ii2 Australian Life 



advantages, upon which the better-class workman 

 sets even a higher value. It is literally true in 

 Australia, at the present time, that there is no 

 position of importance in the State to which an 

 ambitious and able man may not climb. The 

 careers of the men who were Premiers of the Aus- 

 tralian States at the time these words were writ- 

 ten illustrate this fact with special force. The 

 Premier of one state formerly worked in a flour 

 mill within a hundred yards of the Parliament 

 House where meets the Assembly he now leads. 

 Another Premier can boast that he once carried 

 his swag in search of employment through the 

 country districts of his state, and yet another was 

 at one time an insurance agent. Instances of this 

 kind could be multiplied to any extent, for they 

 illustrate the rule rather than the exception. The 

 Australian workman fully appreciates these possi- 

 bilities, and the absence of class distinctions they 

 imply, and shows his appreciation by an inde- 

 pendence of conduct which is very noticeable. It 

 cannot justly be said that this independence is 

 allied to any discourtesy of bearing, but he knows 

 his own value, and is also fully alive to the im- 

 portance of the political power he wields. 



The ambition of the Australian workman is 

 usually apparent in the career he marks out for 

 his children. To them, the learned professions 

 are open, and he is not slow to take advantage of 

 the fact that the State-subsidised university is at 

 his very door. I remember a typical instance of 



