, 1888-03-22
AUSTRALIANS FUTURE.
THE COMING GREATNESS OF THE
ANTlPODEAN REPUBLIC.

itants-MIstress of the Eastern ArchI-
pelago-A New Type.
There is every reasonable probability
that in 1888 Australia will be a federal
republic, peopled by 90, 900, 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
Element, 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 I'M
faltering-wil turn to Australia In in
creasing volume.
The populousness Is almost certain, and
80 is its organization as a republic, and as
we should predict, a republic with cer-S
tain aggressive tendencies. Australia will
have no boundaries but the sea, no neigh
Dor who dare threaten her, no absolute
need for q foreign policy of any kind, but
she will have one none the less. Her peo-
pie 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 nave almost
AtOAA SHS Ao dLlDlblOut huu IucJ
Will in many ways have at once a greater
largeness of view n more INSCRIPTIONS
ness. Already their foreign policy in
terests Australians acutely, and their
first effort to act as a nation has been to
form a 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 1900 miles away. Their
whole conception of distance differs from
ours as might that of the inhabitants of a
larger planet; and their grasp, when they
begin to grasp, will be far reaching.
Descended from adventures not from
Puritans, taught hardness by their early
contact with violent criminals, accustomed
to the management of dark subject races
I for half Australia can only be Guilt
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 as 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 mnss 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-that 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
rs 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.
1t is difficult, without mere dreaming,
to predict what the future of this society
will be; but we venturs to think that 1t
will approximate much more closely to
the Italian than the American type; that
is, it will be democratic, but not hard.
Nv SbhlA AlllS A1hlot tlAhCLlN Al
only just dying out, were men of aus
tere temper who led on an migrate
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 le1t
them all, If not with complete success, at
least with persistent hardness. The Aus
t~ralians, 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
err 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 a power
Of producing it in original forms. They
will be a people growing and drinking
wine, caring much for easy society, adj
dicted to conversation, and though ener-
getic, with n keen desire for a well ordered
and restful life.
They will not, unless compelled, allow
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
profoundly affect their civilization. They
will, in short, desire easier and larger
lives than the Americans do, will be
less persistently laborious, and will feel
we note this already in Australians
almost as strongly as in Californians-a
sort Of worship for their climate. The
note of discomfort which penetrates the
whole American character will be alb
sent, and II not exactly happier, they
win be more at ease, All Australian
development will be affected by that
difference, and as they cease to be British,
Germans and Irish, the men of the new
type which will gradually be born, the
distinctive and separate australians"
will be as d~istinguishable in England as
from them. The typical Australian will
be q sunnier man.-Spectator.