A REVIEW

Hokitika Guardian, 12 February 1938, Page 6

A REVIEW

OF AUSTRALIA,

(By a Rampaging Reporter.)

Before- Egon-Erwin lvisG-h leaped into Australia, from the deck of the Strathaird one summer, day in November, 1934, he was kiiown in Europe as the World’s No. 1 reporter. liis book ol Austi alian impressions, translated from, the German by Joan f isher and.lfene and Kevin. Fitzgerald, proves that the title was not unjustified.

Never before, has- the Commonwealth been assessed' so comproneinively,. from every aspect-, historical, sociological, and human. \Vllen lvison was not busy being car-, ri'ed- from hospital to court, andfrom court- to guol, answering dictation tests in phoney Gaelic,- das.iing mysteriously to anti-war meet* iugs, signing solemn affidavits, aiiu making gay- wise-cracks in. liis newlylearned English (“my English is broken, my leg is broken, but my heart is not broken”), he was managing to ab sorb an astonishingly accurate' picture of the Australian scene.

Nothing that is characteristic of- us as a nation escapes him.

In a series of “reportage” sketches, which are the best part of his book, Kisch writes delightfully of such things as. convicts and sharks, and Pilar Lap and bouyline, and shale oil and trade, unions, and coal mines beneath tile

He retells the familiar story of his fight with the Commonwealth Government, from, the day he was forbidden to leave the Strathaird at Fremantle, to the day four mouths later when he left Australia 011 the Ofiford, with the Government’s cheque for £1534 to reimburse him for the cost of not getting banned.

. Kisch tells it good-humouredly, with many sly digs at Australian bureaucracy, and shrewd comments on its life and. people. “To make life as easy as possible, not to worry too much with soul and mind, that is the Australian’s highest maximum.”

mum. He is quick to praise as he is to criticise He soon perceives the splendid qualities of Australian democracy. The majority of Australia’s population is democratic. In this . country there is no court, no. aristocracy, and no privileged officer caste—commander of the Australian troops in the World War was -a Jewish engineer, John Moiiash, called ,up as a reserve officer. The real Australian does npi have the ambition to. be received unto “fetter society” ; unlike Europe, title., and. decorations, or even wealth alone, does not create a. reputation; unlike America, it i$ ridiculous to estimat. everything in the world only according to its purchase price. He goes to Botany Bay, and stands on the spot where Cook landed 150 years, ago. “LIEUT.” COOK. “Lieutenant Cook” Kisch calls him. He was not pyomotpd to the rank of Captain until after lie returned to England, and “the discoverer of Australia would be be referred to as a common A.B. if, instead, he .had later been reduced to this rank.” At Kurnel, Kisch reflects on the ab sence of a standard work on bushfires in Australia, and of statistics showing the economic effect of gaining and games.

He is surprised, too, by the apathy of Australians to Australia. To the Australian his continent remains very much unknown. Many more have been to Europe than, for instance, to the Great Barrier Reef, the coral-fenced and palm-fringed fairyland of Queensland. To the Australian, his country is pleasant and one to be loved, but it does not seem to interest him much. .

He watches an Anniversary Day regatta, with the eighteen-footers rushing along “as if being drawn furiously by a harpooned whale,” and thinks of tlio foetid, crowded convict ships on which the makers of Australia came to their new home.

Why is Australia so squeamish about its first families, so genteelly anxious to eliminate the convicts from its march to nationhood? “Was their crime so great,” asks Kisch, “that even on their Remembrance Day they are passed over in shamed silence?”

More than one was exiled ror poaching 0 n the lord’s domain, perhaps for killing a few hares. To-day in Australia, pasture is devoured by 120,033,000 rabbits . . he would kill a few million of them, and be, not a convict, but a public benefactor. The crimes of others consisted in religious disturbances, in blasphemous swearing: if this Were valid in Australian laws courts tp-d:ry as a reason for exile, hall the population of Ausr tralia would be banished. . . Others had committed the offence of organising JriKie unions, such as now embrace the whole of Australia. Even the convicts who had serious crimes behind them, says Kisch, djd much to make things easier for their grandsons. CONVICTS ALL.

They explored, made roads, cleared forests, cultivated fields, discovered coal, built towns, founded the first schools, the first museum, the first newspaper in Australia. Francis Gmemvay, a convict, was the creator of some of Australia’s first buildings, including beautiful St. James’s’ Church.

Among the innumerable memorial tablets in St. James’s, Kisch could not find one to honour its builder.

If ho returned to Sydney to-day, be would find that this hint has been of-

fective, though the Greeuway tablet does not mention that lie was a convict. Kisch is surprised that Australian historians make such little reference to the Eureka Stockade out of wrick our universal suffrage grew. He calls it “the starting point of Aurtralia’s franchise and democratic constitution,” and criticises Professor Ernest Scott and others for deprecating the rebels;. He goes to Pinchgut, and broods on the brutality and sadism of convict days. “The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did not produce worse horrors, until in the twentieth century, tfiis record was broken by the Nazis,” In the Melbourne Museum, he looks into the glass eye of Phar Lap, preserved by the magic of taxidermyhoping t.o seo the image of the murderer of Australia’s beloved champion A few years ago in a circle of journalists in Berlin the question was debated as to what might be the most striking news heading. The prize was awarded to this one: “Archduke Ferdinand Lives! World War Unnecessary.” But this heading is quite ineffective beside “Who Killed Phar Lap?”

He quotes Lenin on Australian labour, Sir Earl Pago on Newncs shale oil, Thomas Mort on wool-broking.

He watches Skipper I lazing in his Aquariaum pool, walks under the sea in a Newcastle coal mine, and so arrives at the most memorable chapter of his book, an nntomy of bodyline, prefaced by an economic interpretation of Australia’s cricket prowess,