Chapter IV
TASMANIA
TASMANIA, the Garden Island, is as large as Scotland: and considerably more sleepy than the Channel Islands. Like the rest of Australia, it was at one time a sort of dependency of Java, having been discovered, and named Van Diemen's Land, by Tasman in 1642. It was taken possession of as a British colony in the first years of this century, shortly after Dr Bass had discovered that it had ceased (since the tertiary period, approximately speaking) to form a part of Continental Australia. It is still marked in the old charts, specimens of which, printed on pottery ware, are still to be bought in the china shops of Kensington, as the southern extremity of the mainland; though the error has been corrected, probably, in maps of more recent issue. This mistake, however, together with the fact, already referred to, that the north shore of South Australia faces New Guinea, is possibly responsible for the extraordinarily confused state of the British mind in respect of Australian geography. The name of the colony was subsequently changed to Tasmania, in order to encourage a discreet oblivion of a chapter of history about which, even now, the less said the better, except that it is fully set forth in Marcus Clarke's "For the Term of His Natural Life." And since that time Tasmania has settled down to the production of potatoes, contentment, and jam. The guide-books call the island the Sanatorium of the South. That, of course, is the alliterative sort of thing guide-books usually give way to; but Tasmania really has a most delightful climate, which Sir Edward Braddon very justly describes, after dinner, as balmy, and which is as much its characteristic boast as is his Harbour to the Sydney man. The island is about twelve hours by steamer from Victoria: and for many years it has been known to jaded Melbourne folk as a holiday resort; to Federal Conventions (in the days when politicians did not take Federation very seriously) as a place for a picnic; and to Her Majesty's Australian squadron, which commonly passes the summer at anchor in the Derwent, as possessing one of the pleasantest capitals in Australia. Babies never die in Tasmania, or nine out of ten of them survive the first year of life. Yet 21 per cent, of the total deaths are of infants under one year, and 34 per cent, of old men:—nearly 11 per cent, indeed, of the deaths are of persons between 80 and 100 years of age. The young men, perhaps, have rather a tendency to drift away to a more stirring environment, though even here, as universally throughout Australia, there are more men than women. There are, it is true, on the other hand, more widows than widowers, and more unmarried females than married; which perhaps only makes it the more extraordinary that there should be, according to the Registrar-General, 22,000 married men, to a beggarly 21,000 of married women. But statistics will prove anything. It is more important to observe that, though there are, no doubt, openings for domestic servants, Tasmania is scarcely the place for the immigrant. There is, to begin with, no nominated assisted immigration. There is very little Crown land at once available for profitable settlement. The population is only about 146,000, of whom a bare 73,000 are over 21; and includes only 40,000 males over 21. This handful owns a heritage of 26,000 square miles, out of the Australian total of three millions; whereof they have alienated some four and three-quarters million acres, and still hold twelve million acres in reserve. In 1897 they had under cultivation 500,000 acres, and they broke up new land in that year to the extent of 9000 acres. Yet the bush is so luxuriant, markets so small, and communications so difficult, that the newcomer will usually find it better, on reflection, to buy an existing farm, of which there are plenty for sale, rather than to tackle the virgin forest. The real inwardness of Tasmanian life is clear from a few figures. There are upwards of 60,000 breadwinners in the colony, of whom some 5500 are employers of labour: and in the whole community there are a bare 28,000 habitations, of which near two thousand are slab, bark, or mud huts, tents, or dwellings with canvas roofs, 8000 are of brick or stone, and the balance are either wood, corrugated iron, or lath and plaster shanties. The colony owns 30,000 horses, 157,000 cattle, one and a half million sheep, and 43,000 pigs. Its exports are nearly £300,000 of pastoral produce, nearly £400,000 of agricultural produce, and nearly a million sterling of mineral produce, or an average of about £10 per head, as against imports of £8; figures which compare favourably enough, in Australian finance, with a taxation of £2, 18s., and a public debt of £48 per head. And of the sum of inhabitants, 115,000 are Australian born (107,000 of them born in the colony), as against 21,000 British, 5000 Irish, and 1000 Asiatics. All of which simply means that Tasmania is an old and quiet settlement, colonised many years ago, and troubled with no recent influx of people; where mining, however, is prosperous and advancing; where wages are rather lower, at times, than in the other colonies; where plenty of cleared agricultural land may be rented at from 8s. to 15s. per acre; and from whence potatoes, plums, and red currants are sent to Victoria, apples to Covent Garden, and fruit pulp all over the world.
It has been, perhaps, unfortunate for the little island that Victoria is so near. Her most busy times, and periods of expanding trade, have twice been associated with an actual depletion of both capital and population; once in the years after 1835, when the first settlement of Victoria by colonists from Tasmania took place (for not only was Melbourne planted by Batman and Fawkner, but Portland, the first town in Victoria, was founded, as we have seen, by Henty, and the best stations of the Western District were taken up by Tasmanian squatters), and secondly in 1853, when another emigration to Port Phillip was stimulated by the gold discoveries. The last expansion of trade, in 1885, unlike the two former, is marked by a growth, still continuing, in capital and population, due to the increasing output of copper, gold, silver, and tin; all of which, in the order named, are contributing to the colony's prosperity. But there has been no rush. Few enough Tasmanians were on "the long trail" when Coolgardie broke out in 1893 and 1894: and few of the migratory crowd which made Ccolgardie have, now that their day is over, been able to reconcile themselves to the calm atmosphere of Tasmania. You may find them in the Transvaal, in Pekin, or at Singapore, but not at Zeehan or Mount Lyall. Which, perhaps, may be all the better for Tasmania; whose progress, for the rest, though sure, is likely to be less slow in the future, especially after Federation. The opening of the great markets of Melbourne and Sydney to her fruit and vegetables will make a great deal of difference to the island colony. Under the Crown Lands Act of 1890 first-class agricultural waste lands of the Crown may be selected, in blocks of not less than 15 nor more than 320 acres, at £1 per acre cash, or 26s. 8d. spread over fourteen years. By an Amendment Act of 1893, the smaller settlers (on 15 to 50 acres), if actual occupants, pay nothing for the first three years; and by another Act, of 1894, provision is made, as in Queensland and other colonies, for co-operative settlement. The long period of purchase under these Acts is intended to help the industrious individual who has little or no capital to secure himself a home on the land. But the newcomer from England, either with or without capital, will find it necessary to acquire his colonial experience before committing himself to the expenditure of either work or money in any particular locality; and, in the course of so acquiring it, will probably come across more immediately remunerative means of employing his energy than in a struggle with the primitive bush. At the same time, it should not be forgotten that the methods of clearing heavy scrub have very much altered since fifty years ago. The pioneer insisted on expending from £6 to £15 per acre, and an infinity of trouble and time, in grubbing and clearing his land for the plough during the first year. Not only are there now stump-jumping ploughs, and the "devil," the American machine which draws trees from the ground like teeth; but experience has proved that the best methods are the cheaper ones of ring-barking the large trees and burning off the scrub, while first crops of fodder, or even of potatoes or grain, are taken off the land years before it is completely cleared. The average return for a crop of potatoes may vary from £5 to £20 per acre, and the first cost of scrubbing the land out from 8s. to 25s. per acre.
The following samples of properties advertised for sale in a recent issue of a local property register will serve to show the range of values, and to illustrate what h£is been said:—
Forcett.—Farm of seventy-five acres, twenty-one acres under cultivation. Cottage of two rooms. Price, £140.
Hastings.—Fifty-one acres, one-and-a-half acres in orchard, two acres cleared for planting, ten acres cleared and fit for running cattle. W.B. Cottage, four rooms, cowshed, etc. Price, £130.
Dromedary.—Farm of fifty acres, about twelve acres under cultivation, one acre in orchard, house of five rooms, and outbuildings, etc. Plenty of water. Price, £150. Terms.
Gould's Country, East Coast.—Farm of eighty-one acres, about seventy acres cleared and in grass, cottage of six rooms, barn, stable, and cowsheds, etc., orchard of three acres. Price, £200.
Claremont.—Sixty-three acres, twenty-one acres have been under cultivation. W.B. cottage of four rooms and kitchen, barns, piggeries, cowshed, stable, and stock-yard; orchard of one acre just coming into full bearing, an excellent stream of fresh water. Farm implements, furniture, carpenters' tools, carts, drays, harness, etc. Price, £325.
Huon Road, 6½ miles from town.—Fifteen acres, six acres cleared and partly grassed, raspberry and currant beds, potato paddock, etc. New cottage of four rooms, stable, hut, etc. Price, £370.
West Davenport.—Good cottage of four rooms, and usual outhouses, fowlhouse, piggeries etc. Fruit and vegetable garden in full bearing. The whole comprises ten acres of good chocolate soil. Price, £525.
Spring Bay, East Coast of Tasmania.—"Louisville Estate ": comprises eight hundred and forty-two acres of good land, part in small vineyard, fine orchard and flower garden. The house contains eight large rooms, servants' rooms, etc., stables, coach-house, cow-shed, and a splendid supply of water. A jetty also belongs to the property, at which local vessels can berth, and the Swansea and Hobart coach passes the gate. Price, £3000. And so on.New South Wales has her unrivalled back country, her outlook on the Pacific, and the rather doubtful benefit of the Federal Territory, which is to be within her borderline. Queensland has her herds and flocks, her Mount Morgans and her frozen meat: Melbourne her Bendigo and Ballarat; the land-boom, and the bank-smashes, to look back upon; the butter-factories and wineries which are retrieving the past; and the wealth of the Western District, where the sons of the squatters play polo, and draw rents, when they can get them, from their onion-farms. South Australia sits content with her wheat and wine, her piety, politics, and gambling share-brokers. Even Western Australia has at least Kalgoorlie and the jarrah trade. Tasmania has been looked on mainly as a health resort, with her quays often covered with a glut of fruit, and with no more exciting question to debate than whether her capital should be called Hobart, Hobart Town, or Hobarton. But all this may be changed by the growth of the mineral output, and by the stimulus of the Federal markets: and it is highly probable that more than nine thousand acres of new land may be broken up annually for many years to come. Federation has been, all along, mainly a commercial question for Tasmania.