Читать книгу Five Years Under the Southern Cross: Experiences and Impressions - Frederic C. Spurr - Страница 6

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Passengers from England to Australia via the Cape generally touch Australian soil first at Albany. They thus miss the true “gateway” into the country, Fremantle. This latter city is the port for Perth; it is the traveller’s first introduction to Australia if he travels via the Suez and Ceylon. And glad is he to behold land once more after the monotonous voyage of ten days across the Indian Ocean. A languid air steals over the ship during the time it is in the region of the Equator. At night the decks are strewn with mattresses for the accommodation of passengers who prefer to “sleep out” rather than be stifled in intolerable cabins. Then, if the season be that of the Australian winter (June to August), the heat gradually moderates, and by the time the boat reaches Fremantle all white clothing has been discarded, and men are thankful once more to take to blankets and heavier dress.

The development of Western Australia has been remarkable. For many years it lay practically stagnant; then in a moment its progress commenced. The discovery of gold made all the difference. Twenty years ago Perth was a mere village, with all the disadvantages of a village. Many of its houses were primitive and ugly. A few relics of that period still survive. Certain houses were built of kerosene tins; many more of wood. A neglected look characterised the place. “Squalid,” one old inhabitant calls it; but that is probably an exaggeration. It had a beautiful natural situation, being built upon a slope of the lovely Swan River. Yet the city at that time was badly lighted and badly drained. It brought little credit to its fair surroundings. In the long ago the French, the Portuguese, and the Dutch had in turn visited the West, named it, and then passed on. And now it seemed but a few years ago as if the British, in the persons of their Australian children, had determined to leave no mark upon the same West.

It was the discovery of gold, I say, that made the difference. Just twenty years ago Coolgardie was a desert. But into its wilds two men had penetrated, prospecting for gold. There came a day when, quite suddenly, the desert was transformed into a treasure house. In one evening these men possessed themselves of 500 ounces of pure gold. Aladdin’s chamber had been found at last. The news of the discovery spread with amazing rapidity. A frenzy seized the people. Men threw down their tools, broke up their homes, abandoned their situations, and proceeded in a mad rush to the goldfields. There was no road for them to travel over, nothing but a wild track. Each man made his own path. Whatever conveyance happened to be within reach was requisitioned for the conveyance of such conveniences as the goldfields might require. One man, unable to procure anything better, seized a wheel-barrow, in which he pushed his few goods along the terrible 350 miles of desert. From every State steamers brought hundreds and thousands of men who were seized with the lust of gold. Australia turned out its gamblers into the desert. A city soon sprang up; a strange medley of human elements. Land which yesterday was worse than worthless now fetched pounds per foot. Saloon keepers made easy fortunes by selling drink at fancy prices. Houses of every kind sprang up like mushrooms. The most curious house of all was built of bottles, cemented together with some kind of mortar. A year later Kalgoorlie was discovered—an earlier Klondyke. The new field speedily eclipsed the old. Coolgardie lost its prestige, and, while it continues to thrive in certain directions, it has given place to its brilliant rival. A splendid story this, of the discovery of gold, and as sordid as it is splendid. In the easy gaining of gold men have lost themselves. The stories I have heard from men who were on the fields cannot be set down in print; no newspaper or book dare give publicity to them. This camp of men, with no idea but that of gaining as much gold as possible, men without ideals and often without pity, with the beauty of humanity crushed out of them, as the machinery of the goldfields crushes to dust the quartz that passes beneath its wheels, living only for gold, spending much of it in drink and lust, consumed with the fever of getting—ah! the story of the world’s goldfields is largely a story of hell upon earth, of the abasement of the soul to the lust of the eye and the pride of life. There is another side to it, and that is the prodigious folly of allowing this precious metal—the standard for the world’s commerce—to be scrambled for by the first-comers, upon conditions that are as economically ridiculous as they are morally pernicious. …

After the frenzy, the reaction. After the rush to the goldfields, the cultivation of the land. The real prosperity of the Golden West lies not in the quantity of gold secured by adventurers, but in the honest work put into the soil. Prospecting continues all the time. Old reefs are still being worked and new ones sought for. In these vast spaces there is hidden an enormous quantity of gold. At any moment some new reef may come to light, and then will follow a new rush to the fields; yet another outbreak of the fever which renders men delirious, and for the time destroys all their higher ideals of life. Meanwhile, Australia is becoming golden in another and a better sense. By means of honest labour its millions of acres are yielding the most remarkable crops of cereals, roots, and fruits. Gradually the enormous spaces are being subdued and inhabited by a race of men and women who rejoice in the golden sunshine, and who abandon themselves with the zest of children to the magic of life.

And it is in this direction that the West is now prospering. The people generally are really well off. The State revenue for last year was about four millions sterling. These 300,000 people have invested in the State Savings Bank no less a sum than £4,387,639. This means an average per head of the population of £14 10s. 4d., and an average per depositor of £45 8s. 9d. Such figures are eloquent of what may be called the general prosperity of the community. The real source of wealth, however, is the land. This year there are more than one million acres of ground under crop. More than a quarter of a million acres have been “cleared” and prepared for ploughing and sowing during the present year. There are 788,349 acres of wheat and 77,488 acres of oats growing at the present time. Last year nearly four and a half million bushels of wheat and a million bushels of oats were produced from the land. This means immense prosperity. The State is rich enough to spend much money in reclaiming waste land and in rebuilding the old houses. During the last twenty years Perth has been practically rebuilt. I was astonished to behold its beautiful buildings. It possesses splendid Government offices, a fine museum and art gallery, a noble Mint, and almost palatial public buildings. Warehouses and stores, suites of offices, banks, insurance buildings, business premises, and the like, are imposing. Perth promises to be one day a great and noble city. Already the capital is extending. Within a radius of twelve miles one-third of the entire population of the West resides. Sir John Forrest declared that the time would come when Perth and Fremantle and all between would become one vast city. I can quite believe it. Perth is the San Francisco of Australia.

As another evidence of prosperity, the following wages table may be adduced: Bakers get 63s. per week; barbers 55s.; barmen and barmaids 65s.; bootmakers 13½d. an hour; carpenters 1s. 6d. an hour; butchers’ shopmen 60s. to 80s. per week; drapers’ assistants (at Coolgardie) 70s. per week; engine-drivers 1s. 6d. an hour; night watchmen 54s. per week; tailors 70s. per week; and waiters 25s. a week and board. It is all very attractive, but on the other side let these facts be considered: Potatoes are 4d. per lb.; peas 9d. per lb.; cauliflowers from 1s. to 2s. 6d. each; apples (grown on the spot) 6d. and 7d. per lb.—at the present time. One needs a large income to keep pace with these ridiculous prices, which are due largely, I understand, to the manipulations of a “ring.”

And yet, with it all, life here for working men is infinitely more tolerable than in England. It is in truth an El Dorado.

The story of this Golden West is thus a veritable romance. Yet this State has the smallest population of all the States, fewer than 300,000 people covering its million square miles. Its territory is eighteen times as large as that of England and Wales. Imagine this enormous space occupied by a handful of people, about as many as are found in the single city of Bradford, Yorkshire. And these 300,000 people are confined to one or two places in the State. For the rest, there are vast and terrible deserts awaiting the exploring skill of man. Already, in the remarkable water scheme undertaken on behalf of the goldfields, it is demonstrated that science can overcome the almost insuperable difficulties presented by Nature in these deserted regions.

In Western Australia nearly every variety of climate is experienced, from the insufferable tropical heat of the North to the delightful cool of the South. At the seaboard the sky and the climate are delightful. Winters are practically unknown. Children born in the land have no idea what snow is like. Even in the depth of winter the days are warm, and often hot. Overcoats are used only as a protection against rain, and when rain falls protection is needed. The water descends, not in drops, but in bucketfuls. Here Nature seems partial and extreme. The rainy season is well defined, and when it ends it ends. Not a drop of rain falls between October and May. There is need, therefore, for the exercise of human science in order to conserve the precious liquid which descends so plentifully in the season for use in the arid season of the year.

And yet Western Australia is at present cut off from the rest of Australia. To reach Adelaide, the capital of the neighbouring State, it is necessary to voyage by steamer across the dreaded “Bight”—a journey of five or more days. In two or three years, however, this isolation will be ended.

A wonderful forward step was taken in 1912 by the cutting of the first sod of the Trans-Continental Railway. The line begins at Port Augusta, in South Australia, and ends at Kalgoorlie, on the goldfield in Western Australia. In length it is over 1,000 miles, and when it is completed there will be direct railway communication between Queensland and Fremantle—a line of 3,000 miles. But if Australia as a whole is to benefit by it there must be a uniform gauge of rail. Insensate jealousy between the States, and a short-sighted policy on the part of the leaders, resulted, in earlier days, in the establishment of various gauges on the different railways, with the result that there can be no through service of trains from the North-East to the West without change of carriage. This, however, will certainly be remedied. When all is completed, and a fast service of trains established, England and Australia will be brought much nearer to each other than they are at present. With an accelerated speed of steamers across the Indian Ocean, it ought to be possible to bring Fremantle and Marseilles within three weeks of each other.