Page:Australia and the Empire.djvu/144

 It is the same if you turn to the most democratic newspapers in Australia, wherever they are serious and intended to instruct as well as amuse their myriad readers. In the Leader, which, with the Age, forms what has been called the "working man's Bible" in Victoria, one lights constantly on such pithy paragraphs as this:—

"Mr. O'Brien, who whines over his breeches, is, according to the Pall Mall Gazette, of 'the kinglier breed,' a hero of the old heroic strain."

Only this, and nothing more; and in these brief words the whole sickening cant about "the patriot's martyrdom," which was for a time a main staple in certain English journals, aiming to be democratic, is thus disposed of in a colonial paper that is not only democratic itself, but exists in a purely democratic atmosphere. It is all the difference between the player-king and the genuine potentate.

Arising out of this, too, it seems to me that the average intelligent Australian forms a far fairer estimate of our American kinsmen than is prevalent in England. It is a suggestive fact, and one which I think makes for the inevitable alliance of the English-speaking peoples who now claim so magnificent a portion of this world's estate, that the heroes of American history have already taken