THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1906. THE AUSTRALIAN FIRES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13086, 27 January 1906, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1906. THE AUSTRALIAN FIRES.

The continent of extremes —Australia which alternates between tremendous floods and devastating droughts, is being afflicted by most destructive fires as a sequence to the intense heats of the past weeks. Great bush fires are unfortunately not uncommon summer visitors among our neighbours, but those which are still raging are of exceptional magnitude, and have been the cause of a loss of life appalling both as to its numbers and from the attendant circumstances. Beside this loss of life the mere destruction of property, great as it is, sinks into insignificance ; for there are no tragedies in all the many national tragedies of Australia more terrible than the perishing of men and women and little children in these resistless avalanches of storm-driven flames. That the smiling homes which the toil of plucky settlers has won from the uncertain wilderness should be licked up at a breath is more than saddening ; but that human beings should be often unable to escape draws upon our deepest sympathies. Yet great districts of Victoria. " the garden of Australia," have not only been swept completely bare, but have been the scenes of the most terrible incidents conceivable to the human mind as arising from natural causes. Hemmed in by fire, unable to escape, many persons, young and old, have perished ir the huge holocaust, while others who escaped the fire itself have perished of heat and thirst. What the death-roll actually is we shall perhaps never exactly know, for in Australia wanderers are not readily missed, and the charred bones of hapless victims may lie for years in the wilderness, hidden beneath the amazingly rapid growth that follows every rain. But neither shall we exactly know the many heroic deeds that the tragedy of the great fires only serves to illumine. For never does human courage rise higher than when a stupendous disaster befalls a brave and resourceful people. And the bravery and resourcefulness of the Australians have never been more magnificently demonstrated than in these recent days, as we can see from the isolated incidents that have become public of heroic selfsacrifice and timely stratagem. These are the things that pass almost unnoticed at such times of general excitement, and only when special attention is accidentally drawn to them do they attract notice. So that these isolated incidents are of value, not merely as exhibiting the bravery and resource of the individuals concerned in them, but as illustrating for us what has been done, not a few, but many, many times, in fire-swept Australia. Nor need any nation mourn its dead unconsolably, or treat its financial losses as irrecoverable, which can find comfort in knowing that in its hour of deadliest peril the weak found helpers in the strong, and deeds were done without thought of consequence by plain civilians, which have not been surpassed by those which win for soldiers the coveted Victoria Cross.

In the fires which are now drawing to Australia the sympathy of the British world the dominant feature appears to have been the impossibility of making any resistance to their advance. A great bush fire is usually irresistible, for it- creates its own breeze, and once fairly going is borne forward by its own impetus. But it can usually be diverted, or headed away to some spot where it can burn itself out, when sufficient fire-fighters are available. But the great fires of the past week appear to have defied all management, even when populous neighbourhoods organised to attack them, and to have travelled forward at a pace fortunately rare in Australian annals. It is this feature which has given vise to the ghastly death-roll that we fear is not yet full. Flight was futile, if left too late, where even well-moUnted horsemen, riding for their lives, barely managed to out-race the flames. And even before slower fires there was little hope for burdened* - men and women. So that in many places individuals and groups were cut off and isolated within the burning zone, some to perish miserably, the great majority to survive with life, thanks to the fearlessness and ingenuity of the Australian character, which did . not surpass that of the Italian hero of one of the Toora incidents. And we must confess, looking across to the Australian continent from these fortunate isles, where neither drought nor flood is on gigantic scale, and where our little bush fires are paltry by comparison, that there is something " sporting" in the fierce patriotism of the Australian. Nothing daunts him. He seems to love his country all the more because of the great risks its settlement demands of him. The great drought strikes at him, and drives him back out of the plains almost to the ranges, strikes at him even in the ranges, and sends him from them as naked aud poverty-stricken as Job, he who once was as prosperous. The great floods pour upon him down the broad river valleys, and strip bare those whom the drought, had spared. And the fires come after the great heats that had ripened the wheat-ears for harvesting, and there is nothing but smoking barrenness where had been valuable forests and growing homesteads and thriving hamlets, all the garnering wealth of a prosperous colonial country side. Yet, in spite of drought, of flood, and of fire, the Australian clings to his country, and rarely casts his eyes, excepting when on pleasure bent, at milder and more genial New Zealand. He restocks after drought, repairs after flood, rebuilds after fire, with an

angrv, rather than with a heavy, heart, as one who is fighting a battle with a tangible enemy for the possession of the Australian land. It he were not so proud we might be tempted to suggest that his New Zealand neighbours could help him in his troubles, but the Australian does not take kindly to outside help, which is, perhaps, not the least of his many virtues. And the Australian's virtues are nevermore evident than when things are going badly with him, proof that, in spite of a new climate and a new country, he is still British to the core.