Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 339
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[Page 339]
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from Parkes, and was able, just before I was due to sail from Sydney on the 21st January in the U.S.S. "Ventura", to get twelve ounces for a hundred and twenty pounds. I had ascertained previously, at the U.S.A. Consulate in Sydney, that recently the price in the U.S.A. for pure platinum was the equivalent of sixty dollars an ounce, but on a falling market; and also that there would be no import duty on unprocessed platinum. Though the Australian Government had proclaimed an embargo on the export of gold in any form, I was informed officially in writing that there would be no objection to exporting platinum, provided I obtained the consent of a member of the Australian Metals Exchange Board, which was readily granted.
The Johnson Act, restricting and controlling immigration into the United States, had not yet been enacted, and I felt that if I liked this wealthy spectacular country better than I liked Australia, and could obtain congenial and well rewarded employment, I would settle there. With this thought in mind, I decided to take all my worldly possessions with me, including most of my books and even a saddle.
The "Ventura" was a very old steamer of about ten thousand tons, and with her and a sister ship "Sonoma", the American Matson Line maintained a regular service for passengers, mails and cargo, between Sydney and San Francisco. I shared a double-berth cabin with a very pleasant young American from Portland, Oregon. The ship had a full passenger list, mostly returning North Americans, and as soon as it had cleared the Sydney Heads I was very disagreeably surprised by the ill-concealed anti-British utterances of several of my new acquaintance. Strangely enough, those with very English surnames were the most prejudiced: they seemed to have been somewhat indoctrinated by the notoriously anti-British newspaper chains of Hearst and Colonel McCormick, which were published in every State capital throughout the United States in those days.
The two star passengers were Tilden and Johnson, the champion tennis players, who were taking the Davis Cup back to America again. Johnson, an insurance clerk in San Francisco, was a quiet