CORRESPONDENCE.
MISS SHAW ON AUSTRALIA.
[The following is a letter from a successful workman in Sydney to a friend and patroness at home.] Sydney, March 1st, 1894.
MADAM,—Having had the pleasure of perusing your letter to my wife, written on January 17th last, I notice a small portion thereof to which it behoves me to send you a reply. I refer to the lecture of Miss Shaw in London on Australia, a brief report of which, in the Spectator, you very kindly sent for ray perusal. You ask if "I agree with the same." Well, Madam, I should like to say, at the very outset of my letter, that Miss Shaw has proved herself far and away the very fairest, and most intelligent, critic—lady or gentleman, I care not which—that Australia has ever had trotting over her soil. In the whole of the Extract, or rather, brief review, of Miss Shaw's lecture, there is not one untruthful word. True, we are going through hard and pressing times just now, but Jam confident nothing in the world can keep Australia back ; reverses she has had, and possibly will continue to ex- perience as time rolls on, yet such is her recuperative power —as, for instance, look at her recent recovery from the last staggering blow—that, come weal or come woe, she will more than hold her own in the future, and of that I am thoroughly convinced.
Miss Shaw laboured under one difficulty as the special
correspondent of the Thunderer. She was only taken amongst the "roses," and of course could scarcely be expected to write about the "thorns," of which she saw but few. Nevertheless, they are here, and, I regret to say, are rather prominent too. Without the Times under her arm, Miss Shaw would have been invaluable; her insight is so keen that at once she would have placed her finger on the sore, and, in her clear and unmis- takable manner, at once have tried to heal it.
It was her misfortune, not her fault, that she did not see
the seamy side of Nature on this side the globe ; otherwise, her reports, as to things in general, are wonderfully accurate. They say she has the head of a man. I say she has the intel- ligence of half-a-dozen men, and more energy than you will find in a score. Miss Shaw throughout has her eye on the future, and deals more with our prospects than our actual condition. I don't think she was taken to the Asylum for Old Men at Liverpool, neither do I imagine a walk down Elizabeth Street between 11 and 12 p.m. was ever suggested to her. Had she gone to the one, she would have noticed that all did not cull the rose in Australia. Had she visited the street in question, she would have most assuredly become alive to the fact that all the young girls are not comfortably settled in domestic service in this fair land. You will frequently hear in England that Australia is a veritable paradise for young women, but I fail to see it. In some respects, a young ser- vant coming here will do remarkably well, but she is simply looked upon as so much furniture, nothing more ; there is nothing to be seen here of that happy domestic life which always struck me when visiting my wife's sister at your home. Some domestic servants are paid quarterly, some by the month, others weekly,—no matter which method is adopted,
a week's notice is deemed sufficient, and it is consequently a case of "here to-day and gone to-morrow" with the vast majority of servant girls. No servant girl should come to Australia without £25 to her credit somewhere handy. She will then be able to act independently if by chance she lights upon an indifferent situation at the beginning of her career. Nothing worse could befall a girl than to find herself without funds or friends in this Australian land. Age and poverty are two things the average Colonial abhors, and treats with snprenaest contempt. To show you the number of unemployed in this class, I may mention that a lady I know advertised for a housemaid, and had fifty-four applicants for her situation.
With regard to the land and the land-laws, it would be ridiculous on my part to say that there was no land available for settlement here, because I know the contrary to be the case ; but land is utterly useless in small areas far from a township,—it hangs like a millstone round one's neck. If a man obtains land far from a township, the produce—be it fruit, vegetables, or fodder—is of little value. He cannot eat it all himself, it does not pay to give it away, and if he attempts to sell it, the cost of carriage frequently absorbs the entire value. With butter at from 4d. to 5d. per pound, cheese at any price from 20. to 6d., rarely the latter, dairying does not pay. He may grow vines ; but if he is forty miles from a consuming centre, he will pay in freight from 8d. per case of 20 lb., and just now would obtain from id. to but rarely the litter price, for the fruit ; therefore, after allow- ing for care, packing, &c., where does the profit come in ? Depend upon it, it will be many years before land in small areas, excepting it be within reasonable distance of a township, will pay to take up. When I went up to act as judge at the chrysanthemum show last year, 460 miles from Sydney, in the Riverina, I got into conversation with a station-manager who was complaining about the fact that he had had four good seasons in succession, and "wishing to God there might be a drought." This, of course, would kill off about 75 per cent, of the sheep upon the station, and the remaining 25 per cent. would then be worth more to him, for the handling of them would not be so costly. He told me that he had drafted out for market during the season some fourteen thousand head of sheep; and he believed, after every expense was calculated, his profit would average about 21d. per sheep ! Thousands had been sold at 2s. 7d. each, out of which sum yarding, trucking, agents' charges, freight, and losses had to be made good. This station was a large one, the manager told me he had been there many years, and had never seen the whole of it. He could not give me the exact area, but he could ride fifty miles in a direct line and never get off the station ! This is how land has been grabbed in the past. In fact, the "eyes" have been picked out of the land in Australia many years ago, leaving the rocks, sand, and swamp open for selection by the present generation. It may be altered some day at the ballot-box ; they have altered it somewhat in New Zealand already, but things move slowly, very slowly, here.
But while finding fault with the Land-laws, and more par, ticularly with those who administer them, I cannot lose sight of the fact that the present depression here is chiefly to be laid at the door of the working classes. Australian workmen in the past have not hesitated to sacrifice trade for the most trivial reasons, they have not worked in the interest of their employers, in addition to their own; quite the contrary. If the artisan had the slightest idea that his " boss " was squeezable, he soon applied the screw, and in combination was invariably successful. The employers took the hint, com- bined themselves ; and where is the workman now ? Labour in Australia played its game so openly and frequently that its opponent soon found out a method of trumping its tricks, and the result is stagnation everywhere.
The colliers in Newcastle here came out on strike; the vessels waiting to load set sail for Japan ; they went and stayed, and Newcastle suffers.
I have no hesitation as an observant working man in affirm- ing that to idiotic strikes of the past may be traced 99 per cent, of the misery existing among the workers of to-day.
J. H._
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