A GUIDE FOR GLOBETROTTERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7069, 10 April 1901, Page 1

A GUIDE FOR GLOBETROTTERS.

« : THE ORIENT COMPANY'S HANDBOOK. AUSTRALIA THROUGH THE EYES OF THE AGENT-GENERAL. [From Our Correspondent.] LONDON, Feb. 15. Steamship guides are no new thing, 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 VII. to XVIII., inclusive, are from the pen of thp Hon W. >P. Reeves, the Agent-Genera} for New Zealand. It may, seem, at first sight, a little odd that a New Zealand-ar should be entrusted with the description of Australia, but, on the principle that onlookers see moit of the game, perhaps the best guide-book 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 litterateur, 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 discovery of Australia, and points out how lucky 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 opiKjnt'.'ti- as the farmers 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 ."ind sterility, beauty and desolation. Mr Reeves utters a protest ag.iiist Marcus plarke's " highly-charged " picture of loneliness, melancholy and terror, and says there are few more favoured corners on the earth than the southern half of Victoria, with its cornfields, orchards, vineyards and pastures, and j at the same time its wilder parts, unvisited I by the average tourist. Bub 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 Milbourne is the natural, as well hh the political centre ; to understand, moreover, that even the most easily accessible parts of this favoured land are not yet half -populated, und that its prosperous destiny and industrial greatness are certainties which no sane observer can doubi for an instant." He likens the passing from Eastern into Central and West-Csntnii Australia to to the journey from Natal to the Boer Republic!?, and winds up with a picture of the Murray in flood. Mr "Reeves dosa not dwell on the desert, but proceeds rapidly to the oasis provinces, " the province of Adelaide ami the province of Perth. " He points out that West Australia's future is not that of a mere goltlproducing desert, and/kclarid that v " mm. need nob be imaginative to be impelled tc dream a Kttle of the future of that long sea-plain, when for the first time he look* dows from the hills upon Adelaide — tiic White Citj- — lying between his feet and the blue gulf beyond." "Two Generations of Australian Explorers" is a condensed but still picturesque iihtory of the various explorations on th: continent. The Burke and Wills' expedition of 1860-61. Mr Reeves, described a* "the best equ!pp:d arty which an Australian community ' iiad ever sent out, but Burke was also the nest rash and imcompetent of leaders. He divided and sub-divided his forces, Tittered away his supplies, quarrelled with •As lieutfr'umts. ."Mid, though lie reached the jreiit Gulf of the North, brought, buck m tetailecl infonmttoii of his route. On Lit Vc'.y buck, hi* obstinacy and want of judjj:cnt lost hi* own life and that of Wills, !s second in co.ni man tl." Interesting chapters are devoted to the lo'iiicii vfpiwth of the colonies, Tasmania yd >\ 7 "\v /'titinnd, and wool and w.ttcr. In "Half a. Caitury of Gold-mining ano.

Commerce," Mr Reeves, after describing any comparison between Freetrade New South Wales and Protectionist Victoria as fallacious, tried to explain to the Englishman on his travels the reason for the remarkable and almost universal drift of Australasia into Protection in the face of the object lesson furnished by the prosperity of England under Freetrade. The colonists, he says, have adopted two principles : (1) 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 and producers. "On the first point it is necessary to ask British readers to try and imagine what their point of view would hs 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 banks and loan companies would levy exorbitant rates of interest, and whose imports would ba retailed at prices very 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 up, and it was some such economic condition as this which bred amongst colonists a temper favourable to it." The necessity of finding fresh means of taxation and the desire of land-owners to save their land from taxation led to curious compromises, and the tariffs • became and have remained curious mixtures {of high revenue with low protective duties. Mr Reeves expresses Jus 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 works, furniture-making, printing and book-binding (partly), brick and tilemaking (partly), hat and clothing factories, iron foundries ami 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. Hero is hig prize lists — "Sydney comes first for beauty, with Auckland close up. as second, and Hobart a good third. Sydney has the finest har- ■ bour, 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 ard 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 Botanx Gardens of Sydney, perhaps, just surpass those of Melbourne, though Melbourne parks and gardens cover nearly 3000 acres ; and the park system of Adelaide is possibly laid out on the' most sensible lines. Sydney's Town Hall, wherein five thousand persons can be seated in \:omfort, fclip?er §yen the fine but badly situated municipal buildings cf Melbourne. On the other hand, mean and inconvenient House of Parliament in Sydney is quite put tc shame by its really handsome Melbournerival ; and if Parliament House in Brisbans had as gocd a site as the Victoria* Legislative Chambers, it would run them close for first place. Perhaps the Roman Catholic Cathedral .in Melbourne is the j most striking of colonial sacred structures/ The Melbourne cricket ground is, in the writer's humble opinion, the best in the world ; and the racecourse at JB'lemington, where as many as 143.000 spectators have been counted, is the best arranged in the colonies." . .. .. In his final chapter on scenery, Mr Reeves paints a picture of the Blue' Mountains so full of atmosphere and colour that it will delight all those who have been { there and induce those who have hot to visit the mountains forthwith. Here 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 running along the ridge of a gentle undulation: — " Through a gap in the continuous woods a great picture, burst upon us. Our gentle undulation dips sharply down out of sight, we cannot see how or whither. And there bfyond 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 are crowned with forest, and forest clothes their feet. Below the haze the bottom of the bHie gulf is covered with forest again, a green floor stretching from cliff-base to cliff-base. In the profoundly deep centre of the valley a curving line among the tree tops marks the course of an unseen rivor. From this the leafy floor rises steeply up hundreds of feet to , the foot of the* sheer precipices ; and these aga-'-n 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 a« the eye gazes down the long vista. — ' cape beyond cape in endless range ' — growing stranger and dimmer and loftier as they looai out of the everlasting wash of haze. The scene stretches before you for a few precious moments a.s you strain your eyes through the trees. , A minute, and the train has hurried onward, a»d the eucalyptus stage curtain' shuts it in rmee more."