trades, has particular advantages in a community where the level of technical knowledge is low. But the best craftsman, in any trade, will probably not wish (unless it be for reasons unconnected with business) to leave England. Few of our middle-class families are guilty, nowadays, of the cruel folly of sending their youngsters off to Australia as "jackeroos" or "remittance-men," to find their level in an environment which gives them no fair chance. We prefer to send them to South Africa instead. But there are still always men and women in every social rank to whom Australasia appeals as offering an opening, which they fail to see at home, for the free exercise of their faculties. And if, in my attempt, however obscurely, to estimate these colonies from this point of view, I have sometimes been guilty of more frankness, perhaps, than would be altogether discreet if it were my fortune to be domiciled there myself, it will surely be allowed in my excuse that to do otherwise were to darken counsel.
For the rest, I enjoyed great hospitality throughout the colonies: and I shall always feel towards them, as a result of my tour, the increased amity which, amongst men of the same blood, is the natural result of a better understanding. To Mr Kingston, the Premier of South Australia, Sir George Turner, the Premier of Victoria, Mr Reid, the late Premier of New South Wales, and Mr Seddon, the Premier of New Zealand, as well as to a host of other leaders of political and social thought, I have to express my most heartfelt thanks for the untiring courtesy with which they assisted my natural desire for information.
The Friendly Societies spared themselves no expense nor trouble to make my visit both pleasant and instructive.
