AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 106, 1 November 1930, Page 9

AUSTRALIA

LAND OF TO-MORROW

A GERMAN EXAMINATION

BAFFLING CHARACTER

Within a week two now books have come into my hands bearing the title "Australia," writes Nettie Palmer in the "Melbourne Argus." The first is the robust and wide-flung study just given out by Professor AY. K. Hancock, a book that will soon be part of our intellectual history. The second is not literally "Australia," after all: the exact title is, "Australian, Das Land yon. Morgen." It is German, and is published in Berlin. Its author, Herr W. Stolting, spent nearly a year in Australia recently, and here are his observations and conclusions. AjMicn he declares Australia to be "the Land of To-morrow," what does he mean? It had better be made clear at once that his phrases contain no ironic sting, imply no procrastinating temperament on our part. Herr Stolting simply believes that our "New sea thing dragged by Sailor Time from Space" is a new world indeed. This new world he regards without prejudice and with considerable friendliness, not attempting to make it fit into old-world patterns. The details of different parts of Australia as he saw them, from Melbourne to Alice Springs, from Baekblocks .to Quick-lunch —neither of which he attempts to translate —are clear and interesting. Only in one respect has he attempted the impossible. He has at times written of Australia as if it were one and indivisible in climate. As a contrast one remembers the reply of Mr. \V. M. Hughes when asked by an Englishman to describe the climate of Australia. "Tell me what the climate of Europe is!" ho rapped out. Herr Stolting groups some of his Australian impressions: "Rainwater tanks at all roof spots, air that is free from dust and therefore very transparent, subtropical vegetation, and the climate of the Mediterranean." Here in the hard-bit-ten months of a Melbourne winter _we can feel only that this statement is— shall we say?—too generalised, too styl- * istic. FOR GEEMANS. The book is written in the first place for German readers, some of whom, may be thinking of emigration, while others ■will have a natural curiosity regarding the circumstances of their compatriots who settled in Australia during the last century. Herr Stolting has looked into many of the districts that were German settlements, from the villages in South Australia to the mission settlements in the central north. Australian readers, however, will be chiefly interested in his ideas of Australians themselves, their economic and social habits, and their variegated national character. In the matter of economics, what seems to have struck him most vividly was Adelaide's half Parliament House, of which a photograph is given showing its unfinished side in rough bricks. "The other half is not built yet," he says. "The present building, containing a fair-sized chamber and a smokeroom, is sufficient for present needs. It makes a rather unfavourable impression on strangers. There is simply not enough money to finish it. I happened to be in its "quiet ]iall> wtin t]le wood panelling, oil paintings, and dimmed daylight, where the parties of Government and Opposition faced each other on upright leather benches, just at the moment when half a million sterling •was being voted for a new railway. The granting took only as long as the •' debate and the debate as the granting: It was done inside ten minutes. Half a million in ten minutes in a State ■where there is not money enough to finish building Parliament House!" ADMIBES.IT. Herr Stolting makes it clear that he admires this abstinence and this daring. In his observations all over Australia he shows that he understands the primary importance of railways and roads for us. He contrasts this earnestness with what" as a European he has; seen in other countries, where Parliament House is complete, and there is always money for public festivities and immense banquets and colossal illuminations, but none to be found for railways or other such public needs. True, he has to admit that Australia's money is borrowed: "borrowed, not for luxury, festivity, banquets, and display, but for the farmers' sods." Such sympathetic approval may indeed almost embarrass such of our rulers as have no half Parliament House to display as an jearnest of their far-sighted frugality. Melbourne this observer finds to_ be fe city of contrasts, which he describes in a lively way. He gives photographs of Collins street on a week-day,'full of business, human beings, and vehicles; and of the same stretch on a Sunday, empty and echoing. Our cessation of all business from noon on Saturday till Monday morning ho finds incredible, especially as the overseas mail usually arrives early on Saturday afternoon. How do we endure itf .Another contrast, again displayed with photographs •—Flinders Street Station, having the greatest traffic in the world, as compared with our cable trams, which he calls primeval. His delighted page on the Botanic Gardens is well worth adding to the collection of spontaneous tributes paid to them by different writers. It is pardonable that ho should have been, led to ascribe their whole beauty to Baron yon Mueller, disregarding such successors in landscape gardening -as Guilfoyle and Cronin. IN THE HOME. But running like a thread through all the chapters of this book is the question of Australian character. What, for instance, are the social ways of this ♦'new man"? Passing an evening in the home of one family or another, Herr Stolting is .amazed at the low rank taken by conversation, which is the merest chatter between smoking, dancing, and eating. It is usual, ho finds, for the visitor and the wife to chat, while the husband smokes in silence. Photographs of travel are inevitably brough out, not for his instruction, nor with any lecture attached to them, but with the idea of pleasing him, a foreigner, who must have been everywhere, by refreshing his personal memories. After the photographs comes a rather noticeable pause in the conversation— the visitor finding that a taboo rests upon themes anyone of which in other countries would fill an evening—polities, religion, sex, or some philosophical gubjeet. Nothing remains but to chat about a recent motor drive, some lovely views, perhaps, acquaintances, clothes, fashion, and, above all, sport. Baffled by the dullness of it all, the European suddenly finds himself admitting that he has nevertheless been very happy on those evenings, sorry to leave, glad to return. Why? He decides that what Australians have to share with their friends is sheer friendliness: "An Australian invites a man, not because ho wants to converse ivith him but because he wants to invite him. He likes to have him in his home because he likes him; and what the visitor does in the home, whether he chats or smokes or eats or dances or drives the car or visits the club, is a matter of indifference." THE SAME THING. This is in the suburbs, but the visitor finds things relatively the same_ in the bush, with homes a hundred miles 'fipart. There the conversation is in-

deed varied by the presence of agricultural necessities, but not, by the expression of general ideas or of personal opinions and confessions. Herr Stolting constantly feels this avoidance- of tho personal. ' "In Germany," ho remarks, "Herr Mullcr speaks- of 'my wife'; in Australia Mr. Miller speaks of 'Mrs. Miller.' " How true is all this? Exceptions will spring to our minds at once, but what Herr Stolting describes is like some picture wo know well. Can wo accept this, as ho continues: —"To tho Australian the world is (in Spongier's phrase) not far off but nigh. Near, quite close, present, sensual, living, tangible. The loveliness of tho sen and its waves does not exist for his mere gazing, but for bathing and laughter; and human beauty exists, not for admiration but for desire and for love." From this aspect, Manly, with its marvellous surf, is the psychical centre of Australia, and Herr Stolting is dazzled by its colour, natural and human.