CAUSTIC CRITICISM

Otago Witness, Issue 3619, 24 July 1923, Page 21

CAUSTIC CRITICISM

ANTIDOTE TO EGOTISM. SYDNEY, July 20. Major C. P. Allen, P.C., after a short visit to Australia, has sailed for New Zealand. Interviewed in regard to his experiences here, he caustically criticised Australia-. He declared that Australians did not like criticism. It simply bored them. They were cocksure people. They were sure that they won the war; but every nation was sure of that. He came expecting to find that Australia, as a new, democratic country, had solved many of the problems which troubled the Old Country, but his experiences led him to ask: “ Have you solved one ? You certainly have not solved the drink traffic, nor found any better way of settling strikes.” Then, economically, how could Australia hope to be progressive as an exporting or manufacturing country while she remained in her present vicious circle, bred of protection and the high wages which irresistibly follow high prices, and act and react upon one another? Australia’s high duty on sugar, dried fruits, and other products did not make for Imperial unity. He commented on the aggregation of the population in the cities" to the neglect of the development of the country. In sailing along the coast and seeing wide stretches of unpeopled country, he had many times said to himself, “ A great unused continent.” Regarding 'schemes for the settlement of Britishers, he had been informed that deliberate birth control had prevailed in Australia since 1886. It could therefore be said that Australia was not doing its duty towards finding 2>opulation for itself. Major Allen was Liberal member of the House of Commons for the Mid or Stroud Division of Gloucester from 1900 to 1918. He is & newspaper proprietor and bar-rister-at-law* He served in the Great War.