with this, as it has with the non-success of Labour in Victoria; in both cases the personnel of the State Labour Party is inferior to that of its opponents, and the local Trades Hall is dominated by extremists. But the Verran Government has no such active record as those of Mr. Fisher and Mr. McGowen; its handling of a carrier's strike was almost as weak as that of the British Government last July, and its attempted legislation has been more purely a product of Labour initiative. It has therefore iven the sympathetic " voter no excuse for continuing to upport it, and few outside the pledged Labourites will support t at the next elections.

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One factor, by the by, in the personal element-the preference for men who do things instead of talking about them, and for judging men by what they do rather than by what they say they intend to do-should be specially noted, if only because it affords at any rate the basis of an explanation for that must regrettable phenomenon in Federal politics, the failure of Mr. Deakin to get any personal grip on the electors at large. No man in the history of the Commonwealth has more strongly fluenced both friends and foes who came into personal contact with him. It is hard to believe that any man has excelled, or ven equalled, him in pure and disinterested patriotism and in **atesmanlike farsightedness; but "far" must be emphasised -he resembles too much those unpopular seers in "Realmah," hose fifty-year forecasts were neglected in favour of the fat and jolly prophets of next year's, or next month's, or to-morrow's -ppenings. Again and again he has hesitated to do something mediately on the ground that it could be more satisfactorily one a little later on; and, while he was impatiently awaiting he ideal moment, the Press and the public beyond range of his personal influence have wrongly imagined him watching to see which way the cat would jump.

What is the moral of all this? Not that Labour Ministries, the Australian Labour Party, are admirable as such (though Ley seem to be a considerable improvement on the British variety); but that the Australian public, sober, intelligent, and with quite clear ideas about what it wants done, remains master of its Ministries as of its parties; and that the antiLabour parties, if they wish to regain or to retain power, must

VOL. LIX

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learn their lesson, as Mr. Fisher and Mr. McGowen seem to ha learnt theirs. In Victoria, indeed, the State Ministry, st "Liberal,” may be said to have the lesson by heart; in Queen land Mr. Denham is a slow learner, but then his opponents a for the most part recalcitrant dunces. Australians in gener have, perhaps, too little respect for "vested interests "-whic after all, in so new a country, cannot have been long vested for the sanctity of parties they have no respect at all; and party that does not justify its existence by actively forwardin Australian interests has any chance of substantial suppor Nor will any party obtain such support for any longer than i activity lasts.

Note now what interests the public considers Australian for in that respect the change since Federation-in the last fo years, indeed—is very marked. Up to 1904 or 1905 the avera Australian had a very limited outlook. He had spasms Imperialism, of a sort. He was eager about the South Africa War, partly from love of adventure, but partly also from a genui affection for the Mother Country, a sense of race, and indignati at the Kruger ultimatum. The only advantage which Engla took of that emotion was to persuade Australia's Ministers in altering the naval agreement in a way which Australians d liked intensely. Another spasm followed the Chamberla proposals for preferential trade. England dallied with the and dropped them; and the Australian, having done his sha of preference-granting, found nothing left to do till England shou alter her mind. In neither case had any feeling of necessi been the motive of his actions. But from 1906 onwards th feeling has grown-the feeling that the Empire is not mere a grand thing to talk about or a reputable institution to connected with, but a necessary of life, which must be ma tained and developed by the incessant activity of all its membe Australian Imperialism, in fact, is becoming self-interest The old comfortable belief that it was convenient to be un British shelter, and that when we felt strong enough we co walk amicably out of the shelter, is gone; the new insist conviction is that we, like all other parts of the Empire, can do without the strength of our mutual cohesion, that the act

factor in that strength must diminish if we depend for it on Britain alone, and that security lies only in developing the same active factor in each of the Dominions, so that each may in the first place take over the responsibility of local defence, and in the second fit itself to share in the general responsibility, and thus to claim a share in determining what responsibilities shall be generally undertaken.

I do not suggest that the average Australian voter, if you asked him to explain himself, would give this detailed explanation of his feelings. I am certain that this is the explanation, and that he will find no fault with it. The effect shows itself in his keenness about defence, both military and naval, as in the interest he is already beginning to take in all proposals to increase with exceptional rapidity the population of the Commonwealth; but also in the resentment he displays when outsiders suggest that the new squadron is a step towards separation, and the unfeigned amusement with which he has always greeted the suggestion of American journalists that he has some idea of asking the United States to stand between Australia and Japan. Australia, it must be remembered, is always better than its Ministries. The big movements-for Federation, for the war contingents, for compulsory military training-have been forced on the politicians by the people, and Ministries and parties exist under the same duress. In Mr. Deakin's last Ministry there were reactionaries who held to the " apron strings" type of Imperialism; in Mr. Fisher's Ministry there are, probably, reactionaries who still hanker after the "cut the painter" type of anti-Imperialism. Both kinds of reactionary matter less. every day. They retard, but cannot check, the movement towards sane and reasoned Imperialism. This quiet but irresistible pressure from outside is of great value in Australian political life. It emphasises and strengthens the influence of the better men, and the saner, less partisan ideas of the responsible men. It forces men out of office, as Sir Joseph Carruthers was forced while his party was still safe in power, if they set themselves against the healthy public will. It schools politicians, as it schooled the Fusion, if they conceive that politics is a game to be played among themselves. And, now that the public has found its basis for a belief in the Empire as a necessity, it will

ensure that neither Ministerial vagaries nor Oppositionist nagging -should either show themselves in the face of an Imperial crisis-will debar Australia from co-operating as may be most fitting in such measures as the needs of the whole Empire may demand.

In quite another fashion the recent history of the Commonwealth is proving to be of Imperial interest. Australia has been enjoying much prosperity for some years-practically ever since the break-up of the great drought of 1902. And there have not been wanting in any one of the good years warning voices predicting dry weather and poor seasons. This year, when we stood amazed at the golden disclosures of the Federal Budget, the voices were louder than ever, and stronger than ever the insistence of our gloomier critics on the necessity of saving out of this abundance for the lean years to come. Now of a sudden stands up the Commonwealth meteorologist to tell us that we have been having lean years without knowing it. In Victoria, he says, the rainfall for the period 1903-10 was barely up to the average, 1907-8 being especially droughty. Over most of New South Wales 1904-5 and 1907-8 were dry years, and in the coastal districts not a single year's rainfall has reached the average. So long a dry period has never before been known. Our prosperity, in fact, has come to us in spite of the seasons, not because of them.

What, then, is the cause of it? Mr. Hunt gives a comfortable answer. In the first place, the increase in the world's white population and the Europeanising of many Asiatic tastes have enlarged the market for our products and kept up the prices. In the second place-and this is the important answer -we are learning to master our climate. Ever since white men first settled in Sydney, the weather has been Australia's tyrant. For this the physical configuration of the country is in part responsible. A land with no upland reservoir of perpetual snow, over a great part of whose lowlands the porous soil affords no natural water storage, must always be more at the mercy of its unpredictable climate than countries which have real mountain ranges and a compact soil. But the perhaps unavoidable concentration of early settlers on woolgrowing, which needs holdings

of great area, exaggerated and prolonged the superstition that "you can't fight the weather." At last, with the spread of wheat-growing and the division of great stations into manageable farming areas, a change has come. The landowner has found it worth his while to fight, and has pressed all sorts of weapons into his service.

We have benefited [says Mr. Hunt], by the lessons of such droughty years as those of 1888 and 1902; we are benefiting by the mistakes of pioneers in putting land to unsuitable uses. The capabilities; of soil and seasonal distribution of rains are better understood. The adoption of dry-farming methods and of drought-resisting wheats has given payable crops in spite of poor rainfall in many districts. The use of artificial manures has opened up vast cereal areas, such as the mallee and Pinnaroo country. In the better control of the rabbit

pest, the conservation of water and fodder, the tapping of the artesian basin, &c. may be found other answers. . .

The locking and damming of the Darling is obviously one of the first great works to be undertaken. . . . Our eastern mountain chain is honeycombed on its western slopes with natural reservoirs waiting for dams to imprison periodical tropical rains.

Only a short time ago I met a landowner who is flourishing, year in, year out, on eleven inches of rain in the west of New South Wales, on land which ruined several of his predecessors with a rainfall of half as much again. He has taken the trouble to master his problem.

Note what this means to the Empire. Canada and Australia, tariff reformers have always said, are inexhaustible natural food-stores within the Empire. Their opponents, grudgingly admitting that Canada does grow some wheat (a supply which, by the by, Free Traders were very willing a few months ago to see diverted outside the Empire), have repeatedly maintained that Australia was drought-stricken half its time and was quite untrustworthy as a source of any food-supply. When the figures of the last few years were shown them, they said, "Wait for the lean years." If, then, it turns out-as Mr. Hunt says it does— that these years of prosperity have been lean years, another anti-Preference argument is dead.