It is difficult to say how it began--it is unnecessary to say how it ended. I am told that at the height of the boom Melbourne went frantically and absolutely mad. Poor men and women rushed about fancying that they had suddenly become millionaires. In the few hours between breakfast and lunch they had bought a piece of land for £1,000, and in a few hours had sold the same block for £10,000--on paper. They then heard that the purchaser had re-sold it for £20,000 before dinner, they bought it back for £30,000, and re-sold it over supper again for £50,000, a good day's work--on paper. Everyone did the same--all were mad. Money flowed in from the Old Country in millions, champagne flowed freely all over Melbourne in gallons, everyone was intoxicated with joy and soused themselves and their friends in champagne to wash down success. Vehicles rushed speculators through the streets, trains whisked them to the land free, luncheons free awaited all at every turn, fortunes at every step. Melbourne was mad drunk--lost!
Buildings--comfortable, sensible buildings--were pulled down and "sky scrapers" and mansions were erected in their places. Bridges, good for a hundred years to come, were pulled down and millions spent in erecting in place of the old ones others not more serviceable or of more use. Huge docks, not wanted, were built at fabulous outlays--all these buildings stand as monuments of Melbourne's Madness.
The extraordinary good spirits of the Melbournites is a healthy sign. Those who not only lost all their money invested, chagrined by their folly and left with liabilities that will cripple them for life, smile and bear their fall right cheerily.
Some of these notes made by me whilst seeing the Kangarooists at home "in a hurry" may not be received in the proper spirit. All new countries are sensitive, and resent truths coming from a stranger, while at the same time their home critics, though far more severe, are tolerated and unchallenged. Now I met one of the most prominent Australians, a man of the world, a leading legal light and a Member of Parliament. It was in the Legislative Chamber I had a conversation with him on matters Australian. He led off: "This bit of a place here (Sydney), with a population less than that of a second-class provincial town in England, has in it people with more cheek than would be found in the capitals of London, Paris and St. Petersburg rolled into one. Why, these people have some ingrained vain idea that everything and everybody connected with them are the most important things and the most important people in the world. Small-minded people in a large country--that is what they are--a country the size of Europe with a population less than that of London with the intellect of a country village. That is Australia."