54 PEACE: LION HUNTING 



experiencing, in short, something of many sides of 

 life, realises that there is only a difference in 

 degree between the ten-course dinner at a luxurious 

 hotel, and a plain meal of cold corned brisket, 

 fresh damper, and a pot of tea. (Personally I 

 much prefer the latter.) The sum of life's happi- 

 ness remains whether we live in a stone mansion 

 or in a comfortable weatherboard cottage ; whether 

 we are adorned with a frock coat and bell topper, 

 or clad in a soft shirt and moleskins. What does 

 matter is the absence of a sufficiency of good food 

 and clothes and of a comfortable home. There 

 should be opportunity, too, for pleasure and 

 relaxation, for it is not well that life should be one 

 continual grind of labour. 



Further, it is well to feel that one's children will 

 have such education that, should opportunity offer, 

 and their characters are equal to the burden, they 

 may hold even the highest positions in the State. 

 Perhaps, above all, it is good to know that in case 

 of sudden death or accident, neither wife nor 

 children will be left totally unprovided for. I 

 think that any young man by the time he is 

 twenty-five (quite apart from any particular gift 

 of brains or other possessions), as long as he is a 

 worker and not a drunkard, should be in a position 

 to marry the right girl if she will have him, and 

 enjoy life with her in happiness and comfort. 

 These are some of the things that seem to me of 

 real importance, and I believe that in Australia 

 our ideas and politics will yet follow the lines of 



