THE AUSTRALIAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 170, 20 July 1935, Page 18

THE AUSTRALIAN.

By a recent mail I received from a daughter in New Zealand a copy of the "Star" containing an article oil the Australian by Mr. Douglas A. Stewart, who apparently spent a few months in this country. He found an Australian

I twang, an Australian slang, a lean, ! haggard Australian face and the possibility of the fierce Australian sun turning the inhabitants into white savages. Mr. Stewart's chief trouble, however, appeared to be that he could j not find one man in a thousand who . (during the rush hours) would give up his seat in a tram to a woman. Mr. Stewart is obviously not acquainted I with the traffic problems of great j cities. During the rush hours oil the I London underground, the railways and tramways of Paris and Berlin, as well as in Sydney and Melburne, there is much to be ashamed of as regards transport, for the reason that the facilities never in any large city keep pace with the growth of population. The illustration enclosed from London "Punch" gives a humorous conception of what happens on the London buses. Mr. (1. K. Chesterton is said to have once given up his seat in a London tram to three ladies, but G.K.C. is of the battle cruiser typo with momentum sufficient to carry him through a tangle |of lesser humanity. In Sydney we have | dense crowds lining up at the tram and j train stopping places during the rush hours. As the cars draw iu the crowds surge forward into the side openings jof the cars. Once in, there is little chance of rearranging matters so that women shall sit and men stand (with the straps). During a long life, with many years spent in England, New Zealand and Australia, I have found in each country a great similarity in what has been called the "spirit of the hive." The smaller country, New Zealand, ccr- | tainly retains more of the Victorian j gallantry so ably depicted by Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch in "The Astonishing History of Troy Town." In England and Australia the vast changes that have taken place since the Victorian and Kdwardian eras in the relations between the sexes arc more marked, but Mr. Stewart is entirely wrong in saying that Sydney men do not surrender their seats when courtesy and necessity demands. Possibly they arc more careless than the New Zealander, who perhaps may be charged at, times with the ostentatious display of the Parisian when (if there is room) he stands with bared I head and a bow offering his seat to a j lady. Eminent psychologists and

students of sociology capable of making biological investigations have visited our shores and given encomiastic reports on the Australian people and their future, and, despite what Mr. Stewart calls the "scientific impartiality" of his recent "thesis" (sic), our philosophers and psychologists are not losing any sleep by reason of a fear that the white savages of Australia may become brown. Mr. Stewart, it is quite evident, knows nothing of biology, or lie would not suggest such an alioiirditv. W.F.B. Sydney, June 24.