THE LABOURING MAN IN AUSTRALIA.
LT0 THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—In your interesting article on the "Moral Effects of Wealth and Poverty," there is a statement with regard to the working-classes of Australia which is not applicable, at any rate, to their present position and habits of life. You say, " In Australia, prosperous workmen, though retaining a singular power of self-restraint while at work, are apt to waste their whole earnings in bouts of intermittent drinking." I am aware that this is a prevalent impression, but it is derived from an ex- perience of other times, and different circumstances from those which now exist. In the early days of the colony, in which I have resided, the wild licence of the gold diggings, and the deadly monotony of pastoral life, the absence of healthy forms of amusement, and probably also the difficulty of finding invest- ment for small savings, combined to foster a spirit of reckless- ness, and to alternate periods of hard and depressing labour with furious debauch. This is no longer the case. Here and there, perhaps, there survives a fossil specimen of an old "station hand," without education, without the desire to improve his condition, whose only notion of pleasure, when he has re- ceived his yearly wages, is to drink himself as quickly as possible into a state of imbecility at the nearest grog-shop. But he is no longer the type, in Victoria, even of a small class. The working-man avails himself freely of the many inducements to save held out to him by the Government and private institu- tions ; and he is so far from regarding drinking with favour, that agitation, vehemently carried on, has not succeeded in obtaining the sanction of the Legislature to the opening of the public-houses on Sunday. So far as we can judge, the native Australian is not likely, whatever faults he may possess, to indulge in immoderate drinking. Harshness of climate, inanity of mind, misery of condition, want of recreation, strike me as being the great causes of this mischief; and in these respects, the working-classes of Victoria are singularly fortunate.—I am,
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