THE REAL "DIGGER."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 102, 3 May 1933, Page 6

THE REAL "DIGGER."

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, April 29.

TII6 other day wo heard from London that Ivor Novello had produced a play in which the action centres round some very rich and horribly vulgar people from Australia. Then somebody "who knew Australia and its people asked Novello if he had ever been to this strange country. The answer was, "No! But I've seen Australians worse than that in London." And so I suppose this shocking caricature is to represent Australia and its people to London audiences. The other night I went to sec Pat Hanna in "Diggers in Blighty." I have nothing to say against this film in regard to the acting in fact I think Hanna and his "cobbers" were .in some waj r s quite admirable. But remembering Novello, and knowing also that efforts were being made to show "Diggers in Blighty" at Home, I could not help wondering if it is wise to encourage the- presentation of Australians in such grotesque form on the British screen or stage. Why should the young soldiers of this country—men who fougllt with such unsurpassable valour in the Great War—be depicted for an English audience as clownish louts without the least pretension to good taste or good manners, uncouth and barbarous enough to scare any decently-conducted English family out of its seven senses? Is-this sort of thing fair to our country and its people? To say nothing about,the memory of our most gallant fighting men. Perhaps it is the fact that the Anzac anniversary is just past that makes one unusually sensitive on this point. But not long after I had seen "Diggers in Blighty" I picked up the latest Australian war book "Jacka's Mob" and read the preface, in which John Masefield, the Poet Laureate, sets forth his conception of the Australian soldier; and the contrast to me was painfully acute. Those who have read Masefield's "Gallipoli" know already how completely a poet can idealise both the ardour of battle and the fighting man; and this preface to "Jacka's Mob" appeals to mo quite as much as even the finest purple patches in "Gallipoli." During the war, Masefield tells us, "the English suddenly became aware of a new kind of man, unlike any usually seen here. These strangers were not Europeans; they were not Americans. They seemed to be of one race; for all of them, had' something the same bearing and something the same look of humorous swift decision. On the whole they were taller, broader, better-looking and more graceful in their movements than other races. Yet in spite of so much power and beauty, they were very friendly people, easy to get on with, most helpful, kindly and hospitable." "These strangers," Masefield proceeds a little later, "became conspicuous in England after about a year of the war. They had been preceded by the legend that they had been 'difficult' in Egypt, and had had to be camped in the desert to prevent them from throwing Cairo down the Nile. Then came stories of their extraordinary prowess in war; and not even the vigilance of all the censors could keep down the accounts of their glory in battle. Since that time the Australian Army has become famous all the world over as the finest army engaged in the Great War. They did not always salute; they did not see the use of it; they did from time to time fling parts of Cairo down the Nile, and some of them kept the military police alert in most of the back areas. But,in battle they \yere superb. When the Australians were put in a desperate deed was expected and then done. Every great battle in the West was an honour the more upon their banners." "The admiration that one felt for them," concludes the Poet Laureate, "becomes deeper and more full of gratitude as time goes on and the truth of the war becomes known. No such body of free men has given so heroically 6inee our history began." It is indeed a moving and splendid picture nobly wrought. And then—to think of "Diggers in Blighty"! Ah, "the pity of it!" (By way of postscript I should like to register my conviction that Masefield in thus describing the Australians includes all the Anzac troops—for in "Gallipoli" it is clear that to him "Australia," like "Anzac," implies "New Zealander" as well.)'