AUSTRALIAN STUDY

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 94, 14 January 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

AUSTRALIAN STUDY

Profitable Reading For New Zealanders

“Fire Over Australia,” by T. Rankin (Sydney: Angus and Robertson).

It is impossible in a review to do justice to this small volume, and the wisdom contained in its 204 pages, for "Fire Over Australia” is a book which must be read to obtain a proper appreciation of it.

Many people will be misled by scanning over the first few chapters, which deal largely with the disabilities obtained in Australia because of the lack of a proper national survey. Mr. Rankin points out that Australia’s lack of rural population is caused largely because of the delay in making roper surveys, and contrasts what was done in the Commonwealth with the steps which were taken in Canada .and U.S.A. At the same time, he indicates quite clearly, that apart from their land settlement policies, he is not a great admirer of the North American countries as the following passage shows: —

I am all against the Americanization of Australia. I want to see all our motors manufactured here. To see English and Australian pictures rather than the productions of Hollywood. To listen to British and Australian music rather than to insane croonings or the bowlings of negro spirituals. To hear English spoken rather than Americanese. I grieve that much of our politics has fallen to the American level in venom and unscrupulousness. That our speech should tend to ape the flash vulgarity, the raucous nasality of the Yankee rough-neck. We are the better and more kindly people, and should maintain British speech, literature and tradition better —except that tradition of always “trusting to muddle through.”

It is the latter half of the book, however, which will appeal to New Zealanders, for the examination of the past and present political policies of Australia might very well apply to New Zealand. On the question of defence, Mr. Rankin says that it is essential that Australia should have five divisions of troops, and that New Zealand should have two. If this were done an invasion of Australia or New Zealand would be almost impossible. His observations of Australia’s Government appear to have a much wider application :—

But Government has its own proper functions, namely, defence, the maintenance of internal order, the administration of the law,' primary education, public health, postal and telegraphic services. Customs and taxation, registration and statistics, patents, weights and measures, survey of the country for settlement, and defence. If Government attended to these things, and these only, the country woflld be well governed, and secure from outer danger and internal trouble. It is precisely when Government goes beyond its normal functions that trouble starts, and essential objects are neglected. Real needs are sacrificed to popular demands. In our case, Government having attempted to become the universal doer and provider, it has totally neglected defence; neglected,the survey of the country and the unification of the railways, weakened the administration of the law, and corrupted the constitution till Parliament has become only a party 'machine for contracting deficits and debts. The Government that tries to _do everything is in the position of the individual who spreads himself in so many ways that he cannot attend to his own business, and is in the same plight as the man in the fable, who, trying to please all, failed in everything, and pleased nobody. On education —

The system is one of hurry and diffusion instead of steady concentration— skimming a score of subjects without learning any of them.

Mr. Rankin demonstrates wliat has accrued from Governmental control of banking and currency, and points out in the following passage what New Zealand is learning from sad experience:—

Everywhere today we see the results of immoderation. Unlimited Government control of finance, developing into despotic control, lias again turned Europe into an armed camp; America into a pauperized plutocracy; Australia, which produces three, five, ten times as many things as Australians need, and should be one of the cheapest countries, Into a political treadmill of towering costs, poor returns, and ruinous losses.

Mr. Rankin goes on to point out that the great purpose of Parliament should be to “restrain the encroachments, extravagances and illegalities of Government.”

All well-informed Members ot Parliament know the need of intelligent opposition to the extremes or extravagances ot Government policy; but in the welter of party .politics, they despair of the possibility of such restraint. Similarly, all well-disposed, intelligent members of the German or Italian Parliaments despair of controlling national affairs, while dictators can order things as they like. From this it is evident that, in our democracies, the party system of politics confers on every Government, while it lasts. THE BOWERS OF A DICTATORSHIP, ESPECIALLY IN FINANCE, because all parties of recent years have been at one in their support of extravagance, either in deliberate v0 * e Z buying, or in schemes for the supposed betterment of the under-dog. Even England, in those post-war betterments nnd charities, has been drawn towards Socialism in the matter of the minimum wage, national insurance, relief employments and the dole. Tn consequence of our Commonwealth banking procedure in 1911. the confiscation of the notes and cold of the trading banks, and the Government issue of another £50.aw.000 in notes, we had an inflation involving, in twelve vears. the 150 per cent, increase of the basic wage, and in twenty years a three and fourfold increase of prices and costs. All Government exactions, wage awards, etc., are passed along to the purchaser. Eventually to the butcher, baker, grocer, clothier; who pass them on to the worker, who now finds his £o v'nge lias not the purchasing power of the L- wage of thirty years ago.

Mr. Rankin concludes by suggesting that the Government of Australia should concentrate on its own proper functions and leave other matters alone. He asks for a change in, outlook, and that every elector and member of Parliament should, “for the future, regard Parliament as the protector of the people against Government illegality and extravagance, and further realize that Parliament is the only safeguard of the banking system against Government encroachment. To assure this, every member, of whatever party, should, in matters of public finance, be an Independent. Finally, boast no more of a standard of living that destroys the purchasing power ot the. living wage and prevents the profitable sale of our goods in the world s markets.” . .. “Fire Over Australia” is a work ot the first order. The considerations which apply in the ease of Australia, applv for the great part to New Zealand. Some patriotic person might do New Zealand a great service by providing a dozen copies for each public library, and by presenting a copy to every Member of Parliament. It' is the best five shillings _ worth which has been placed on sale in New Zealand for a very long time. CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT "The New History of the C.W.5.,” by Percy Redfern (London: Dent). Students of the co-operative movement in Britain, that gigantic enterprise in • the Held of manufacturing, distribution and retail marketing which is spoken of as “the world s biggest business,” will welcome the appearance of Percy Redfern's “The New Historv of the C.W.S.” A comprehensive work of more than GOO pages, it deals fully and faithfully with the background of the Co operative Wholesale'Society, its early beginnings, and its gradual' development to the vast and complex dimensions of Ihe present day. The book contains belli a statistical and biographical supplement, and is liberally illustrated.