A GUIDE FOR GLOBETROTTERS.

Evening Star, Issue 11511, 30 March 1901, Page 8

A GUIDE FOR GLOBETROTTERS.

THE ORIENT COMPANY’S NEW HAND BOOK, v.

[From Our Special Coebespovtoxt.]

, LONDON, February 15. . Steamship guides are no new thingj- but they cannot as a rule be criticised as literature. The Orient Company has, in the latest edition of its guide book, wisely determined to present to its passengers some word pictures of Australasia worthy of perusal not only for their vividness and accuracy. but also for their literary style. Chapters 7 to 18 (inclusive) arc from "the pen of the Hon. W. P. Reeves,-Agent-General for New Zealand. It may seem, at first sight, a little odd that a New Zealander should be entrusted with the description of Australia; but on the principle that onlookers see most of the game, perhaps the best gmde, philosopher, and friend for the globe-trotter at the Antipodes is the colonial, who, though not an Australian himself, has travelled extensively on the Southern Continent, and who has seen the country from the point of view of a traveller who at the same time is literateor, politician, and-poet. Mr Reeves writes in the crisp, pithy, and picturesque style of his book ‘The Long White Cloud,’ and shows an appreciative sympathy with the great south land, its people, and its prospects. In his first chapter he sketches briefly the cfiscovery of Australia, and points out how Tacky it was for England that “Australia turns her back on the Old World and her face to the Pacific Ocean . . . that Dutch sea captains of the Tasman stamp had not a gleam of imagination; that the Dutch East India Company and its officials were no colonisers; and that the United Provinces had their hands full elsewhere. Otherwise, in the century and a-half before Captain Cook sighted Australia. Felix, Holland must have made some use of her greatest opportunity, and England might have found Australian Boers as stubborn opponents as the fanners of"the South African Republics.”

The chapter on the continent is a- series of picturesque contrasts of the varied scenery in a country vast enough to have in it ample room for rain and aridity, riches and sterility, beanty and desolation. Mr Reeves utters a protest against Marcus darkens “highly-charged picture” of loneliness, melancholy, and terror, and soys there are few more favored comers on the earth than the southern half of Vietoria, with its cornfields, orchards, vineyards, and pastures, and at the same time its wilder parts, unvisited by the average tourist. But he thinks “it takes a colonist fully to appreciate Victoria; to understand how soil and climate alike invite the working settler, and how vast are the possibilities of that broad expanse, of which Melbourne is the natural ns well as the political centre; to understand. moreover, that even the most easily accessible parts of this favored land are not yet half populated, and that its prosperous destiny and industrial greatness are certainties which no sane observer can donbt for an instant.” He likens the passing from Eastern into Central and West Central Australia to the journey from Natal to the Boer Republics, and winds trp with a picture of the Murray, in flood. Mr Reeves does not dwell on'the desert, but proceeds rapidly to the oasis provinces—“the Province of Adelaide' and the Province of Perth.” He points out that Wesfcralia’s future is not that of a mere gold-producing desert, and declared that a “mam need not be imaginative to be impelled to dream a little of the future of that long sea-plain, when for the first time he looks down from the hills npon Adelaide —the White City—lying between his feet and the blue gulf beyond.” . ‘Two Centuries of Australian Explorers* is a condensed but still picturesque history of the various explorations on the continent. The Burke and Wills expedition of 1860-61 Mr Beeves describes as “the best-equipped party which an Australian community had ever sent out; bub Burke was also the most rash and incompetent of leaders. He divided 'and subdivided his forces, frittered «way ins supplies, quarrelled with his lieutenants,' amd, though ho reached the great gulf ofrtEe north, brought back no detailed information of his route. On his way back Lis obstinacy-mid want of judgment lost his own life aitd that of Wills, his second in cammamd-” [lnteresting chapters axe devoted to the political growth of the colonies Tasmania and New Zealand, and wool and water:’, In Txalf a Century of Gold Mining and Commerce* Mr Beeves, after describing any * comparison between Freetrade New South Wales and Protectionist Victoria as fallacious, tried to explain to the Englishman on Ms travels the reason for the remarkable arid almost universal drift of Australasia into. Protection, in the face of the obfamished by the prosperity of Engtaid under Freetrade. The colonists, he says, have adopted two principles—(l) that a variety of industries is beneficial and necessary, and cannot be obtained in a young country without State aid; (2) that exchange of goods within a country is more profitable to that country—though not perhaps to the individual trader—than exchange across the sea with foreign manufacturers or producers. “On the first point it in necessary to ask British readers to try and imagine what their point of view would he were England a vast 'sheep-walk and cattle-run, sparsely dotted with small towns, and with agriculture slowly making headway in a fringe near the sea coast. Mining and timber-cutting would represent all the other industries. Further, they must imagine the products of the land exported across the ocean to America in American-owned ships —ships which brought in return cargoes of American-manufactured articles. They must picture nearly the whole of this import and export trade in the hands of Americans, who .-would also be the bankers, financiers, and creditors of the country; whose hanks and loan companies would levy exorbitant rates of interest; and whose imports would be retailed at prices vary much higher than • they commanded,in the country of their origin.. Something like this was the condition of the average Australian colony in the years when; Protection began to grow np, and it was seme such economic condition as this" which bred amongst colonists a temper favorable to it!” The necessity of finding fresh means of taxation, and the desire of landowners to save their land from taxation, Ted to curious compromises, and the tariffs became and-have remained curious mixtures of high revenue with low protective duties. Mr Beeves expresses his belief that woollen mills, boot and shoe factories, tanneries, breweries, distilleries, the whole industry connected with the growing and refining of sugar, jam making, soap and candle worts, furniture making, printing and bookbinding, brick and tile making (partly), hat and clothing factories, iron foundries, and machine shops owe their existence in the colonies chiefly, if not entirely, to State aid, by way of bonus, or to Customs duties imposed for revenue or for avowedly protective purposes.

In. his chapter on the cities Mr Reeves essays a dangerous task, of assigning to each town the special merit that its rivals lack Sere is his prize-list - “ Sydney comes first for beauty, with Auckland close up as second, and Hobart a good third. Sydney has the finest harbor and Brisbane is on the finest river. Melbourne shows the most imposing street, though Sturt street, in Ballarat, compares worthily with any. Hobart spreads up the noblest hillside; Auckland shows the most romantic and widest panorama of sea and land. Amongst a series of cities, none of which seem gloomy or dirty, Adelaide may fairly claim to look the cleanest and brightest of all. The Botanic, Gardens of Sydney, perhaps, just surpass those of Melbourne, though Melbourne’s parks and gardens cover nearly 5,000 acres; and the park systeiy of Adelaide is possibly laid out on the most sensible lines. Sydney’s Town Hall, wherein 5,000 persons can be seated in comfort, .eclipses even the fine but badly situated municipal buildings of Melbourne. On the other hand, the mean and inconvenient House of Parliament in Sydney is quite put to shame by its really handsome Melbourne nvel; and if Parliament House in Brisbane had as good a site as the Victorian Legislative Chambers it would run them close for first place. Perhaps the Roman Catholic Catehdral in Melbourne is the most striking of colonial sacred structures. The Melbourne Cncket Ground is A in the writer’s

humble opinion, the best in the world ; and the racecourse at Flembgton, ■where as many as 143,000 spectators have been counted, is the best arranged in the colopies.” In his final chapter on scenery Mr Reeves •paints a picture of the Blue Mountains so full of atmosphere and color that it will delight all those who have been there, and induce those who have not to visit the mountains forthwith.: Hero. is one of the fine passages in which the chapter abounds, the first real view of the mountains seen from the train, which hitherto has appeared to be along the ridge of a gentle undulation: '“Through a gap in the continuous woods a great picture bursts upon us. Our gentle ’undulation dips sharply down out of sight; we cannot see how or whither. And there beyond it is a vast blue gulf, stretching mile after mile, until it is walled in by dim heights fading far away, range after range, in the distance. On either side the blue gulf is bounded and guarded by giant cliffs such as Milton might have imagined as the battlements of his heaven. The cliffs arc crowned with forest, and forest clothes their feet. Below the haze the bottom of the blue gulf is covered with forest again, a green floor stretching from cliff-base to cliff-base. In the profundly deep centre of the valley a curving line among the tree tops marks the course of an unseen river. From tlris the leafy floor rises steeply up hundreds of feet to the foot of the sheer precipices ; and these again rise sheer hundreds of feet higher. Here the cliffs jut out in points and bold headlands, and there recede into curving bays. Promontory succeeds promontory os the eye gazes down the long vista — 1 cape beyond cape in endless range ’ growing stranger and dimmer and loftier :is they loom out of the everlasting wash of haze. The scene stretches before you for a few precious moments as you strain your eyes through the trees. A minute and the train has hurried onward, and tho eucalyptus stage curtain shuts it in once more.”