An Australian Letter.

Maoriland Worker, Volume I, Issue 6, 20 February 1911, Page 4

An Australian Letter.

(From the Editor.)

In January important private business called mc to Queensland. I had never been there before, and first impressions are always interesting, though not always so valuable as matured ones. The first thing that strikes a Maorilander is that Australia is a country of great distances. Sydney to Brisbane is not so very far on the map, but the mail train takes twentyseven hours to cover the distance at an average rate of about thirty miles an hour. At first the sameness of the aspect of the country all along the line wearies one, but after a while one accepts this as one accepts the sea and the sky, and revels in the breadth and width and sense of expanse, the vista of mingled plain and mountain, rolling away and away to the blue horizon. Nothing in Australia gave mc so keen a realisation of the size of the country as to watch the approach of a train " out West. , ' The haze of smoke appeared first like the smoke of a steamer coming towards one over the ocean. Sometimes I saw this haze coming and coming all day, and as the morning wore into the afternoon and the afternoon to even, still the train had not arrived, although it had been in sight all the time. Fancy the distance, too, in a country where the telegraph linesmen spend twelve months patrolling the section which ends at Port Darwin, and then must spend another twelve months returning to their starting point! Fancy a country where the mailman starts out with a dozen horses and reaches his destination weeks and weeks later with only one horse, the others having served their life purpose in the mere carrying of food and water for the trip! And yet in this great and fertile country there are not half so many people as there are in London alone! Locked in the bosom of this li-.ighty continent lies the food of millions upon millions of men, women and children. And yet here, even here, there are people who are ill-fed, illclothed, ill-housed, ignorant, sordid, anxious, hungry, incompetent. And we are asked to believe that the sorry scheme of things which permits this is the best mankind can evolve —we are asked to believe that Socialism, which spells love and joy and plenty for all, when each lives for all and all for each —that this would be no improvement en the present individualism ! But, after all, the present individualism is only skin-deep; it is not a deep-rooted racial characteristic; at heart we are all Socialises; if we were not, why should we admire altruism, unselfishness, generosity, courtesy, love of humanity—in a word, the comradeship of modern Socialism? What better example of our natural Socialistic tendencies could one find than the ready response to the call of " Paper, Paper," that rises up from every knot of railway workers as the Australian trains pass through the semi-settled or almost wholly unpopulated distances? There is some chord which thrills in every passenger's heart as this cry goes up from men who are far from home and shop and post, and whose lips give utterance to the ever insatiable longing for knowledge of what is happening to their fellow-men; and so from window after window flies out the news sheet which will cheer and beguile the unknown lonely campers. And what is the return for this graceful little act of courtesy, "this piece of straight-out Socialism? A mere wave of hat or hand, a smile, a grateful glance of the eye, a passing vision as the train flies by of men one has never seen before and will probably never see again, nameless, unknown folks, and yet by the very act acknowledged as comrades and brothers. I can see three of them plainly now—a mountain-side group of tall, straight, sinewy men, browned and sun - soaked, leaning on their shovel - handles with the unconscious grace of abundant muscular strength, as the train passes by. I tossed the book I was reading, Paine's " Age of Reason," into their midst; evidently they knew it, and cheered a glad response. A trifling incident, you will say, perhaps, and not worth making a fuss about. Quite so, but the impulses on which such trifling incidents are based are just the very forces which will send humanity down the ringing grooves of time to the great and golden age.

Wei], well,, and this isn't what I meant to tell you at all. One never knows exactly what a pen will do ! T meant to tell you how Queensland strikes an ordinary civilizee—what a lack of domesticity there is in many parts, how the folks seem content to remain in "the blue blanket and campoven stage of pastoral evolution, and how creepers and crawlers and fliers of all sorts abound on every above, below, around—persistent irritating, stinging, biting, zizzing things by the thousand, of which the "Bulletin"

does not tell the world at large ! Then there was Brisbane itself', with. its wonderful palms and gorgeous flowering trees, its deep-bayed buildings and wide open streets ; and the gay, brilliant sunlight that fills the air and rebounds from the earth till it almost stings the unaccustomed eye. Truly it is a land of glad romance and boundless virility—a land to lighten the eye and warm the heart for ever and ever even by its memory. But Brisbane is a queer., queer place—a, city of over 100,000 inhabitants, and no drainage or sewage system at ali ! The people seem to rely on the myriads of ants to clear away their rubbish ! And yet tney fine " street-spitters " £20. Imagine folks with so little regard for hygiene in one direction being so exacting in another ! But some of the fancies and prejudices of the Brisbane folks strike one as half-comical, halfappalling. Most of the girls have beautiful teeth, but they are most inordinately fond of gold fillings, and when they smile, well, " their bright smile haunts mc still !" And one day I stood stock still in front of an anglers' shop, looking at fishing tackle blatantly labelled •' real catgut " and " real Japgut." 1 didn't so much object to the first; it might be a useful purpose to which to put roof cats, backyard cats, yellow cats, etc. But "real Jap-gut!" Isn't that carrying the colour question much too far? 1 don't like Japs, but — Avellj really one must draw the line somewhere, I suppose. And finally just one word as to what Australia learns of Maoriland happenings through an enlightened and educated Press. I took a note of the cablegrams published for four days. On the first day Australians were informed that a man at Helensville had murder - ed his wife and then tried to coiniviit suicide, and that a prisoner in the Wellington gaol had hanged himself whilst awaiting trial for burglary. On the second day Australians learned with bated breath that Sir Joseph Ward and his family had gone for a holiday, and that Sir Joseph thought the New Zealand defence scheme " perfect." On the third day the cables recorded the one fact that in Dunedin a gruesome discovery of human remains had been found and that an inquest was to be held on these. On the fourth day the Australians learned that a bride at the altar of a Wellington church has refused to marry the bridegroom, and thereby caused a sensation. This was all—nothing more and nothing less. And again, let mc remark, we are asked to believe that Socialism would mean the " degradation " and " devitalisation " of journalism. Under Socialism, we are told, it would be impossible to have our present glorious and free and intelligent newsDaner wress!