dress clothes." He would have known that he was permanendy under,
but here the British pluck had rational hope of recovery, and on that
rational hope survived and even flourished.

And this leads me back to that question of the self-confidence of the
Australian-born colonial with which I started. Hope looks so sure, that
what Australia wants and has not it seems self-evident in a little while
she will have. And so she might if she would go the right way for it,
and instead of keeping three-quarters of her sparse inhabitants in
towns, would take the work that lies before her nose and subdue the
land and replenish it; and instead of shutting the gates deliberately on
rival labour, would draw the stranger to her coasts and pour population
on vast tracts of land which now lie barren and unproductive, but only
wait for the hand of man to break into beauty and yield riches.

In a hundred ways timidity would have been criminal, but when one sees
in what direction courage and hope have led the way, and to what
effort they have prompted, a little over-confidence looks pardonable.
Everywhere the colonists have worked for the future. They have made
railways and roads which will not be fully used for many and many a day.
Their public buildings are made to last, and are of dimensions nobler
than present needs can ask for. Generations to come will laud the wisdom
and the generosity of the men of the last fifty years. In certain places
there is an admirable spirit of emulation amongst private citizens who
have set themselves to beautify the towns in which they live. This is
very notable in Ballarat, where it has grown to be an excellent fashion
to present the town with statues. Should that fashion continue and
should the same spirit of local patriotism prevail, Ballarat may grow
to be the Athens of the Southern Hemisphere. The plan is a little large
perhaps, but it is in the colonial fashion, and one would willingly
believe in the chances of its ultimate justification.

The unborn generations will have to thank their predecessors for some
of the loveliest blessings of the world. Every town has its gardens, the
property of the citizens. Those of Brisbane, Sydney, and Adelaide are
extensively beautiful. But more beautiful than the grounds themselves is
the inscription which I found at the gates of the loveliest of them
all. I wish I had the _ipsissima verba_ of it, for it seemed to be
characterised by an admirable simplicity and dire