EMPIRE'S BAD CHILD

Evening Star, Issue 20252, 13 August 1929, Page 5

EMPIRE'S BAD CHILD

IS IT AUSTRALIA? Is Australia, lieing classed as the bail child of the British Empire—a race ot thugs, gunmen, and all those predatory beings usually associated with the jungles of the United States? Recently London published a formidable list of Australian enormities, not the least of which was bomb-throwing, and more recently Melbourne devoted considerable space in its journals to Australian crimes, adding the astonishing statement that to walk down Melbourne streets was an act of daring. Added to which an Indian paper, while omitting to mention the Commonwealth’s low death rate, used a good deal ot valuable space in describing the outrageous behaviour of Australian University students and their sacrilegious disregard for national memorials. All of which goes to prove that Australia is never noteworthy except when she is naughty, and that while Australians are congratulating themselves on their high buildings the rest of the world is condemning them for their low morals.

*n a recent issue of the Sydney ‘ Mail ’a more or jess satisfactory' reply is made to these charges. . “Those people who are so ready to condemn ns seem to forget that the epigram concerning casting the first stone applies to nations as well as individuals, and that they also are not entirely free from blame themselves," snv.s the writer. “ Take Hyfo Park-, London, on a summer Sunday afternoon—anarchy, blasphemy, infamy pouring out in a ceaseless stream and in evenknown accent from the Glasgow ‘ kcelie ’ to the Russian moujik. And what happens? Nothing but the amused interest of massed thousands. But does an hysterical domain orator in Sydney become carried away by the troubles that afflict the just and let himself go a little, the world reads of it the following morning. “It is bad policy, -too, just when we are beginning this advertising Australia campaign, because the peace-lov-ing tourist will lie prejudiced against ns, and the venturesome one who usually goes to Africa for big game will ho disappointed if lie comes hero instead. So that, whichever way you look at it, the whole affair is another instance of giving a dog a bad name and completing his humiliation by hanging him.”