HE PLEASANT CAREER

OF A SPENDTHRIFT

GEORGE MEUDELL

LONDONGEORGE ROUTLEDGE SONS, LTD.

BROADWAY House : 6 8-74 CARTER LANE , E.C .

CRA P.

I .

I I .

I I I .

IV.

VI .VI I .V I I I .IX .

X .

TH E

MINES

CONTENTS

EARLY EXPERIENCESLAND BOOM AND LAND BOOMERS

POLITICS,LEAGUES

, AS SOCIATIONS , CLUBS .

KYA BRAM MOVEMENTBANKS AND BANKERS

AND M IN ING . STOCK EXCHANGE .on. ! UEST

EARLY EXPERI ENCES .

F0RTUNES M I SSED

TRAVELS—A TABLO ID OF TRAVELPEO PLE I HAVE KNOCKED ABOUT WITHAUSTRALIAN PEO PLE

HOTELS,CAFés,

D INNERS,ENTERTA INMENTS

4

FOREWORDMY travels in forty coun tries covering overm iles by land and sea

, on over 400 steamships, and

through about 600 hotel s, al low me to claim I have

travelled further than most Austral ian s . Of course,postmen

,commercial travel lers

, sea-captain s and rail

way guards have an opportunity of breaking my

record for distance . During my travel s I have metlots Of people who have been everywhere, have seen

l ittle,an d remembered less . I have not been able to

find a better country than my own Austral ia . The

Old controversy as to which is the finest harbour cityin the world can only be truthful ly settled in favour

of Sydney, with Rio Janeiro half a length away second,and Naples a bad third . Among the al so rans

are Hobart,Auckland, Queenstown , Quebec, Nagaski,

San Francisco,and Hong-Kong

,precisely in that

order . Before going abroad to view the world I saw

my native land fairly extensively and knew something

of the South Sea I s lands and of glorious New Zealand .

There is no such p icturesque coun try elsewhere as NewZealand, although we have in Austral ia magnificent

scenery of a qual ity unknown to the European . I n

fact the travel ler does not need to go outs ide Aus

tralas ia for s ightseeing, or to see the best, get the best

or do the best this planet afi'

ords .

vii

FOREWORDAll these years Of travel over the Seven Seas have

fixed firmly in my soul and mind the bel ief that mynative land

,Austral ia

,i s the best country and the

Australians are the best people on the globe . The

finest people of al l the nations are the French, andunlike most other peoples the French as a nation love

their homeland,passionately and devotedly.

The English,the Scotch, the Londoners (who are

a curious sect of the British people standing apart) ,Germans

,Ital ians

,Swiss and al l those other races

from the cold north of Europe have no obsessing loveof country . The Irish have mostly left Ireland, but

they were forced out. For freedom ,for food

,for

work,for money, they leave their homes as soon as

they can . And most of those countries are goodplaces to get away from .

The Australian is pure-bred, of one race, and that

(excepting the French) the best race of them al l—themiscal led Anglo-Saxon . The latest figures are not

available, but those of the 1 92 1 census give the birth

places of the inhabitants of Australia as 8 6 per centborn in Australasia, I O per cent born in the UnitedKingdom

,and only 4 per cent born in foreign coun

tries . Ours is , perhaps , the purest breed o f peoplel iving . The strain was a good one too

,because only

the strong and heal thy men and women were ableto travel from Europe hither

,and speaking general ly

,

the Government immigrants in later years wereexamined and selected . SO the Austral ian i s wel l andclean ly bred from a good stock

,and endowed with

viii

FOREWORDexcel lent bone and blood . Given these requis ites Of

pure blood and strong bone, i t i s on ly necessary to

use p len ty Of wholesome food in a fine cl imate to

produce,physical ly and mental ly

,healthy men and

women . The Austral ian is a superior being physical ly.

O ther nations do not produce such a high proportion

of able-bodied men and women as the Austral ian

nation, . because Australians are essential ly l ivers out

Of doors .If our men are in every respect the finest males

liv mg, what can be said of our women My travelsin 4 50 cities in every region of the globe enable me

to judge, and without reserve I can declare the

Austral ian woman is the healthiest, sanest and most

b eautiful in the wide world . The women of Norwayand Sweden are perhaps phys ical ly stronger, those OfOdessa perhaps in the mass prettier

,maybe Grafton

S treet,Dublin

, or Princes Street, Edinburgh , or

Hyde Park or the Bois de Boulogne may Off er a few

picked specimens of the highest form of womanhood

yet in the mass our Australian girl s and women easily

bear the palm as the best and most capable women

o f al l the nations , fit comrades and helpmates of the

v ery best men .

Our Austral ian boys and girls are better educatedthan those of other nations and speaking broadly

our schoo l system is in its infancy, i n a state of flux,from which is being evolved a more complete and

a dvanced educational environment and atmosphere .

In the matter of education we have been hamperedix

CHAPTER I

EARLY EXPER IENCES

MY father ,William M endel l by descent related to theHertford family Of Seymours , was a highly educatedman from Edinburgh who , with Wil l iam Grant, a cronyof his

,came to Australia in search Of health and gold .

At Geelong, Henry Miller who had j ust helped to establish the Bank of Victoria was on the wharf lookingfor a couple of pommies to work on his farm atBacchus Marsh . He asked the twowhite-faced, whitehanded young men whether they wanted work . Theyused the Scotti sh equivalent of My oath, Mister .All right

,

” said Mil ler,I want you to take a load of

palings by bullock team to Bacchus Marsh .

” Theyad no recollection of ever having seen a bul lock intheir l ives

,and i t took them three weeks to learn

bullock driving and swearing,and as well how to

travel to Bacchus Marsh . Every morning was devotedto chasing bul locks al l over the landscape and thenyoking them up . When they reached Bacchus Marshthe were a mass Of cal losities—c orns

,warts

,bunions

andI

blisters al l over their hands,arms and feet .

Money Miller said to my dad, H ow would

you l ike to j oin the Bank Of Victoria,Meudell?

That ’s my rofession,” said my father

,and he took

the bil let in t e Bendigo branch at five pound a week,and slept alongside the gold - for eight years . Not

very long before he died Money,

” Miller, Chairman Of the Bank of Victoria, sent for my father , thenthe General Manager

,to visit him at Findon ” Kew.

He found the Old man sitting at a green baize cardtable playing with twenty-five new golden sovereigns ,

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTred hot from the mint, delicious to the touch and sight,better than aspirin for a headache and an excel lentcure for that universal complaint, tightness of the

chest . O ld Money Mil ler asked my father toprepare al l the requisite papers to make applicationsto the Supreme Court to wind Up the Bank of Victoriaand distribute the assets among the shareholders .The Old chap was in his dotage, but what a lovelydotage to be in , to just do nothing but sit al l dayplaying with new yellow Jimmy Goblins ,

” to absorbtheir glitter and harken to their click and clink.

I sn ’t it a delightful way to spend a long life gatheringmoney, piling it up , seeing it grow without spendingmore than keeps one a l ive

,and then to pass on to

another existence conscious Of having made heavyfootprints on the sands Of time, and indulging one

’srul ing passion to the utmost right up to the door Ofdeath p It ’s a curious case of putrefaction of thesoul .

EARLY CAREERMy father took me into the Bank Of Victoria and

I learned a l l I could about the craft in several positions,

from pig—boy"to te l ler . I learned shorthand toget into head Office as secretary to the Inspector

,E . G . Harrison , who sent me to Horsham during thewheat season . I t was a horrib le p lace ful l of banks

,

and inns , poor food, bad drink, too many cardplayers and betting men

,and as rude and crude as

a Cal ifornian mining camp . SO I applied for a bi lletin the Sandhurst Savings Bank short ly after GeorgeE . Emery, the very capable General Manager of theState Savings Bank, joined the service at Cast lemaine .Had I stayed in the bank I would have been asenior O fficer to—day. Eager for personal freedomand better pay, I became a public accountant andwas doing wel l when the late B . J . Fink found me

EARLY EXPER IENCESout and Off ered me the job of assistant managerOf the Mercanti le Finance Guarantee and TrusteeCompany

,the pivot and headquarters of the land

and finance boom then starting on its meteoriccareer . J . M . Bruce, S tan ley Bruce

’s father, O .

Fenwick and J . H . Dodgshun were the directorsB . J . Fink was Chairman ; J . Mc . A . Howden ,manager ; and Andrew Lyel l

,the best accountant

Melbourne ever had, was inspector . I learned highfinance al l right and lost twenty thousand poundsbuying the blessed or cursed shares of the Company .

EARLY L IFE—ILLNESSThe greatest mistake I have made in my life was

to bel ieve three doctors that I was dying and ought togive up work . Brought up by my parents on homoeo

pathy I never was able to understand why peoplehad any faith in medicine . Doctors prescribe medicineof which they know nothing to cure diseases in a bodyof which they know less . Ma teria media : and theBritish Pharmacopoeia should be suppressed by force .Doctors know very l ittle and what they know theyuse blindly on their patients . They cannot cure cancer,consumption

,baldness

, or rheumatoid arthritis , toname only a few universal diseases . The few diseasesthey can cure are mostly mental

,diseases of the nerves

created by the mind,by thinking and by fear . I was

doing a big business on the M elbourne Stock Exchangewhich was always growing . Working too hard mysystem ran down and I spat blood . So I consulteda doctor

,a member of the Briti sh Medical Associa

tion , who said I was i l l and must stop work . Thesecond B .M .A . man , looking like a coffin- l ifter ’shelper with a bel ly-ache

,shook his head and asked me

whether I had made my will . This put the wind upme, so I stopped work, downed tools and went toLondon . The firs t E.M .A . chap said , You have

3

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTonly three months to live

,make your wil l and go

home to Melbourne . That was nineteen yearsago

.The next E.M .A . member was a big pot, aRoyal physician

,who a lso condemned me to death

as being in the last stage of tuberculosis . I sworeat him gently. I went away for a long sea trip toBurma, Malaya and East Indies on my way home .Fear, fright, funk, those three most deadly anddamnable curses and i l ls that affl ict humanity, causedme to give my splendid Stock Exchange businessaway and thereby ruined myself. However, mymate and I went to Bendigo, l ived in the open air atKangaroo Flat

,and I swal lowed beaten up eggs and

milk to the extent Of three quarts a day . I s lept l ikea night watchman

,avoided exercise, a thing that kill s

more people than it saves,and in twelve months I

gained three stone weight . After that my diet wascrayfish

,onions and stout . The hole in my lung

fi l led up , what with I don ’t know,and al l that happened

twenty—one years ago . What funny folks doctorsare

,and what a zany I was to believe their doleful

maunderings Now I believe that al l diseases aremental in origin . A change in the mental outlook i stherefore a health force . In a year I gained threestone weight and entirely renewed the vital ity whichhad led to my undoing. Don ’t need doctors nor theirbeast ly physic, and have only had one i l lness since, anattack of shingles, which a doctor friend told m wifewou ld take three weeks to disappear . My riend,James Moore Hickson

,the celebrated faith healer

,

attended and cured me, and I went back to the o fficethe next day . Abol ish fear from the world and youwill abolish disease . Never to be born would bebest for mortal man , but hardly one man inhas this luck .

I t i s real ly fiddle-faddle and of no interest to anybody but myself, yet some unlucky mortal suff ering

EARLY EXPER IENCESfrom tuberculosis or consumption may make use of

my experience in curing myself of the white plague .For the first forty years of l ife I worked too hard andused up my vitality too quickly . Ever since passingthat milestone I have drifted and let things rip and Iam much happier . When doing splendidly on theStock Exchange I caught consumption and a sil lyass of a doctor said, Give i t up

,shut your Office

make your wil l go away. Your spit is malignant .”

I t might have been , so I gave my seat and my finebusiness away and went travel ling with my mate .

EARLY EXPER IENCEI am glad to admit I have Spent a very ha p y l ife

crammed full of varied experiences . David R/I ickle ,an exceptionally intellectual man

,a Victorian Post

O ffice Inspector, induced me to make a completestudy of Herbert Spencer ’s philosophy to gain agroundwork of First Principles . Years after

,Alfred

Deakin , a friend of Mickle ’s, who also helped tofashion my reading curriculum, told me he had foundHerbert Spencer ’s hilOSOp hy impracticable, and withthat I agreed . T e on ly man who could frame aworkable system of philosophy would be a lawyerwho had been a land shark and who had been a company promoter and had gone insolvent. Deakin gaveme much good l iterary advice and persuaded me tostudy Ralph Waldo Emerson to get a knowledge ofthe canons of conduct . So there you are, HerbertSpencer for character building and Ralph WaldoEmerson for framing one ’s conduct COp ious l ibationsof Herbert Spencer and long ba

fiuets with Emerson .

And in addition to being than 111 for a happy life,love of travel , a product of atavism, derived fromViking ancestors who as so ldiers and sailors weremoss-troopers , bandits , buccaneers and

pirates, nour

ished my desire to see the world . So , I ave seen the5

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTtwo finest sights on earth the Taj Mahal fan e inIndia

,and Carbine winning the Melbourne Cup in

1 8 90, carrying 10 stone 5 lb . over two miles .

EARLY DAYS—BANK O F V ICTOR IAThe best thing ever done by me was to

.

wri te anessay at the age of fifteen creating that blessed andriceless device, Australia for the Australians .iI'he most blessed gift by atavism to me was the senseOf humour bequeathed through Scottish ancestorswho were descended from Vikings . Up to my greatgrandfather ’s time they were generally soldiers andsailors . My grandfather and father were Scotchbankers, and the precious endowment of humourwhich had lain dormant and unused for untoldgenerations seems to have been imbued with lifeamongst bank ledgers

,overdrafts

,bi lls payable

,and

unpayable, and Head Office circulars , the funniest Ofall human documents . L ike Bernard Shaw,

my wayof joking is to tel l the truth . I t i s the funniest jokein the world . The day I joined the Bank of Victoriain knickerbockers ( l isten to that first hiss of egotism)the staff assembled to receive me into the craft

,and

twenty underpaid and overworked bank clerks inducted me to their guild in the strong room . Notone of them got over £ 1 50 a year, the rul ing wage .The chairman , sti l l alive and always laughing, woundup his advice to be a good honest banker like myfather, with this warning, If you ever feel a desireto go wrong, don

’t prig petty cash or enter threepennyletters as sixpennies, collar and be sure toburn the bally books .” Years afterwards the secreta ryof the Bankers ’ Association

,when he heard me tel l

that story said solemnly, George,if you ever want

to be head of the Melbourne Savings Bank dropfunny stones and try and look like Archibald Currie

,a dour, sour, Scotch sea—captain and then the chairman6

EARLY EXPER IENCESOf the Savings Bank, who looked as though he nev erhad laughed in his l ife , yet left a lot Of money he didnot know how to spend . Most rich men look wiseand hold their tongues and their money. You cannot

,

young man,practise the divine gift of humour and

get ri ch . This world disl ikes people who laugh,unless they do i t for a l iving l ike Harry Lauder orCharl ie Chaplin . Henry Ford has never laughed andJohn D . Rockfeller has never smiled, yet regard theirpossessions Hugo Stinnes , the great Germanfinancier

,and Jimmy Tyson

,the successful keeper of

sheep and cattle,died from the same Obstruction of

their ri sible organs . I f the general managers Of thetwelve banks that burst in 1 8 9 1 and 1 8 93 had keptpaid clowns to make fun of the valuations of city andsuburban land

,made by the old-establ ished auctioneers

and valuators of Melbourne in the land boom days , theirbanks would never have

'

closed their doors . Everybank should keep a laughing department where absurdvaluations and ridiculous securities could be laughedoff the premises .

EARLY EXPERI EN CESAS a schoolboy I cut my right eye with a knife andlost the s i ht . For a long time I l ived under the overhanging gear that the good eye would fai l throughsympathy, so I consulted several leading oculists inLondon and Edinburgh

,and one each in Weisbaden,

Homburg, Paris, Berlin , Vienna and Venice . Allexcept one advised the excis ion of the wounded Optic .Dr . George Anderson Crichett of Harley Street,London , told me to stick to the inval id eye and forthirty-five years I enjoyed his friendship . Instead of

getting sta le magazines in S ir George ’s waitingroom, sherry,

dportand biscuits were provided, and

patients invite by pt inted notice to help themselves .think the sherry was ’

56 and the port a 4 8 , both

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTexcellent wines having the cEect Of clearing one ’svision . Resting against a magnificent cloisonné vasein the centre of the mahogany table was another finespecimen of the printer ’s art s imply mentioning thatpatients are politely requested to pay fees by cash .

”

Sir George had special ly made waistcoats with roomypockets . In the port s ide pocket he put si lver coins,and in the starboard one he sl ipped the sovereigns .Five pound Bank of England notes drifted into hiship pockets . At the end of a busy day Dr. Crichetthad a decided list to starboard slightly canting towardshis stern . He was a wonderfu l oculist and a charm ingman .

As a young and enterprising tuft-hunter, I desiredto see some of the great people of England, so voyagedto Cambridge to cal l on Professor Sydney HowardVines

,a cousin of my father ’s . He was an eminent

botanist and appeared to be stuff ed with the same sortof cotton wool they use to preserve dead mammals .Vine ’s friends were the sons of Charles Darwin , andhis close cobber was Frank Darwin . Calling at King ’sCollege, Vine

’s man told me he was up an oak tree wi thDr . Darwin inspecting a new aphis discovered thatday, so I strolled down and introduced myself to myprofessor cousin up the tree . He asked me to go backto his rooms and wait . I t was about and I washungry, also young . The factotum told me there werethree chops, a pound of cheese

,and a gallon Of table

ale for lunch with a sufficiency of bread . Half a crownproved a big enough bribe

, so the unjust stewardcooked the chops which I ate and I left the cheese andbread for Mr . Vines who arrived for lunch atLuckily Frank Darwin had gone home

,and my cousin

for one time more was a martyr to science while I waswe l l fed and happy.

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTexpansion of the State Savings Bank of Victoria i salmost entirely due . To Emery, more than to anybodyelse falls the credi t for placing the Savings Bank atthe top of the list as the biggest and best nationalsavings bank in the world . During my exten sivetravels in foreign countries I have used my expertbanking and savings banking experience to Observeand criticize the savings banks Of other countries ,and the Australian system Of keeping and protectingthe savings of the poor and thrifty excels al l others .I t has only one weakness . The Savings Bank shouldhave a department for lending smal l sums Of moneyto smal l borrowers

, on enlightened and improvedpawnshop lines . Why shou ld a man have to pay60 per cent for loan money simply because he is poorOn the whole i t was a Splendid thing for me, that1

b

f

eing a rol l ing stone I left the bank to lead a merry1 e .

I O

CHAPTER I I

LAND BOOM AND LAND BOOMERST11 15 interview with the Daily Gra hic Of London ,in 1 8 95 , gives a clear idea of he Causes of theCrisis of

For practical purposes, Mr . Mendel l explainedto a Daily Graphic representative who called on

him at 2 8 , Swithin’s Lane

,three causes may be

assigned for the recent financial collapse . First,there was the fal l in prices of wheat, wool , and others taple products of the colony. Wheat

,which in

1 8 73 sold at 55 . a bushel in Melbourne i s to-dayonly and greasy woo l which in 1 8 73 averaged£20 a bale, say 1 5 . 2d. a -pound

,i s now only £ 1 2 a

bale, or 7c . to 8d. a pound . The demonetization ofs i lver and appreciation of gold Mr . Meudellholdsmainly responsible for this fal l in prices

,for he i s an

ardent bimetal li st,and in Melbourne i s an active

teacher of the doctrine . Then , said Mr. Meudell,another and more direct cause was the land boom

of 1 8 8 7- 8 encouraged by the excessive influx of

British capital into Austral ia i n the form of Government and municipal loans

,bank deposits , and moneys

sent by assurance companies for investment on a

5 per cent basis . Money was thrown at our headstoo rapidly to be absorbed safely, and in order tomake a profit funds which carried interest bankadvances were made far too freely and without sufficient inqui

gf. Under the Torren ’s system of registra

tion , title eeds of landed property are more easi lydea l t with than here

,and banks freely lent on a mere

deposit Of documents,taking a l ien on the es tate .I I

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTAustralia is undoubtedly over-banked, but in newcountries capital i s scarce and al l are borrowers .Yes, we might have been over-banked, but i t must beremembered that it was the splendid banking facil itieswhich developed the wheat, wool , mining, and otherindustries . Money,

” continued Mr . Meudell, wasso plentiful that everyone thought land values werebound to rise enormously. I t ’s an old story thisland boom after al l

,and those who want to under

stand how i t can be worked cannot do better thanread Marian Crawford ’s Don Orsino, ’which describesthe land and building crash in Rome a few yearsback . The immediate cause of the collapse, con

tinned Mr . Meudell, in his c lear and concise style waswithdrawal of deposits from the building societieswhich have done valuable work in the past, but on atotal ly unsound basis and taking money on depositfor short terms and lending for long terms , so thatwhen a sudden rush of withdrawals came funds couldnot be cal led in to meet the demand . A similarmovement followed against the banks

,which were in

somewhat similar financial position and—well , theresult everybody knows only too well . Certain lyI think the reorganization schemes adopted by thebanks were the best possible under the circumstances .L iquidation of assets was impossible . I t might havetaken fifty years to wind up some of those concerns .

”

The total losses of the people of Victoria in securitiesand property during the liquidation period amountedto That much was visible, andcould be reckoned . How much unseen property

,

ch iefly personal, was wiped out it i s impossible toestimate . And foreign loans and deposit receiptswere the stimulus that led to over-building and overbuying. There were thousands of empty O ffices andthousands of vacant blocks of land . Every day thenewspapers reported sales Of city properties at £ 1 500 to

I 2

LAND BOOM AND LAND BOOMERS£2000 a foot, the rental s of which worked out at2 and 3 p er cent . After all , the interes t test or theyield test i s the only one to apply to values of land orbuildings . The other day £2500 a foot was pai dfor a Melbourn e city building which shows 4 per centnet return by rentals . The new owner cannot rai sethe rent

,because there are n early 4000 offices in Old

and new buildings vacant in MelbourneWhen I was as sistan t manager of the Mercanti le

Finance and Guarantee Company, I wrote a good manyrosp ectuses of companies at the behest Of B . J . Fink .

he most splendid specimen of the art of imaginingthe basis of a prospectus ever perpetrated in Austral iawas my draft of the Austral ian Asse ts Purchase Company, capital, £5 , to take over and liquidatethe landed properties in houses , cottages , farms, suburban subdivisions

,city lots , blank broad acres held

by the late G . W . Taylor Of Prahran, one of themos t notorious land boomers . I t was a rare farrago Ofhigh-pri ced rubbish

,and every titl e or Option had

been mortgaged to a bank, a building society, or to al ife assurance company. Our company held a bundleof equities of redemption . G . W . Taylor went upto London before the scheme materia lized and theBoard of D irectors , al l well-known men of the time,let the Australian Assets Purchase Company sl itherto obl ivion . Saw Taylor in Cornhi l l , London , in1 8 95 and had a hearty laugh when he unfolded ascheme for securing emigran ts in the United Kingdomto send in here to settle on orchards and bee farm s inthe suburbs Of Melbourne

, Ospecial ly on the GlenI ri s l in e G . W . Taylor was once Mayor of Prahran ,a counci l celebrated in those days as a graduationcollege for land boomers, a most amusing type ofSpeculators

,who were noth ing, knew nothing, and

had nothing .

The land boom and banking col lapse was born in

1 3

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFT1 8 8 6 when the Service-Gi ll ies Government brought ina bil l to borrow for alleged reproductivepublic works

,that blessed trilogy of words which

always spel ls disaster in Austral ia . I t ended on

Sunday, 3oth Apri l, 1 8 93 , when two ignorant and weakpol iticians

,the late J . B . Patterson , the then Premier

of Victoria, and G . D . Carter, the Treasurer, lost theirheads and issued a Government Gazette declaring as

bank holidays,Monday

,Tuesday, Wednesday, Thurs

day and Friday,I st to 5th May, 1 8 93 . This sil ly,

senseless,stupid action forced upon Patterson by

Carter,an extremely self-conscious and withal i

gnorant

man,caused the banking edifice to topple an crash .

The National Bank shut down next day,the Colonial ,

Victoria,Queensland National

,Commercial Of Sydney

and City Of Melbourne broke in that order . Therewas no need for the Commercial Of Sydney to shut,but Thomas D ibbs, the General Manager, closed as amatter of expediency to strengthen his bank ’s position .

On Friday, 2 1 s t April , 1 8 93 , there was a run inSydney on the Bank OfNew South Wales

,Commercial

Banking Company, City Bank of Sydne and Government Savings Bank Of N .S .W. SirGeorge D ibbs,premier of New South Wales

,unlike the weakl ing

politicians Of Victoria,Patterson and Carter

,wisely

visited the Savings Bank and guaranteed the depositson behalf of the Government of New South Walesand the run and the panic were stopped . Yetsuch an important event is not included in the officialYear Book chronological table from 1 7 8 8 forward .

Such was the policy of hush and secrecy.

The easiest marks as borrowers were the buildingsocieties and the land and estate agents , and they hada r1ght royal time asking for and getting advances .In those halcyon days nobody was ever refused a loanby a bank manager . SO the banks opened agencies inScotland, I reland and England, and borrowed mill ions

14

LAND BOOM AND LAND BOOMERSon deposit recei ts for eighteen mon ths and lent themout in Victoria fix thirty years , and a great deal of themoney for etern ity. I t wasn ’t a mad or pessimisticor despondent thing to do . I t was one call ing forlaughter

,for merriment

,for j ocos ity . Why should

the good-humoured borrower explain to the dismalbank manager

,irritated and worried by Head O ffice

letters and circulars censuring him for not lendingmone fast enough

,that though he had paid £ 1 a

foot or land at Coburg or Glen I ri s or Mentone thati t was not in his own Opin ion worth the £ 1 0 a footof his own valuation . Bankers love bil ls to discountand the land boomers had heaps

,piles

,bundles of

bill s in tin boxes and blue and yellow carpet bags .I f a suburban estate was turned over and sold five ors ix times at a paper profi t

,that meant five or six sets

of bi ll s owing on one property, enough to fi l l twelvebaskets ful l . Nobody dared to laugh at these insanetransactions, nobody was brave enough to say, Al lthis business is frenzied

,delusive and pure buffoonery .

There must be a smash . And there was . Prices ofhouses and lands jumped higher and higher

,day by

day,nay, hour by hour, and more and more people

were drawn into the maelstrom,in to a true Walpurgis

ride to sudden wea lth . In 1 8 8 8 there were exactlypeople in Victoria mostly under twenty-one

years of age, and five years later,after at l east

had been poured in molten gold downMoloch ’s throat, there were on ly moreinhabitants, chiefly babies . Rateable property incities, towns and boroughs went up by leaps andbounds from 5 3 to 8 6 mill ion pounds sterling infive years , while the rateable property of shire counci lsjumped from 7 1 to 10 8 million pounds in the fiveyears 1 8 8 6—1 8 90 . I t was al l so dashed funny,because there was no solid foundation for al l thispaper wealth . Production did not increase p ari p assu,

I S

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHRIFTnor overseas trade, nor exports, nor shipping, exceptthat imports increased literal ly horribly . During1 8 8 6 and 1 8 90 in Victoria rai lways costingand 4 8 6 new churches and chapel s were built . To

me it was al l so ridiculous and amusing, and the bestof the joke was that none of the leaders of the peoplein Press

,Parliament

,Church, or on the platform,

ever uttered a s ingle word of warning about thecoming debacle

,the terrible catastrophe so close at

hand which brought ruin to tens Of thousands Ofdecent people and nearly smashed . Victoria . Bankassets rose from £4 1 ,OOO ,OOO in 1 8 8 6 to £6in 1 8 9 1 . Deposits grew from £3 in 1 8 8 6 to

in 1 8 9 1 . After that they fel l away anddid not reach unti l 1 907 , or twenty-eightyears later . I am writing Of what I know because Iwent through that critical period on the inside in afinance company and in a property company as anexecutive Officer, and when the panic stopped I was amember of the Stock Exchange .One of the prime causes of the collapse of the

land boom was the lax management of the Melbournebuilding societies , which were as plentiful as fleas .Owning his own home was a craze in those parlousand perilous days of land sharks and building societybounders . In September

,1 8 8 9 , the Building

Societies Gazette ” published what it named Animposing array of figures .” And so i t was . Fifty-sixsocieties had shareholders ’ capital for 3 ,earning 7 to 1 6 per cent with pa er reserve funds of

They took deposits fifom the fool publicto the extent of 5 30, bearing 4 to 7 per cent1nterest. Bank overdrafts , the basis of the wholedeplorable business, total led and there wasvery little actual cash in the til l s or tellers ’ boxes

.

That their fel low-citizens thoroughly believed inhome comforts and manly independence

,they bor

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTService nor Gil lies ever laughed or joked . Theywere too superior and became the political heroes Ofthe moneyed classes . About the same time theCommercial Bank Of Australia under Henry GylesTurner and John McCutcheon began an ingloriouscareer of aggrandisement . They started out to showthe hypochondriacs who managed the National , theVictoria

,the Australasia

,the Union

,the London , theEnglish and Scottish banks how to create business

and open branches . To supply new capital for theseObj ects the Commercial Bank appointed agents toreceive deposits in al l the big cities of the UnitedKingdom and chiefly in Scotland . Their interestrates for fixed deposits were most al luring—3 per centfor three months

, 4 per cent for six months , and5 per cent for one year . The result was that anavalanche of money was poured into the LondonOffice Of the Commercial Bank which carried interestfrom the date of deposit and consequently had to belent out on this side quickly. The bank here imploredits customers to take overdrafts

,to discount bills

, or

to lend money to their country clients,to borrow it

quickly and to lend it how they pleased . F lindersLane doubled its travel l ing stafl’

,and with the cheap

7 per cent money the warehousemen over- importedgoods extensive ly and backed country storekeeperswithout limit .Fortunately I was writing regularly on banking

and public: statistics and got to recognize sign s of

financial weaknesses , so I rented a box in the SafeDeposit and when the last bank had failed,and the

forty- seventh building society had gone into liquidat1on , I had saved nearly one thousand sovereigns .They came in very handy and satisfied once and forallany desire one may have had to become a miser

.

TO—day the same cycle of financial prodigality is beingrun by the people of Australia . These huge empty

8

LAND BOOM AND LAND BOOMERSbuildings, those new unwanted rai lways, these superbprivate homes and publ ic hotel s are being built withthe savings of the communi ty, with the deposits of thesav ings banks , the l ife assurance societies, the trusteescompanies and the banks . The monstrous publ icdebt of over owing bypeople, mostly babies, i s a finger-post pointing to

trouble,disaster and suff ering . City and suburban

values are inflated,and al l the vacant land within

twenty miles of the Melbourne G.P .O. has been soldat pri ces that discount its value for twenty-five years .

ALEXANDRA TH BATREHere is one example out of hundreds Of mad loan

and building contracts I saw put through during theinsane land boom . A clever Old Frenchman , JulesJoubert, away back in the era 1 8 60—1 8 90 acted as apromoter of exhibitions in the cities of Australia andNew Zealand with varying success . Tiring of travell ing Joubert concluded he would build a good theatrein Melbourne, a city then as now without a real lymodern theatre . He came to the Mercanti le FinanceCompany to be financed

,being friendly with B . J .

Fink, the Chairman . Fink ’s on ly anxiety was to earnhigh-sounding commissions for the company, and hewould charge 20 to 2 5 per cent for putting through a10 per cent loan if i t were big enough in size . Joubertinduced him to back his theatre building enterprise,and thus the Alexandra Theatre was born . Whennearly finished things began to look a delicate shade ofdark blue in high finance

,according to Fink, and the

Alexandra Theatre con tract was suddenly broken .

Be ing assistant manager of the Mercanti le FinanceCompany and having learned an awful lot abouttheatres from a coign of vantage outs ide the stagedoors Of several , I was given control of the AlickTheatre , now cal led Her Maj esty ’s . Our only trouble

l9

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTwas to find money for the gas bil l of fifty pounds aweek. Dan Barry, an en trepreneur or actor managerof those times found the gas money and rented thetheatre at one peppercorn a week, which he neveraid

,being so smal l and so useless . Barry p ut on

Blood-curdling, heart-j erking melodrama at 3d., 6d.

and 1 5 . for gallery, dress circle and stal ls . I did myshare by getting tickets on tick from aprinter and employing a corps of unemployed to

distribute them in the suburbs . At night thesepropagandists were given free supper and beer toact as claquers in the very best French style . Weran the show for three weeks and the only people whowere real ly disappointed with the financial resultswere the gas company board of directors . I came tothe conclusion that to conduct a theatrical business ata profit cal ls for the services of large quantities Ofmoney. The Alexandra Theatre was built on abuilding lease granted by the owner

,George Porter .

I t was afterwards bought and completed by J . C .

Williamson . Never forget asking George Porter toj oin me in a sherry and bitters at the Athenzeum Clubonce and he called for a pint bottle Of French Hockwhich cost me 1 05 . Another costly ap eritif to rememberwas when , just before dinner at the Atheneeum Club ,I asked Sir Edmund Barton to have a sherry and heordered a bottle of Romanee Conti Sti l l Burgundy

,

then the dearest and finest wine Of its kind,but not a

drink to be taken in sips . I t cost me 1 05 . 6d. for thatshout .Fortunately there was very little booming Of

farming or grazing lands, and the fol lowing list of thelords of Victorian soi l in 1 8 94 i s worth reproducing.

S ince then most of these big estates have been cut up .

Chirnsides owned in acresRobertson’sRusse ll ’s

20

LAND BOOM AND LAND BOOMERSSirW. J. Clarke owned in acresMofl

'

at’

s

Wilson’sAustin’sArmytage

’

s

Manifold’sWare ’sLaidlaw’sE . CrossleyJ . WinterJ . Be llStaughton

’

s

J . L . CurrieJ . Mcp hersonW. A . ArmstrongSimmons Bros.

W. McCullochCumm ing Bros .

The late Sir M . H . Davies and I were l iving at theAthenaeum Club when the land banks and buildingsocieties were crumbling down . At breakfast timeM . H . took his seat looking bl ithe and debonair, sp icand Span

,smiling withal sombre at hear t . Hidden

behind the “Argus he would whisper,How

dreadful another bank closed its doors . Tut, tut,very sad. Or, D id you see the Lath and PlasterBui lding on Sand Society has stopped payment ?Shocking, i sn

’t i t ? Waiter, a little more butteredtoast, very hot and very buttery . The poor chaphad been up al l n ight at the death of one Of thesefl imsy, cranky, pseudo banks , or unsound buildingsocieti es , which went down and out l ike wheat beforea harvester . That breaking up of the smal l landjobbing companies lasted about a month with a dai lyki l l ing . And M . H . Davies became 1nv 1s1ble Thenthe big banks and companies began to sway S idewaysand topple over . They were based on sand and falseva luations, and the finance compan ies especial ly were

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTcorrupt and rotten at the heart. And from stupidity,mistaken for stoicism

,the public did not commit

suicide or Shoot or maim or punish any of the guiltyfinanciers .Forty-seven of these rotten building societies fel l

out with a dul l S i lent thud, just l ike Abaddon , thedestroying angel

,into the bottomless pit of bankruptcy .

Nowadays the State Savings Bank has taken the placeof the building society system,

which was good intheory and badly managed in practice . Some of thebiggest societies were the City of Melbourne, depositsFederal

,deposits Melbourne,

deposits Victorian Permanent,Premier Building societies ’ Shares wereusually paid to£5 and stood on

’Change from£6 to 1 0,

being a favourite popular investment . They al ltouted and advertised for deposits . One Old squatter,Tommy Robertson

,from the Campaspe , took a trip

down to town and went up and down the streetpeering into the tables of interest rates al lowed forfixed deposits which were exhibited in the windows Ofthe building societies . He made a l ist of S ix societieswhich allowed 7 per cent on twelve months depositreceipts, and deposited £5000 in each, inal l, which he ultimately lost altogether . The PremierBuilding Society was the first to smash, and the taleOf corruption and mismanagement earned for thesecretary, James Miram s

,a short term in gaol . Of

the making of man tables of figures there is no end,

and much study 0 them is a weariness of the flesh .

On 3 I st December, 1 8 8 9 , the zen ith or apex of theland boom, there were S ixty-seven building societiesdoing business in Victoria with various obj ects .There were permanent investment

,mutual

,term inat

mg and benefit building societies . Ca ital , investingshares, terminating shares, reserve f i

rinds and un

d1v ided profits amounted to £4 ,36 while these

22

LAND BOOM AND LAND BOOMERSinstitutions held £5 ,57 8 ,359 of public deposits .What with overdrafts and mortgages

,the building

societies were custodians of the public money to theextent of over Where are thosemil lions now ? Certain ly the societies had lent

to people to buy homes . One society,

the Premier, the first to close its doors , had paid upcap ital of On this it raised a crazy superstructure . Deposits were and i t owedon mortgages of freeholds Total l iabi litieson account of capita l and liabil ities wereThe Secretary

,the late James Miram s

,failed for

Amongst the hundreds of prospectusesI have written during forty years ’ connection withcompan ies—min ing

,industria l and financial—three

please me most because of their audacity. The first i sthe prospectus of the Mercanti le Investment Trust,capital £2 , i n shares of £5 , D irectors ,B . J . Fink, J . M . Bruce and J . M . Howden . Theobj ect Of the Trust was to pool investments so that theinvestor would not have al l his eggs in one box ,that is he would buy one hundred shares in each offive stocks

,instead of 500 shares in one stock . We

never launched this company because I had skedaddledto another financial group . The prospectus i s datedJune

,1 8 8 8 . Then in London in June, 1 8 8 9 , I drew

up the prospectus of the Guarantee Society of Australasia, capital its obj ect being to

guarantee the punctual repayment Of the principaland interest of mortgage loans made by Britishcompanies in Australasia . I t died sti l l-born , no

flowers and private interment . The land boom wasdue to over-borrowing and over-speculation , and itwas engineered by bands of marauders who conceivedschemes of such gross dishonesty that the fortunes ofmultitudes of honest people were endangered . Thewages of the bread-winners and the workers were

23

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTsapped by traitors . The leaders of the boom weremostly extremely pious men and almost invariablythey were teetotallers . Tod ay they would be calledwowsers .” L ike al l extremists in conduct andideals the chief land boomers were narrow, i l l iterateand uneducated . Mankind has always been a flockOf Sheep . Those with littl e money blindly followthose with much . Therefore the business of financei s largely in the hands of men of wealth . As R . L .

Stevenson wrote of the missionari es, Their facultyOf humour is very small,

” and sowith the land boomerswhile filching money from the public they put intoactive practice their principles Of Puritanism andhatred of al l pleasure and its votaries . The threebest hotels in Melbourne

,at the instance of James

Munro,James Miram s and J . W. Hunt surrendered

their licences,and the Grand

,the Victoria and the

Federal Hotel became coff ee palaces . From 1 8 8 7 to

1 8 90 there was a systematic writing up of land andhouse property throughout Austral ia, though chieflyin Melbourne . I n 1 8 92 there were 4 1 8 insolvenciesin Melbourne of which 77 were declared by firms .Total l iabilities were and assets

There were 24 8 compositions with intwo years nearly al l made with banks and land sp eculators . The devi l ’s brigade of lawyers figured largely

,

and some families contributed three or more compositions . One notable family Of five brothers each made a“compote for insignificant payments from one

halfpenny to one Shi l l ing in the £ 1 . Twenty-sixfinance companies with total capitals Ofof which was paid up , went bung owing£ 1 on deposits and debentures . NO wonderevery individual in the community suff ered directlyand indirectly. Huge losses were made by the fireand l ife insurance companies and the State SavingsBank on their mortgages

,and by mutual consent they

24

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTtionalclarity of thought and good judgment andlanded a fortune . When the boom reached zenithStuart

,against hi s better judgment

,was induced to go

into it again and lost much,but not al l, of his previous

profits . G . W . Taylor, a land agent, once Mayor ofPrahran

,was another pioneer boomer . He was a

weak,excitab le man with unbounded confidence in

himself,and he managed to impress bank managers

and building society secretaries to the extent Of about£5 , worth Of land and houses . Sir MatthewHenry Davies

,a solicitor

,once Speaker Of the Legisla

tive A ssembly,was a leader of investors al l through

the boom and made two mi l lion pounds profi t on

paper . He was an able man of singu larly fine resence

and charming manners . Davies founded theR/Iercantile Bank with a capital of which smashedbad ly at the finish . There was a prosecution of thedirectors for issuing a false balance Sheet

,quite an

ordinary custom at that time . Very few balancesheets of banks or companies interested in landedsecurities were honest during the boom period .

Sir Bryan O’

Loghlen refused to allow the directorsto be tried by a judge

,although Mr . I . A . I saacs , his

Solicitor-Genera l , now a Federal High Court Judge,recommended the matter should be proved . Sir

Matthew Henry Davies was ably defended by Mr .Theodore Fink Of the firm Of Fink

,Best and Phil lips

,

then a rising lawyer . The Davies group was deeplyinterested in the Australian Deposit and MortgageBank, the Engl ish and Austral ian Mortgage Bank,the Freehold Investment and Banking Company

,

the Victorian Mortgage and Deposit Bank,Henry

Arnold and Company,the Ga scoigne Investment

Company, and the Genera l Land and Savings Company and numerous building and land societies notl isted on the Stock Exchange . Far and away theablest of all the land boomers was Benjamin Josman

26

LAND BOOM AND LAND BOOMERSFink

,M .L .A . for Maryborough, who before the

boom began was practical ly king of the furn ituretrade of Melbourne . Fink began work as a boy inMaurice Aron ’s furn iture shop in E l izabeth S treet

,

known as Wallach Brothers . B .J . played the pianodivinely and his j ob was to produce music from tenpound German pianos to sel l them to suburbanitesfor forty to fifty pounds . Fink sold pianos as othermen sel l crayfish and peanuts

,quickly and easi ly.

When the boom opened he was interested i n the fiveleading furniture Shops of Melbourne and was worth£250 000, solidly and unencumbered . He was

making twenty thousand p ounds a year, and why hewent into the land boom cessp it is not understandable .B . J . Fink was a subtle, astute man of business Of morethan ordinary capac ity, as sagacious as hewas audacious,a man of vivid imagination and Of restless energy incarrying out his schemes . He Should have stoppedoutside the boom vortex and when the smash came hemight have gathered 1n four or five m i l l ion pounds ’worth of goods and properties . I nstead he com

pounded with his creditors for havingassets worth and paying a dividend of

one halfpenny in the pound . Of al l the financiersI have met in Austral ia or abroad, B . J . Fink waseasily the cleverest of them al l . He had no e ual inAustral ia in la bautefinance. Unfortunately or mehe lured me from an accountancy practice, where Iwas making £750 a year, to become assistant managerof the Mercantile Finance Guarantee Agency Comany, Mr . J . McA . Howden being the manager .ink carried a black bag m which were mining scrip,bank shares, Crown grants, bond warran ts , prom issory notes , debentures , bank

- deposit receip ts ,mortgages

,an 0114 p odrida of sal eable things . He

would say, Here you are, George, take this titleround to the Savings Bank and get them to prepare

27

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHRIFTa mortgage for ten thousand pounds, and I wil l cal lin to-morrow and sign it .” Or Here are a thousandNational Bank

,George, get Bil ly Jones, the share

broker,to sel l them and send me a cheque to-morrow

morning .

”

J . McA . Howden , manager, of theMercanti le Finance Company,was an extremely able

man,who did not keep his head when values started

to rise sky-high . At one time Howden held a mill ionpounds ’ worth of saleable scrip and property. Hewas son-in- law of the best accountant Melbourne everhad

,Andrew Lyell

,a shrewd Scotchman of much

common sense and fine business acumen . ThomasBent, an ex-Speaker and ex-Premier of Victoria, wasanother celebrity who made a lot of money dealing inland . AS secretary to many meetings where bigdeals were discussed amongst the big city financiers Isaw a good deal Of Tom Bent

,and I never heard him

suggest any sharp practice or propose anything dishonest .J . M . Bruce, the Prime Minister

’s father,was one

of my directors , and he too was a man of utmostintegrity and Of unblemished character . A lot of

rich Fl inders Lane people followed Bruce,Fenwick

and Dodgshun into shares of the Mercantile Financeand dropped their bundle . Other notable landboomers were William Bruce

,the cricketer ; Bob

Beeston , share broker H . T. Clarton, G . C . Clauscen,C. W. Derham

,Alfred Dunn

,H . H . Drysdale,Raynes, W . D ickson

,Sen ior

,A . F . Dean

,P . HEngel, Theodore Fink, A . J . Fuller

,F . Gillman

,

Wi l liam Greenlaw, J . M . Gillespie

,A . Goldberg

,

A . H . and W. H . George, J . Harri s

,M . Herman

,

H . H . Hayter, J . A .,

Theo . and J . H . Kitchen , S . G .

K1ng, Stephen King, R . H . Lemon,E . W. L ightf oot

,

W. A . McIntosh, A . D . Michie,R . Neave

,F . M .

Palmer, Richard Shann, W . R . Skene,W. L . Smith

,A . Stewart, W. G . Sprigg,C . F . Taylor

,John Turner

,

28

LAND BOOM AND LAND BOOMERSJoseph Woolf

,Whitt ingham Brothers, George Withers

and many others . I t i s curious to note how manysolicitors were drawn into the land boom . Thefortunes they first won were Cadmean victori es whichultimately ruined them . The only man who mademoney out of the land boom bought and sold for cash,and those who bought on credit either made com

positions with their creditors or went insolvent . Toeveryone else the boom was a volcanic calamity.

Man is chiefly a two-legged bird with feathers tobe plucked

,and the general public i s largely com

posed of people who itch to -be plucked by cleverschemers .One of the most powerful factors in creating

Victoria ’s land boom was the ring Of fifty-Six buildingsocieties Operating in Melbourne . They acted l ikeself- raising flour

,blew themselves 11 quickly and

subsided when ful ly baked into flat umps or tota lloss . The directors and secretari es Of the buildingsocieti es in Melbourne in 1 8 8 6- 9 1 were in a classby themselves . All of them were earnest temperanceworkers

,and therefore abjured alcohol , wore black

broadcloth clothes,the customary suits of solemn

black, drank too much water and over-ate themselvesand had too large fam i lies . Mostly both directorsand secretaries were elders of kirks, members ofchapels

,bethels and churches

,knew nothing, were

nothing and lost nothing . Their ignorance of theordinary rules of lending money miscalled finance wascolossal . The big idea in those unlettered days wasthat every citizen Should own his own home and buyit on building society tables

,most of which were

actuarial swindles . I t was a mistaken pol icy thenas it i s more so to-day for each struggl ing citizen totry to own his own small uncomfortable littl e house .Al l the inhabitants Of the other great cities in the worldthen , as now, l ived in comfortable, commodious flats,

29

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHRIFTtenements or apartment houses, wel l buil t, wel l warmed,easy to get at and easy to leave .I n 1 8 8 8 this deponent found himself assistant

manager of the i l l-fated Mercanti le Finance andGuarantee Company

,whose £3 shares were selling

at £8 . The chairman , B . J . Fink, suggested buyingsome shares to make my position more stable . SO

through his broker I bought two thousand sharesat £8 and fel l in . Within n ine months the last ofmy shares were sold at 2 and the frying panbecoming too hot for me I jumped into the fire whenanother financial group Off ered me £ 1 200 a year torearrange the aff airs of a leading land and propertycompany

,the Austral ian Property Company.

After ten hours ’ audit,the balance sheet showed

me the Company would be insolvent if much moneywas not raised quickly Within seven days thedirectors got bonafide conservative valuations of theirproperties fi-0m leading Melbourne valuators showing a marketable value of about a mill ion pounds .Next day the P . 8: O . Ocean ia took me toLondon , en route to Edinburgh to float ofdebentures, in a frame Of mind closely resemblingsomething blithe, buoyant and debonair . I n Edinburgh I called ou David Beath

,a F l inders Lane

soft-goods-man , who held a big parcel Of shares inthe company and after excel len t family prayers and ameagre breakfast at his home

,we assailed the hardest

headed Edinburgh firm Of Scotch accountants ev erborn in Aberdeen and got them interested in myrequest of in cash . I took my letters ofinstructions and valuations to an extremely powerfulfirm Of Scotch Stock Brokers in London who agreedto float the Home and Colonial Assets and DebenturesCorporation and issue debentures forsecured on Melbourne land and buildings valued at

They were called city properties,the

30

LAND BOOM AND LAND BOOMERSbest known of them being the building at the cornerof F l inders Lane and E l izabeth Street, once cal ledAustralian Building and previously the English andScottish Bank . Most reluctantly one had to agreeto cut four stories off the top of the fifteen-storybui lding

,plans of which I carried in a golf bag .

Also we excised a safe deposit that had been orderedand built by Milner and Company . In three daysI had secured underwriting letters for of

deben tures and in three weeks the company wasregistered ! (This seems an appropriate place to

emit another hiss of egotism, loud and prolonged .)Fancy being abl e with divine aid to extractin cash from a Scotch group of financiers in so shorta time

,without a hem or a haw, or even a dinna ken

I t was a veri table financial batt l e Of Bannockburn ,won by a green inexperienced youth Of Scotch descent .with a grossly enlarged fund Of Australian cheek,or would audacity be a less harsh euphemism WhenI got home the directors neither thanked me nor paidme any commission

,although I had saved them

,al l

l eading public men , from utter financial ruin 1 So I resigned . One curious consequence of the terrible wip ingout of mil l ions of pounds ’ worth Of assets was that theheads of the banks and the directors directly responsiblefor misj udging the financial pos ition did not suff erand were not unished. Not a single general managerwas dismissed:as they al l should have been , and boththe ignorant and the dishonest directors were al lowedto remain on the directorates . The suff erers b thedamnable cataclysm, damnable because avoi ble,were the middle class people of the community, thethr ifty, the saving, the respectable . They wereruined by the thousand because their deposited moneywas raped from them under one-sided bankingreconstruction schemes sanctioned by too complaisantj udges, and their homes and properties were torn

3 I

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTfrom them by blundering liquidators . The settlement of the land boom took place in an inferno of

dishonesty and ruthlessness . Those who had com

piled the biggest schedules of positive debts andnegative assets got Off scot free and in hundreds Ofinstances were able to ensure future freedom frommonetary Worry by concealing assets of al l sorts fromtheir creditors . A complete l ist of the alleged honourable men who made shameful in solvencies wouldstartle their descendants and amuse the rest Of thecommunity.I n the financial history of al l times there never has been

such a disgraceful financial fai lure as the Australianland boom or one on such a grand scale . The totallosses by institutions and individuals approached

sterl ing, or nearly half the country ’swealth . One of the worst compositions with creditorswas made by the general manager of the Colon ialBank of Australasia

,who failed for with

assets of a nominal value and Off ered to pay 6d.

in the pound . Very seldom were these purely imaginary dividends paid by the insolvents in thatdishonest period known as the land boom . Thisman ’s judgment of property values must have beenwarped and false

,so there is smal l wonder his

bank failed when its advances were based on wrongvaluations . I n the thick of the mad, insane bankingboom I never could properly orient my mind to understand the psychology Of the banking leaders whowere the lenders Of money to the gambling Speculatorsmost responsible for the foolish unwarranted inflationof land values . The only man with whom I used todiscuss seriously the absurd chopping and changing ofcity and suburban land allotments was my father whoprotested to his directors of the Bank of Victoriaagainst loans to the champion land boomers l ikeB . J . Fink, G . W. Taylor

,Thomas Ben t and W . L .

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CHAPTER I I I

POLITICS, LEAGUES, ASSOCIATIONS ,CLUBS . THE KYABRAM MOVEMENT

OF al l the seven pol itical leagues I have helped to

establ ish,the most interesting was what was called

the Kyabram movement for Parl iamentary reformand State retrenchment . A public meeting was heldat Kyabram

,a smal l country vil lage in the Goulburn

Va l ley,Victoria

,on 1 3th November, 1 90 1 , and it

took the agitators five months to get going . DirectlyI thought their circulars had taken eff ect amongstcountry shire councils and public bodies, I askedGeorge W . S . Dean , then the cleverest electionsecretary in Victoria, to help me to divert the movement to Melbourne . Samuel Lancaster was Chairmanof the Kyabram Committee

,and B . Goddard and

C. H . Wi lson were joint hon . secretaries . For monthsI had been writing in The Age ” suggesting areduction of State members of Parl iament becauseFederation ought to have meant less state spending .

Mr . A . J . Peacock was Premier of Victoria, and Deanand I knowing him, knew he would be too feeble tostand up against a country demand for reform andretrenchment . So we got the Kyabram leaders toconsent to explain their policy at a pub l ic meeting inMelbourne . Dean and I ran the show and HenryButler Of Sargood and Company, soft-goods-men ,found the thousand pounds . The meeting on the1 7th Apri l , 1 902 , was a bri l l iant success . We formedthe National Citizens ’ Reform League and in sevendays enrol led two thousand members . Within s ix

months we had established 2 1 4 branches . Our34

POL ITICS, LEAGUES, CLUBSprogramme demanded a reduction of the membersof the Legislative Assembly from 95 to 4 6 of theCounci l from 36 to 2 3 , and of the Ministers from1 0 to 5 . The Peacock Min is try was displaced bythe Irvine Cabinet—I rvine , Shiels, Murray, Bent,McKenz ie , Taverner, Cameron , MacLeOd and KirtonAt a General E lection on the 1 1 th October, 1 902

Mr . W . H . I rvine, backed by the National Citizen sReform League,swept the country

,winning 64 seats ,

the Opposition holding 1 8 and the Labour Party 1 3 .

I t was a ding-dong gO and two dozen“Old hatp oliticians were wiped out for ever . I f George Deanand I had not annexed the Kyabram agitators and theirpet agitation , nothing would have been done andthere would sti l l have been 95 M .L .A . I suff eredseriously in health , made large numbers Of enemies,and lost half my Stock Exchange cl ients . However,I carr ied out an item of publ ic service so nothingmatters . Previous to Kyabram I founded the YoungVictorian Patriotic League

,and there we secured

two thousand members in three weeks . The leaguefought one election for economy and lay down anddied . After Kyabram I started the People ’s L ibera lParty which perished from lack of funds . NO politicalassociation can ever succeed and become permanen twithout plenty of money . Enthusiasm is a poorvote-catcher, and mere patriotism is valueless, but as trong banking account can win seats every time .The gravest and most serious of these pol itical com

m ittees was the Constitutional Association, and thereI was the youngest member of a body which control ledthe existing, but dying, Conservative Party in pol itics .My colleagues were R . Murra Smith, RobertHa rper, Walter Madden , Edwar Langton , F . T.

Der am , W . F. Walker and M . R . McCrae, now of

Dalgety’

s in Sydney. For a few years I sparkled as

an official of the Austral ian Natives Association and35

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFToriginated half a dozen suburban branches . I hadplenty of fun making inflammatory speeches aboutthe decadent British Empire, the glorious destiny of

Austral ia,and the superiority of the native-born

Australian . Between whiles I was the instigator Ofpublic meetings to advocate occupying New Guineaand the New Hebrides

,to oppose French convictism

in New Caledonia, to prevent the A .M .P . Societyopening an office in London , and to support Australian Federation . That section of my l ife wasalways amusing and sometimes exciting. Neverforget one pol itical meeting I had called in the TownHall

,Collingwood, to expound Kyabram ic economy.

Of course the audience wouldn ’t give me a hearingtil l John Hancock, a genial, kindly soul said,Give the l ittle bloke a chance for five minutes . Hewon ’t do anybody any harm .

”You could have heard a

pin drop and a few apt allusions to the grandeur andmerits of every Austral ian in the Coll ingwood electoratewon me a host of transient friends who cheered me tothe echo when I sat down . We used to fight aboutnothing at the A .N .A . meetings and I am sorry I gaveup close connection with it because it is the onlypublic body worthy of my support . When the lateGeorge Dean and I conspired to get the Kyabrameconomy movement into our hands

,Mr. William

Irvine was Premier of Victoria and Messrs . WilliamShiel s and Thomas Bent were Ministers . As thefirst step towards publ ic economy the NationalCitizens ’ Reform League, of which I was a founder,made the first plank in its platform

,the reduction of

members from 95 to 4 6 for the Legislative Assembly.

At the General Election the I rvine Cabinet won64 seats and was abl e to reduce the assembly to 65members at which it now stands . Shiel s and BentOff ered to help me to win a seat and l ike a fool Ideclined . My election with the support Of the

36

POL ITICS, LEAGUES, CLUBSGovernment and the National Citizens ’ Reform Leaguewas a certa inty . My subsequent oliticall ife wasbound In shal lows and miseries, and

)

I lost both myheal th and my business by mixing in pol iti cs as anonentity in stead of as a sitting pol itician . Of themaking of many pol iti ca l l eagues there i s no end ,and much pol itics 13 a weariness Of the flesh . Here aresome of the many pol i ti cal bodies and societies I havehelped to direct, and of several Of them I was primemover . National L iberal Association in Bendigo m1 8 80, Young Austral ian Libera l s in 1 8 8 5 , Constitu

tionalAssociation , People’s L ibera l Party, National

Citiz ens ’ Reform League (Kyabram) , Young Victorian Patriotic League, Financial Reform League ,Bimetall ic League

, Legion Of Relief, and Middle ClassParty. Ten scrap—books contain ing thousands of mySpeeches and arti cles representing forty years of publ icwork are my only monument . I have never had avote of thanks

,a banquet, or a bouquet, though I

ho

p;some day to become a J .P.

efot e the days when pol itical parties were organiz ed and subsidized, I stood for Parl iament in acountry pocket borough cal led Grenvi l le, a decayedmin ing district near Ballarat

,and made a decent

showing at the pol l . Encouraged by the falsity of

that voting I tri ed s ingle-handed to win the seat andfailed badly. I t was not the fault of the electors forthey didn ’ t understand me nor my highfalutin aboutthe rights Of man

,the need for good publ ic finance,

the evi l Of too much borrowing by the Government,and woman ’s ri ht to vote . I ta lked above their headsand they vote for the local candidate every time .I t served me right to the extent of three hundredpVIunds per election spent in a fortnight each time .y exce l lent platform work began to pal l on the three

audiences a day,SO I hired a grey horse and buggy,

with a gramophone and operator and sent him to37

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTevery one of the th irty decayed hamlets in the electorateto del iver my speech . AS he interspersed the speechwith comic songs and humorous recitations thechildren loved it and followed him in hundreds l ikethe Pied Piper Of Hamel in . But as Will iam Trenwith,the greatest of al l the Labour tribunes of that epochsaid to me

, Meudell,they don ’ t understand you and

they’ l l wooden you .

” And woodened I was . Beforestarting for Grenvil le I called on David Syme of theAge, the greatest Of al l the pol itical leaders of histime, and he promised me the powerful support ofhis influential newspaper. My speeches were reported,but the desirable leading article describing my wonderful sagacity

,extraordinary intel lect, and god- l ike

gersonality, was never written , and I fel l l ike Lucifer,elial, Apol lyon and other chaps of that sort into th ebottomless pit of Obscurity. Even since my lastpol itical defeat I ’ve been laughing heartily wheneverI think what a lot of fun I could have bought with thethree hundred pounds I sp ent on election expenses .L ike everybody else al ive I am steeped

,soaked ,

pickled in vanity, yet not so badly conceited as toavoid admitting I made one grave mistake in anactive l ife . I descended into pol itics and becamebesmirched in business . By taking a leading parti n the Kyabram movement for publ ic economy I madearmies of enemies and lost battalions Of cl ients . No

man can become a successful politician and prosperin business . The money I spent trying to get intoParliament, and the time I wasted outside my officewould have been far better spent seeing the dreamcity of Samarkand or taking a trip to Kashmir or theWest Indies, or even to Bali , in Dutch East Indies,the

.

i s land Of the most beautiful women . Very fewp ol1ticians are educated as men, or trained for lawmak1ng. No man should be permitted to stay inParliament af ter the age Of sixty. O ld men are the

38

POL ITICS, LEAGUES, CLUBSmain cause of Britain ’s decadence, and one recal lsthe present leading Engl ish statesmen when one wantsa hearty laugh . Newspapers made gods Of tin menpainted to look l ike iron , such as Asquith, L loydGeorge

,Churchil l

,Amery

,Balfour

,Chamberlain

,

Baldwin , al l s laves of tradition shackled by ritual andconvention . And what a mess they made of thewar, the army, the navy, the peace and Great Britain

’strading supremacy

H E FINDS LITTLE R IGHTMr . H . G . Wells del ivers the negative S ide Of his

gospel in what he cal ls an outbreak of auto-Obituary,

”

which occurs in the last chapter of his book, A YearOf Prophesying . I am against the clothes we wearand the food we eat

,the houses we l ive in

,the schools

we have, our amusements, our money, our waysof trading, our ways Of making our compromises andagreements and laws

, our articles of pol iti cal association , the Bri tish Empire, the Ameri can constitution .

I think most of the clothes ugly and dirty, most of thefood bad, the houses wretched, the schools starvedand feeble

,the amusements dul l

,the monetary

methods si l ly, our ways Of trading base and wasteful,our methods Of production piecemeal and wasteful ,our pol itical arrangements solemnly idiotic . Mostof my activi ties have been to get my soul and something Of my body out Of the customs, outlook, boredoms, and contaminations Of the current phase Ofl ife .” On the positive side Mr. Wells makes thiscontri bution to the housing question Plans havebeen made that show beyond dispute that the wholepopulation of i ndustrial London could be rehoused1n fine and handsome apartment buildings , withnight and day l ifts

,roof gardens

,and nearly al l the

light, air and conveniences to be found in a Kensingtonflat, at hardly greater cost than would be needed to

39

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTchoke al l the ways out Of London with a correspondingspread of Wheatley hovels, and so great an amountof Space could be saved by so doing, that half the areaof London could be made into a playground andgarden . The familiar obj ective of Mr. Wells

’shopes is

, of course, a confederation Of al l mankind tokeep one peace through the world . I do not thinkthat the League of Nations at Geneva is ever l ikelyto develop into an eff ective World Confederation .

I t i s much more likely to develo into a seriousobstacle to such a confederation . he sooner nowthat it is scrapped and broken up the better formankind .

When the Un ited States rebel led and threw theGerman soldiers of the English kings out of thecolonies in order to get control of as much of the landof North America as possible

,the custom Of transport

ing convicts from England to America was stoppedfor ever . One thousand convicts a year had beenShipped to the Southern States for about a hundredyears . I t was one form of getting rid of oliticalagitators , ne

’er—do—well sons of aristocratic f’dmilies ,

and pickpockets who stole pennies and purloinedbread or meat from shop doors . All the rest of themalefactors were hung . There were three times asmany convicts sen t to America as to Australia . Whenthe colonies were taken over from them

,the English

authorities sent Captain Cook to find a place farenough away to make a safe prison for poachers

,

sturdy beggars, pick urses, shOp l ifters , republican s,

Communists and re ormers . The rest of the realwrong-doers—Bill S ikes, Jonathan Wild, Jack Shepard, D ick Turpin and suchlike—were hung atyburn, near Maida Vale, London , or at the crossroads, or in the Tower of London , or at NewgateStreet Off Holborn , just outs ide the O ld Bai ley pri son .

Captain Cook conferred a benefit on this Old world40

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTIndia and England are the two countries where thecaste system flourishes luxuriantly

,and where the

people in the various classes or castes disl ike or hatethose not in theirs

,mildly and virulently . To the

pern icious caste system is due the two distinguishingfeatures Of life in England and India, snobbery andpp

verty—5O per cent snobs and 50 per cent paupers .

uman nature not being changed for better or worsesince man was first created we Shal l never entirely freeourselves from the yoke of the snob, yet we maytry here to pall iate it .Great Britain ’s cardinal weakness is her poverty.

I t i s a striking paradox that the richest country inthe world is a lso the poorest . Sir Henry Campbel lBannerman once told the House of Commons thatone-fourth of the population Of the United Kingdomwas never sure of to-morrow ’s food . I t has beenreckoned that there are ten mil lion people in GreatBri tain on the brink of starvation

,not sure of the next

meal . In no other country in the world is food so

scarce and SO scanty. I n India,China and Japan

there i s no such lack of food as in the O ld Country .

I n England and especially in London the poor arealways on view gaunt

,meagre and ravenous

,crawling

furtively along every street north and south , east andwest, l icking their l ips before bakers

’ windows . Toan Austral ian this constant contact with the spectre,famine, this eternal brushing against the foodless andhungry and famished

,stalking after skins and pips

and stalks, prowling round dark corners to prospectbins and refuse boxes

,i s awful and pitiful Great

Britain does not grow enough food to feed her people .She prefers to import it

,and nearly three-fourths Of

the food consumed comes from abroad salted ,frozen and fusty . The land is there

,the soi l i s fertile,

the labour i s abundant,and Britain could

,if she

chose, grow al l her own food as easily as France and42

POL ITICS, LEAGUES, CLUBSGermany . No, She prefers to send her coal , cottonand iron to foreigners and depend on them for whatshe eats . Her peri l of being easily starved out, eitherin war or peace, could be made to vanish under tenyears Of scientific protection . Meanwhile the fewgrow richer while the many starve l The Coal S trikeproved beyond question there i s not more than tendays ’ food supply in Great Bri tain . The merethought is appalling . Ten days ’ food for those whocan buy, and no food at al l for the ten mil l ion starvers ,should a blockade ever occur And the ten mill ionshave ful l minds with their empty bel lies and nourishrebel l ious thoughts . The War and the Coal S trikeal lowed the flocculent human matter to ri se to thesurface

,and the dregs and the scum floated about the

s treets of the towns and cities evil,hollow and desperate .

What would happen duri ng a ten days ’ siege PovertyIS

' the primary cause of labour unrest everywhere .The cant cry Of the present day is , There is unresteverywhere

,

” and the comp el ling cause i s poverty.

The magazines , the books , the press, al l teem withstatements Of the unrest and discontent now ragingthrough the world . The upheaval Of the discontentsproceeds apace . Everywhere in the Old countries hasari sen the cry for more wages

,shorter hours

,and

Cheaper food , and this clamant demand comes fromone class only, the working class, or more properly,th e workers ’ class . For, barring the idle rich, we areal l working men and women nowadays . The presenttime is the reign Of ideas

,and these ideas are seeth ing

bacteria-l ike in the minds of the workers . Thehistory Of humanity is the history of revivals , mainlyreligious . The present-day revival i s pol itical , notreligious

,in character

,marked

,however

,by the same

enthusiasm,the same ferocity and fanaticism as every

revival that has gone before . The wage-earners haveat last l earnt the value of uni ty

,Of co-Operation , of

43

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTalliance . All along they have known what theywanted tod ay for the first time they know how toget it .

SNAKE VALLEY ELECTIONI n Austral ia we have 7 parl iaments, 7 governors,

62 ministers, 64 7 Members of Parl iament, and thetota l cost of parl iamentary government i sAbout 1 50 new laws and several hundred minorenactments are passed every year. About 4000candidates for Parl iament stand for election , so thatpolitics in Austral ia is a lucrative industry. I t i s alsoa cruel tax on a population of half Ofwhom are under 2 1 and have no votes . I t i s anexpensive game l ike golf

,motoring and card-playing .

Usually the man with the most money wins . Havingbeen a defeated candidate several times I know thecost of an election and much about its humours . Iwas the first candidate in Austral ia to use the phonograph during an election

,and a bucol ic constituency

threw me down with a thud . At a decayed, rottenborough with 30 names on the rol l my paid secretaryorganized a committee of 1 3 to col lect votes and see

them polled . The campaign lasted 1 0 days andthe publ ican sent in a bi l l for refreshments

,chiefly

beer, for £ 1 3 . There were 4 votes cast in my favour .I paid the bill without demur . Six months later thehotel-keeper sent me the same account again

,SO I

returned him his receipt enclosed in a letter muchhotter than the hobs of hel l .

ASSOC IATED B IMETALLIC LEAGUEThe founding of the Bimetallic League was anothersportive eff ort of mine carried out after years of studyof the question of the demonetization of si lver

,started

by Bismarck to hurt France . I t was mere filibusteringby old Bismarck

,the leading pirate of universal

h1story. He destroyed S i lver as a medium for paying44

POLITICS, LEAGUES, CLUBSdebts and harmed every debtor nation in the world

,

including my beloved native land—Austral ia . Mr .Francis A . Keating of Messrs . Gibbs , Bright andCom any, and now Of Anthony Gibbs and Sons

,

Londpon

, encouraged me in my bimetal l ic career .Keating was a special ly able and highly educated man

,

and what he said about bimetal li sm I bel ieved . Weformed a Bimetall ic League and got Moreton Frewen ,the famous English pol itical economist

,to address a

publ ic meeting in Melbourne,and for a year I wrote

and s p eechified about bimetall ism and dazed andhypnotized my audiences . I t was Splendid fun forme, because I used bimetal lism as talking practi ceagainst the day when as Treasurer of Victoria I woulddeliver my first budget without notes and despitethe help of the permanent Treasury Officers . At theelections I tackled in order to enter Parl iament, I wassplendidly bea ten by a grocer

,a school-teacher, a

shearer and a fruiterer No undertaker ever opposedme, or his unpopular ity amongst real ly l ive voterswould have helped me to wooden him .

M INES,YALLOURN

I have a genius for working dead horses on a bigscale—first

,brown coal

,next

,hydro-electri ci ty

,then ,

petroleum,and finally

,Oil- shale . Have stuck

tenaciously to each in turn without earn ing a Shekel .The most disappointing of my fighting campaignsfor recognition by investors was Of course that foroil. The most interesting was my struggle to raisemoney in London to work brown coal i n Victoria,total l ing forty thousand mill ion tons

,for al l i t is

worth , not alone for electricity, but for gas , briquettes,ammonia and other by-products , al l saleable at a profi t .We made briquettes at Yallourn

,then Morwel l , i n

1 892 , and sold them in Melbourne for £ 1 a ton , andif the blessed banks had not made such asses of

4S

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTthemselves by closing their doors , the GippslandCoal Company would have been making briquettesal l these years while s itting behind a reserve fund of

Then I met the active antagonism Of

the coal importers who are also the Shipping ring .

They have always fought against brown coal enthusiastsand decried brown coal and briquettes . The tol llevied yearly by the Newcastle

, New South Wales , coalcompanies on every Australian industry has had achoking e ff ect

,and stil l the throat Of industry is

garrotted by them and can only be freed from thecoal Thugs by a successful national briquette manufacture . There is only one good story arising out ofthe creation of the electrical enterprise at Morwell ,Yallourn . I t was late one night towards Christmaswhen the Enabl ing Bil l was before the House of

Assembly. The Premier,W . A . Watt, rushed in

to A . A . B illson, the Minister of Railways, and saidexcitedly, W.L . says that Bil l must be put throughto-night .” W .L . being W. L . Baill ieu,who has pulled the strings of the marionettes composing every State Ministry for twenty-five years .I t was just laughable because no explanation wasgiven about the Bil l or i ts Obj ects members neverknew any details of costs or expenses

,and a raw

,un

considered scheme compiled by two foreigners,Thomas

Tait, Chief Rai lway Commissioner Of Victoria , and C .

H . Mertz, an Anglo-German electr ician Of Durham ,England, was passed in one night S imply becauseW. L . Bai l l ieu said SO I The original estimate was

and so far the scheme has cost overand wil l be capital ized at £ 1 5 ,OOO ,OOO

before i t turns the corner and begins to pay Whichconfirms my l ife view that most ublic men knownothing Of finance or business

,and) their reputations

as great personages is mostly poppy-cock woven bythe newspapers .

46

POL IT ICS,LEAGUES, CLUBSCLU BS

Out of four hundred members Of the AthenazumClub of Melbourne

,when I was elected in July

,1 8 8 9 ,

only seven are al ive tod ay . I t was a real ly first-classclub

,wel l managed

,comfortable

,and

,excepting at

the French Club , there was no better dinner inMelbourne . The Athenzeum Club was founded byJames Hay who was a front ranker as a comprador,his equals being Archibald Menzies and W . C .

Wilson of Scott ’s Hotel who were Hay ’s friends andcontemporaries . The French Club was founded byDr . James George Beaney, a leading surgeon , fiftyyears ago

,and his two pals, the Denis Brothers, then

leading Melbourne j ewellers . Beaney wore diamondsal l over his clothes wherever there was a peg to hangthem on . His dinners were rare and recherche,precious as the apple Of the eye, and like his diamondsof th e first water . Nobody knew how to order adinner in Melbourne in those days unti l Lacaton,at the Maison Dorée, and Halasy and Denat, at theCafé Anglais next to the old Argus O ffice , taughtthe land boomers which was the right end of theasparagus to nibble

,and that p oulet ea casserole was

the summit of deliciousness . At the Austral ianClub founded by my father- in- law

,John George

Dougharty, and his bosom friend,Sir

James MacBain, when I was a member,th e dinners ordered from the c/zef carte blanche,given by Charlie Gates

,the solicitor

, of Taylor, Buckland and Gates

,were too ethereal almost to eat . Yet

were they duly eaten . I remember that Charl ieGates had thirty- six pairs Of boots i n his bedroom .

What a remarkable man 1As a young man I l iked belonging to clubs and

had a mania for founding l eagues or associations .That was before my i l lusions were Changed intodelusions . There Is one basic club law which ought

47

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTto be taught the novice and impressed on everyclubman at his in itiation

,j ust as certain canons of

conduct were sunk in my memory, when I became aneophyte in the best rel igion of them all , Freemasonry .

That prima rule is that what happens in a club mustnever be re erred to outside . That Club law is notkept in Melbourne

,where I have belonged to about a

doz en clubs . I t i s a practice with ignorant clubmembers to carry home talks about their fel lowmembers to their wives

,and next day, whether the

story relates to drink,gambling or conduct, every

woman in the suburbs knows al l about it. TheMelbourne Club is the most exclusive

,and the

Australian the best in Melbourne,though the Athen

aeum i s comfortable,and the Commercial Travel lers ’

Club superior in its building and appointments .The Royal Automobile Club is merely a mistake,for motorists should be united only in business andnot in social union . Many Of the Melbourne clubsare simply drinking dives . San Francisco has somefine modern clubs

,and so has Los Angeles . The

Pacific Union Club on Nobs Hil l in San Franci scoi s one of the finest clubs out of the 1 50 I have beenattached to throughout the globe . The FamilyClub, the Bohemian , and the O lympic in San Franciscohave no imitators in Australia

,nor have the Australians

created a club like the Athletic Club in LOS Angeles,or the Bath Club in London

,where swimming baths

are a feature of the club . Excepting the RoyalAutomobile Club on the S ite Of the old War O ffice inPal l Mall , London , there was no modern club-houselast time I was there . The Londoner prefers a dingy,dark, dull house for his Club , which he describes as abranch of his home, and so i t usually i s and very likeh1s house . S ince the old St. George ’s Club in HanoverSquare, I have been made honorary member of alarge number Of London clubs

,in Clubland and in the

48

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTlate Charles Garvice was chairman Of the committee,and the most notable of the authors was PoulteneyBigelow

,with whom I travel led once in the East

Indies,Hall Caine

,Andrew Carnegie (whose mono

graph On S teel and how to make money out Of i thas never been publ ished) , Franci s Gribble, R iderHaggard

,Anthony Hope

,Cutcliff e Hyne, MorleyRoberts

,Frankl in L ieber

,the author Of a very heavy,

wel l-bound telegraphic code,and myself.

NO travel book worth while that touches uponLondon life would be perfect without a reference tothe famous Savage Club

,the tryst Of London ’s clever

men-authors,artists

,play-actors and intel ligentsia

a s a caste above the bourgeoisie who swarm in theworld ’s metropolis and make it so dashed respectableand humdrum . The middle-class people Of Britain ,taking themselves and their caste so very seriously,are never vulgar nor outre

’

. They may be droll , comic,farcical, laughable, at the same time they respect theconventions, pay their rates and taxes, half fi l l theChurches, and all of them honour the King . Oftenhave I been a guest of Savage Club members , and thebest story one can tel l without breaking club law wastold me by E . J . Odel l

,a Savage Club celebri ty,

boa v iv ant,boa v iv eur et boa raconteur. One night

about eleven he went into the bar and to his horrorsaw Phil May holding a whisky and pol ly in eachhand laughing merri ly at noth ing . Time to go home

,

Phil .” With pleasure,Odell

, so they left suddenlyand slumped into the ancient growler Phil May hiredby the year to take him anywhere day and night .At Ph1l ’s house in St. John ’s Wood he made Odellcomfortable in the spare bedroom

,taking care to leave

a syphon of soda, a one-twelfth of a dozen of DanCrawford , and a box of matches alongside the bed .

Then Phil May slipped out back into the four-wheelerand headed for the Savage Club . Odel l got tired of

50

POL ITICS, LEAGUES, CLUBSbeing asleep so he aroused h imself and left the housewith the idea of going back to the Savage for a dockand a doris . Being penni less he walked from St.

John ’s Wood down the Maida Vale Road to theAdelphi Terrace and arrived at the club at aboutone a .m . Odel l told me he had to laugh hearti lybecause in the same bar entertaining the same memberswith the same j apes was Phi l May sticking tightlyto a whisky and pol ly In each fi st What a preciousstory. I have had many delicious sprees in clubs 1nal l corners Of the earth and wi thout tell ing tales out ofschool

,a thing I detest

, one particular night at theFamily Club in San Francisco was the wittiest I haveever attended . Had a bonzer all-night revel at aclub 1n Quebec

,Canada

,with Frank Carrel l , a news

paper proprietor,and felt the j oy of seeing a member

ej ected who said to me laughingly, You come fromAustral ia, don

’t you, where the Engl ish send al l theircriminals P Yes

,

” I said,that was a bad habit

of the early Engl ish who sent Walter Raleigh andCaptain Cook round the globe looking for suitableprisons for their criminal relatives and so made useof Canada, the Southern States of America, andAustral ia .” Then they fired the poor devi l down thestairs quite rudely and unjustly.

ASSOC IAT IONSThe very best service I ever rendered to my fellow

labourers in the vineyard of th e Lord was when Iinaugurated the movement to get better pay for bankclerks . Being born in a bank and knowing howbadly my father was paid by the Bank of Victoria, whogave him eight hundred pounds a year as generalmanager, I made a solemn vow to agitate for betterpay and more humane conditions for bank clerks .I tri ed several times to get into Parl iament where Iwould have ag itated for a Royal Commission on the

S I

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTsubj ect . My fellow-conspirator was the late Melvill eCalder who was al lowed a salary of five pounds a weekafter th irty years in the Bank Of Victoria . Mel . andI frequently discussed the formation of a bank clerks ’

association,but we never could get any of our pals to

j oin our revolution . They were al l afraid and said so.

By the head Of a leading bank I was warned not tohave anything to do with the agitation Openly. Imentioned my proj ect to a friend who took the risk,got a few insurgents together, and launched theBank Officials ’ Association . They ignored me altogether instead Of giving me the secretaryship . Ofcourse higher salaries were bound to come, yet somebody had to begin asking for them , and to Mel .Calder and myself i s due the honour Of beginningthis excellent reform which led to the proper treatm entof bank employés, better pay, better housing andbetter pensions .

A .N .A .

I n my callow days as in my mature,when I l ived

on ideal s and illusions,I was intensely patriotic and

too fond of writing and lecturing . I was an ardentmissioner for the Austral ian Natives ’ Association .

Never missed a meeting of the Melbourne No . I

Branch, read papers , started debates , helped to Opens ix suburban branches

,and to organize meetings on

national problems l ike the New Hebrides,New Cale

donia, New Guinea, Federation of Austral ia and so

on and SO forth . Being a Savings Bank Oflicer withexcellent prospects in the service I avoided pol iti cs

,

until I found most of the men I was associated withIn the A .N .A . were working towards Parl iamentthrough the A .N .A . Jeff . Connel ly

,an extremely

bril l iant young sol icitor in Bendigo, was a mate ofm 1ne in the Young Austral ian L iberal Association , andI found out his chief idea in boosting the A .NzA. was

5 2

POLITICS, LEAGUES, CLUBSto use i t to get into Parl iament . That he would havegot there and been Premier of Victoria was a certainty.

The two Barretts,Sunderland and Field

,passed into

politics through the A .N .A . and so did Georgeurner, J . L . Purves, Dave Hennessy (afterwardsLord Mayor of Melbourne) , Dr . T . P . McInerney,W . A . Watt, G . H . Wise, J . Hume Cook andAr thur Robinson . Particularly did Alick Peacockcarry the A .N .A . banner al l day and slee in it al ln ight

,and i t has paid him well . After a ffeld night

with my mentor, Alfred Deakin , at an A .N .A .

meeting,I consulted him regarding the wrong use

Of this patriotic and friendly society for politicalends . When I said I would resign , Deakin advisedme to stick to it . However, I dropped out and theA .N .A . has fal len from grace as a national societyand has become a safe S ick and burial association .

Our pol itics would have been superior if the A .N .A .

had retained its leadership of the Australian born .

But i t has been badly ofli cered and now i t i s afeeble shadow of what it might have been , a greatnational brotherhood , and has become a good benefitsociety in these latter days when al l friendly societiesare totter1ng to ex t1nct1on.

53

CHAPTER IVBANKS AND BANKERS

AMONGST my collection Of Meudelliana i s one

essay I read before the Bankers ’ Institute of

Australia, Of which I was an associate, entitled Is

the Bank Of England Safe which brought me muchignominy and many snubs . My argument then wasthat the bank did not hold enough gold and theresult of its eff orts to attract gold by rais ing the bankrate of interest did harm to the trade and commerceof London and Britain . I was merely forty years beforemy time . The war proved that credit was the thingand gold only fustian . The war was run on paper,and the political economists

,when I lay at the breast

Of en l ightenment,told the world that gold was in

dispensable,therefore the Bank of England was safe

and I was wrong and deserved being kicked . Now

I repeat that the control Of th e money market and thepower to raise the rate of interest arbitrarily is brigandage, pil lage, and buccaneering, which causes immenseloss every year to the merchants

,traders and business

people Of the Empire . The Bank of England shouldbe cut adrift and told it was unworthy to be a nationalbank, because i t wilfully uses its control Of the discount and interest rate to harm the whole businesscommunity . The raising and lowering Of the bankrate in London is the Chief financial scandal of thegreatest wrong-doing to the world ’s trade and commerce that is perpetrated by the seemingly honestmen who are directors Of the Bank of England .

My first experience of a bank was acquired as ababy born in Sandhurst . My father was gold buyer

BANKS AND BANKERSand accountant in the Bank of Victori a during thefirst gold rush . I n eight years he personal ly boughtover one mill ion ounces Of gold , and no man outsidethe Royal Mint ever did that in history. Gold wasev erywhere on and just under the surface in flakes

,

as dust, i n cubes , i n lumps, as smal l specimensattached to quartz

,l ike sparrow-hail and duck shot, i n

al luvial form in every creek and river, shaped in bignuggets or l ittle ones, al l over the land . Gold couldbe washed or picked or doll ied or S luiced in everycreek in Bendigo . Then when the first diggersswept the banks

,basin and valley of the Bendigo

Creek,clean and goldless for ten miles i n length by

two miles wide,they cleansed al l th e tributary creeks

of the peri lous s tuff and there was no aftermath or

gleaning . When the diggers began not to see thegold they started digging down from the grass totwelve feet in the pipeclay where more and moregold was won for l ittle eff ort . I have seen two holesat Long Gul ly twelve feet deep from which my fatherbought £ 1 200 worth of twenty- two carat gold fromfour men who had worked exactly four hours each .

My first remembrance of seeing gold was when myfather one rainy day fi l led his red bandana handkerchief with a mass Of clay taken from the peak of awhite pipeclay pyramid . We were on our way tothe Presbyterian Church at White Hill s on thatparticular Sunday and i t would have been heterodoxto wash Off the 1 8 ounces , worth , £7 2 on th e Sabbath .

In Golden Gul ly,near Golden Square, where gold

was first discovered in 1 8 5 1 , and in Long Gully andCalifornia Gul ly

,I have been shown holes (not shafts)

which yielded in sol id gold two thousand pounds’

worth in a day The dirt was easily mined with pickand shovel , and directly a claim was gutted it wasabandoned . Those early gold seekers took care toleave very l ittl e gold behind ! The diggers led a

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTdirty, rough , uncomfortable l ife because Of the wantof water for drinking and washing. They worked in alovely grass- l ined forest free from snow and wildbeasts

,in a cl imate perfect except in summer and in a

country lacking only good society, just as hel l lackswater and good society . The Bank of Victoria,Bendigo

,bought vast quantities of gold, both quartz

and alluvial,al l of the highest qual ity. Smelting was

carried on almost continuously in the bank smeltinghouse right under my bedroom window . For yearsI saw gold in every shape, size and condition , fromnugget to ingot

,and so much and so Often , as to

become familiar with it,without feel ing the sl ightest

contempt for the stuff man loves the most Of al linorganic things . When very young

,one became

accustomed to the arrival at al l hours Of the bank ’sgold buyers

,both O ffi cers and agents laden wi th the

precious stuff . The gold escort by coach to Melbournewas just before my advent, and the l ess picturesqueescort in a railway carriage ful l of armed police andClerks was the mode of transport . I t i s a simple boastto say I have seen more gold weighed for one escortthan the whole of the last generation of youngAustralians have seen in their l ives . Gold madeVictoria, Victoria made Australia, and Australian goldmade the present British Empire . Without Australia ’s gold from 1 8 52 to 1 8 72 , London could nothave become the open gold market of the world

,and

her shipping and foreign trade would not have beenon the vast and overwhelming scale made possibleby the possession Of gold for paying foreign debtsand drafts . Banking and Shipping have made Britaingreat, but without gold her banking and shippingcould not have expanded so enormously or so quickly.

Tru ly her merchants and manufacturers,thanks to

the invention of steam , were ready to capture theworld

’

s commerce and markets,and Australian gold

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTand graziers

,and none of them were very ri ch . I n

crease of population made many of these people wealthyin course of time, and land valued by the banks thenat 305 . and £2 an acre is worth £ 1 5 to £20 to—day.

A lot Of nonsense has been written about the hardshipsof these pioneer squatters, the maj ority of whom ledpleasant

,easy lives free from anxiety and hard work .

AS a class they were narrow, uncultured, and notpublic spirited .

To return again to the bank collapse in Melbourneduring the height of The Terror Of 1 8 93 . Let merecapitulate the position after the crisis . Twelvebanks of issue suspended with total l iabil ities of

including deposits for4 7 building societies, over 100 land banks, propertyand investment companies and innumerable landsyndicates

,at a guess 500, were dragged down to

the dust after the Walpurgis night dance Of overborrowing

,over- l ending

,and over-valuation . The

destruction and ruin of thousands of hard-working,respectable people was horrific . The Dark Age of

Victoria lasted for ten years,and the havoc and

wreckage was not Cleared away for thirty ! Yetnobody was punished for causing the cataclysm anddestroying hundreds Of homes . Not a single landvaluer was sent to gaol . Only one unworthy bankor building society manager did time

,

” whilst mostOf them made dishonest compositions with theircreditors, hid house and shop property away in theirwives ’ names and generally began again with lighthearts their occupations of fleecing the public on theStock Exchange or in the real estate market . Theonly bright spot in Victorian industry al l through thatinsane banking and land boom was the fact thateighty-four go ld and silver mines remained on thedividend l ist and kept thousands of poverty-strickenpeople in bread and butter

, but no C ircuses . Our

5 8

BANKS AND BANKERSwomen were more heroic than the men and went outto work in thousands to keep the poor old ruinedp eople in the mansions and cottages in food .

There was no panic leading up to the giganti cfai lure . The extinction of the banks was due to aqui et weeping away of deposits, a S i lent, secret systemof drawing a Cheque for your current account or

fixed deposit and paying i t intb th e Union or theAustralasia or the New South Wales . There were nofrantic runs on the banks, and no frenzy was Shownopenly by depositors . I t was first come, first paid,and the bank liquid assets and coin simply faded away .

I t was a good thing there were no Treasury or Commonwealth Bank Notes in those days to bolster uprotten insti tutions, because every bank that brokecompletely ought to have done so . Indeed some ofthem should not have been al lowed to re-open . SomeOf the defunct banks S imply annexed their customers ’dep osits and wrote of 90 per cent of their overdrafts Convey

,

” th e wise ca ll it—S teal ? foha fico for the phrase I The hum our of it . Nobodywas punished and everybody suff ered except the menwho engineered the financial downfal l Of an innocentpublic . The ruin was almost universal and theAustralians

,specially the women

,took their losses

and misfortunes smiling,and kept on working .

Nobody was ki lled or hurt and only a very few of theerp etrators of the ruin comm i tted suicide . Theeading valuators of those days should have gone to

p n son.

On Friday, 2 I St April, 1 8 93 , there was a run

in Sydney on the bank of New South Wales, Comm ercialBanking Company of Sydney, City BankOf Sydney, and Government Savings Bank . Sir

George D i bbs,Premier Of New South Wal es,

visi ted the Savings Bank and guaranteed the deposi ts ,yet such an important event is not included in the

59

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTofficial chronological table from 1 7 8 8 forward .

Such was the pol icy of hush and secrecy . I nMelbourne the National Bank of Australasia closedits doors on Saturday, 3oth April, 1 8 93 . The chiefdebtors of the bank were B . J . Fink, Chaff ey Brothersof Mildura, Sydney land companies, and the MidlandRailway Of West Austral ia . The National Bankpaid out £6 worth of coin in four weekspreceding its collapse . Final ly the CommercialBanking Company Of Sydney, Austral ian Joint StockBank and City Bank of Sydney stopped and re

constructed . I n Queensland in May,

1 8 93 , theQueensland National Bank

,the Royal Bank Of

Queensland, and the Bank Of North Queenslandshut up shop . Undoubtedly one prime cause Of theVictori an banks tangl ing up their aff airs was analteration of the banking law on the advice of a RoyalCommission on banking in 1 8 8 7 , permitting anybank, however Chartered, to advance money directlyon mortgage instead of by col lateral security .

I n Sydney, Sir George D ibbs , Premier, did thewisest thing possible by issuing a Gazette on Monday,1 5 th May, 1 8 93, declaring bank notes then in circulation to be legal tender . I t i s worthy of noting thaton 3 I st March, 1 8 93 , al l the notes of all the banksin all the Colonies (a word I hate intensely) onlyamounted to Nowadays note circulationverges close to £5 and is the main causeof high prices in Austral ia and the high cost of l iving.

A wise Commonwealth bank governor would call upor sell on the Open market a l l the of

Commonwealth and State stock,treasury bills

,deben

tures, and fixed deposits he holds,and recal l that

much of the note circulation . I t was terribly badand dangerous financing to i ssue notes by way of loanto these impecunious and badly managed S tatetreasuries . With how l ittle wisdom are our publi c

60

BANKS AND BANKERSfinances and banking functions managed P Thenewspaper press i s largely responsible for these veryordinary men who have been Governors of theCommonweal th Bank

,Prime Ministers and Premiers

,and bank general managers losing their heads fromadulation and the univers al process of l ick-Sp ittling.

Most of the heads of banks and all eged able leadersOf finance and capital ists I have met or heard aboutare a pretty poor lot of ordinary men and very few of

them are educated or intel lectual .There was absolutely no need for the Commercial

of Sydney to close, but Thomas D ibbs , the generalmanager closed as a matter of expediency to get thechance to strengthen h is bank’s position . Yearspreviously Dibbs told my father he could close al lhis branches , keep Head Office open , and pay 10

er cent dividend out of the bank ’s station properties .he City of Melbourne Bank only had

on deposit in Melbourne the day it shut up, andon fixed deposit in Scotland . I t was

latterly a badly managed concern with a Board ofelderly directors . O ld men who want to sl eep in theafternoon and do not watch the general manager andthe overdraft li sts shar ly are a menace.There were plenty of amusing incidents during the

enforced bank holiday decided by the late G . D . Carter,th en unfortunately Treasurer of Victoria . Carter wasa whisky merchant who was quite untrained in financethough he sustained his ignorance wi th a colossalconceit of himself. I went into the Bank of Australasia the day it defied the Government hol iday proclamation to Shake hands with John Sawers, thesuperintendent

,who was an Old friend Of my father

’sin the early days of Victorian banking . While standingthere I noticed Mars Buckley

,the draper, come inwi th two Of his shopwalkers dressed in customary

suits Of solemn black each carrying two large leather

6 1

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHRIFTtrunks . Mars drew in sovereigns , fil l edthe bags and toddled across to the Safe Deposit.Whatever might happen to the Bank of Australasia,“old Tapes and Ribbons was determined to besafe . I d

pidn

’t blame Buckley,because I had lodged

1000 in gold 1n the Safe Deposit nearly two yearsbefore the debacle . Some dreadfully irregular thingswere done during the boom and winked at by thosewho knew better . One S ignature to the transfer Ofa city property was forged

,but whether the forger

knew it was wrong it was impossible to discover.

BANx s—I 8 93

In 1 8 93 Australian banks had on

deposit,

in Australia and £2in London . These banks did not Close : Bank of

Australasia, Bank Of New South Wales, Union Bank,Royal Bank,Bank of New Zealand

,all of which

ignored the moratorium or holidays gazetted by theGovernment Of Victoria . There were twenty- sixland, finance and mortgage companies with nominalcapital £ 10, paid up 000 anddebentures issued for £ 1 2 000 . This Is the li stof banks which stopped payment

,reconstructed and

re-openedSwp m a

'ed.

Federal Bank of AustraliaMercantile Bank of AustraliaCommercial of AustraliaNational Of AustralasiaEnglish, Scottish 8: AustralianAustralian Joint StockLondon CharteredColonialBank of V ictoria! ueenslandNationalCommercial Banking Co.Of Sydney .

City Of MelbourneStandard Bank .

5 th April, 1 893 .

I st May,1 3th April,z lst April

,

26th April,

6th May,

loth May,1 sth May,1 6th May,1 7th May,28 1h April

BANKS AND BANKERSThe Ci ty of Melbourne and Standard Bank were toohopelessly rotten to t e-open , so they stayed shut .The Federal and Mercantil e banks went bung muchsooner.

FEDERAL BANKThe downfall of the Federal Bank was the most

disgraceful climacteric of the disastrous banking andland boom Of 1 8 8 6 to 1 8 93 . The head and front ofthe whole Off ending was the late James Munro, thechampion of the teetotal party of the period . Munroused this position and his building society businessto push his pol itics

,and used his pol itics to push

rai lways through suburban lands he and his clan,

cl ique or ring, had bought beforehand . So theClan Munro founded the Federal Bank with thehelp of J . B . Watson , the tri-mill ionaire gold minerof Bendigo . The Federal was a bank Of issue

,a

savings bank and a building society. J . B . Watsonhad Shares at the start

,and the other chief

shareholders wereJamesMunro shares .

William McLean, IronmongerW. McLean JennerJohn Robb, Railway ContractorA . T. RobbWhittingham Bros

,Graz iers

Table Talk,a fearl ess Soci ety paper , publi shed

the fol lowing facts

James Munro,his sons

,sons-in-law, and his clan

Of non-drinking,church-going friends borrowed all

the capital of the Federal Bank , and nearlyal l its deposits . Donald Munro had nine overdraftsamounting to Donald paid 6d. in theMr . G . Munro, a third son, owed £8000 . The

Hon. James Munro himself owed and on

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTaccount Of his station er Crellin) Theother directors had the Ollowing overdrafts

John RobbJohn WhittinghamWhittingham Bros.William McLean

Davies andW. McLean

Mrs. McLean

Kew Land Company (McLean)

The Table Talk account continued

The list of the overdrafts in the Melbourne Ofl‘ice,representing Mr . Munro ’s introductions , includesthe following accounts

,which we publish

,without

expressing any opinion as to their value as assets .The public

,however

,are entitled to know some

particulars, and any man of business may judgewhich of the debts wil l be available for collection at205 . in the

Australian Alliance Investment CompanyW. L . Bail lieu,trust account

E . L . Bail lieuJ . G. Bail lieuW. L . Bai llieuR. F . Bail lieu 945R. L . BaldingCrel lin (James Munro’

s Station property)Davies andMcLeanA . G. Hal lA. G. Hal lA . G. Hal lHeart of Preston Estate CO. (Bail lieu) 1Henry George

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTclever man , Maurice Brodsky, who married thesister Of B . J . and Theodore Fink . For his fearlessnessBrodsky had to retreat to London , and so did Benj aminJosman Fink who was threatened with assassination .

When B . J . Fink died in London he leftchiefly made up of feathers from his nest, calledFink ’s Building

,corner Of E l izabeth and Fl inders

Street, Melbourne . By the way, three valuable cornersof Melbourne had, it i s al leged , faulty titles, and it isal leged al l three were acquired by adverse possession ,that is, by fencing them in and paying the ratesfor sixteen years , hoping the dead owner wouldnever return . Fink ’s Building was one

,the State

Savings Bank, corner of Coll ins and Spencer Streetswas another

,and the L iverpool Buildings, corner

of William and Bourke Streets was another of thesevacant and unclaimed lots . The late Nathaniel Levi, anOld bil l-poster, owned this latter block, recently sold itto the Briti sh Imperial O i l Company and renamedShel l Corner, but playful ly known to the wits on thevillage green as Blood Suckers Building .

At one point of the smash period the Argus gavedata relating to sixty- seven private compositionsunder Section 1 5 1 Of the tenth part Of the InsolvencyAct. The defaulters were mostly barristers andsolicitors with liabil ities assets 30

and deficiency £2 ,777 , I 52 . Under forty- sevenarrangements only was aid on the totall iabilities Of Half O the compotesoff ered to pay from one farthing to threepence in thepound, most of them never paid a bean , a peppercorn , or a mustard seed The Argus estimatedthe total l iabil ities at £4 , toMy list of 24 8 compotes runs up toand even then i t was only part of the story Thefavourite Off er to pay was one penny in the poundAnd even in those far-Off times I have heard men

66

BANKS AND BANKERSthanking God for our strong Supreme CourtBench .

” Pooh These liquidators never got anywhere near the precincts of the Supreme Court .The insolvencies were all smothered in bank parloursand lawyers ’ Offices smothered

,stifled

,strangled and

buried with extreme unction .

TH E CYCLOPIEDIA O F VICTORIAThe Honourable Will iam Lawrence Baill ieu, rep re

senting th e Northern Province in the LegislativeAssembly of Victoria

,is a member of the wel l—known

firm Of W. L . Baill ieu and Company, auctioneers andestate agents

, 375 , Coll ins Street, Melbourne . Hewas born in Queenscl iff

,Victoria

,i n the year 1 8 59,

and is the second son of the late Mr . J . G . Bail l ieu,one of the early pioneers Of Queenscl iff . He waseducated in Queenscl iff

,and in 1 8 74 , at the age of

fourteen , entered the service Of the Bank Of Victoria ,Queenscliff , and was engaged in banking pursuits til lthe year 1 8 8 5 . I n that year he started business asauctioneer, etc ., i n conjunction with Mr. DonaldMunro, under the style of Munro and Bail l ieu .

This firm was carried on with considerable successti l l 1 8 92 , when Mr . Bail l ieu withdrew from thepartnership and started Operations on his own account .I n I 8 97 Mr . A . S . Baill ieu was admitted as a partner,and in 1 8 99 Mr . H . Scott was admitted, the firmhaving carried on business since under the style of

Bai l lieu,Allard and Company. Mr .W .L . Baill ieu i s a

director of the Herald Company and the Carl tonUnited Breweries Company . I n 1 8 9 1 he was electedto a seat in the Leg1slative Council , i n which he

‘

represents the Northern Province . He married in1 8 8 7 , Bertha, a daughter of Edward Latham , the

well-known brewer,and has a family of six chi ldren .

His wife is dead .

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTBANK MANAGERS I N BOOM

The four bank managers who did the most harmduring the banking boom were Henry Gyles Turnerand John McCutcheon Of the Commercial Bank ofAustralia

,Alfred Priestly Of the Federal Bank, and

Colin Longmuir of the City Of Melbourne Bank, al ldeceased . They were an amusing quartette who com

p eted keenly and stupidly for banking business . Theybid against one another for deposits in England, Irelandand Scotland

,and when they got them in millions,

enacted a harlequinade and scattered overdrafts,loans

,and discounts right and left on the just and the

unjust al ike . The qual ity of the security was notstrained

,and credit dropped like the gentle rai n from

heaven upon the tag- rag and bobtai l men of strawwho were conducting a feveri sh land boom amongthemselves based upon fal se

,faked

,and untrue

valuations . Having an overdraft Of againstsecurity for worth of mushroom land, banksand building societies ’ shares

,I contracted a fel l

funk and went and sold everything I had and gaveit to the poor banker . Would you bel ieve it

,he up

braided me, told me I was hurting him with hisboard by paying Off my advance

,and implored to

begin all over again to any extent I cared to nameL ike those other over-rated and highly-extoll ed bankmanagers, he had been led away by the paper prosp erity born of foreign deposits and foreign loans .

Elisethem he banished care and caution and becamet .The Australian Deposit and Mortgage Bank was

rather a superior sort of smal l bank which madeadvances on land and houses . When it fai led J . M .

Davies, a sound business lawyer, drafted a scheme Ofreconstruction and arrangements with its depositorsunder which the bank re-opened and went on with its

68

BANKS AND BANKERSbusines s . Soon after the Commercial Bank Of Australia collapsed and J . M . Davies practical ly copiedthe A .D . and M . Bank scheme wi th which thedepositors and shareholders of the Commercial wereshackled . I t was one-S ided and unjust

,especial ly

to those who were compel led to take shares fordeposits . I t took the Commercial Bank thirty yearsto pull round . Its ordinary Shares for many yearswere despised ti ll a strong group Of Austral ian brokersin London began to buy up the ordinary shares nowworth about 325 . and cut a great fortune out of them .

During the entire period of conval escence the Comm ercialBank has been just as careful ly managed, asi t was disgraceful ly managed during the boom period .

These men did not practise p ococuranti5m or the artof keeping cool and not worrying . They werefeather-weight financiers and their actions broughtthe whole financial structure of Victoria to disaster .

WI LL IAM MEUDELLDr . Black was the founder of the Bank Of Victoria,

and th e H on. Henry Miller the first chairman Of thebank . Money Miller made a protégé Of my fathersimply because he could rely on him . The Old manwas as straight as a gun barrel , and although he wasgenial and popular he had plenty Of moral courageand could say NO quite easily, an attribute mostof us haven ’t got, but which is essential in the makeup Of a good bank manager. Twice my governorsaved the Bank of Victoria from smashing . I t hadonly paid up and “a moderate expansion of

the advances meant trouble,if they threatened to

become fixed or frozen instead of being l iquid . One

day about 1 8 67 the old man got a hurry cal l to go tothe Head Office and meet Mr . Miller and Mr. JohnMatheson

,the generalmanager. He was ordered to

Warrnambool by the firs t boat, in those faraway69

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTdays the s .s . Edina . With six bal l s of quicksilverat home

,yclept children

,it couldn ’t be done . When

the governor got to Warrnambool he found a stickymess . A firm of l ive stock auctioneers, Macgregorand CO.

,had got the squatters and farmers Of the

Warrnambool district to go in for dealing in sheepand cattle and to buy and sel l on bill s . Everybodywould endorse anybody’s bills, and especial ly Macgregor ’s who had won the hearts of the three localbank managers by discounting bill s endorsed withfull recourse by men then struggling to improveWestern D i strict sheep stations which tod ay areenormously profitable to their grandsons . My fatherfound overdrafts and bill s discounted for overor one- th ird Of the capital of the Bank of Victoria ina comatose condition

,unpaid inactive accounts,

growing instead of shrinking . My father got intothe col lar

,fixed his haims on tightly, nai led up his

swingle- trees,girded up his loins and started to pul l

his clients and his bank out of the mire . I t was ahard unpleasant task

, but by nursing the good menand getting rid of the bad

,he recovered the bad debts .

The new managers of the other two local banks didfine team work with him

,and they al l got out of the

bog, thanks of course to the rich land they held as

security. As a kiddy I used to go with my father tosquatter

’

s homes to hold the ponies while the oldman talked finance and cl ips and crops

,just as though

he was a partner Of these youn men,mostly Scotch

,

who loved and trusted him . he proof i s that myfather personally administered six deceased estatestotall ing without losing one penny ofprincipal or interest, and if he had cared he couldhave had double that number and value of estates assole executor . Within four years

,he had pulled the

business back to normaland was then sent to Bendigoto square up a heavy l ist of bad debts which were

70

BANKS AND BANKERScrippl ing the bank, mostly owing by defunct m iningcompanies , in those days al l l imited and not no

l iabil ity, who had a habit of stopping work and, ratherthan make cal l s, Of letting the overdraft r .i .p . Herecovered about of bad and doubtful debts

,

and his reward was the general managership of theBank of Victoria at £800 a year, a house over thebank in Col lins Street for my parents and six si sters .Imagine the meanness Of a board of directors that paidits chief manager £800 a year to handleof assets and l iabil i ti esThe Bank of Victoria was founded by Dr . Black

and Hon. Henry Miller,better known as Money

Mil ler,who learnt banking and money lending in

the Union Bank,Hobart . I t i s said Henry used to

lend money to his fel low-clerks at S l ightly over thecurrent rate charged on overdrafts . For years thepaid-up capital of the Bank Of Victoria was only£2 and Old Money held most of the shares .When the Vic . burst wide open on 9th May, 1 8 93 ,the published list Of shareholders showed that theMil lers held only a tr ifl ing handful of shares , Edwardhaving 3 80, Albert 390, Septimus 324 , and Will iamHenry 2 76 worth £5 each, £5 uncal led, out of aregister of shares . Sir W . J . Clarke wasthe biggest holder with 205 8 shares . Which remindsme I had a glass Of sherry with Sir William at theAthenazum Club about an hour before he col lapsedto death on a tram in Coll ins Street . As I was electeda member of the Athenz um Club in July

,1 8 8 9 ,

I am well within the first dozen members stil l al iveout of 400 in that year . A fine club, the Athenz um ,

composed of realleaders in every walk Of l ife .Although I met al l the celebrated men of the daythere, club law forbids me to tel l any tales aboutthem .

7 I

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTw. KNOX AND j ori N ALSO P

Of al l the business men with whom I have beenconnected during my meteoric career

,William Knox

was easily one of the very best. With al l hismannerisms he was shrewd

,j ust and always kindly

and helpful . The Broken Hill S i lver pioneers werefortunate in getting him to be the driving force Ofthe new industry. I f Knox had remained in theBank Of Victoria he could not have failed to becomegeneral manager . He had plenty of tact and a deepknowledge of human nature . Another fine characteramongst leading men was the late John Alsop

,actuary

Of the Melbourne Savings Bank, with which he wasconnected al l his l ife . He laid the foundations firmlyand well of the present State Savings Bank systemby Opening suburban branches and pursuing anactive advertising policy . Because I was the firstVictorian to win I saac Pitman ’s shorthand certificate

,

Alsop made me his assistant, and I have a scrap bookof twenty-five pamphlets on thrift, which I wrotefor him , besides hundreds of newsp a er letters, andeach was a bri l l iant coruscation O l iterary gemsadapted from Samuel Smiles

,Charles Spurgeon and

Ralph Waldo Emerson , on the virtue Of being thrifty,and how good it was for the young . All these authorities saved their pennies, let their pounds rip and diedpoor . This much sank into my bones and fi l led uplesions in my brains . Save al l the money you can inearly youth and middle age, and spend it on whatgives you happiness . Big estates and probate dutiesare merely lack-lustre j oys only suitable for wowsersand dullards who cannot realize the j oy of living inthe present, because their thoughts, conduct andactions are concentrated on what they will do in theeternity after death . Carp e diem,

enj oy to~ day,ought

to be tattooed on the chest Of every babe which sur

72

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTcrumpled notes . Entering the over-crowded tel ler ’sbox with its piles of gold and Si lver and hil locks ofnotes

,Monty loudly exclaimed, Bai Jove, what a

lot of munnay That was all he uttered from tenuntil one O ’clock

,when the tel ler told him he might

go out to lunch and be back at two . The well-groomedcadet Of a noble family never came back and hasnever been seen in Melbourne from then till now .

When the paying teller tried to balance his cash atfour o ’clock he found he was £2500 short in notesOf assorted denominations

,singles

,fives and tens !

His uncle was advised by cable of the episode and hisreply authorized the bank to debit his account forthe missing amount .Ned Kelly was a man born out Of his time with no

education excepting his great knowledge Of theBook of the Bush his leaping thought

,rapid action

and fertil ity Of resource marked him as a Cl everfighter who in a modern war could have entered as aprivate and ended as a general .His father had been a convict

,but not a convict

of the brutal type . Rather his Off ences against thelaw were Of the kind natural to a new country Of fewfences . The lifting of horses

,and the duffing of

cattle were not crimes generally execrated . I n fact,they were the crimes from which many a great pastoralfam i ly in many countries have dated their beginnings .His mother natural ly acce ted the comm erc1al

morality of her husband and 0 her times . Her onlycrime was to protect her Children from pursuit Of thepol ice, then more hated than in more settled times,and probably deserving some of th e hatred . She

was in gaol when her son was under sentence of

death , and her last words to him are recorded tohave been , Ned would die l ike a Kelly.

”

Ned Kel ly’s first brush with the police and hisfirst convictions were the matter Of l ifting a horse .

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BANKS AND BANKERSIn his youth he knew Power, the bushranger, aninoff en sive, old, bad man . When released from hisfirst impri sonment the disl ike of the currencylad for that which he regarded as his oppressivesupervi sion by the police made his course rapid downthe laten t ways of crime .The cold murder of Sergeant Kennedy put him

outside the pale after that he shot the traitor,Aaron

Sherriff , who had been in his pay and was about tosel l him to the police . Ned Kelly Shot Sherriff atthe door of Sherriff

’

S house, while the police whowere there to take the outlaw

,Kelly

,cowered

in a back room . From that time Ned Kelly becamemore daring and intrepid ; he knew the value OfSpeed to th e moment he struck swiftly and movedswiftly to a place fifty or one hundred miles from thescene of earlier robberies, paralysing a slow-movingpolice force whose heart was not in the chase whichhad such a dangerous animal for its quarry . At theend a train- load of police sped from Melbourne tocapture an outlaw gang that had no resources butthose it made, and the pol ice in the fight that endedthe gang at Glenrowan even used a cannon .

I met th e Kel ly gang only in their works andthrough Ted L iving, my fel low-bank Cl erk . At onetim e L iving was accountant at the bank of N .S .W.

branch at Jerilderie, a smal l N .S .W. town north Of

th e Murray River . The Kel lys had already robbedthree banks and had been posted missing four monthsuntil suddenly and early on a Sunday morning theyappeared at Jeri lderi e police station . The Kelly gangrode into the pol ice yard and bailed up the threeOlicemen whom they locked in the cells . Then theKellys donned the policemen ’s Sunday clothes . Inful l sight of the public they spent the day in theprecincts Of the gaol and Ned Kel ly escorted the sergeant

’

s wife to the Roman Catholic church on Sunday75

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTmorning and stood guard while she dusted the churchbefore the visiting clergyman arrived . All day thegang held the police and not a townsman knew. OnSunday night they cut the few telegraph wires leadingfrom the town

,telephones and automobiles were not

then invented . Tartleton, the manager, and L iving,the accountant and tel ler of the Bank of New SouthWales

,had been at near-by stations Spending Saturdayand Sunday, and they rode to the bank early on

Monday. Tartleton went upstairs for a shower bathand L iving got out his cash and sorted his notes .The junior Clerk had left the front door ajar . NedKelly walked in a little before ten and placing themuzzle of a Brown Bess rifle against L iving ’s temple,ordered him to put up his hands, which Ted did withmuch zeal and t a idity. Ned said , Gimme yer keys ,”and Ted replie with the swiftness

‘

Of a flashlight,All right

,Mr . Kelly. By this time Steve Hart

had been upstair s and col lected Tartleton at thepoint of his rifle from under the Shower . Tartletondropped his soap

,threw up his arms and said, Won

’tou l et me dry m eself .” NO bally fear,

” said Mr.art. Come along down as y ’ar. And come ashe was he did in nine and one-fifth seconds by thestop watch . Mr. Ned Kel ly then fi l l ed two saddlebags from the safes and till s with notes and goldvalued at A big heavy canvas bag tookhis fancy, and he was about to drag it along whenL iving smilingly remarked

,Them ’s coppers

,m is

ter .” That be damned for a yarn,

” said Ned, but

he drew a j ack knife,used for trimming his nai ls

and cutting tobacco,from his pocket

,cut the bag

and punted pennies with his boots al l over the bankfloor . Come and ’

av a drink,” said their genial

host, Mr. Edward Kel ly, so they left the bank to itsfate, disdaining to take title deeds and overdrafts ,loans and advances

,and crossed the road to the

76

BANKS AND BANKERSpublic house . Dan Kel ly and Byrne had rounded upevery man

,woman and child in the vil lage and p ut

them in the pub . The police had been given sometucker and beer and were left i n the lock up . Theymissed al l the fun that day.

Just as the gang entered the hotel corridor, DanKel ly had drawn a bead with hi s gun on th e publicanwho had suggested that Daniel was tipsy. Ned threwhi s brother ’s rifle up and the bull et was Shot into theceiling instead of through Boniface . One shearerhad a concertina and another a fiddle

, so the bar roomwas cleared and everybody danced . The Messrs .Kelly generously bought drinks for al l hands

,most

generously and frequently,and by noon both cel lar

and bar were empty Of anything to drink . L ivingmanaged to sl ip out the back door over to the bankstable, got his horse and rode like Steve Donoghue,Tod S loan and Frank Dempsey

, not graceful ly butvery fast

,towards Deni liquin to break the news .

When he reached the telegraph Off i ce his favouriteprad fel l down dead . He bought it as a col t forfive pounds . Very bravely Ted ushed on with th egood work

,took the first train f

idr Melbourne, andturned Up at ten O

’clock precisely next morning beforeone Walsh , the inspector of the Bank of New SouthWales in Melbourne armed with a huge red and yellowcarpet bag . Walsh, without looking up said, What ’sthat for

,

” and Living brazenly replied,Want more .”

More what ? ” said Walsh . Cash ,” hinted Ted .

Mr. Kelly took the lot on Sunday.

” Oh , did he,said Walsh

,and without t aking breath , said, Mr.

Living,why are you absent from your branch wi thout

leave ? ” Of course the nCWS p a ers had answeredthat for Ted . However, Old Wa sh said, GO backat once to Jerilderi e by the noon train .

” Then herelaxed

,and Ted and I spent a j oyous n ight with the

lads Of the vil l age (and some of the lassies) tell ing

77

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTabout the vile and rude behaviour Of the Kel ly gangin collaring fifteen thousand of the best,

” mixedand al l that it was . Ned Kelly gave L iving an accountof his l ife written in his own blood . This we triedto sel l to the Melbourne newspapers, but the bestOff er by Sam Winter of the Melbourne Heraldwas only five pounds

, so L iving kept the MS . whichwas afterwards lost by a friend . Tartleton was so

angry with Walsh ’s harsh reception that he resignedfrom the bank . By midnight on Tuesday neitherTed ’s halo or mine fi tted nicely

,but we both agreed

the Kel ly gang ought to have made the event aquarterly aff air.When the popular Kel ly gang of bushrangers were

successful ly dodging the Victorian police, the bankstook more than ordinary care not to be stuck up . Inthe tiny branch at Corop where I was

,we were fur

nished with ancien t pistol s and one hundred cartridgeseach with elaborate instruction s how to load and firethem . Mine were al l used to shoot swans in LakeCooper, and I felt safe as a marksman because NedKel ly was three times as big as a black swan . Thenorth-eastern district of Victoria was the Kel ly’ss tronghold and the Oxley branch of the Bank of

Victoria was an isolated outpost in Kel ly land . Therewas a staff of four, one being a new j unior from headOffice, cal led Gaff George, who was eager to shoota Kelly or two to get the rewards . An Old gentlemannamed Lane, a director of the bank

,senile and

n ervous, visited the Oxley office to inspect thestrategic plans laid down for shooting and catching(preferably shooting) the desperadoes—Ned and Dan

Kel ly, Steve Hart and Steve Byrne . O ld Lanerehearsed the staff i n the manoeuvres to be followedwhen the Kellys cal led

,which by the way they didn ’t .

You, Mr . Wal li s, will stay in the manager ’s roomand on the first alarm wi l l aim through the door at the

78

BANKS AND BANKERSeasiest Obj ect . You, Mr. Sutherland, the tell er,wi l l drop on your knees directly Mr . Edward Kel lyenters the front door, seize the revolver provided byhead O ffice

,and kil l Kel ly without delay then you

will run out to the stable, mount your grey horse(for which the bank al lows you twenty pounds a yearfodder allowance) and ride swiftly to Oxley for thepolice . You, Mr. Williams (the ledger-keeper)when you notice Mr . Daniel Kel ly pointing his rifleat you, you will instantly fal l to the floor of the ledgerdesk and shoot h im without wasting time . And

you, Mr. George, wil l take your weapon from thedrawer and aim at Mr. Byrne or Mr . Hart, whoevermay first appear . I trust you are practising marksmanship assiduously

,Mr. George, and you know i t is

your duty to protect the bank ’s property.” They wentthrough the defensive action severaltimes

,but the

last time Gaff George,who stuttered badly was

choking inwardly. Old Lane said,And now

,Mr.

George,when the Kel lys enter the bank chambers

,

what wil l you be doing ? ” Well, Mr. Lane, Ireally think I would be stil l s itting on my stool makinga mess of things . Poor young George was transferred to Head Office for want of respect to a seniorOfficer

,and the Kellys never called .

COMMERCIAL BANKWhen this bank failed in I 8 93 i t Should have stayed

shut . I t was in a most awfully putrid state, for outOf of assets only about wasrea l izable . The bank was able to reopen becauseunder its scheme Of reconstruction the Supreme Courtal lowed it to annex worth Of customers ’

deposits and turn them into preference shares at4 per cent . The ordinary capital left from the wreckwas only and the lucky holders of ordinaryshares were so protected by an unjust scheme of

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTreconstruction that they now draw the bulk of theprofits . For many years the ordinary shares hunground 4 5 . because no dividends could be paid til lthe old debts Of the bank were comp letely clearedOff . Now they are 3 35 . and within three years fourissues Of these 1 05 . ordinaries have been made and '

nothing has been done to increase the dividends ofthe preference Shares

,whose money was taken from

them by force . I was nominal plaintiff in a casebrought against the directors to stop them payingdividends on ordinaries . We lost the case althoughSir William Irvine

,C.J .,

and Justice Mann,then

leaders of the Bar,presented our arguments mag

nificently well .

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTJ . B . Watson was another lucky digger . Fromthe Kent Mines he won twelve tons Of gold worth

from between the 300 and 500 l evels .Altogether J . B . Watson made and left a fortune Ofnearly two mill ion pounds made quickly and investedshrewdly in Melbourne city property. The sightof nine l i ttl e Watson boys and girls and nine littleMeudells marching like eighteen Christian soldiershand in hand to the Rev. Dr . Nish ’s Scotch kirk inBendigo must have aff orded plenty of fun to theangels above . The first big cheque I ever saw whenI was a bank pig-boy on the exchanges was for

signed by J . B . Watson for a mortgage overBil ly H eff ernan

’

s Shamrock Hotel,Bendigo . The

signature looked like a sketch of a hot-water radiator .Barnet Lazarus, a quartz miner who owned the twoLazarus gold mines at New Chum

,did wel l and left

He killed himself by doing his own retorting and inhaling quicksilver fumes from the amalgam .

O ld Barnet should have al lowed somebody else to dothe retorting or ought to have worn a glass mask.

My father was his executor and when Dan Lazaruscame Of age seven years later the estate was worth

or each to Sam,Abe and Dan

Lazarus . For doing that Sam and Dan each gavemy father £50 , and Abe sent him a letter Of thanksfrom London wi thout any enclosure .

STOCK EXCHANGE, COLL INS STREET BU I LD INGIn 1 8 8 7 , just as the Broken Hil l boom was failing

and fading away, the committee Of the Stock Exchangeof Melbourne al lowed itself to be swayed by thatarch land boomer

,B . J . Fink, then a member Of

committee . B . J . persuaded them to buy from someobscure land syndicate the land Opposite the existingStock Exchange then housed in a tumble-downbuilding owned by Messieurs Miller (Ted, Sep and

8 2

M INES, STOCK EXCHANGE, OILAlbert) and now belonging to the Commonweal thBank. The Mercanti le Exchange, a first-clas s newspaper and adverti s ing concern owned by H . ByronMoore, W . H . Waddell, and J . E . Gilchrist occupiedthe hal l in front

,and the Stock Exchange sess ions

were held in a ramshackle,dark

, stufliy room atthe back . Most of the trading was done in a smal lvestibule, ten feet by eighteen feet, Opening intoCollin s Street. Seats on the Exchange had sold upto and the committee th inking the boom wasfirst cousin to perpetual motion lost their heads,bought the land from the bank and erecteda fool Of a building for an Exchange which cost them

and kept th e Stock Exchange dog-poorfor the same time n early as it took Moses to cross thedesert with the children of I srael , about forty years .The A .M .P . Society lost a lot of money on the“mortgage as B . J . Fink used to call that form of securi ty .

The purchase of the land was a wrong deed and theerection Of a costly

,dark

,dul l building was a pure

act Of treason to the members . Later I helped to

save the Stock Exchange Building Company a bigsum of money . The Austral ian Property Companyhad bought the old E .S . and A . Bank at the cornerof Fl inders Lane and E l izabeth and pulled it downand started a fifteen-story building before they hadarranged for the money to finish the job That wasone of the maddest things done in the mad boomera by a board of the city ’s leading men . Theytempted me with a salary of £ 1 600 a year to takethe managership of their company, and I told themmoney could only be rai sed In London to finish theAustral ian Building and pay Off the bank overdraft .I raised £400 ,00 for the Australian Property Company in Lo

lndon and got no thanks and worse sti l l no

rokerag A safe deposit had been ordered fromMilner a

c

nd Company of Manchester and a dep osit83

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTOf 1000 paid . Part of the strong room was packedand about to be shipped . Promptly I forfeited thedeposit

,paid Milner ’s another 1 000, and they can

cel led the contract. That action of mine saved theStock Exchange Safe Deposit from failure and itsprofits kept the Building Company alive for manyyears .

BROWN COALAway back in the p ee-smash days when banksburst wide Open and overdrafts were closed with aclick I became interested in brown coal

,its uses and

its possibil ities . My handbook and vade-mecumwas the parl iamentary report of the Royal CoalCommission of 1 8 9 1 . My brother

,William Grant

Meudell, was the pioneer of the Morwell browncoalfields now cal led Yal lourn . We were interestedin several boring and mining companies and formany years shepherded brown coal areas in Gippsland, so as not to be out of i t when brown coal wasmaking fortunes for everybody interested in it . Ibecame Obsessed with ideas of its potential value,and as I was making pots Of money in those boomydays I spent some on a trip to Europe to see browncoal mines for myself. In Germany, Austria, Belgium and France I saw brown coal being mined andused raw and in briquette form . That was thirty-S ixyears ago, and to-day the Yallourn people are potteringround on the fringe of the science Of using browncoal and are sti l l throwing money away in a tinpotShed at Fi tzroy, cal led a research laboratory, in afutile attempt to find out what the Germans haveknown and been using for fifty years ! What afunny farce the history of brown coal in Victoria hasbeen , played by oafs and Official s sti l l in their pupilage .The dril l has located thirty thousand mil lion ton sof brown coal in Gippsland of varying calorific value,

84

M INES, STOCK EXCHANGE, OILand the brown coal industry is stil l in the experimentalstage Another trip I made out to London to forma company to work the big brown coal deposit onGeorge Chirnside ’s Werribee Park . I formed oneof the strangest syndicates ever col lected in London ,headed by the powerful A .E .G. Company, or GeneralE lectric Company of Berl in to put up or lay downhalf a mill ion pounds to Open a brown coalfield tosupply electricity from Laverton to Melbourne .D irectly Thomas Tait appointed C . H . Merz as

consulting electrician to the railway department mysyndicate declined to go ahead and the proj ect fai led.Thereby I lost what is known on ’Change as a wad ofmoney. C . H . Merz has drawn from the VictorianRailways Department in fees and commissions for reports and consultations . Some of

that might have been mine . Tidap a,” as they say

in Malaya,“Why worry ? I missed another

fortune . That ’s al l, wel l Nitchevo,

” it doesn ’tmatter . Altona is a much better brown coal bodythan Yallourn and is only ten miles from Melbournecompared with n inety to Yallourn . UltimatelyYallourn wil l be abandoned and Altona wil l beOperated to Supply drier brown coal and cheaperelectricity at half the cost . There are splendid possibilities i n the brown coal deposits near Adelaide,South Australia, and near Welshpool, Victoria.

STOCK EXCHANGEThe Broken Hil l S i lver Boom was just reaching its

cl imacteric when William Knox suggested I shouldjoin the Stock Exchange and do his business and thatof his most intimate friends of the Broken Hil l crowd .

These half—dozen bi shareholders and directorsformed a syndicate calfed the Barrier Ranges Association , and I was given most of their orders . Knoxgave me £2000 to buy my Exchange seat, and I

85

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFThad £2000 of my own to 0 en an account with theBank of Australasia . The rst day I took £200 incommissions and at the second session I lost £50by buying 100 Central Broken Hills instead of sel lingthem . In three months I paid my debt to Will iamKnox and record this action '

of his as by far thekindest I have experienced in l ife . He was anexceedingly able man despite certain idiosyncrasiesand his in tuitive knowledge of psychology enabledhim to select as his l ieutenan ts to handle the extensiveand growing business arising from the creation of thesilver mining industry

,such able men of high character

and sound sense as Alfred Mellor, Thomas Rollason,John Brandon

,Colin Templeton

,F . M . D ickenson ,

James Campbel l,John Bristow, C. L . Hewitt, and

many others who were attached to the powerfulBroken Hill organization from the very outset . Ontwo occasions I went to London wi th Mr . Knox andacted as his secretary in connection wi th his missionson behalf of the Broken Hill Propri etary and theMount Lyell Railway Mining Company.

When I j oined the Stock Exchange silver min ingwas proceeding vigorously in Zeehan

,Dundas , WhyteRiver and other fields on the west coast of Tasmania,

where 44 companies were being worked: In 1 8 9 1 ,1 68 gold mining compan ies were operating

BendigoBal laratSmeaton and CreswickTimor (Duke group of m 1nes)Miscel laneous in a doz en V ictorian districtsNow SouthWales and ! ueensland GoldMines

.

If i t had not been for the gold mining industryV1ctoria would have disrupted and gone to p ot for

86

M INES,STOCK EXCHANGE

, OIL

twenty-five years,and when I hear imported Governors,

modern Members Of Parl iament and Pommy vis itorsof more or l es s distinction talking disparagingly Of

mining, one cannot help sneering, laughing andgibing at them and al l such ignorant people . Amongstthe New South Wales

gold companies were two i n

which we had corners —Bear Hill,Hillgrove and

Earl Of Hopetoun. corner is a most amusingand highly pex citin event in a Stock Exchange . Itook part in four of them

,the other two being Round

Hill S i lver Company at Broken Hil l and Duke of

York Compan at Meredith . A ‘ ‘ corner is notp layed like golfyorMah Jong, or croquet, or rounders ,It 15 not nearly as simple and stupid as these games ,but vastly funnier . The plan 15 to form a syndicateto buy, take off the market and put in a Safe De osit

box al l the scrip possible up to more than hal theregister . Then the market price i s put up and downand sometimes over s ideways to encourage the 1nnocen t to“spec- sel l bear them . When themug Speculators ( the world i s ful l of them , for theyare born at the rate of ten a minute al l the time) arewel l and truly over-sold and the last scrip certificatehas been impri soned, the price i s s teadily bid up to

an irnp ossible and fal se value and held there . Noticesto deliver scrip at once are sen t to every broker whois over sold and he has to go to the syndicate, confesshe has sinned, and pay whatever the syndicate choosesto exact . When Tommy Arnfield, once a butcherboy In Bendigo, cornered Duke of York shares, severalbrokers cam e to him crying to be let Off , and beingan ex -slaughterman

,and therefore p airied to see

tears, Tommy compounded for merely nominalprices and the corner was gradually dissolved . Therewere Shares 1n Bear Hil ls and J . S . Vickery,one Of the very shrewdest brokers we ever had,made up his mind the register was too large to

8 7

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTcorner . I t wasn ’t and Vickery had to pay up , i twas said to be released from his bargains .Fi tzgerald Moore

,another brainy member, an engineer

by profession,engineered the Round Hill corner

and squeezed extremely able and crafty members l ikeG . W. Staples , Tom Luxton , C . Von Arnheim andothers . The Earl Of Hopetoun corner was workedon a commission by an outside broker, ColonelAlfred Wilson

, who afterwards distinguished himselfin the Boer War . I t was only a smal l aff air . I t i ssurprising some of the present generation Of shareholders don ’ t plan a corner just for the fun Of thething . None of them have the courage of the oldgold-mining crowd

,l ike Jimmy Taylor, M . B .

Jenkins , J . R . Rippin , Arthur Sprague, Dev . Call ,Dave Greenway,Tommy Luxton

, or J . B . S immons .These Old diehards never took the trouble to teachthe young eagles to fly

, SO these young eagles donot l ive in eyries . They are conten t to live in hencoops and make 55 . commission out of bonds anddebentures . There have - been no great men on theS tock Exchange since Agammemnon. The Shoutingthat once tore open hel l ’s concave has died down

,

and the din and dash Of confl ict for speculative stockshas passed into the limbo Of Oblivion . G . W . Stapleswas a truly great operator

,ful l of knowledge about

every stock, primed with early news from every mineof importance in Austral ia

,and quicker than light

ning or radio in acting . Staples was a king amongstShare dealers . He would quote a buying and sell ingprice for almost any active stock

,and he was a god

send and a fountain of blessings to a commissionbroker l ike myself who had a host Of small cl ients ’

orders to transact . Staples took CommodoreVanderbi lts from me one night at -market price 1 55 .

and had sold them all by next evening at up to £ 1 .

He thought nothing of buying any number of Broken

8 8

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTowed on debentures A and B issues .A friend of mine bought B debentures £ 1 00 paid,in quantities at £40 through me and held them for

a fortune . I n January, 1 8 92 , the shares of coal,brick

,and coff ee palace companies were unsaleable

,

and thereby £ 1 of paid-up capital was tiedup and became fixed and unfruitful . Fortunatelygold mining was active in Bendigo, Bal larat, Smeatonand Creswick

,Timor and al l over Victoria . This

table ought to be recorded for sake of permanence.The fol lowing figures from a circular I posted

broadcast 1n April, 1 8 96, gives a faint idea of how

bare land was used to make scrip as gambling countersand then boomed by bad men l ike myself. Theseleases were al l weaners ” to the Mount Lyel lCompany, and most Of them have since been absorbedby the big company and have produced payablecopper OI

'

C I

Share: Market Market valueComp any. I55ued. Price. of Mine.

NorthMount Lyel lLye l l ConsolsMount Lyel l Extended .

Lyel l PioneersLyel l BlocksLyel l TharsisTasman Lyel lsMelbourne Tramway Company Shares was a

stock very cleverly worked by those in control . Bya successive series Of ‘ ‘ watering the stock

,that is

by giving shareholders the right to apply for newshares at a price under the market price, and byincreasing dividends to boost prices . Trams werep ut up to £8 55 . for the £ 1 Share, paid up to 105 . with1 05 . uncal led . I t was the most bril l iant sequence ofattractive coups ever employed on the Stock Exchange

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MINES, STOCK EXCHANGE, OILof Melbourne . The business done throughout theland boom for nearly ten years in Melbourne Tramshares was literal ly enormous . Tens of thousands Ofpounds were p ut into the shares that wereIssued from time to time out of authorized .

~At £8 a share, Trams were once worthon the market, a simply fabulous price and rotten tothe core . Hundreds of people were ruined whenthe shares fel l away to and at no time in thecareer of thi s Spectacular stock were they ever worthmore than £ 1 . The company was well managed byF. G . Cla p, H . A . Wilcox and W . G . Sprigg. Thelatter diedin 1 926 leaving In 1 8 93 inthe land boom Sprigg made a composition with hiscreditors for at 4d. in the £ 1 .

BROKEN H ILLTowards the

,close Of the land boom other stocks

besides those connected with land deal ing suff ereddepreciation , mainly because holders wanted cash,therefore gold and S i lver mining shares were flungon the market. During the month Of March, 1 8 90,the depreciation in the values of nine l eading S i lverm ining companies was over five mil lion pounds !I t suited me very wel l because I had just got homefrom out in London and had found SplendId agentsinterested purely in Austral ian stocks on the LondonStock Exchange . The pioneer of the business of

sel ling Austral ian shares in London was the lateF. W. Prell, a Me lbourne merchant, who verycleverly used Austral ian scri p to pay his LondonObligation s and made profits on his local purchaseof shares . The first sharebroker to sel l Austra l ianshares of al l sorts in London was myself, and whenthe banks broke I bought bank deposit receipts in abig way chiefly in Scotland . The winter climate in

9 1

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTLondon prevented me joining the Stock Exchangethere

,and several Off ers Of partnership were made to

me because of my special and intimate knowledge ofAustral ian companies . Had I stayed in LondonI could easily have made a fortune quickly for thatreason .

Three good things did I do on the Stock Exchange .I proposed that the Exchange should endeavour tosecure that a proportion

,if not the whole, Of every

Government,Metropol itan Board of Works, and al l

other public and municipal loans should be floated inMelbourne . My resolution was opposed in theroom

, the only supporter being a man of wide vision ,E . Millard,an old Ballarat broker . My reason for

proposing such a radical change was that I hadhappened to be in London when E . G . Fitzgibbon ,chairman of the Melbourne Board of Works, wasnegotiating in Throgmorton Street . I heard aconversation between two leading bond brokers whoopenly and laughingly told me they were going tosqueeze Fitzgibbon

,who was a new chum in London

and green at the loan raising game . They made himpay 4 per cent and sel l the loan at 9 8 . The moneycould have been got much more cheaply and withless expense for brokerage

,etc .

,in Melbourne . The

next Board loan was raised by the Melbourne StockExchange, and the custom of local loans was therebyestablished, and had grown to large dimensions .Nobody ever gave me any money or thanks or flowersfor my idea . Another, the third, of my schemesbeneficial to the S tock Exchange was the establishment of the system of arbi trage in shares betweenAustralia and London . During one of my numerousvisits to London I made arrangements with a leadingfirm of stock brokers to send them daily orders tosel l shares in the principal Austral ian companies onthe London Stock Exchange . The first stock we

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTbefore the Post Office Department an option I hadsecured from the Exchange Telegraph Company of

London to establish a ticker system of sendingquotations and news by tape from the Stock Exchangeallover the city. Our off er was turned down flat bythe Post Office authorities and I lost a good commission .

Hon. W . A . Zeal , an ex—rai lway contractor,was Postmas ter-General , and being ignorant of theuse and value of the tape machine for the quickdistribution of news, he sneered at the idea and turnedus down . Zealbossed the Legislative Counci l ofVictoria for many years . He was as aggressive as abul l-ant and could bite as keenly.

Mr . William Knox, first secretary, then director,of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, a l ifelong friend Of mine, suggested I should join the StockExchange, and Off ered to pay for a seat. With hispowerful influence I was elected a member on the1 5 th January, 1 8 90, and paid £2000 for my seat .B . R . Harris , a son-in- law of Mark Moss , a wellknown city moneylender

,paid £2500 just afterwardsand holds the belt for the record price . There are

1 29 seats on the Stock Exchange Of Melbourne andonly enough business for 29 members . Unti l theExchange is reorganized the value of the seats wi l lnever reach £2500 again . The members wil l notemploy or pay agents, touts, or runners to createorders for them, according to the custom of everyStock Exchange outside Australia

,and consequently

their business is small and circumscribed and the totaldone is contemptible . About ten big firms do 90 percent of the business while 1 1 9 members sit roundand watch them doing it . I t i s a purely farcicaland nonsensical state of aff airs . So I j oined the

Stock Exchange and went through several years of

exciting, tense work, seeing fortunes made and lost,and men made poor by dabbling in the market. I94

M INES, STOCK EXCHANGE, OILdiscovered the first sound pri nciple Of Speculation tobe that success awaits the man who i s not alwaysspeculating

,but who watches his chance in one

stock either to buy or to sel l, and preferably to sel l orto bear ” i t . Money can be made on the StockExchange only in this way. Take one stock at a time .Never attempt to juggle with three or four, or thirteenor fourteen as some gamblers do so fool ishly. Not

once did I Observe a man make money on the StockExchange who was interested in numerous stocksat one time . The fool who thinks he can win everytime with any stock he fancies , invariably ends bylosing his money and frequently by being bankru ted .

The sensible gambler, and there are very few 0 thi sspecies, learns everything he can about one stock,gets the best expert advice about it and then actsor does not . Most people buy and sel l shares on

straight tips,street tips

,advice from brokers holding

the shares themselves, or they are influenced bynewspaper information

,which is general ly careful ly

prepared for the public by those who control thecompany. Another sound principle to be lai d downfor investing, is never to buy bank shares or Sharesin any company liable to call s . My experience hasbeen that most prudent investors avoided bank Share sas being too ri sky. At the end of the land boomcame a very il iad of woes , a train of disasters . Inthat day I cas t my idols to the bats and moles . Thebanking cri sis and collapse fol lowed closely on thehee ls of the obliteration of the building societi es withwhich Melbourne was engorged . These societieswere general ly managed and directed by men withoutany financial knowledge of monetary training, andthey were the easy prey of sharp land and estateagents , j erry builders and land boomers . A buildingsoc iety can only succeed under the most carefulmanagement and by keeping closely to the business

95

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTof l ending money to bona fide house-holders andrepel ling speculators as borrowers . During thedebacle an opportunity occurred of reducing thenumber of banks

,and several of them should have been

wiped out ruthlessly. A mistaken sympathy wasexercised and several dangerous institutions werepermitted to exist . Through avoiding dealing inbank Shares and land bank scrip I got through thetumult for £2 1 05 . call s due on Real Estate Bankshares . That was al l the money I lost as a sharebroker after the smash .

Two of my best exploits were working on theStock Exchange for the issue of local loans, andgoing to London to arrange to export scrip from theAustralian market to the London . There were veryfew other share brokers in that business then

,and

there were no Bai l l ieu ’s, or Robinson Clark ’s in

the game . I did very wel l and ought to have stuckto the buying of shares in M elbourne and sel lingthem by cable in London the same day. I havemade as much as 1 05 . a share on Melbourne Trams,Mount Lyells and S i lverton Trams

,and occasional ly

did better even than that . Cabling was costly and Ihad a special ly fine code by which I have sent as manyas eighty-five words by one message at a cost of 1 05 .

I found one Queensland broker in London doing aroaring trade in Australian scrip . He madein three years and foolishly started punting stockson his own account and lost it al l . Am sti l l hOp ing tosee the day when Austral ian borrowing in Londonwi ll be restricted and when al l loan s

,old and new

,

wil l be rai sed in the Commonwealth . There i s asil ly craze nowadays to try and build Rome

,meaning

Austral ia, in two or three years . S low growth issound growth .

Though many hundreds of competencies havebeen made out of mines, and though gold mining

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTMount Lyel l Company. Knox’s visit was to raisemoney ei ther by shares or by debentures to bui ld arai lway from Strahan to Mount Lyel l and to erecttreatment works . The Rothschilds cal led in J . HaysHammond

,an American mining engineer of much

tonnage and high status . Knox went confidently tothe conference which lasted half an hour. He Off ered

Mount Lyell shares at £3 their face value,a proposal quickly turned down when somebodyheld up a cable from Melbourne quoting the Sharesthe day before at 2 75 . So that settled that . HaysHammond was unfriendly towards the mine ’s prospeets although he admitted that Dr . E . D . Peter ’ sreport was technical ly sound . He would not l istento any debenture scheme and advised further prospecting to find another rich pipe of ore i n the mine likethe one which the year before had yielded about

cash to the Mount Lyel l Company. Thebusiness went fut and Knox went home i l l and disappointed . George McCulloch and I saw him off

at Victoria rai lway station, London , en route to Mar

seil les, and George said, Poor old Knox he willnever reach l\/Ielbourne alive .” He did, however,and lived to make Mount Lyell a highly successfulenterprise . As with Broken Hill Proprietary, theMount Lyel l m ine

'

was fortunate in having directorsabove suspicion and thoroughly capable secretarie sin F. M . Dicken son and Alfred Mellor.The Stock Exchange as the dew ex mac/zina i n the

drama of commerce has violent up s and downs .One year business wil l be brisk and extensive and thenext year there wil l be nothing doing

,and excepting

a few of the big firms, sharebrokers are idle and

workless . There are f ar too many members for thevolume of business

,not of course al l active . I f the

Comm ittee had bought and extinguished fifty seatswhen the price dropped to £250 , after the bank smash

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M INES, STOCK EXCHANGE, OILin 1 8 93 , seats would have been worth 5000 to-dayinstead of £ 1 700 . The chairmen from the first yearof the reconstructed Stock Exchange have been ,F . W. Howard, W. Noall, Walter Slade, JosephThomson

,R . H . Clarke , J . McWhae , W. J . Roberts

and Forster Woods . The best operators when I wasa member were G . W. Staples, Dave Thomson ,H . G . Evered, F . D . Call, M . B . Jenkins and myselfwho they are tod ay I don ’t know. An operator mustbe quicker than lightn ing in saying, Buy,

”Sel l ”

and Yes . I t i s far quicker than the bidding at awool sale . The brokers are a decent lot of men ,l iberalin the cause of chari ty, and that of good fellowShip . Their best feature i s the sacredness of theirverbal agreements . A sharebroker

’

s word is hisbond and that wil l account for good unto him in thehell where most of them generally go .

M INESCaptain Charles Sturt, the Austral ian explorer,

found Broken Hil l in 1 844 , and Charles Rasp , theboundary rider on Mount Gipps ’ station , rediscoveredit in 1 8 8 3 . A mining prospector told him it was ahil l of mullock

,that i s of worthless stone . In thirty

five years the H i l l of Mullock,” the des ised Razor

back, paid in cash and Share dividends 5 2 ,3 8 8 ,and in wages In 1 8 8 3 a syndicateformed in the house of the manager of Broken Hill,George McCulloch

,decided to peg out the whole Of

the Hill of Mullock,and they finally secured sev en

leases . They were seven poor_men Charles Rasp,

George McCulloch,George Urquhart, George A . W .

Lind, Philip Charley, David James and James Poole .The original seven shares became fourteen paying1 05 . a week in cal ls . I n 1 8 8 5 the Broken Hil l Prop rietary Company, Lim ited, was registered inshares of £20 each, i ssued as paid up to £ 1 9 . The

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTdirectors were : George McCulloch

,Bowes Kelly

,D . W. Harvey Patterson , Kenneth E . Brodribb,William Jamieson

,W. A .

’

Horn, J . W. Bakewell,

William R . Wilson and S . F . Hawkins . All exceptHarvey Patterson were poor men

,while he owned

Corona S tation,covering acres and carrying

sheep . Later on W . Knox became secretary,and Duncan McBryde and W. P . MacGregor

directors . Through W . Knox I had the good fortuneto be associated with most of the big holders of theBroken Hill group of mines . Never had I a betterfriend .

BROKEN H I LL—TH E GAME OF EUC ‘H RE FOR A SHARE

In 1 8 84 Will iam Jamieson bought three sharesin the original syndicate which owned Broken Hil lfor £ 1 1 0, £ 100 and £ 1 00 . One night he cal led onGeorge McCulloch to pay him for the last share at£ 1 00, and found an English new chum namedPairie Cox bargaining with McCulloch for one

of the original fourteen Shares in the syndicate forwhich McCulloch was asking £200 . Cox was

chaffing Mac . by Offer1ng him £ 1 00 . After a lot Ofairy p ersiflage Cox rai sed his bid to £ 1 1 0, andMcCulloch stood pat for £200 . Final ly Cox off eredto play Mac . euchre whether he gave him £ 1 20 or

£200 . Mac . agreed, and the following evening thehistori c game of euchre was played and won byPairie Cox , afterwards a prominent racing manin London

,so he bought for £ 1 20 a share that rep re

sented within s ix years on the marketMcCulloch got out Of his loss by buying a share fromone of his station hands for £90 cash, thus making£30 on his game of euchre .In 1 8 8 3 the Broken Hil l mine had unexpectedly

disclosed si lver ore of an extraordinary richness,and a group of Scotch back-blocksmen found them

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTAustral ia, and there wil l be booms of greater magnitudeagain times without number . When mules have foals,or crows turn white

,i t is l ikely such a combination

of enormously rich mineral deposits, stupendouslyignorant m ining men and a stupid investing publ icmay be crystall ized out of such fortu itous atoms .Only one Broken Hill mining squatter

,George

McCulloch, came solidly out of the boom , havingsold a quarter of a million pounds ’ worth of BrokenHill shares at their highest and bought pictures of

great artists who were in delicate health . Deathdoubles picture values

,and the crossing of the Stygian

ferry by celebrated painters made McCulloch ’

s collection one of the most valuable in London . The daybefore Vicat Cole

,the famous English landscape

painter, died, George McCulloch bought every oneof Cole ’s pictures held by the art dealers and auctioneersand of course they doubled in value soon afterwards .

M IN INGOne Of the closest shaves I ever had of making

a Shocking lot of money quickly was when Wil liamMacmurtrie

, brother-in- law OfWilliam Knox, broughtto my o ffice John Godkin , the prospector, who discovered the Hampden Copper lode at Cloncurry,Queensland . Godkin had pegged out three leasesand we went quietly to work and formed three smal lsyndicates among three groups of the leading menof Melbourne . David Syme Of the Age was theChief of one syndicate

,Malcolm MacEacharn of the

second, and Alfred Tolhurst, a sharebroker, broughthis friends into the third . The three syndicates wereformed and the money paid within three days . Wehad overlooked Will iam Knox and the mightyBroken Hill crowd in picking our Shareholders, so

mark, 10 ! and behold, next week a telegram was

published from H . H . Schlapp in Cloncurry advising

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M INES,STOCK EXCHANGE

, OIL

Knox that much work had to be done before theextent of the lode could be known

,

” which was

Obvious as everybody knew. Yet one after anotherof the investors cray—fished out of the ventures,and we had to return their money The Hampdenmine proved to be a great copper producer, and allthe best ore came out of our three blocks Whatdo you know about that ?Recollect two occasions when I made a lot of moneyby going down mines to see for myself. Once thelate A . E . Wallis of the Bank of Victoria and I wentto inspect the Cordil lera Mine

,west of Goulbourn,New South Wales . We hired a l ight buggy and pair

of horses and drove them hard and fast to the mine,shares in which were £7 105 . We arrived in time to

go through the mine with the night shift and con

cluded the amount of work done and the ore i n sightdid not justify the price . We went back to the roughbush pub

,took two beds j ust vacated by two miners

on night shift,tied our pyj ama legs and arms with

string to keep out the pulex, and slept l ike tired

p/qlicem en. Next morning we drove back to theelbourne train and passed two buggies with the

directors Of the Cordil lera Company—Josh Cushing,Phipps Turnbul l and Fi tzgerald Moore—who hadwith them G F . H . Schuler, then chief of staff onThe Age . Schuler had lived in Bendigo andknew his min ing . The second buggy contained adistended supply of food and H eidsieck

’

s dry mono

gole in case the horses ran out of grass and water .irectly I got back to the Stock Exchange I oversoldand specked 2000 Cordil lera’ s and bought them backunder £5 , not so bad for a three days ’ trip . Anotherfunny episode occurred at Wood ’s Point, a goldfield then in its second childhood . Got there oneChristmas Eve

,having done fifty miles in a bu gy

without a hood in a three—inch fal l of rain al l the ay.

1 03

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTAt dinner the room was crammed with miners in fromthe jungle to knock down their cheques . I had earneda bottle of boy and picked on Krug, a sweet winedear to the hearts of the demi—monde Of Paris , whenceI had just come . The bloke alongside poured the

precious fluid over his corned beef and cabbage , andturning to his mate said, Gor blimey, Bill, theblooming termater sauce is gawn bad .

” The roomrocked with laughter. Jim and I became friends ,and I used his information to knock the stuffing out

of several overvalued stocks on ’Change . At midnightI was roused from sleep to go and meet a deputationin the dead-house up the yard . My reception hadbeen carefully staged . There were four stark nakedmen standing si lent, smil ing, s il ly, but not berserk,on their heads in the four corners, and three morenude musicians playing the fiddle

,concerti na and

Jews ’ harp . My shout was three dozen bottlesof beer at 25 . 6d. a piece .Then came along another huge chimera

,known

to the public as the Chillagoe Copper Mines and

Railway Company,a venture blessed with the patron

age of some very big personages in the mining world .

And 10 Ben Adhem ’

s name led al l the rest . Thepublic played follow my leader in a mad

,hare

brained rush,and shares jumped from half a crown

to two pounds . At top price they were sold inthousands chiefly to London by the big holders . I twas sending owls to Athens with a vengeance . Ofttimes the j ingling guinea helps the hurt that honourfeels . I s it not lawfulfor them to do what they willwi th their own as the Apostle of old asked . Onceagain I stood upon Achil les ’ tomb and heard Troydoubted, just as time wil l doubt of Rome and bythat time be tired of following leading men intomining companies . I kept clear of the Chillagoecompany and warned my clients so that when the

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTordained destiny . On a pure bred Clydesdale palfrey,with feathered legs and a capacious back

,i t took me

ten hours to cover the thirty—one miles from Strahan toMount Lyell . They were mere bridle paths, not roads ,over which we stumbled

,down Ke l ly ’s Stone Stairs,”

and over a rocky torrent cal led Roaring Mag .

We slipped down 400 feet in one mile and c lamberedup 600 feet in the next . I t was a ride of horror,tempered by a perpetual feast of gorgeous scenery .

Bill D ixon and Jim Crotty,who found Mount Lyel l

in 1 8 8 3 , deserved every penny of their ultimatereward, for i t was a hel l-uv -a place to get to . F . O .

Henry,the storekeeper at Strahan , who grub

staked Bil l D ixon,once quietly S l ipped a smal l

blacksmith ’s anvil into one of the tucker bags, andBil l carried it the whole thirty—one miles, grunting al lthe way without knowing wherefore he Should grunt .Frank Gee Duff

,whom I met in New York l iving

Obscurely in 1 9 1 9 , introduced Mount Lyel l to BowesKel ly, William Knox and Wil liam Orr, whose BrokenHill winnings had been sadly depleted . Thesethree paid £2 for shares in a companyof after H . H . Schlapp, metal lurgist of theBroken Hill Proprietary Company

,had examined

Mount Lyell and reported favourably. Next to

Robert Sticht,the greatest metal lurgist who ever

came to Australia,stands H .H . Schlapp as a thoroughly

experienced scientist and a gentleman . Sticht waseasily p rim a inter p are5 , and to his unrivalled ski l lMount Lyel l ’s success i s due . Schlapp recommendedthat Dr . E . D . Peters

,Junior

,an American expert

on pyritic smelting,should be imported to report

on the best way to work Mount Lyell . He came forthe smal l fee of £ 1 2 50, and his report is a miningclassic. I had the luck to travel with Dr. Peters inTasmania . He was short in stature, round in figure,grizzled in mien and a typical Bostonian in speech

1 06

M INES, STOCK EXCHANGE, OILand conduct . Peters told O . G . Schlapp, nephew of

H . H . Schlapp , and then mine manager of MountLyell

,to put down a winze on the footwall . This

unearthed fabulously rich ore worth from 1 000 to

2500 oz s . of si lver to the ton. One chunk of ore

as sayed by Ward,the Tasmanian Government analyst,

gave 8 765 oz s . of silver, 4 5 oz s . of gold and 1 9 percent of Copper per ton. The average value of theore was 3 oz s . si lver, 3 oz s . gold and 5 er cent copperp er ton worth £3 a ton. That pipe 0 rich ore savedthe company as it was most difficult to rai se capitalbecause Of the ignorance of mining investors concerning such a low-grade pyritic deposit . Dr . Petersestimated there were tons of ore in theLyel l mass worth A similar m ine, theRammailsberg in Germany has been working for 800years .

OIL ! UEST IN AUSTRAL IA

When I think about the speeches I heard LordRoberts make urging the British public to gird uptheir loins and prepare to repel a German onslaught ,i t reminds me of the repeated warnings given to

Australia by leading sai lors and soldiers l ike LordJel licoe

,Admiral Henderson

,General s Birdwood and

Fi tzpatrick that this country should s trive to securean O i l Supply of i ts own so as to be independent offoreign sources Of petroleum products . There i sbound to be war in the Pacific Ocean within the nexttwenty years

,and when it comes Austral ia wil l be

weak and helpless,an easy "p rey to a raider or an

invader unless she has a domestic supply of petrolfor her aircraft and submarines . There i s not areserve Of petrol in the Commonweal th which wouldlast more than two months . There i s no reserve offuel oilat al l for the use of the Australian Navy .

We have no domestic Suppl ies of lubricants , benzol ,1 07

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTor engine kerosene . Our automobile industry isl ike a subverted pyramid

,plenty of cars, trucks and

tractors and no petrol to run them with . I t i s farcicaland would be laughable if i t were not so damnablydangerous . When war in the Pacific is declared, itmatters not by whom

,every automobil e in Austral ia

wil l stop dead,because the Government would have

to p ut an embargo on their use, and commandeerevery gal lon of petroleum products in the Commonwealth . The Australian Navy

,i ts submarines and

its warships could not leave their harbours,and the

Austral ian air force would be as impotent as a cut cat.This all sounds strong

,yet i t is true . Austral ia is

placidly standing on thin ice over a deep abyss becauseit lacks the first instrument of defence—petroleum .

My travels round the Pacific,from Japan to Patagonia

and from Vancouver to Invercargil l,enable me to laugh

at the journali sts and publ ici sts,who have never been

outside Australia,and who daily write and Utter

cautions and warnings against the Japanese and theirurgent des ire to take thi s big continent from us .

To me it seems childish blatherskite . The Japanesewould need one thousand vessel s to transport menand enough food to eff ectively occupy this vastterritory . They cannot ever try it

,because they

have not got the money, and the second solid reasonwhy the Japanese wil l not for a long time to comeattack Austral ia i s that it would be a signal for thewhite races of the world to band together to sweepback the rising tide of colour. No white nationcould aff ord to stand back and watch the Japanesetrying to effect a landing in Austral ia. For theirown sakes they would come to the rescue withoutbeing invited . If the Japanese occupied Austral ia

,

not a single tribe of white people would be safe fromdestruction . The whites of the world would comeat a run to help us so as to save their Own skins . The

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTgetting it when our existence as a people is concerned .

I f petrol cost us , to make here from coal and oilshale,1 05 . a gal lon , and if fuel oil from the same substancecost us £25 a ton , we ought to have it, and we must .I t is simply a question of money to build the retortsto extract crude Oil from coal and disti l i t from oilshale and l ignite

, of both of which material s we havethe richest

,if not the largest, deposits on earth .

Twenty mill ion pounds would be a molecular sum

to spend to make sure of our national safety andperpetual independence . AUSTRALIA MU ST HAVEHER OWN OI L SUPPLY BEFORE ANYTH ING ELSE WHATS OEVER AT ANY COST AND ! U ICKLY.

O I L SHALE—TASMAN IAIf I missed a fortune over brown coal I feel sure

I ought to make its substitute out of Oilshale . Foryears I have been intrigued by the rich possibil itiesof treating successfully the tasmanite or keroseneshale deposits of Northern Tasmania . About 25mil lion tons have been proved by boring

,running

from 35 to 4 5 gallons Of petroleum to the ton , averaging in the laboratory about 40 gallons to the ton .

The sole drawback to the oil shale deposits of Tasmania is a thin band of

, mudstone lying betweenthe upper and lower seams of Oilshale . This mudStone carries on ly about 5 per cent of oil, yet i t hasto be mined and treated along with the Shale

,thereby

increas ing the cost of treatment, and pul l ing downthe average oilcontents of the shale . SO far no

satisfactory retort has been operated,and the con

tinuous failure of retorts working at Latrobe hascast a slight Upon the prospects of the oilshaleindustry. I t i s a simple question of finding theright retort, and that must come in course of time .Then Tasmania wil l employ an army of minersdelving unceasingly to Supply the vast quantities of

I IO

M INES,STOCK EXCHANGE, OIL

shale that wil l be wanted for the batteries Of retortsworking day and night, year in year out, withoutstOp p 1ng.

BROWN COALS—ALTONA,MORWELL

I have wasted a lot of time and money hanging on

to the development of the brown coal industry ofVictoria

,which sooner or later must become one of

the most important industries in the State . I t wasduring one of my earl iest tours through the continentof Europe forty years ago I saw brown coal being usedas briquettes and as raw fuel in special locomotivesdrawing freight trains . I got the usual bee in myScotch bonnet about brown coal and began a studyOf it and its uses directly I came home . S ince thenI have made three voyages to Europe to raise capitalfor the Altona and Laverton brown coal fields, aninfinitely superior deposit to Morwell , alia5 Yal lourn .

A ltona i s ten miles from Melbourne, Morwell n inety,and in that factor alone l ies the immeasurablesuperiority of Altona over Yal lourn . My mistakewas in not j oin ing forces with W . L . Baill ieu, whoforced Morwel l into the W . A . Watt governmentwhen A . A . Billson was Minister of Railways . Parl iament was not properly informed about the proj ect,yet once it was started

,i t seemed impossible to stop

it,and final ly the working out of this important public

work was handed over to the wron set of men , whowere provided with the wrong lot of

5executive O fficers .

Primarily then as now,from first to last, Morwel l

(Yallourn) Should have been '

treated as a brown coalm ine demanding special scientific knowledge andskil l to work . Instead i t was looked upon as anelectrical undertaking

,and the character, qual ity and

faults Of the brown coal deposit were never properlyexamined . I t i s not Sir John Monash ’s fault, andhe is not to blame for the disagreeable mess the

I I I

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHRIFTchief executive Officers and their inefficient administrat ive commissioners have made of Yallourn . Thesyndicate I formed in London to develop Altonaand provide a proper electrical supply for the Stateinvestigated Morwell years before the E l ectricityCommission was established, and the firm of engineerswho reported upon it has neither peer nor equal inLondon—Messrs . Kincaid, Waller, Manville andDawson . Sir Philip Dawson , M .P . ,

i s easily theleading electrical engineer in the British Empire andhis verdict was in favour of Altona and

‘

against openingup Morwell, alia5 Yallourn .

OIL ! UEST

On a trip to California, during my wild-goosechase after petroleum , lasting over nineteen years offruitless search for o i l in Austral ia

,I took a secret

process for distil l ing Oil so as to yield a higher quantityof petrol , or as the Americans call i t gasolin e . Ip laced the process before eight l eading oilcompanies1n California and had the good fortune to meet theirchief chemists at the various demonstrations of theprocess which fai led to appeal to them

,because i t

was imperfect . And when on another occasion Iinterviewed a dozen or more leaders of the petroleumindustry to ask them to take an interest in the searchfor oilin Austral ia and provide men and money

,I

made numerous acquaintances who showed me muchkindness and gave me plenty of information andadvice, but no capital . Amongst them were thefol lowing heads

,allnotable men

,al l wealthy and

i nfluential

Captain John Barneson, of General Petroleum Corporation.W. E . White 8: A . P . Be ll, of AssociatedOil CO.B . D . Adamson, of Bal four, Guthrie 8: CO.

F . D . Boyce, chemist, for E . L . Doheny.

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTyears work for my Pan—Mexican and other corporationsare capitalized at a round forty million pounds .”E . L . Doheny it was who saved the British Navyfrom utter destruction by supplying it with oilfromhis Mexican well s direct to British fuel bases . I fDoheny had been unfriendly to Great Britain it iscertain Admiral Tirpitz would have received Jel lico,Beatty et a1., and their fleets in Hambur

g. Doheny

was the saviour of England ’s honour . e told mehe had diverted the whole of his oi l resources fromMexico across the Atlantic

,and it was done without

fuss or noise . Mr. Doheny was educated as a lawyer,and after repeated drill ing failures he struck oilina back-yard in LOS Angeles, a spot I vi sited as thoughit were a holy shrine

,or as sacred as the black stone

of Mecca,the Kaaba . When the pile of cheques

was nearly s igned Mr. Doheny produced a tumblerof water and a thin captain biscuit and apologizedfor starting his lunch . He explained that he suff eredfrom weak digestion and could eat very little solidfood . Fancy a clever

,intel lectual man of his calibre

being afflicted with a physical weakness which shortened his pleasures and destroyed his j oie de v ivre.

He kindly invited me to bring my wife and come fora week ’s tour with him over the Californian Oi l fields .We were booked to sail for home within a week, so

I had to decline his Off er . Fancy being so fragile asnot to be able to eat crayfish

,jugged hare, roast

goose and pineapple any Saturday night one fanciesthem E . L . Doheny is a gentleman , and besideshe owns Yet he cannot get tipsy oreat l ike a glutton . So I went back to the HotelAlexandria and ordered a Chateaubriand or porterhouse steak

,twelve inches square

,underdone, and

garnished with S ix sorts of vegetables and assimilatedthe mess to my protoplasm without a qualm or aquake .

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M INES,STOCK EXCHANGE

, OIL

P ETROLEUM,NATURAL GAS

,O I L SHALE

Although an Obscure,unpopular and unknown

ci tizen i t i s pleasant to reflect I have been able to beuseful to my native land by employing my pen fornearly forty years in drawing attention through thenews apers, Of which there are nine hundred p ublished

)

in Austral ia,to certain neglected natural

res ources . Long ago, while travell ing abroad, Ibecame Obsessed wi th the idea that Austral ia wasin a peri lous position because i t had no Oil well s ofi ts own . This was first made clear to me at the firstautomobile Show ever held in France

,at Paris in

1 8 9 8 , when my wife and I spent a day examiningthe embryonic motor cars

,the infants of the new

industry. I t i s certain we were the first Austral iancouple to see th e first motor Show and are probablythe only Australians who saw it . The petrol suppliedthen was costly and scarce

,because kerosene was the

consti tuent of crude petroleum in most demand,and not petrol , the l ighter volati le spirit . And thatbecame condensed in my brain as a great and abidingthought . After al l these years we are not muchfurther along th e road of complete independence of

the oilsuppliers of oth er countries . Supposing warbroke out i n the Pacific between the United Statesand Japan

, or between the United States and AUStralia, what would be the eff ect on th is Commonwealth ? Where would we get the Oil which i s thelife of al l industry and vital to human life itself ?Where would we get _ the petrol or the kerosene, or

the greases , or the fuel oil, which are so necessary toexistence because they are essential to al l machineryOf course a certain amount would be brought in ,yet a practical oilblockade would exist round our

coasts . I t is dreadful to contemplate, and so simpl eto real iz e the straits of this great country . There is

1 1 5

PLEASANT CAREER OF '

A SPENDTHR IFTno problem of national work so important as thi squestion of finding or mak ing oil within our own

boundaries—None . Borrowing, migration , buildingdevelopment

,ra i lway making, not one of them is so

vital ly important as the duty of establ ishing a domesticoilsupply. And it is al l the more regrettable that ourSeven Governments are doing nothing because wepossess the means to create an Oil supply here athome . No geological survey is being made by anyMines Department of any likely petroliferous region ,and not a single Government borehole is beingdril led

,nor one Government at work disti l l ing Oil

from coal or shale or l ignite . Yet of these carbonaccous substances Austral ia has vast resources sofar not fully delimited . We don ’t know how muchcoal

,brown coal and oilshale we possess , yet every

ton of i t carries more or less crude oil.Petrol

,cal led gasoline in the United States, costs

tenpence a gallon there and half a crown here . Packing, insurance, freight, handling and duties do notamount to more than one Shill ing a gal lon

,and as

gasoline only costs one penny a gallon to make inthe United States Of America

,the profits made by

the big oil-refining companies, who are importershere, must be enormous . With profits on kerosene,greases and lubricants

,the total profi t earned here

must be simply extraordinary . The two big men of

the foreign Oil group are E . E . Wagstaff of theBri ti sh Imperial O i l Company and H . C . Cornforthof the Vacuum O i l Company of U .S .A . Wagstaff i s an extremely shrewd expert in oilwi thnothing to learn about handling men and markets .He is a Londoner, and Sir Henri Deterding, theDutch-German Napoleon Of Petroleum

,picked out

Wagstaff special ly to build up the Royal Dutch ShellCompany’s business in Australia . And right noblyhas Wagstaff done i t . Cornforth is not so profound

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTthen Prime Minister of Canada, who, l ike CaptainBarneson, was exceptionally kind to my wife andmyself.Tom Whaley, a Canadian oil-dri ller from Petrolia,Canada

,an engineer trained on Cal ifornia Oil fields

was sent to me by John Moff at, the best-knownmining man in Queensland . Moff at wanted to dril lin a deposit of kerosene shale on the coast of Queensland

,near Rockhampton

,and Whaley advised him

that i t was not done in the best of oil society . WhenJohn Moff at died the old custom

'

of grubstakingprospectors with food and material to roam the wildslooking for mineral s and metals died with him . Ihave known dozens of these useful old-time p rosp ectors

,the scouts of the mining army. Without them

mining could never have expanded and flourished inAustralia . Tom Whaley came to Melbourne, andI adopted him temporari ly and took him through thewestern district of Victoria. Afterwards I sent him to

South Austral ia,and I personally inspected every

locality he thought had a chance of having petrollying p erda . Encouraged by an excellent work on

the geology of South Australia by Father JulianEdmund Woods

,parish priest at Penola

, SouthAustralia, published in 1 8 62 , I took a fancy to theregion between Mount Gambier and Kingston

,

South Australia, as a l ikely oil-bearing locality, and

so dreamt another dream of Alnaschar . Whaley tookcharge Of a bore-hole near Kingston and dri l led to1 100 feet without success . I became part owner ofoill icences over 60 square miles, or acres

,

near Whaley ’s bore . To give my Chateaux in Spainan earthy foundation it was my practice to take upas much land as I could get near an active bore-holedirectly dri l l ing started . In all the nineteen yearsI wasted looking for oil, and not finding it, I peggedleases or took out prospecting licences over tens of

1 1 8

M INES, STOCK EXCHANGE, OILthousands of acres . I f oilhad been struck in anyquantity anywhere in any of the States I could not

help making a fortune, and not a smal l one . NO manever engaged in a bigger gamble with zest and gustoal l the time . L ife was gay, l ife was exhilarating, andmy alia5 was Craasus . I Often wonder what I wouldhave done with so much money if I had won i t . Eventhe great Napoleon could not dine twice a day. Someday, somewhere, petroleum will be found deep downwhen the dri l lers are supplied with proper geologicalmap s and reports made by Australians . Not one

visiting foreign geologist,and not a S ingle Official

geologist, has seemed to be worthy of being trustedto tel l the truth about the existence of oil in Australia,and their advice has mostly been bad and prejudiced .

After numerous visits to Tasmania it seemed ful l ofl ikely spots for boring . There are wide and deepdeposits of tertiary and sedimentary rocks al l roundthe island in the val leys of ancient rivers and lakeswhere Oilought to be found In i ts right nidus . Attime of writing not one single Oi l wel l has been sunkin Tasmania with proper modern dri ll ing appliancesworked by qualified petroleum engineers . Until afirst-class Austral ian engineer, who understands petroleum mining

,i s given the right machinery with

proper plan s and maps,and endowed with enough

money,i t cannot be said there is no flow-oili n Aus

tralia. My Cxperience has made me prejudicedagainst oilexperts who are strangers and outsiders,and I don’ t trust them . Tasmania has great reservesof coalof all kinds and Oilshales and lignites of lowand high grades

,and Tasmania wil l yet become a

country famous for i ts oilindustry . A number of

quite unimportant people,from the national VlCWp Olnt,

must die and get out of the way before Australia 13ready to

produce oil . Especial ly must allforeign

and semi oreIgn Oil com p an1es be sent away or p ut1 19

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTout of business before Austral ia wil l get a chance tofind Oil . The basin of the Rivery Murray mustcontain more or less petroleum because from thebeginning of time it has been draining an extensivebasin of square miles and carrying the detri tusand al luvium towards the sea. Yet no proper efforthas been made to locate oilin the River Murrayvalley. No proper bore-hole has ever been dril led

,

and no geological survey ever made . What Shockingtreachery to Australia ’s future Once I applied for1 00 square miles of the bed of the Coorong to prospecti t for Oi l from j etties as I had seen practised at Summerland in California . I t took a year to get a title, andby that time a local company had struck excellentroad metal in three holes nearby. How much landin the Coorong district of South Australia I held byscrip and by licence from time to time it i s hard to say,perhaps acres . A thimbleful of crude oilfound there would have made me a tri-millionaire inone night

,and the shock would certainly have turned

my hair glossy black The most l ikely spot to findoilon our big continent is in Central Australia wherefor ages the rivers draining Queensland and NewSouth Wales have been depositing earth sedimentscontaining foram in ifera

,the true bacil l i ot

ypetroleum,

along the two ancient beaches made when a sea randiagonal ly from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the GreatAustral ian Bight . If this

,my book of memorabilia,

i s not al l used up i n bath-heaters, some bookwormin the next century will republish this prediction .

Among other Oily wil l-O’-the-wisps I have followed,

I went once to New Caledonia after oil leas es , andtook some concessions to San Francisco for consideration by some heads of the oi l world . Their expertsdid not ‘like the serpentine formation from which theOi l seepages emerged

, so that fai led . Another time Iwent by rail to Bunbury

,in West Austral ia

,and in

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTuti lized . Meanwhile the natural as i s blowing intothe air and I have missed a pot 0 money.

DESTRUCTION O F BEND IGO GOLDF IELDI t has not been often in the history of this com

munity that half a dozen men have been given the

power to destroy a goldfield. That power has beenused in a hideous manner by a few men to wipe outmining in Bendigo

,where of gold was

raised in seventy years . In 1 9 1 6 an elaborate pamphlet was compi led by E . C . Dyason, son of I saacDyason for many years George Lansell

’

s sup erin

tendent, advocating the amalgamation of about fiftymines in order to economize

,to reduce mining costs ,

to save labour,to S ink new shafts

,to introduce modern

mining methods which were badly needed, andgenera l ly to improve the position of mining in Bendigoand add to i ts wealth and population . Not one

s ingle promise,not one prediction

,has been fulfi l led .

In stead of progress a policy of destruction was instituted, machinery and equipment were stripped,dynamited

,broken up , torn down , dismantled, turned

into scrap metal and sold . Gradually the mineswere drowned by the rising water

,and one by one

they were abandoned unti l to-day there are on lythree working of the forty-eight mines taken overby the Bendigo Amalgamated Goldfield Company thatundertook to do wonderful things . The net resultof the Bendigo Amalgamated Com any’s eff orts hasbeen the destruction of what was leff of the industry .

Of forty—eight mines that were Ul timately broughtunder one control

,only two are now working . In

the others the plant has been stripped,iron castings

dynamited, steam engines broken up, winding andpumping plant dismantled

,batteries destroyed

,and

rai ls, trucks and tool s sold . Machinery and equipment that would now cost £2 to replace has

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MINES,STOCK EXCHANGE, OIL

been passed out as scrap iron . The mines are floodedout and drowned Water is rising in al l the abandoned mines . I t i s within 100 feet Of the surface .The cost of instal ling pumps to take the place Of thosethat have been destroyed or sold would be three timesits value at the time the Amalgamation took the

mines over . Along one l ine of reef covering threemiles there are twenty shafts , and if a companystarted to work one of its claims it would have tobegin by pumping out the whole of the shafts alongthat l ine . The mines that did not come into thescheme are on the New Chum line of reef. Thatl ine which has be en opened up for four miles i s ful lof water . Noth ing more damnable in wanton destruction has ever been done in Australia .Bendigo was a grand goldfield which yielded

£7O ,OOO,OOO of gold between 1 8 5 1 and 1 92 1 , sayin seventy years . I t has had as many as 200

mines working at the same time of which 1 05 paiddividends . The war crippled the mines the worldstopped using gold in favour of paper the cost ofl iving and of material s arose tremendously, and goldmin ing became unprofitable . The directors of thenumerous gold mining companies, i n order to keepgoing

,used dynam ite to blow Up

,tear down and scrap

machinery which was sold as old iron . Poppetheads were sold for firewood and the utmost caretaken to destroy every vestige of anything that wouldindicate the exi stence of a once great gold mine .The mines were al lowed to fi l l with water and thegreat gold mining field of Bendigo was stabbed whereit lay by its lawful protectors . Whatever viewhistorian s may take of the mean and dastardlydestruction Of a fine industry and good city, as anative of Bendigo I protest against the vandalism of

1ts massacre .

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTTARNAGULLA NUGGET FI ELD

To the end of 1 926 from 1 8 5 1 , i n seventy-fiveyears

,just a man ’s l ifetime, Victoria produced

three hundred and eighteen mill ionpounds ’ worth of gold Fools and economists cal lgold-mining the robber industry, overlooking itsgreat value as the very foundation and moving powerof Victoria and of Austral ia, and turning away fromthe romance in mining. Here is one romantic storyout of many I could tell . The Poverty Reef at Tarnagulla, Victoria, ranks as one of the richest gold reefsin the world . The yield Of gold from this reef oftenwent as high as 50 ounces to the ton and becamericher as it went down . From the surface to 400 feetthe reef was 20 feet thick

,and this big mass of stone

averaged 6 ounces to the ton throughout . Theamount of gold taken from four claims along the lineof reef for only 1 4 1 feet yielded £ 1 , Welshman ’s claim gave a profit of to nine shareholders who worked it themselves . There has beenno such hil l of gold in history . The nuggets of puregold found in the Tarnagulla and Dunolly districtswere fabulous . The Welcome Stranger nuggetfound ten inches below the surface sold forThe Welcome nugget found at Bakery Hill

,Ballarat

,

was sold for The Blanche Barkly nuggetwas worth £7000, and it was 96 per cent pure go ld .

At Canadian Gully, Ballarat, in 1 8 54 , two new chums,only two months in the colony

,found a 1 6 1 9 ounce

nugget at 60 feet which fetched £6400 . Two otherimmigrants just landed unearthed a solid lump of

gold weighing 1 008 ounces,worth £4080 1 At

Back Creek, Taradale, digging to 1 2 feet,a party of

three divided £3000 for a week ’s work . But whycontinue to emphasize the lucky S ide of digging forgold . In 1 8 52 , in Victoria, gold valued at

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTAustralian has ever attempted . I t was a grandgamble

,for if any of the numerous dril ling companies

had struck oil, the fortune I would have cut out of

the Stock Exchange must have been colossal, becausethe Austral ian i s the best and pluckiest gambler onearth . Gambling to him is inherent and instinctive,part of his heredity . For were not the Australianpioneers gamesters and adventurers ? SO my mateand I went al l over the earth looking at oil-fields andoil-wells

,and I learnt the business side of petroleum

mining,the most fascinating because the most ri sky

of all the great industries . Allthe time I was readingabout petroleum and when I formed my first syndicate with a modest capital and an immodest name asthe Standard O i l of Australia it made people laugh .

That syndicate floated the Australian O i l Wells Company

,no l iability, which provided funds to raise

capital for a dri lling company I christened the SouthAustral ian O i l Wells Company

,N .L . stil l extant .

My friends scoff ed, my enemies laughed , and so didI . True I wa5 a crank

,yet SO was Colonel Drake

who first struck oilby dri ll ing in Pennsylvania in1 8 59 . I t took fifteen months to form the company,and it was accomplished by my incessant work in theAustralian press and by means of a box of lanternslides of gushers and Oi l wells (a very few dryholes) to i l lustrate thirty-one lectures I delivered inVictoria and South Australia . Final ly I secured over2000 shareholders by my own persistent efforts . Neverdid I sel l fewer than ten bob ’s worth of the 25 . shares .That would have been demeaning a great enter rise .After my meetings I used to fi l l Up application fi rmsand take the cash . At one smal l farming centre acocky farmer was so excited and bedazzled bythe bright future I painted with a broad brush , andof the easy fortune he ought to seize, that he aveme a ten-shil ling note along with the nam es 0 his

1 26

M INES, STOCK EXCHANGE, OILfive daughters for one 25 . share each There may be,but I don ’ t know of any Victorian who has writtenmore prospectuses or helped to float more companiesof all sorts than myself. To form that little groupof three oil-prospecting companies was the hardestpromotion job I have ever tackled . And by the timethe job was finished every one of the 8 8 2 newspapersthen published in Australia

,had received from me

at least half a dozen articles, paragraphs , or circulars ,some of them even more Hercules, Roget theThesaurus man

,Webster the dictionary chap and

Sir Walter Scott combined never worked so hard ateasier tasks . We began a policy of blind stabbingbecause none of the l ikely oil- bearing country in SouthAustralia had been surveyed or mapped geological ly.

Even to-day there i s no complete geological surveyin any state in the Commonwealth . Our Ofli cialgeologists have surveyed the gold fields and producedgeological plans

,but nothing has been done towards

a complete geological reconnaissance of the countryfor other minerals . And this is the right place tocal l the omission a das tardly disgrace .After a long voyage with my mate through India,Burmah

,the Malay S tates

,and the Straits Settle

ments,we decided to come home to the best country

and the finest people in the world, by way of theDutch East Indies . I n those days one could travelfrom S ingapore to Java and right round the EastI ndies

,New Guinea and British Papua by the Nord

Deutscher L loyd line of steamers , surely the very bestpassenger boats on the seven seas in those days . Weboth cling firmly to that dictum , and what marriedcouple in the world are better able to judge by com

parison and give that opinion . We had sai led on al lthe leading lines of al l the maritime nations—British ,American

,German

,French

,Austrian , Dutch , Belgian ,

Japanese,I talian and Turkish—on every great river

1 27

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTand across every great ocean . For comfort, quiet,sociabi lity

,food and attention the N.D .L . steamers had

no equal, although some of the Messageries Mari timeand the P . and O . boats are fairly comfortable forpassengers . Perhaps it was the snobbery and flunkeyi sm of the British

,American and Canadian steamers

that was repellent . There is a long list of apt wordsto use to describe travel ling Anglo-Saxons, AngloIndians and Anglo—Americans . They are swanky,j ammy

,stiff

,starchy

,self-conscious

,baroque and

bizarre, all ari sing from conceit and a false claim tobe the superior people of the world and they arealways SO patronizing and condescending, thereforecan one forbear to laugh, my friends Al l throughthat long voyage to Sydney we talked oil, read oil,and saw oil. Then a great inspiration was formed inO lympus and descended On my brain , formulated inthi s manner

,Australia holds every other metal and

mineral, so why not Oi l I f you find Oil,George, you

will perform two great services—e nrich yourselfenormously and make your native land the mostowerfulof al l countries . GO to it, George —SO I went .hink of my stimuli . I had studied minin l ivedamongst mining men

,been down hundreds o mines,

and had seen on the Stock Exchange men make bigfortunes quickly and easily out of mines—gold,si lver, copper and tin . I t did not take more geologythan I knew to convince me Australia

,being a tertiary,a sedimentary

,a carbonaceous land

,must and does

contain petroleum in some part of it. All my taskwas to find two bucketsful of petroleum and I wasnot only a made man

,but certain to be a very rich

one . So I gave Up al l else and went to work to educatea few people ready for a tremendous gamble to findmoney to dri l l for oil. For two years, I wrote, Spoke,lectured about the existence of petroleum, taught itsgeology, urged its necessity, pointed out the reward

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CHAPTER VI

FORTUNES M ISSEDSOME big piles of money have been derived from goldmining . George Lansellof Bendigo, who startedlife as a soap and candle maker

,left £3 , in

debentures and bonds payable to bearer . He did notinvest in land or city property like J . B . Watson of

Bendigo,who left 000 made out of one mine,

safely invested in Melbourne city property. Lathamand Watson made a million in no time and put i tback into mines . SirW. J . Clarke ’s father, original lya butcher 1n Hobart

,bought the best land In Victoria

for 105 . to £ 1 an acre, and left his family £2 ,000,000 .

His grandson, Sir Rupert Clarke, cleverly handled

his share of his father ’ s estate and had an income ofa year

,which at 5 per cent representsEdmund Jowett

,a Yorkshire wool

stapler, backed by trusty friends, col lected sixty sheepstations during droughts and 1s worth 000 ina good season and 000 in a bad . I first knewJowett when he got five pound a week for writingthe ‘ ‘ Argus wool reports . James Tyson gathereda lot of sheep and cattle stations

,l ived meanly

,and

died without a will,leaving nearly 000 for

the Supreme Courts of the States to distribute amongsthis kin . S idney Kidman

,another squatter, a colossus

among sheep owners,a mammoth Brobclignagian

among cattle owners,has nearly seventy stations, and

unti l he dies wi l l not know how much more than000 he is worth . The Syme Brothers ,

.prop rietors of the Melbourne Age

,

” enj oy a j ointincome of a £ 100,000 a year which capital izes at

1 30

FORTUNES M ISSEDThe Connibere Brothers, the wisest

men in the Fl inders Lane rag trade,sold out lock,

stock and barrel at the height Of the post-war boomin soft goods , and putting the proceeds into cityrop erty a l i ttle way out are good forJimmy R ichardson , once a ship ’s steward, now theAntaeus of the l iquor trade of Melbourne,must paytaxes on a million pounds . Sir Ge orge Tal lis

,whose

autobiography would be enti tled From Clerk toTheatrical King,

” i s drawing very close to being amillion-pounder . Darl ing Brothers, the wheat firmwho would be smal l fry in the wheat pit which I saw inChicago

,command and perhaps more .

Joshua Brothers started in Melbourne as sugarboilers and left off as whisky boilers . How muchmore than a mill ion they made is esoteric

,concealed

,

cryptic . Foy and Gibson , th e suburban drapers whobecame wool len manufacturers and universal providers

,are easily worth Harry Howard Smithis the ri chest shipowner in Australia and some daywi ll cut up for Sir Edward Miller

,

son of old Money Mil ler,has barely a million

,

and rea l ly doesn ’t deserve any more because he doesnot know what to do with the mill ion he very nearlyhas . Bowes Kel ly made a fortune out of a one-fourteenth Broken Hil l Syndicate shares and lost i t nearlyal l in Zeehan and elsewhere

,until he got into the

Mount Lyel l Mine . Bowes owns ci ht hundred QueenAnne vil las besides a tin box ful l of

gscrip and is worth

easi ly a mil lion . H . V . McKay, the Sunshine Harvester Maker

,died far too soon or his

would have been doubled . William Angliss, the meatking, was a pommy butcher from Dev onshire andhis £2 ,OOO ,OOO i s creeping towardsThe spectacular fortune made recently in Victoriabelongs to W . L. Bail lieu , a hero of the ancient landboom, i f not ! be hero . D ick Garland gave him the

1 3 1

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTDunlop Rubber Company

,Herbert J . Daly put him

on to the Broken Hill Zinc dumps, and De Bavayfound a flotation process to treat them . JohnnieWharton bought the North and South Broken Hil lshares for him . Carl P inschof showed him how to

form the Carlton United Breweries . Theodore Finktold W.L . he was sure Herald shares were worthbuying . H . W . Gepp hinted that E lectrolyti c ZincCompany was a safe gamble

,and W.L . made a coup

and a separate fortune by amalgamating the LondonChartered Bank

, of which he was local director, withthe Engli sh

, Scottish and Austral ian Bank. If W . L .

Baillieu is not worth it i s a shame, a verygreat shame, for he ought to be . He suff ers fromsand in his arteries and is not over happy . TheodoreFink Is rapidly approaching the S ix figure boundary,but he ’s a brainy little man with a kind word and asmile for everybody except those he hates . Nicholas,the maker of the confectionery known to headachywomen as“Aspro

,

” has since the war began p uttogether more than a million pounds . Robert B .

McCom aS, the Shipping and wool man , i s rapidly

nearing the millionaire Class,and of course Mac

pherson Robertson has got his third degree of millionarity and could realize for his confectionerybusiness to-morrow . A lfred D . Hart of the BritishTobacco Company, wil l cut Up for a couple of mill ion ,and his American partner

,Willie Cameron

,for even

more, because he has rich relatives in the tobaccotrade away down In old V irginny.

The late Zeb . Lane, we l l known in Broken Hilland Kalgoorlie

,met an Indian maharajah on a P . and O .

boat who told him of a remote spot in the heart ofIndia where diamonds were mined by the bucketfulwithout the aid of machinery . Zeb . wanted me togo with him to secure a concession over the diamondfield from the reigning prince

,with the obj ect of taking

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTfi lthy. The night spent with the mosquitoes on theroof wi th only the stars winking at me was one ofhorror . Next morning the D iwan told me only oneother Englishman had been in the town in twentyyears

,as the Nawab was an independent native

monarch not beholden to the British raj . Further,I learnt that the palace has recently been convertedinto a temporary hospital for cholera patients, of whomthere were two hundred in the rooms beneath me .After a one egg breakfast we went to a durbar withthe Nawab in a vast unfurnished apartment . TheNawab sat on a throne of Austrian bent wood at theend of the room and listened to his Prime Ministertranslating my request for a concession . His RoyalHighness

,although he spoke English , could not

talk with me directly,according to court etiquette .

He wanted twelve new nanteli girls in exchange fora fifty years ’ concession over eighteen square milesOf diamond mines

,with a 1 0 per cent royalty and a

substantial cash payment—the Nawab wanted thaturgently. Then the Nawab signified my requestswould be granted

,and the deputation thanked the

Minister and wi thdrew . The D iwan drove me ina dog-cart to the chief diamond mine . There was adecadent Eurasian in charge

,and we found him

engaged in the miser- l ike occupation of playing wi thheaps of uncut diamonds on his Office table . Theshaft was fifty feet deep and a W indlass was the o nlymachinery .

~ Holding on to the rope, with theirfeet resting in holes in the side of the Shaft, wereabout ten native women who passed the blue dirtin smal l osier baskets up the shaft to the lady justabove, and so to the dame on the brace . Two menwashed the dirt roughly and every bucket yieldedsome diamonds . There was evidence for miles roundof ancient mining, for th i s plateau had been the mainsource whence were supplied the diamonds to the

I S4

FORTUNES M ISSEDOrient for centuries . When Aurungz ebe or Akbar,kings of Delhi, wanted more diamonds, they sent anarmy to Bangana alle

, p ut the men to the sword andcarried off the females and diamonds . The fieldhad of course never been worked with machinery.

With the precious concession safely in my possession ,imagination led me to sneer at Rockefeller andCarnegie . The Nawab was so pleased with me andmy Stock Exchange knowledge that he lent me amotor car to go to the railway station to catch theMadras train . The coloured chauff eur broughtabout one mishap after another

,and it took from

S ix ti l l eleven at night to do the twenty miles . Towardsthe end of the j ourney the rajah and myself startedto walk to the station while the chauff eur mendedhis engine . At the first vi llage we were chased back byhundreds of dogs of every breed, reinforced byjackalsand what looked l ike Cheetahs . We caught the train atmidnight and the chauff eur went back to be hamstrung, disembowel led and crucified for ruining aperfectly good Ford car. In London my first visitwas to a director Of the De Beers D iamond Companyof Kimberley

,who took exactly five minutes to tel l

me the Company knew al l about my diamond field,and with the aid of two Governments and the StockExchange the directors would not permit me to raisecapital or float a company ! He mentioned, incidental ly

,that his company had locked up in Hatton

Gardens vaults £3 worth of cut diam ondswhich were fi l tered into New York a few at a time tofeed a constant and growing demand . Within aweek it was certain he spake the truth . Nobodywould look at ei ther In diamonds ormy draft p rosp ectus

, and the scheme died sti l lborn . These Banganapalle diamonds are sold clandestinely in India, butthe power of the big De Beers Corporation wil l keepthese m ines unworked unti l such time as the Kim

1 35

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTberley deposits are worked out . Then the De Beerspeople wil l give the reigning Nawab thousands of

nautc/z girls and automobiles in exchange for a per

p etualconcession over that desolate tableland ofeighteen square miles . The adventure was one of myfailures

,most regrettable because with untold wealth

I had made up my mind to buy a second pair of braces .Another time I should have made a pile of pounds,

shi ll ings and pence was when I formed a syndicateto send me to the Federated Malay States to secureoptions over tin mines . I meant to follow up and makeuse Of the success of the Tongkah Harbour Tin Company on an island in the Mergui A rchipelago belongingto S iam . In Penang and Kuala Lumpur I picked up anumber of Options over producing mines easily andcheaply . And I also got a Short Option over a tinsmelting concern in Penang owned by a German

,a

Chinaman and a Chetty . There was only one othersmelting company in the S traits TradingCompany

,and the one I bonded for sale in London

only needed more capital . SO far so good, tin beganto fall and rubber to rise

,and when I reached London ,

tin was £90 a ton and rubber touched 105 . a poundwith one fluke sale at 1 25 . 6d. So I waited in Londontil l my options ran out and somebody else floated thetin smeltery and bagged the profit . Wasn ’ t that badluck ? And we put in two winters in London theDreadful , when the cold, fog, rain and icy mattersmake life an abomination of desolation . I think thatwas the trip when I saw the clever, half-witted andwholly dangerous Winston Churchill

,in bel l-topper,Spats and frock-coat, very like my own, directing

twenty Grenadier Guards in their rifle fire at a housedown in Whitechapel supposed to be inhabited byan artist cal led Peter the Painter. Churchil l was anamusing sight that day. Next please And kindly,don

’

t worry. For forty years have been obsessed1 36

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHRIFT

SirE . J .Manville, 29, GreatGeorge Street,Westm insterSir Phill ip Dawson

,29 , Great George

Street,Westm inster (Electrical Engineer to Lon

don—Brighton Railway)Shareholde n

Lione l Robinson, Clark and Company

,24, Throg

morton AvenueA . McHarg, 20, Bridgewater SquareJ . O. Byrne

, 1 2,New Court Lincoln Inn (Mel

bourne Trust Company)J . Wal ler

,K incaid

,Manville

,Wal ler and

DawsonW. Heaton Armstrong,M .P Private Banker, Pal

merston HouseG. D . Meudell, Whitehal l, Bank PlaceBabcock and Wilcox

,High Holborn

,Boiler Manu

facturers

Total 3000

Some people, Midas for instance, have asses’ ears,

being asses and yet make pots of money. I t i s fearfully easy to make money, given a fair beginning,provided you give Up al l else and devote yourself toturning every pound over at a profit . Somethingbesides thrift i s needed

,because saving is dul l plod

ding and not at al l clever . Anybody can save , and itdid not need Micawber to point out how. The manwho means to die rich ought not to gamble . He Shouldbe always, night and day, on the watch for investments to yield him smal l rofits quickly. They arelike thrips

,those smal l safCchances flying about in

mi l l ions . Fifteen years on the S tock Exchange, alife lived amongst money and monied people, taughtme that lesson . If you want to make money surely,scorn delights and live laborious days looking out for

1 38

FORTUNES M ISSEDcertainties . Then buy them and hold for a smal lprofi t which grab . I missed a fortune by not actingon my knowledge of the prices of fixed deposits andshares in bung banks . Just after the breakdown in1 8 9 1 Tom E l l ison

, of E l l i son and Evered, sharesbrokers

,drew Up a form of transfer which he wrote

on the back of the fixed deposit receipts,al l of which

were Of course off ered for sale at a discount by holderswho needed money badly. I began buying depositreceipts early and got some cheap bargains in Comm ercials

,Bank Of Victorias, Nationals, at 1 05 in the 1 ,

or half their face value . These gradually went up ,but before the publi c became wise to what was goingon and found out how safe and sound the purchaseswere

,fixed deposi t receipts were sacrificed to the

extent of hundreds Of thousands of pounds . Thensome of the banks al lowed their debtors to buy thebank ’s own deposit receipts and set them off againsttheir overdrafts . For several institutions and theiroverdrawn clients I subsequently did a big businessbuying bank fixed deposit receipts here and in London ,Dublin

,Edinburgh and Glasgow . There was money

to be picked up buying cheap bank shares, whichI did , but not to a large enough extent . As W . L .

Bail li eu once remarked to me after the flurry wasover and the clouds had rol led by, Fanc Meudell,there al l these bank things were fructif

iying underour noses and we didn ’t notice them .

” I did, but Isold out too soon, and went for a trip round thenorthern hemisphere . I missed a fortune but founda lot of happiness ;Petroleum mining has always had a fatal fascination

for me and has cost me a competency. When C . F .

Lungley brought me his invention of a method ofsqueez ing more petrol out of kerosene I went intothe business with vim and verve . Thomas J . Greenway examined the machine and found that Lungley

I 39

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTused a catalyst or third agent in the process of disti l lation and seemed to get more petrol at the expense ofthe kerosene content of the crude petroleum . Lungleywould not disclose what the catalyst was

,and Green

way told me to drop it for that reason . My naturalcocksureness led me to ignore Greenway’s goodadvice and carried me along to my undoing . I tseemed al l right in actual practice because Lungleydid get more petrol and less kerosene by his processwith his own machine . If the process and the machineworked al l right in Californ ia amongst the local refinersand refineries we could sel l the Lungley process readilyfor a few mill ion dol lars

,so we raised enough money to

transport Lungley and his machine to San Franciscowhere i t was worked before no fewer than twelvechemists representing Standard O i l

,Shel l O i l

,General

Petroleum , Associated O i l and Union O i l companies ,al l of whom turned it down because Lungley wouldnot disclose the secret of his process . Another bigwad of money I should have made never material ised .

FORTUNES I D ID NOT MAKEAmong half a dozen chances of making and keeping

a competency I had a Chance once to settle in Londonand join the Stock Exchange as partner Of a firmdoing a large business with Australia . My Melbourneexperience would have been most valuable to the firm ,

because I had been inside every big mine of importance in Australia

,excepting those in Queensland .

I t was simply a question of climate and I could not

stick the London winter . TO a sun worshipper notto see the sun for months at a time is the worst of al lpenances and punishments

,SO I came home . The

firm who wanted me to join easily and quickly rol ledinto riches and retired from work

,so I missed that

purse of Fortunatus . No importa After al l a pileof money is often a nuisance

,and when the desire to

1 40

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTand Mackay and I missed making I wasnever paid my expenses or given a bonus or a fewdebentures . The sti l l small voice of gratitude wassti l led and never even squeaked . Wordsworth knewhis humanity wel l when he wrote

I’

ve heard of hearts unkind,kind deeds

,With colours stil l returning,Alas I the gratitude of men,Hath oftener left me mourning.

Personal ly I do not believe gratitude exists in anyhuman being . I t is a mythical legendary sentimentpeculiar to dogs

,but to nobody else . When i l l and

supposed to be dying,I gave my business to a bloke

who had come to my office in knickerbockers as anoffice boy, and I ’ve only seen him once s ince Thatdoes not hurt or Upset me

,i t only makes me laugh .

But I know I deserved a cut out of those exceptionalprofits on that Mount Lyell debenture issue

,because

I laid the foundations of its extraordinary success .And what is more al l those Mount Lyell holders,save one, were in low water financial ly and thedebenture proceeds saved both them and their mineD . J . Mackay and I had put a valuation on the MountLye l l mine and its debentures in London , and B . J .

Fink, Bowes Kelly, H . Karlbaum ,W. Knox and

John Goodal l, quick to see that point,withdrew the

i ssue, floated it in Melbourne in two hours and eachmade a smal l fortune out of the float . Debentureswent to £405 , and shares to £ 1 3 and I gotnothing

,not a penny .

Two flourishing drapery businesses were placedin my hands for sale in London . A fter the banksmash in 1 8 92 business of every kind in Melbournewent to pot . George and Georges Company had abig overdraft with the Nationa l Bank and I tookthe pape rs and the data with me to London , where

1 42

FORTUNES M ISSEDI placed the matter before several big wholesal ehouses at St. Paul ’s Churchyard, who were shy of

trusting Austral ian firms,severalof whom in the

soft-goods ’ trade were shaken and some shaky . Theprice asked was and my commissionwould have been so fat as to ver e on obesity. Nothingcame of i t except a succession 0 dashed good luncheonsat Sweetings

,Pims

,and at the City Carlton Club .

Another time I was asked to cable to London andOff er to sel l Craig Will iamson ’s building and businesswhen it was only one quarter its present size for

cash . I t was placed before a syndicate ofFore S treet merchants who thought the price toohigh and a reply cable ended the business . Afterthat Mr . W . E . J . Craig, a remarkably sagaciousbusiness man

,took control of Craigs and made it

one of the most profitable as it i s the best conductedbusiness in Melbourne of its kind . There againI lost another fat wad of cash and shares . No importaNext please Tid

’

ap a , nitclzev oand noth ing matters,does i t For two years I tried to get the TasmanianState Government to j oin me in an arrangement togather funds in London to start an Oilshale industryin Tasmania . My plan was to form a company of

capital in London,give the Tasmanian

Government half the shares ful ly paid up,free of

cal ls,cos ts

,expenses

,and without recourse to them

in any shape or form . I meant to form a syndicateto lay down the prel iminary expenses of presentingthe business properly in London . Withshares we could easi ly get £2 cash, not to

experiment on the local coal and shale, but to erectretorts on the Spot to disti l Oi l from the cannel coals ,tasman ite

, p elionite , l ignite and oilshales which lieunused al l over Tasmania . With Government backingwe could raise the needful cash without it, nothingdoing . So put that on the li st of my al leged fai lures .

x43

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTNext please In drill ing for oi l near Lakes Entrance

,

Gippsland,Victoria

,a flow of natural gas was struck

,

forcing its way through a column Of water 1 1 20 feethigh in a six- inch pipe

,and blowing Off under that

diff i cult condition at a rate of ten mi l l ion cubic feet ayear . I t has been going into the air for two years .In Canada or the United States the lease would beworth mill ions and I might have been a millionaireNo importaAnother occasion I missed a great coup was whenI first assumed the role of pioneer in search of Oil inAustralia in 1 903 . Some years after that I formedthe conclusion that Oilwould never be found in AUStralia unti l plenty of cash was available, so I beganthe promotion of a company in London to put Up100 000 i n cash and an attache case full of scripfor Iriyself , my heirs , executors and assignees . Theidea caught on and we had promises to underwritehalf the cash when the Mines Department of SouthAustralia sent abroad apparently to governmentdepartments

,petroleum institutes

,and societies a

bulletin written by L . Keith Ward condemning the

prospects of ever finding Oilin the Commonwealth .

The bulletin had not been published here, and it wasa shock when my London friends let the businessfal l fut . I f we had gone to flotation I feel sure wewould have proved oil in the basin of the MurrayRiver system

,which has been the sewer for bringing

the carbonaceous matter of three states towards thesea for thousands of years . Petroleum wil l be foundyet when the right amount of money is provided,and the right men

,Austral ians and nobody else, are

given the right machinery to use in the search foroilIn th i s marvel lously rich mineral country with itsi l limitable store of coal

,brown coal and Oilshale .

1 44

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTscene from Lucia,

”Signor Mancinel li conducting .

Some of the 400 Of New York were there, and wesaw Jacob Astor

,Perry Belmont

,W . G . Rockefel ler,

Pierpont Morgan ( p arterre box No . and a youngVanderbilt. The list of box -holders i s printed on

the programme,but as the Yanks are an unmusical

nation the performance went flatly. Next day theOpera House was let as a music-hal l . Here is aNew York programme of Koster and Bial ’s, December

,1 8 97 , alongside a gorgeous bil l of the Empire

Music Hall,London . They hissed Marie L loyd at

Koster and Bial ’s the night I was there,and the

hissing was deserved . Anna Held,perhaps the

most beautiful woman at that time on the stage, alsoappeared . Next I note a memento from the famousMaple Club at Tokio

,given me by a Geisha after

an elaborate dinner and a pleasant evening of musicand dancing . The greatest compliment a Geisha canpay is to be curious regarding one ’s j ewellery, or hair,or Clothes . They are dear little women

,whose ways

are not l ike unto ours . The afternoon of Sunday,March 2 7th, 1 8 9 8 , was spent at the Concours Hippique in the Champ de Mars

,Paris

,when sixty-two

horses competed for the p rix d’

e55a t’

of thirty- twopounds for jumping . There was a splendid lot ofSpi l ls . Frenchmen are safer in automobiles

,an exhibi

tion of which I saw the same week in the Tuileries,the first show ever held in Paris . The next Sunday,I find from

'

the card,was spent at Auteuil watching

several steeplechases,and playing a few francs on

the tote or pari-mutuel . The jockeys were chieflyEnglish . Mr . Kewney of the V .R .C. should go to

Auteuil to learn how to provide food and drink fora crowd ; i t is done so badly at Flemington . OnJuly 1 4 th , 1 8 9 8 , my wife and I had seats near thePresident at the grand review of troops at Longchamps .The final charge of six thousand cavalry was worth

146

A TABLO ID OF TRAVELuntold gold as a spectacle . Speaking of races, Dorling ’s list of the Epsom Races for Wednesday

,May

25th, 1 8 9 8 , i s interesting, because Jeddah won theDerby, starting at 50 to 1 and I backed him . WilliamCooper ’ s Newhaven I I , who won the MelbourneCup , was beaten in the Epsom Cup .

Here comes a programme from the Theatre Royal,

Hong Kong, of May 7th, 1 90 1 , when the Brough

Company played The Village Priest .” The Broughswere great favourites in the East . August 1 8 th, 1 8 8 9 ,we two Australians attended a mil itary concert atthe Schutz enfest platz

,unter den eichen

,

” atWiesbaden . There was a mimic battle, too . Nextare four more opera programmes of 1 8 8 9 , fromBerlin , Frankfort , Vienna and Dresden . At the

latter we saw several Wagner operas , in the companyof Professor Petersen afterwards at Melbourne University. What a dreadful bil l is this of the GranHotel de las Cuatro Naciones

,Barcelona

,but that

Of the Grand Hotel de la Paix,in the Puerta del Sol,

Madrid, is worse . The catalogue of the Museo atMadrid

,which I visited on Christmas Day, 1 8 95 ,

has pinned to it a ticket for the bul l fight . I preferredthe Museo

,with its Velasquez and Muril los .

,What

Australian abroad has not been to the Jardin deParis

,and tried 1a g1i55ade A reminiscence of the

Boule Miche,in the shape of a ticket from the Bal

Bullier, i s here . The bil l of the Hotel Hungaria,Buda-Pest

,has somehow got mixed with that of

Maiden ’s Hotel,at Delhi . We paid 8 5 . a day at

Maiden ’s, but there was no Durbar in January, 1 90 1 .

Here is a supper menu from the Hotel Carlton ,London

,which cost “Bovril soup , scal loped

lobster,chicken

,game patty

,cold beef, tongue and

ham , salade, iced pudding and biscuits .” I t costs

25 . 6d. a breath in these bi London hotels . A betterdinner was that to the Ear of Hopetoun , on October

147

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFT1 5 th, 1 8 8 9 , when Sir Graham Berry,presided at the St. George ’s Club, Hanover Square .S ir Hugh Childres

,Sir Andrew Clarke

,Sir George

Tryon , Mr . Thomas Sutherland, Lord Knutsfordand Lord Rosebery were notable speakers that night .On April I st

,1 8 8 9 , I heard Miss Jennie Lee in

JO, at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, and thedear little lady was then at her best . Voila, see thisbillet d’

entre'

e for the Casino at Monte Carlo Ofcourse they have a cirku5 v arie

’

te' at Copenhagen , the

chief feature being a good orchestra . There wassome pretty bal lad singing by Prk . Nanny Bergstrom,

whom I had heard previously at Stockholm . A ticketfrom Thomas Carlyle ’s house

,24 , Cheyne Row,

Chelsea, keeps company with a bil l from the NewPrince Charles Hotel

, New Orleans . The bil l withchits from the Oriental Hotel

,Yokohama, clings

to one from the Hotel St. Petersburg, Berlin , andthey resemble one another in being reasonable . Onthe Southern Pacific dining-car from Orleans thecarte for dinner contain s fifty-two i tems, while thatof the Cunard liner Campania holds thirty- seven .

What pretty and artisti c reminders I have Of Nikko,the beautiful inland Japanese town ! “Nikko wominai uchi wa

,kekko to iu na which means,

Do not use the word magnificent ti l l you have seenNikko .

” We have nothing tangible to Show regardingthe earthquake we enj oyed there . On December 9th,1 8 93 , I saw a footbal l match, Blackheath 'v . Cardiff ,at Rectory Field

,Blackheath . Rugby footbal l to an

Australian i s merely stupid . On June 7th, 1 8 8 9 ,we had rather a good dinner at the Cri

,Piccadil ly

Circus, in honour of David Christie Murray, the lateEdmund Yates being in the chair . A few of myneighbours were Haddon Chambers, Hume Ni sbet,Marriott Watson

,Mannington Cafl

’

yn, Philip Mennel,Justin M ’

Carthy and I remember the Veuve1 48

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTi s scraggy

,scentless and shadeless . The truth i s the

opposite . Australia,because of i ts wide range of

territory within the temperate as wel l as the tropicalzone, i s especial ly endowed with vivid colours andtinted fol iage . There is no blue atmosphere like ourselsewhere

,nor is there anycolour in the sky l ikeAustra

l ia ’s in any country. There is no country of al l I haveseen can compare wi th Australia chromatically. So

far as the science of colours goes for diversi ty andbeauty our country leads and leaves the world behindi t . And this applies to both fauna and flora . Englandand Scotland are drab and dreary al l the year round ,compared with Tasmania

,and in Ireland alone did

I see anything colourful and that was the grass . Thepioneers who came from cold

,bleak, poverty- strickenEngland and Scotland to open Up Australia and

brought numerous falsities here did not understandtheir new environment of colour and beauty . We,their children

,know better

,There is no Northern

European tree—oak,elm

,birch

,beech or poplar

equal to the indigenous eucalyptus, probably the mostuseful and beneficent tree that grows .

COST OF TRAVELS ince I started travelling I reckon it has cost me

for my wife and self. TO-day I cou ld nothave covered the same ground much underIn India, China, Japan , Malay States , Dutch EastIndies, the hotel s charged from 65 . 8d. to 1 2 5 . 6d.

a day inclusive The same hotel s would chargethree to four times those prices nowadays . Andeverything else i s proportionately higher : theatres,entertainments

,railways and steamships . In 1 8 84

I went first class to London from M elbourne by thess . Orient for £63 , the return fare being £ 1 00 .

The same cabin to-day would cost me £ 1 32 single,and £23 1 return . The Orient boats were about

1 50

COST OF TRAVEL4000 tons, Potosi ,

” Garonne,

”Lus itania,

” JohnE lder and Sorata . The P . and O . steamers wereal l about 3000 to 4000 tons, and fares ranged round£60 single and £ 1 00 return . Not so long before thatera the P . and O . Company did not charge for winesor l iquors . The li ttle P . and O . steamers in 1 8 84were, Pekin

,

” Khedive,

” Massil ia,

” Thames,Sutlej and Bal larat .” The White Star Company, from L iverpool to New York, ran the Cel ticand Germania

,charging £ 1 2 , £ 1 4 and £ 1 6 firs t

class for the trip lasting about nine or ten days . TheCunard Company charged the same rates and doubledthem for return tickets . The Cephalonia

,

” Catalonia,

”Scyth ia

,

”Servia ” and Bothnia were

the crack boats then . We took ten days on the

Bo thnia to cross the Atlantic . Out of hundredsof hotel bi l l s here are a few extracts . I n 1 8 84 , GrandHotel , Leghorn , breakfast, 3 francs , dinner, 5 francsGrand Hotel , Milan , 2 8 th April, 1 8 84 , breakfast,

lunch 2 and dinner 5 francs ; Hotel Swan ,Lucerne, 8 5 . a day ; Hotel de la Poste, Brussels ,1 05 . a day ; and Arundel Hotel , London , bed andbreakfast, 65 . a day Hotel Victoria

,Venice, 1 5

francs a day Grand Hotel,Naples

,1 8 francs a day.

Final ly, First Avenue Hotel, Holborn , then brandnew, charged an inclusive fee of 1 55 . a day, whileyou could get a table d

’hote dinner at the HolbornRestaurant

, then the best Of modern cafes , for 35 . 6d.

The cheapest place to travel round is the Pacific Ocean ,and you wil l find Oceana and Polynesia no less amusingand no less instructive than Pal l Mal l or Pari s .

M ENI thought I had known a large number of rich

men throughout Austral ia and during my travels inEurope and the two in America, unti l I made my firsttrip through the Malay States from Rangoon in Burma,

1 5 1

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTvia Penang and Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, I did notreal ly know how many large fortunes can be rapidlycompi led from other things besides wool and gold .

At the Spotted Dog Club in Kuala Lumpur, cal l ed sobecause white

,brown and yel low are eligible Shades

Of membership,I met some rich Chinese who had

made big rises out of tin , rubber and the spiritand opium licences hired from the Government andfarmed . One charming Chinese gentleman , who wasvery kind to me

,was Kong Lam ,

a member of thecounci l of the F.M .S . He had made in a few years£2 out of the three sources of wealth justnamed . His home at Kuala Lumpur was a revelationin sp lendour . Another Chinese at the S ingaporeClub was then drawing a year from tinmines at Bil liton and Banca and drinking too manywhisky stengahs with the money. My mate and Iwent over a palace unoccupied by its Chinese ownerin S ingapore which cost him furnished .

His income was a year ! His favouritetipp le was gin p ahits every ten minutes al l day long,a pahit being only about an eye-bath full .

SH I PP ING LINESOf the hundreds of ships by which we have travelled,

i t i s hard to say which was the best al l-round vessel .This much one can claim without dread of denial ,comparing

_the steamers and awarding points forcleanliness

,comfort

,safety

,healthy cabins , and good

food, the Austral ian coastal shipping services haveno equal on the seven seas . Have travel led on dozensof steamers along the coasts of Austral ia, Tasmaniaand New Zealand

,and have a l ist Of s ix boats which

were wrecked after I had been on them,though I

never went through an accident at sea. My firstsea trip was by the S S . Edina

,

” the oldest steamshipon L loyds ’ l ist

,to Warrnambool

,fifty years ago, and

1 5 2

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTdozens of P . and O . and Ori ent ships and detestthem for their snobbery

,swagger and swank . The

officers are al lowed far too much freedom in theseservices and on some boats are al lowed to be a nuisanceamongst the female passengers . Especial ly on theboats carrying Anglo- Indians, the heaven-born civilservants and the haughty military officers maintaintheir al leged superiority of caste and are intenselydisliked by the Australian passengers . Talk aboutracial and national hatreds They are mere trans

gressions of politeness compared with the bitternessbetween these two clans of the Anglo-Saxon family.

A hardened voyager I have found it good policy tolaugh heartily at the airs and graces of these suburbanresidents of the outer Empire .

IMM IGRATION P ER IL

With forty-two different foreign languages 3 kenin 2 6

,2 39 religious organizations in the (g

o

ited

States, what hope I s there for even that simple basice lement of cultural and spiritual union in a nation—a

common language What chance for a united UnitedStates is there when fourteen mil lion foreign bornwhites and yel lows in that country

,and their like

minded, support 1 05 2 foreign language publications

of all kinds . By the census Of 1 920 more than aquarter of th e entire population Of wasforeign born or of foreign parentage . In 1 926 therewere nearly people In the United States,and therefore over are aliens racial ly andculturally

,opposed naturally to the Yankees or those

of British blood, and some day these aliens, applyingthe principle of self-determination , wil l make theUnited States Spiritually bonded and destroy theideals of the Anglo-Saxon progenitors of these presentday Americans . To cal l them Anglo-Saxons and to

1 54

IMMIGRATION PERILaddress them as our cousins i s to act a lie and to dishonour our own traditions .I n the South American republ ics

,l ike Brazi l

,

Argentine, Bolivia, Chili and Paraguay, the Americanshave not gripped the foreign trade

,having so far been

too busy and ful l employed at home . They musttender for part of

ythe trade of these rich territories

,

and the Atlantic countries once fettered,those of the

Pacific wi l l off er themselves to be bound with the

chain s of American trade . The Panama Canalmeans the U l timate creation of a foreign mercantilemarine to carry American goods

,and the Panama

Canal wil l be its porch to the Pacific . The efi'

ect on

Australia ’s destiny wil l be that the United S tateswil l gradual ly become Australia ’s most dreadedenemy. And why not ? The Anglo-Celtic elementin the North American i s being washed out by theTeutonic, the Latin , and the S lav blood, and thefeeling of the kinship has real ly disappeared despite

p ost-prandial orators . Our only chance of safetyfrom subjugation by the United States is the riftl ikely to be caused by the need for trying to expel orkeep under the Negro Americans

,and also by the

want of cohesion amongst the American peoplesthemselves . One cannot place too much rel iance onthe loyalty of Great Bri tain to Austral ia

,and as a rea l

Austral ian I don ’t bel ieve Bri tain cares the shadowof a shade for Australasia

,and wil l lend us no aid

when the Yankees want our beautiful continent forthe over-plus of their millions o f hybrids . Australia ’sdestiny i s in dire peri l and the sooner we have asystem of conscription

,a rifle for every man , our own

arsenals and navy,the better able Shal l we be to try

to retain our nationality,and resist the cohorts which

°

llbring hither the satraps to destroy our autonomy,and make Australasia an Am erican colony .

My mate and I had a splendid voyage,no longer

l55

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTpossible

,by a North Deutscher L loyd Company

route from Batavia to Brisbane,cal ling at Sourabaya

,

Java,Macassar in the Celebes

,Banda and Amboyna

in the Moluccas, al l through the Spice I slands,stopping every day at one or two ports to pick Up trade,and then along the Dutch and German colonies inNew Guinea which they ought never to have beenal lowed to annex . The sooner the Dutch are forcedto give Up the East Indies the better for the Briti sh .

They hold all their oversea possessions with a feeblehand . H ow can i t be otherwise when the other handis always fi l led by a sandwich ? We called at a lotof German settlements along the north coast of NewGuinea

,and at E itape we had a whole day ashore .

This place or a village near by had been b lown to afrazzle, as Theodore Roosevelt, the over-valuedYankee President would have said

,by a Ge rman

gunboat because the niggers had ki l led a priest andeaten three nuns a few weeks previously. The Germanschool for the native kiddies was the Guildhal l orLouvre of the vil lage . Here we saw on the wal ls alarge chromograph of the conceited German Emperor,Kaiser Wilhelm the Second

,the chap who ran away

from his army to save his neck,exalted between

framed pictures of Jesus Christ and the Virgin MaryThe Kaiser was six inches higher up the wal l . I twasn ’t blasphemous so much as i t was laughable .On a back beach

,while gathering shel ls

,about a

dozen smal l black fel lows j oined the party. A box Ofchocolates made them friendly. Assuming the positionof fugleman I formed a line and dri l led them , thenword by word I taught them to sing the first verseOf the national an them

,God Save the King .

” Whenthey knew the song perfectly I led them through thevil lage laughing and singing lustily . I t was damnedfunny and most edifying

,though not applauded by

the Germans on the wharf. Naturally that was seven1 56

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTthe most interesting . Of the three great l imestonecave systems of the world

,Adelsberg Grotto near

Gra tz in Hungary, the Kentucky Caves inand the Jenolan Caves in New South Wales

,the

latter is infinitely the most entrancing and the bestdeveloped . Which are the three most magnificentbuildings one has seen In thi s order the Taj Mahalshrine at Agra in India ; St. Peter s Cathedral atRome and the Congressional L ibrary at Washingtonin the United States . Which are . the three finesthotel s on the earth for comfort The Hotel Stewartin San Francisco

,the Kaiserhof in Berlin

, and theHotel Austral ia in Sydney. There are of course moreexpensive and more pretentious hotels

,but out Of a

l i st of five hundred I have S lept in , Il p for thesthree

,because they combine luxury and comfort in

the highest degree . Hotel Stewart in Cal ifornia, andHotel Australia in Sydney are homely hotel s splendidly managed . There are no quiet hotels in NewYork or Chicago, and al l of them are fit places formob-men who love noise and hustle .

MALTAHave been to Malta, the key Of the Mediterranean ,

and wonder why the British don ’t make a secondHeligoland of i t, an impregnable fortress to dominatethe Near East. I t i s in the very centre of the Mediter

ranean, and with its safe harbours i t could be and ought

to be made the strongest place in Europe . When theLeague of Nuisances fail s from lack of subscriptionsto carry on i ts funny amateurish game of keepingpeace, Malta, as the Nurse of the Mediterraneanand its strategic centre

,wil l assume its true position

as one of the principal keys of the Empire . We havespent a day at Malacca in the East Indies where thereare no canes for sale

,and another day at Macassar in

the Spice I slands,where there i s no hair Oil made,

1 5 8

SOUTH SEASalthough there are nutrnegs a-plenty. In Brazi l , atSantos , Rio Janeiro, and Pernambuco, we tried invain to buy Brazi l nuts

,yet I bought an excellent

pair of Wellington boots,long ones for riding

,at

Wellington,New Zealand . There are two commodi

ti es not mythical or legendary, because we have hadthem up and down al l round the globe, in j ungle,desert

, or city—Lea and Perrin ’s WorcestershireSauce and Guinness ’s Stout .

SOUTH SEASHave seen most of the chief groups of islands in

the South Seas and must confess their glamour i sfleeting . Saw Fij i first and was entranced by itsnovel beauty . The contrast of i ts greenness withthe dryness of my homeland must have lent the charm .

Samoa was visited next when there was a tripartitecontrol by Germany

,Britain and the United States .

There was more to rave about in the country behindAp ia

,and the natives were more attractive than the

Fij ians . Made a pilgrimage to Vail ima to payhomage to the memory of Robert Louis Stevenson,the King of Stylists , and can understand the fascination the beautiful surroundings of his home had forhim . We had a gay time with the natives, the womenespecial ly being l ikeable and friendly. S ti l l , the basesof a truly happy life, the food, the good bed, the hotbath

,the lavatory

,and the wire bl inds were wanting,

and the insect pests made l ife partly disagreeable,and the humid heat was a constant penalty on pleasure .On another trip I stopped Off at Tutuila, now cal ledPango Pango

,an American colony with the prettiest

harbour and one of the best of earth’s land- locked

havens . There the natives were neither so charmingnor so clean as their Samoan relatives . Before theH awaian or Sandwich I slands were Americanizedand ruined as beauty spots I spent a holiday there

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTever so many years ago . There were very few Japs,Chinese

,Portuguese

,or other aliens in Hawaii in

those days before the United States annexed theterritory . Honolulu was a sleek and glossy paradise,and the unspoil t natives quite as attractive as theircousins the Maoris of New Zealand . Then ClausSpreckel s started growing sugar

,pineapp les were

planted for canning,and the glory of Hawaii departed .

The aborigines are decadent and wil l shortly vanishas a race

,their places being taken by the lascivious

Jap and his average dozen children . Japs breedquicker than fl ies or rabbits and every chi ld ranks asan American elector . Some day the Japanese problemin Hawan wil l be as difficult of solution as the negroproblem at home to the Americans . Meanwhilethey keep their powder dry and their forts ful ly mannedby 5000 gunners . Pearl Harbour, near Honolulu,i s a naval base

,becoming as strong as Gibraltar 18 or

Heligoland was,and at the first S ign o f insurrection

the Japanese wil l be driven over the precipice at Pali ,as the H awaians were driven by King Kamehameha .The best group of South Sea i slands i s cal led Society,Of which Tahiti i s the largest and most beautiful .Although that is so i t does not j ustify the arrantnonsense written about it by Yankees l ike O ’Brienand new chum Englishmen like Robert Keable . Thetown of Papeete 1s a pleasant enough place, thoughcrude

,raw

,primitive . The truth IS Tahiti has been

spoil t by the tourists and the Chinese . I t i s not anI sl e of Dreams

,a garden of the Hesperides, or an

abode of the blessed . Rather is it a pretty tropicali sland

,debased by strangers

,the Tahitians spoi lt by

the missionaries and the traders,and the island itself

being commercial ized and despoiled of i ts naturalloveliness . There IS nothing to rave about In Tahitiwhich is certain to become a travel resort for moreand more Americans who will some day be supplied

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTvisited the dry tanks and the cantonment for theuse of the Briti sh soldiers under a C .D . Act passedfor the benefit of th e military and naval forces . I twas a curious walled area guarded by armed sentries

,

as though it were a Royal Mint . The women , l ivingin little cottages

,were of a dozen nationalities and o f

as many shades of colour . The regimental surgeonwas there at the time writing out and handing certifi

cates to the examinees . I t seemed a sensible plan ofhandling the social evil . Years af ter at BUda Pesthon the Danube

,an American Consul took us for a

night prowl around the city,one of the sights being

a house of pleasure tenanted by an aged p atronne,her assistant

,and about eighteen to twen ty girls,

aged twelve to sixteen years . They entertained US

with dancing,singing

,music and sherbet . Here

again there was not more than two girl s of the samenationality . We were told by the Consul these girl sbegan their call ing as far west as Tiflis in the Caucasusand moved via Constantinople up the Danube, thennorth to Dresden

,Warsaw

,St. Petersburg, and

finally, if they lived, to S iberia .

CA IROCairo i s a bestial city and al l Egypt an overrated

abomination . People only go their to cure U lcerouslungs and enjoy dry heat which we Australians havealways in our temperate zone covering half our

continent . Sensible people who know always keepaway from sandy countries and deserts and placeswith scarcity of rain . Insects and lack of sanitaryconveniences keep me away from countries l ikeEgypt and Palestine

,where fl ies and fleas symbolize

the life of these outcast re ions . One month in Pari si s worth several cycles in Cathay or in Cairo . Stayedat the old Shep heard

’

s Hotel ages ago before theirruption Of the Yankee waifs and strays from Cohues

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CAIROand Podunk . Had a good dragoman and saw theS ights and did the tombs and museums . Wishingto l earn something of the family l ife of the Egyp tianUpper class I asked the dragoman to introduce meto a girl from a Pasha ’s or Bey ’s harem . He saidthat was easy and one night at the Hotel Arabe weal l met

,the dragoman

, Lady Lais, her brother andmyself. When she removed her yashmak and showedthe dirty face of a street walker I let out a yawp andfled, tell ing the dragoman to pay them ten piastreseach and donkey fare home . Had a trip up theNi le and left wondering what Napoleon saw to wantin an off ensive country l ike Egypt .

BURMAA long course of Rudyard Kipl ing, who i s a repl ica

of myself so far as his face goes,caused me to make

up my mind to go to India and Burma,and special ly

to fol low him over his voyage in the Seven Seas tothe Far East . Kipling comes next to Robert LouisStevenson as the finest author of the last fifty years ,and that i s why I despise his travel talk as poor stuff .

We went laboriously from Rangoon to Mandalay bya beastly train with bad bedding and tucker justbefore the monsoon broke . I t was a painful j ourneythrough a terrain lacking interest . The inartisti cpagodas built by rich Burmese to give them a. l iftinto their heaven dot the landscape without improving it. The umbrellas and the tinkling bells aretrivial and not pretty . King Theebaw

’

s palace atMandalay was a wash-out

,once showy, garish ,

gawdy, then a sorry sight, worm-eaten , mildewed,crumbling and mouldy. The best part of i t was theold moat round the wal ls

,in which the n ight before

his capture by the British Genera l Fitzgerald, Theebawdrowned his wives

,concubines

,and alltheir aunts

and mothers~ in ~ law,tied Up in bags with heavy bits

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTof basalt included . That sounded funny if it weretrue, and proved London Punch in its childishmanner i s quite correct in call ing a mother- in 4 law abother The Burmese men are splendid fellows

,

a lthough ideal ists . They neither believe in work nordo it, and even go so far as to hate people who l ikework . So do I . Therefore the Burmese womenhave to do all the work

,having the children , keeping

them clean and fed,doing the cooking

,minding the

shop, paying the rent and taxes, even unto bringinghome the beer . The men S leep always and babbleabout the streets when awake . No wood to chop ,no boots to clean , no letters to post, no bil ls to pay.

What an idyllic l ife And Kipl ing wrote nothingof al l that . He fell in love with a Burmese girl,brown

,soft and luscious

,on the platform of the

Shwe Dagon Pagoda,and seemed too pre-occupied

to tel l us of the j oy of l ife in a town where a fellowhad nothing to do. Was taken down by an AUStralian and a Chinese storekeeper who sold me stolenrubies from the Burman ruby mines

,which turned

out to be valueless zircons,of which I have in my box

room one kerosene tin full found in South Australia.Major E l liott asked us to go to Moulmein where hesaid I could commit murder or rape, or rob a bank,or get tipsy, or eat hashish

,or do anything violen t

without chastisement . I asked,What about the

strong arm of the British Raj Ah he replied,I am the British Raj in Moulmein

,

” and so he was .

S PAINIn Madrid I went to a bul l fight, a low-down

brutal performance,only fi t for Spanish people,

50 per cent of whom can’t read or write . A smal l

bul l of the pol led Angus breed who had been leftin a dark room under the grandstand to tame himwas driven into the arena by much prodding with

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTthe washing down of the alluvium from the mountains and al l the desolation and dreariness whichfollows the cutting down of trees . I t ought to be anobject lesson to US in Australia where planting andsaving trees ought to be a religious rite . Manyideas about the Spaniards learnt from books werewashed out by inspection during my Spanish tour.The Spanish peasant usual ly has a square bul lethead, smal l green eyes, flat features and an aldermanicstomach . He is built rather on the l ines of SanchoPanza than of Don Quixote . The Spanish grandeeof one ’s reading is not visible and the Spaniard Of

to—day is smal l,fat and ugly. What to say of the

women Ah that i s another story . In the norththey are smal l and plain and Shades of CervantesMany Of them are red-headed, not auburn or blonde,just downright red . The Spanish dame ale camp agne

does not wear the graceful lace manti lla over headand shoulders . She doesn ’t wear a hat, and generallyhas a cheap Glasgow handkerchief coloured l ike anI tal ian sunset, and covered with horses, windmil lsand things . Each abode in the country districts Itraversed has plenty of loopholes and at least onepaneless window on the second floor

,while bits of

roof are missing,and portions of the wal l probably

taken away by American tourists as specimens forcabinets in O shkosh

,I ll inois

,or Kalamazoo

,Texas .

In F lorence,I taly, I met an Amurikin tourist who

had been touring Palestine and Egypt gatheringantiques and relics . He came from Schenectady,New York, and showed me a blue and yellow carpetbag ful l of nails from the cross, Crusaders

’ snuffboxes

,a shoe nai l worn by Balaam ’

s ass,a brass nai l

from Mahomet’s coffin taken probably during itsstate of suspension between heaven and earth

,and a

Chip off the Sphinx ’s nose . Gosh,

” he said,“that

vurry rullic cost me wan hundred dollars for the1 66

SPAINshike who climbed up and gotten it for me . Thecountry Spanish seem poor and l ive poorly . Thefood and wine in the posadas or inns was miserable .Domestic animals in Spain are very sociable . Herea pig wil l walk out through a hole in the wal l of adwell ing, there a donkey can be seen sleeping in the5alle a

‘

manger, and again a barn-door fowl wil l perchon the week ’s washing which is flaunting from thewindow-sil l of the sol itary window in every home .Under one ’s bedroom floor the sheep

,the pigs

, the

goats and the cows snore and talk in th eir sleep al ln ight long . Spain i s a very poor country with a veryrich past . On the whole the people are politer

,

lazier and happier than we are,and life i s altogether

gentler and more domestic .

j APAN

Japan is a poor nation Of poor people dependentfor profits on her foreign trade . She has no accumulated wealth made by past generations

,so has noth ing

to tax for use in making war . Japan has no borrowingpower on the money markets of the world, and theonly nation able to lend her money is the UnitedStates

,a potential enemy and a white nation with one

coloured problem within her gates and therefore

Elite unl ikely to help another coloured race wi thnds for warlike purposes . War cannot be madewithout iron and oil, and Japan lacks reserves of

both . The idea of an invasion of Australia by Japanis a chimera

,a fantasy

,a mere

“frenzy fit for fools to

frighten boys and babies with and is not rational tothinking people .My mate had the glorious red-gold hair that Titian

loved so dearly,a mantle Of living gold . I t was

remarkably beautifu l and strangely abundant, fi l ledwith a light that never was on sea or land , a verypoe t ’s dream . One afternoon in Tokio we drove in

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTj Inrickshaws from the Imperial Hotel to present ourletters of introduction to the heads of the MitsuiBank . For a quarter of an hour my mate was leftwith our Japanese guide outside the bank . At firstl ittle notice was taken of her unti l some inquisitiveyellow Puritan noticed the colour of her hair

,and

spread the news . When I came out of the bank acrowd of about five hundred men , women and childrenhad gathered and were touching her clothes

,laughing

furiously,and evidently using lots of bad Japanese

language . We got away safely, and Sato, the guide,told me that to those people my mate ’s hair was anevil S ign and they believed her to be an extremelybad woman of no importance . After that her beautifulcrown of hair of golden chestnut was wel l hidden byveils . On another occasion

,in India

,the ignorant

driver of a bul lock-gharry, who had never beforeseen a white woman , on a country road behind theruins of Amber in Jaipur, scarcely took his eyesfrom the brown gloves She was wearing . He couldnot reconcile a white face with brown hands . Whenshe took off one glove and he saw the white handcovered with rings

,the doddery Old Hindu waggoner

indulged in a paroxysm of laughter that would havemade the wal l s of Jericho reel on their bases .No book of travel about Japan ought to be published

unless it described how the Japs have tried to solvethe social evil

,or W . T. Stead ’s plague of Babylon .

To anybody who ful ly realizes that from the twochief venereal diseases flow 90 per cent of the i l lnesses that afllict modern humanity, i t is blind fol lynot to explain fully how these wise people try toabolish these accursed scourges

,and at the same time

endeavour to satisfy the rul ing passion of both sexes,the desire to p ro-create . Notwi thstanding the extending use Of rubber contraceptives

,venereal disease 1s

spreading and engulfing the human race in a fi lthy

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHRIFTledger in a doorway j ust round the corner

,took the

two yen or the ten , as the case may be, gave a receiptand entered it to the credit Of Madame Chrysanthemum or Monkey Margaret, or whatever was thenom de p lume of the lady student in ethics and moralsone had determined to dally with . There was nobootlegging or drinking or bad conduct possible .The unfurnished retiring rooms were very plainlyfurnished with mats

, one pil low and a kakemona on

the wal l , having painted on velvet pretty pictures oflittle blue wrens pecking one another ’s beaks preparatory to hopping into sweet green nests . I sn ’tthis system preferable to our cruel and anti- socialmethod of building hospital s for fal len women ,clin ics for diseased men

,asylums for lunatics

,retreats

for feeble-minded and reformatories for neglectedchildren ? Don ’ t al l these charitable institutionsnourish and continue the custom under which whena boy reaches puberty he natural ly does a natural actwith some young lady friend instead of being ableas in Japan to satisfy his natural ly manly appetitefrom 25 . upwards ? And hence all these tears !Men and women nowadays die l ike fl ies from cancer

,

which is undoubtedly the final form of syphil is, Ofgonorrhoea

,or perhaps of both acquired in youth by

themselves or by their papas or grandpapas or possiblytheir female ancestors near or far . All the greatrel igions of the world—Buddhism

,Shintoism

,Con

fucianism ,Mohammedanism

,Hinduism

,recognize

the passion to be a natural appetite,and Christianity

alone condemns it as a S in and makes ample provisionto cure and help the victims after they have obeyednature and incurred horrible pain and disease

,not

only for their natural l ives,but for the l ives of al l

their progeny to come .

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AUSTRALIA,A WONDERLAND OF TRAVEL

AUSTRALIA AS A WONDERLAND O F TRAVELWhy Austral ians go away from home to find

be tter scenic beauty one never can understand,because we have everything to please and charm inour great big country. The most picturesque countries are Switzerland and India

,and neither of them

equals either Tasmania or New Zea land . I f perpetualsnow on high mountain s is the supreme ideal , as itseems to be for al l those people who are

,un lucki ly

for them ,not Austral ians

,then must the critic stop

cri ti cizing. Of al l North Am erica,California is the

nearest region to Australia in the possession of naturalbeauty and a delightful climate al l the year round,perpetual sunshine

,eternal blue skies

,and soft balmy

air always . Have seen Mont Blanc,Fuj iyama,Rainier

,Vesuvius

,Niagara

,N ikko

,Mississippi

,Rhine,Danube

,Lake Como

,the R iviera

,Rio Janeiro, and

the Bay of Naples . The three lovely islands of theseas are Ceylon , Hawaii and Java, yet none Of themfor sheer loveliness excel s Tasmania . Within ninetymiles of Sydney the travel ler can see al l that Is beautifu lin mountains

,valleys, lakes, r ivers and sea-coasts,

and in Sydney i tself he wil l see the Queen city of

Earth . There Is no paradise for the wanderers likeNew Zealand where M i lford Sound and SutherlandFalls are unparalleled sights, and unti l the S ightseercomes to Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand hecannot possib ly say he has seen the most beauti fulcountries on the globe . Earth proudly wears AUStralia as the fines t gem on her zone .

TRAVEL P LACESMy wife and I have travel led further than any

married Couple in Austral ia. We made one tripround the globe covering two years from home,which took us to allthe continents . The record was29 steamers, 1 9 rai lways, and 50 hotel s In eighteen

1 7 1

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTmonths . Before we married

,my mate had made

three world voyages with her father and mother .She was wrecked in the steamer Korangam iteoff the coast of New South Wales

,and in 1 8 9 8 was

on the P . and O . S S . China when she ran ashoreat Perim Island In the Red Sea. The only observerof how the China ” ran into the island was theman at the wheel . The captain and all his six Officerswere not on the bridge . Lady Will ingdon

,then Mrs .

Freeman Thomas,was giving a birthday dinner party

when the ship struck and al l was bubble and hilarity.

My mate says the wreck was due not to the dinner,but to lack of discipline . I t i s curious that althoughwe have travel led so much we have never met with anaccident or with any adventures . Once, at the ruinedcity of Amber, near Jeypore, India, she was pitchedout of a howdah when the elephant shied at a monkey.

The moral i s that when you travel avoid jungles,deserts, mountains and stick to cities, hot baths, goodmeal s and modern lavatories . In this order the threemost beautiful seascap es are the Inland Sea of Japan ,the Barrier Reef off Queensland

,and the vicin ity of

the Thousand Islands on Lake Ontario in Canada .The most picturesque of all views is Sydney Harbourat night . In the day of course it is unequalled byany other harbour . We didn ’t care for Rio Janeiro .

Take away Corcovada and it is ni l . A prettier havenis Pango Pango

,on Tutui la

,a Samoan island In the

Pacific . India i s the glory land of the earth,and

the Taj Mahal the Superb gem of architecture . ThePalace of Miramar, In the Adriatic seen by moonlight,i s another beautiful building . There i s nothing to

see worth the journey to Japan,not even Nikko .

The Japs write,

“Until you have seen Nikko youcannot understand beauty.

” There is a spot on ahil l near Kangaroo Flat In Victoria

,Australia

,infinitely

to be preferred to Nikko . The best pleasure trip we

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTthetic race

,a mosaic of all the other races . The result

i s disappointing because refinement of body and mindhave been lost and the human “has sl ipped down to alower plane . Chicago

,Los Angeles, Philadelphia,

Baltimore,Pittsburg

,St. Louis and the rest are

merely vulgar and businesslike . Reno,the divorce

centre,stands as the material symbol of American

mentality : lawless, intolerant and selfi sh . Whenthey rebuild Boston and clean up New Orleans theymay be pleasant places to visit . Keep away fromChicago the noisy, New York the rude, and LosAngeles the vulgar . San Francisco i s a pleasantp lace

, but windy, noisy and over- crowded Thetravel ler should S l ip over and look at it

,lest another

earthquake,sure to arrive

,Spi ll s ’Frisco into ItS '

OWH

harbour . None of these American cities has a goodart gallery. The New York collection is finicking,ful l of dull indistinct rubbish by old masters , mostlyuneducated Dutchmen and Italians . There i s noAmerican school of art . The best native artists al ll ive in Europe . I n the Vil le de la Ciotat,” a Messageries steamship , we called at Victoria, the chieftown of the Seychelles I slands group situated onMahe I sland . This i s a British coal ing station takenfrom the French in 1 794 after John Bull

’s bestland- steal ing manner. The biggest moneylender onearth

,John Bull has been easily the largest-sized

land-grabber. He has taken by peaceful means,captured by wars, both honest and dishonest, bought,sold and exchanged land ever since 1 066 A .D . TheWar gave him a great opportunity to invent a phrasecal led mandated territories and John Bul l addedimmense tracts of land to his demesne . Certainlythe British paid for it in l ives and money, the l ivesa regrettable mis-waste

,the money stupidly lent to

France,I taly

,Belgium and others

, who if they couldnot have defended themselves should have vanished

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AUSTRALIA,A WONDERLAND OF TRAVEL

as nations . Very few Austral ians al ive have beento the Seychells group of ninety islands because theMessageries Company does not call there on theAustra l ian route . Mahe i s a drab

,dreary vi l lage

without a hotel . You can smel l the vanil la from thedeck of your ship

,also the cheap scent used by natives .

Copra , cloves and tobacco are grown and exported .

Mahe,with people on the island, i s as drab

and dul l as an English country vil lage,l ike Waldron

in Sussex,and hundreds Of other hamlets where men

and women exist half decayed .

j ouRNALI STs’

CONFERENCEOne of the most delightful ep isodes of our l ives

was the entire Annual Conference of the Instituteof Journali sts in September, 1 9 10, in London . I twas a tidal wave of good things to see, to hear, to eat,and to drink . Being an overseas Fel low of the Institute, I seemed to be special ly honoured . We wenteverywhere

,were in troduced to everybody, and ate

and drank everything off ered, moderately or in excess .Lord Burnham

,then only the Hon . Harry Lawson ,

was President that year,and he made an ideal Chair

man Of the Conference,which was composed of the

real bra iny men of Bri ta in , the j ournal ists . TheConference D inner at the Hotel Ceci l was everythingthat was good . I sat between Sir Herbert Tree andMr. S tanley Makower, who did not know me froma bar Of soap

,and never even asked me where Aus

tralia was . There was a function at the Guildhall,and the Corporation of London strained itself cor

p oreally to treat US well . Towards midnight I wassorry I had not worn rubber waders over my trousersbecause the refreshment room was nine inches deepin champagne at low water-mark . Gog and Magogand I got soused together . There was a numberone luncheon in the King ’s Hall at the House of

1 75

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTLords

,Earl Beauchamp in the Chair, and among

those present,reading from left to right

,were

,Messrs .

Amontil lado,L iebfraumilch

,Pommery Greno, Chateau

Lafite , 1 8 96, and Hennessey L iqueur brandy twentyfive years old and stil l very strong . The menutranslated was chicken soup

,soles

,partridge, grouse,

mutton,chicken in j el ly

,York ham

,ox tongue,

compote of pears and eaux minerale5,al l of which

proves that a li ttle French is a dangerous thing tolearn . I sat next to S . J . Sewell , one Of the mostcharming fellows I have ever bored In my life, andopposite Mr. Frank Newnes , who simply revel ledIn the tit bits from soup to nuts . We were hon .

members of seven clubs : Press , Constitutional ,Royal Societies,Savage, Lyceum, National , L iberal

and British Empire,and I regretted my non—election

to a really good ambulance club for service towardsdawn . Herbert Cornish, the Secretary, couldn ’thave been kinder to US during our nine days inWonderland and Joyv i l l e . If the Journalists ’ Conference were made a monthly aff air my mate and Iwould go and settl e down In London . There was aj ournal ists ’ function at the Garden Club In the JapanB riti sh Exhibition at White City managed by thatKing Of Entrepreneurs, Imre Kiralfy. The bestspeaker in London was Rev . R . J . Campbel l of CityTemple who reminded me of the first great preacherI heard in 1 8 84 at the Tabernacle, C . H . Spurgeon ,with whom I chatted about Austral ia . The moststriking figures at the Journali sts ’ Conference wereRobert Donald

,Waldorf Astor

,Sir Douglas S traight,

Sir Edward Clarke,Sir George Reid of Sydney,

Sir Edward Russel l,H . B . Irving and the Countess

of Warwick . Four Members of the House of Commons were produced as Specimens of lzomo 5ap z

'

en5,

A . C . Morton,Henniker Heaton (of Sydney Even

ing News Colonel Seely and L . G . Amery, the

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTs igned by George Errington

,M .P . ,

for admissionto the House of Commons . The first afternoonI spent there I saw and heard W. E . Gladstone, theMarquis of

.Hartington , H . W. E . Childers,an ex

Victorian m inister,Henry Fawcett, Parnell , and of

course T. P . O ’Connor . In those days there was noorator equal to John Bright whose styl e and dictionwere as purely Anglo-Saxon and simple as the proseof John Ruskin or R . L . Stevenson . There is nopure Anglo-Saxon Spoken anywhere nowadays . Thefi lms and the dreadful Niagara of American books byAmerican S lang writers have entirely destroyed thepurity and harmed the genius of the English language .It

’

s a pity Geordie Washington,Benny Franklin

,and

SandypHamilton did not, out of sp ite, originate alanguage for the use of the American colonists whofought England to grab the fee S imple of the land ofthe United States

,because they got it for nothin

In 1 8 84 I went to London , starting out withE2 50from Melbourne and landing back home

,after cross

ing Canada and the United States, with exactly tenshill ings in hand . That was the cheapest eightmonths of foreign travel out of my miles .Travell ing under Thos . Cook and Sons I saw thirtys ix cities in Europe

,and went allover the United

Kingdom and Ireland . Everybody was very kindto me and nobody could make out how I spokeEnglish with the Oxford accent . I was easily bettereducated and better read than any of the men of myown age I met, because our high school training forthe Melbourne University was superior to any Englishcurriculum . Australian universiti es are quite e fficientand wil l be more SOwhen the authorities stop importingprofessors and employ only Australian teachers .Took ten days to get to New York on the old CunarderBothnia

,and disliked that city intensely. Hurried

Off to Niagara and by the Thousand I slands to Mon

1 78

LONDONtreal , then a half-baked, backward and primitivetown . Caught gl impses of Chicago

,Detroit

, SaltLake City, and found the San Francisco of thosedays an overrated city with only one real ly brightspot, the Palace Hotel, the first hotel of its class inthe United States . Thence home via Honolulu thenan unspoilt E lysium , and across the Pacific, the bestocean ic trip on the planet.

A VIEW O F LONDONHaving seen most of the great cities on earth

,

London to me is repulsive,hideous

,unattractive .

London lacks the grace of Paris,the dignity Of Berlin

,

the beauty of Vienna , the cleanl iness of Copenhagen ,the quaintness of Stockholm

,the maj esty of St.

Petersburg . London possesses the narrowness ofCanton

,the noise of Chicago, the vulgarity of New

York,the crowding of Calcutta, and the filthiness of

Buenos Ayres . London is a queen.city wanting in

bril l iance and steeped in gloom . Most Austral iansare overwhelmed by London ’s vastness and its pressof people

,and stop to adore without thinking . In a

gold- topped temple at Benares I saw a sacred cow

standing in a byre on the fi l th of months, and crowdsOf worshippers kneel ing in the muck and prostratingsoul and body before the beast . London is an aptarallelto that cow. The love of Londoners forLondon passeth my Austral ian understanding . ThoseAustralians who have not seen London have only toread the descriptions of Charles Dickens—the prophetand high priest of dirt and poverty—to get an idea ofits awfu lness . There i s something cryptic andmystic about London , th is city of dreadful day andnight which one accustomed to our bright sky, cleancities and l ively people cannot fathom . Above allother characteri stics London is noisy. The sevenand a half mil lions of humans contrive to make one

1 79

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTeverlasting din and clatter . Even as the sense ofsmell in man has been dulled through the ages

,so i s

the sense of hearing of the Londoner becomingenfeebled

,if indeed it be not purely rudimentary.

The Londoner loves noise for its own sake . Hecontinual ly creates loud sounds and revels in them .

I t i s impossible to rest or be quiet in London becauseof the eternal roar . And next to this evil feature ofLondon comes its odious cl imate . From Novemberto May, the climate consists of fog, damp and gloomin equal parts . The Icelander ’S lungs are white, theLondoner ’s purple . The fog is palpable, material ,a very pal l to body and mind . No drug 1n the pharmacop oeia i s so depressing . The sun cannot penetratethe London fog

,a canopy of smut, a Shroud of soot .

Then the fog ’S handmaiden , tliose furies—zero,cold

,ice

,rain

,snow

,biting winds and mud The

third horror of London makes an uncomfortableTrinity—to wit, the crowd of people . Noise, cl imateand crush . Dai ly did I thank old Hoddle for givingMelbourne ninety-nine feet streets so we might havetwelve feet footpaths . A hand laid on my Shouldereven by a friend feels to me an infringement of myliberty . And one ’s sen se of personal freedom ishurt every minute in London ’s swarming streets .As you walk down Fleet Street, or O ld Broad Street,or Lombard Street you are elbowed, pushed, touchedand harried by fellow-passengers who are mostlyunwashed . And it is a spe cies of indigni ty from whichthere Is no escape . In our spacious Austral ian townsone ’s body i s free from defilem ent ; in crampedLondon the insult i s perpetual and unavoidable .London is too full to be pleasant . Outdoor existencein London being disagreeable i t might be thoughtthe inhabitants would build comfortable homes .On the contrary, the houses are as uncomfortablein side as they are forbidding and ugly outside . The

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTStores—which are modelled on German or Frenchlines, where dainty goods are shown in spaciousrooms pretti ly decorated and fi ll ed with light andfresh air .The most pitiable feature of London life i s the

habit of eating stal e food forced on the Londonerbecause, thanks to her idiotic policy of free trade,Britain has squelched her agricultural industry andcannot raise enough food to feed her people . Everyother great nation except Britain raises its own food .

This inabili ty to grow its own breakfast wil l some daylead to the subjugation of Britain and the dissolutionOf the Empire . Just think of i t ! Except in thehouses of the rich, the big hotel s, clubs and restau

rants , one cannot get fresh food . The food of themiddle classes

,probably original ly of good qual ity,

comes to the table thawed,and from several to many

days Old . Meat,

fi sh,

flour, eggs, butter, fruit,vegetables are al l imported from other countries,chiefly In ice . E ighty per cent of the meat comesfrozen from North America

,and 60 per cent of the

wheat . All the fi sh Is frozen , and so i s most of thegame . Siberia sends eggs fourteen days Old ; Denmark and Holland supp ly butter

,cheese and milk of

Older growth,and the fruit and vegetables make

voyages of from six days to six weeks duration . Muchof th i s stuff starts stale and arrives tasteless

,insipid

and innutritious . NO wonder the Londoner i s thin ,anaemic and dyspep tic . One shudders to think whatthe very poor l ive on. In the lower middle classhomes

, the cheapest and poorest fish always smokedor salted

,forms the staple diet. Such common stuff

as smelts,bloaters

,herrings

,haddocks

,sprats, al l

poor in proteids and inferior In quality, has to nouri shthe Londoner ’s protoplasm and supply him with fat,brains and muscle . This salty diet i s responsiblefor the Briti sher ’s tremendous drink ing habi ts .

1 8 2

A V IEW OF LONDONIn my opinion the breakfast bloater and the dinnerherring compel the Londoner to be thirsty and needbeer . To achiev e temperan ce reform I would puton a heavy land tax ; force land into cultivation ,take the Chow S laves out of the Johannesburg mines

,

and set them to planting cabbages and lettuce inDevon and Sussex, and forbid by law any able-bodiedman of soldier ’s age between twenty and forty to

eat salt fish or sal t meat . Never more wil l I scoffat the Kyneton sandwich

,or a Junee chop . At any

rate they are not frozen and then thawed .

I missed the sun and the blue sky in London dreadful ly, and nearly as intensely did I crave for freshfood . My pity is for the Londoner and my pride i sterrific, because I ’m an Austral ian , and can get agood egg and sweet milk

,both only six hours of age

and less . And its food has aff ected the British type .The race in the parent country is undergoing am etamor hosis through its food . Frozen food isonly a f

’alctor of

,say, twenty years existence, and

already it has wrought modifications of function andstructure in the Londoner. His acquired characteristics due to th e change in the nature of his foodand drink in one generation wil l be transmitted, andhis off spring wil l show the variation markedly

,because

Changed habits produce an inherited eff ect, andalteration in the Londoner ’s food is nearly a totalone s ince 1 8 84 when I first visi ted Noisev ille . Theeff ect of this stal e food on the Londoner, and that heis decadent is proved by the loss of supremacy inhome-grown arts and Sports . I n tennis, boxing,bi ll iards

,cricket

,rowing

,running

,shooting, footba l l ,

most of the championships are held by Austral ians ,and in Melba and Mackennal, Austral ia has producedthe leading Briti sh-born arti sts at the very top of theirrespective professions . These are a few of the resultsof pure food . And by the way, while the Englishman

1 8 3

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTwrangles about the D i sestabl ishment of the Church

,

reform of the House of Lords and Home Rule, heomits to stop adulteration of food and drink, whichgoe s on merri ly, to the evident detriment of the race .A disgusting symptom of degeneracy is the custom

of the London women in fondling and kissing andpetting dogs of al l sorts and sizes . They carry thebeasts everywhere

,and take them to bed with them

at night .The travell ing Australian general ly sees London

l ife as presented in the hotels,clubs and restaurants .

Owing to the monstrous value of land excessiveground rents

,every London hotel i s expensive from

and Austral ian view-point,whether it be a temperance

caravanserai in Bloomsbury, or the R i tz, Carlton ,

Cecil,or Savoy. Notwithstanding these extravagant

charges few of them pay the owners . Three, four andfive per cent are the usual dividends on hotel shares ,and a great many London hotels remain open bygrace of their creditors or l iquidators . Competitionof late years of course is a factor in the failure of theLondon hotel . Too many pretentious hotels havebeen built in recent years

,and bankruptcy ends the

Vi sta the day the front door is open for business .So too very few London clubs pay their way. Excepting the big political clubs kept al ive by donationsfrom team en and brewers seeking baronetcies, theordinary social clubs are submerged in debt, chieflyas debentures . Of the hundred ladies ’ clubs, aboutthree or four flourish

,-while the rest decay. Most

London clubs are housed in dul l, poky, tiny housesfree from air and light

,and therefore described by the

draught-hating Londoner as SO cosy, you know.

”

L ike the London church,the clubs are used as dormi

tories, being sop orific and unsociable . The restau

rants do very well,and Monico

,Frascati , Holborn

and Gatti,even return good profits . The stranger

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTtrousers, while the Board Schools, run by untrainedand sweated teachers

,teach the children the rudiments

of simple knowledge, after having given them theirfree breakfast . Technical education i s a lux ury tobe sought in L iverpool

,Manchester or Birmingham .

The Londoner detests reading,avoids his great

museums,keeps away from lectures

,and anything

scientific,while he crowds the music-hall s and theatres

which abound in the metropolis . There are nearlyn ine hundred places of entertainment, with few

exceptions supplying p iflle in vast quanti ty to theirfrequenters . To use a generic term the stage i s atvery low ebb in London just now. There is no

real ly great actor or actress, and the way for others i sblocked by elderly men and women , who lingersup erfluously on the stage, because they were oncepublic favourites . To the visitor i t i s lamentablethat decrepit mummers Should be retained to play,years after the j oy of l ife has fled from them . Thevisitor does not care whether E l len Terry or MarieTempest or George Alexander or Charles Wyndhamwere good actors in the ’seventies, for he sees theyare not now. And so i t i s in op era boufle . The leadingplayers are mediocre, with poor voices and inferiorknowledge of stage-craft . Tell that to a Londonerand he will laugh at your ignorance . YOU, as anAustralian

,accustomed to good singers, a well

trained chorus and pretty girls, know better . Youhave been spoil t at home

,and cannot appreciate the

rubbishy theatrical work the Londoner adores bytradition . I have seen theatres in every quarter of

the globe,and assert that In the last twenty-five years

London has never seen an actress in op era boufie theequal of Nel li e Stewart or Florr1e Young. The Englishare unmusical people, the proof being that Londonhas not yet produced a great s inger or player . Theleading concert and opera s ingers are either foreigners

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A V IEW OF LONDONor Australians . In bygone days London possessedReeves and Santley, good British-born singers . To

day there i s not one above mediocrity. Climate,

food and environment in London do not make forthe production of either musicians or a musical publ ic .And the Londoner can ’t paint . If i t was not for aScotch element, a few Yankees, l ike Sargent andAbbey, and fortuitous foreigners l ike Alma Tademaor H erkom er

, the Royal Academy would be a j ej eunebody of artists . Who i s the great British painterto-day ? I s there one ? The exhibition of the two5alon5 of Paris i s infinitely finer than the Show at theRoyal Academy in imagination

,variation and tech

nique . The col lection of the Lux embourg Galleryin Paris , and the Prada at Madrid far transcend theNational Ga l lery and Tate ’s Gal lery in London .

Having stripped the Londoner of most of the thingshe is supposed to own in excel5i5 , one would like tosay he

’

s a good Sport . Here one chances on coldcomfort. The Londoner is distinctly not good atsports and he doesn ’t practise them . Here ’s a l istof things he can ’t do

,for I ’ve seen him trying for

many years past . He can ’t swim,skate, ride, box ,

shoot, run or play cricket, tennis or football . Allthese sports are played by professionals, and theLondoner pays to look on and yel l . It

’

s a wonderhe hasn ’t taken to bul l-fighting, because that

’s a nicedangerous game to look at . One virtue remainsto our cousin s in the world ’s greatest city . They areal l politicians

,and talk politics incessantly and vote

for safe men of the calico-j immy variety . Forthis reason I have some hope for the regenerationof the Londoner . Some day the scales wil l fal l fromhis eyes

,and he ’ l l vote protection , and go in for

developing his old, old country which is desti tute ofhome industries

,smal l trades and intense culture .

Wait ti l l the poor chap fully real izes that his country

1 8 7

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTcan ’t feed itself

,and he ’ l l pul l down every Bright

and Cobden statue,and delete the Asquiths

,Georges,

Churchil l s,and other chatterers

,who tel l him to

trust the foreigner for his bread and meat . To metwo things are appall ing in London—the inrush ofal iens and alien goods

,and the terrible poverty every

where . The poverty is unspeakable, and nearlyindescribable . The poor

,who exist on off al , l ive in

rags,and never inhabit a room

,walk the dingy London

streets in thousands . YOU don ’t see them (dearreader who is annoyed with my criticism) in theBurlington Arcade or Bond Street . Go east and southeast, observe keenly, and make quiet enquiries .You ’ l l be astounded by the ragged

,fi lthy depravity.

I t is starvation and S low death for tens of thousandsparticularly of children . The causes ? Locked-Upland and the open door Too few landlords and toomany foreign competitors . The remedies are faraway because for the present the British have noleaders, neither in statesmen nor newspapers . Theepoch of the ha ’penny paper coincides with the deathof big men . The London newspapers wield no powernowadays . They are poor

,badly-written sheets

anyhow . Except the Tory Morning Post,

” nodaily tries to teach or lead through vigorous writing .

The Mail ,” Chronicle

,

” News,

” and Mirrorare mere travesties of j ournal ism . They abound inscrappy paragraphs of news

,badly selected and want

ing variety. The leading articles are trite and trivial,sloppily written

,and wi thout Obj ective . Outside

the ponderous Times and lubberly Telegraphthe rest of the London papers are commonplace ;the Sunday papers, bar two, being smutty and vulgar.The present House of Commons is a collection

of second—rate politicians,having neither capacity

nor cleverness, and whose constant attitude towardsgreat aff airs i s expressed by the Arabic Malaish,

”

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CHAPTER V I I I

PEOPLE I HAVE KNOCKED ABOUT W ITHTH E GAIETY COM PANY

TH E tour of the first Gaiety Company from London ,headed by Nel ly Farrem and Fred -Lesl ie, was thegreatest theatrical event in the annals of Austral ianplay-going Up to that time . The land boom in Victoriahad reached its perimeter j ust prior to the debaclewhich broke twelve banks and wiped outworth of assets . The Gaiety Company was inimitable,containing as i t did the cre

'

me dela cre’

me of the leadingrevue artists of London Sylvia Gray

,Letty L ind,Florence L evey

,Maud Hobson and Marian Hood,

with Teddy Lonneu and Fred Storey,the eccentric

dance,to support them . One night at the Princess

Theatre bar Fred Lesl ie ’s party was bored by acommercial traveller who was worrying one of thegirl s and would insist on shouting bubbly for al lhands . Fred Lesl ie final ly suggested to the bore togo to Menzie ’s Hotel to get sober . The soused onewas p ut in a hansom cab and some wag poured aglass Of brandy down his coat and lit it . The driverwas paid a pound to drive the l ikeness to a Christmaspudding to his own hotel and deposit h im . Thatsame night, Fred Leslie put Nel ly Farren in a hansom,

mounted the box and drove the cab himself to Menz ie

’

s . That was against the law and it cost Fred afiver to close the scrape . During that hectic boomperiod

,the art of good eating was first expounded in

Melbourne by two French they’

5,Lacaton and Denat.

I t i s a strange thing that the fine art of good dininghas to-day not even a p ied a

’

terre in Melbourne .

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THE GAIETY COMPANYAt the age of ninety years the magnificent city of

Melbourne does not possess a high-class cafe whererecherché food can be enjoyed .

INTERESTINO PEOP LEHave been present at some interesti ng dinners in

London . The best was one given on varnishing dayto a bunch of Royal Academicians by Ge orgeMcCulloch, the Broken Hil l mil lionaire and artpatron . McCulloch had bought a freehold from theauthorities of the Imperial Institute and built ahouse to his own design . The dining-room wasoctagonal with eight arches leading into other rooms,the wall s of which were covered with modern paintings .There were present some notable painters, E . J .

Poynter, Alfred East, Alfred Gilbert, David Murray,Bougereau, the famous French artist, Vicat Cole andB . W. Leader. The only Phil isti nes present wereMr . (afterwards Sir) R . W . Jeans, general managerof the Bank of Australasia

,and myself. The dinner

was excellent, well cooked and wel l balanced bywmes en 5uzte .

Another amusing dinner was a regular one of theWhitefriars ’ Club at Alderton’

s Hotel on LudgateH i l l . Herbert Corn ish, the genial and able secretaryof the Institute of Journalists took me along . AlfredSutro was in the Chair and the discourse by ArthurBourchier was called

,What Should influence a

playwright in wri ting his plays Bourchier pleadedfor th e Uplifting and irnp rov ement Of the mentalcondition of the masses of playgoers and took a higheth ical View of the question . There were a numberof producers of best sel lers and dramas , andsociety comedies present

,including a handful of minor

poe ts and poetasters . I t was so long ago that thenames of the speakers have faded, though one can

reca l l Hichens,Jerome

,Weyman

,Pinero, Hope ,

1 9 1

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTBarrie

,Philpott

,and several other notables who were

pointed out to me by Cornish . As our visitor fromthe Antipodes I was asked for my opinion as to howa dramatist Should shape his plays

,and I suggested

he should keep his eyes firmly fixed on the boxOflice takings and write what was l ikely to pay most .I n June

,1 8 8 9 , I was at a dinner given in the Criterion ,

Piccadil ly,to David Christie Murray on the eve of

his departure for Austral ia . Edmund Yates,than a

noteworthy London journalist, was Chairman . SomeOf my neighbours were the Australian dramatist,Haddon Chambers

,Hume Ni sbet

,Marriott Watson ,Dr . Mannington Caff yn, Phill ip Mennel l, Justin

McCarthy, M .P .,Thomas Archer

,Agent-Genera!

for Queensland,Sir George E l l iott, M .P . , David

Anderson and Edmund Yates were the chief speakers ,and I remember the Veuve Monnier vintage 1 8 80

and the Theophile Roederer l ike the speeches, were al ln ice and dry . A more pretentious feast at St. George ’sClub

,where I was living

,was a farewel l to the Earl of

Hopetoun,Governor-E lect of Victoria, with Sir

Graham Berry,then Agent-General for Victoria, in

the Chair. The menu was exceptional and the winesso-so. There I hobnobbed in my small snobbishmanner with some very eminent people and ruflledi t with the best of them . Particularly is my memorycloyed in remembering the canetons aU Salpicon , thepluviers dorés

,and the Chambertin and Romanee

Conti burgundy. That night I was the fattest hogin Epicurus ’ sty . Sir E . J . Reid, the naval architect,proposed the Army and Navy

,and Sii' Andrew Clarke,

Admiral George Tryon and Mr . (afterwards Sir)Thomas Sutherland

,M .P .,

.responded Lord Knutsford proposed Hopetoun ’S hea lth , and Lord Roseberyresponded for Our Colonia l Empire . Thosespeeches were good

,but I did not appraise too highly

others by Hugh C . E . Childers, an ex-Victorian1 92

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTprodigy, an unusualevent Jimmy Tyson was saidto eat grass to save food . When the waiter at Menz i es ’

Hotel said in reproof,Mustard with mutton

,Mr.

Tyson .

” Yes, you damn fool, we eat mustard witheverything in the bush

,

” was his reply.

” MoneyMiller before his death amused himself j inglingsovereigns on a green card table. What fun hasS idney Kidman got from his money EdwardJowett dances a li ttle and badly. When he was poorhe wrote and read . J .B . Watson and George Lansell,both millionaires , knew nothing and learnt nothing,not even joy . W . L . Bai llieu i s a money spinner ofmuch capacity . He cannot do a single thing to givehim pleasure

,not even through the medium of the

pedal Of a piano player . Rupert Clarke witha year

,less income tax

,used to grow! his way through

life . Harry Howard Smith with a year i san invalid . Not one on the list can or could laugh or

tel l a funny story. What value or reward does greatwealth bring

L . ROB INSON, CLARK AND COM PANYLet me tel l briefly the story Of the romance of

L . Robinson,Clark and Company, a firm of AUS

tralian stock—brokers on the London Stock Exchange .Over thirty years ago L ionel Robinson and Will iamClark failed on the Stock Exchange of Melbourne,and failed badly. The gold rush to Coolgardie inWest Austral ia was j ust starting and most of theshare business was being done in Adelaide insteadof Melbourne . Leaving their families in Melbourneand armed with two guarantees from their fathersfor £ 1 00 each with the Commercial Bank, Adelaide,the two adventurers went to Adelaide and hung roundthe Stock Exchange

,gradually worming themselves

into the thick of a tremendous boom which ensuedUpon the flotation of numerous good and bad and

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L . ROB INSON, CLARK AND COMPANYmedium West Austral ian mines in London . Robinsonand Clark had good friends among the share-brokersin Melbourne, Sydney and London , and businessincreased so much that they were able to j oin theAdelaide Stock Exchange as members . Then theythrew away their gloves figuratively and with bareknuckles went into the game of buying scrip cheapin Adelaide and sel l ing it dear in London . Soon theirtransactions became extensive

,and at one time they

had of drafts going and coming on the seaat the same time . I f they had failed, the CommercialBank might have closed for the second time perhapsfor ever. Fortunately noth ing went amiss with themarket or with prices, the boom being kept alive byfresh discoveries Of gold-fields and new flotations ofLondon companies . Robinson and Clark soon becameleaders on the Exchange and worked night and dayand always for a profit . When they had amassed

clear and landed it high and dry,the late

L ionel Robinson came to London to S p y out the land .

I was with him every day introducing him to all theworth-while people I knew. Robby did not likehis chances of succes s in the wider arena of theLondon Stock Exchange and got stage-fright . Onenight at dinner at Kettner’s Café in Soho he told mehe had cabled Bil l Clark to say he was returninghome to Adelaide . Clark ’s reply was, Stay there ;am catching steamer Arcadia . ’ When Bil l arrivedin London he became a clerk of the Stock Exchangeto qual ify for membership

,and

’

they opened an officein O ld Broad Street , and subsequently in PalmerstonHouse . They never looked back and made onecoup after another. They were both fine operatorsand quicker than lightning or wireless . One deal“Robby made with Sir Christopher Furness , theshipping king

,wil l i l lustrate my point. For the sake

of advertisement the firm kept a string of racehorses,

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTwhich gave them entre

’

e to the exclusive racing circleof England. Robby met Sir Chri stopher at Goodwood and the chat turned to mining and then toGreat Boulder Perseverance Shares . Then and thereRobinson agreed to give Furness cash forthe privilege to p ut Perseverance sharesinto him within three months . These wily and daringexperts got to work and made Perseverance riseand fal l

, j ump and drop, do everything except gyratesideways . At the clean-Up , three months later, thefirm had bagged Within ten years Of

j oining the London Exchange,Robinson

,Clark and

Company were reputed to be worth a mill ion solid .

Their j oin t career has been a romance . When theyleft Melbourne stone-broke they owed roughly twentyfive pound each to the grocer, butcher and milkman .

To-day the firm is easi ly the most powerful Austral ianhouse in the London Stock market.

INTERESTINO PEOPLEThough mixed Up all my life with people who

owned racehorses and bet on races , I have neverbeen tempted to lose money to enable bookmakersto have caviare for breakfast

,plovers ’ eggs for lun

cheon and braised caneton,sauce Portugaise

,for

dinner . I made one sensational wager and renouncedbetting for l ife . A party of Australian racing menwent by drag from the old St. George ’ s Club , HanoverSquare, to Epsom on Derby Day

,1 8 9 8 . We had a

sprinkl ing of the fair sex and a dozen bottles of TheBoy aboard with assorted p a

‘

tér fi l l ing seven basketsfull . Merson Cooper

,Harry S imms

, of Adelaide ,Prince McGill

,with L ionel Robinson , and Bil ly

Jones, both of whom had won the Melbourne Cup ,were in the party . About three weeks previouslyI had been suppering with some of the lads of the vil lageat Rule ’s Supper House

,in Maiden Lane

,in those days

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTburst was second cousin to J . G . Dougharty, whofor some reason not disclosed refused to receive youngDeerhurst at hi s home

,E lwood House, E lwood . The

Earl of Coventry had given a letter to a Duke of

Manchester some time previously introducing himto J . G . Dougharty . His Grace dined at E lwoodHouse and during the walnuts and wine tried to“tap ” his host for a considerable sum . J .G.D .

refused laughingly,and natural ly the Duke never

revi sited E lwood . The Duke of Manchester waswrecked on the Orient Company ’s

, or rather thePacific S .N . Company ’s

,steamer Sorata ” off the

South Austral ian coast,but al l on board were saved .

HARRY LAUDEROnce my wife and I were taken to dinner at the

Café Royal,then next to Krasnop olsky

’

s Restaurantat Amsterdam

,the best dining place in Europe, by

a London cousin and an Anglo-Austral ian banker,prim, proper and conven tional, l ike al l Club Englishmen . We went to the Pavil ion Music Hall , ThePav. on some sort of a' ga la night. There was oneextra turn by a twisted Scot with a twisted face andvoice and a twisted walking stick . He sang a Scotchlyric, through his throat, apparently coated with rust,cal led The Girl s of Tobermory . Lacking 5avoir

fa ire, and despising convention for the nonce, we twoAustralians —laughed consumedly at the cheeky littleunnamed Scotch singer . Our hosts protested at ourribaldry, You must not laugh loud ly like that, it’snever done . Not only did we laugh like a tornado,but we applauded with all the aplomb of a machinegun and the wee tangled up Scot sang an encore .We found out from the manager of The Pav.”

that the unknown singer was called Harry Lauder.Two years later

, on another tri p , my cousin met USatWaterloo Station and promised us a treat at the old

1 98

HARRY LAUDERRoyal Music Hall

,in Oxford Street . He took us

to hear Harry Lauder. Years afterwards at a dinnerin the Penang Club on St. Andrew ’s night whensomebody sang Lauder ’s masterpieces , three of usagreed to go and hear him the fi rst time we met inLondon . A year later we three dined at the GreatEastern

,L iverpool S treet, and engaged a box at the

Cambridge Music Hall . We went behind at HarryLauder ’ s invitation , and he rang for four Scotch andpol lys

,disposing of the mythical yarn that he hained

his bawbees,

”or bred moths in his purse .

PEOPLE ABROAD— SOM E GREAT M ENWhen I first went to London in 1 8 84 , Mr . Deakin

gave me a letter to Sir John Pender,the head of the

Eastern Extension Telegraph Company,who im

pressed me as being head and shoulders above thebusiness men I have met in the City of London . I nthose days business was conducted on loose l ines .If you called on a man on Monday he usual ly fixedThursday at 1 2-4 5 p .m . for an appointment, and tookone to luncheon at his city club . After luncheon anda brace of green Chartreuse or fine cognac

,1 84 2 , no

business was discussed,and your newly-made friend

left for his week- end in the country that afternoon .

Sir John Pender was not a man of that type , beingmost busin ess- l ike and attentive . He invited me tohis home at S idcup in Kent and showed me his finecol lection of pictures in his town house . His pers istent development of the cable and telegraph faci l iti es throughout the Empire placed Great Britainunder an obligation to Sir John Pender that can

n ever be l iquidated .

I NTERESTING PEO PLEMost interesting men were three cousins of m ine,

James,Robert and George Ingl is . The Hon. James

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTI ngl is

,known in Sydney as Tiger Inglis

,was

Minister of Public Instruction in one of S ir HenryParkes ’ M inistries . He had an adventurous l ifechock ful l of colour and episodes . He began as anindigo planter in Assam before Sir Will iam Preecefound the secret of making anil ine dyes from tar,which the conservative Engl ish dyemakers refusedto purchase . Preece sold the secret to Germanmanufacturers

,and the first thing to be swamped by

the new process of producing blue dyes cheaply wasthe indigo industry in India and Ceylon . Jimmy Inglisthen became a tea planter and indulged in big gamehunting of which he was a zealous practitioner .Malaria from jungle l ife forced him to travel to NewZealand to die . An open-air l ife midst the sceneryof the most perfect country on the planet renewedhis vital ity and he came to Sydney to become a statesman and tea merchant . He was a clever and volum inous author best known by Oor Ain Folk

,

” a bookdescribing l ife in a Presbyterian manse in a Scotchglen . James Inglis also wrote , Tent L ife in TigerLand . Robert Inglis, his eldest brother, went toLondon and became a member of the London StockExchange, of which he was Chairman for many years .A s broker for several Scottish assurance companiesRobert became wealthy. He was colonel in theci tizen forces and knighted in his official capacity asthe judicial president of the 5000 adherents of theStock Exchange . Sir Robert ought to have been aJudge of the High Court of Justice of England

,so

perfectly judicial was his mind and mental outlookon l ife . He was like his native Caledonia, stern andwild very frequently with delinquents of the StockExchange . Inglis once fined Prince Bai l l ieu

,our

Australian member,for asking a leading Hebrew

stock-broker over the telephone whether he thoughthimself the Blondin of the Stock Exchange, the man

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTpersonal knowledge of the big Australian mines,l ike Broken Hil l Proprietary

,Mount Lyel l, Mount

Morgan , Mount Bischoff , Great Boulder, Ivanhoe,etc ., I could have made a fortune in London easi ly.

The damp foggy climate was too bad for my catarrhicAustral ian chest and I had to return home to the bluesky and the daily sunshine .

PEO PLE ABROADThe best Englishman who came to Australia wasCaptain Cook

,because he found the best country on

the planet . The most delightful Englishman whoever dwelt here was Phi l May

,who like Lycidas died

ere his prime . Often met Phil May when he was onthe Sydney Bulletin developing his own talent andlaying a sure foundation for the modern practice of

the black and white art which so many Austral ians,l ike my friends Alf. Vincent, Norman L indsay, L ionelL indsay

,Will Dyson

,Frank Nankivellof New York,

and George Rossi Ashton of London , have raised toits highest technical pinnacle . One morning GeorgeAshton and I called on Phil May at his house inSt. John ’s Wood to pay him a visit of ceremony.

Mrs . May opened the door and said Phil was busyon his cartoon for “Punch next day. Hearingour voices, Phil came out to settle the disturbance,and in reply to George ’s request that he should comeout for ten minutes he said fervently and vigorously,Boys, I

’ l l come out and stay two days with you .

”

And what a day it was . The morning we Spent inthe strangers ’ rooms of a dozen London clubs,beginning at the Cavalry Club in Piccadilly andfinishing up at the Savage Club in the Adelphi, of

which Phil May was a beloved member. H ow hegot away with the hall officers of al l these clubs I don ’ tknow. He may have been known and his tips mayhave been familiar. We lunched at Romano ’s with

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PEOPLE ABROADRomano himself and Pitcher Binstead of the PinkUn and two more of the merry staff joined us for

p ouJ J e-cafés . Next we did three Press clubs and

looked in at more matinees than a befuddled revellercould register on the phylactery on his left wrist .About five o ’clock we cal led for George Edwardsat the Gaiety Theatre and toddled along to Short ’sin the S trand for just one ap eritif of sherry. And so tothe Hole in the Wall

,the Bodega in Glasshouse

S treet, and for a final to Teddy Bai l ey’ s Queen ’sHotel in Leicester Square . The afternoon fiz z edand bubbled with merriment and assorted liquors .I t was far finer than a cycle of Cathay, or beingburied in Wes tminster Abbey. Joseph Lyons actedas our dinner host at the Trocadero

,just then opened ,

and we lurched round to the Empire for a glimpse atAdel ine Genee

,worth a gross ofPavlovas as a danseuse .

Next we cal led on Charl ie Morton,manager of the

Palace Theatre,and met Alfred Plumpton , once a

Melbourne music teacher. Maude Allan was doingSalome half-stripped to the buff and dancing quiteas gracefu l ly as could Hackenschm idt, the hugeGerman wrestler . At that tim e, on dit that Maudewas the l ittl e pe t of a big, because powerful , PrimeMinister . Natural ly we s trol led unevenly to theAlhambra music-hal l and palace of varieties, now abeastly American movie-picture show, to cal l uponAlfred Moul the manager

,who once taught the

piano in Melbourne . Then from the pit we cooe-cdto Fred Storey, the eccentric dancer, whom I had metin Melbourne when he was with the Gaiety Company,headed by the inimitable Fred Lesl ie and Nel l ieFarren . Storey joined us and we glided into CaféCavour and called upon Phi lippe to produce his veryfinest cm of bubbly attended by a bisque homard ,spatchcock Escofii er, golden plover sur croustade,a Russian chees e from the Volga and four goose

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTquill toothpicks . Philippe accompanied us to the

bar to have a whisky sour and a spoonful of caviareto stop hiccups

,when 10 ! and behold Mrs . May

entered from the street,smiled blandly and men

tioned, Phil,time to go home . Phil muttered,

Good night,boys fancy four Australians like us

meeting all of a sudden,and off he went . Mrs .

May told me later that he finished his Punchcartoon before going to bed . One story of her,because about Phil May one could ~ tella hundred .

Mrs . May, my mate and I were guests ofMr . LawrenceBradbury

,proprietor of London “Punch two or

three years later,at Pagani ’s Restaurant in Great

Port land Street . Phil had not been dead very long .

I suppose you have been busy, Mrs . May 9 saidBradbury. Yes,

”she replied quietly, th i s morn

ing I ’ve been tearing up a lot of old sketches andpaper rubbish of Phil ’s I found in a big woodenbox.

” Bradbury was horrified and I fancy he musthave bought the surviving waste paper before wedispersed . But What a delight in those days it wasto be chaperoned by such a cicerone as Phil May 1Here is a fair tour in those different days

,amongst

the haunts of the free and easy and the delightfulpeople . On Saturday morning to go early to Truefitt

’

s i n Bond Street,have a hair cut, a shampoo , a

shave,a manicure

,a pedicure

,and a hair dye (if

advisable) . Next to get your tal l hat groomed atScott ’s, buy a pair of gloves in the Burlington Arcade ,hail your favourite hansom cab and drive to Scott ’sin Haymarket for a dozen Royal Whitstable oystersand a small mutchkin of porter

,before getting a

gardenia from the flower-girl beneath Eros ’ statue,Piccadil ly Circus

,the true centre of the earth . And

so perforce to your banker in Clements Lane, E .C.,

for more brass,

” th en by a short cut into Birch ’sGreen House for a tiny glass of port and an even

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTTemple Bar used to be . Fine beer at the Cock,which is not so far from the Victorian Agent-General ’soffice

,alongside the Law Courts

,so we annex Sir

John Taverner,easily the best Agent-General of al l

I have met,from Murray Smith

,Sir Andrew Clarke ,

Graham Berry,Duncan Gill ies

,to Peter McBride .

Taverner was always ready to help a Victorian to

float a mining company,get bail for him, take him

to a tailor,or interest him in a two—hour luncheon

at Gatti ’s Adelaide Gallery Restaurant . The nextchoice was between Hotel Savoy bar and that of

the Hotel Ceci l . Armed with a box of Teofani orAbdulla Egyptian cigarettes

,then the vogue for

smokers , we were ready to s it down in the Americanbar and sample alluring American cocktai ls builtby an English barman . Time now for middaylunch and the choice lay between S impson ’ s glorifiedchop house in the Strand or the buff et of the GrandHotel . At that time S impson ’s was the only diningroom where one could get genuine roast beef of O ldEngland, or real Southdown or Scotch mutton .

The latter was excellent because the Scotch lodgetheir sheep in barns better than their own housesand cram them like fowls with swede turnips to givethem the true flavour of Scottish heather. Nowadaysthe Londoners get only the roast beef of O ld Americafrozen , or the boiled lamb of the Young Argentinechil led . After luncheon occurs an embarrassmentof riches . In every direction from Nel son ’s monumentstreets run in al l directions fi l led with places wheregood drink may be purchased

,but not borrowed .

And on a bright,blue

,sunshiny afternoon , which

happens only a dozen times a year in London , therewas nothing more health-giving and amusing than towalk leisurely along to Piccadi l ly, cal l in at the BluePosts, drop in at V errey

’

s in Regent S treet North ,find one ’s way to Café Royal or Gambrinus Café and

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LONDONfrom there to the Monico and look continual ly uponfair women and brave men all becomingly att ired andbehaving decorously. Grandma did not shave herhair or lop the lower half of her dress to use her legsas a lewd magnet

,but she got there just the same .

O ther times,other tri cks . And also how fast and

far the years have fled ! On consulting my notesI find much of the above gin crawl ” was Spreadover several days and the tale is not half finished .

After al l human nature has not changed one j ot,dot

,

ti ttle or iota since man began . Man is an untiringpleasure- seeker . This golden rule has held throughthe e ons of time, men and women are fifty—fifty,half of them honest, half dishonest, half clever, halfsil ly

,half good- looking

,half ugly

,half truthful ,

half of them not,half strong

,and half of them weak .

I t i s the only certain mathematical law about mankindwhich is divided rigidly in two classes , good andbad . All which is preaching and harmful to a bestseller. My companion of the gin crawl ” was adiminutive Cockney accountant who had been aclerk in Mombassa in East Africa and who haddrifted across to Melbourne where he joined anotheraccountant from Gloucestershire . They both faredbadly in the land boom wash-out and from theircompotes saved enough money to buy depositreceipts in bung banks and make competencies .He finished his art of the inspection of West Endsaloons when a fiiir Hebe poured out a wineglass ofabsinthe instead of gin at the Rose and Thistlein Air S treet . The subsequent proceedings interestedhim no more . One bel ief do I cl ing to firmly fromamong a multitude of lost i l lusions . To be wel ldressed is better than to have the consolation of oneof the many religions . For years I had my clothessent home to Melbourne from Meyer and Mortimerof Conduit Street, hats from Scott ’s, boots from

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PLEASANT CAREER or A SPENDTHR IFTLobb

’

s in St. James Street, and everything else fromWhitelock ’

s in Pal l Mal l . To be one of the bestdressed men in Melbourne was of higher attainmentthan to become an Immortal of the French Academy,or a member of New York ’s 400 . There are nowell-dressed men in Melbourne now

,for the cut and

material of male clothing belong to the time whendinosaur ’s eggs were soft and eatable . At the endof the so-cal led nineteenth century the Sundaymorning parade in Hyde Park was a pure j oy. Bothmen and women were exquisitely and morally dressed

,and moved and behaved gracefully. To d ay thesexes have the manners and morals of negroes witha similitude to the dreadful black fel lows of theUnited States . Her hair ought to be a woman ’schief glory and at the behest and for the behoof ofthe Un ited Master Hairdressers ’ Association of theWorld

,woman has shorn off her chief attribute of

beauty and reduced herself to the level of the bagsand wantons . A pity ’tis

,

’

tis true . With bizarredresses go baroque manners, and the complementof the bad manners so prevalent in these moderndays is weak morals . And good temper seems tohave gone with good manners down the declivity tohel l following the Gadarene swine .

AN EM I NENT AUSTRAL IAN Z ARTH UR LYNCHQuite easily the most talented and bri l l iant Aus

tralian who l ived abroad away from home is Dr .Arthur Lynch , born on the old Smythesdale goldfield near Ballarat . Lynch ’s accompl ishments proclaim him a genius . He holds numerous Universitydegrees

,i s an incomparable l inguist

,speaking s ix

languages,and above al l i s a poet of the very first

rank . A rthur Lynch is the author of ModernAuthors and The Poor Scholar’s Quest of aMecca .” His Koran of Love and The Caliph ,

”

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTLondon at some Guildhal l function when he wasGovernor-E lect of Victoria . Next day he asked meto call at h is house in Knightsbridge to pump me forinformation about Melbourne . I found out what hewanted and advised him to apply to the Governmentfor another suite of nurseries and maid ’s rooms

,and

to ask for more money for incidental s at the twoGovernment Houses . I believe he got both , and Iwas agreeably surprised to find he never \ asked meeither to luncheon or dinner at Government House,not even to a garden party . Such base ingratitudetoo 1 To be invited to a Saturday night dinner alongwith the racing crowd

,the wool-growers, the high

born civil servants,and the cl imbers of M elbourne

society gives one the proper social cachet in the eyesof the Victorian public .

PEO PLE ABROADDuring my first visit to London I met Phil ipMennell , the author of a book of biographies ofleading Australasians

,who at that time was owner and

editor of the“British Australasian ,” sti l l being published in London . Through M ennel l I met a numberof leading journalists like Sydney and Arthur Murrayof the Financial Times

,Dr . E l l i s Powel l of the

Financial News,Robert Ross a leader-writer of

the Times,and A . J . Wilson of the Investors ’

Review.

”

_A . J . Wilson continually attacked the

borrowing procl ivities of the Australian Colonies,and for years predicted they would col lapse financial ly.

Thanks to Mennell I made a friend of the late SirR . W. Jeans

,the extremely able London manager

of the Bank of Australasia . He and I have oftenheard Melba from the top gallery of Covent Ga rdenfor half a crown .

Lord Sydenham,formerly Sir George Sydenham

Clarke, an ex—Governor of Victoria, was another2 10

PEOPLE ABROADnotable m an who was extremely good to me whenI had a highly importan t negotiation with the WarO ffice when off ering them the Alcock electri c rangefinder, an Austral ian

’s invention .

Have had to do with many company lawyers inLondon and was more impressed by the superiorsagacity of Sir Frank Crisp

,although Fred Dutton

of Blyth, Hartley and Dutton,a South Austra l ian

native, was a shrewd sol icitor al l his l ife connectedwith imp ortant Austral ian companies and their directors . Sir R ichard White was another accomplishedlawyer with whom I had business when he wasconnected with the London County Counci l th irtyyears ago . A man of infinite tact of high repute inthe City of London was Sir James Martin , thensecretary to the Society of Accountants, who wasexceedingly kind to me throughout a series of mybusiness vi sits . Another leading accountant whoshowered kindness on me was Robertson Lawsonwho came from Edinburgh and established a finepractice in London . Another accountant closelyassociated with Austral ia through the Mount Lyel lMining and Railway Company was Edwin Habben .

Through my connection with William Knox, Habben

got his first Austral ian mining company, and hehas had many of them to manage . Have alwaysfound London lawyers and accountants slow, butthorough .

C ELEBRITI ES I HAVE COME ACROSSFar and away the most interesting personage of

renown I have met in my wanderings was J . H .

Curle,the mine valuator

, who was quite easily the

prince of mining reporters . Curle spent some yearsin Austral ia as a youth seeking heal th , and he becamea very paragon as an examiner and reporter of m inesof every sort . J . H . Curle stands alongside S ir

2 1 1

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTBoverton Redwood and E . H . Cunningham Craig

,

the two British experts on petroleum mining to makea trinity of mighty mining authorities . J . H . Curle ’sreports on the Broken Hil l si lver mines were classics

,

and as books of travel,The Shadow Show and

This World of Ours are peerless in modern times .Another hero in my eyes was a Scotchman namedMacarthur who with his partner, Forrest, inventedand patented the cyanide process of recovering finegold from tail ings . I met Macarthur in Menzies ’Hotel , Melbourne, where sooner or later most of

the great ones of the earth soj ourn . The MacarthurForrest cyanide process has saved countless mil lions ofgold to the mining community and there ought to be astoried urn

,an animated bust

,a granite monument

,or

something imperishable erected in every gold-miningtown on earth in honour of these two Scotchmenwho did more for Australia than Bruce, Wallace andBurns did for Scotland . Amongst al l the womenof al l the countries I have visited, from white to black,coloured brown

,sepia

,bay

,chocolate

,fawn

,snuff and

l iver coloured, yel low, citrine, ecru , saff ron , lemon ,sulphur

,straw and amber coloured

,the most interest

ing was easi ly my own cousin,Margaret Jane Brand .

Margaret ’s father was a ship captain owning a fleetof schooners and ketches in the Baltic timber trade .For thirty years he and his relatives sai led fromMontrose to St. Petersburg and made money out

of timber . When steamers came into the trade myuncle obstinately refused to change from sail to steam,

so he lost every stiver of his cash, and al l his merchandise and fleet of ships . Fortunately he had givenhis two daughters an extensive and expensive education on the European continent . Both were admirablel inguists

,supplied with all the family brains and ram if

fa ire, and amply endowed with both health andbeauty. Margaret spoke six languages and English,

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTyou an example if you l ike , he said . We al l left theroom and he remained by himself for about twominutes . He joined us i n the corridor outside anddetai led exactly every article in the room and wherei t stood

,described the colours and pattern of the

wal l-paper,named many of the books on the shelves ,

told us the subj ects of the pictures,recal led the

various ornaments,and graphical ly named nearly

every obj ect on the tables and floor . I t was a revelation in the exercise of the receptive power of al l thehuman senses and a sixth . I took an opening to tel lKipling how I had made a worthless j ourney to

Rangoon to see his vaunted and over—praised ShweDagon Pagoda . He laughed pleasantly and said hereal ly did not think very highly of that gi lded monument himself. As a whole-hearted admirer of RudyardKipling I feel impel led to say no other writer aboutIndia and its purl ieus has ever been able to portrayIndia, i ts peop le and its l ife, so clearly and completelyas he has done . Kipl ing renders material the inwardspiri t of that mystic land and its mysterious people .All which I have verified during two trips to theoverwhelmingly interesting and beautiful Asiaticwonderland .

TWO AMERI CANSAn Australian friend introduced me in the vesti

bule of the Hotel St. Francis , San Francisco, to one ,

John Drew,said to be a leading actor . Hearing

that I came from Austral ia,Drew forgot to act and

rudely said, Oh,I know

,from a place called Sydney

where life i s one long Sunday, l ike a day in the NewYork Bowery . You don ’ t raise anything but kangaroosout there

,do you Have seen quite a number of

Ameri can actors since ; I app reciate Drew ’ s placein the category . Why are American actors andvaudevi l le people so lacking in courtesy and sweet

2 14

TWO AMER ICANSness I t must be due to their environment . Met aKansas lawyer in the F lying Angel express fromLos Angeles to San Francisco , and over a bottl e ofBig Tree Brand Californ ian Claret one night in thesmoking parlour he told me a lot of stori es abouthis buddy

,Woodrow Wilson

,which chiefly con

cerned the fair sex and might therefore easi ly comeunder the heading Ben trovato sed non e vero .

”

He said Wilson would ultimately fai l through thatpersona l weakness . One story about Chief JusticeBrandei s of th e High Court of the United Statesand how he helped Woodrow Wilson out of a tangleabout a lady cannot be proved and must be left out .

PEO PLE ABROADWilliam Fabian Meudellof Bellev i l l e, Canada ,col lector of customs , was a great uncle of mine . Inh is early youth he had been a soldier and fought inthe Peninsula under the Duke of Wellington , as anensign in the Black Watch

,the famous 4 2nd Regi

ment . He was a despatch rider or gal loper on headquarters ’ staff . I went to Bel levi l le to cal l on the old

gintlem an who received me warmly because weeudells are a rari ty and there are not many of us .

So anxious was I to trace the family tree that I vis itedseveral Huguenot churches i n England, Belgiumand France to cruse their registers in search of thefamily name . Elly belief after a l l is . that my ancestorswere not quick enough on their feet and none of

them got away from the St. Bartholomew scrap .

Uncle Fabian was a s trictly Puri tanical Scotchman ,truly pious

,and shackled by tradition and ritual . The

first morn ing at his home a bel l rang for prayers atseven o ’clock there were more prayers at breakfast,a snack of family worship at one , a sleigh ride in thesnow at two

,no afternoon tea at four, but a couple of

chapters from th e O ld Testament concern ing battl ing2 x5

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTand begetting

,a Psalm was read after tea and at ten

o ’clock the household assembled for family worship .

I left for Chicago next day and gave up searchingfor Huguenots , being fearful lest I found anymore .What an interesting man was A . J .Wilson , founder

and editor of the Investors ’ Review,

” when I firs tcal led upon him in London . He was the mildestmannered man that ever scuttled a colonial loan orcut a company prospectus into sausage meat . I nthose far-off days Wilson ’ s harsh criti cism ofAustral ianGovernment borrowing was not just, because theproceeds were used to bui ld developmental railways,and though they only paid interest they were quitesafe as a securi ty for trustees ’ investment . Of lateyears we have changed al l that . Far too many politicalrai lways have been buil t which not only do not payinterest, but are unpayable l ines, and in many instanceshundreds of miles of railway have been closed anduprooted . No Austral ian Government rai lway dep artm ent ever writes off for depreciation or renewals ,and not a single rai lway balance sheet is honest andtruthful . I n Victoria especial ly the construction of

rai lways i s a scandalous waste of money . I t has hadthe evi l eff ect of putting up the price of country landsso high as to make i t impossible for a new farmerowner to make either a profi t or a l iving . Mr . A . J .

Wilson was - only a generation before his time as atrue prophet .

GREAT MEN

Outstanding amongst the real ly great men I havemet abroad is Sir Phi l ip Dawson , M .P . , of the firmof Kincaid

,Manvi l le

,Waller and Dawson , the leading

firm of electrical engineers in London,and therefore

in the British Empire . When I went out to Londonto try and arrange to get the big brown coal body

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFT

parable executive . That of course was in 1 9 1 I .

hese leading German electrical engineers worshippedDawson as a superman .

TITLESOne thing the travel ling Australian is forcedto admire in the Americans—they have abolishedand wi l l not perm it titles in their country . WeAustral ians cl ing to the amusing English custom ofmaking pinchbeck noblemen of all sorts of publ icmediocrities . In ancient times a man won his spursand his knighthood by his prowess on the field of

battle . In modern days titles are given too freely foralmost any reason to the most ordinary and unworthypeople . Sham knights in Melbourne and Sydney areas thick as fl ies . Can anybody say what meritoriousaction

,what gallant deed any of these people per

formed,entitl ing them to be singled out and placed

on an imaginary plane above their fel lows ? Whyshould plain and democratic Austral ians be forcedto cal l these men Sir and own that they are in someway superior to al l the rest of us ? They are a veryordinary lot of chaps and it i s hard to see why theyshould be singled out from all other men who arescrambling for money or for jobs and bil lets , and belabelled with a mean ingless placard of nobil ity.

LORD S WH O HAVE M ET MEAlfred Harmsworth was not then Lord Northcliff e

when I called upon him once at Carmelite House toplace before him a proj ect for a newspaper like theDaily Mail ” to be printed S imultaneously inMelbourne and Sydney. This was about the timethe Argus ” was feeble and fal ling away below the“Age in circulation

,advertisements and influence,

and the “Herald ” was wallowing in the m ire ofmere incompetence . I t was a splendid chance to

LORDS WHO HAVE MET ME

create a rea l ly national newspaper with a policy likethat of the Sydney Bulletin to attract the naturalborn Australians in a solid phalanx under the Australian banner . Foreign and al ien influence hasalways been too powerful to permit of the growthof an Australian national spiri t which is even yetunborn . Austral ia is s ti l l in swaddling clothes andalways sucking an English-made dummy. LordNorthcl iff e l iked my proposal and approved of thescheme . The money end of it did not seem to botherhim at al l . He asked me to nominate a capablebusiness manager and gave me a week to do so. Iput forward three names of Australians, whom uponcabled enquiry he rej ected . He told me a goodedi tor, and chiefs of staff and departments wereplentiful , but a good general manager, the pivot ofevery successful newspaper

,was a rare bird and hard

to snare . Lord Northcl iff e named (Sir) RobertDonald as a good general manager,if he could get

him . I think Northcl iff e was lukewarm as therewas no obvious money in the venture . The MelbourneHerald ” was obscure then and the handicap of

being the first with late European news,which isn ’t

worth a damn to Australians , was not an attraction .

When I first met Lord Glendyne he was RobertNivison , then not a very old member of the LondonStock Exchange

,and had been a bil l clerk in the

London and Westminster Bank . Nivi son was cal ledThe Canary ” because his hair was once yel low,and therefore quite unlike his heart and character .My letter of in troduction to Robert Nivison wasfrom an old friend of my father, Mr . W . G . DevonAstle

,then joint London manager of the London

and Westminster Bank . I think Mr . Astle was arelative of Will iam Westgarth , an early colonist inMelbourne

,who wrote a book about Victoria upon

his return to London . Mr . Nivison was the first

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTstock-broker to organize the issue of what were calledColonial loans

,most of which were real ly the infantile

borrowings of the Australian colonies and NewZealand who had sent Jap het into the promised landof Canaan

,meaning London

,with power to exchange

bonds for cash . These first loans carried 7 per centinterest, 2§ per cent brokerage, 2 per cent underwriting

,2% per cent overriding commission , one

half per cent for paying the half-yearly interestcoupons, with another one half of one per cent forkeeping the Colonial Government account . Readingfrom left to right

,i t wil l be readily seen what a real ly

profitable industry it was for the bankers and thebrokers . L ike the young tiger who likes plenty of

mint sauce with his lamb,these early Victorian loans

were as spacious as the inflated crinolines worn bythe women of those far-off days

,when Australian

loans were comparatively safe and well spent inAustralia . Nowadays too many Australian loans arefloated to pay interest due by Australia and not kepthandy in a suspense account

,and the rest of them

are wasted on unproductive public works,such as

railways and city buildings . Nivison gradual lyacquired personal control of the business of issuingin London loans for Australia

,New Zealand

,Canada

and India . Australia owes overso i t i s not hard to bel ieve that Lord Glendyne i sthe most powerful financier in the British Empire,and the word recal ls that I have seen him in theBriti sh Empire Theatre

,in the Gaiety Theatre, and

even at the Palace Theatre having a laugh afterhaving probably underwritten a ten mill ion loanbefore dinner . Well, and why not I I t is easy workthis underwriting

,conducive of heaviness of heart

and vexation of spirit,yet withal completely profitable .

Last time I saw Lord Glendyne was in Dalgety andCompany ’s office handing Mr . E . T. Dox at, that

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTof British Shipping . My mate and I were travel l ingby the P . and O . Egypt from Bombay to Marseil les

,and Sir James occasional ly condescended to

play rope quoits with us and l i sten to our stories inthe smoking room without tell ing any himself

,a

habit of the pseudo-great . Often I wonder whetherthe real ly great know any good yarns . If they do,I could easi ly become popular with them . Our onewel l-founded obj ection to Lord Inchcap e was thathe indulged to excess in cheap scent—Lang-y—Lang,musk and sandalwood—and as we were in the nextcabin we were frequently and freely gassed with it .Had nearly forgotten another great satrap who oftenl i stened to my wisdom when going to Egypt, nottogether

,but on the same ss . Derbyshire,” Lord

Cromer,formerly Sir Evelyn Baring . In that aged

boat there were only th ree first-class bathrooms andthe artful High Commissioner of Egypt made hisvalet lock himself in one of them from six to eightdai ly so Cromer should not miss his tub What awily old diplomat I For years I have sat in the seatsof the mighty in al l the seven seas

,after they had

left the Ship ’s dining saloon . Once I was fellowpassenger with a son of Chululongkorn, King of

S iam . He was a genial l ittle brownish bloke'

whocarried in two hip pockets

, two gold flasks of whisky,one for himself as shouter and the other for the shoutee .

He had inveigled a pretty Parisienne midinette toaccompany him to Bangkok and she made an excel lenttravel ling companion for al l of us . The Princeinvi ted me to go to the ruined temples of AngkorThom and to Nom Penh with him and promised methe loan of a white elephant and an introduction toone of his twenty-five S i sters . On the same shipMustapha Pasha and Hassan Bey had a few spotsof Johnny Walker with us . Another Eastern potentate I knew was the Sultan of Johore, a native state

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LORDS WHO HAV E MET MEunder the protection of Great Britain

,across the Strai t

from S ingapore . Met him in Melbourne at Menzies ’

Hotel, where he was stopping with a Sultana, formerlya coryphée at the Gaiety Theatre

,London . Johore

gave her carte blanche at a leading j ewellers,Gaunt

and ‘ Company,and while he was trying to select

winners at the daily races round about Melbourne,She was picking pearl s of great price and a few dia

monds for good weight . One noonday while theSultan was mixing with the col lective devilry ofMelbourne at the Moonee Valley Races

,Tottie

Fewclothes caught the P . and O . boat for London ,and like Marco Polo her place knew her no more .The Sultan had S ix sets of false teeth for fixture inhis lower jaw,

one with two platinum bicuspids, andothers with gold

,silver

,emeralds

,agates and enamel .

My wife and I went from S ingapore to Johore withan order from the Briti sh Resident to visit the Zenana

,

where our gu ide told us there were twenty-eightSultanas (enough to fi l l a carton) and forty-fiv e khakico loured children from two months to twenty yearsold. Also there was a Casino model led on the gaminghouse at Monte Carlo . While we were in the MalayStates two girls who had been in a Melbourne bararrived under engagement as stenographers andtypists to the househo ld of the Su l tan of Johore . Topreserve the dignity and prestige of the Bri ti sh Rajthey were not al lowed to land and were given a thousand dollars each to go back home .Sir George Sydenham Clarke, made Lord Sydenham

for his services on the Esher War Office Committee,which partial ly reformed the British War O ffice, wasonce Governor of Victoria, and unl ike every otherGovernor or Governor-General , he real ly did whathe could for this country when he went back toLondon . Ever since I have been going up to Europe,not one single man who has represented the British

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTRaj in Australia has been worth a pinch of mustardseed to Australasia after he left it . From Hopetounto Stonehaven

,from Loch to Stradbroke, not one of

them has done a tap for this country . Why P Becausethere i s nothing they can do to do us any good Touse a homely simile

,if any of them had wished to be

helpful to Show gratitude for the good time andplentiful flattery he got here

,i t would be like the

vain eff ort of a flea to get under Mount Kosciuskoand raise it one foot . So when I took the AlcockE lectric Range Finder to the War O ffice to off er i tto the British Government, the only ex-Australianofficial who was helpful and had any weight whateverwas Sir George Sydenham Clarke . And after myfirst half-hour with him at Whitehall I knew I wouldfail to sel l that wonderful invention to the War

O ffice . Lord Sydenham ’s description of the inertness,and fossilization

,the vacancy of mind of the heads of

that over-much venerated War Office simply floodedme with contempt for that paleozoic and pre-glacialBritish institution

,the Pal ladium of our L iberty !

No wonder Great Britain after the Mons lesson hadto reconstruct and recondition her Army in the faceof the foe Years previously I had heard the greatEarl Roberts by public speech warn the authoritiesand the people they should get ready to fight theGermans . The War Ofli ce woke in its S l eep , rubbedits eyes

,blew its nose

,and turned over to resume

its placid rest . A . U . Alcock, an Austral ian electricalengineer and genius

,invented a range finder that

gave the exact range and bearing of a passing shipto a land fortress and to every gun in that fortressor near by . The instrument wou ld go inside a No . 7bel l-topper and the operator ’s telescope, as he fol lowedthe course of the vessel

,operated by wire dials in the

gun-pits of al l the guns that were ready to be fired .

Angle and distance were recorded nearly accurately.

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTthe British officer may be inclined to practise thevirtues inherent in a gentleman

,though col lectively

as a war department he behaves l ike a cut-purse .Coming home by North America I cal led at Philadelphia and saw L ieutenant Greig, then head of theordnance de artment of the Beth lehem Steel Works

,

now part ofpthe United Steel Trust, and explained

the instrument to him . Then he off ered me not

only the ful l use of his staff and factories to test anddevelop the Alcock range finder

,but off ered to sel l

i t to the United States Government for a million of

money in pounds and spl it that Upon the fifty-fiftybasis . A prophet has no honour in his own country,yet he cannot

,i t seems to me

,get either profits or

honour when he goes abroad . The only good resultof that costly mission was that I married my wife 1nLondon which was worth the I didn ’ t get .

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CHAPTER IX

AUSTRAL IAN PEOPLEWHY the business men of Sydney have created

, out

of nothing, in less than a century, the s trongestprivate bank and the most successfu l mutual lifeassurance office in the world ! They have madeSydney, in fifty years, the sixth shipping port fortonnage in the greatest empire the world has everknown . They have made of Sydney the most beautifulcity on earth

, not excepting Edinburgh . You getthe same answer to the same question in one hour inSydney as you can get in London in one week, perhaps .The business immigrant who goes to Austral ia toset the pace to keep the Australian business man upto the scratch must take care he is not run over andki l led during his first spurt. To the end of 1 9 25Australia had produced of minerals ,and has per head the soundest public debt, the mostbank deposits

,the most savings bank deposits, the

best b irth rate,the lowest death rate

,the finest land

laws, the best wool output, the most sheep in the world .

Austral ia also produces the best horses , sheep , cattle,meat

,butter

,rabbits

,cham pagne

,sugar and fruit

known to merchants . Austra l ia has the greatestsi lver mine

,the best copper mine, the richest gold

mine,and the largest tin mine, as wel l as the biggest

coalfield i n one Spot on earth . Our trees are the

highest,our coke the purest, our zinc the cleanest,

and our oilshal e beds and brown coal seams themost extens ive on the globe . Our import and exporttrade is the largest per head, and so is

.

our_local

.shipping . Taxation is the lowest, ep idem 1c d1sease

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTthe smal lest

,crime statistics the lowest

,milk supply

and food the purest, and old age pensions at one pounda week the highest known to humanity. Final lywe get more sun, warmth and good weather than anyplace outside Southern Europe

,and our population

weighs more and measures more than any otherpeople .

SOME GREAT AUSTRALIAN BANKS AND COM PAN IESYou wil l never hear Austral ians blowing andboasting about their country or its institutions .Misguided men like Donald Mackinnon

,Mark

Sheldon, J . A . M . E lder, Dr . E . C . Page, G . A .

Pearce, who have been on Government jaunts toNew York come home and cackl e about America ’ sprogress as being due to hustle and advertisement,and therefore worthy of being copied by Australia .That kind of talk is al l fudge . Only weak men andweak people and nations gas about their doings .Nobody here ever writes about the extraordinarysuccess of many Austral ian-made institutions . Howmany Austral ians know that the bank of New SouthWales

,establi shed in Sydney in 1 8 I 7 , i s the strongest

and safest bank in the world How few Australiansknow that there is no other l ife assurance companyin business so safe and so successful as the AustralianMutual Provident Society. The Mutual and Citizens ’

L ife Assurance Company is an amalgamation of theCitizens ’ L ife Company and two small

,feeble mutual

assurance companies . I t i s so prosperous that theshareholders of the Citizens ’ L ife Company drew

in dividends last year on their paid-upcapital of or 80 per cent per annum .

What assurance company on earth can pay 80 per centand the Citizens ’ L ife wil l some day pay 400 per centin yearly dividends and probably be dissolved by alaw of the Commonwealth Parliament. There is no

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTMonash ’s success stands out in high relief. He wasan amateur soldier

,an artil lery officer without previous

battle experience,a fact making his success the more

meritorious . Monash ’s father was a storekeeper ina bush town in New South Wales

,and when his son

left his primary school the father told a friend of minehe was selling out to reside in Melbourne

,so that he

could give John a University education . Monash,senior

,was a highly respected citizen and his foresight

was justified because Monash,junior

,went through

the University of Melbourne with great distinction .

He is now Vice-Chancel lor of his A lma Mater anddeserves every honour as a great Austral ian hisnative land can bestow. Yet he was not called beforeParliament and properly thanked for his magnificentservices to his fel low-countrymen . Possibly becausehe was not a professional or high-caste soldier, or acarpet knight owing his rank and preferment tofamily relations and to soc iety women .

H OM E I HAVE METOne of the finest women in Melbourne is M iss

Edith Onians,Hon . Secre tary of the Ci ty Newsboys ’

Society, who has devoted her life to doing good toothers in a splendid manner . She has been the meansof saving hundreds of poor orphaned boys fromdrifting into blind al ley occupations

,which tend to

lower the conduct and character of the waifs andstrays of a modern city. Three prominent ci tizenswho have amassed great fortunes in Melbourne bysheer merit through sticking to business and not

missing any points,are Montague Cohen

, Solicitor,who has mixed law and beer with excel lent financialresults . J . H . Ri ley

,an accountant

,has pi led up a

heap of money by having as many irons in the fireas the grate would hold . He has contrived to acquireat least a dozen big city busines ses and make profits

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PEOPLE I HAV E METout of every one . The romance of business surrounding James Ri chardson , the ex—ship ’s steward and nowthe richest publican and wine and Spirit merchant inMelbourne, ought to be written to Show ambitiousyouths how easy i t i s to make money in vast quanti tyby denying oneself any pleasure and attaching anatom of seccotine to every shil l ing in s ight.Colonel Charles Um p helly, D . B . Lazarus , M .L .A.

for Bendigo, and I went to Windsor Castle to see

Queen Victoria and were graciously Shown over theRoyal stables Splendid

,wasn ’t i t ? We saw the

O ld Lady out driving with Princess Beatrice,and

real ly she didn ’t look like a queen . She was a veryordinary, dowdy, l ittle woman , neither regal nordignified, fat and pal l id . At King Edward ’s funeralwe saw about twenty kings and princes and the onlyperson in the procession who real ly looked royal wasEmperor Bil l of Germany, the chap who ran awayfrom his army. Another quaint l ittle person I sawonce was W . M . Hughes when Prime Ministerof Austral ia . There should be a general law forbidding any man not born in Austral ia being madePrime Minister . Hughes was motored to theL iverpoo l cam p in New South Wales , by a cousinof my wife ’s

,who was the n a rivate in the A . I .F .

Brab was a first-c lass chauffieur whose ski l l p rovoked Hughes ’ admiration so much that he gavethe young 5 natter thrippence at the end of the day.

I t is now a am ily heirloom .

I n 1 9 1 5 i n Los Angeles I met Edmund Mitchell ,a Scotch j ournal ist of high intel lectual power . Hewas trained on the Glasgow Herald,

” and in 1 8 93arrived in Melbourne in time to take part in theShearers and Maritime Strikes on behalf of thesquatters . Mitchel l saw an opening for a pastorali sts

’

j ournal and established the“Pastoralists ’ Review,

”

which was successful from the outset. Wanting more

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTcapital Mitchel l negotiated with R . E . N . Twop enyand A . Pearse, who were then in New Zealand

,

Mitchel l was a rover by nature and soon after foundhis way to Cal ifornia, where he wrote several books ofthe highest order .

JACK DOUGHARTYMy brother- in- law was a well-known man about

town thirty years ago . He loved to pose as a leaderof Sports and sporting, and amongst other methodsof keeping his place he helped boxing men andpugili sts financial ly. Frank P . S lavin , better knownas“Paddy

,

” was a friend of Jack’s who lent himmoney. S lavin was a fighter of the first order

,and

in England beat Jem Smith, the champion at Brugesin Belgium where he had to fight a gang of roughs .Then Paddy went to U .S .A . and hammered JoeMcAuliff e, Jack E l l is and Jake Kilrain . I n May,1 8 92 , just before I reached London , Paddy S lavinfought Peter Jackson

,a coloured man once the

idol of the Sydney prize ring, at the NationalSporting Club , London . From a l l accounts thi s wasthe greatest of al l modern prize fights between twoundoubted Australian champions, ten rounds of ati tanic battle , made up of every kind of punch andwal lop known in the art of fisticuff s . In the tenthround, Peter Jackson feinted with his left and quickas wireless hit Paddy on the point with his right.Paddy fel l forward into Peter ’ s arms and thi s epiccontest ended .

S . M . BRU CEThe last generation of Australian politicians was

superior in intel lect to this,and the generation before

was better stil l . The first Administration of the Commonwealth

,on 1 st January

,1 90 1 , comprised al l the

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTwho asked him to i l lustrate three smal l jokelets or

jap elets to Show his mettle and style . NormanL indsay did his best and the jokes shone like a phos

p horescent watch among a lot of grandfather’s clocks .

On pay-day Norman was given a cheque for threeguineas at which he laughed all the way from BouverieStreet to my o ffice in the city. This microscopicthanksoff ering must be spent quickly,

” said Norman ,lest i t goes bad . So we summoned to a feast,Will Dyson

,the now famous caricaturist, and E . T .

Buley, an Australian , then editor of the Northcliff eSunday newspaper

,The Weekly D ispatch,” which

chiefly contains the very latest divorce news andother anti—social crimes of the British aristocracy .

We went to P inoli’s Restaurant in Wardour Streetand knocked down the cheque amidst loud andprolonged applause . From the festa of spaghettiand Chianti

,Norman L indsay went to Reuter ’s Tele

gram office in the Strand and sent a cable to theSydney Bulletin ” saying he was going home veryshortly

,and he went and stayed there . Fancy the

meanness of off ering twenty-one Shil lings each forthree inimitable drawings by the world ’s greatestblack- and-white artist ! I t takes an Englishmanborn within the sound of Bow bells to understandLondon “Punch ’s heavyweight humour . Sincethen Norman L indsay has won the approval of theleading European art critics for his uncanny powerwith pen and pencil

,and his fame is assured, whi le

his work is improving and gathering force and subtletyday by day. L i ndsay has arrived though he hasnot stopped going . He is already a great etcher .

FLORENCE YOUNGThe most remarkable of al l the attractive and clever

women I have known was Florence Young, so long

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FLORENCE YOUNGthe beloved idol of the theatre-goers of Australasia .Florrie was one of the sweetest and kindest of al lfriends, always charming, always cheerful , and nevera nagger . Every Christian home has one nagger,male or female, who i s hateful and as hideous as abeastly motor-cycle . Florence Young had a raredistinction of person , with a fine mind and a strongbrain and body. Look at the hard work she didthrough twenty-five years of acting and S inging incomic opera She had neither match nor equa l onthe London stage

,nor any rival here at home . Why

then did she not win a diadem as queen of comicOpera in London ? Because custom and conventional low half a dozen male and female veteran actors andentrepreneurs to rule the theatrical world of Londonwith a rod of iron . The theatrical mandarins who havea monopoly of English playhouses wil l never permittheir pets

,either sin ers or actors, to be displaced by

strangers . Melba fought her way to the top andtrampled over the puny people who have alwaysbossed Covent Garden and al l the byways leadingto it . Ada Crossley, S imilarly being an Austral ian ,had to engage in combat with the concert monopolistsof Modern Babylon . Yet Ada Crossley ended bybeing the finest contralto singer of her era . Nel lyStewart, a peerless Austral ian actress in her Specialart

,could not get an engagement in London , because

theatrical managers and owners prefer fantoccin ipuppets who wi l l obey. The dearth of new plays,the death of the drama in England is due to a ring ofold dodderers who wil l not engage a new pla er orread a play by a young playwright . Some 0 themhave most improperly been ennobled as knights . Toname the men and women who have destroyeddramaturgy and the histrionic art in the old countrywould be to invite myself to be burnt at the stakeas an ancient auto da f e

’

. Here is a typical programme,

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTdated 2 8 th February, 1 903 , of The Geisha, p ro

duced at Her Maj esty’s Theatre by J . C . Wil l iamsonhimself. Florence Young played O Mimosa San ;Carrie Moore was ultra-delightful as Mol ly Seamore

Maud Chetwynd played Jul iette ; Celia Ghi loni,another fascinating Austral ian

,was Lady Constance

Wynne . These capable Austral ian women weresupported by Harold Thorley

,Pat Bathurst, Hugh J .

Ward and George Lauri . There was a galaxy oftalent Nowadays the Austral ian stage is occupiedby inferior American players who mimic l ike apes,j azz like blackfellows and spoil our language by theS lang of the ghetto .

J . F. ARCH I BALDNext to David Syme of the Age the greatest

publicist in Austral ia was John F . A rchibald of theSydneyBulletin .

” His real name was Jules Francois,son 0 an Irish father and a French mother . We wentto the same school in Warrnambool

,Victoria, though

Jack was leaving as I j oined . He went to the Melbourne University for his B .A . degree and driftedinto j ournal ism in which fine art he becam e a master,a Chieftain of men

,a public leader of much might .

Archibald alone created an Austral ian public opinionwithout being able to cal l into being an Austral ianspirit. There is no national spiri t. There is no

national spiri t to-day because of the accursed teachingof the schools and universities that we Australiansare firstly British and secondly Austral ians . No

Australian child is ever taught to love his own countryfirst. The poor urchin with his pap is taught thata faraway little country with a battl ing past, a crumbling present and a desolate future, Should be cal led“home,” and adored accordingly. Home to 90 percent of Australians is a Sydney orMelbourne S lum, or

a decayed mining town, or the wide and dreary bush,

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTand Robert Sticht

,the mining superintendent

,make

an ideal dual executive . Mellor was an especiallyfine man who died too soon . Towards the end ofhis l ife Robert Sticht suff ered from worry over abad investment in a copper mine at Mount Balfourin Tasman ia

,and this hurried him to his grave . A s

he himself expressed it,Sticht l ived and died as a

scientific agnostic . Another of the very great min ingmen of my day was H . H . Schlapp, who came fromthe United States as metallurgist to the Broken Hil lProprietary. As a technologist, Schlapp stands high,but his common sense and business acumen make hisgreat strength . I t was Schlapp who inspected theMount Lyel l massif and detected its value, not as agold mine but as a huge pyritic deposit of copper andgold . Schlapp recommended Bowes Kelly

,William

Knox and William Orr to buy the lease from Crotty,D ixon and Company,and his advice to send for

Sticht real ly founded that great concern . Knox wasan unerring judge of men and his work for the BrokenHil l Proprietary and Mount Lyel l Companies i simperishable . Knox went to Spain with Wil l iamOrr to the R io Tinto Copper M ine to interviewG . D . Delp rat, a Dutch engineer then in charge ofR io Tinto . That was one of the best of Knox ’ smany good appointments . He could not possiblyhave secured a better superintendent than Delp rat,to whom belongs the credit of establ ishing the Newcastle Stee l Works

,some day to be the leading

industry of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere .Associated with G . D . Delp rat was my old partner,F . M . D i ckenson , a wise , acute business man , whotook Knox ’s chair as secretary of the Broken Hil lProprietary Company . I f“D ick had not beentempted by the Broken Hil l Proprietary board toleave me to become their secretary

,i t i s certain our

firm would have been the leaders of the S tock Exchange238

GREAT MENof Melbourne . The most sagacious of the originalBroken Hil l Proprietary directors was W . P . Mac

Gregor, the most popular Wi l l ie Jamieson , the mostthoughtful Bowes Kel ly

,the shrewdest was Harvey

Patterson , while the strongest headed was GeorgeMacCulloch . Yet, without Wil liam Knox as controllerthese directors would have made a lot more mistakes ,and goodness knows they made plenty while learn ingat the expense of the wonderful Broken Hil l Pro

p rietary Mine al l about s i lver min ing .

D R . RI NDER

Dr . Cool ie R inder was one of the most interesting of my contemporaries

,clever

,but S low, witty

and humorous . Coolie was an old member of

the Yorick Club ofMelbourne,i n those days belonging

to a coterie of extremely clever professional and l iterarymen . He had a habit of going home to his suburbat midnight

,when an old four-wheeled cab cal led for

him at the Yorick every night . Coolie ’s del ightwas to fi l l h is cab with doctors l iving in the farsuburbs and talk them to S leep on the way home .One such ramble I remember took us to Will iamstown

,n ine miles

,to Brunswick

,four miles, to Kew,

five miles,and we final ly landed at St. Kilda , six miles

from there,at 5 a .m . I t was at least a novel way of

ki l l ing time . Once Coolie took me to the YorickClub about 1 1 p .m . ,

and we found Julian Thomas ,The Vagabond

,

” an A rgus writer l ike FredGreenwood who described the doss houses of Londonas The Casual

,fi shing for rats down the l ift wel l ,

with a strong l ine,a sharp hook and a beefsteak .

He caught one rat in one hour . We adjourned to

supper and four of us ate a huge leg of mutton , y astquantities of pickles and beer, and were fined a gu ineaeach by the house committee for keeping the steward

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTout of bed after 5 a .m . One needed a stenographerto catch al l the good things said .

CHARLI E UMPH ELBY

Two of the finest friends I ever had were Charl ieUm p helby and Hans Irvine . Charl ie drifted intothe Royal Austral ian Artil l ery and was a colonelwhen ki l led in the Boer War at Driefontein . Hewas attached to Lord Roberts ’ staff and was kil ledby a stray shot fired by a Boer who was gal lopinghome from the battle . The bul let struck the ridingcane Um p helby had hanging to his wrist and wasdeflected through his l iver . My wife and I saw himoff from Port Melbourne to South Africa on theSS . Euryalus

,

” and he told us in his cabin he hada premonition he would be kil led . He was a kindly,cheery soul

,knew his job

,was popular with his men ,

and a born l eader . Hans Irvine, the wine grower,was another notable man

,almost a repl ica ofUm p helby

and,l ike him

,well—bred . Irvine ’s father was a cousin

of one of the Irish Dukes of Le inster and his unclewas an admiral in the British Navy . He himself wasa typical Austral ian and will be known in the historyof local viticulture as the first vigneron to manufacturesparkling wines . He imported several French Champagne makers and besides made what were probablythe best stil l wines in Austral ia . I rvine tr ied to

establish his Great Western brand in London , and Imet him there on three trips . Once he gave mefourteen days to sel l his vineyards and stocks for

cash . The time was too Short and I missedmaking a punch by brokerage . Another of mynumerous chances missed

JOE WOO LFIn my early business days when I nursed il lusions,

since supplanted by delusions,Joseph Woolf, the

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTwent about the business quietly and few people knewthat al l we wanted was

‘ a thirty years ’ l ease or concession , and the work would be started at once . TheMinister ofPublic Workswas Mr. JohnMcWhae , whowas so Shortsighted or pig—headed or both as to refuseto grant more than a fifteen-year tenure, which gavethe concessionaires not enough time to do more thanget their money back . That was another case whereI lost a ‘ ‘ punch of cash ” because I was too soon witha bright idea . Again I lost a lot of boodle when theTasmanian State Government and the CommonwealthPost Office decl ined to support my proj ect for a dailymai l by air to Tasmania . That was in 1 9 1 9 and aTasmanian Air Company 13 being formed by othersin 1 9 29 . There again I was before my time with apayable proposition .

ADA CROSSLEY AND J . MOORE H ICKSONI have numbered as friends Ada Crossley, the

l eading contralto singer,and James Moore Hickson ,

the faith healer . Ada Cross ley along with a finemezzo- soprano voice had a rare

,charming personali ty .

She was adored by her fellow-Austral ians . Born inGippsland, a farming and grazing province in Victoria,Ada Crossley had a strenuous struggle to get to thetop as a singer, and unlike Nell ie Melba She did nothave an over- rich father behind her to thrus t herforward . With James Moore Hickson we madeseveral trips in Victoria

,and I was associated with

him all through his mission . His extraordinarypower of healing the S ick i s occult and esoteric .hat he makes marvel lous cures I had abundantproof and evidence . In my own case he cured anattack of shingles in a day

,which my doctor said

would lay me up for three weeks .

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JAMES TYSONJAMES TYSON

One day in I 8 53 my father was acting as accountantin the Bank of Victoria

,Castlemaine

,a gold-field that

yielded fifteen mil lion pounds ’ worth of gold insideten years . AS the doors were opened

,a tal l

,weather

beaten young man , dressed in a red shirt and ridingbreeches, s trode in , unbuckled a leather bel t fromhis waist and tersely ordered my father to Countthat, young man .

” There were £6000 in notes ofal l banks and denominations in the bel t . The bigstranger said he wanted to Open an account . I nanswer to the usual inquiries he said his name wasJames Tyson and that he was a drover without afixed abode . Under my father ’s genial influenceTyson told the s tory of his first profi t. He had goneto Warrnambool amongst the stations deserted bytheir owners durin the great trek to the gold-fields tobuy Sheep and a few horses

,the sheep round about

a Shil l ing and the horses up to ten shil l ings . Hedrove his mixed mob to Castlemaine and sold them atextraordinary prices for a total of £6000 . JamesTyson became friendly with my Dad and remaineda friend al l his l ife . Many years afterwards Tysonlaughingly suggested that he would engage three ofhis nieces to the three Meudellboys with a view to

matrimony, so he evidently believed in the advantage

of heredity in producing good stock in humans asin sheep . James Tyson left nearly behindhim without making a will .

S I R JOH N FORRESTSir John Forrest was one of many good Australians

of a bygone era . H is three ex p ed1t1ons through theunknown territory of Central and Southern-WesternAustral ia were epical . Every journey was madeunder the threat of dea th by thirst . From day to day

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTJohn Forrest never knew where his next drink wouldbe secured . The torments of Tantalus standing inwater up to the chin and not drinkin a drop wereas naught alon

gside the ever—present ear that water

might not be ound that day or the next . Once Icomplimented Sir John Forrest at a public meetingupon his explorations, and his concept of carryingwater by p ipes 300 miles to Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie . Mr . Deakin told me next day that SirJohn Forrest said that no public tribute of praise hadever so greatly pleased him . Beside his hazardousexploring trips, hi s renowned political career wasnothing in his own S ight . C . C . Kingston , the bril l iantSouth Austral ian statesman

,was another big native

born Australian , who died in his prime . Once Iwrote a series of six articles dealing with the overborrowing and over- legislation of the s ix States,a deadly evil to-day, as it was then . South Australiaas a culpri t borrower and extravagant spender waswide open for stem criticism . The day after myarticle a p eared, C . C . Kingston came past my officeat 54 , ! ueen Street, Melbourne, and with a heavy,nul lah walking stick thrashed my brass name-plate,making two dents in it . I t was the highest complimentevery paid to me by a real ly great man .

TH REE F I RST- C LASS JOURNALI STSThree first-class j ournalists I knew were John H . Y .

Nish of the Melbourne Argus,

” John E . Scantlebury,originator of the Wild Cat Column in the SydneyBulletin

,

” and Davison,called Peter

, Symmons ofMelbourne“Age .” Jack Nish divides with JackStephens of the Age the honour of being the bestsub-editor who ever worked on the Melbourne press .He was a born editor

,one who could smel l a l ibel

through an envelope,was tactful

,knew his paper ’s

policy and spiri t and by striking out or adding a

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTas foreman . He learned every phase of the greatbusiness which he afterwards directed from actualexperience . He was entirely without educationaladvantages in his youth . He nevertheless made akeen study of business aff airs

,and his almost uncanny

business sense enabled him to exerci se a foresight andinsight that were the envy of men who had everyadvantage of education and training . When the lateMr. George Peacock decided to retire from business

,

about thirty-S ix years ago, he off ered Sir HenryJones, of whose business abili ty he had formed a veryhigh opinion

,an opportunity for buying the business

if he could arrange finance,on extended terms if

necessary . The off er was accepted and Sir HenryJones carried it on for a number of years in conjunction with Mr . A . W . Palfreyman, another big man ,and Mr . E . Peacock as partners . Later Sir AlfredAshbolt

,afterwards Agent-General for Tasmania

,who

had joined the firm as a clerk,became the fourth partner .

From the time Sir Henry Jones assumed the control ofthe business ra id and continued progress was made .From the first actory in Hobart the business extendedto Sydney, Melbourne, South Australia, London ,South Africa

, San Francisco,and New Zealand .

Factories have been established in al l these placesfor the canning of fruit and the manufacture of j am .

In Hobart the concern has other interests and acts asagents for s everal steamship l ines . Sir Henry Joneswas considered to be one of the greatest men inAustral ia . He was capable of holdin his own in thehighest business circles in any part 0 the world . Hehad a creative mind and a quick brain

,with an ability

to get down to basic truths and not to be confusedby side issues .

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PEOPLE I HAV E METPEO PLE I HAVE M ET

Two eminent j udges of the Supreme Court Bench,

Hodges and Irvine,worked their way upwards without

much influence or many puissant friends . Myfather- in- law, John G . Doughar was asked byHarry Ri cketson , an old cl ient 0 his, to engage atutor for his sons on a Riverina Station at a salary of£90 a year and the

“run of his clover,

” meaninghis board and lodging . Young W. H . I rvine, justthen a new chum from Ireland

,appl ied and at a per

sonal interview Dougharty gave him the bil let andtold him he would give him £ 1 20 a year and riskrefusal by Ricketson . I rvine was the best PremierVictoria ever had and is now Chief Justice

,and ought

to be Governor of the State . Hodges was tutorto the sons of Sir William Stawel l

,also a Premier

and Chief Justice . Remember being in Melbourneon my first hol iday after getting through the matriculation examination at the age of fourteen , and witnesseda practical joke played on Hodges by his fel lowboarders in Mrs . Garl ick ’s guest house in MackenzieStreet . Hodges was in the lavabos when the cons p irators barred the door outside with huge baulksand propped up the hose so that it poured a cool ingstream through the fanlight of the place foreignerslabel with a double zero . The future great judgelooked very bedraggled when he emerged and wentupsta irs to dry. We travelled to Colombo withJudge Hodges once and he to ld me a good story of

how Sir S imon Fraser, a wealthy ra i lway contractorand squatter

,wore a leather bel t round his waist

day and night containing 1 00 sovereigns on whichhe wished to save exchange by not buying a bankdraft . The bel t became so heavy and so hot thatFraser took it ashore at Colombo and

fit a draft

in stead . Another old squatter,John offatt of

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTHopkins Hill

,Chatsworth

,Victoria

,was special ly

keen on saving bawbees by similar excursions 1n

finance . In 1 8 67 Moff att invited the Duke of Edinburgh to visit him at his new house at Chatsworthin Victoria and ordered from Mullen ’s Melbournebook shop half a ton of books, and from MacEwan

’

s

a double bedstead,twelve feet by twelve feet . I t

stood four feet above the floor,and there was a

mahogany ladder of four steps by which to go to bedand get up . The Duke and John spent a merrysummer evening with a verandah temperature of

ninety degrees, discussing hot whisky toddy with theaid of real toddy ladles and plenty of lemons . Nextmorning His Royal Highness confessed that he waspressed to get up during the night and couldn

’tc l imb back, so he slept on the floor, the night beingwarm . This i s not a be”trov atoyarn because my fatherlater on did the toddy stunt with Moff att and missedhis ladder and his bed in the middle of the winter.Edward (Teddy) E lburn was one of the most

interesting men I met because he was adventurous .He had lived a wonderful l ife in various countriesand has always done things

,and left his footprints on the

sands of time as i t were . Teddy was a midshipman ,but did not stop long enough in the Navy to rise anyhigher . First knew him at Broken Hill in the roaring eighties where he was share—broking withCharlie VonArnheim . There was a slump in the boomand scrip prices did a nose dive . Colin Templeton ,now on the Melbourne Tramway Board, was thenmanager of the Bank of Australasia at Broken Hilland engaged keeping a neat overdraft for the firmof E lburn and Von Arnheim advanced against scrip .

Head O ffice began to grow! about the fading marginof the security and E lburn said he would go to Melbourne and see the superintendent . When he wasaway a fire broke out in Argent S treet, Broken Hill,

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTthe town that preceded Broken Hil l as a silver miningcentre, there had been a gathering of the first ownersof the Broken Hi l l l eases which were just beginningto be valuable and saleable . W . R . Wilson , the wel lknown racing man

,Willie Jamieson

,George Mac

Culloch and Bowes Kel ly had been dining and celebrating their good luck . After dinner the diningroom fi l led with S i lver miners from al l the l ittle minesround about Si lverton . There were cascades of

bubbly,

” and rivers of Scotch to be drunk, andeverybody got full of drink, including the grand piano,a Schwechten

,just imported by John de Baun . With

tumblers as missiles,every mirror and picture on the

walls was smashed to molecules and de Baun collected£200 for dam ages . Another riotous day was theopening of the Tarrawingee Flux Company ’ s tramwayby a grand banquet attended by many leading Adelaideand Melbourne mining men . An American namedBil l Adams

,who confessed when in his cups that he

really did win the Battl e of Waterloo, walked upthe middle of the dining—table from the vice-chairman ’s end to the chairman ’s, kicking aside the furnishings of the feast, al so the food, drink and flowers .I t was an awesome sight. A few years later very manyof the same guests went by the ss . Grafton to abanquet at Strahan on Macquarie Harbour, Tasmania

,to celebrate the opening of the Mount Lyel l

railway. Every leading mining man in Melbournewas aboard

,al l those most closely connected with

the history of the Broken Hill Proprietary and theMount Lyel l Companies . A terrific gale raged allnight and finally the shaft j ammed and the Graftonwas drifting on to a lee Shore . All the mighty miningmagnates were below

,mostly badly sick, Captain

Morrisby, Willie Jam ieson and I being on the bridgeawaiting the Ship to strike . The engineer patchedup the Shaft and when he came up to tel l the Captain

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PEOPLE I HAVE METto go ahead we were exactly fifty yards from thebreakers .Travelled once with a New Zealand delegation

going to an Imperial Conference . A fine old gentleman was Timi Kara

,the H on Jas . Carrol l

,whose

mother was a Maori , beloved by everybody andespecial ly by the Maoris . A newspaper reporterwhom we met was beastly insulting to Timi Karaby imitating exactly a description of Maori rel igion

,

habits and customs given as a lecture by him in thesaloon . He copied the voice, language and motionsof the old gentleman in a ludicrous manner

,and

those in the smoke room who heard it left the roomone by one as a protest . Went once with ColonelCharl ie Um p helby who was ki l led at Driefontein ,South Africa

,in the Boer War to cal l on Arabi

Pasha the famous Mahdi and leader of the insurgents against the British In Egypt m 1 8 8 2 . Arabi .was a prisoner on paro le m a house 1n the CinnamonGardens

,Colombo

,Ceylon . He asked us to tea and

chatted about nothing at al l . He looked the veryanti thesis of a fuzzy-wuzzy or a dancing dervishand did not seem at al l dangerous . He and KingTheebaw of Burma were the two hardest nuts theBriti sh had to crack in the nineteenth century .

GREAT M EN I HAVE GROVELLED BEFOREChief Justice George Higinbotham was easily the

greatest man Victoria ever honoured in poli tics or

law . In my busy buzzing days when I was sort ofa publ ic blow-fly, always gett ing up meetings, or

starting reforms, or fomenting agi tations, I frequentlyhad to see Judge Higinbotham ; a more courteousgentleman never held a high public

fposition. John

Madden,C .J . was one of a notable am ily of public

men,who used now and ain to attend our

1\publ1c

meetings,chiefly those 0 the Australian atives

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTAssociation

,and lend us his aid to amuse the audience.

Sir William Irvine,C.J .,

i s one of the most extraordinary figures in Victorian history . I had a gooddeal to do with the Kyabram reform movement, andon one occasion the reformers swept the pol ls , andsent in 65 members out of 95 to follow Mr . Irvine,who reduced the Legislative Assembly to 65 , thepresent number of members . L ike a fool I workedvery hard

,neglecting my business and ruin ing my

heal th through politics from which I got nothing,not even thanks from Premier Irvine or any of hisMinisters . However

,l ike Tam O

’

Shanter, I wasglorious

,o ’er al l the i l l s of l ife

,Victorious

,and so

far as I can see and think—nothing matters l

S . MYERThe most amazing business romance of Australia

i s the rise to aflluence of a young Polish Jew fromWarsaw—S idney Myer of Myer ’ s Emporium

,Bourke

S treet, Melbourne . He came to Victoria cashless,but not friendless

,as relatives had firmly entrenched

themselves in the ready-made toggery trade,without the

second pair of trousers free . Myer was grub- stakedwith a pedlar ’s pack of haberdashery

,and travelled to the

thinly peopled Mallee Di strict of Victoria sel ling pins,buttons, needles and threads at profit ranging fromone to two thousand per cent . He used to replen ishhis canvas holdal l at Ballarat where he was financedby another Polish nobleman cal led Flegeltaub , whohad two buxom daughters

,Julia and Nancy. Their

father financed Sid. Myer who married Nancy andOpened a fluff shop in Bendigo in the building oncecalled the Lyceum Theatre

,Pall Mall

,where in

1 8 55 my father heard Lola Montez , the internationalcourtesan , sing to the diggers at the nightly concerts .Mrs . Myer is a capital business woman with anabundance of brain s . Through her

,Myer ’s business

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTFitzroy, a suburb of Melbourne . Mr . Robertson i sbarely fifty years old, but with extraordinary ability,energy and foresight he has built Up one of the greatestbusinesses of i ts kind on earth . The MacRobertson

works cover thirty acres of space peopled by nearly3000 employees with a wages bi l l of ayear . MacRobertson turns out over one thousandkinds of confectionery

,and the factory is quite self

contained,because machinery and woodwork of all

kinds are made on the premises . The motor fleetfor transporting the production s of the firm includes1 50 motor vehicles al l coloured in old gold, label ledwith the identifying Sign of MacRobertson

’

S O ldGold. This business i s one of the most colossal inAustralia and is valued by the proprietor at

PEOPLE I HAVE METTheodore Fink i s easily the most intel lectual man

in Melbourne,and through the Herald newspaper

group wields much power . Though he does notSpeak French he claims he was born in the ChannelI slands . Theodore right through the last land boomand the present loan boom has been the Fidus

Achates of W . L . Bai ll ieu , the uncrowned ruler of

Victoria . I t has been a good co-partnership for bothof these two preternaturally able and astute men .

In the last boom they both took great risks , plungedinto the vortex of the mad gamb le and failed total ly,completely and extensively

,and made compositions

with their creditors . The clean-up and burial ofthe land boom was the quickest and smartestthing ever done in Victoria . Two hundred andforty-eight compositions were made by boomersand borrowers with their creditors, and literallythousands of minor operations were performed between banks and mortgagees with small borrowers

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PEOPLE I HAV E METwho were toppled over by the fierce financial galethat ran ed with extraordinary velocity . The financialfabric 0 Victoria was bui lt on false valuations

,just as

i t i s to-day. I t i s hard for anyone who did not gothrough the downfal l of 1 8 9 1

—3 to understand how

complete was the annihi lation of values . Every piece ofland, goods, food, securiti es, houses tumbled down andevery value crumbled , broke up and fel l in dust . Thepresent generation do not know what havoc can bewrought by the collapse of a boom . The portentsand omens are that allAustral ia within the nextfew years wil l go through another financial breakdown , another extirpation of values, another wipingout of credit, of money and of prices . We are rightback to a repetition of the universal over-borrowing,over- lending

,and over-spending which ended in the

ruin of thousands of innocent people . And now asthen the creators of untrue values and prices wil lfeather their nests and go scot free . No dishonestywil l be visited by punishment . All booms col lapseso soon as thi s acid test i s applied, Does this farm ,

or factory, or shop earn a reasonable, not a high, rate

of interest on its capital valueWi l l iam Lawrence Bail lieu was the High Priest of

the Victorian land boom,an extraordinary astute

money-maker,profoundly subtle where a profit i s

concerned,a remarkable financier

,and a past-master

i n the art of handling clever men .

Among the romances of big business in Austral iain my time the career of William Lawrence Bai ll ieustands on a pinnacle over them all . Born of humbleparents and only moderately educated like mostsuccessful money-getters

,W.L . went to a state school

at Queenscliff,Victoria . He was a clerk in the Bank

of Victoria for several years, where he learnt to wr itea good fist and keep bank books neatly. By ancestryW.L . is descended from French, perhaps from the

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTChannel I slands, which have belonged to EnglandS ince 1 066 when the poor miserable Engli sh wereoverwhelmed by a French conquistador

,much as

Pizzaro treated the Incas of Peru . W. .L came totown as the land boom was burgeoning and joinedDonald Munro

,son of James Munro, a pious teetotal

Premier of Victoria,and a wowser high In the counsels

of that dull race . I t was a gay era for real estate agents,who wore purple and fine linen and ate and drankheavily and well . Duncan Gilli es

,an ex-digger of

the gold—mining days,had begun to borrow money in

London to develop Victoria . James Munro wassecretary of a building society and used his son ’sfirm, Munro and Bail l ieu, to buy and sel l city andsuburban land on a big scale . Munro, senior, wasChairman of the Federal Bank formed by J . B .Watson ,a Bendigo quartz millionaire and John Robb

,a railway

contractor . Watson got out of the bank ear ly becausehe died, but Robb had to st ep in . The bank wasalways badly managed

,and the directors and their

pals soon borrowed its whole capital of

and about of 1ts deposits besides . Munroand Baillieu had numerous overdrafts at the FederalBank and discounted land sale bi ll s at any bank thatwould take them

,which meant most of the banks .

For three or four years the land gamble was a riot,subdivisional sales every Saturday, city property salesevery day

,the creation of building soci eties

,land banks,

and land syndicates were the chief factors of themadness . A ll rotten and based on false valuationsby si lly asses of auctioneers . Revenue or rents werenever used to test values . The cry of the land leechwas, H ow much will you give ? Merchants,l awyers

,doctors

,accountants gave up their lawful

occupations to j ob in land blocks, large and small .Matthew Henry Davies

,Tom Bent, Frank Stuart,

Jimmy Miram s,al l the five Finks

,al l the S ix Kitchens,

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTShips the squire and bows the knee to the ti tledj ackanapes, who claim ancestors or weal th or both .

Archibald denied the value of convention and scoff edat ritual . He possessed a bri l l iant intel lect and powerful wil l

,and clamped his views and Opinion s on the

l ife and thought of Australia, so that to-day it i s afreer country than any other and fol lows the trueand proper policy for any country desiring to be great

,

of being intensely selfish and self-protective . Morethan six thousand stories and poems

,and over five

thousand drawings reach the Bulletin annually.

They come from every corner of the Commonweal th,Maoriland

,New Guinea

,Fij i and the other islands

that dot the Pacific . Every overseas mail bringscontributions— from a diplomatic office in Spain ;from a farmer in Paraguay from an artist in Pari sfrom a journalist at Toronto, Canada from a musicalcritic at Manchester ; from an Inland Missionstation in China ; from a bank in Constantino le .

The list of Austral ian contributors runs far into fidur

figures, and embraces almost every walk of life,from Judges up or down to frui t hawkers . I amproud to be the oldest l iving contributor of theBulletin .

TH E M ELBOURNE REVI EWThe Melbourne Review was founded by Henry

Gyles Turner,Arthur Patchett Martin , Alexander

Sutherland, A . M . Topp and H . K . Rusden, al lfriends of mine . H . G . Turner asked me to con

tribute to the Review and I wrote several slashingarticles on Australia for the Austral ians andImperial Federation from a purely Austral ianangle, which did not increase my popularity, becausemy contention was that the Australian is an improvededition of the British from up in Europe . I t i s apity the Melbourne Review closed down in 1 8 8 5 ,

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THE MELBOURNE REVIEW

for a magazine of its high standard was and is badlywanted in Australia to present the Australian viewof every public problem in politics

,in economics and

in sociology . What our grandparents thought rightand true in Great Britain , a cold, small , over-crowdedcountry, i s frequently grotesque and unsuitable in ayoung, immense, and intensely progressive countryl ike Austral ia . I have contributed articles on amyriad of subj ects to most of the leading j ournalsand newspapers and have always found the bestchannel for any patriotic thoughts and Views to be theSydney Bulletin

,

” the only j ournal that does notm ix Imperial ism with Austral ianism . I bel ieve in aMonroe doctrine for Austral ia Hands off andKeep out.

”

NEWSPAPERSOn 1 6th March

,1 8 8 7 , forty years ago, I was

elected a Fellow of the Stati stical Society, London ,for work done for the defunct Melbourne DailyTelegraph

,

” a morning daily newspaper of Conservative principles mixed with religious tenets and narrowwowserish views about drink and Sport. I t wasextremely chauvinisti c in i ts support of good l ittleQueen Victoria . The Telegraph ’s editor, theRev. W . Fitchett, a mi l itary hi storian of high repute,was a good leader writer

,but not worldly enough to

thrust his paper forward as David Syme was at thattime p ressmg the Melbourne

“Age ” upward pastthe Melbourne Argus .” Alexander McKinleyand his brother

,James

,managed the paper and George

Wamsley made a most competent financial and com

m ercialeditor. I t was always supposed the Daviesgroup of land speculators sup l ied the cap ital , ofwhich there was not enough , an the paper la1d downand died . AS I had done a lot of j ournalism by thistime

,Angus Mackay

,the owner of the Bend1g0

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTAdvertiser asked me to go to Sydney on the

ofli ce staff of the Sydney Daily Telegraph,

” thenbeing founded by J . B . Watson , the Bendigo mill ionaire, Sir (then Mr .) Malcolm MacEacharn, his sonin—law,

the Shipping potentate,Angus Mackay and

Sir John McIntyre, with other Bendigo investors .As I was that rare bird in those days

,a certified Pitman

shorthander, Mackay off ered me six pounds a week .

The salary being puny I decl ined the off er .MELBOURNE NEWSPAPERS

One of the greatest chances of my life was lostwhen it looked so easy to grasp .

I n 1 907 I conceived the idea of raisingcash in London to start a morning daily paper inMelbourne

,preferably one to be published simul

taneously in Sydney. The success of the MelbourneHerald and steady growth of population were thebasis of my conviction that a newspaper would paywell . In 1 907 the population of M elbourne was

and of Victoria The circulationsof the daily papers were roughly

,Age,

”to

Argus,

”to and

Herald,

while their profits were Age,a year “Argus

,

” and “Australasianand Herald

,

” a year,taken

from its published balance sheet . One could see

the population of Melbourne growing faster proportionately than that of Victoria . Outside Melbournethere was no country newspaper worth a pinch of

mustard seed, nor i s there now,

and it looked an easytask to smother them to extinction . There was onlyone great business j ournalist in Melbourne in thosedays, David Syme of the“Age ,” and his intel lectualsuccessor has not so far popped his head up overthe journali stic horizon . David Syme had a longstruggle to establish the Age on a firm foundation ,

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTthe Argus office the atmosphere underwent acomplete change . The paper no longer existed to

serve the community, but to return profi ts on the capitalengaged

,so anything likely to interfere with proceeds

was suppressed and the editorial staff was reduced toa status S imilar to that of serfs and extreme parsimonywas the order of the day . While the“Argus ” watchedits profits and curtai led its policy

,the“Age ex

p anded i ts eff orts for the service of the coun try andrapidly forged ahead of the Argus

,

” which paperwas unable to retain the services of able men . Theproprietorship was constituted of Edward Wilson ,7 7 shares ; Lauchlan Mackinnon, 55 shares ; ROSSand Sp owers , 1 2 shares ; total , 1 44 shares . WhenMackinnon died he left 4 3 shares to his adopteddaughter and 1 2 Shares to her son. He left his nephew

,L . C . Mackinnon , nothing ; but L .C. displaced

Hugh George as General Manager of the“Argus,

and Hugh George found a better position as managerof the Sydney Morning Herald .

” The late L .C.

Mackinnon was discovered by Lauchlan Mackinnonduring a trip to Isle of Skye, near Scotland, and takinga fancy to him said he would make him his heir .So L .C. was placed in the Scotsman ” office inEdinburgh to learn the newspaper trade . I t i s saidwhen L . C . Mackinnon reached Melbourne, the oldman wanted him to marry his adopted daughter,and L .C. refused, being rebellious enough to marrya widow who died within three years . Then hisuncle gave L .C. the choice of marrying his daughteror l eaving the Argus .” He yielded and married,yet the old chap left him nothing in his wi ll . G . F . H .

Schuler succeeded A . L . Windsor as editor of theAge

,

” and for forty years has been an admirableand sagacious editor . He has had the able su

plpql

rt

of the best sub-editor this country ever saw 1n

Stephens . F . W. Haddon , editor of the Argus,’

262

MELBOURNE NEWSPAPERSwas distinguished by conscientious proof-readingand by dul l common sense unrel ieved by a spark of

genius . His successor, E . S . Cunningham, is much

the same sort of man , not highly educated, has a keennose for news and is addicted to rather childish formsof sensational ism stil l he suits the dull

,conservative

octogenarian policy of the Argus .” The counci lof management has David Watterson as representativeof the Wilson Trustees at £2000 a year, while youngLauchie Mackinnon and W. J . Sp owers representthe Mackinnon interest of shares . David Watterson

,

l ike Howard Wil loughby who took the editorshiptil l h e had a paralytic s troke, i s neither wel l educatednor well read

,but on F . W . Haddon ’s death he

S l ipped into his seat on the Council of Advice .Next I propounded a scheme to my cousin

,Sir

Robert Inglis,Chairman of the London Stock Ex

change,to buy the business of James MacEwan and

Company, the leading ironmongery and hardware

business in Melbourne . Bob Inglis heldof“B debentures and wanted to realize . He sent

me on to Mr . Bruty, his solicitor, but we could not

arrange with the London l iquidator of the company,Mr . R . J . Jeff rey, so another good money-makerwent wrong from my standpoint . Thomas Luxton ,an ex- sharebroker who bought MacEwan

’

s businessfrom the l iquidator

,funked the responsibi lity and

died,but his sons have pul led it through and placed

it on its former pedestal as a paying business . Insome former state of transmigration of my soul Ifeel sure I must have either been a black cat or aBolshevik

,my luck has been so bad and des picable .

Well,what does it matter ! I have had a happy

and merry l if e, ful l of delightful experiences aroundand over al l the Seven Seas .Three op ular Australian fetishes are MarcusClarke

,A Lindsay Gordon , and Eureka Stockade,

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTan author, a poet, and a riot, al l purely English andnot at al l Austral ian . Marcus Clarke ’s book aboutthe brutal treatment of English convicts by Englishmilitary o fficers and English warders i s cal led

,For

the Term of his Natural Life,” was a newspaperserial story written in gruesome English , and possessing nothing human nor edifying . I t was a bestialstory bestial ly told, and has no literary merits norany right to l ive . Marcus Clarke won a spuriousfame because the book was accepted in England as

a faithful picture of home life in Australia . AdamL indsay Gordon is a versi fier, a mere poetaster, moreof a jockey than a literary man

,and he had not a

single Austral ian characteristi c . He was born anEnglishman , l ived an Englishman , and preferred todie an Englishman . A small and unimportantcult of English-born Australians profess to adoreGordon ’s verse

,written as though al l Australian s

admired the horse and horse racing and could understand the loose thoughts and ideas of Gordon ’ssecond-rate poetry . Bobby Burns may appeal to alllovers of humanity throughout the Empire

,but

Adam L indsay Gordon only catered for the sportloving, unlearned and unintel lectual people who

l ike to see and read about other men riding horsesthough they themselves have never been upon one .

The Eureka Stockade riot was a comic opera rebellionstaged by alot of ali en agitators who were Agin theGovernment,

” and were too mean to pay taxes or

l icences to dig for gold . There were no Australiansamongst them and it i s a blem ish on Australian historyto elevate a mere police court event to a pinnaclesuitable for an historical e ic . The Eureka Stockadeought to be banned and orgotten.

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTany Zealand anywhere And why has such a fantastic

,

odd, funny, grotesque nickname been fastened onthe wonderland of the world ? Have you seenMaori land ? Do you know it has no equal as acountry on this planet Do you know it i s the mostSplendid gem of the Briti sh Empire

,ferti le

,superb

,

enchanting ? And, above al l, its men , women andchildren are the heal thiest and finest of human beingsAnd yet thi s extraordinari ly well-favoured region i scalled New Zealand Bah

J . G. DOUCHARTY

My father-in- law,John George Dougharty

,

was the doyen of Stock and Station auctioneers,and

was a king among equal s in his day at Flemingtonsale yards . He was partly trained as a doctor inScotland, but before he finished his course he wasasked by a close friend to go to Australia, then faraway

,like Ultima Thule . Dougharty

’

s father was alawyer in the town of Hamilton

,who won and married

the daughter of Rebecca,Duchess of L indsay and

Balcarres, sister of the then Duke of Hamilton .

J . G . Dougharty was a cousin of the loth Duke of

Hamilton , and through him related to the Earl ofCoventry, and the present Duchess of Montrose, whowas born Lady Mary Hamilton and married the Dukewhen he was Marquis of Grahame . Dougharty wasmanager in New South Wales for the Scotti sh Australian Pastoral Company when the gold rush i n 1 849attracted him to California

,whither he sai led with

Dr . Maclntosh . They invested al l their money in acargo of medicine and reached San Francisco safely.

In the harbour their schooner was rammed and wentto Davy Jones ’ locker with all the medicine . Theadventurers did not care for the digger ’s l ife and as

they were not too successful they returned to Aus

tralia. Dougharty became a stock auctioneer and266

J . G . DOUGHARTYmade so much money that at one time or anotherhe owned Omeo , Bindi and Tongio stations inVictoria, Yarronvale in Queensland, and Barham inNew South Wales . Sir Rupert C larke was a jackerooon the Omeo station

,along with Jack Dougharty

,

afterwards known to fame as the generous backerof Paddy S lavin who fought Char l ie Mitchel l forthe championship of England

,and was beaten .

Years after I went with a London cousin to call onS lavin , who kept an hotel in A ir S treet, Piccadil ly,and as we got near the front door, sai lors came hustlingthrough it on to the footpath in a s l ightly soiled anddisorderly condition . Paddy explained that theywere the crew of a Sydney ship who had been drinkingtheir cheques al l day and it was closing time

,anyhow .

Alongside J . G. Dougharty, as an auctioneer of l ivestock and almost his equal, was J . C . Stanford, ofPoers, Rutherford and Company, a very prince of

salesmen,whose gift of language, backed by a vast

reservoir of good stories,made him the best auctioneer

of his day. Dougharty was judge to the VictoriaRacing C lub for the first nine years of its exi stence .Another popular Victorian auctioneer was Joe Archibald of Warrnambool , a schoolmate of mine who hadno equal in his era, although Arthur Tuckett ofMe lbourne

,in his prime

,and George B . Appleton , as

wool salesman for Goldsbrough, Mort and Companywere close runners-up to Archibald in deftness and ski l l .

RANDOLPH BEDFORD

Shortly after the first Broken Hi l l si lver boom Ihad the good luck to meet Randolph Bedford, abri l l iant and versatile gen ius, a true Austral ian whosethoughts are ever turned inward towards his nativeland and his own fe l low-countrymen and their welfare .Like myself, Bedford does not believe in conventionas a rule of l ife, nor in tradition as a gu ide to conduct .

267

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTThe dai ly ritual so strictly observed by the English inEngland does not appeal to us . Only Chinese respecttheir ancestors and most Austral ians, l ike us , thinkwe confer an honour on our great grandparents bybeing born

,and have nothing to thank them for .

Randolph Bedford,without the doubtful advantage

of a universi ty training,i s an extraordinarily well

read man with a highly cultivated intel lect . Heagrees with Voltaire and myself that solemnity is adi sease used as a means of profit by those affl ictedwith it

,such as bank managers

,doctors

, Judges,lawyers and owners of funeral parlours . We say,woe unto the philosophers who cannot laugh awaytheir learned wrinkles . Randolph is utterly indiff erentto the praise or blame of his fellows , and does notcare a pinch of sand, as Virgil wrote, for either Troj anor Tyrian . He does care for the welfare of his nativeland and its people

,and agrees with me that for an

Australian to think Imperial ly is mere im ertinence .

Let the chaps up on top of the world 0 al l that,and let us Austral ians alone to follow out our destinyof finally winning the hegemony of the world, in anatural leadership of al l the other nations . Bedford

’

s

chief virtue is to be everything by turns and nothinglong—miner

,j ournalist

,art and dramatic critic,

poet, author, dramatist and legislator . In the courseof nearly six hundred revolving moons (for he is nearlyfifty years old) he has been a statesman and a viol in ist,but he has never tried to be the other thing . He istoo l iberal to make a lot of money, and has the softestand biggest heart possible for a human body to hold .

Generosity—that is Randolph Bedford . He beganl ife resolved to play Hamlet in the biggest bui ldingin London

,but had to quit that vau lting ambition

because he never could train down to have a thin,lugubrious face and a flat tummy like Hamlet oughtto have to succeed.

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTtook him the option over the Briseis tin mine

,Tas

mania,and finally they joined forces . Langford

took the float to London and was rebuff ed everywhere,tin being £90 a ton and unfashionable . The storyof how Langford met a lord ’s son in a house of pleasureis be): trova to whether true or not, and gave him awad of shares to help Langford to get a board of

directors for the proposed Briseis Tin Mines, L imited .

They met outside the door of the bathroom andBertie invited the young scion of nobili ty to take hisbath first and join him in a smal l of bubbly inhis bedroom . The coup came off , for Bertie and hislordling went east to the city, after a light breakfastof Pommery and Greno, and bagged two directorsbefore luncheon . The float went off flying

,and the

moral i s that i t i s wise to be kind to titled personsyou meet in cathedrals or the other places .

SPORTI had the good fortune to see Briseis win the

Melbourne Cup in 1 8 76 , and at the same meetingShe won the Derby and the Oaks . Saw Carbine winthe Cup in 1 8 90, and having seen about thirty Cupraces run I am entitled to say that Carbine andBrisei s were the two best gentleman and lady racehorses Australia ever possessed . It amuses me nowadays to hear greenhorn s and new arrivals on the turftalk about animal s l ike Manfred and Heroic

,who win

a race smart! and then“go into smoke,” as theburglars say, fOr a month or two . The finest steeplechase course in the world is the Warrnambool

,for

a cross—country steeplechase,and I have seen the

L iverpool Grand National run over four and a halfmil es . Saw Tommy Corrigan win the WarramboolSteeplechase one year . He was then riding for FrankTozer before j oining Hughie Gal lagher

,the racing

publican wi th the four pretty daughters . I knew

270

SPORTWig Enderson , another rider over the sticks , TomHales and Bil l Yeomans and think them better

,

because brainier riders than the jockeys of to-day.

The soundest and handsomest S ire we ever had herewas Pan ic, standing at Henry Phi l lips ’, Bryan O ’

Lynn,

stud, n ear Warrnambool, away back in the times ofthe Barmecides .

M ELBOURNE ARGUS AND ORI EL CO LUM NNot many people know how the amusing Oriel

column was started in The Melbourne Argusin 1 8 90 or thereabouts . At that time newspapermen were underpaid

,reporters especial ly. There

were half a dozen bri ll iant young men on the Argusand Age who met in Matooreko

’

s fi sh cafe inE l izabeth Street

,near Hosie

’

s Hotel . One Saturdayevening, and over

“one doushaine of the besht ”

oysters, they decided to add to their £4 1 05 . a weekby publishing a paper of their own. Donald MacDonald, the best of al l Australian journal ists waselected editor . The most of the copy was written byJohn Sandes

, B .A . and Davison Symmons, known

to our coterie as Peter, two capable j ournal ists,

as versati le as they were bri l l iant . The two cleverBlair sisters

,daughters of a fam ous literary man of

the Early Victorian period, David Blair, were co—optedon the staff . The rest of us wrote pars, for honour

’

ssake . “Bohemia ” was a bri l liant j ournal of wit,satire and humour, which had no right or need toperi sh

.General Manager L . C. Mackinnon of the

Argus consulted General Manager Joe Syme ofthe Age

,

” over the telephone about the excellentstuff their re orters were manufacturing in theirown time . T e upshot was that MackInnon cal ledhis men in and said he would pay them each £2 aweek more to Open a column In the Argus on

27 1

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTSaturday for verse and p ersiflage and stifle Bohemia.Unlucki ly this was done

,and a journal of distinction ,

that ought to have become The L i terary Digestof Australia, was quietly chloroformed , or had itsthroat cut

,I forget which . Johnnie Sandes named

the column Oriel ,” after his Oxford Col lege .“Peter Symmons has never had an equal on theMelbourne press as a writer of light verse

,and he

had an uncanny power of ridicule . There were somegood chaps on the Herald when Sam Winter waseditor . I t i s a pity the Evening Standard had notenough capital to turn the corner . JimmyThompson , its creator , deserved better luck than tobe gobbled up by the Herald

,

” a shockingly inferioryel low paper . Rea and O’

Toole , two Irishmen , andJack Blackham

,a Bendigo journali st

,were on the

staff for years, and the only tip-top journali st thepaper ever had before Theodore Fink breathed hisdivine afllatus into the Herald

, was Jack Ni sh,the ideal great sub-editor

,for many years on the

Argus .

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTpub packed with the frail s isterhood

,pleasant

and charming,and not a vulgar trul l nor trollop

amongst them . I t was an easy tack to the SaddlingPaddock of the Theatre Royal, then a vast vestibulewith a quarter of a mile of bars enclosing a couliSJecrowded with well-dressed men and a few diggersin red shirts and cabbage tree hats, bookmakers,j ockeys

,club men and the ommiam ga tlzerum of a

superior vi llage, with more and more women . Herethere were l iteral ly hundreds more ladies of pleasantmanners and easy virtue

,who had never even heard

of a cocotte or a wanton . Right up Bourke Street tothe top we cal led at al l the places where fermentedand spirituous liquors were retailed ; also at NedBitton ’s for oysters and Jack Heard ’s for a dressedcrab . The demi-mortde were everywhere in crowds .Where did they l ive, and how, and where have theygone ? The city only mustered people,and here were loose women of no importance inhundreds . They mostly l ived in the near-yby suburbs,Carlton

,Fi tzroy and East Melbourne . Lonsdale

Street East was the centre of the better class of

prostitutes,l iving in the famous houses kept by

Scotch Maude, Madame Brussels (said to have beena sweetheart of the Duke of Edinburgh in andBiddy O ’

Connor, while round the corner was MotherFraser ’s,a favourite pleasure house of the clubmen

and merry lads of the vil lage . They were al l wel lconducted bagnios, healthy and not expensive . Inthe suburbs were more pretentious maisons a

'e j oie,

su ported by city merchants and professional menfull of carnal sin. What has become of these loveplaces and their habitues Where are they to-day ?Gradual ! the Puritans annexed the money and thepower 0 the community, and the Scots church beganto head the list of col lections on Hospi tal Sunday.

L ike the bell s of St. Marguerite in Par i s, which tolled274

EARLY EXPER IENCESthe

.

signal for the massacre of St. Bartholomew,the

p olIce , under a pil lar of the church, Chief Commiss1oner of Police, H . M . Chomley, began and carriedout a social clean-up . One by one the street walkerswere locked up, one after another the gay houseswere closed, and the inmates of dozens of suburbanJoints were frightened by Presbyterian policemen ,while the j oyousness of Melbourne ’s n ight- l ife wasS i lently squelched . That class of useful and necessaryhandmaidens has vanished from the public gaze

,

although stil l a l ive in increased numbers . One fearsthat the motor car has become a perambu latingbrothel and the hip-pocket flask dOes the rest .Austral ia being a working man ’s country, in the

sense that most men and women have to work forl iving

,and there are very few idle rich

,there is not

much money spent upon mistresses or the maintenanceof im itation harems . Of course there are plenty of

rich men who have a second home in a distant suburb,but no clas s or caste exists of wel l-born , well-educatedladies who are wel l paid to make the rich men happy.

In London,Par i s

,New York

,Berlin

,and, to a lesser

degree, in many new working-men’s cities, l ike SanFrancisco and Los Angeles, there are hundreds of

well-kept women . In Austral ia there are very fewsuch Messalinas

,because the rich Austral ian is not

a sybarite,but a home-keeping youth who is kept

under survei l lance,and cannot sport even a f emme de

menage. The poor beggar doesn’t know how,

and

most of his equals are SO bucolic and p rim 1t1ve theydon ’t even know how to order a proper dinner. Thatis a faculty inbred and insti nctive , and nearly alltherich Austral ians had labourers for grandpa

pas and

Shop-girls for grandmammas . We are, in act, weAustral ians

,a nation of crude raw people, the very

anti thesis of sybarites .

275

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTCARES AND RESTAURANTS

To my soul of a boulevardier a good café IS a greatand soothing delight, while my travelling spirityearns for a first-class hotel . One trip my mate andI l isted 1 1 0 dining places in London , and tickedthem all off . The best dinner of that lot we hadspecially ordered from George Krehl , at the CaféVerrey

,Regent Street . We had reached London ,

across America, and had sampled the cuisine at Delmonisco

’

S and Rector’S , the famous New York restaurants . Those two dinners were carte blanche to thec/zef , and Verrey

’

s excelled them both . Then wegave a farewel l dinner to my travell ing companionat Romano ’s

,and the Roman whom I had known

since 1 8 84 produced a refection with wines en suite

which could not be excel led, even though it had beenordered by Heliogabalus . One of the guests, actingas treasurer

,collected the sum of five pound each ,

p our l’

addition,from those present

,and played poker

after dinner with the Roman and two friends . Helost the whole £ 100 and never paid Romano ’S bil lS impson ’s in the Strand was a useful place 1n thosedays for a solid Engl i sh dinner, a meal that alwaysgives me varicose veins on my liver . Pagani ’s CaféRoyal

,Oddenino

’

s and Gambrinus were the bestrestaurants at that time . Many a roystering we hadat supper in the Hotel Continental

,the St . James ’

Restaurant,noé“Jimmy ’S , ’ and the Globe . We

tried them all and l iked ’em all,including the dozens

of fair and frai l ladies we met in al l those 1 1 0 taverns,hotels

,night clubs

,bufl

'

ets,estaminets and posadas .

L ife then was one delirious plaisaunce , sup p orted. byrude health and lots of money.Because the country contains p eo le belonging

to over one hundred races , the Unite S tates revelsin international cookery. I n the big cities there arerestaurants which cater for the nationals of every

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTs tudents and midinettes

,l ively, jolly and not vulgar .

Cheap education In the United States and Englandfor cheap people has wiped out artistry and refine

ment . The world now belongs to the lowbrows andthe mobsmen and their females . Once went with aMelbourne Member of Parliament

,who played the

Viol in , to Maxim ’s when it first opened . For alouis the conductor lent him his baton to conduct theorchestra for once round the course . I t cost himanother louis to have Br a S divine serenata playedby violin and harpp

,and

a

for another three louis wetwo backwoodsmen thought we owned Maxim ’

S .

If one tried to do that now,i t would, as an infraction

of the ridiculous Treaty of Versai lles, lead to fortyeight hours in the calaboose of the thirteenth arrondissement

ENTERTAI NM ENTSCr. Alfred Josephs of Bendigo was one of the best

known bookmakers In Australia In the era to whichbelonged H . Ox enham ,

Count Abrahams,

’ NatS loman , Robert Siev ier (who owned Sceptre and the,.Winning Post afterwards) , and other well-knownbetting merchants . Dan Lazarus, M .P . for Bendigo,j oined me in a trip round the earth via the UnitedStates . We called at Apia in Samoa and went up toVailima to see R . L . Stevenson ’s house and tomb ,both in a state of decay. Incidental ly we madefriends with two Samoan Princesses who looked likeVestal Virgins and were not. We bathed with the

natives and coupled with girl s sl id down a smoothrock into a cold deep pool time after time ti l l wedidn ’t know whether we were frozen or on fire . Thenwe slept in an Open compound clad 1n plantain and

pandanus leaves,and were treated hospitably by the

chief and his female relatives . Everybody got tipsyon kava that night

,and the records of the carousal

278

ENTERTAINMENTScannot be remembered for publication

,for which

they were probably unfit . At San Francisco,never

cal led ’Frisco by a resident,who never heard of

any earthquake there, but vaguely knows there wasa big fire once upon a time

,we called on Mo .

”

Gunst with a letter from Alf. Jose h . Gunst was aleading tobaccon ist who was Chie Commissioner ofPolice by election . We asked him for the loan of

two detectives to escort us through China Town,

the Barbary Coast, and the underworld of’Frisco

generally. Gunst was sorry he could not Spare twopol icemen that night because he wanted them all atthe prize fight between Joe Goddard

,the Barrier

Pet from Sydney, and Tom Sharkey, an Americanheavyweight. Mo .” told us he was stake-holder,referee

,and interested in the gate money

,besides

being head of the police . Whi le we were enj oyingourselves on the outskirts of China Town , the crowdrushed the ring

,the pol ice rushed the crowd, and the

box keepers rushed home with the money I Trulyis America the self-styled land of hustle . They ’regreat and busy hustlers after money al l the time . Onething is embedded in my memory. At that time thePalace Hotel was the best eating place in the UnitedStates

,because the cooking was international and the

food was infinitely varied . Then , too, i t was cheap,now it i s dear and not so diversified . The best hotelon earth of its class is the Hotel Stewart at

’Fri sco,conducted by two charming Scotch people, Charlieand Margaret Stewart . And Mother Gum and Ihave l ived in five hundred hotels together in all thefour corners of the world, so we ought to know agood hotel when we l ive in it.

CARES , NEW YORKDelmonico

,Sherry, Rector, in that order, were

279

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTthe best restaurants in New York when I spent aholiday, making gastronomic excursions, in thatsavage and impolite city . American cookery has theadvantage that it i s cosmopol itan and international .The population is made up of nearly one hundrednationalities and races

,al l trained to eat some special

foods cooked in special ways . Austral ia, havingonly one people

, 96 per cent British , has only one

diet,steak

,chops

,beef

,mutton

,potatoes and gravy

(don’t forget the gravy) , with suet puddings and

slabs of cheese . Every Austral ian home dinner i s soamusing and so very English . Our women can ’ tcook and our men do not know the art of good eating .

There is no epicurism in Australia, no fine sense of

gastronomy as the prop of happiness . There is notone first-class restaurant in the Commonweal th so

far . How few Australians know anything aboutwines

,and how very few drink anything regu larly

but vi le, fi lthy whisky and gaseous,unwholesome

beer ? Four-fifths of our wines, thanks to climateand soil

,equal to the best of foreign wines, are sent

out of the country, and the Australians drink teaal l through the day

,to the extent of eighty-five pounds

of tea per annum per head . One morning early, mymate and I cal led at Delmonico ’s and consulted themaitre d

’lzotelabout a special dinner carte blanchewith wines en suite for every course . Then we wentback to the Waldorf Astor Hotel to bed and sleptti l l that elegant dinner was nearly ready. EvenApicius

,the Epicure

,who l ived in Rome and spent

upon del icacies for his table, would haveliked that meal . I hope to eat another like it onTib ’s Eve or during the feast of the Greek Kalends .I t was no Barmecide feast made of dreams raw and

cooked . The Palace Hotel in San Francisco wasthe first modern hotel built in America, just as theWaldorf-A

'

storia was the first of the present-day

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTeating away the basis of London ’s former friendlinessand kindliness and the Londoner of the present dayinspires fear in a visitor

,especial ly a Bri ti sh visitor .

He 13 a bounder and his wife and girls imitate him .

The best dining place In the former gay and desirableLondon was Verrey

’

s in Regent Street,because of

two factors, the c/zef and the wine cellar, establishedby George Krehl . The Café Royal

,when Nichol

and hi s wife managed it,came very close to the

highest order of excellence . The Globe for a riotoustime, and Rule ’s Supper House in Maiden Lane forits picturesqueness and its odd inhabitants, togetherwith the bygone St. James ’ Restaurant, old St.

Jimmy ’s,

” made a trinity of j oyous, gay, merryresorts where the residents of Bohemia and Alsatiamingled in order to be happy. Oddenino

’

s camelater

,and Gambrinus off ered a grateful change of

diet,because its menu was cosmopolitan . Monico

and Gatti ’s always seemed to be stodgy,so English

you know, and Suburbia revelled in a meal at either .How can one describe the fleeting j oys of the Bristolor old Kettner’s in Soho , or the ancient Pagan i

’s inGreat Portland Street ! Before the Trocadero, wehad as pleasure resorts at meal time, the Gaiety andthe Criterion

,and one could always depend on a

del icious re ast at the Holborn or the Frascati , atthe latter 0 which I happened to be a first diner theday it was opened . I n matters gas tronomic, Fallen ,Fallen 13 London that Great City, and In mannersShe has descended to the lowest of the seven hells ofDante .

H OTELS, CARES

Here 13 a useful l i st of wines en suite to be servedwi th the various courses of a properly ordered dinner,which

,by the way

,i s an art in itself. I t i s taken

28 2

HOTELS,CAPE’S

from the menu of a dinner given in a leading Londonhotel—the Ceci l

Hors d’cr uvres . Sherry.Oysters . Hock.

Soup. Madeira.F ish. Chablis and Sauterne .

Entreé. Burgundy.

Roast. Claret.Poultry. Sparkling Burgundy.Dessert . Champagne .

Cheese and Savoury. Port .

Coff ee . Maraschino andV ieux Cognac.I have a rare col lection of menus, bill s of fare , and

wine li sts from al l over the earth,col lected in hotels

,

clubs, private houses, train s and steamships . Thedai ly literature of travel, that is the ephemeral stuff ,such as hotel bi l ls

,maps

,plans

,tickets

,concert and

theatre programmes,etc ., the ommium ga t/zerum of

fifty years ’ collection,amounts to nearly five thousand

pieces,and makes amusing reading when I want to

refer to the past and reflect upon the joys , the glories ,the menus pla isirs and the gorgeous beauties of artand nature I have had the good fortune to experience .

TH REE NOTABLE D I NNERS I ATEAt Penang once I was invited to a Chinese wedding,

which chiefly consisted of a dinner of lengthened

sweetness long drawn out. Our party was ma e Up ofthree white men and two white women . The dinnerbegan at seven o ’clock and ended at eleven . Thesalou was the ground-floor room of a shop wi th br1ekwal ls and unfurnished . In one corner was a shal lowwell Where the dishes and plates were washed andused again . The menu extended to about thirtydishes

,and European wines were served en sui te

without any disgusting American cocktaIls , the

28 3

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTassassin s of a good d inner . The cooking was excellent,the service ideal

,and the table appointments of

la p rémiere ordre. Of the thirty guests, about fifteenwere Chinese ladies

,most of whom Spoke English

that was not pidgin . All were beautifully dressed,and every one wore a perfect cascade of j ewels, fromthe top of the head to the tip of the fingers , pearls,diamonds

,emeralds predominating

,and not a S ingle

piece of j ade,catseye , moonstone or zircon being

visible . The value of the j ewels and gold adornments represented a vast fortune . I n bril liancethe Show excelled a Melba night at the Covent Gardenopera . The bridegroom

,a young Chinese clerk

born in S ingapore,spoke and wrote five languages,

and played the typewriter and adding machine likea Paderewski He was magnificently dressed in costlysi lk and wore expensive gold oij outerie. After a fewsongs, sung to the samisen , we al l adjourned acrossthe road to the house of the bride ’s parents, wherewe met more Moet and Mumm and fine champagneliqueur . In an upstairs room

,gorgeously furnished,

we sat round to witness the bride meet the bridegroomfor the first time in their l ives She presented himwith a cup of tea and he kissed her hand . A blackrooster was tied to the leg of the bed with a bit oftwine, so the marriage god would bless the unionwith a boy, not a girl . Then the party broke up ,and the brocaded counterpane

,the embroidered

pi l lows, the cabinets of si lk costumes, the cupboardsof underclothing

,the glass boxes ful l of r1ch and

dear clothing were taken away on a motor van bythe firm that lends all the accessories of a weddingat a flat rate of five pounds for the evening . Eventhe bed was taken away along with the luck-bringingrooster, and I learnt that the newly-weds wouldS leep on the floor between two rugs l Nevertheless,the dinner remains a j oyous memory . The next best

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PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTnow the Australian Café

,which became a club for

c lever men and men near-c lever . One night HarryBrush, the most popular of Melbourne

’s younger se t,holding a status l ike William Gillette in New York’sfashionabl e 400, Dangles Holroyd

, son of aSupreme Court Judge, and D ick MacDermott, son

of Townsend MacDermott, K.C. ,a Dublin barrister

of high repute, dined in the basement salou of theVienna Café . After treating themselves splendidlywell they made numerous visits to the street where awaggonette awaited them . By

-and-by i t dawnedupon the wai ters that the three well-known dinerswere removing the furnishings of their table to thecab, piece by piece . They had taken everythingout except the smal l oval table, and while busy pushing,i t through the door

,the manageress

,Miss Shepherd,

angri ly demanded they Should return the goods .The purloiners explained they had a Supper engagement up at Scotch Maude

’s in Lonsdale Street,and would return the things in the mornin Anothertime Harry Brush and another lad o the villagehired an ice cart from its tipsy driver late one night,and starting from the Vienna Cafe called at varioushotels and sold blocks of ice at cost price . Whenthey had cleared out the stock, they cl imbed intothe cart

,closed the doors and went to sleep . About

dawn they took the ice cart to the nearest watchhouse and explained to the sergeant they had kindof picked it u in the street. In the present days ofstrict law and

)

order these two pranks would haveearned for the boys heavy fines and possibly imprisonment. The Vienna Café, in its latter days, had forhire a number of shabby cabinets p articuliers, familiarto anybody who knows the boulevards of Paris andtheir purl ieus

,where ladies and gentlemen may

meet for all kinds of lawful and unlawful occasions .A Puritanical police force has wiped out that semi

286

ENTERTAINMENTSi nnocent traffic, and philanderers now philander inmotor cars in side streets in Melbourne suburbs .A programm e of a fancy dress ball at the Royal

Opera House, Covent Garden , l ies open before me .What pleasant memories it recal ls We went withJennie Lee, then sti l l wearing her halo as the creatorof Jo in the Bleak House play. The bal l washeld on I st March, 1 90 1 , and the dances were polka,valse, lancers, barn dance, and galop, the orchestrabeing conducted by Dan Godfrey. Frank Rendeland Neil Forsyth directed the aff air

,and l ittle Wil lie

Clarkson the perruquier,ably helped them

,while

Gunter and Company served a supper in the grandsaloon and boxes which cannot be sup l ied in thesedays . St. Jazz , St. Bobbed, St. Shing ed, St. Hole'

roof were sti l l l iving Obscurely near the hobs ofante ’s seventh hel l

,and the high priests and priest

esses of vulgarity had not then procreated to p roduce their indecent Spawn of unsexed men , womenand half-Wits . And what happy nights out and joyoussupper resorts there were in the London of twentyfive years ago, before the rich and uncultured Americans invaded Europe to destroy politeness, while thehorde of international Jews headed by wealthy Attilas,the modern Huns, Goths and Vandal s , had not thensecured the status which ave them the power to teardown culture from its p ed

gestaland erect a golden calf

as a fetish for the people to worship .

FI NALEI have committed the immorality of being too far

i n front of my own age, and in other times gone byI might probably have been tortured and hung .

I t is almost impossible to carry the torch of truththrough a crowd without singeing somebody

’

s beard .

My excuse for acrid cri ti ci sm must be love of my ownnative land . Having seen most of these others my

2 8 7

PLEASANT CAREER OF A SPENDTHR IFTown country seems the best. This book has beenwritten because the buttons tore from the pants ofmy patience . Austral ia is a good country badlymanaged . Howard Houlder

,the English shipping

director,told us that development has been overdone

and that it was a tragedy to see a young country headedfor ruin . For twenty-five years S ince Federation ,which has been a pronounced financial failure, Australia has been living on borrowed money. Federation was a mistake . All Australia wanted was domesticfree trade amongst the s ix colonies and prohibitiveprotection against the world . If there had been noCommonwealth

,we would not have gone into that

war and would not have been plunged into an abyssof dreadful debt . If there had been no Commonwealththere would not have been this needless craze forimmigration . Why this insane loud cry to fi l l thisgood country with a horde of strangers I s not theShocking example of the United States and its hybridrace of people enough to warn us not to open widelyour doors to inferior

,ignorant humans and implore

them to come in and help themselves to our land,our wealth

, our peace, our work and wages . What

fol ly What stupidity Cui oouo fuerit ! For

whose good is this being done Not for the benefitof ourselves or our happiness Are we such cravencowards as to l isten to those who say, If you don ’tfi l l your empty spaces with immigrants you wil l beattacked by other nations and perhaps lose yourcountry. What nonsense ! What pueril ity ! Whocan take this country from us Only the United Statesand it i s doubtful whether the other white nationsof the world would al low them to try and take Australiafrom us . Austral ia is not as weak as the two l ittleBoer republics whose land was stolen . Australia hasplen ty of good food

,enough shelter and clothing, and

barring the incapable and unemployable,proper

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