In social life they are more sober and more moral, yet more indifferent to the opinion of any society or set.  Not that they run after mere eccentrics; they have a wholesome reserve of contempt for such.  British in their dislike to take advice, their humbler position among the nations makes them more ready to study and learn from foreign example.  Though there is no division into two races as in London, it would be absurd to pretend that social distinctions are unknown.  Each town with its rural district has its own “society.”  The best that can be said for this institution is that it is not, as a rule, dictated to by mere money.  It is made up of people with incomes mostly ranging from L500 to L2,000, with a sprinkling of bachelors of even more modest means.  Ladies and gentlemen too poor to entertain others will nevertheless be asked everywhere if they have either brightness or intellect, or have won creditable positions.  You see little social arrogance, no attempt at display.  Picnics, garden parties, and outings in boats and yachts are amongst the pleasanter functions.  A yacht in New Zealand means a cutter able to sail well, but quite without any luxury in her fittings.  The indoor gatherings are smaller, more kindly, less formal, less glittering copies of similar affairs in the mother country.

Brilliant talkers there are none.  But any London visitor who might imagine that he was about to find himself in a company of clownish provincials would be much mistaken.  A very large proportion of colonists have travelled and even lived in more lands than one.  They have encountered vicissitudes and seen much that is odd and varied in nature and human nature.  In consequence they are often pleasant and interesting talkers, refreshingly free from mannerism or self-consciousness.

They both gain and lose by being without a leisured class; it narrows their horizon, but saves them from a vast deal of hysterical nonsense, social mischief and blatant self-advertising.  Though great readers of English newspapers and magazines, and much influenced thereby in their social, ethical, and literary views, their interest in English and European politics is not very keen.  A cherished article of their faith is that Russia is England’s irreconcileable foe, and that war between the two is certain.  Both their geographical isolation and their constitution debar them from having any foreign policy.  In this they contentedly acquiesce.  Loyal to the mother country, resolved not to be absorbed in Australia, they are torpid concerning Imperial Federation.  Their own local and general politics absorb any interest and leisure not claimed by business and pastimes.  Their isolation is, no doubt, partly the cause of this.  It takes their steamers from four to six days to reach Australia, and nearly as long to travel from one end of their own land to the other.  Most of them can hardly hope to see Europe, or even Asia or America, or any civilized race but their own.  This is perhaps the greatest of their disadvantages.  Speedier passage across the oceans which divide them from the rest of the human race must always be in the forefront of their aims as a nation.