NOT YET A NATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 11 January 1944, Page 5

NOT YET A NATION

ADVICE TO AUSTRALIA

Sydney, Jan. 7.

Anglican Bishop D. Burgman, of Goulburn, New South Wales, one of Australia's deepest and most liberal thinkers, wrote in his parish magazine that before Australia could become a nation there must be increased interrelation between east and west, and north and south, of the continent. There should be more and better transport, more Press news, and more carefully considered wireless communication.

“We cannot build a nation simply by inflating Sydney and Melbourne,” Bishop Burgmann added. “We must occupy the whole continent, especially at strategic points, efficiently and fully. Australia has not yet arrived at nationhood —it is only a nation in the making. We lived on borrowed Old World patterns, and they do not convince us. Our women dare not fashion an Australian hat, and it is notorious that neither our women nor men have yet given birth to a satisfying Australian song. Until we have the equivalent of ’There’ll Always be an England’ or ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas’ we are not a nation with any depth of soul. “In our Prime Minister (Mr Curtin) we found the leader that the occasion demanded—he has become a trusted leader,” continued Bishop Burgman. “It is an extremely difficult role to maintain, because Australia is not yet a nation. Recently I have travelled and spoken with many people from Brisbane to Perth. Our distances ..re enormous. The whole atmosphere of the west, social and political, is different from the east. Political tensions are not nearly so great, and interests are very localised.”