WILKINS CRITICISES OUT-BACK AUSTRALIA

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6844, 25 February 1929, Page 7

WILKINS CRITICISES OUT-BACK AUSTRALIA

Record of Experiences

FARMERS SEEKING QUICK COMPETENCE

"UNCULTURED LEISURE CLASS”

United Press Association—By Electri* Telegraph—Copyright. Received Sunday 7.0 pan. WASHINGTON, Feb. 23.

The New York Times’ book review of a newly published volume by Sir Hubert Wilkins, "Undiscovered Australia," dealing with his expedition to 'collect fauna for the British museum in 1923, in which he also depicts conditions out back, states: “The book is likely to rouse indignation in Australia, for the people of that far land are intensely sensitive and Wilkins does not spare plain-spoken criticism of the conditions and spirit found on tho stations which he visited. He found the settlors living under wretched conditions, although they could afford much better ones, because they did not intend to stay on the land longer than the few years necessary to secure a small competence, when they would retire from productive life to live a life of leisure in a cheap and bare suburban home. There aro so many of these, that they _ form, he says, a leisured class without high inclinations that foster tho development of art or learning, and in the meantime, he thinks it deplorable that Australia is not being developed in material ways, notwithstanding all her rich resources, and neither are standards of life and culture being raised. r