362 
THE NATIONAL NT^RRERYMAN 
entrance, this trunk branched into three main forks, rep¬ 
resenting North, South and Middle Harbor. These 
three forks divide themselves into many smaller 
branches, finally into innumerable twigs, which rep¬ 
resent the many small bays and water indentation run¬ 
ning from the larger ones. The city’s suburbs occupy 
the high land between the arms of tlie harbor, the houses 
representing a very pretty picture in tlie bright sunlight 
with their roofs of red tile. Most of the houses are of 
brick and are built in one story bungalow style, no two 
alike. What impressed me most as the beautiful gar¬ 
dens surrounding almost every suburban home, however 
small. Even in the middle of winter these gardens are 
luxuriantly green with the foliage of many varieties of 
tree ferns, palms and many llowering and foliage plants. 
The public parks of Sydney are well kept and spacious, 
though hardly so fine as those of Melbourne. Hyde 
Park is open to stmnp speakers as its namesake in Lon¬ 
don. Then there is Centennial Park, The Domain, the 
Botanic Gardens and several others. The Botanic Gar¬ 
dens occupy a beautiful site facing a half moon bay in 
the heart of Sydney. It is well ke})t and sports a large 
collection of tropical and temperate vegetation. There 
are bowers of ferns with tree ferns h\ them twenty feet 
high. Palms such as Cocos, Seaforthias, Kentias, etc., 
grow to thirtyVfeet and more. Auracaria excelsa one 
hundred feet. Ficus elastica produces a large and bea- 
tiful tree, but not so large or spreading as the Australian 
Ficus. It may interest our friends from the middle west 
to know that in Melbourne they grow a tree alfalfa, 
which, when closely clipped, makes a fine hedge six to 
eight feet high. When not clipped it grows twelve to 
fifteen feet and cattle eat it with the same relish as or¬ 
dinary alfalfa. 
It struck me that an Australian living in Sdyney gets 
about as much out of life as one can get anywhere, but 
he must be an Australian. If he is a-idreigner he will 
have to stop at hotels—and the best of them are comfort¬ 
less and old-fashianed even on the English styldf He 
will have to use the failroads, on which the running time 
is slow, the service bad, and the rates high. They are 
worse than those of Italy, and are not to be compared 
with other new countries, such as Canada or the Argen¬ 
tine Republic. He will also have to use the telephone 
and wait ten minutes until the operator gets him the 
wrong number or snaps back that “the line is busy.” The 
rate is only two cents for city calls, but the user loses 
$1.00 worth of time, patience and temper before he gets 
a connection. 
How long Australians will put up with tlie.ppp!^,A^4r- 
inadequate service that these governinent owned j^Mic 
utilities give, is a question; their business men are pro¬ 
gressive, their capitalists are working wonders in devel¬ 
oping the natural resources of a country as large as the 
United States, but with a population less than that of 
New York City, but they are overgoverned. The proper 
functions of government have been sidetracked to experi¬ 
ment with Socialists and Labor Union theories. The 
first news that we read in Sydney was that the Rabbit 
Catchers Union had gone on a strike. There were over 
600 strikes in 1913 in New South Wales alone. The ar¬ 
bitration boards which were organized to prevent and 
settle strikes really encourage them, for capital, having 
vested interests—is obliged to abide by the decision of 
the arbitration board, while labor has the constitu¬ 
tional right to work or not as it pleases, so that if the de¬ 
cision gotes against labor, the men do not return to w ork 
and the strike continues. Capital is considered, by 
these labor union politicians as the national enemy of 
labor, the result being the capital is timid, the cost of la¬ 
bor keeps going upward raj)idly and the cost of living 
keeps pace. 
The slogan of “A White Australian” finds favor with 
all classes. The immigration laws exclude all colored 
people (including Chinese and Japanese) unless they 
w ere naturalized j)rior to 1901. No naturalization pa¬ 
pers have been given out since then and no more will be 
issued. To avoid giving offenses to other natives, the 
exclusion is made by a language test, the laws say that 
all aliens seeking entrance must pass an examination in 
a European language, but it does not state which lan¬ 
guage so that if a certain Spaniard is not considered by 
the authorities as a desirable emigrant he can be exam¬ 
ined in Russian and is barred out, as he failed to fulfil 
the law’s requirements, so no offense is given to the Span¬ 
ish people. 
Throughout Australia, military training is compulsory 
with all boys betw een the ages of fourteen and nineteen. 
After their years of service they go into the reserve. This 
is a splendid idea, w hen one remembers the large terri¬ 
tory to be defended and the relatively small population to 
draw from. It means that every male from eighteen to 
forty-five years pld, when called upon to defend his coun¬ 
try from invasion l^iust respond with a military training, 
besides it has been nqjtked that this training has almost 
destroyed the bands 'of larrikids or hoodlums that for¬ 
merly were a nuisance in all large cities and has given 
young men a respect for authority and discipline that 
w^as sadly lacking before. 
Australians are rightly termed “the great ont of doors- 
people,” they practically live out of doors, and the doors 
of their houses are usually wide open in more ways than 
one. There are innumerable picnic places around Syd¬ 
ney and every holiday special trains and boats are run 
and everybody goes picnicking. The government re¬ 
serves a public domain one hundred feet from the water 
front of Sydney Harbor. Saturday, half holiday is com¬ 
pulsory, so no matter on what day a public holiday comes 
it is observed on the following Monday, so as to allow 
more time for w^eek-end picnicking. Friday night is 
shopping night instead of Saturday as formerly. Prac¬ 
tically no one wmrks more than eight hours a day and 
rwages in all trades and industries are established by gov- 
‘il?Tnin'eht Wages Boards. 
While in New^ South Wales, I visited the Jekolan caves 
and the Blue Mountains, only about sixty miles from 
Sydney. The caves are many miles in extent, the main 
entrance arch being one hundred and fifty feet high by 
two hundred feet wide. The caves are filled with stal- 
ictites and staligmites as most caves are. The whole 
due to the action of subterranean rivers running through 
mountains of porous sandstone. The Blue Mountains 
really should be called the Blue Canyon, for they are a 
series of large broad canyons twm thousand to three 
thousand feet deep, their beauty is opened up by the 
many trails which lead down by the numerous water¬ 
falls, through to the bowsers of luxuriant tree ferns, in 
