ENGLAND AND AUSTRALIA.
AREMARKABLY thoughtful and suggestive article appeared in the Times of Monday under the heading of "The Australian Attitude." It fills nearly four columns, and is all worth reading, but its general purport may be briefly expressed. It is, in the first place, that the unification of the Australian Colonies under Federation has resulted in giving an altogether new power to the inland, country-district people. Formerly in each Colony the political leadership lay with the people of the chief town, and that chief town in each case a sea-port. Now "for six States, each ruled by a com- pact body of townsfolk taking advantage of divided country districts," Federation "is substituting one Common- wealth, ruled by a fairly compact body of countryfolk taking advantage of the divisions between the large towns."
In the second place, these Australian inland countryfolk, while their solidarity and political power are growing, are increasingly falling under subjection to anti-Imperial influences, concentrated in a newspaper of great ability,— the Sydney Bulletin. It is not that they are, or even, perhaps, that their favourite journal is, inspired by dislike of the British nation at home. Very many of these countryfolk, of course, fought for the Imperial cause in South Africa, and did so, as the writer in the Times recognises, under the constraining force of a most intense emotion, in which, without doubt, affection for the old flag, and some sense of the grandeur of belonging to a mighty national family, co-operating from all corners of the world, must have played a very large part. But in the opinion of the Times correspondent this emotion, or at least its intensity, was transient. The hot fit is being succeeded by a cold fit ; and the cooling—such seems to be the sufficiently melancholy suggestion—has been accele- rated, rather than retarded, by the visits of a sprinkling of Australian countrymen to England, whether as members of Lancer squadrons or for ordinary purposes of business or pleasure. What they have seen, or have thought that they saw, and their reflections and reports thereon, appear to have done little or nothing to check the general prepara,- tion of the bushman's mind to allow germination for the anti-Imperial seed steadily sown by the Bulletin, which did not greatly suffer even through its unsympathetic attitude during the war. Its position, as we understand, is not that we at home are, in ourselves, at all an evil or contemptible forty millions of people, but that we have permitted, or are rapidly permitting, the control over our affairs to pass into the hands of a minority of financial self-seekers in whom there are displayed all the vices which the bushman hates and despises. This type of person is perpetually satirised by the writers and artists of the Bulletin under the style of "John Bull-Cohen," and England is represented as being so definitely in the grasp of this most unlovely creature that, though probably quite against her will, her public life and her internal and external policy are practically identical with his. That being so, it is the great aim of the Bulletin to impress upon the minds of its readers the importance of diminish- ing, instead of increasing, the strength of the ties whereby the young and buoyant nation of the Southern Pacific is bound to the Mother-country at the other side of the world, which, though still great and powerful, has sold, or is selling, its strength to a vampire.
It is not suggested that the great majority of the inland Australians have yet adopted the main doctrines of the Bulletin ; but it is very plainly suggested that they look upon the "John Bull-Cohen" caricatures with in- creasing indulgence, appearing as these do in a journal which has many, and some very good, claims on their regard and esteem, and coming, as bushmen think they do, from time to time nearer to reality through some bit of news which is promptly seized and utilised by the anti-Imperial pencil and pen. Such news may relate to some purely insignificant friction between the Home Government and that of one of the Colonies, and may often be, and probably is, altogether distorted by the caricaturist. But who shall say that he never has legitimate material ? Who shall say what limits ought to be put, from a Colonial point of view, to the satirical treatment of the exposure of home military preparations afforded by the terrible Report of the Com- mission on the South African War ? And must we not believe that the measure and fashion in which Britons at home rouse themselves to the paramount necessity of rendering impossible the recurrence of the paralysing abuses thus exhibited will naturally affect the dis- position of the younger nations of our blood to deem that a continuing partnership with us will for them be wholesome or beneficial ? In this connection it is well worthy of observation that the legitimate influence of the newspaper which is maintaining the Separatist cause in Australia has been strengthened in no small degree by its steady advocacy of sound public finance in the Colonies. In a recent issue the Bulletin is quoted as claiming, and claiming justly, that it had led the way in urging the folly of the policy of extravagant expenditure on public works, resulting in the piling up of loans, false representations as to the reproductive character of undertakings to which they were applied, cooked accounts, and swelling deficits. Out of the situation which has been created by lavish and profligate finance there is, it now proclaims, no royal road of escape. "The only honest way back is the long, hard road uphill." Very much, surely, may be forgiven to a paper which faces the indignation of all the interests sure to be offended and threatened by the strenuous advocacy of financial reform and of straightforward economy in the whole public field, legislative as well as administrative. A good deal which happened last year showed that the sense of the necessity of such reform had sunk into the soul of the Australians ; and in the successful endeavours made, especially in Victoria, to restrict expenditure on public Departments and on local legislative and administrative offices, a very active and influential part was played by the people of the country districts. Just in so far as they struggle to put their own house in order may it be expected that our Australian brethren will feel reasonably and increasingly insistent that we at home should strive effectually to emancipate ourselves from all that is un- wholesome and crippling in our public life.
But also, of course, there are other important lessons to be drawn from the study of inner Australia, so much more detached and unlike England than maritime Australia, given by the Times correspondent. It is plain that these kinsmen must be treated with great consideration if they are not to be alienated. The Naval Subsidy Bill having been passed in the Commonwealth Parliament, we must be satisfied with it, even though logic and strict equity might justify our pressing for a much more considerable contribution than the £200,000 a year which Australia is now pledged to pay. Some day we may hope and believe that in one way or another the Australian share in the maritime strength of a united Empire will be much more considerable than it now is. But to press for an increase in any shape or form at the present moment, when without doubt there is at least a temporary ebb in the tide of Imperial feeling, would be manifestly erroneous policy. More haste would be less speed indeed. At the same time, we can see no reason whatever to hold that the Australian temper is to be hopefully approached on the lines of tariff preference. The Australians of the country districts, in particular, are too well acquainted with the hard. realities of life to be wanting in appreciation of the aversion of the British working man to any fiscal system which would enhance his cost of living. A frank setting forth of the home industrial point of view would not alienate him. On the other hand, it is more than possible that the danger to Imperial unity of inter-Imperial bar- gaining, on which Professor Dicey lays stress in his striking article in the Contemporary Review, would show itself very prominently in any dealings with Australia. The readiness out there to attribute invitations to such bargains to sinister financial influences in the Mother-country would operate powerfully to prevent their achieving any permanent Imperial success. Speaking broadly, we must deal with our younger sister-nations with straightforwardness, with confidence, and with sympathy, and must show them by our mode of grappling with our own problems-that we are worthy partners for countries with a future as well as with a past.
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