BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1866, 27 September 1913, Page 19

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

AUSTRALIA IN THE MAKING. Dr. Fitchett, the industrious Australian writer, to whom wo owo thoso useful and most interesting historical works, "Deeds that Won the Empire, "How England Saved Europe," and "Tho Great Duke," now makes a now appeal to the reading public with a book which should possess a _ peculiar interest and valuo for Australians and $ow Zealanders. This is "Tho New -World of the South—Australia in the linking" (London, George Bell and Sons; per Whitcombo and Tombs). Although, as the author points out in his "Foreword." there may be "no drums and tramplings" in Australian history, of tho kind which makes the history of Canada, South Africa, and India, so picturesque, yet the stpry of tho discovery, settlement, and and coifimercial progress of tho great island continent presents not a few features which render its study of special interest. Australia offers the only instance m history where a whole continent has flying above it the flag of a singlo peopleSays Dr. Fitchett:— Australia, it may bo added, is with tho exception of New Zealand —the only groat provinco in the Empire occupied by men of a purely British stock. In Canada, twofifths aro French; at tho Cape, onethird is Dutch; in India, the British are but a tiny garrison ruling noarly 300 millions coloured men. The very happiest example of the colonising genius of the British "races, again, is to be seen in tho brief history of Australia. Its Btory, as it happens, begins at tho moment when Great Britain, by the loss of the Thirteen Colonics, had been taught tho secret —as no other nation in history has ever learned— of erecting remoto settlements into communities with tho freedom of independent States, and yet linked to the Motherland by the tie of an absolute loyalty. As this reads, tho story of Australia. is a revelation of the political temper and - genius of the British races. It certainly represents aii experiment which,'So far, has succceded brilliantly. Sea Stories. Dr. Fitchott has, wisely, I think, decided not to give a dotailed and consccutivo history of Australia; but rather to select from its story such events and incidents as have played somo special part in moulding and shaping the destinies of the young nation, more particularly such events as are possessed of a permanent human interest.Thus, in Book I, "Sea. Stories," he gives a graphic skotch.of tho early voyagers to Austral seas, referring in brief detail to tho French, Spanish, and Dutch navigators for whom it/has been_ claimed that they visited tho Australian continent in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Dutch, in particular, play a conspicuous part in the story of Austral discovery. As' the author puts it, "the Dutch seamen contributed more wrecks to the business of Australian' discovery .than the seamen of any other nation; and as a result, they flung much wealth upon its shores, and took none away from it. One Dutch ship, it is true, .'did return, bringing . silver, pottery, etc., from Australia; but it all came from a previous Dutch wreck. Much Dutch treasure, in,dced, still lies somewhere under tho ' wash of tho Pacific breakers." In two specially interesting chapters, _ "The Man Who Discovered Australia," and "How Cook Did His Work," Dr. Fitchetts describes tho eventful career of the sturdy '•Yorkshire mariner to whom New Zealand, it may be said, owes its existence as a. nation. Of Cook's widow, who ■lived until 1835, living when ninetythree years of age, the author remarks: Among her household treasures was an old Bible, from which her great husband, whoso ship never know a chaplain, was accustomed to read every Sunday to his crew. Shei kept four days in the year as fast days, during which she never camo out of her room. They were her , days of household bereavement, and marked the deaths of her husband and her three gallant son's. It is said of her that she could never sleep while a gale was howling in tho sky above her houso; she was thinking of tho men at sea. Sho was a fit wife for a'great seaman. Of flinders, too, and Bass, who had ."■o much to do with tho exploration of the Australian coast, tho author gives a most interesting account. Tales of the Early Days. In the second section of his book rthe author deals with the coming of tho "First Fleet," and with the strange pilgrim fathers who were to > lay the ■foundations of Australian settlement. In. .successive chapters he tells us of "tho mile of tho whip,'' of tho great convict rising of 1804, of the strango story ■of Governor Bligh, in which Macarthur, I "fierce in his hatreds, equally generious in his friendships, a man of bound; 'less' energy, with a Renins for colonisation," played so prominent a part. It is to Macarthur that Australia mainly pwes its great wool industry, for lie /was the first man to realise the illimit- ; able possibilities of tho country as a rbrceding ground for fine-woolled sheep. 'Next wo have a sketch of "The Man Who Deposed Bligh," Captain Johnson, who placed Bligh under arrest, as ho wrote to Lord Castloreagh, "to prevent tin insurrection of tho inhabitants, and to secure him and tho persons lie confided in from being massacred by an incenscd multitudo." Three chapters :jire devoted to tile clash between white pnd black, the "Great Drive" organised in 1830, in Tasmania, by Govornor Arthur, being the subject of s specially ' interesting, if horrible, narrative. Tho author does not mince his words in telling the gruesome story of tho final extermination—the last Tasmanian aboriginal died in May, 1876. What dismissed the unhappy Tasmanian racc out pf existence, says. Dr. Fitchott, was human stupidity, stupidity which flung the failures of one race —no doubt the superior race—on ' the simplicity and ignorance of an inferior race. It was the clash between a community made up of oriminals,. without adequate restraint. and a handful of tribes which had the simplicity and tho undefended helplessness of children. In Book 111 is told the stirring and ■eventful _ story of the early explorers, ,of tho siege and conquest of tho great iftioiintain barrier to tho interior of (Now South Wales; of the following up nf tho great rivers; tho settlement of iPort Phillip; of tho placing of tho first boat on the Murray, and of Mitchell's crossing of the Grampians and his discovery of what seomed to bo to that gallant man a, sort of Paradise, a 1 vaster Gardoit of Eden, the splendid lands of the Victorian interior. Later on, Dr. Fitchett is, it is understood, to ]

complete his studies in Australian history by tho issue of ,v second volume, which will bring tho record up to within tho memory of living men and women. Meanwhilo he deserves tho gratitude of his fellow Australians, and indeed, of all who aro interested in tho history of tho British Empiro in tho Pacific for havng given us so many fascinating peeps into tho past. A portrait of Captain Cook serves as a frontispiece. (I'rico 3s. Gd.)