Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/209

Rh and some of the officers are fever-stricken, and quinine is the order of the day.

Certain things strike one forcibly here. There is a great lack of enterprise and initiative amongst the Germans. We and they adopt different systems of colonisation. With us it is the individual full of enterprise and initiative who goes ahead, so long as he has a free hand, carving his way and his fortune out of the unknown land, scarce at all helped or fortified by his Government, which only follows reluctantly where he leads. Our Governments do nothing until forced to do Everything so, They carry this to an extreme. at first with the Briton is utility; he has no time or inclination for comfort or for beautifying his new home―it must first be made to pay. Hence the bare, ugly utilitarianism of new Australian settlements, springing up in a short time, a long street of verandahed shanties lining a broad road. Once firmly established he begins to improve the place and pay a little attention to the adornment of it.

The Germans, on the contrary, look to their Government for everything, do not strike out boldly for themselves, and if the numerous Government officials do nothing, the colonist sits down and waits till they do, for he, the colonist, has no free hand. Under direction he will do well, but he waits for that direction, and hence it is that a German colony is composed principally of officials, all sick of the place, and dying to get home again to the comforts of the happy Fatherland. They make their official residences neat and pretty, a and go in for what comfort they can get and as much sleep as can be included; hence initiative and enterprise are at a discount. This comes from their long home training as part of a great machine, where all thinking is done