colonial progress. Sir George, it will be remembered, was the lion of the season in London a couple of years ago, and he speaks of his visit to the old land as one of the most agreeable recollections of his life. He met the Prince of Wttles, was entertained at various country houses, participated in a number of Society functions in London, and was knighted by the Queen on the eve of his return to Australia. He has taken up very warmly the case of the Costa Rica Packet, a Sydney whaling barque, whose cap- tain was summarily arrested by the Dutch authori- ties in the Moluccas, taken a thousand miles away from his ship, imprisoned in a loathsome, insanitary dungeon, discharged without trial, and left to find his way back to his ship as best he could. The unqualified vigour and emphasis of Sir George's telegrams to the Foreign Office in connection with this case made Lord Eosebery and Lord Kimberley shrug their shoulders and elevate their eyebrows considerably. They wanted to pursue the beaten paths of diplomacy, but, as Sir George Dibbs said to me, " What's diplomacy got to do with such a transparent outrage as this ? Make them pay for it. That's the only possible diplomacy in such a disgraceful and insolent business." Sir George is an old sailor himself, who has run the blockade more than once during the wars of the South American Republics, and this no doubt explains - K 2 '1 i i 132 The Sistf.r Dominions. the ardour and honest indignation with which he goaded the Foreign Office into activity, and which were largely inatrumental in compelling the Dutch Government to agree to arbitration in i'ne matter of the captain, owners, and crew of the Costa Rica Packet. His early nautical associations are also responsible for the unconventional breeziness of Sir George's general conversation, and the easy familiarity with which he adapts himself to the society in which he happens to find himself for the time being. When he is not at the Athen89um Club or within the Parliamentary precincts, Sir George will be found at a picturesque retreat not many miles from Sydney, where he casts politics to the winds, and loves to recreate himself as a turner, carpenter, blacksmith, for he is fully qualified to practise any or all of these trades if ever he should fail to make a livelihood by commerce and politics. He learnt the art of turning in Darlinghurst Gaol, Sydney, where he was imprisoned for twelve months, on account of his refusal to pay what lie believed to be an extortionate bill of costs. Afterwards, as Minister, he had the satisfaction of promoting his favourite warder to the position of governor of the selfsame prison. Frank, outspoken, pugnacious, obstinate, when he feels himself in the right, in- different to criticism himself, and careless how his own criticisms aflfect other people, Sir George Dibbs is a strongly-marked, original character, who is Premiers, Fast and Present. 133 pretty sure to fi id or make a way to the Treasury Bench again. " The long and the short of it/* one would be tempted to exclaim on seeing the late and the pre- sent Premier of New South Wales standing side by side. For Mr. Reid is almost as much below the average height as Sir George Dibbs is above it. He is a stout, rubicund little gentleman, with a Chamberlainian eye-glass and an attractive air of genial good-fellowship. His reputation in the past has been practically confined to his unswerving championship of Free Trade in season and out of season. His ability and pertinacity in this respect have charmed the Cobden Club, and led that body to shower all possible honours upon his head. He assumed the leadership of the Free Trade Opposition when the veteran Sir Henry Parkes somewhat petulantly threw it up, in the belief that he was in- dispensable, and would have to be sent for w» en the time came to form a Free Trade Ministry. That time arrived in due course, but the veteran was not sent for, and Mr. Eeid successfully formed anew Ministry *'off his own bat," a not inappro- priate simile, seeing that Mr. Reid was once an ardent cricketer, still holds the office of President of the New South Wales Cricketing Association, and rarely misses an important match. Although one of the first acts of the Reid Government was to issue a circular letter to the other Australian Premiers, ,' I '. 4 134 E SisTi'.R Dominions. intimt that " this Government is prepared to take up, with genuine earnestness, the question of a united Australia," the intentions of Mr. Reid with respect to this important issue have given rise to no little speculation and some ominous shakings of the head. The fact is that Mr. Reid has yet to demonstrate his practical desire to promote the cause of federation, as hitherto his whole-souled devotion to Free Trade has left him but little time or inclination to help on and popularize other large questions of Colonial policy. His holding aloof from the federal propaganda is now his vulnerable point, and should lie be prematurely displaced before he has a fair opportunity of displaying his administra- tive ability, it will be by a coalition Federal Ministry, headed by Sir Henry Parkes and Sir George Dibbs. He is the author of "Five Free Trade Essays," and "An Essay on New South Wales/' In the latter work he argues very powerfully in favour of systematic emigration from the British Isles to the Australian Colonies. On it, he maintains, the progress of the Colonies practi- cally depends. The Australian Colonies have im- mense area and capacity, and he declares it would be diflficult to point to richer fields for the surplus labour and capital of the United Kingdom. " A community young yet conservative, pushing yet generous, free yet orderly," is his summing-up of the people over whom he now presides as Premier. XIV. •J RELIGxOUS SYDNEY. For several weeks during my stay Sydney was the scene of a singular outburst of emotional religion, evoked by the impassioned utterances and fervid appeals of the Rev. John McNeil, the *' Scottish Spurgeon " as he is sometimes called, who was minister of the Regent Square Presbyterian Church, London, a few years ago. Mr. McNeil is engaged on an evangelistic tour through the English-speak- ing world, and he is accompanied by a Mr. Burke, the possessor of a splendid singing voice, which is an invaluable aid to the musical portion of the ser- vices. Every day the Centenaiy Hall was thronged at noon, and the Exhibition Building in the evening, by thousands of men and women in a high state of spiritual exaltation. Most of them were evidently regular church-goers who had been stirred up out of the ordinary routine by the vivid, direct, and unconventional addresses of the "Scottish Spur- geon.'' The spirit of temporary revivalism, once started, becomes infectious, and is fanned by the reports in the newspapers, the huge placards on the %i-'- m 'II I; 136 The Sister Dominions. I I t walls, and the gossip of the trams and 'buses. In thf booksellers' shops, prominently displayed in long rows, were to be seen cheap editions of the life of the " Scottish Spurgeon," showing how he rose from the humble position of a railway porter to the high office of a popular evangelist. Mr. McNeil's discourses in Sydney have been remark- able for their honest candour and blunt outspoken- ness. They have been largely concerned with the castigation of Colonial vices and failings. For instance : — " Poor demented Sydney. I can't sit down on a seat in the park, or a bench in my hotel, or rub shoulders with anyone in the street, without hearing betting, betting, betting — the Melbourne Cup, the Melbourne Cup — this horse and that. Man, be the thief you are — go and steal the money out of a fellow's pocket ; be an honest thief if possible, but for the sake of all manliness be above betting. As the American put it, betting is about the measliest sort of thing that has escaped out of hell." Here's another illustration of Mr. McNeill's forcible way of putting things : — " Bullocks, when driven past a sla,ughter-house, will pause and sniff and tremble, because they smell the blood of their butchered kin. I tell you there is not a public- house, not an hotel bar, where you may not smell the blood of your butchered brother. Back in God's name. Back from the bloodstained threshold, and never cross it unless to bring some poor victim Religious Sydney. 137 lell in old, 5tim out in God's name." But Mr. McNeil surpassed himself in his scathing comments on the ballroom and ladies' evening dress : — " This mixing up of Christ with theatres, and balls, and gambling, and unclean speculation in business, is the ruin of all ye in Sydney. My brother, let me put it bluntly, you cannot stand to dance half through the night and on into the early morning with a more or less naked woman. I am speaking of the ordinary dress ball as it is — a thing of the flesh and uncleanness, the very conception and essence of it. Why, if you met your sister or your wife in that dress anywhere else you would hunt her home. You would send her home in a cab with the windows shut and the blinds down." These caustic observations aroused considerable contro- versy, and in some quarters occasioned no small offence. The Sydney Morning Herald published a leading article with the object of proving that dress, or the absence of dress, has really little to do with morality. Concurrently with the revival of evangelistic fervour promoted by the breezy oratory of the "Scottish Spurgeon," Sydney witnessed a tem- porary recrudescence of the spiritualistic craze. The achievements of a local medium named Mrs. Mellon became the talk of the town, and at one of her seances no less distinguished a personage than M-s. Annie Besant, the high-priestess of Theosophy, { ■ ■! I - rf"8^«^^ 138 The Sister Dominions. ; i< attended and assisted. Mrs. Bosaut was introduced by the medium to a materialized spirit as •* one of the most famous women of the century." Mrs. Besant is said to have been profoundly impressed by her conversation with this materialized spirit, which tends to support Mr. Gladstone's suggestion in a recent number of the Nineteenth Century that she has not yet completed the cycle of her wander- ings in search of a satisfactory soul-refuge. But at the seance immediately after the one that Mrs. Besant attended, the medium, Mrs. Kollon, was ludicrously bowled out. A Mr. Henry, himself an enthusiastic spiritualist, was inspired to suddenly rush forward and throw his arm around a " materialized spirit." The husband of the medium and three or four others assaulted him violently, and strove their utmost to pull him away, but he held his grip tenaciously until ^^e candles were relit, when the ^' materialized spirit " within his grasp was found to be none other than the medium, Mrs. Mellon, herself. At the moment that the tableau was illuminated, she was endeavouring to conceal a black mask, false whiskers, and certain other useful aids to the manufacture of materialized spirits. The incident has been productive of con- siderable merriment to outsiders, while the small inner circle of believers in the possibility of mani- festations from the other world have had their faith severely shaken. Curiously enough, the Mr. Henry Religious Sydney. 139 who thus brought Mrs. Mellon's career as a medium to an unhappy and summary close is the author of a book called " Miracles in our Midst," which is in the main a credulous eulogy of all Mrs. Mellon's powers and feats as a medium, with photographs of the " spirits'' that she materialized. The Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney, whose health was very precarious while sojourning last year in Rome, London and Dublin, has become thoroughly convalescent under the influence of the genial climate and perennial sunshine of his cathedral city. In response to a kind invitation, I spent an afternoon at the imposing new palace he has built at Manly, a delightful spot near the northern head of Sydney Harbour, Many years ago the New South Wales Government granted several acres at Manly as a site for a Catholic college and Arch- bishop's residence, but neither Archbishop Folding nor Archbishop Vaughan (younger brother of Cardinal Vaughan of Westminster) took any steps to utilize the ground for the purposes specified. Cardinal Moran arrived just in time to save the land from resumption by the State with a view to its conversion into a popular reserve. He has expended close on one hundred thousand pounds on the erection of a magnificent college and a very attractive episcopal residence. The former over- looks the broad Pacific, and is the first building that greets the eye of incoming voyagers from i !^': ■1^ I' I'll 140 The Sister Dominions. ■^1 ( I Canada and the United States. It is intended to be the great seminary or training-school of the Catholic Church in Australia. Hitherto compara- tively few Australian Catholic natives have embraced the ecclesiastical life, and the ranks of the Catholic clergy in the Colonies have been mainly recruited from the Irish coUe^as in general, and All Hallows College, Dublin, in particular. The new college erected by Cardinal Moran at Manly is intende-i to demonstrate that the allegation that Australian natives have no vocation for the clerical calling is not founded upon fact. Pope Leo the Thirteenth is particularly interested in this new college, and has presented it with two gifts — an admirable portrait of himself in oils, for which he gave special sittings, and a valuable altar that has been erected in the college chapel. There is a very interesting museum of '•'^lics and curiosities of the early days of Sydney, mostly associated with Archpriest O'Flinn, who landed in Sydney at the beginning of the century, ministered secretly for a time to the Catholics of the place, but was afterwards arrested, imprisoned, and sent baok to England because he could produce no oflficial authorization to oflficiate in the Colony. His case evoked debates both in the Lords and Commons, and led to the appointment by the Imperial Government of a couple of Catholic chaplains for Sydney. A framed letter hanging on the college walls is another Religious Sydney. 141 curious memento of those bygone days. It is an application from another pioneer priest for permis- sion to go out to Australia, enclosing a testimonial from the local Protestant minister that he was a person of good character and repute. There is a picture of the modest edifi^j that was dignified with the name of St. Mary's Cathedral half a century ago, with a cottage that was called the *' Bishop's Palace " adjoining, ardin the foreground a group of aboriginals, one of the black women carrying a " piccaninny " on her back. Such a sight as that is no longer to be seen, for the blacks are almost annihilated by drink and disease, and the St. Mary's Cathedral of to-day, although not yet completed, ranks among the largest and finest ecclesiastical edifices of the world. Cardinal Moran is an enthusiastic antiquarian, and has written largely on the early British and Irish Churches. During the past three years he has been hard at work delving into the records, reports, correspon- dence, diaries, etc., beaiing on the rise, growth, and development of Catholicism in the Colonies. The archives of the Vatican, the Propaganda at Eome, Westminster, Paris, Dublin, etc., have all been industriously searched, with the result that tliere will shortly be issued from the Cardinal's pen simultaneously in London, New York, and Sydney a '' History of the Catholic Church in Australia," in two volumes, that will be full of hitherto un- 't I' i 142 The Sister Dominions. known information and unpublished original docu- ments. It is to be illustrated by 250 engravings, and, judging from the hasty glance I have had over the proof-sheets, it will be not only an important contribution to ecclesiastical history, but also the occasion of considerable controversy, for the Cardinal has penned some severe strictures on the Church of England, its conduct and its policy in the Colonies during the early years of the century. XV. THEATRICAL SYDNEY. Mr. F. B. Chatterton, who preceded Sir Augustus Harris in the management of Drury Lane, is reported to have once sadly remarked from the stage of the national theatre that " Shakespeare spells ruin." An Australian manager gave ex- pression to the same sentiment in a more roundabout, amusing, and unconventional style : — "You want Shakespeare, do you ? Well, I gave a Shake- pearian season lately, and went to some expense in mounting the plays, but that season was a dead failure. Legs and bright eyes with the limelight have eclipsed old Bill." Sir Henry Irving hai abundantly proved that Mr. Chatterton was a little premature in making Shakespeare synonymous with bankruptcy, and Mr. George Rignold, lessee and manager of Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney, has no less convincingly demonstrated that in Australia the ballet, burlesque, and the limelight have by no means succeeded in banishing " old Bill " from the boards. Mr. Rignold is a member of the well- known English theatrical family of that name, and mmmm I ^ 144 The Sister Dominions. may be said to have been born into the profession, his mother — a leading actress of half-a-century ago — having played with Macready and Phelps. Before settling in Australia, Mr. Rignold, who made his first appearance at the Theatre Royal, Birmingham, had gained the suffrages of the London playgoing public by his splendid perform- ance of Henry the Fifth at Mr. Labouchere's theatre in Long Acre, and subsequently at Drury Lane. This is considered, and deservedly so, his finest Shakespearian character. " Henry the Fifth " has been repeatedly revived by Mr. Rignold in Australia, and invariably with pronounced success from every point of view. It was in that favourite character he commenced his management of Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney, in November, 1887. This new, bright, and spacious Thespian temple has a large and deep stage that enables full justice to be done to the Shakespearian spectacular drama, in point of fact, the mounting of the national dramatist in Sydney, under the direction of Mr. Rignold, approaches very closely the high standard of splendour, completeness, and correctness of detail that are the characteristics of Mr. Irving's Shakespearian productions at the Lyceum. During my recent stay in Sydney, Mr. Rignold was play- ing Shakespeare's " Julius Csesar " with an all-round ability, an accuracy of costume, and a wealth of scenic accessories that would have elicited the Theatrical Sydney. I4S of ing ay- Lud of the cordial approval of the most fastidious of London audiences. The character of Mark Antony Mr. Rignold has made his own in the Colonies, but he has also successfully assumed such diverse Shake- spearian characters as Caliban, in '' The Tempest," Bottom, in "A Midsummer Night's Dream/' and Cardinal Wolsey, in " Henry the Eighth/' In point of fact, more than half of Shakespeare's plays have been produced under Mr. Rignold's auspices in Australia — a fact that testifies strongly in favour of the culture of Colonial audiences. The actor who, at the time of my sojourn in Sydney, was playing Brutus with sustained power and elocutionary effect to the Mark Antony of Mr. Rignold, is one of the veterans of the British stage, a member of Charles Kean*s company during the famous Shakespearian revivals at the Princess's Theatre, London, and one of the few surviving actors who played before the Queen and the Prince Consort in the fifties. This interesting gentleman is Mr. James F. Cathcart. I had a very agreeable and instructive interview with him at his Sydney home — the Towers, Macquarie Street. Mr. Cathcart is stone deaf in the right ear, but this affliction is neither productive of personal inconvenience to himself, nor the source of any delays or drawbacks to the play in which he is appearing. His half century's connection with the stage has familiarized him so thoroughly with al'^ the great dramas that 140 The Sister Dominions. I' ': i 1) I i come under the general heading of the " legitimate " that ho is almost independent of the five senses. An active, rubicund, medium-sized, white-haired, keen-eyed, affable gentleman, Mr. Cathcart con- verses on the recollections of the past with a clear, melodious voice, a distinctness of enunciation, and a precision of memory that leave nothing to be desired. Indeed, the colonial dramatic critics are constantly holding up Mr. Cathcart as a model for the imitation of the new generation of actors in the important matters of speaking so as to be heard all over the house, declaiming blank verse with pro- priety and correct emphasis, and acquiring a thorough mastery of the text. Mr. Cathcart is the son of a Dublin barrister, James Leander Cathcart, who took to the stage and became the leading actor on a circnit that embraced the town of Gosport (Hants). It was in this town that the Sydney actor of to-day first saw the light on Dec. 30th, 1828. His first appearance was as the boy, in *' Pizarro," and on Dec. 4th, 1844, he played Lucius, in "Julius CsDsar," at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, his father sustaining the character of Brutus. A framed day -bill of this performance is now in Mr. George Rignold's collection of theatrical curiosities. Before he had attained his majority young Cathcart had become known to Charles Kean, who engaged him in September, 1850, as a member of the London Princess's Theatre company. Theatrical Sydney. 147 k.s a my. Mr. Cathcart's connection with Charles Kean con- tinued without interruption for the next eighteen years, and was only terminated by the death of that eminent actor. Half that period was spent at the London Princess's Theatre, where Mr. Cathcart played Nemours, in " Louis the Eleventh " ; Laertes, in " Hamlet " ; and Malcolm, in " Macbeth." At Drury Lane he played lago to Kean's Othello, gaining much critical approval, and his impersona- tion of Stukely, in '*The Gamester," was also generally admired. The latter nine years of Mr. Cathcart's connection with Charles Kean were spent principally in Australia and America. It was in October, 1863, that Kean and his company made their first Australian appearance at the Haymarket Theatre, Melbourne, under the management of Mr. George Coppin, now a member of the Upper House in Victoria. At the close of a lengthy and remarkably successful Melbourne season, they visited the Ballarat and Bendigo Goldfields, where their triumph was no less pronounced. In Sydney they played for a considerable period to crowded and enthusiastic houses. Finally Mr. and Mrs. Kean, Mr. Coppin, Mr. Cathcart, and other leading members of the company sailed away from Sydney to San Francisco in a trau .g barque. There were in those days no k^rge and well-appointed steamers running to and fro as pt present across the Pacific between Australia and America. The barque in L 2 Jf •r^ 1! i 1 W- 148 The Sister Dominions. which the Keans and Mr. Cathcart voyaged took no less than eighty-four days to cross the Pacific— a journey that is now regularly accomplished by steamers in less than three weeks. But the length of the voyage would not have mattered very much if the passengers were comfortable and had plenty to eat. Unfortunately this was not the case. The barque ran short of provisions and water, and for the last week of the voyage biscuits and potatoes were the sole sustenance available. Mr. Cathcart says that for eight successive days he had to utilize the same water for washing purposes. Mrs. Kean sufiered severely during this time of privation, and Mr. Kean offered the captain a considerable amount of money if he would make straight for the nearest port, Honolulu, but that surly navigator refused to adopt such a reasonable suggestion, and kept on his erratic course to San Francisco, for the steering, both Mr. Cathcart and Mr. Coppin agree, was of a very peculiar and eccentric description. However, they entered the Golden Gate at last, famished, weary, unwashed, but still alive. They were com- pensated for all their trials and tribulations on the Pacific by cordial receptions and crowded houses in all the chief American cities. Mrs. Keeley, the " Grand Old Woman ** of the English stage, is a very old friend and correspon- dent of Mr. Cathcart. They played together in the early fifties, and a recent photograph of the vener- Theatrical Sydney. bbe in the 149 able lady, with a kindly greeting duly autographed, is displayed by Mr. Cathcart with pride and pleasure. With Lady Theodore Martin, the Helen Faucit of bygone years, he was also professionally associated ; and at Manchester he acted with a novice who is now at the head of the profession — Sir Henry Irving, to wit. Mr. Cathcart many years after saw Mr. Irving play Mathias, in "The Bells," during the Bateman management at the Lyceum, and he declares that it was "one of the finest and most impressive performances he ever witnessed." H!l bhe ier- rr .1 1 ,1 li XVI. A CITY OF FALLEN GREATNESS. The metropolis of Victoria is named after the Queen's first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, who derived his title from the little Derbyshire village of that name. A story is told of a pompous and wealthy Melburnian from the Southern Hemisphere who visited the Derbyshire hamlet, and astonished the villagers with his tales of the riches and magni- ficence of the populous new Melbourne that had sprung up on the other side of the world. " Ah, well," remarked a venerable old inhabitant, when the Australian visitor had finished his glowing recital, *'our Melbourne was in existence centuries before yours, and it will be in existence centuries after yours has passed away. Such mushroom cities as yours don't last." The first thought that occurred to me while strolling round the Victorian metropolis, after an absence of seven years, was that the old Derbyshire villager's prophecy had already commenced to operat*^. The collapse ob- servable on every side is both painful and pheno- menal. Stagnation, depression, despair are the A City of Fallen Greatness. 151 three words that sum up the sadly altered situation in Melbourne. The loss of population is some- thing enormous. An exodus of sixty thousand souls during the past eighteen months is officially acknowledged, but this estimate falls considerably short of the reality. Judging from the immense number of closed shops and untenanted houses that I witnessed during a systematic tour of the suburbs, some figure between 100,000 and 150,000 would more correctly represent the astounding decrease in the population of Melbourne — that is to say, practically a third of the inhabitants of the metro- politan area has disappeared. Suburban streets that I remembered as crowded and busy hives of industry are now simply long rows of silent, unoc- cupied, and dilapidated shops. In the city proper most of the shops are still open, but offices in the huge piles of buildings that were reared aloft in the " boom " days are now a veritable drug in the market. Hundreds of them are vacant, many are let at merely nominal rents, and not a few :an actually be had rent free. Tenants everywhere are masters of the situation. Rent is a mere courtesy to owners, who are glad to accept whatever tenarts care to offer. In most of the outlying suburbs rent is a disestablished institution, owners being only too happy to have respectable people occupy- ing houses in the capacity of caretakers until the arrival of better times, for they know the fate that f! 152 The Sister Dominions. has overtaken a host of the unoccupied houses o£ Melbourne — wreck, mutilation, and the carrying away of everything portable. The whole history of the circumstances that have contributed to this gloomy transformation of the "Marvellous Melbourne" which Mr. George Augustus Sala delineated in terras of superlative admiration a few years ago would take a long time to write. But, to put it briefly, it may be said that, while Melbourne is by no means deficient in the natural conditions of progress and legitimate development, its prosperity in the past, striking, colossal, and stable as it seemed to be, was, in reality, largely built on an unreal and artificial foundation. In the fifties and sixties it reaped most of the advantages of the immense influx of gold-diggers en route to Ballarat, Bendigo, and other up-country goldfields. Melbourne was their port of arrival, their holiday-making arena when they had more gold than they could conveniently carry, and the place in which many of them settled down after a time. In the seventies Protection became the fiscal policy of the country, with the result that factories and workshops of all sorts were concentrated in Melbourne, and the provincial districts depleted to such an alarming extent that, practically, half the population of the Colony at one time were aggregated within the metropolitan area. This unnatural state of things could not A City of Fallen Greatness. 153 possibly last. In the eighties a ring of speculators started a land boom in Melbourne that attained dimensions wholly undreamt of by its originators. The craze for buying and re-s<^lling city and suburban lands developed into riownright mania. All classes of citizens, from the highest to the lowest, plunged into the whirlpool of speculation, and the great majority of them were, in the end, engulfed so completely that their heads are still under water, and years must elapse before, com- mercially speaking, they will bo able to breathe freely again. When the boom was at its height, land and house property in Melbourne and its vicinity were artificially forced up to values vastly in excess of what they would bring if situated in the most eligible quarters of London. It was quite an ordinary occurrence to buy a property to-day and to re-sell it at an advance of 10,000/. or 2O,00OZ. to- morrow. All the paddocks, farms, gardens^ and open spaces within a radius of twenty miles around Melbourne were snapped up by syndicates, mapped out into sub-divisional allotments, and disposed of by auction, in the presence of excited crowds of spectators brought to the spot in gorgeous vehicles, and regaled on arrival with champagne luncheons. And it was not individuals alone that completely lost their heads — the banks, building societieb, and finance companies, not only speculated wildly and largely on their own account, but by reason of the 154 The Sister Dominions. !v i 11/ accommodating facilities they afforded to their directors, friends, and influential private specula- tors, were potent factors in. creating and prolonging this extraordinary boom. A time came when this towering edifice of rapidly-generated and seemingly universal wealth and prosperity appeared to reach the clouds, and then it collapsed with startling and dramatic suddenness like a house of cards, or bills, as it really was. Banks, unable undc the circumstances to withstand continuous and panic-stricken runs upon their available monetary resources, had to close their doors and suspend payment ; building societies, hopelessly involved in the ruins of the boom, had similarly to confess themselves unable to meet their obligations, whilst the numbsr of mushroom "finance companies," "mercantile corporations,'* " land banks," etc., to which the boom gave birth, and which vanished from the scene in an aroma of fraud, scandal, and exposure, would take some time and trouble to calculrite. For, when the bubble burst and the truth was revealed, it was found that much of the financing during the boom period was of the shadiest possible description. A few scapegoats were seized, tried, and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, but, as the investigations pro- ceeded, it was discovered that they were no worse than hundreds of others, and when it became evident that public men, leading merchants, etc., A A City of Fallen Greatness. 155 had done things during the rush, and fever, and excitement of the land boom that could not be defended or justified before a judge and jury, the highest influence and the greatest possible pressure were brought to bear upon the authorities, with the result that the extinguisher was clapped upon further prosecutions, and " Let bygones be bygones " became the general and accepted watchword. The line that separates a smart, speculative, enter- prising business man from a criminal is proverbially a thin and narrow one. There are many sobered, ruined, and repentant erstwhile '* land boomers " in Melbourne to-day who shiver as they realize how easy it was to overstep that line, and are thankful that things are no worse with them. Melbourne is now suffering a recovery from the feverish excitement and fictitious prosperity of the " land boom " era. The absolutely unsaleable land in all directions that a few years ago changed hands repeatedly at an advance of thousands of pounds each time ; the immense array of untenanted houses in the suburbs ; the huge piles of unoccu- pied oflSces in the city proper ; the great decrease in the population ; the general, omnipresent air of depression — all represent the morning headache after the night^s dissipation. And like the head- ache in the individual, Melbourne's present afflic- tion is only of a temporary character, although from the pessimistic, despairing tone in which fff*' 156 The Sister Dominions. |j ! ! some Melbumians talk, an uninformed listener might easily be led to a different conclusion. The fact is that ihe present unprecedented depreciation in land and property in and about Melbourne is as unnatural and as abnormal in its way as was the unreal and artificial inflation of the " boom " years. It is a case of the higher the ascent the deeper the fall. Melbourne is the metropolis of one of the richest Colonies in the Queen's dominions — a Colony lavishly endowed with auriferous, agricul- tural, pastoral, commercial, and manufacturing resources still largely undeveloped — and the British investing public need have no fear as to its future, and as to satisfactory returns in good time for the capital they have placed there. I [ I I! XVII. THREE " BOSS BOOMERS." You cannot find a single man in Melbourne who has profited by the " land boom." There are any number who say they could and would have made a fortune if they had realized and retired at the right time, but their heads were too intoxicated by seeming success and by the all-pervading atmo- sphere of excitement in which they lived, and moved, and had their being, to recognize the psychological moment for retreating with safety and a competency for life. They could no more keep away from the daily land-gambling whirlpool than the moths from the flame of the candle or the birds from the glare of the lighthouse. The tempta- tion to make a few thousands more by another deal was always irresistibly egging them on, until the day came when the huge bubble burst and they found themselves in many instances worse than penniless, with monetary obligations that they could not possibly meet, calls on shares in land and finance companies that they could not satisfy, and heaps of unproductive houses and unsaleable 1 ii iii ,1' I f 158 The Sister Dominions. estates thrown on their hands. Hardly one of the " bosses '* of the boom, the public men and mer- cantile magnates who started the mania and sup- plied it with motive power until the community in general caught the infection, has survived or emerged in a solvent condition. Some are in gaol serving sentences for fraudulent practices in con- nection with the boom ; others are fugitives lying low in various quarters of the world ; but most of them have either gone, or are going through, the whitewashing process of the bankruptcy courts. Beyond a doubt, Sir Matthew Henry Davies, Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, who has received his certificate of discharge from the judge of the Court of Insolvency in Melbourne, was the " Prince of the land- boomers." There are some who hold that he, aided and abetted by the British investing public greedy for ten or twenty per cent, on their money, was the real and original ar*"hor of the boom. That is perhaps a little too far-fetched a theory, but it is undeniable that the immense amounts of money that were thrown at the head of Sir Matthew by British investors, and which he largely invested in the acquisition of suburban lands and properties, played a prominent part in paving the way for the boom. Sir Matthew must have seemed an ideally safe man to the average British investor. Speaker of the Parliament of Victoria, member for the Three "Boss Boomers." 159 most •wealthy and aristocratic suburb of Melbourne, President of the Y.M.C.A., a shining light in the religious world, a regular contributor of a thousand pound cheque on Hospital Sunday, the distributor of ten thousand pounds amongst the Melbourne charities, a generous patron of the Imperial Insti- tute in South Kensington, the chairman of a Royal Commission on banking, and by repute the soundest and most successful financier in the southern hemisphere — if these were not satisfactory guaran- tees of safety, security, and good interest, where was the British investor to look for them ? And yet at the present moment unpopular is a mild word with which to characterize the relations of Sir Matthew towards the British investor. Most of the banks, land corporations, and finance companies, into which hundreds of thousands of British capital were thrown on the strength of Sir Matthew's name and reputation and his oflScial connection with them, collapsed with the bursting of the boom, and the unfortunate British investor was left lamenting. Sir Matthew himself was subjected to a series of criminal prosecutions, brought back to Melbourne in custody from Ceylon while en route to England, and eventually acquitted after having been on the rack for a couple of years. Now, after his meteoric career as the "Prince of land-boomers," during whicb he occupied a gorgeous mansion, fraternized with Viceroys and entertained on a princely scale ill ,^f1 /(I I (I i6o The Sis-^er Dominions. li of magnificence, he lives unknown and unnoticed in a fi^Q-roomed house somewhere in the suburbs. He has returned to the practice of his old profession as a solicitor, which he is heartily sorry he 'ever abandoned for the more dazzling but dangerous rdle of the colossal land-boomer. There are few, if any, contemporary lives better calculated to point a moral and adorn a tale than that of Sir Matthew Henry Davies. The downfall of the Hon. James Munro, a gentleman who was once Premier of Victoria, Agent-General for the Colony in London, President of the Melbourne Total Abstinence Society, and the " Sir Wilfrid Lawson of Australia," is hardly less striking and significant. After holding for some twenty years a high place in Melbourne as a successful politician, a founder of banks, and a pioneer of building societies, he has dropped com- pletely out of public notice, and is swallowed in the obscurity of a little suburban rent-collecting agency. He, too, was very favourably regarded by the British investor, especially to the north of the Tweed. The Federal Bank of Australia, which was chiefly established by the energy and influence of Mr. Munro, which collapsed shortly after the bursting of the boom, and which is now in liquida- tion, received a considerable amount of Scottish support and capital. When Mr. Munro visited London five years ago he was at the zenith of The "Boss Boomers." i6i his fame as a financial expert and banking autho- rity, and he had no diflficulty in carrying through several schemes of considerable magnitude, so great was the confidence reposed in him in the City. At the end of 1890 he became Premier of Victoria, giving his Government the title of the " National Liberal Ministry." Early in 1892 he retired from the Premiership with the object of establishing himself in London as Agent-General, but he was only a few months in Westminster when he was requested to return to Melbourne and explain his relations to certain collapsed financial institutions with which he had been prominently identified. He did so, and was soon overwhelmed by a succes- sion of failures of banks and companies in which he was heavily interested. The Real Estate Bank, which he founded at the beginning of the land- boom, involved himself and many of his confiding friends in ruin and disaster. He has received his certificate of discharge in bankruptcy, and at the age of sixty-three is manfully starting life afresh to repair his broken fortunes. Every tragedy has a comical incident of some sort, and amid the ruin and desolation produced by the land«boom in Melbourne, the reduction of many a family from affluence to penury, the sweep- ing away of many an industrious man's life's savings at one fell swoop — amid all the havoc and misery entailed by falling banks and crashing iii! hi! /.» 162 The Sister Dominions. corporations, the serio-comic figure of the Hon. Thomas Bent makes fitful appearances on the tragic stage from time to time and illuminates the sombre scene with a ray of grim humour. His conversion of himself into a limited liability company — " The Thomas Bent Land Company " — was certainly calculated to give what the dramatic critics call " comic relief " to a very serious drama. Whether he plagiarized the idea from Mr. W. S. Gilbert, or whether the latter's famous Duke of Plazo-Toro was suggested by and modelled on a living Australian original, is a question that has never yet been definitely and satisfactorily determined. Mr. Bent's transactions during the boom period were of a multitudinous and comprehensive character. He seemed to be an 'ndispensable constituent of every syndicate. Originally an ilHterate, ungrammatical market gardener at Brighton, a marine suburb of Melbourne, he succeeded in ousting from the representation of that borough the late George Higinbotham (afterwards Chief Justice), one of the greatest parliamentary orators and political leaders that the Colonies have produced. The defeat of a statesman of Mr. Higinbotham's character and standing under such circumstances constituted the greatest surprise on record in the political history of the Antipodes. In the Victorian Parliament Mr. Bent energetioally pushed his way, first to the Treasury bench and eventually into the Speaker's The "Boss Boomers." 163 chair. Every member confessed that Mr. Bent was the least qaalified for the latter high office, but Mr. Bent was determined that he would wear the full-bottomed wig and gown, and he achieved his object by persistent whipping and skilfully playing off diverse sections of the House against each other. A legislative body presided over by a Speaker eminently suggestive of the comic-opera stage went perilously near becoming an extravagant burlesque on representative institutions. But Mr. Speaker Bent was rejected at the late general election, certain peculiar transactiouo of his, in connection with the land-boom that came to light shortly before polling-day, being understood to have turned the scale against him. Like Sir Matthew Davies, Mr. Munro and other "boss boomers," Mr. Bent has thus been exiled from the political arena for the present, but his characteristic enterprise and audacity will doubtless discover an opening again before long. In the meantime his Gilbertian venture is amongst the breakers. Proceedings for the winding-up of the " ThoLias Bent Land Com- pany " were in progress while I was in Melbourne. A witness who was asked for what amount he would sell his shares, replied, with scornful surprise : " Sell I Tou can have them for nothing." M 2 XVIII. THE PAELIAMENT OF VICTORIA. The facade of the Victorian Houses of Parliament has been completed since I was last in Melbourne, and a long and spacious flight of steps leading to a handsome pillared porch now decorates the eastern end of Bourke Street, the principal commercial thoroughfare of the metropolis. This porch gives admission to the Queen's Hall^ in the centre of which is one of the late Sir Edgar Boehm's statues of Her Majesty. This hall serves as a conversa- tional lobby for members and their friends. Por- traits of Speakers in their full robes of office look down from the glistening white walls. Unlike the new Palace of Westminster, the Victorian Houses of Parliament are surrounded by spacious and secluded gardens. The Victorian Speaker is thus enabled to entertain members and their friends in a manner that is not possible to Mr. Speaker Gully, who may, and does, give dinner-parties at Westminster, but who is precluded from giving garden-parties there. The Speakership of Sir Matthew Davies^ now an impecunious and burst- The Parliament of Victoria. 165 up land-boomer, was a downright carnival in this respect. According to tradition, one of his garden- parties, given at the height of the boom, in honour of the visiting viceroys of the Southern Hemi- sphere, cost the pretty little figure of five thousand pounds. Subsequent Speakers have wisely re- frained from giving such ruinously expensive garden-parties, and lawn-tennis now represents the highest form of dissipation to which the Parliamentary gardens are devoted. On the soutl.ern side of the Parliamentary buildings is a smaller garden, more open to the public gaze. In its centre is an elaborately-sculptured stone fountain which has a curious history. It is the work of a prisoner while serving a long sentence for bushranging, or robbery under arms, to employ the title of Rolf Boldrewood's famous Australian novel. This prisoner developed quite a talent for sculpture during his incarceration, and on his release he established himself in business in Melbourne as a monumental mason. He succeeded from the first, kept to honest courses ever after- wards, and) died an honourable and respected citizen, having completely lived down the recollec- tion of his early criminal career. A still more striking instance in this connection is that of a Speaker in. an Australian Parliament, who had a skeleton in his closet in the shape of a conviction and term of imprisonment some thirty years It / i66 The Sister Dominions. previously. One afternoon an hen, member arose with a venerable-looking newspaper cutting in his hand, and proceeded to inform the horrified House that he proposed to read a report of the trial and sentence of the Speaker. There was, of course, an immediate uproar, and various attempts were made to silence the audacious ghoul. But the Speaker himself interposed with remarkable self- possession and dignity, quietly remarking that "the hon. member is perfectly in order; it is purely a question of taste." And so the curtain rose on the strongly dramatic situation of a Speaker —the first commoner of an important Colony — seated with wig and gown in his chair of state and having to listen to the record of his own trial and consignment to prison in the distant past. It must have been a terrible trial to the nerves of the Speaker in question, but he successfully emerged from the ordeal, and lost nothing in public estima- tion by reason of the gratuitous and uncalled-for exposure of his early indiscretion. Indeed, it was the industrious raker-up of a long-buried and forgotten scandal who had most reason to regret the incident. In the Colonies, when a man has lived an honest and honourable life for a period of twenty or thirty years, there is a general feeling of disgust and repugnance when some intrusive busybody proceeds to point out that he was not always what he is now. Gratuitous mischief- The Parliament of Victoria. 167 makers of that sort, together with too-entei-prising police ai\d detectives, who revel in the raking up of "former convictions," and in whispering to employers the names of ex-convicts who are striving to lead an honest life, are really more criminal themselves than the persecuted people whom they seek to injure and expose. The present Victorian Parliament is presided over by that veteran statesman, Sir Graham Berry, who represented the Colony in London from 1887 to the end of 1891. Sir Graham has aged very much since he left London, financial troubles, no doubt, being chiefly responsible for the change. Ho was largely interested in one of the defunct institutions — the Mercantile Bank of Australia — and was a member of its London board. Sir Graham discards the orthodox wig and gown at ordinary meetings of the Legislative Assembly, and only appears in full official dress at important functions when the representative of Her Majesty is in attendance. Another ex- Agent- General in London has returned to public life in the present Victorian Parliament, after a long exile, in the person of Mr. Murray Smith, who represented Victoria in London from 1882 until 1887. At the close of his ambassadorial term he was entertained at a largely-attended banquet in the Freemasons* Tavern, under the presidency of tho Duke of Cambridge. Mr. Murray Smith, who is one of J i68 The Sister Dominions. \ 1 the few Oxford M.A.'s in colonial public life, is an uncompromising and unswerving leader of the Free Trade cause, and, as Victoria is a pronouncedly Protectionist colony, he is as the voice of one crying in the wilderness. But his voice is a remarkably eloquent one, and it is safe to say that Mr. Murray Smith is a gentleman vrho would command attention and hold an interested audience in the House of Commons itself. His unvarying courtesy to opponents, his uniformly gentlemanly manner and bearing, and the classical correctness of his English, are sure to have a distinctly beneficial and educative effect on a House so largely composed of young, ardent, and impulsive members as is the present Victorian Legislative Assembly. Mr. Alfred Deakin, the foremost Australian native statesman, is another Victorian Parliamentarian who would undoubtedly shine in the House of Commons. His oratorical powers are of a very high order : indeed, his skill and brilliancy as a debater won compliments from so keen and competent a judge as the Marquis of Salisbury, who heard Mr. Deakin more than once during the sittings of the Colonial Conference of 1887 in London. Mr. Deakin is an advanced Radical, an ardent Fedorationist, and a Protec- tionist champion. He declined t^ ? knighthood that was offered him at the close of the first London Colonial Conference. Latterly, he has been de- The Parliament of Victoria. 169 ▼oting more attention to his gro' ing practice at the Victorian Bar than to the pursuit of politics j nerertheless, he is one of the most potent per- sonalities in the public life of Greater Britain, and, as he is still under forty, a long, brilliant, and fruitful career may be confidently predicted for him, especially if he should make up his mind to transfer his great natural gifts and stores of acquired information to the larger and more con- spicuous stage of Westminster. The Victorian Parliament haPi one blind member in the person of Mr. McKenzie, who, notwith- standing the deprivation of sight, takes a prominent part in its proceedings. He is a very eflfective speaker, and the possessor of a retentive memory that enables him to quote facts and figures with singular accuracy. It was he who moved the resolution of want of confidence in the Ministry of Sir James Patterson, and while I was in Melbourne he tried to upset the Government formed by Sir James's successor, but failed to repeat his former success, although he did withdraw several mem- bers from their Ministerial allegiance. The now Victorian Premier, Mr. Turner, is an amiable- looking lawyer and a ready speaker, but whether he has sufficient practical knowledge of finance to rescue the Colony from its present troubles and clear away the formidable deficit of close on five millions, remains to be proved. His ablest and I fl 170 The Sister Dominions. most poT^ular colleague is the Postmaster- General, the Hf John Gavan Duffy, eldest son of Sir Charles Gavan Duflfy, whose promised auto- biography, ''My Life in Two Hemispheres," is being looked forward to with much interest. Mr. J. G. Duffy is one of the wittiest and brightest speakers in colonial public life. A young member who has made a very promising d^hut is Mr. W. H. Irvine, a nephew of one of the most celebrated Irish rebels of the century, John Mitchel, who was convicted and transported to Tasmania in 1848 for heading the revolutionary movement of that year, and who, after four years of exile, succeeded in escaping to America. Mr. Irvine was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, joined the Irish Bar, and is now a prosperous junior in the Melbourne Courts. His maiden speech in the Parliament of Victoria won encomiums from all sides. The Labour Party constitute an important group sitting on the Ministerial benches below the gangway. They act together as a rule, but, like their brethi'en in the House of Commons and elsewhere, they seem unwilling or unable to formally range them- selves under a recognized leader. The principles of democratic equality apparently prohibit anything in the nature of official leadership. Nevertheless, merit and ability will come to the front, and Messrs. Trenwith and Hancock, by force of cha- racter and debating skill, are practically the -■yfi±>-,>,..>.-.ji.v* The Parliament of Victoria. 171 directors of the Victorian Labour Party. Mr. Hancock, who sits for the working-class suburb of Footscray, is a Londoner by birth, a compositor by trade, and an orator by virtue of constant atten- dance at Cogers* Hall, ofE Fleet Street. He was a member of the composing staff of the Standard for five years, and thus had frequent opportunities of learning the art of public speaking amongst " ye Ancient and Honourable Society of Cogers," on the opposite side of Fleet Street. He is a very advanced Radical ; indeed, he is now quite accus- tomed to being pelted by his opponents with such epithets as Communist, Nihilist, incendiary, &c. Strange that such an ultra-Democratic M.P. should have been developed in such an intensely Con- servative quarter as Shoe Lane ! ) .'>/ m ; i XIX. LITERARY MELBOURNE. I Unlike London, Melbourne has no society tliat affixes tablets and inscriptions to houses in which literary men of distinction have lived. And yet not a few eminent writers have sojourned in Mel- bourne since the discovery of gold in 1851. Richard Hengist Home, the friend and corre- spondent of the Brownings, a poet himself as well as a prolific prose writer, arrived in Melbouvne in 1852, and almost immediately received the com- mand of the escort that conveyed the gold from Ballarat to the metropolis. He subsequently blos- somed into a gold-laced commissioner in charge of the Mclvor Goldfield, and on his return to England recorded his colonial experiences in an interesting work, entitled '* Australian Facts and Prospects." He was followed in 1857 by Charles Whitehead, a poet, novelist, and dramatist, who, in London, had enjoyed the friendship and esteem of Dickens, Thackeray, Leigh Hunt, Douglas Jerrold, Monck- ton Milnes, &c. It was to him that Chapman and If; «m # » .» 'j ' !!!.^ ^m»vjjiii a Literary Melbourne. 173 Hall first suggested the writing of " Pickwick/' but he declined the oflfer, and indicated his young friend, Dickens, as the man best qualified for the work. Unfortunately, Whitehead became a victim to habits of intemperance in London, and although during his five years' residence in Melbourne he did some good work in the local papers and maga- zines, he eventually succumbed to his fatal weak- ness. After a prolonged drinking bout he was picked up insensible in the streets one morning, and conveyed to the Melbourne Hospital, where ho died absolutely unknown and unbei'riended. He was buried as a pauper, and his last resting-place in the Melbourne Cemetery has never been definitely ascertained. But a striking literary monument to his memory has been erected by Mr. Mackenzie Bell, in the shape of a study of his character and works, under the title of " A Forgotten Genius." Henry Kingsley, younger brother of the famous Canon, was a contemporary of Home and White- head, and an occasional resident in Melbourne during his five years' vagabondizing in Australia. But, although he led a somewhat erratic existence in Australia, Henry Kingsley kept his eyes and ears open wherever he wandered, and the accuracy of description and fidelity of portraiture in his Australian novels have never been surpassed. His *' Geotfrey Hamlyn " is regarded by Rolf Boldre- wood and other good judges as the " finest Aus- ill I' '.• 1 \ I I I t ". ! 174 The Sister Dominions. Iralian novel ever written." Rolf Boldrewood himself spent his boyhood in Melbourne, where his father, Captain Sylvester John Browne, of the East India Company's service, was a pioneer settler. Marcus Clarke, whose realistic romance of the transportation era, " His Natural Life," combines with Henry Kingsley's " Geoffrey Ham- lyn" and Rolf Boldrewood's "Robbery under Arms," to form the classical trinity of colonial works of fiction, spent the whole of his literary life in Melbourne, occupying for several years the post of Sab-Librarian in the Melbourne Public Library. But it is amongst the ladies of Melbourne that most literary activity prevails at present. The Melbourne male authors have mostly transferred themselves to London, and so have several of the successful lady writers, but there are enough young ladies of literary capacity and laudable ambition still resident in Melbourne to form an agreeable and prosperous club of their own, under the title of the "Austral Salon." According to the rules and regulations, the object of this organization is the "intellectual advancement of women," and " membership is limited to v/omen actively engaged in literature, science, and the fine arts." A certain number of males are allowed within the charmed, or, rather, charming, circle, provided they are "in sympathy with, and willing by personal effort and Literary Melbourne. 175 tain ned, "in and influence to promote the objects of the Salon." Regular meetings are held on the first Thursday of the month, at which lectures are doliverod, or original plays produced, or discussions held on questions of literary or artistic interest. But every Monday afternoon there are informal meet- ings, the leading members in turn playing the part of hostess and entertaining members' friends and distinguished visitors, Rudyard Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson have been present at these Monday afternoon functions, and I was similarly privileged. The club -room is a handsome hall upstairs, in a new arcade connecting Oollins and Elizabeth Streets. A picture of the Countess of Hopetoun, the President of the Salon, is con- spicuous at the platform end of the apartment, and a library, largely composed of Australian authors and authoresses, fills some space on the right. Opposite the library is a refreshment bar, at which, however, not even so strict a body as the London County Council could take offence, as only the mildest non-alcoholic beverages are dispensed there. Seated in a capacious arm-chair, in the centre of the hall, sits the hostess of the afternoon, while in radiating Hues around her are to be seen some sixty or seventy of the fair and intellectual daughters of Australia sipping tea, and either conversing on topics of feminine interest or listen- ing to the music and recitations. Of course, the i ii! 'A i '■o III) I' 176 The Sister Dominions. whole of this interesting company was not com- posed of authoresses, but many, if not most, of those present had either seen themselves in print, or looked forward with hope and pleasure to doing so in the immediate future. No less than seven young ladies with whom I conversed had books completed, and were negotiating with London houses for their production during the coming year. The success of "Tasma" and Mrs. Man- nington Caflfyn — both erstwhile residents of Mel- bourne, has evidently encouraged and developed no small amount of literary activity amongst aspiring ladies at the Antipodes. One Australian lady novelist, who has made her mark in London and become a favourite at Mudie's and Smith's, has refrained from emigrating to the banks of the Thames, contrary to the now established custom in such cases. "Ada Cambridge" lives at Williamstown, a marine suburb of Melbourne, where her husband, the Rev. G. F. Cross, is incumbent of the local Anglican Church. Melbourne is a city of pleasant, well-lighted, and commodious arcades, but the most striking and attractive of them all is the colossal Book Arcade, which Mr. E. W. Cole has built up from very small beginnings. It is a unique institution. There is nothing to equal it in the world. Fancy a three- storied edifice running right through from street to street, with miles of shelves crowded with books Literary Melbourne. 177 and and [cade, Ismail jre is three- street )ooks old and new in every possible department of know- ledge, not to mention some five thousand cedar drawers labelled with authors' names or special subjects. It is one of the great sights of the Southern Hemisphere. At all hours of the day, and up to ten o'clock at night, it is crowded. It is practically an informal public library, as Mr. Cole provides books, lighting, and seating accommodation to thousands, not to speak of the orchestral concerts which are given in the Arcade during the afternoons as an additional attraction. Mr. Cole estimates that he has ordi- narily more than a million of books in stock, and, judging from the immensity of the establishment, ard the skill with which every available inch of space is utilized, the estimate is by no means an exaggerated one. The founder of this huge literary emporium was bom at Woodchurch, Kent, sixty-three years ago, and was attracted to Aus- tralia by the gold discoveries when he was in his twenty-second year. He spent ten years in the diverse capacities of gold-digger, wood-splitter, builder, cordial manufacturer, carpenter, cane- worker, and photographer. Then he came to Mel- bourne, and commenced business with a barrow- load of second-hand books in the Eastern Market. He gradually established a reputation as a pur- veyor of cheap and popular literature, moved from shop to shop as his business extended, and even- 178 The Sister Dominions. tually found himself in a position to erect tlie capacious and attractive Book Arcade, running from Bourke to Collins Streets, with which his name and enterprise will long be associated. But Mr. Cole is an author as well as a leviathan book- seller. In his early years he projected a work on " The Origin of Keligions," and collected a large amount of material bearing on this interesting, but also formidable, investigation. Ho has not been able to complete this work in its entirety, but portions of it have been published separately under the titles of " A Sketch of the Religions and Sects of All Nations,'* " A Sketch of the Sacred Scrip- tures of All Nations," " The Real Place in History of Jesus and Paul," "The Difficulties of the Deluge," and ''An Essay in Defence of Mental Freedom." As a compiler he has also been indus- trious, and his collections of the thousand best poems, songs, humorous stories, &c., have had a large sale in England and America, as well as in the Colonies. As an example of the self-educated, energetic, dauntless, and versatile type of colonist, Mr. Cole is a very interesting and suggestive per- sonality. Possibly he may still further widen the scope of his enterprise before long, and establish a Book Arcade in Piccadilly, just to show old- fashioned Londoners how the selling of books can be popularized, made attractive to the million, and (^ the liali old- can and Literary Melbourne. 179 brought right up to date. Spiers and Pond came from Melboame to revolutionize the eating busi- ness in London. Similarly, Mr. Cole may one day wake up and astonish Albemarle Street and Paternoster Row. N 2 IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) 1.0 I.I m 1^ - illU 136 1;' It 1" 1.25 III 1.4 M |||M 112.0 1.6 (^ /. 0^ '/a *^ afternoon, and watched the posting-up of the tele ^rams announc- ing the incidents and vicissitudes c E the game with vastly more interest and curiosity then they would have displayed in the outburst and progress of a European revolution. The evening papers came out in rapid editions, with detailed reports of the varying fortunes of the game, and were bought up as fast as the runners could take the money. Ob- viously cricket has effected a firm hold on the favour and imagination of Australians of all classes and conditions of life, and the likelihood of the daughter-land at the Antipodes establishing a per- manent supremacy over the mother-country in the playing of the national game is by no means such a remote contingency as it may at first sight appear. Judging from the immense amount of cricketing and cricketing practice that is going on every afternoon in the numerous parks and open spaces of Sydney, Melbourne, and other large colonial centres, a generation of performers with bat and ball is growing up on Australian soil that will eclipse anything and everything hitherto recorded in cricketing annals. And the colonial cricketer enjoys an enormous advantage over his British Sport in the Southern Hemisphere. 213 brother in the facilities the Australian climate affords for playing and practising almost the whole year round. In the middle of the year there is a sort of cricketing recess, during which football has an innings and draws equally enthusiastic crowds to the .parks and reserves, but there is no such climatic necessity for the cessation of cricket in Australia as operates i.. England, to prevent the playing of the national game for six months out of the twelve. Every town, every village in Australia rejoices in a local racecourse and its "great annual race- meeting." Each district has its own appointed racing holidays, and all districts contribute to swell the concourse of racing pilgrims that travel to Melbourne to assist at the renowned sporting car- nival of the Southern Hemisphere, which is known all over the continent as the " Cup." During the first week of November Melbourne is taxed to its utmost capacity to accommodate the strangers within the gates. Government House, the baronial pile on the southern side of the Yarra, in which the Queen's representative is housed, is turned for the nonce into a caravansary for the benefit of the visiting Viceroys of the other Colonies, their wives and their families. By a curious coincidence, all Her Majesty's ships in the South Pacific invariably find thomselvca securely anchored in the harbour of Melbourne when " Cap 214 The Sister Dominions. Week*' comes round — a fortunate accident that enables the officers to mingle in the vice-regal festivities and display their uniforms to the ad- miring throng on the racecourse. Flemington, the course on which the race for the " Cup " is annually decided, is a perfectly level basin, a little to the west of the city, admirably adapted by nature to the purpose to which it has been applied by sport- loving man, and commanded by a serviceable eminence from whose summit the great bulk of the spectators can follow the race from start to finish. The Victoria Eacing Club, the body that exercises a jurisdiction in Australia akin to that of the Jockey Club at home, is constantly improving on the natural advantages of the spot and beautifying it with all the resources of art^ culture, and good taste, so much ■=10 that Lord Rosebery's epigrammatic summary of the Melbourne Cup he witnessed, ** a garden- party with a race thrown in," by no means errs, as some epigrams do, in the direction of sacrificing truth to picturesque and pointed expression. Indeed, the sly suggestiveness of Lord Rosebery's observation, that the " Cup " ranks as high in the category of society functions as in that of great racing carnivals, is becoming more apparent and more emphasized with each succeeding year. Every colonial lady who is within the charmed circle of Antipodean society, or who is ambitious of entering therein, pays particular ii^ttention and Sport in the Southern Hemisphere. 215 attaches the highest importance to her "Cup Dress," for she knows that the newspapers devote as much, if not more, space to the description of the dresses, as they do to the account of the great race itself. Notwithstanding the severity of the financial crisis, and the universality of the business depression in the Colonies, there was no great falling off last " Cup Day," either in the brilliancy of the ladies' toilets or the denseness of the cos- mopolitan crowd. The fact that one sweep pro- moter alone was entrusted with no less than £300,000 by the confiding public in connection with the race for the " Cup," points to the con- clusion that there is still a fair amount of loose cash in the Colonies, and also affords a significant index to the strength and prevalence of the gambling spirit. It is unfortunately only too true that the Melbourne Cup is every year made the excuse and the occasion for an appalling amount of reckless betting and venturing amongst old and young, especially the latter. In the Colonies, no less than in the mother country, the general addic- tion of the rising generation to gambling and speculating on horse-races is a very unsatisfactory and disquieting sign of the times. For months before the " Cup " has been contested and decided, the chances of possible winners constitute the main object of interest and the leading topic of conver- sation z:^i:j£^&.t hundreds of thousands of the in- I 2l6 The Sister Dominions. habitants of Greater Britain. It is as a grand national oating, the recognized gathering-ground of colonial cousins, the moat likely meeting-place of old and scattered acquaintances, the converging centre of an enormous but good-tempered and well- ordered colonial assemblage, a favourable oppor- tunity for organizing a beauty-show under interest- ing and attractive conditions — it is under such social aspects as these that the Melbourne Cup can be most cheerfully and satisfactorily contemplated. XXV. A COUPLE OF GOLDEN CITIES. w. Ill I Ballarat, where Mr, Stoddart and his triumphant team of English cricketers were, at the time of my visit, displaying their prowess with bat and ball, is the most pleasing and picturesque of Aus- tralian goldfields, but Anthony Trollope's descrip- tion of it as the " most beautiful of Colonial cities " is, perhaps, a little too eulogistic for general acceptance. The fact is that, by some wise pro- vision of nature, golden deposits are usually found beneath dreary and desolate tracts of country ; so it is quite refreshing to find one's self in a golden city like Ballarat, that combines a choice array of surrounding scenery with the possession of mineral wealth. A considerable number of statues have been erected in the principal thoroughfare of Ballarat — Sturt Street — since my last visit. Robert Burns and Thomas Moore, the national bards of Scotland and Ireland, are conspicuous, and Shak- speare would be keeping them company now but for the banking crisis of 1893. The funds sub- 'ii ■ 2l8 The Sister Dominions. scribed for the statae of Shakspeare had the mis- fortune to be placed in one of the suspended banks, and are now locked up, and will not be available for some time to come. The newest and most interesting of the Ballarat statues is the heroic bronze figure of the Hon. Peter Lalor, late Speaker of the Victorian Parliament. It is the work of a London sculptor, Mr. T. Nelson Maclean, who is to be complimented on the remarkable fidelity of the likeness and the striking irapressivoness of the figure. Mr. Lalor, the son of the then Member for the Queen's County in the House of Commons, was one of the pioneer gold-diggers at Ballarat, and by his oratorical powers and force of character, he soon acquired a commanding influence in the ranks of the miners. The obnoxious license-fee imposed on all diggers alike, whether successful or unsuccessful, and collected in a brutal and truculent fashion by a police largely recruited from the ranks of transpoi'ted convicts, finally drove the digging population of Ballarat into open and undisguised rebellion. Lalor was unanimously chosen as com- mander-in-chief of the rebel diggers, who entrenched themselves within a stockade, which was attacked and stormed one Sunday morning by an Imperial force, under the command of Colonel Thomas. Lalor was amongst the wounded, and had an arm amputated. He was carried away by his retreating comrades to a place of safety, where he remained w. A Couple of Golden Cities. 219 for some weeks a fugitive, with a high price on his head. Proclamations offered handaome rewards to anybody who would bring him in, dead or alive ; but, although his hiding-place was known to hundreds, no one could be found to betray him. Soon after the rebellion Parliamentary represen- tation was conferred upon the diggers, and Lalor came forth from his retirement to become the first member for Ballarat, amid a scene of popular enthusiasm. The detested license-fee was speedily abolished, an export duty on gold being substituted in its stead, so that, although the diggers' revolt was stamped out by the armed forces of the Crown, the principles for which they took up arms really triumphed and became the law of the land. Ever since that unhappy collision between the Crown and the mining population, Ballarat has been one of the most peaceable, prosperous, and progressive cities in the British Empire. The Hon. Duncan Gillies, who now represents Victoria in London, was also a pioneer gold-digger at Ballarat, and worked for some time in the same claim with Lalor, so that it was only right and proper that he should unveil the statue of his old " mate,'* which he did after a graceful and interesting speech. Mr. Gillies held aloof from Lalor's insurrectionary movement, and thereby incurred some temporary unpopularity, but he lived it down, succeeded in becoming the miners' representative on the bench of the local ■I "■ 220 The Sister Dominions. if. i I*' ( Court, and from that vantage-ground vaulted into Parliament as member for Ballarat West. Ballarat is a bishopric of both the Catholic and Anglican denominations. Dr. Samuel Thornton, the Anglican prelate, is the son of a member of the stafE of The Times, and was, in the early years of his clerical career, a very active and aggressive missionary in the East-end of London. His energy and aggressiveness may be gauged by the fact that ^T was twice taken into custody by the police for obstructing the thoroughfare in the Mile End Road by his vigorous open-air preaching. He has not come into personal collision with the authorities during his twenty years' residence in Ballarat, but he is still a very pugnacious and uncompromising speaker, who does not hesitate to say in honest Saxon what ho thinks, or to hold up his end of the argument throughout the resultant "/Ontroversies, He was curate of St. Jude'3, Whitechapel, and rector of St. George's, Birmingham, before he was chosen as the first Anglican Bishop of Ballarat. During my stay he had as his guest the Right Rev. Dr. Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury, who recently made an extensive tour of the Colonies. Dr. Wordsworth, dressed in rough miners' clothes, descended one of the deepest of Ballarat gold mines, and saw for himself the whole process of 'extracting the auriferous quartz from the bowels of the earth. The late Duke of Clarence and the present Duke of York had a similar educatioi U A Couple of Golden Cities. 221 experience in Ballarat when their Royal Highnesses visited Victoria as midshipmen on board the Bacchante. Ballarat has had many distinguished guests during the forty-four years of its existence, and its history as narrated by Mr. W. B. Withers, a veteran member of the local press, in a handsome illustrated volume, furnishes very interesting and romantic reading. The ups and downs of digging life, the strange vicissitudes of gold mines, the varying, but strongly-marked, types of character on the goldfields, suggest a field of fiction that has so far been only superficially scratched by the pen of the novelist. Unlike Ballarat, Bendigo is to be ranked with the generality of goldfields, as a dusty, arid-looking, unpicturesque, and not particularly inviting sort of place from the standpoint of the casual tourist. All its loveliness and interest are subterranean, for Bendigo is now proved to be a series of goldfields, one underneath the other. How far downwards they extend nobody can tell. The Bendigo gold mines are now the deepest in the world, and the signs of exhaustion of the auriferous quartz are not yet apparent. I found hardly any perceptible change in Bendigo after several years' absence. At the time of my visit old Bendigonians were rejoicing over the honour conferred on one of their number, the Hon. John Mclntyre, M.P., by the Queen. Quite unexpectedly Mr. Mclntyre's name figured in the list of New Year knights. He was 222 The Sister Dominions. w^ |l V a fiery Radical in the early fifties, and once de- clared his willingness to dead the Bendigo diggers in a march and attack on Melbourne. He was the leading spirit in the " Red Ribbon League," an organized body of Bendigo diggers determined to have their grievances redressed. At Bendigo wiser counsels prevailed than at Ballarat, and there was no hostile collision between the military and the digging population, although the situation was very critical and menacing there during the period that the Ballarat diggers were up in arms. When the grievances of the diggers were constitutionally redressed, Mr. Mclntyre gradually drifted away from Radicalism, became Conservative in his poli- tical tastes, and is now one of the recognized chiefs of the Constitutional Party. There seems some- thing paradoxical about the knighting of a champion of Conservatism by an Imperial Radical Govern- ment. If Lord Salisbury had knighted Mr. Mclntyre, it would have been perfectly natural, seeing that Lord Salisbury is himself an old Bendi- gonian. He spent some time on this goldfield in 1852, as Lord Robert Cecil, and a number of questionable traditions concerning him are current amongst the surviving pioneers. Whether Bendigo owes its name to the famous English pugilist of that style and title, or whether it is a corruption of a local aboriginal word, is a question that has not yet been definitely decided. XXVI. AUSTRALIAN FACTS AND PROSPECTS. The latest work of the genial, observant, and philosophical Anglo-Frenchman, who writes under the pseudonym of Max O'Rell, deals largely with his impressions and experiences of the Australian colonies, in which, for close on two years, he lectured to large and appreciative audiences. In some of his judgments there is a combination of charac- teristic shrewdness, playful satire, keen penetration, and intelligent insight, whilst in others the hasty, unverified, and ill-digested conclusions of the rapid and rushing note-taker are but too apparent. His strictures on the condition of morality in Sydney have given no little offence in that city, and have been resented with indignation in the columns of the local press. While Max O'Rell has certainly some- what over-coloured this particular picture, it must at the same time be acknowledged that there are sights and scenes in Sydney of a very repulsive and demoralizing character. One crying iniquity in particular ought to be removed by legislation as ( 1 fi 224 The Sister Dominions. speedily as possible, and that is the system of sub- letting rooms in hotels for the purpose of conversion into what are called "private bars." No other city in the British Empire sanctions such a pesti- ferous practice as this. These private bars are rented out by the licensee to young female decoys, who pay as high as 16Z. per week for the accommo- dation. It is not by the sale of liquor that they recoup themselves, but by converting the private bar into a place of assignation and a mart of vice. These private bars are nightly frequented by numbers of young men, with results that may be easily imagined. They are not obtruded on the gaze of the ordinary visitor. They minister to the illicit requirements of a special class, who know by experience which curtain to push aside in order that a particular private bar, its presiding divinity, and her attendant satellites, may be revealed. This scandalous state of things may be permissible under the present licensing law, but, if so, the sooner an amending Act is passed, the better for the moral elevation and the good repute of the city of Sydney. Drunkenness is described by Max O'Rell as the " national vice in the Colonies,'' and he attributes its prevalence to the absence of social, artistic, and intellectual distractions. The habit of drinking is certainly more conspicuous in the Colonies than elsewhere. There is a greater publicity about it, a c ity, the for city the lutes laud is Lhan lit, a Australian Facts and Prospects. 225 gratuitous contempt for anything in the nature of concealment or reticence, that is a traditional survival of the rollicking, free-and-easy days of the goldfields, the flush times of the fifties and sixties, when universal drinking was the rule and practice, and a refusal to join the convivial circle was resented by the lucky digger as a gross personal aflfront, almost justifying the use of the revolver on the spot. This baneful custom of " shouting," or insisting on everyone present dr* iking with the hospitable individual who issues the invitation, is still a colonial institution in a certain sense, but it is visibly declining and becoming less in vogue every year, as it is entirely out of harmony with the tastes and sympathies of the rising race of native Australians. In England and on the Continent Australian wines are annually increasing in popularity, thanks to the enterprise and per- severance of Mr. P. B. Burgoyne, but in Aus- tralia itself they are far from being regarded with general favour — a want of appreciation that is much to be regretted, as the colonial population would undoubtedly be more tem- perate as a whole if the local wines were locally consumed on a larger scale than at present. As for the absence of social, artistic, and intellectual recreations, which in Max O'Kell's opinion drives colonists to over-indulgence in intoxicants, that allegation may apply to the idle and ignorant rich, 226 The Sister Dominions. I ii who unfortunately constitute no inconsiderable proportion of the colonial wealthy classes, but it is certainly not true of the great bulk of the com- munity. Wealth, in too many instances, falls into the hands of colonists who are utterly destitute of the capacity to turn it to proper account. Sud- denly-enriched speculators, who take no thought of public duty or of benefiting their less fortunate fellows, who recognize no social obligations or responsibilities, who are absolutely indifferent to the merits of the finest picture or statue, and who find it an impossibility to interest themselves in the perusal of an elevating and informing book — such as these naturally and steadily gravitate towards the whisky-jar and the brandy-bottle, and it is from this comparatively small but unduly con- spicuous class that Max O'Rell's shocking examples have been drawn. In connection with Max O'Rell's statement that already people in Australia are beginning to boast of networking with their hands, who have inherited fortunes earned by means of hard work and a life of complete abnegation, it is worthy of note that the recent financial crisis has brought out in a striking manner the energy, independence, and self-reliance of the cultured daughters of Australia. A number of high and prosperous families were suddenly reduced from affluence to penury by the failure of the banks and kindred institutions, but the young ladies of Australian Facts and Prospects. 227 kce of U Iks of these devastated households, reared in the lap of ease and luxury, and believing themselves secure in the possession of thousands of pounds, boldly faced the swiftly and sadly altered circumstances, adapted themselves to their changed condition of life, went into business in Melbourne, opened refreshment rooms and shops of various descrip- tions, and are now earning a livelihood for them- selves and those dependent on them by the exercise of their own industry, ability, and resolute deter- mination not to succumb to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Max O'Eell alleges that the adoration of the golden calf is more noticeable in the Colonies than in England, but that, unfortunately, is the charac- teristic vice of all young and suddenly-enriched communities. It is only when such heterogeneous masses of 1 manity consolidate and settle down into the quiet and regular grooves of the well- ordered State, that respect for literature, science, art, and intellectual achievements generally, chal- lenges the all-pervading worship of wealth, and succeeds in reducing the erstwhile omnipotent money-raker to a lower pedestal. The Colonies have not yet arrived at this desirable stage of development, and whatever there is in them of literary, artistic, and scientific excellence has to go to England for effectual recognition, encouragement, and support. Wealth is still the only acknowledged Q 2 228 The Sister Dc DNS. criterion of success, and • ^lly the only pass- port to the sacred precii £ Government House. It might reasonably be expected that the represen- tatives of Her Majesty, men who had breathed for most of their lives the higher old-world atmosphere of culture, taste, and refinement, would lise superior to the gold-bag ideal of human greatness, but the average Governor unfortunately only too readily drops down to the level that he finds on landing and remains there, making the possession of wealth the principal if not Ihe sole qualification for vice- regal hospitality. Governors could do much to elevate the standard of colonial ideals, and it is to be regretted that thsy so frequently fail to rise to the height of their opportunities. Max O'Eell pronounces a very hasty and ill- informed judgmen z when he sums up the Australian working-man as 'lazy, fond of drink, a devoted keeper of St. Monday, a spendthrift, who thinks only of his pleasures, and takes no interest what- ever in the development of his country." Some there may be, who correspond to this unflattering description, bnb the typical Australian working- man is something far different — shrewd, energetic, temperate, thrifty, and keenly and intelligently interested iv public affairs. The critic-lecturer is on safer ground when he deplores the hostile attitude of the colonial workers towards immigra- tion from the old land. They object to immigration \ Australian Facts and Prospects. 229 because they believe it will have the effect of reducing the standard of wages, but that is a wholly fallacious assumption. Australia ought to be peopled by forty millions instead of four, as her permanent prosperity largely depends on the filling-up of the vast unoccupied spaces on her map, and the consequent development of her boundless and varied resources. None would benefit more than the working-classes themselves from the steady and systematic pursuance of such an enlightened, practical, and far-seeing policy. Australian working-men would also do well to moderate the transports of their ardour for Protec- tion. Every young country naturally has a pre- ference for Protection, with a view to fostering and developing its native industries, until they are able to stand alone and compete on fair and equitable terms with the long-established industries of older lands. Such a policy is a wise and prudent one, when kept within reasonable bounds, but when it is allowed to run riot and ride roughshod over every other interest, it approximates more closely to a curse than a blessing. Melbourne is a shock- ing example of Protection run mad. Duties were piled up to such prohibitive altitudes by the pro- tectionist Parliamentary majority, that the ships which formerly abounded in the harbour of Mel- bourne were driven away to the rival metropolis, Sydney, and the commerce of Melbourne has ! * 230 The Sister Dominions. sustained a shock from which it will take some time to recover. Moreover, the artificial induce- ments offered by the State-subsidized industries drained the proviru5ial towns and districts of a largfc, amount of their life-blood, so much so, that at one time Melbourne actually had almost one-half of the population of the colony within its metro- politan radius. It was this abnormal and feverish state of things that paved the way for the mis- chievous madness of the land-boom era. Fortu- nately, a strong reaction against these extravagant and far-fetched theories of Protection has set in, and the Parliament sitting in Melbourne is now engaged on the salutary work of cutting down duties to reasonable and legitimate lengths. Moderation, not only in the matter of Protection, but also in the conduct of the numerous experiments in State socialism on which several of the colonies have light-heartedly embarked, must be the watch- word of the future. Australia has been frequently described in the London Press as " the laboratory of the Empire," but the practical consideration for Australians is that care, caution, and consistent sanity are more necessary in a laboratory than any- where else, if disastrous explosions and other un- pleasant possibilities are to be averted. Possessing a magnificent extent of still unoccupied territory, an immensity of undeveloped wealth, a glorious climate, an active and enterprising population, and Australian Facts and Prospects. 231 tBe capacity of rapid recovery from the effects of unfavourable seasons and conditions, Australia is a land of great promise and potentialities, whose history in the future will, I hope and believe, wipe out the errors of the past and be a worthy record of well-ordered progress and prosperity. INDEX. Aberdebn, Earl of, 89. Australia, Future of, 230. Austral Salon, 174. Ballabai', 217. Baruardo, Dr., 87. Bendigo, 221. Bent, Hon. Thomas, 162. Berry, Sir Graham, 167. Besant, Mrs. Annie, 138, 198. Bevan, Kev. Dr., 183. Blake, Hon. b^dvvard, 75. Boldrewood, Rolf, 105, 173. Bowell, Sir Mackenzie, 67. Brassey, Lord, 21, 89. Bright, John, 125. British Columbia, 95. Brooke, G. V., 192. Browning, Robert, 126. Brownless, Sir A. C, 195. Buxton, M.P., Mr. Sydney, 20. Caffyn, Mrs. Mannington, 176. Cambridge, Ada, 170. Canadian Pacific Railway, 43, 80, 85, 88, 94. Carlyle, Thomas, 124. Carr, Archbishop, 182. Carrington, Lord, 122. Cathcart, Mr. J. P., 145. Childers, Right Hon. H. 0. E., 196. Chinese Question, 95. Clarke, Sir Andrew, 21. Clarke, Marcus, 174. Cleveland, President, 100. Cobden, Richard, 125. Coffee Palaces, 208. Cole's Book Arcade, 176. Colmer, Mr. J. G., 35. Colonial Cricket, 211. Coppin, Hon. George, 147, 190 Costigan, Hon. John, 69. Cup Festival, Melbourne, 21 3. Currau, Hon. J. J., 42, 69. Davies, Sir M. H., 158. Deakin, Hon. Alfred, 168. Dibbs, Sir George, 8, 128. Duffy, Sir 0. G., 21, 126, 197. Duffy, Hon. J. G., 170. Federation, 29, 130. Fiji, 24. 106. Fitzgibbon, Mr. E. G., 201. Geelong, 23. Gillies, Hon. Duncan, 219. Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., 10, 61. 124. Goe, Bishop, 182. Grant, General, 125. Greenway, Hon. Tliomug, 82. Grey Nunnery, 47. Harbis, Sir Augustus, 143. Index. 233 Hawaii, 98. Iliginbotham, Hon. George, 21, 102. Honoluln, 102. Home, R. H., 172, 200. Huddart, Mr. James, 2, 32, 34, 67, 83. HTiNG, Sir Henry, 143. Jersey, Earl of, 2, 68. Kanaka Teafpic, 29. Kean, Charles, 146, 18i^, 193. Keeley, Mrs., 148. Kimberley, Lord, 131. Kin^sley, Henry, 173. Kipling, F, idyard, 176. Kirkpatrick, Colonel, 74. Labour Party, 170. Lalor, Hon. Peter, 21, 218. Land-booming, 153, 205. Laurier, Hon. Wilfrid, 96. Local Option, 22, 206. Longfellow, H. W., 125. Lome, Marquis of, 80. Lowe, Robert, 9, 123, 197. Macartney, Dean, 180. Macdonald, Sir John, 65, 93. Manitoba, 84. Manning, Sir W. P., 7. Martin, Lady Theodore, 149. McOulloch, Sir James, 21. McGee, Hon. Thos. D'Arcy, 42. Mclntyre, Sir John, 221. McNeil, Rev. John, 13^. Melbourne, 14, 150. Michie, Sir Archibald, 21, 196. Mill, J. S., 126. Montreal, 38. Moorhouse, Bishop, 181. Moran, Cardinal, 12, 139. Moriey, Right Hon. John, 84. Mowatt, Sir Oliver, 74. Munro, Hon. James, 160. Neild, Dr. J. E., 199. O'CoNNELL, Daniel, 124. O'Rell, Max, 117, 198,223. O'Shanassy, Sir John, 21. Ottawa, 59. Parkes, Sir Henry, 8, 119. Patterson, Sir J. B., 20. Private Bars, 224. Protection, 229. Quebec, 36. RectIna, 90. Reid, Hon. G. H., 8, 11, 133. Rignold, Mr. George, 143. Rocky Mountains, 92. Rosebory, Lord, 7, 113, 121, 131, 214. Sala, Mr. George Augustus, 152, 198. Salisbury, Marqnis of, 222. Schultz, Governor, 81. Selwyn, Dr., 62. Shaughnessy, Mr. T. G., 45. Sisters of St. Joseph, 49. Smith, Sir Frank, 75. Smith, James, 200. Smith, Murray, 167. Smythe, R. S., 198. Spiers and Pond, 179. Spirit aalism, 137. Stanmore, Lord, 110. State Socialism, 230. Stawell, Sir William, 21. Stevenson, Robert Louis, 175. Strong, Rev. Charles, 184. Sullivan, Barry, 189. Sydney, 6, 112. 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And further, within five years from tlie dale of posaoHsioii, the selec* ■• nsust fence in at least one-fourth of hla holding, and clear and crop oiie-eixhtli; an>l within seven years of same tUite must clear and crop one- fourth of his holding, and fence the whole of it; and upon tho due completion ot such improvements shall obtain tho Crown grant. HOMESTEAD LEASES OR GRAZING FARMS. Within the South-VVeatern DivlBu.n, and also if within ic miles of a railway In the Eucla and Kiiatern Divisions, areas of the second and third class lands of the Colony are beint; classed, proclalmea, and set apart for selection on the following conditions, viz. :— In respect of second class liinds, any iierson over IS yeai's may helect not less than KHiO acres or m(n-e than M(Hi() acres j and for third class lands, not less than lOOO or more than 5()00 acres, to be held on the following terms and conditions:— He shall, for second class land, pay rent for 30 ye^rs, at the rate of ■:ii. per acre per ainmm for first 15 years, and 3rf. per acre per annum for next 15 years ; and for tnird class lands. Id. per acre for i."! years, and "id. for next i.') years. He shall, by himself or an agent, or servant, reside on the holding during nine months in each year fur the first five years, and shall execute the following imurovcmenta, vi/. :— During first two years fence one-half of his holding, and during following two years fence the whole of it, and, in addition to tho fencing, expend durii g the first 15 years of his lease. In statutory improvements, an amount equal to 6«. 8rf. per acre in respect of second class lands, and 4». 3rf. per acre per annum for third class lands. Such improvements may consint of either subdivision, fences, cle.iring, cultivating, grubbing, draining, rinijbarking, tanks, dams, wells, and any other work which will improve the productiveness of the land. Upon completion of paymcnth and improvements a Crown grant ahall issue, CONDITIONAL PURCHASES, The conditions of settlement and tenure for first class lands, in South-Western Division, are as follows :— Any person over 18 years of age may take up from 100 to 1000 acres for M. per acre per aimum for 20 years ; during the first five years he must reside upon the land for at least six months in each year— within two \ ears he must fence in one-tenth, and within five years the whole of the land, and within ten years he must, in addition, expend on tlie land an amount equal to 10<. per acre in bond fide improvements ; Crohard *^' ^^ ^^^' ^'^^^ "•' * vineyard and orchard lot of from 5 to 20 acres, hlnnka ^^ Pftyi"!? ■*'' Pe'' ^^^'^ cash, and during first three vours the land mut*. DiooKi. |,o fenced, and at least one-lcnlh planted with vinos and fruit trees or as a vegetable garden ; Free Or ho may purchase (if not within a declared agricultural .nren) Durohaae *^*'™ ""* "'' *■*' ^^ acres, or within an agricultural area from lOO '^ ■ ■ to 1000 acres, paying 10». per acre cash, and within three years shall lotl. fence it in, and within seven years expend to the amount of D«. per acre in prescribed improvements. PASTORAL LEASES. Land in the KImberley, North- West, Gnscoyne, and Eucla Divisions may be leased in blocks of not less than 20,000 acres, fur iu«. per thousand per aiuium; or in the Eastern Division for :<. 6d. per thousand acres per annum. In the i^outh- Western Division a minimum area ot lOOO acres is allowed, the rent beiii)^ i^l per thousand acres ; but in this division no security of tenure is given an against tree selection, exce))t that purchasers have to pay the pastoral lessee the fair value of any improve- ments made by such lessee. The term of all pastoral leases expires on 31st December, 1907. A. R. RlZHARDSOJi, Commiitioner of Crown Landi, ^fl^<;o jfV ' ADVERTISEMENTS. zvii ( ( i Acquisition of Land from the Queensland Qovernment. Bt OovDiTiONiL Bki.iotiok :— Agrriculiural farms np to 100 acres, price 2k. M. per aero, payable in tivo years at tbe rate of Od. per acre per annum. Personal reni'lenoo. Agricultural farms up to 1280 aur hi from 16«. per acre, payable in five ytars, or a 60 years' loasoat from 3d. upwards per acre per unnum. Residence personal or bv agent. Bt Uvconditional Silkci/on :— At from 20« per acre, payable in 2) annual instalments. Bt GHAZiira Farm Hiliction :— Up to 20,000 acres, 30 years' lease at from id, upwards per acre per annum. Bt Qkazino Houibtrad Sklbotiok :— Up to 2600 acres, 30 years' lease, annual rent for first ten years not more than }rf. per acre. Bt Pukcrass at Avction :— Agricultural land, upset price from 20i). per acre. Grazing land, upset price from 10». per acre, payments spread over three years, without interest in tbe case of agricultural lani,and with 6 per cent, added in tbe case of grazing land, when instalments arc paid later than six months from date of sale. Village Settlement. Special provision is made by law for the settlement of little communities, so that settlors may live together in townships for mutual protection and convenience on allotmmts not exceeding one acre in extent, and with farms of eighty acres in close proximity to their residences. The freehold of these farms may bn secured generally on the same terms as above stated in rega d to agricultural farms not exceeding 160 acres in area, with the additional privileges that residence on an allotment in the township is held equivalent to residence on tbe farm, and one-fifth of the required improvements may be made on the allotment. 'Phe HoHRBTHAU Arkab of 160 acres at 2ii. Od. an acre are espooially sur- veyed on the best farming land, and are particularly suited for the cultivation of cereals, HUgar, A.l?rJBS & CO., 33, flFeat Winchester Street, London, E.G. Also, with all other General Information about the Colony, on Application to— THE AGENT-GENERAL FOR QUEENSLAND, WestmiuBtsF Chambers, 1, Victoria Street, London, S.W.