Page:The influence of commerce on civilization (IA influenceofcomme00ellerich).pdf/36

30 calls, Australia will not be the last to respond? But there are rifts in the lute. The present legislation of Australia is baneful in its effects on the commerce of the Old Country, which protects Australian commerce. Even by the present Liberal-Radical Parliament of Great Britain statements have been made that, if the British navy protects Australia and Australian commerce, the least British shipping should expect is to be exempt from the harassing effects of the Navigation Act lately passed in Australia. It is too serious to contemplate, but suppose, for instance, the protection of the British fleet were withdrawn from Australia. What would then happen, if left to our own resources, might stagger humanity. Australia at present, as regards a certain class of the community, is suffering from a surfeit of pseudo-prosperity. The condition of the labour classes is, not through oppression, but from its antithesis, in almost a state of revolt against law and order. There seems to be a want of reverence in the Australian character. To quote Lecky: "Reverence is one of those feelings which, in utilitarian systems, would occupy at best a very ambiguous position. Yet there are few persons who are not conscious that no character can attain a supreme degree of excellence in which a reverential spirit is wanting. Of all the forms of moral goodness it is that to which the epithet "beautiful" may be most emphatically applied. Yet the habits of advancing civilization are, if I mistake not, on the whole inimical to its growth. For the reverence grows out of a sense of constant dependence. Every great change, either of belief or of circumstances, brings with it a change of emotions. The self-assertion of liberty, the levelling of democracy, the dissecting knife of criticism, the economical revolutions that reduce the relations of classes to simple contracts, the agglomeration of population, and the facilities of locomotion that sever so many ancient ties are all incompatible with the type of virtue which existed before the power of tradition was broken, and when the chastity of faith was vet unstained. Benevolence, uprightness, enterprise, intellectual honesty, a love of freedom,