The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1888-03-23
AUSTRALIANS FUTURE.
THE COMING GREATNESS OF THE
ANTtPoDEAN REPUBLIC.
A Century Fence rt win he Peopied by
5o,ooo.ooo of English Speaking Inhab-
itants-Mistress of the Eastern Archi-
peiago--A New Type.


5o.ooo,ooo of English Speaking Inhab-
itants--Mistress Of the Eastern Archi-
peiago--A New Type.
There is every reasonable probability
that in 1888 Australia will be federal
republic, peopled by 80, 00O0 900 of English
speaking men, who, sprung from the
same races as the Americans of the Union,
will have developed a separate and recog-
nizable type, resembling, yet differing
from, that of their cousins in the western
Atlantic. The most difficult work of set
tlement, the provision of food, houses, in
struments and organization sufficient to
tempt and to provide for increasing multi
tudes, has been accomplished, and soon
the stream of emigration--that wonderful
outflow of annual armies from Europe,
leaderless but obedient, guideless but un-
faltering-will turn to Australia in in
creasing volume.
The popuousness is almost certain, and
30 is its organization as republic, and as
we should predict, a republic with GER
tain aggressive tendencies Australia will
have no boundaries but the sea, no neigh
Dor who dare threaten her, no absolute
need for n foreign policy Of any kind but
she will have one none the less. Her peo-
Pile will differ from the American. They
will not be so entirely agricultural as the
Americans were, they will be horsemen,
not gig drivers; they will have almost
from the first more ambition, and they
will in many ways have at once a greater
largeness of view and more INSCRIPTIONS
ness. Already their foreign policy in
terests Australians acutely, and their
first effort to act as a nation has been to
form fleet. Already they display that
curious feeling, so different in different
peoples, that distance on water has for
them little or no meaning They never
dream of excluding New Zealand from
their aggregate, though it is as far from
their coast as Constantinople from Lon
don; and they rage at the occupation of
the New Hebrides by foreigners, though
the islands are /, 200 miles away. Their
whole conception Of distance differs from
ours as might that of the inhabitants of
larger planet: and their grasp when they
begin to grasp, will be far reaching.
Descended from adventurers not from
Puritans taught hardness by their early
cont1c' with violent criminals, accustomed
to he management Of dark subject races
for half Australia can only be culti
waited by their aid--and eager as men of
their climate must be for pleasant lives,
they will thirst for dependent possessions,
| for gardens were fortunes grow, for the
| splendid fragments of a broken continent
| which spread in three great lines Of
islands from the Australian mainland to
| that of Asia, and they will possess them
| all. From the Philippines in the north
| about MS far off from Australia as New
| Zealand is-straight down to the south,
| Borneo and Sumatra, Celebes and Java,
| the endless islands of the Banda sea, and
| the grand mass of Papua, will all belong
to the Australians and will be cultivated
| for them under their government, as
owners as well as rulers, by the overspill
| Of southern Asia, which by that time,
unless the ratio, alters, will be groaning
under twice its existing population.
The Australian republic will be mistress
not only on her own continent, but of the
Eastern archipelago-thati is, of the lands
which in all the world are richest in min
| erals, forests and the means of yielding
| all that the tropics can produce. The de-
| sire to acquire these possessions the ne
| cessity of defending them, the habit of
ruling them, will force upon Australian
statesmen and people, fleets, armies-dark
as well as white-and alliances; and with
them ideas, habits and methods of polit-
ical organization widely different from
those of the Americans, from whom they
differ also in the arrangements Of their
| society.
|
to predict what the future of this society
will be; but we venture to think that it
will approximate much more closely to
the Italian than the American type; that
is, it will be democratic, but not hard.
The early Americans, whose influence is
only Just dying out, were men of aus
tere temper who led on an ungrate-
full soil-New England is worse
to farm than Scotland-lives Of per-
manent hardship. They had to fight
the sea, the snow, the forests, the Indians
and their own hearts; and did fight
them all, if not with complete success, at
least with persistent hardness. The Aus
tralians, we conceive, with a more con-
genial and altogether warmer climate,
without Puritan traditions, with wealth
among them from the first, and with a
habit of communion with Europe, will be
a softer, though not weaker people, fond
| er of luxury and better fitted to enjoy art,
with an appreciation of beauty which the
| Americans have never shown, and with
| not only a love for literature but power
of producing it in original forms. They
will be people growing and drinking
wine, caring much for easy society, ad-
dicted to conversation, and though ener-
getic, with keen desire for u well ordered
| and restful life.
/ lHcN Will Hot, uiltSS NOtuptlitN, dlloM
| their women to wear themselves out as
the Americans do; will, in truth, we sus-
| pect, with that climate to mold them,
and that Indifference to expense which is
one Of their marked characteristics, never
be happy without servants a difference,
| which, as the servants must be dark, may
1 profoundly affect their civilization. They
will, in short, desire easier and larger
lives than the Americans do will be
less persistently laborious, and will fee
we note this already in Australians
almost as strongly as in Californians-a
sort of worship for their climate. TIL,
note of discomfort which penetrates the
whole Am,Scan character will be alb
sent, and if not exactly happier, they
will be more ut ease. All Australian
development will be affected by tina
difference, and as they cease to be British
Germans and lrsh the men of the new
type which will gradually be born, tn
distinctive and separate Australians,
will be MS distinguishable in England a
the Americans, and distinguishable ais
from them. The Typical Australian will
be SUMMER man. Spectator.