Part 4

A newspaper’s virtue, like a woman’s, has a special meaning, and the meaning which outsiders attach to the word “virtue,” as applied to a newspaper, is not necessarily that which obtains within the craft. The goal which every management has in view is the goal of success--not spiritual or ethical, but hard, financial, and materialistic success. The proprietor’s virtue, the editor’s virtue, the writer’s virtue, are synonymous, among members of the profession, with the ability to produce a readable, a saleable, and an otherwise valuable article. No one blames a lawyer for advocating a cause in which he does not believe; no one censures a grocer for selling a brand of tea which he does not personally like; no one objects to a carpenter putting up houses in which he would not care to dwell. Why should the newspaper be accused of unfairness when it does what is best for itself? Like every private individual, it must keep within bounds. If it commits a transgression there is always the libel law. If it indulges in personal malice, there is always the gaol. The singular thing is that so many journals--particularly the patriarchs of Sydney and Melbourne--should be so anxious to assure the public of the excellence of their intentions. As though good intentions had ever a market value, as though the commercial instinct and the highest moral principles were not always and necessarily opposed!

What of the newspaper writer’s calling as such? Is it worth following? From the outside it looks attractive enough. Even from the inside it has its charms, meretricious and otherwise. There is a certain glitter and glamour about the profession, particularly in its early stages. The absence of class distinctions helps the journalist, and makes his work infinitely more agreeable. To a man with a real literary turn--or what is even better, a news’ instinct--promotion comes rapidly. He escapes the dull routine of other callings; he comes almost immediately into the larger portion of his inheritance. The reputation that blossoms towards the end of life, the rewards that come eventually, but with glacial slowness, the solid and sure gains of experience, all these are no part of his outlook. But he acquires in a few months a reputation and a standing that elsewhere are only the product of years. He steps at once into a wide and breezy circle; he is thrown into daily contact with the most interesting, the most notorious, and the most illustrious personages of the time. About the work itself there is a peculiar, mirage-like quality; it always seems to be pointing beyond the desert of daily drudgery, beyond the arid region of hack-work and small salaries, to the smiling country of fortune and literary fame. The young newspaper writer “never is, but is always to be, blest.”

There are many people who do not require to be warned against journalism; they drift into it, or fall into it, after chequered experiences elsewhere. But to the youth who has a choice of professions, and who thinks of choosing this one, a word of counsel may be tendered. There is no calling that makes such demands on talent, that asks so much, or that treats its tried servants so badly in the end. The man on the general staff of a big Australian daily, may for a year or two, or for a dozen years, have a good share of what the heart desires. He may have a degree of reputation, an amount of ready money, a following of friends; but the money, the friends, the reputation are all liable to vanish at brief notice. The more brilliant the writer is, the more quickly does he exhaust his stock of nervous energy. After the first few years, time, as already remarked, begins to work, not _for_, but _against_ him; the more capable and the more talked of he is, the more insidiously do adverse influences begin to grow up. As a rule, his is not the temperament which weighs chances, or lays up store for the future: and when the day of his mental ascendancy is past, the management regretfully but firmly shows him the door.

The writer has in mind four representative Australian journalists whose abilities were, or are now, of the very highest. From the ranks of any profession, or from all the professions together, it would be difficult to pick in Australia four men who could boast in the aggregate a greater measure of natural or of practised ability. Each of these four has, time after time, charmed, interested, and amused, hundreds of thousands of perceptive and critical readers. Had they given half the same talent to law or medicine, to science or politics, each of the four would beyond doubt have become rich and famous. But what has happened? One of them, possibly the most brilliant of the brilliant quartette, died early, in some measure a victim to the hospitality and conviviality that his own unique personality and charm of manner invited. Journalists in Australia will not need to be told that the reference is to the late Davison Symmons. The other three are still living. One of them, whose work conferred lustre on the Sydney _Morning Herald_ during the middle ’nineties, was in part the victim of circumstances, in part the prey of his own temperament. The knowledge that he was receiving 30s. or 40s. a column for his efforts, while worse writers in England were getting paid for theirs at the rate of shillings _a line_, drove him first to misanthropy, and afterwards to other things. The third of the quartette is the writer who is known throughout the continent by the pen-name “Oriel.” He is at the top of the profession; he is one of the few men in Australia who have combined social orthodoxy with newspaper brilliance; he has worked hard, and he has not thrown himself away. But what prospects of a tangible monetary reward are there for the gifted “Oriel,” or for writers like “Oriel,” in comparison with those which always await the cattle dealer, the rag merchant, or the bluffing attorney? The fourth of these typical journalists is he who disguised himself in the columns of the Melbourne _Argus_ and chronicled cricket, football, and other small beer for quite a number of years. He might have continued to do so indefinitely, had not the accident of the South African war given him a reputation and a name.

These are only a few illustrations, but they will suffice. The individual who launches out on the inky way must be prepared to be judged critically on his merits, and to be treated without leniency or favour. He must submit, for a time at any rate, to do the bidding of a man who is also a journalist, and perhaps a less competent one than himself. He must throw his illusions overboard; he must learn to give and take; he must be watchful and ready, prompt to observe, and quick to act; and he must be prepared to go without the richer prizes that can be won in the warehouse, or in the domain of medicine, or at the Bar.

Yet, if the would-be journalist possesses certain qualifications, in addition to literary skill, he may be recommended to join the ranks of the unlisted legion. If he has a saving sense of self-restraint; if he has the faculty for seeing ahead; if he has a definite amount of moral stamina; if he can treat the profession, not as an end, but as a means to an end; if he can live through it and eventually rise above it--if he can do this, the press is his most perfect and his ideal medium. The monetary test is not the final one. The working journalists can at least take to themselves one or two reflections. The ways of the grocer and of the apothecary, of the lawyer and the bill-discounter, are not their ways. Government House may not know them, and the drawing-rooms of Toorak and Potts’ Point may forget their feet. But they have their consolations. They are the rebels and the outlaws, and yet a strange paradox--the entertainers, the instructors, the beacons of the whole reading world.

IV

THE GAME OF POLITICS

Is it not better, youth Should strive, _through acts uncouth_, _Toward making_, than repose on aught found made?

The game of politics as played in Australia has a certain vogue with almost every class. In numerous directions are to be found striking evidences of the pervading character of this form of recreation. Every state, including those whose population is only half that of a decent sized English town, has its two Houses of Legislature, and all of the states in unison have their double-barrelled Federal Parliament. Thus we get a total of fourteen Houses of Parliament, and nearer seven hundred than six hundred members to represent barely four millions of people. The amount of space these fourteen Houses and these six hundred and seventy odd members take up in the newspapers, and other chronicles of the time, is enormous. Looking at some of the facts, one would be inclined to say that the word “recreation” was a misnomer, that the whole business was intensely and almost preternaturally serious. If a man confined his reading to the journals of Australia, if he talked to mechanics on their way home from work, or to business men over their coffee, if he attended only a few of the open-air meetings that are a feature of the life of the country, he would inevitably come to the conclusion that the whole duty of man in Australia was to record his vote, to watch his representative in Parliament, to burn incense to the proved and faithful servant, and to hurl violently from his seat any individual who ventured to tamper for a moment with the principles of justice, equality, democracy, individualism, socialism, or whatever the prevalent principle happened to be.

This would be a reasonable conclusion in certain circumstances, but it would be an entirely erroneous one. As a matter of fact the game is never really serious. In a land like Australia where many things are dull, and lifeless, and mechanical, the tone and temper of public affairs must be regarded as a pleasant relief. From the deadly seriousness of cricket and horse-racing to the essentially humorous quality of politics, is the most agreeable of transitions. It is an incontestable fact that Australia is distinguished among all civilised countries for the buoyant atmosphere, the mirth-provoking attributes, and the Gilbertian features associated with its politics--features that constitute, indeed, the whole substance and essence of the game.

To be a successful player, you require a certain amount of aptitude, and a large measure of good fortune. Let it be assumed that you are a spectator, and desire to be something more; that you are anxious to get among the players, to handle the stakes, to hold a winning chance. The task is easier--much easier--in Australia than it is in Great Britain, but yet it is never altogether easy. The unwritten laws governing success and failure are uncertain and peculiar. You are anxious to sit at the table among the players. It remains to be seen what kind of hand you have got. There are certain cards it is very desirable to hold; others you can do without. Take it for granted that fortune has dealt you enterprise, ambition, intelligence, power of grasping political questions, faculty of speech, capacity for winning friends. This is a useful hand, but will not of itself get you what you want. If somebody plays the stronger card, that is to say the power of the purse, you will go under in nine cases out of ten; you will remain always among the onlookers in the outer ring, and will never get to the table. It is necessary to make this point clear. To say that the moneyed man can do what he likes in Australia, and that wit, eloquence, industry, and the rest are always beaten by a large banking account, would be to commit oneself to a foolish and palpable exaggeration. But no sane man would deny that, in the game now under consideration, Power of the Purse is the Ace of Trumps, and that to counterbalance it a very strong collection of cards indeed is required.

There are many things that have to be reckoned with by the man who desires to enter politics in Australia, but there is little outside the cloven hoof of mammon that he can safely reckon on. The sands of public opinion are shifting, changing. Even that useful attribute, gift of speech, is by no means a certain passport to the post of command. The crowd is jealous and suspicious of too much ability. It is not pleasant for mediocrity to see itself outstripped by talent. A man may talk himself into Parliament. On the other hand, he may talk himself out of the possibility of ever getting there. So much depends on the impression the crowd gets of the speaker’s sincerity, of his earnestness, of his moral, social, and other qualities. It may happen--in thousands of cases it has happened--that a man who can speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and whose whole life has been patriotically unselfish, has been unable to gain a place in the counsels of the nation. For some reason the onlookers would not take to him; they have disliked or misread his cards, disliked or misread the man. The influence of the Trades’ Union is one powerful lever. Many a man has succeeded in entering public life by its aid; but the Trades’ Union is becoming to a greater extent each year a political conglomeration of fiercely ambitious units, and nine-tenths of the speakers who declaim at a Trades’ Hall or Union meeting have Parliament in view. Every speaker watches, criticises, and mistrusts every other speaker. In the rush for the spoils it is difficult to say who will, and who will not, come eventually to the front. Capacity has to be shown, friends have to be made, opponents have to be silenced, rival interests have to be placated, cliques have to be frustrated, logs have to be rolled, wires have to be pulled, and much else has to be done before the goal can be attained. To the participant it is all very exciting, and to the onlooker it is very droll indeed.

But it is in Parliament that the fascination of the game really begins. So fascinating is it to the great majority of the participants who have reached this stage, that you will scarcely find one in a hundred who will offer to give up his place at the table, no matter how his chances of winning a large stake may have dwindled, no matter how much he may be out of pocket, no matter how his fellow-players may be wishing him somewhere else. To say this is not to suggest the worst kind of motive, or to cast reflections on individuals. The writer knows a great many Australian politicians, and is inclined to think that on the whole he likes them better than any other class. He regards them as, for the most part, genial, pleasant fellows. Speaking broadly, they are not dull-witted, and they are not corrupt. There was a time when the average member of an English Parliament was both. The Australian politician is usually a good sportsman: he can take his winnings without boasting, and he can take his failures like a man. He is under no illusions as to his own aims, or his own qualities. He knows that it is to his interest to be considered as a patriot, and he knows also, in his heart of hearts he knows, that he is only a player. Let us quote Browning, and thank God that the meanest politician boasts two soul-sides, one to face his constituents with, one to show to the man or woman who knows him. Let us thank God, for if it were otherwise the race of public men would cease to exist. They would be consumed in the fires of their own simulated fervour. And some highly interesting proceedings would be lost to the world.

It is assumed, then, that the first step has been taken, that you have got to the playing table, that you are directly under the eye of the marker who calls the game. The fun is now about to commence, and with it the danger. You are untried, and practically unknown. The first thing to do in the circumstances is to get into opposition. The manner of doing this requires a great deal of tact and finesse. Many a man, and many a possessor of a naturally strong hand, has spoilt it irrevocably by playing a wrong card at this early stage. The probabilities are that you were carried into Parliament on a wave of enthusiasm for the Government. You were chosen to sit behind the front Ministerial Benches. Your constituents expect this of you. Now, it is just possible to do precisely what your constituents do not expect of you, and yet, not only keep their good opinion, but rise very much higher in it. This, I say, is possible, but so far from being easy, it is distinctly the hardest piece of strategy in the whole political manœuvre.

However, something has to be done. You are unknown, and far from rich; you are ambitious, and cannot afford to remain for years an obscure unit among the followers of the party in office. The fascination of the play is upon you; there are tens of thousands of spectators watching intently, keenly interested, waiting to applaud. The temptation to catch their eye--that large collective eye which overlooks the continent--is irresistible. You are invisible because of the Ministerial phalanx in front of and around you, and it is necessary to get clear, to break away.

The opportunity will almost certainly arrive before long. The clever gamester is he who recognises the chance when it appears and makes the most of it. You must have a certain amount of patience. It is ruinous to be too precipitate, but it will almost certainly happen, and probably before the end of your first triennial term, that the Premier will come down with certain proposals to which you are not committed before the eyes of your constituents, and which are intrinsically important enough to arouse popular feeling. This is the opportunity to break with the Government. But as you represent a government constituency you must be careful. You must go to the electors and take them into your confidence; you must explain that after a tremendous and heart-breaking struggle between devotion to a political leader and devotion to principle, the latter carried the day. It is well to point out--as truthfully you may do--that your threats, tears, and entreaties have been fruitless to turn the Premier from his fell purpose; that your expostulations have fallen on deaf ears. Henceforth, you may add, all personal attachments, all private longings, all political amenities, are to you as nought; all the friendships of a lifetime have been laid on the altar; for the future you live only in the endeavour humbly but unswervingly to give effect to those eternal principles in comparison with the majesty of which, the life and aspirations of the individual are as the small dust in the balance, are a not worth naming sacrifice.

Once in opposition it will be found that your sphere has extended, your reputation increased. It is now possible to marshal all your forces. Allusions can be made that would previously have been inadmissible; words can be used that before would have been treason. At this period of the game it is advisable to cultivate a method, a manner of your own. It is desirable to be in some way _distinctive_. There is much virtue in a particular look, in a mode of speech, in a mannerism. If you have not the main thing, which is natural ability and power of carrying conviction, it is possible to get something else--something that will focus the attention of the spectators in the outer ring. Every one knows the story of the man who laughed. He has had his counterpart, and a very successful counterpart, in Australian politics. It will be recorded of one man of obscure beginnings that he was a genial, capable, extremely popular person, who laughed, and became Premier of Victoria. If laughing is not your _metier_, if it goes against the grain, it is just as effective, or even more so, to cultivate a cast-iron demeanour. The “cool, calm, strong man” has been played admirably on several occasions, by none more finely and successfully than by Mr W. H. Irvine, of Victoria. Yet another pose that will often be found extremely useful is that of the bluff devil-take-you kind of individual, as impersonated by Mr Thomas Bent, of contemporary fame, and by Sir George Dibbs, of happy memory. The astute Cornwall in _King Lear_ says some words to the effect that this kind of knave--the bluff, outspoken knave--has more craft than any other kind that could be mentioned. However that may be, the gruffly candid demeanour has proved useful in Australian politics in the past, and is likely to prove useful again. Then there is the humorous pose, of which Mr G. H. Reid furnishes the best living example. This is invaluable at times, but its successful adoption is so difficult that it cannot be generally recommended. Only the highest kind of ability should venture to undertake this manner. It may be of advantage to affect a plain, or even a dowdy, appearance. The first Federal Treasurer wore an old suit of brown clothes for a lengthy period, and with conspicuously good results. But, whatever you cultivate, whether it is the manner of the sage or the buffoon, of the circus or of the graveyard, it is necessary to cultivate something, and to cultivate it well.

With a modicum of good luck, and a sufficiency of good management, almost any one can rise to Ministerial rank in Australia, or for that matter can obtain the highest post of vantage, namely the Premiership. The comparative shade of private membership is no sooner left behind than the game takes on still different phases. The cards are reshuffled, the partners are altered, the rules are revised. The play is as fascinating as ever--even more so--but it has become much more difficult, much more complex. One has only to reflect for a moment on the absence of any really live question in colonial politics to understand the trouble that the head of a Government must have to keep up some semblance of enthusiasm in the country, and to retain his place. There is no large Imperial question. There is no Home Rule question. There is no longer a tariff question, although there are occasional murmurings and mutterings from one or two sections of the people, and from one or two dissatisfied newspapers. It is impossible to beat up a party, either in the State or the Federal Parliament, on such lines as Imperialism, Nationalism, Jingoism, Fiscalism, Conservatism, or any other “ism” belonging to the larger domain of national affairs. What is there left to fight about? There is very little. In three cases out of four the incoming Government takes up the measures of its predecessor. In three cases out of four the differences, other than the personal ones, are barely discernible. In this political atmosphere of Australia, Amurath with Amurath is eternally being confounded.