Town Life in Australia Part 4

Even leaving aside the discomforts which are always allied to pretentiousness, the poor rich woman has a hard time of it. What can she do with herself all day long? She has not gone through that long education up to doing nothing which enables English ladies of means to pa.s.s their time without positive boredom. She has no tastes except those which she does not dare to gratify, and becomes a slave to the very wealth whose badge she loves to flaunt.

The Australian working-man is perhaps too well paid to suit us poor folks who are dependent upon him; but, for all that, comfortable means bring an improvement in the man as well as in his condition. It is very trying to have--as I recently had--to go to four plumbers before I could get one to do a small job for me, and still more trying to find the fourth man fail me after he had promised to come. Such accidents are of everyday occurrence in colonial life, and they make one doubt the advantages of a wealthy working-cla.s.s. But, independent and difficult to please as the colonial working-man is, his carelessness is only a natural consequence of the value set on his labour. Provided he does not drink, you can get as good a day's work out of him as at home. He will pick his time as to when he will do your job, and hesitate whether he will do it at all; but having once started on it, he generally does his best for you.

Too often the sudden increase of wages is too much for his mental equilibrium, and a man who was sober enough as a poor man at home, finds no better use for his loose cash than to put it into the public-house till. But as a cla.s.s I do not think Australian working men are less sober than those at home. Those who are industrious and careful in a very few years rise to be masters and employers of labour, and are at all times so sure of constant employment that it is no wonder they do not care about undertaking odd jobs. If their manner is as independent as their character, I am far from blaming them for it, though occasionally one could wish they did not confound civility and servility as being equally degrading to the free and independent elector. But when you meet the man on equal terms in an omnibus or on other neutral ground, this cause of complaint is removed. Where he is sure of his equality he makes no attempt to a.s.sert it, and the treatment he receives from many _parvenu_ employers is no doubt largely the cause of intrusive a.s.sertion of equality towards employers in general. Politically he is led by the nose, but this is hardly astonis.h.i.+ng, since, in nine cases out of ten, his electoral qualifications are a novelty to him. He carries his politics in his pocket, or what the penny papers tell him are his pockets; or, if he rises above selfish considerations he is taken in by the bunk.u.m of his self-styled friends. But in what country are the free and independent electors wiser? Happily for Australia, his Radicalism rarely lasts long, if he is worth his salt. He becomes in a few years one of the propertied cla.s.s, has leisure to learn something of the conditions under which property is best preserved and added to, and thus--according to the admission of the leading Radical paper--Conservatism is constantly encroaching on the ranks of Liberalism. Except under very rare circ.u.mstances poverty in Australia may fairly be considered a reproach.

Every man has it in his power to earn a comfortable living; and if after he has been some time in the colonies the working-man does not become one of the capitalists his organs inveigh against, he has only himself to blame.

Of the three sections into which the working-cla.s.s may be divided--old chums, new chums, and colonials--the first-named are, on the whole, the best. For the most part they began life with a superabundance of animal spirits, and a love of adventure, which have been toned down by a practical experience of the hards.h.i.+ps they dreamed of. They certainly drink most and swear most of the three sections, but with all their failings there are few men who can do a harder day's work than they.

Barring pure misfortune, there is always some good reason for their still remaining in the cla.s.s they sprang from. Though this is not always strictly true, since a good many of them began life higher up in the world than they are now. Still I prefer them to the pepper-and-salt mixture which has been sent out under that happy-go-lucky process--free immigration. When the colonies were so badly in want of population, they could not stop to pick and choose. Hence a large influx of loafers, men who, without any positive vice, will do anything rather than a hard day's work, and who come out under the impression that gold is to be picked up in the streets of Melbourne. Under the name of 'the unemployed' they are a constant source of worry to the Government, whom they consider bound to give them something light and easy, with 7s. 6d. or 8s. a day, and give rise abroad to the utterly false impression that there am times when it is hard for an industrious man to get work in Australia. Of course many of our immigrants have become first-rate workmen, but such men soon rise in the social scale.

The best workman when he chooses, and the most difficult to get hold of, is the thoroughbred colonial. Being able to read and write does not, however, keep him from being as brutal as Coupeau, and, except from a muscular point of view, he is often by no means a promising specimen of colonization. It is from this section of the community that the 'larrikins,' as they are called, are recruited, roughs of the worst description, insulting and often robbing people in Melbourne itself, and moving about in gangs with whose united force the police is powerless to cope. Sometimes they break into hotels and have 'free drinks' all round, maltreating the landlord if he protests. In a younger stage they content themselves with frightening helpless women, and kicking every Chinaman they meet. On all sides it is acknowledged that the larrikin element is daily increasing, and has already reached, especially in Melbourne, proportions which make it threaten to amount to a social clanger within a few years. Of late their outbreaks have not been confined to night-work, but take place in open daylight, _coram populo et_ police. No one exactly knows how to meet the difficulty, and What shall we do with our larrikins?' is likely to replace the former popular cry of 'What shall we do with our boys?' to which some ingenious person furnished the obvious answer, 'Marry them to our girls.' Corporal punishment for corporal offences is in my opinion and that of most of the serious portion of the community, the only remedy which is likely also to act as a preventive; but however desirable it may be acknowledged to be, there is a difficulty in bringing it into use in communities whose sympathies are so essentially democratic as those of Victoria and New South Wales--for in Adelaide the police has still the upper hand. The votes of these very larrikins turn the scale at elections. Their kith and kin form a majority of the population, and therefore of the electorate. However much a member of Parliament or a Minister may recognise the necessity of meeting a social danger, he can hardly afford to do it at the expense of his seat.

At the time of the Kelly trial practical demonstration of the latent sympathy with crime in Melbourne was afforded. Thousands of persons, headed by the Chairman of Committees of the House of a.s.sembly, actually agitated for the reprieve of the most notorious, if not the greatest, criminal in the annals of Australia, a man whose murders were not to be counted on the fingers; and all this because for over two years he had set the police at defiance, and after a life of murder and rapine had, shown the courage of despair when his only choice was between being shot by a policeman or hung on the gallows. In many respects, as, I have elsewhere intimated, our free political system makes the social outlook here far more promising than in Europe; but larrikinism is a peculiar danger already well above the horizon, against which we seem powerless to deal. Some set it down to the absence of religious teaching in the State schools, but its real point and origin seems rather to lie in the absence of parental authority at home and the unpopularity of the old proverb: 'Spare the rod and spoil the child.'

SOCIAL RELATIONS.

My last letter was necessarily, from the nature of its subject, a little flaky--a charge to which all these notes must more or less plead guilty.

Though the heading of this one differs slightly, it must practically be a continuation of the same subject.

The first social relation, like charity, begins in the family circle, and was incidentally touched upon in my last. Between husband and wife the relations in Australia are, on the whole, probably as satisfactory as in any other part of the world. Both generally marry from love, and whatever may be the general effect of love-matches, it cannot be denied that more than any others they tend to promote pleasant relations between the 'two contracting parties,' as the French would call them. Amongst the wealthy, as everywhere else, there cannot of course be the close marital intimacy of the middle cla.s.ses; but not only is infidelity less common than in London, but moreover, the proportion of the wealthy who keep up the style which produces the quasi-separation of domestic life is far smaller.

Husband and wife have grown rich together; they have taken counsel together, and lived an open life, as far as each other are concerned, ever since they were married. Against this the usages of society, dressing-rooms and lady's-maids are of little avail. You may chase the second nature out by the door, but it jumps in again at the window.

In the middle and lower cla.s.s the comparatively cribbed, cabined, and confined existence is also of the greatest service to that community of thought and action upon which conjugal happiness to so large an extent depends. Domestic occupations also occupy the thoughts of the wives, and business those of the husbands, so continually, as to leave few moments of mental vacuity for Satan to introduce mischief into. Of an evening the clubs are almost deserted, and their few occupants are nearly all bachelors, or married men who have left their wives in the country, having come down to town themselves on business. Drink must be recognised as a factor on the opposite side, and a by no means unimportant one; but there are many women who have no objection to their husbands drinking, so long as they either drink at home or come straight thither from the public-house.

I wish I could give as favourable a view of the parental relations. They are undeniably the weak point of family life in the colonies. During childhood a certain obedience is of course enforced; but public feeling is strong in favour of the naughty boy and wilful girl, looking as it does upon these qualities as prophetic of future enterprise. So many of our best colonists, it must be remembered, were eminently wild in their younger days, that it is no wonder they think 'there is something' in the self-willed child. Their own life has been too much of a struggle for them to be able to appreciate at their true value the gentler qualities which in themselves would have been of little worth, the victory in their earlier days having been to the physical rather than to the intellectual.

The child is naturally--for surely disobedience is an 'original sin' with nine children out of ten--only too disposed to take advantage of the views held by its parents, and gradually as it grows older, disobedience pa.s.ses into disrespect and want of respect into want of affection. Such a thing as perfect confidence, in the French sense of the word, between a parent and his or her grown-up child is most rare. 'Everyone for himself, and devil take the hindmost, is the motto of the young Australian. He cares for n.o.body, and n.o.body need care for him, so far as his thoughts on the subject are concerned. Maternal affection cannot, however, be easily quenched, and consequently the child gets all the best of the bargain.

Social relations are wider, therefore less easy to speak about decidedly, than family relations. In the early days there were but few social distinctions. Everyone was hail-fellow-well-met with everyone else, and the common struggle merged all differences of birth, wealth, and education. In a charming little work called 'Some Social Aspects of South Australian Life,' which was published in Adelaide about two years ago', a most realistic description is given of the sympathetic mode of living of the first settlers; and as it has never been reprinted in England, I extract a few sentences here and there, which may give some idea of the primitive existence there described:

'The necessaries of life were produced in abundance, the comforts were slowly reached, and the luxuries had to be done without. There was very little difference in the actual circ.u.mstances of different cla.s.ses--some had property and some had none' (this was before the gold-fever); 'but property was unsaleable for money, and barter only exchanged one unsaleable article for another' (and yet these are the people who nowadays groan about _money_ going out of the colony, and would measure its prosperity by the excess of exports over imports).* [* The parentheses are my own.] 'n.o.body employed hired labour who could possibly do the work himself, and everyone had to turn his or her hand to a great deal of miscellaneous work, most of which would be called menial and degrading in an old community... Thus gradually the financial position of the colony improved by means of the well-directed industry of the settlers, and they owed much to the helpfulness and good management of the wives, sisters, and daughters of each household... Perhaps, never in any human society did circ.u.mstances realize the ideas of the community of labour and the equality of the s.e.xes, so fully as in South Australia in its early days.' Youth and love, hope and trust, were the only stock in marriage of young couples, so that a new-comer is said to have remarked, 'Why, it is nothing to get married here! A few mats, and cane-bottomed chairs, and the house is furnished.' A wife was not looked on as a hindrance or an expense, but as a help and a comfort,' says Miss Spence. 'Girls did not look for establishments; parents did not press for settlements ... There was only one carriage in the colony for many years, which though belonging to a private person, was hired for such as wanted to do the thing genteelly ... .' Social position depended on character, and not on income.

The same writer lays herself fairly open to the charge of being _laudator temporis acti_ in her description of the present as compared with the past social life of the colonies, though I am quite prepared to agree with her remark, that 'in proportion as the conditions of life become more complex, they should be met by more ingenuity, more culture, and a deeper sense of duty;' and that 'the suddenness of our acc.u.mulation of wealth has scarcely prepared our little community for some necessary modifications of our social arrangements.' Therein lies the whole source of both what is best and what is worst in the present social life of Australia. Marriage, though still almost entirely an affair of love, has yet learnt to take . s. d. into consideration, and none but the lowest cla.s.s would be satisfied with the kind of furniture described above.

Education has improved and is improving still more, far as it yet is from being up even to the English standard. More leisure has also produced novel reading with its consequent affectation of aristocratic ideas and prejudices and disproportionate estimate of essentials and superficials.

Already each Australian capital has its 'society,' distinguished from the [Greek characters] almost as clearly as in London or Paris. In its own way, indeed, these societies are more exclusive than those of the older metropolises, which from their very size obtain a certain breadth of view. For obvious reasons the component parts are not altogether similar, but their governing idea is as much the same as the difference of circ.u.mstances will permit. It would be difficult to define exactly what opens the doors of Australian society, but is the s.h.i.+bboleth any more definite in London? Distinction of some kind or other must be presupposed. If that of birth, it must either be allied to rank or have strong local connections. Is it not the same in London, though, of course, on an infinitely larger and grander scale? If that of wealth, it must storm the entrance by social expenditure and pachydermatousness to rebuff. Wealth is, of course, the predominating factor here, as rank in London; because while in the latter case birth calls in wealth to furnish it with the sinews of war, in the former wealth calls in birth to teach it how to behave itself. Position is of small account, though the line is always drawn at shopkeepers _in esse_. Provided the candidate has cut the shop and opened an office, he can be admitted on payment of the social fees, but only gradually and laboriously unless his wealth is beyond criticism. The man who sells you a dozen of wine in the morning sits by your side at Government House or Bishop's Court in the evening, and the highest officials are not unfrequently the least esteemed socially. A happy consequence of this social jumble is, that with certain exceptions, which are, of course, getting more numerous as we advance in civilization, a gentleman can do anything here and still be considered a gentleman, provided he behaves himself as such; and the semi-menial employments of distressed gentlewomen do not bring with them one half the loss of social position that they generally entail in England. The smaller community is more narrow-minded than the large, but its sight is keener and more accurate in details. It is true that art, science, and literature are entirely without status in Australia, but then personal distinction of whatever kind is far more get-at-able than at home.

If it strikes a visitor as utterly ridiculous that a society, the greater part of whose members are essentially _parvenus_, should a.s.sume the tone and mode of thought of an old-world aristocracy, we must yet acknowledge that that society keeps up a great many traditions of refinement which are in great danger of being lost sight of in colonial life. The outward and visible sign may be absurd, but the inward and spiritual grace is none the less concealed within it. That Australian society keeps up a number of social superst.i.tions which might with advantage have died out during the journey across the ocean is undeniable, but it is also true that it preserves at least an affectation of higher civilization. It contains the majority of the gentlemen and ladies by birth and education in each city, and they go far to leaven the whole lump. The _parvenu_ has the merit of seeking after better things, and his imitation of aristocracy, if it necessarily falls far short of the mark, at least removes him a step or two above the way of thinking common to the cla.s.s he sprang from. His daughters, with that superior adaptability inherent in women, are quick to catch the manners of the gentlewomen who move in their circle, and become infinitely superior to their brothers, even when the latter have been sent to finish their education at Oxford, or Cambridge. It is wonderful how much more easily a lady can be manufactured than a gentleman.

Of the hospitality of 'society' in all the towns it is impossible to speak in too high terms. The stranger has but to bring a couple of good introductions to people who are in society, and provided he be at all presentable, the doors of the most exclusive houses will be opened to him. Young men of education and manners are everywhere at a premium, and the colonies are still small enough for it to be a distinction to have just come out from England. Unless you know your company it is always wise to avoid asking questions about or making reference to the earlier days of the people you meet. For all that, you will hear everybody's history, often, I suspect, with additions and exaggerations. In such small communities everybody knows everything about everybody else, and the man who has gone down in the world naturally delights in telling you of the time when he bought half a pound of sugar at Jones's shop, or when Brown worked in his garden while Mrs. Brown was his scullery-maid, Jones and Brown being now two social leaders.

Amongst men social distinctions are very slight. It is lawful to be friendly with everybody and anybody in town, so long as you do not visit at his private house. And yet for very obvious reasons gentlemen are--except amongst the rising generation--much more common than ladies.

A number of wild young men of good family and education have been poured out of England into Australia ever since 1852, and many of them have become amongst the most useful and respected colonists. But until recently there was a paucity of ladies, and the majority of gentlemen had but the choice between marrying beneath them or not at all. Hence frequent _mesalliances_. You meet a man at the club, and are delighted with him in every way. He asks you to his house, and you find that his wife drops her h's, eats peas with her knife, and errs in various little ways. I am purposely thinking of no one in particular, but fear at least a dozen of my acquaintances will think I am writing of them in making this remark. And it is a sad sight to see a man dragged down in this way, for very few men who marry beneath them can keep up the manner and mode of living to which they were born and educated, while those who do generally retain them at the expense of their own married happiness.

Nowadays there are certainly plenty of young ladies in the towns, but for all that one constantly hears of the sons of clergymen and army officers marrying the daughters of grocers and farmers who were quite recently day-labourers. With every freedom from caste prejudice, I am yet unable to see anything but harm to the persons directly concerned in these ill-a.s.sorted matches, whatever the good result to the community may be.

The centre round which society revolves is naturally Government House, but a great many people go to Government House who cannot be considered to be in society. To have been to a Government House ball is no more, _mutandis mutatis_, than to go to a Court ball at home. Neither will give you admission into the inner circle; and though that circle may not offer any but specious advantages and have but little to recommend it in preference to three or four other societies in the town, admission into it is coveted, and inclusion within its boundaries is as much a reality as if its walls were of stone. In Melbourne the scattered position of the suburbs and the extent of the population splits up the _elite_ into several local societies, but there is yet one _creme de la creme_. In Sydney the same thing takes place, though the local societies are less numerous; but in Adelaide there is practically only one 'society', the local aggregations of individuals not being deserving of any more dignified name than 'cliques.' Of the three societies, that of Sydney is on the whole, I think, the best. At Melbourne there are probably a larger number of cultivated persons, but the distance between the suburbs and the more extravavagant mode of living limits their sphere. The Adelaidians are perhaps the most English of all in their way of thinking, but they are also by far the most narrow-minded. For pure Philistinism I don't think I know any town that equals it. Shut up in their own little corner, they imagine themselves more select than Sydney and Melbourne circles, because they are necessarily smaller. And yet for kind-heartedness these gossip-loving Philistines are not easily to be surpa.s.sed. As long as things go well with you they will talk against you; but no set of people are less open to the charge of neglecting friends in misfortune.

Cla.s.s relations are, on the whole, excellent; and this is the more to the credit of the lower cla.s.ses, because the plutocracy is utterly selfish in character, and does not interest itself in those social duties, which are proving so effectual a prop to the n.o.bility and landed gentry of England.

A certain animosity subsists between the squatters or pastoral lessees and the selectors who purchase on credit from Government blocks of land, which were formerly let to squatters. At times this breaks out in Parliament or at elections, but in spite of a determined attempt by a section of the Victorian press to pit the 'wealthy lower orders' against the h.o.r.n.y-handed sons of the soil, cla.s.s feeling rarely runs high for any length of time. The reason is, that the working-cla.s.s are too well off for the occasional high-handed proceedings of the rich to affect them sensibly. For an agitation to be maintained there must be a real grievance at the bottom of it; and the only grievance that the Australian democrat can bring forward is, that having obtained the necessaries, he cannot without extra labour obtain also the luxuries of life.

From figures I have already given as to rents, wages, and prices in general, you will have gathered that the cost of living is, broadly speaking, cheaper than in England as regards the necessities of existence, but dearer in proportion to the complexity of the article.

Anything that requires much labour, or that cannot readily be produced in the colony, is, dearer; but, on the other hand, it should be remembered that money is more easily obtainable. Protectionist duties and heavy freights form an effectual sumptuary tax; and as most of the duties are _ad valorem_, first-cla.s.s articles are heavily handicapped, and a premium put upon the importation of shoddy. The wine-drinker finds that he has to pay ten s.h.i.+llings a gallon on all he drinks, which should certainly entice him to drink good wine; but the only practical result discoverable is the small quant.i.ty of wine drunk as compared with beer and spirits. If few people keep carriages, there are buggies innumerable in every town; and for every man who keeps a horse in England, there are, proportionately to the population, ten in Australia.

But perhaps the greatest element in the cheapness of colonial life is its comparative want of 'gentility.' The necessity to keep up appearances is not one-sixth as strong as in England. The earthen pot cannot altogether flow down stream in company with the tin kettle, but it can more safely get within a shorter distance of its metallic rival. Rich men live in miserable houses and wear coats which their valets would have nothing to do with at home; struggling men are less ashamed of struggling, and are not made to feel the defects of their condition so keenly. In a society, the position of whose members is constantly changing, the style of life is of less importance. The millionaire of to-day hadn't a sixpence yesterday, and may not have one again to-morrow. His brothers, sifters and cousins are impecunious, and in small communities poor relations are not easily got rid of. Constant intercommunication is thus kept up between cla.s.s and cla.s.s, rich and poor; they learn better to understand each other's position, and a clearer understanding generally leads to mutual respect.

Again, the distribution of wealth is far more equal. To begin with, there is no poor cla.s.s in the colonies. Comfortable incomes are in the majority, millionaires few and far between. This is especially the case in Adelaide, where the condition of the poorer cla.s.s is better, and that of the richer worse than in any of the other colonies. In Melbourne the ma.s.ses seem worst off, and the display of riches, if not the actuality thereof, is most noticeable. In Sydney the signs of wealth are not wanting to an examiner, but a superficial observer would say that there were not half as many wealthy men as in Melbourne. Few South Australians get beyond the comfortable stage, and, on the other hand, a greater number reach it. 'Squatting,' of course, supplies the largest section of the wealthy cla.s.s; but, especially in Melbourne, gold-mining and commerce have contributed a large quota.

RELIGION AND MORALS.

In no country in the world is the legal freedom of conscience more firmly established than in Australia. All Churches and sects are absolutely equal in the eyes of the State; and any attempt to upset this equality would be resented, not only by the united forces of all the other denominations, but even by a majority of the only two Churches--the Roman and Anglican--who would ever dream of aiming at supremacy. But thorough as is the repudiation by the great majority of the community of the principles of State aid or control of religion, the two Churches which I have just mentioned occasionally raise their voices against secular education by the State, and make spasmodic appeals for State contributions to their denominational schools, which, however little likely to succeed, are not altogether without a rational foundation. But this is the utmost limit which State recognition, or rather the cry for it, is ever likely to reach.

In times past the Church of England has struggled to regain the position she formerly held in the older colonies; but now whatever efforts she makes in that direction are confined to the ambition of being _prima inter pares_--a position which is vigorously and even bitterly attacked by the other Protestant sects whenever she either tries to a.s.sert it or has it thrust upon her. These ex-Dissenters have a lively remembrance of the yoke they endured in the old country, and even now that the spirit of supremacy has so completely died out, they spring up to do battle against any formality that recalls it to them. Thus, a few years ago the whole colony of South Australia was convulsed on the question of the Bishop's right to follow the Governor and precede the Chief Justice at official ceremonies, and peace amongst the devout was only restored by the Bishop's graceful relinquishment of a position to which his legal right was undeniable. Even now the t.i.tle 'My Lord' as applied to Bishops acts as a red rag on many ex-Dissenting bulls, and they are as jealous of the slightest official preference of the Church of England as if their dearest religious liberties were therein involved.

Legal and even official equality do not, however, always mean social equality; and the Church still retains a superior social position, a shadow of her departed State authority, which to some of her old compet.i.tors--especially the Congregationalists, Baptists, and Wesleyans--is the more galling because they are totally dest.i.tute of the means of a.s.sailing it. Happily, through the wise conduct of the Bishops of Adelaide and Melbourne in meeting ministers of other denominations on a common platform, whenever the cause of Christianity or of good and right in any way can be served thereby, and in showing sympathy with them in a mult.i.tude of ways, this unreasonable jealousy is losing ground and a better feeling springing up; but there are yet too many colonists that have felt the disabilities of Dissent in the old country who are unable to put on the armour of forgiveness, or rather of forgetfulness in the new. The enemy has lost his sting, but they will not allow him to live on the remembrance of his past greatness without a reminder of his present impotence.

This impotence is in all ways, except socially, a certain reality; for while the ex-Dissenting bodies have thriven and waxed numerous and powerful upon the bread of independence, the Church has languished for want of her accustomed prop. Accustomed, not only to support their own ministers, but also to pay t.i.thes and Church-rates for the benefit of their rival, the ex-Dissenters have simultaneously had their burden lightened and, for the most part, their incomes increased by the change of country. Besides this, they have to a certain extent felt themselves put upon their mettle to show their superiority to their old master, and thus they have put their best foot foremost, with the good result which always attends such efforts. Their ministers, better paid, and holding a higher social position than in England, have naturally become a superior cla.s.s of men as a whole to those in the old country. Every day they are advancing, towards a higher standard of education and manners. Nor has the gain in education and position been accompanied by, as far as I can see, any loss in earnestness or deterioration in work. No one sect is sufficiently preponderant to admit of that.

The friendly compet.i.tion between them has been beneficial to them all; and, in spite of rivalry, the spirit of toleration between Protestant sects is thoroughly observed. Unfortunately, this toleration is not extended to the Roman Catholics. Their doctrines are so directly in opposition to the prevailing democratic and Protestant spirit of the community, that they have come to be regarded as Ishmaelites, if not as Amalekites, occupying ground which ought to belong to the faithful. An Anti-Popery cry would at any time command success; and numerous and influential as the Catholics are, directly they begin to a.s.sert their influence all the other religious bodies unite to counteract, and end by suppressing it. For a spice of intolerance in this respect, and for a general Philistinism in its views on all subjects, Australia is indebted to the middle-cla.s.s Protestant sects, who form the most important element in the community; but to them also, in a large measure, it owes its political and social stability, and all those standard moral qualities which are the only safe foundation for a superstructure of intellect.

Because I have spoken so warmly of the good influence which the ex-Dissenting or Protestant sects have exercised in Australia, it must not be supposed that the Church has been altogether a laggard. Probably no section of the English clergy has worked harder and more manfully than that which has been stationed in Australia. It is no fault of theirs if their sphere has been limited and their good influence less effective than that of their rivals. But they have been labouring under the misfortune of being unsuited to the people and circ.u.mstances amongst whom and which they live and work. Their sphere has lain almost entirely amongst the upper and lower cla.s.ses, and it is neither of these that governs Australia. Where they came into contact with the middle cla.s.s, the power in the land, they have been placed in the position of the round man in the square hole. The men of the middle cla.s.s have a.s.serted their social equality to, if not their superiority over, their clergy; and this an English gentleman finds difficulty in admitting, still more one who considers himself the minister of G.o.d to the people, rather than of the people to G.o.d. The Thirty-nine Articles do not admit of his recognising the orders of his nonconformist brethren as equal to his own, and this has been set down to pride. Altogether, the Anglican clergyman has been put in a false position, to extricate him from which is taxing all the tact of so politic a prelate as Bishop Moorhouse.

The habit of paying no direct stipend to their clergymen in England has led to a reluctance to contribute good salaries for their support out here, where they must rely solely upon such support; and the lowness of salaries, if not the hardness of the work, has made the Anglican clergy in Australia as a cla.s.s inferior to their English brethren. Of course the clergy still contains a large proportion of gentlemen within its ranks, but on the score of ability I fancy the ex-Dissenters have the advantage.

Recognising this, Bishop Moorhouse is endeavouring both to shame Churchmen into raising the stipend of their clergy, and to procure for the congregations not only English gentlemen, but as far as possible hard-working, practical, broad-minded men. He has a difficult task before him, for already there are plenty of colonial clergymen who are either inferior to nonconformist ministers in cultivation, or stubborn adherents to a _regime_ which is impossible in Australia. These weeds must be pulled out before you can sow fresh seed; and yet it is hard to call men weeds who are serving the Church according to the best of their lights, faithful, hard-working men, or conservative old gentlemen, who are doing or have done a great deal of good work, and whose failings cannot be attributed to any fault for which you can morally reproach them.

The Church is slow to adapt itself to colonial life. Amongst a preponderating lower middle-cla.s.s element Nonconformity, or rather what is better known as Protestantism, is very popular. Low Churchmen find they can get a better sermon at the chapel, and can be hail-fellow-well-met with their pastor in these extraneous denominations. Thus the Church loses many of its former adherents, and while Anglicanism still remains the religion of the upper cla.s.s, it can in no way pretend to be that of even a majority of the community.

The Roman Catholics are on a different footing. For them no compromise is possible, and they cannot as Roman Catholics but be a state within a state. From time to time the priesthood incites them to aspire to political power, but hitherto none of these aspirations have borne practical effect, except in strengthening the hands of their adversaries.

At present they are agitating more or less vehemently in each colony for State support to be given to their schools, declaring that it is monstrous that they should be made to pay for a secular education of which their religion prevents them from taking advantage.

At first a section of the Anglican party, comprising nearly all the clergy, joined in this cry, but it became so evident that the bulk of the population was determined not to return to the old system, that they are beginning to desert the Catholics, and are now more wisely and with better chance of success attempting to amalgamate with the other Protestant bodies to obtain the admission into the State schools of religious teaching on a broad Protestant basis; i.e., of all the doctrines which are held in common by all Protestant denominations (except the Unitarians), to the exclusion of all doctrines on which the different sects differ. The bulk of the Dissenters are, I fancy, indifferent to any junction with the Church of England, and would just as soon have no religious teaching as what they call a 'pithless jelly-fish'

religious teaching. But on this point I think public opinion is undergoing a change, and the formation of a Protestant party probable.

The Catholics would consider such a concession as infinitely worse than the existing purely secular system. The omission of true doctrine would, as regards them, amount to an a.s.sertion of false; and on their side in opposing the Protestant party will be the Jews, the Freethinkers, and a large number who would rather have no religious teaching than any quarrel over it, and who are fairly satisfied with the existing state of things.

If the Protestants ever become strong enough to win the day, it can only be at the expense of establis.h.i.+ng a Catholic grievance so strong as to be exceedingly dangerous. The fact that all parties are now out in the cold, satisfies a rough-and-ready conception of justice with which the politician has always to reckon, but that all the Protestants should get a concession, of which it is impossible for the Catholics to avail themselves, would be manifestly unfair. Political expediency and justice seem to be alike against the claims of the Protestant party, unless it be resolved to grant aid to Roman Catholics and Jews only, which is a possible, though not very consistent, solution of the question.

Ritualism is unknown, though the word is often applied to the one or two High-Church services in the capitals where the choirs wear surplices, or, worse still, where there are candles on the altar--a word which is almost as much objected to as priest. Broad and Low are decidedly the prevailing phases of Churchmans.h.i.+p, and every year the Broad is gaining upon the Low; the Low element consisting of those who were brought up in England, the Broad of the generation which has been born in the country. As this begins to predominate, the barriers between the Anglican Church and the other Protestant denominations will be lowered, and in course of time the differences between them will be reduced to preference in the mode of conducting service. The first step towards this was taken by the Bishop of Melbourne some two years ago in forming the Pastoral Aid Society, the object of which is to provide religious services in outlying districts in the bush, where there are not sufficient settlers of either the Episcopalian or Presbyterian Churches to make it possible to supply a minister of either. The Society arranges that services should be held in these districts alternately, according to the rites of each Church, and that they should be visited alternately by ministers of each.

This system has proved of enormous value in keeping religion alive in the bush, and paved the way for an experiment not long ago in Melbourne itself, which has met with such general approval, that it may be said to mark the commencement of a new era in the Church of England, and even in ecclesiastical history. With the consent of the Bishop and of his church-wardens, Canon Bromby invited a Presbyterian minister--Rev. Chaos.

Strong-to read the service and preach in St. Paul's Church, he himself taking Mr. Strong's pulpit. This precedent is certain to be largely followed; and it is easy to see that the courtesy which is extended to Presbyterian ministers will before long be extended to those of the other Protestant denominations, and that exchanges of pulpits between them all will become frequent.

Churches abound in every Australian city, especially in Adelaide, where they are so numerous as to excite the ridicule of the less devout Victorians. I forget how many there are; but, at any rate, they bear a very small proportion to the public-houses, against which I think they may fairly be pitted. Still, there are plenty of them; and no sinner will easily be able to find an excuse for not going to church in the non-representation of his particular sect. When I say 'churches,' I am using the term in the official and colonial sense, for the word 'chapel'

stinks in the nostrils of a Dissenting community, and many of these churches are not much bigger than an ordinary dining-room, and, having been built for profane purposes, have no external odour of sanct.i.ty beyond a black board, whereon you are informed, in gilt letters, that the building belongs to whatever sect it does belong, and that Divine Service is held there by the Rev. So-and-So at certain hours on the Sabbath. But from this you must not suppose that the two older churches have a monopoly of the religious buildings which can properly aspire to that name.

For the most part, ecclesiastical architecture is rather a weak point with these newly-confirmed religions; but in Melbourne, with the exception of the Roman Catholic Cathedral, they possess far the finest churches, and in Adelaide and Sydney their edifices are at least imposing. The Roman Catholics., however, carry off the palm. In both Melbourne and Sydney their cathedrals are of grand proportions. In all three cities their other churches are large and lofty. The Anglicans have small cathedrals at Sydney and Adelaide; but, in spite of their including a majority of the wealthiest individuals in the colonies, they find a great difficulty in raising money for building purposes.

As far as my experience goes--and I have 'sat under' the princ.i.p.al ministers of each denomination in each town at least once--the preaching is, for the most part, very poor. There are certainly two or three exceptions; but 'what are they,' one is irreverently apt to exclaim, 'among so many?' The shallowness and often halting pace of these discourses is doubtless due, in large measure, to the colonial love of _extempore_ preaching. For sermons read out of a book public opinion of all denominations in Australia has the greatest contempt. Like English lower middle-cla.s.s communities, again, they like a good p.r.o.nounced type of doctrine from the pulpit. The lower regions are popular; but most successful is the denunciation of the people over the way who bow down to wood and stone, and commit sundry other iniquities for which Protestants are in no fear of being indicted.

As you notice a man's general appearance and manner before you can form any idea of his character, so I have described churches and denominations before entering seriously into the question of religion. If Churchmen--who will probably form the majority of my readers--cannot but be grieved at the picture I have drawn, of the condition of the Australian Church, they may at least take comfort when I state that the preponderating feeling of Australian cities is essentially Christian, according to the received meaning of the word. The citizens are, for the most part, of a distinctly religious turn of mind. They may not be, and--except in Adelaide--are not, such good church-goers as at home; but they have not drunk of the poison of infidelity, nor eaten of the sweets of indifference. Amidst the distractions of colonial life this could hardly have been the case, but for the Puritan origin of so many of the more influential among them, and the healthy compet.i.tion between the various sects, as well as the freedom from State control and interference already alluded to.

As in social matters Melbourne may be regarded as the extreme type of Australia, so in religious matters Adelaide affords the easiest text to preach upon. Essentially lower middle-cla.s.s, Nonconformist and Radical in its origin, South Australia might well claim the t.i.tle of the New England of the Antipodes. Even to the present day, it preserves signs and tokens of the Principles on which it was founded: its progress having been the gradual and healthy growth of a Pastoral and agricultural colony, undisturbed by the forced marches of gold-mining. In Adelaide middle-cla.s.s respectability is too strong for larrikinism, and imparts a far healthier social and moral tone than obtains in either Melbourne or Sydney; but for these advantages the little town pays the small but disagreeable price of Philistinism. Want of culture, Pharisees, and narrow-mindedness find a more congenial home there than anywhere else in Australia; but, to my mind, these are a cheap price to pay for the piety and real goodness which they cloak.

The Adelaidian may be unpleasantly conceited and self-satisfied in religious matters, but then he is kind and hospitable, religious and moral, and not so sophisticated as the Victorian, who is probably a more agreeable person superficially. Yet in neither Melbourne nor Sydney can religion be said to be wanting. It is kept more in the background than in Adelaide, and there is not so much of it as in the smaller town; but the religious character of all three, taken either singly or together, will, I think, compare favourably with that of any other modern city or cities.