Everything was very easy, and there was no fuss. Amazing how little fuss and bother there was — on the whole. Nobody seemed to bother, there seemed to be no policemen and no authority, the whole thing went by itself, loose and easy, without any bossing. No real authority — no superior classes — hardly even any boss. And everything rolling along as easily as a full river, to all appearances.
That’s where it was. Like a full river of life, made up of drops of water all alike. Europe is really established upon the aristocratic principle. Remove the sense of class distinction, of higher and lower, and you have anarchy in Europe. Only nihilists aim at the removal of all class distinction, in Europe.
But in Australia, it seemed to Somers, the distinction was already gone. There was really no class distinction. There was a difference of money and of “smartness”. But nobody felt BETTER than anybody else, or higher; only better-off. And there is all the difference in the world between feeling BETTER than your fellow man, and merely feeling BETTER-OFF.
Now Somers was English by blood and education, and though he had no antecedents whatsoever, yet he felt himself to be one of the RESPONSIBLE members of society, as contrasted with the innumerable IRRESPONSIBLE members. In old, cultured, ethical England this distinction is radical between the responsible members of society and the irresponsible. It is even a categorical distinction. It is a caste distinction, a distinction in the very being. It is the distinction between the proletariat and the ruling classes.
But in Australia nobody is supposed to rule, and nobody does rule, so the distinction falls to the ground. The proletariat appoints men to administer the law, not to rule. These ministers are not really responsible, any more than the housemaid is responsible. The proletariat is all the time responsible, the only source of authority. The will of the people. The ministers are merest instruments.
Somers for the first time felt himself immersed in real democracy — in spite of all disparity in wealth. The instinct of the place was absolutely and flatly democratic, a terre democratic. Demos was here his own master, undisputed, and therefore quite calm about it. No need to get the wind up at all over it; it was a granted condition of Australia, that Demos was his own master.
And this was what Richard Lovat Somers could not stand. You may be the most liberal Englishman, and yet you cannot fail to see the categorical difference between the responsible and the irresponsible classes. You cannot fail to admit the necessity for RULE. Either you admit yourself an anarchist, or you admit the necessity for RULE— in England. The working classes in England feel just the same about it as do the upper classes. Any working man who sincerely feels himself a responsible member of society feels it his duty to exercise authority in some way or other. And the irresponsible working man likes to feel there is a strong boss at the head, if only so that he can grumble at him satisfactorily. Europe is established on the instinct of authority: “Thou shalt.” The only alternative is anarchy.
Somers was a true Englishman, with an Englishman’s hatred of anarchy, and an Englishman’s instinct for authority. So he felt himself at a discount in Australia. In Australia authority was a dead letter. There was no giving of orders here; or, if orders were given, they would not be received as such. A man in one position might make a suggestion to a man in another position, and this latter might or might not accept the suggestion, according to his disposition. Australia was not yet in a state of anarchy. England had as yet at least nominal authority. But let the authority be removed, and then! For it is notorious, when it comes to constitutions, how much there is in a name.
Was all that stood between Australia and anarchy just a name? — the name of England, Britain, Empire, Viceroy, or Governor General, or Governor? The shadow of the old sceptre, the mere sounding of a name? Was it just the hollow word “Authority”, sounding across seven thousand miles of sea, that kept Australia from Anarchy? Australia — Authority — Anarchy: a multiplication of the alpha.
So Richard Lovat cogitated as he roamed about uneasily. Not that he knew all about it. Nobody knows all about it. And those that fancy they know ALMOST all about it are usually most wrong. A man must have SOME ideas about the thing he’s up against, otherwise he’s a simple wash-out.
But Richard WAS wrong. Given a good temper and a genuinely tolerant nature — both of which the Australians seem to have in a high degree — you can get on for quite a long time without “rule”. For quite a long time the thing just goes by itself.
Is it merely running down, however, like a machine running on but gradually running down?
Ah, questions!
Chapter 2.
Neighbours
The Somers-Callcott acquaintance did not progress very rapidly, after the affair of the dahlias. Mrs. Callcott asked Mrs. Somers across to look at their cottage, and Mrs. Somers went. Then Mrs. Somers asked Mrs. Callcott back again. But both times Mr. Somers managed to be out of the way, and managed to cast an invisible frost over the rencontre. He was not going to be dragged in, no, he was not. He very much wanted to borrow a pair of pincers and a chopper for an hour, to pull out a few nails, and to split his little chunks of kindling that the dealer had sent too thick. And the Callcotts were very ready to lend anything, if they were only asked for it. But no, Richard Lovat wasn’t going to ask. Neither would he buy a chopper, because the travelling expenses had reduced him to very low water. He preferred to wrestle with the chunks of jarrah every morning.
Mrs. Somers and Mrs. Callcott continued, however, to have a few friendly words across the fence. Harriet learned that Jack was foreman in a motor-works place, that he had been wounded in the jaw in the war, that the surgeons had not been able to extract the bullet, because there was nothing for it to “back up against”— and so he had carried the chunk of lead in his gizzard for ten months, till suddenly it had rolled into his throat and he had coughed it out. The jeweller had wanted Mrs. Callcott to have it mounted in a brooch or a hatpin. It was a round ball of lead, from a shell, as big as a marble, and weighing three or four ounces. Mrs. Callcott had recoiled from this suggestion, so an elegant little stand had been made, like a little lamp-post on a polished wood base, and the black little globe of lead dangled by a fine chain like an arc-lamp from the top of the toy lamp-post. It was now a mantelpiece ornament.
All this Harriet related to the indignant Lovat, though she wisely suppressed the fact that Mrs. Callcott had suggested that “perhaps Mr. Somers might like to have a look at it.”
Lovat was growing more used to Australia — or to the “cottage” in Murdoch Road, and the view of the harbour from the tub-top of his summer-house. You couldn’t call that all “Australia”— but then one man can’t bite off a continent in a mouthful, and you must start to nibble somewhere. He and Harriet took numerous trips in the ferry steamers to the many nooks and corners of the harbour. One day their ferry steamer bumped into a collier that was heading for the harbour outlet — or rather, their ferry boat headed across the nose of the collier, so the collier bumped into them and had his nose put out of joint. There was a considerable amount of yelling, but the ferry boat slid flatly away towards Manly, and Harriet’s excitement subsided.
It was Sunday, and a lovely sunny day of Australian winter. Manly is the bathing suburb of Sydney — one of them. You pass quite close to the wide harbour gate, The Heads, on the ferry steamer. Then you land on the wharf, and walk up the street, like a bit of Margate with sea-side shops and restaurants, till you come out on a promenade at the end, and there is the wide Pacific rolling in on the yellow sand: the wide fierce sea, that makes all the built-over land dwindle into non-existence. At least there was a heavy swell on, so the Pacific belied its name and crushed the earth with its rollers.
