The Bushman — Life in a New CountryLandor, Edward Wilson
History
The Bushman — Life in a New Country
Landor, Edward Wilson
Western Australia -- Description and travel
Then we have the exact fac-simile of a Royal Court, with its levees
and drawing-rooms, where his Excellency displays the utmost extent of
his affability, and his lady of her queenly airs. There may be seen,
in all its original freshness and vigour, the smiling hatred of rival
ladies, followed by their respective trains of admirers; whilst the
full-blown dames of Members of Council elbow their way, with all the
charming confidence of rank, towards the vicinity of her who is the
cynosure of all eyes. The early levees of the first Governor of
Western Australia were held in a dry swamp, near the centre of the
present town of Perth. His Excellency, graciously bowing beneath the
shade of a banksia tree, received with affability those who were
introduced to him, as they stumbled into his presence over tangled
brushwood, and with difficulty avoided the only humiliation that is
scorned by English courtiers -- that of the person.
Ladies, in struggling through the thorny brake, had sometimes to
labour under the double embarrassment of a ragged reputation and
dress. To appear before the Presence, under such circumstances, with
a smiling countenance, proved the triumph of feminine art, and of
course excited general admiration. But this was in the early days of
the settlement. We have now a handsome Government-house, where
ladies who attend drawing-rooms incur no danger of any kind.
From the financial difficulties of a small colony you may form some
idea of the troubles of the Chancellor of the Exchequer at home. And
yet there is less financial talent required to raise five hundred
thousand pounds in England than five hundred in an impoverished
colony. In the former country only a few voices, comparatively, are
raised in expostulation; and no one cares about them, if Mr. Hume
could be gagged, and the other patriots in the Commons. But in a
colony! threaten to raise the price of sugar by the imposition of
another half-penny per pound, and the whole land will be heaved as
though by an earthquake. Not only will the newspapers pour forth a
terrific storm of denunciations against a treacherous Government, but
every individual of the public will take up the matter as a personal
injury, and roar out his protest against so monstrous a political
crime. Those who called most loudly for the erection of a necessary
bridge, will be most indignant when asked next year to contribute
towards its cost.
The Governor of a colony should not only be a good financier, but if
he would avoid the bitter pangs of repentance, must possess great
firmness in resisting the innumerable calls upon the Government purse.
His Excellency may lay his account to being daily vituperated for not
consenting to the construction of this or that national work, but he
will be still more taken to task when the melancholy duty of paying
for it becomes imperative, and is found to be unavoidable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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