"IF I WERE DICTATOR."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 235, 3 October 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

"IF I WERE DICTATOR."

Joseph Hamlet has written "AA'hat of Australia's Future?" (Angus and Robertson) "with the object of bringing the people of this great country to a just realisation of their responsibilities, their huge liabilities, and of the crisis towards which Australia is heading." His book is in the main a violent denunciation of political, industrial and social conditions in the Commonwealth, and it soon becomes clear that, although ho may have a lot to learn about statesmanship, he knows what he dislikes. In a final chapter; "If I AVere Dictator," he sets forth his remedies. He would, for a start, "crush out with an iron heel all the class consciousness," and it would be his 'stern duty' to make Communist and Socialist parties disappear once and for all." It would also lie his duty "to see wo had 110 unemployed." In short, as a dictator, he would be a great abolitionist; but his knowledge of his own country, which is extensive, does not seem to include an adequate understanding of the nature of his own countrymen.