ch may win
concessions in its turn. The Victorians are imminently dissatisfied and
would seem to have a right to be so. Federation is on all accounts to be
desired, but it has yet to be fought for, and will only be gained with
difficulty. Wise men long for it, but the petty jealousies of rival
states will hold it back from its birth-time as long as delay is
possible. How infinitesimally small these jealousies are nothing short
of a residence in the land can teach anybody. Wisdom will have its
way in the long run, but the belief of the veteran leader of New South
Wales, that he will live to see the union of the Australian colonies, is
a dream. It is a dream which only his political enemies will grudge him.

The wide and varied resources of the country, and the ups and downs
which men experience, breed a merciless courage which in some of its
manifestations is very fine. During my first stay in Melbourne the
waiter who attended to my wants at Menzies' Hotel brought up, with
something of a dubious air, a scrap of blue paper, on which was written,
"Your old friend------." I instructed him to show my visitor in, and a
minute later beheld the face of an old companion, a little more grizzled
and wrinkled than I had last seen it, but otherwise unchanged. When we
had shaken hands and he was seated, I found that he was dressed like
a common labourer; and in answer to my inquiry he told me, bravely and
brightly, that he had fallen upon evil times. "I should like a glass of
champagne, old man," said he when I asked him to refresh himself, "and
a square foot will run to enjoy it." We talked away, and he told me of a
history of success and failure, and at last he explained the purpose
of his visit. He wished to hear the three lectures I was advertised to
deliver, and he had come to ask me for a pass. "I shall not disgrace
you, old boy," he added, "I have been down on my luck for a couple of
years past but I am not going to stay where I am, and _I have kept
my dress clothes_." I do not know that I ever saw a finer bit of
unconscious courage, and the incident gave me a certain faith in the
spirit of the colonies which has never left me. There is a gambling
element in it no doubt but the ever present sense of hope is a great and
valuable thing. It finds such a place in a new country as it can never
have in an old one. The English gentleman who in England had fallen to
be a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water would never have "kept his