60 AUSTRALIA 
food is another circumstance in favor of the workman. He 
can dine, if he wishes, at a cleaniy kept restaurant, where 
a substantial meal of meat and vegetables, with pudding 
to follow, can be had for sixpence. A _ better served meal, 
with a small bottle of Australian wine added, can easily be 
got for a shilling. Meat, vegetables and fruit are remark- 
ably cheap. If an Australian workman does not live well, 
it is because he does not care to do so, or his wife does not 
know how to buy. 
In clothing of all kinds, he has to pay high prices, and 
he does not forget while doing so that he is contributing to 
the maintenance of the protected industries of the country. 
To do him justice, he does not complain of this, for ther 
is no more staunch adherent than he to the protective 
principle which, rightly or wrongly, he connects with the 
high scale of wages he is able to earn. 
It is literally true that there is no position of impor- 
tance in the commonwealth to which an ambitious and able 
man may not climb. “The careers of the men who have 
been Premiers of the Australian colonies prove this tact. 
The Premier of one state formerly worked in a flour mill 
within a hundred vards of the Parliament House where met 
the Assembly led by him. Another Premier could boast 
that he once carried his swag in search of employment 
through the country districts, and yet another was at one time 
au insurance agent. Instances of this kind could be multi- 
plied to an extent, for they illustrate the rule rather than 
the exception. The Australian workman fully appreciates 
these possibilities, and the absence of class distinctions 
which 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 te any dis- 
courtesy of bearing, but he knows his own value and is also 
fully alive to the importance ef the political power he 
wields. 
The ambition of the Australian workman is usually 
