# Advanced Australia/Chapter 2

Chapter II
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
LEAVING Albany by the mail steamer, three days are occupied in crossing that portion of the Southern Ocean which is known as the Great Australian Bight; three days, usually, of bright sun, leaping porpoises, and stiff breezes. The Leeuwin, just behind us, is known to old travellers as one of the most unpleasant corners in the world. The landing in South Australia is effected at Largs Bay, whence a run of half an hour by rail brings one to Adelaide, the capital city of the colony, known sometimes as the city of churches. I may say at once that the name South Australia is not at all an appropriate one, for the colony does not occupy the southernmost portion of the continent, and its territory stretches right away to the Gulf of Carpentaria on the north. This nomenclature is very misleading to residents in Great Britain, and the most ludicrous mistakes are made in the addresses of letters intended for the various colonies. Thus, letters come to Australia addressed, "Melbourne, Victoria, near Sydney, South Australia," which is just about as correct as would be the address, "London, England, near Paris, Ireland."
The frontage, so to speak, of Adelaide to the sea is distinctly sandy and torrid; and would be even more desolate in appearance, if that were possible, than the coasts of Western Australia. But the city proper is situated on the Torrens River, about seven miles inland. ​It is in the midst of a broad fertile plain, from which a few miles northward a range of hills rises abruptly; these are ascended by the intercolonial railway. The population of the city proper is about 40,000, and including the suburbs within a ten mile radius it amounts to 130,000. The colony was founded on the lines of an ideal polity, the invention, as usual, of Mr Wakefield: and was subsequently reconstructed by circumstances. The capital was laid out in the year 1837, and named Adelaide by the special request of King William the Fourth, after his consort. It is built nearly in the form of a square, and by the foresight of its surveyor was almost surrounded by what are termed "park lands" half a mile in width. There are also five fine squares for ornamental purposes. The river Torrens, originally a dingy stream, divides the city into North and South Adelaide, which are connected by five massive iron bridges. An embankment across the stream has turned it for a mile or two into a beautiful sheet of water. The cleanliness of the city is a very pleasing feature. This effect is heightened by the fact that a light-coloured stone, of excellent quality for road-making, is found in abundance in the neighbouring hills. In hot weather the white appearance of the streets is perhaps somewhat trying to the eyes, but it strikes the stranger very agreeably. There is also a perfect system of underground sewage. The streets are straight and broad, and run at right angles to each other. King William Street is two chains in width; and in it the principal buildings are situated, such as the Town Hall and the Post and Telegraph Offices. On North Terrace, which overlooks the river, the Parliament Houses are situated. The façade is of white marble, quarried at Kapunda, in the colony. Here also is situated the Adelaide University and the Exhibition building; the latter, a fine structure, erected ​at a cost of £50,000, to commemorate the jubilee of the colony in 1887. In the building there is now an interesting museum, and a spacious, well-lighted art gallery, in which is housed a well-selected collection of valuable pictures. The residence of the Governor also fronts North Terrace, and stands in spacious grounds. The beautiful Botanic and Zoological Gardens are close to the city. To this charming retreat I was attracted early, and frequently returned. The area is about 130 acres; and it has been very tastefully laid out, local and tropical plants being grown in profusion. It is a very popular resort for the inhabitants, and I need not say is highly appreciated in summer. For nine months in the year the climate of Adelaide is very pleasant, but in summer there is no blinking the fact that it is decidedly hot. The temperature ranges up to 110 degrees in the shade, and on rare occasions runs several degrees higher. The air is, however, very dry, so that this great heat is not oppressive as might be expected. There is an excellent and abundant water supply, obtained from the Mount Lofty ranges before mentioned. These latter also form an agreeable summer retreat, and many of the well-to-do citizens have residences there.
Passing to political topics, the traveller finds in South Australia one of the most democratic constitutions in the world. The colony boasts that it leads the way in Australia in radical legislation, and runs a dead heat, in most matters, with New Zealand itself. The boast is probably justified. Politics, at all events, with churchgoing, seem to be the principal recreation of the Adelaide man, as gambling in Kalgoorlie mining shares is his business. There are two Houses of Parliament, known respectively as the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly. For the latter, which is the popular chamber, ​no property qualification whatever is required of either candidates or electors. The qualifications of a member of the Council are that he must be thirty years of age, and a natural-born or naturalised subject of the Queen, and that he must have been a resident of the district which he represents at least three years. Electors must have a freehold of £50 value, or a leasehold of £20 annual value. The Council has not the weight nor influence of the unpaid Upper House of Western Australia, nor of that of Victoria.
For the Assembly no man has more than one vote, and every man twenty-one years of age who has been for six months on the roll is allowed the privilege. Three years ago the franchise was granted to women, and they now stand on exactly the same footing as men with regard to voting for members of either House. Not overlooking the fact that with regard to the exercise of political functions married women are at times placed under a disability, the Act with great and tender foresight provided another method of recording the votes of those who are from physical causes unable to go to the poll. The high hopes entertained by some as to the purifying effect upon politics of the women's vote, and the fears entertained by others as to evils attendant on its exercise, have in neither case been realised. Women have voted at one election, and the result was that no change at all could be attributed to the effect of their vote. They went to the poll in large numbers, attracted no doubt by the novelty of the privilege, but the result was such as would have been anticipated had men alone voted.
The members, in Adelaide as in the neighbouring colonies, do a great deal of talking for their £300, or thereabouts, a year; though there has not been, so far, fortunately, very much for them to talk about. However, each community has made courageous efforts to tackle ​the social problem, and many useful lessons may be picked up by the globe-trotting politician.
The Australian colonies are in the future sure to become more and more the scene of experimental legislation. Their government has practically been handed over to the labouring classes and small shopkeepers, who form the mass of the community. What is called the Radical section are almost everywhere in a majority. One colony is not prepared to learn from another, nor to allow an experiment to be made elsewhere, and accept or reject it according to its results after a reasonable trial. So far, there have been practically no foreign complications to interfere with free internal evolution, or to distract attention from the purely economic struggle. Everywhere the working man has full power, and a very hearty disposition, to try all conceivable or suggested means to better himself. The fact that there are Radical laws on the statute-book of one colony is the means of raising a clamour for the adoption of similar measures elsewhere. Only an extended trial can disclose what the result of any measure will be, but whatever legislation can do for the improvement of the position of the working classes in Australia will be done. In all the colonies there is a demand for rapid extension of the functions of the State. The railways are nearly everywhere the property of the State, and it is now claimed that the mines should be. The State is expected to find work for the unemployed, and to dictate a minimum wage to all its contractors. In all the colonies there is a demand for the provision of pensions for the aged poor. In New Zealand such a system has been adopted, and in some of the other colonies legislation is promised. In South Australia, as well as in New Zealand, there is a law by which the State intervenes in labour disputes, hears evidence, and makes an award. If the award be against the ​employer it may be enforced, unless he chooses to surrender his business. But it cannot be enforced against the men; for, as has been remarked, "you cannot imprison a nation."
Great attention has been given in all the colonies to the subject of education. Up to a certain age it is given free by the State; and children, within certain age-limits, who are not privately educated, are required to be sent to the State schools by their parents under pain of increasing fines for neglect. At the last census there were, in South Australia, in round numbers, 80,000 children of school-going age—five to fifteen years: and of these 47,000 were attending State schools and 13,000 private schools. The system is secular, and four and a half hours a day are devoted to instruction. Before and after those hours Bible reading may be given if the parents desire it. When the education system was established it was decided that the secular principle was the complement of the compulsory one, for, as children of all sects and of no sect are compelled to attend school, it was thought that they should not be forced to receive religious instruction which would be repugnant to the beliefs of their parents. It may be mentioned here that the Roman Catholic and the Orange element is strong in all the colonies. It might have been thought that this old-world element of discord would have been left behind or forgotten, but it is not so. The Roman Catholic vote is a thing to be reckoned with in all elections, whether they be of committees of charitable institutions, of municipal councillors, or of legislators. The orange and green elements are manifested in divisions in the police force, and in dissensions in the lower ranks of the public service. It was hoped that if the children of Roman Catholic and Protestant parents could be mixed together in the same schools, a mutual feeling of respect and goodwill would grow up, and the divisions would be ​gradually obliterated. This hope has been largely frustrated by the opposition of the Roman Catholics to the State schools. They assert it as a principle of faith that religion and education must go together; and, except in the remote country districts, they have maintained, at great cost to themselves, separate schools. They complain bitterly of the injustice of a system by which they are compelled to pay their share as taxpayers to the support of schools they cannot take advantage of. There are constant demands on their part for a separate grant for their own schools; demands which have been, so far, in South Australia at all events, without effect, Thus one result of a system which, it was hoped, would bring Roman Catholics and Protestants nearer together has been to embitter the feeling between them. Though religious teaching is forbidden, the school books abound in lessons of a high moral character; truth, honesty, kindness, industry', manliness being enjoined on almost every page, while selections from the best poems of our language are frequent. Yet, in the net result, it may perhaps be admitted that the national character, as the native-born generations, educated on this system, grow up, is showing signs of a leaning towards the purely materialistic. The Roman Catholics reap the reward of their devotion, not in politics nor billet-hunting alone. Protestantism, indeed, seems rather moribund as a religious force in Australia; has in many ways almost become a mere convention of respectability. And the Australian face, which is generally fairly typified amongst the semi-professional cricketers who visit England, is perhaps more intelligent than cultivated; as, indeed, is natural in a community where everything tends to be levelled to a conformity to the ideals of what, in England would be the lower middle-class.
​The Right Honourable C. C. Kingston is the Premier of the Colony, and has occupied that position for nearly five years. He is a barrister by profession, and has long been a leading man in South Australian politics. He is a man of powerful physique, and is considered a forcible debater. His style is very incisive, and at times his attacks upon his opponents are so severe that he has become involved in many bitter personal quarrels. He is a Radical of a somewhat extreme type in politics, and has hitherto managed to keep the support of that section in Parliament which directly represents the labour interests. I also met Mr F. W. Holder, the treasurer, who is a gentleman of striking personality. He possesses very wide information, and very considerable powers of expression. An ardent and powerful supporter of federation, he has a great belief in the future of Australia, and has the power of kindling in others his own enthusiasm. Mr Symon, Q.C., who is not a member of Parliament, but was elected a member of the recent Federal Convention, is one of the leading figures in the intellectual life of the Colony. He is a man who would make a mark anywhere in his profession; and, though unaccustomed to parliamentary forms, he stepped at once into a leading position in the deliberations of the Convention. His Excellency, Lord Tennyson, the son of the poet, is Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Colony, having lately succeeded Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton. I may mention that the appointment of Governor carries also that of Commander-in-Chief of the forces. But the position is practically a nominal one. The Governor does not directly interfere in the management of the forces. In this matter, as in all others relating to the internal affairs of the Colony, he acts solely upon the advice of his Ministers for the time ​being. The Governor was absent during my visit; and Chief Justice Way was acting as Lieutenant-Governor. It is a position he has often held before: and it is said that if, under the Federal Commonwealth, the provincial governors are chosen from amongst Australian notables (a change which would, in my opinion, be, for many reasons, highly inadvisable), the Right Hon. Sir S. J. Way, with Sir John Forrest in West Australia, and Chief Justice Maddon in Victoria, will be about the first to be offered the position. Which is perhaps the reason why a clause has been inserted in the constitution specially incapacitating judges from holding it.
Of course Adelaide is not South Australia, and one who has a desire to become acquainted with the resources and the people of the colony must not confine himself to its metropolis.
When the colony was established in 1836 it comprised only about one-third of its present territory, viz., the portion lying between the Southern Ocean and the 26th degree of south latitude. But in 1863, the Government of the colony having undertaken to found a new habitation in the northern territory, all that portion of the colony lying due north of the original grant was added to the area, which now comprises upwards of 900,000 square miles. The Northern Territory has never been self-supporting: and in recent times has been rather a hunting-ground for European concessionaires, who looked forward to developing it, if at all, with coloured labour. This process will probably be put a stop to under the Commonwealth. The Australian working-man would rather that his tropical possessions stayed empty for ever, than that they should support an Asiatic population. The original settlement in the South, as has been said, was established on principles eloquently expounded by Mr Edward Gibbon ​Wakefield, who was esteemed a high authority in such matters. His main idea was to allow Crown lands to be sold only in limited quantities, and to the favoured few. The mass of the population was to be kept strictly in the employ of the members of this artificial landed class, who, by settlement and high farming, were to be able (how, and by close recourse to what market, Mr Wakefield never troubled to explain) not only to pay good wages, but to keep themselves in civilised comforts. Nothing was so foreign to the ideas of this philosopher as to allow every man who landed in an unpeopled, untamed, and almost unlimited waste to make the best he could of its vast, though attenuated, resources. This, however, is precisely what the new settlers at once attempted, though they set about it in the least practical of ways, by trying, in effect, to make a living by taking in each other's washing. Neglecting to cultivate the soil, about the first thing they did was to start what is known by a term which is, like the thing itself, of American origin; namely a land boom. Here, said the colonists to themselves, is an enormous territory. We, the fortunate first-comers, have got possession of sites which must become extremely valuable when the colony becomes populated, which will speedily happen. So they set to work trafficking in allotments of land, which went up to fancy prices. Large fortunes were made, on paper; and all went swimmingly, until before long these wealthy owners of desirable building-sites found themselves on the brink of starvation. No one was producing anything. Had it not been for the timely arrival of a shipload of stores, the enterprise would have ended in a terrible disaster. But the danger brought the people to their senses, and they set to work in earnest. South Australia is now a great agricultural community, where it pays to harvest a crop of wheat of no more than ​five bushels to the acre; but where the average production is considerably more than that, for the colony comprises a very large area of splendid wheat-growing land. The cheap system of cultivation and harvesting which is carried on enables the farmer to make good profits from light crops. The land is more fertile than, and as easily tilled as, the prairies of Western America, while a cheaper system of harvesting is adopted. The peculiar dryness of the air enables the stripper, which is a combined reaping and threshing machine; to be used, while on the American prairies the grain has to be reaped, bound, stooked, carted and threshed. There is no winter such as is known in Europe; but May to September are practically the spring, and October, November and December the summer or harvest months. The drawback to production is the deficient or uncertain rainfall. A great deal of the northern territory is sterile, uninviting desert, which will possibly never be of any service; but there are also great breadths of pastoral and agricultural land; and the tapping in recent years of vast stores of artesian water in the northern parts of Queensland and South Australia gives hopes that, in a not distant future, the periodical Australian droughts will be deprived of their terrors, for the farmers will be able to keep their cattle and sheep alive. Already in Queensland there are bores sunk which give a total flow of artesian water of upwards of 200,000,000 gallons per day, and authorities speak of the supply as being practically inexhaustible. Great rivers sink almost away in the interior plains; for instance, it is said that the Darling River carries into the Murray only one-sixteenth of the water which it receives in its course. In the discovery and use of these subterranean resources lies one of the greatest hopes for the future development of the vast central area of Australia. ​There is no great chain of mountain ranges to gather the surplus moisture in the form of snow, and send it down to the parched plains just at the time it is required for irrigation and pastoral purposes. But there are vast elevated table lands, composed of porous material, which receive the semi-tropical downpour of rain that finds its way in great subterranean channels across the continent to the southern sea. And it is these stores which are now being tapped with so much advantage.
All the colonies have passed through a most disastrous period of drought during the last four years, and consequently the pastoral and agricultural interests have suffered severely. About one and a half million acres are put under wheat every year in South Australia; and in ordinary seasons a yield of eight to ten bushels per acre may be anticipated. This, of course, returns a handsome profit to the farmer; but during recent years, for the reason stated, the average yield has sunk below the remunerative point, viz., to a little over four bushels to the acre. The wheat, on account of the heat and dryness of the climate, makes a very high quality of flour; and, therefore, it realises the best price in the world's markets, fetching in the London market, like the Victorian article, considerably more than English, Indian, American, or New Zealand produce.
The soil and climate are exceedingly well suited for the growth of the vine, the fig, and the olive. The wine industry has already attained considerable proportions. The soil is nearly everywhere a rich red alluvium, overlying limestone, and upon this latter the vine flourishes luxuriantly. There are about 18,000 acres of vines in full bearing, mostly in the warmer districts, which produce a rich full-bodied wine. But in the cooler portions of the colony, towards the south, and in some of the hilly ​districts, the more delicate clarets and hocks are produced. If a thoroughly profitable export trade can be established, there will be an almost illimitable field for its development, for almost all over the colony vines grow freely. Already these wines are becoming known in the English market, about 300,000 gallons being exported annually. The orange also grows well; and within a few miles of the city luxuriant groves may be reached, where the rich yellow fruit is seen shining in abundance through the dark glossy leaves. Olive oil of good quality is manufactured, and the dull sage-green foliage is to be seen on every hand, for the tree is largely cultivated. Once started, it seems to grow without further trouble. Of course, the local demand is limited; and up to the present the oil has not been manufactured to such an extent as to enable it to compete outside the colony with the product of the south of Europe, or rather with that cotton-seed oil which is commonly sold as Italian to the undiscriminating Briton. What can be done with olive oil in Australia has been shown in the neighbouring colony, at Perth, where the Roman Catholic Bishop lately sold and shipped a limited quantity, for flavouring purposes, to Italy itself; a method of sending "coals to Newcastle" which is not without its parallel elsewhere in Australia, as we shall presently see. But, in industries such as these, cheap labour is the great essential: and it is a satisfactory thing, after all, that labour cannot be obtained at the same rate here as in European countries.
The mineral wealth of South Australia is not so important a factor in the community's wealth as in some of the other colonies; but in the early days some of the richest copper mines of the world were discovered and worked here. The famous Burra Burra mine yielded ​10,000 tons of pure copper in three years, and even better results were obtained from the Wallaroo and Moonta mines. For some time, the price of copper having fallen, the industry was practically non-existent, but the recent sharp revival has brought about a very different state of things. The two last-named properties are again working to a profit, and many old mines have been revived, and new ones opened in the Far North. Smelting is carried on very economically and profitably near the coast: and large quantities of refractory gold ores from Kalgoorlie have been sent here in preference to Cardiff, though, once on shipboard, their additional freight to Wales would have been of small moment.
There is a public debt of £23,000,000, which is at the rate of £62 per head of the population, and the annual interest-charge is £940,000. About £12,000,000 has been expended in railways and tramways, and there has also been large expenditure in harbour improvements and other public works. The colony bears its heavy burden manfully. There lies before it the hope of a steady and prosperous future; for, with its enormous areas of rich soil, it may expect to support a very large population in comfort, if not in affluence. The present population is about 320,000, but there would be no difficulty in feeding ten times as many in this fertile land. Yet there is no prospect, at present, of assisted immigration. This is a "means of betterment" which fails to appeal just now to the mind of the South Australian working-man. He sees in it, indeed, chiefly a means of increasing competition in his labour market. And upon the whole, the young adventurer, the capitalist, and the farmer who insists on changing his sky, will perhaps be wise if they give South Australia the go-by; not because it is not a ​possible, though democratic, paradise, but because they can do better elsewhere.
The trade of South Australia, in common with that of the rest of the colonies, is now showing strong signs of recovery. During 1897-98 imports decreased in comparison with the previous year to the extent of £93S,000, and exports by £791,000, giving a total shrinkage of trade of £1,736,000. During the last twelve months imports have increased by £28,000 and exports by £684,000, an advance, in all, of £712,000.