Convicts as Squatters

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23489, 28 October 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

Convicts as Squatters

By O.S.H

* USTRALIA has already gone a /\ long way in the establishment of her own national literature —much further, it may be said, than New Zealand has gone—and a recent contribution of importance is Mr. J. J. Hardie's "Pastoral Symphony," a novel based on the beginnings of Australia's great sheep and cattle industry. It is a fine story, competently told, and although Australian historians may indulge in some of their accustomed hair-splitting over the historical background, tho vigorous spirit Mr. Hardie's work is more than sufficient to disarm pedantic criticism. Tho- book represents a praiseworthy endeavour to cover the pastoral side of Australian history in the form of fiction. It would require an export to say to what extent escaped convicts, moving away from the coast with cattle stolen from tho penal settlements, paved tho way for the building up of the huge flocks and herds that still givo Australian life ite vital character. But that is Mr. Hardie's story. Two con-

Australian "Pastoral Symphony 9

yicts—a man mid a woman —plan tlioir escape from Port .Jackson and drive ofr into tho. interior part of the Governor's herd of cattle. Their struggle for survival, their efforts to escape detection and their determination to hand oil to their sons a heritage of tho soil—all this is told with a fine sense of dramatic effect and with a broad and sympathetic conception of history in tho making. Tho story as a whole justifies Mr. Bardie's prefatory statement that the history of the evolution of tho Merino sheep and tho cattle in Australia lies in the story of its people. Mr. ITartlie al.so points out thnt tho ivholo subject is too big in every wn f v to ho enclosed in one volume. "This book," he says, "although entitled 'Pastoral Symphony,' is only a beginning—an overture and tho First Movemeut." The symphony ends o.n a note of excitement, engendered among the sons of the first "convict-squatters" by the discovery of gold. The reader readies that stage impatient for tho movements that must follow. "Pnptornl Symphony," by J. J. Hardie (Angrus and Hobertson).