AUSTRALIA TO-DAY

Taranaki Daily News, 16 May 1930, Page 11

AUSTRALIA TO-DAY

SKETCHES OF LIFE AND HUMOUR. LECTURE BY REV. G. 8. COOK. See the cities and you don’t know Australia; see the coast and you haven’t any idea what the interior is like; travel inland and you may think it a desert; travel there another time and it is a wonderful flower-decked garden, and still you won’t know Australia as a whole. It is a continent and has the vagaries of climate and condition that so large an area is bound to include. It is bld geologically; it has animals that have disappeared in other parts of the world. It is new in Western civilisation, but with New Zealand is destined to bo the garrison of the white race in what is to be the next problem centre of world civilisation. It is a land of wonderful opportunities; it has great ( droughts devastate it; and even 13 Houses of/' Parliament do not prevent errors in administration; On the other' hand, however, man is learning to meet Nature on her own terms and to counteract what were once difficulties that seemed insuperable. It is the country destined to be New Zealand’s greatest market, and from Australia will come the greatest number of tourists to the wonderful holiday country that is New Zealand. These were some of thq reflections of the lecture given by the Rev. G. S. Cook at the St. Aubyn Methodist Hall, New Plymouth, last night. Reminding his hearers that Empire domination had shifted from tho Mediterranean in Roman Empire days westward, with the rise of Spain and Great Britain as naval powers, the speaker said the future problems of civilisation would bo in the Pacific. There the “White Australia” and “White New Zealand” policy was a challenge to Eastern civilisation. With its inheritance and religion the white race had the opportunity of beinn- tv-> ' moral leaders of the nations bordering .the Pacific, . Association : between Australia and New Zealand would become closer.' Just as. opportunities for land settlement had attracted population from the South Island to the North in New Zealand so the larger opportunities in Australia would attract the young New Zealander of the future. To explain Australia briefly was difficult. Sydney’s talk of its harbour was well known, but tho harbour was a very wonderful place and the new harbour bridge one of the greatest engineering feats yet attempted. The resemblances between Australians and New Zealanders were many, but there were differences that were interesting. There were, he thought, more Irish in Australia than in the Dominion, which might account for tho greater touch of Celtic imagination found there and the development of orators, poeta, journal- ! ists and politicians. Tho Irish-Austra-lians largely dominated politics. The present Prime Minister, Mr. J. H. .Scullin, and many of his colleagues were eases in point. Mr. Cook'gave instances of the poetry, of another Irish Australian; C. J. Dennis, 7 whose work, ho said, hid, in Australian slang, taught the lesson that Tennyson had taught in his stately language, namely that the love of a man for a maid was often the greatest thing in ■life. Australia was a Itind of contrasts,-

of fierce heat and of bitter cold; of regions so dry that on th? East-West railway there were hOSO miles and on the North-South line 753 miles that never crossed a running stream; yet there were rivers like the Murray, where it was hoped to dam the water back for SO miles and supply water for two million acres of intensive culture. It was a country where tropical fruit grew in abundance and yet one in which there were better facilities for some mountain winter games than in Switzerland; a land where the love of the horse had been a national trait; a country with 450 varieties of birds not found elsewhere; with mineral wealth in profusion and producing from the land an export trade in wool even in this jiad year worth £50,000,009, in wheat £30,000,000 and in dairy produce £21,000,000.

But tho lecturer did not deal so much with statistics as. with the spirit of the country. With apt quotation from Australian poets and storytellers and from his store of personal experience he showed, some of the attractiveness as well as some of the weaknesses of the average Autralian settlement. Theie was much that was humorous, -much that was sterner in texture;' b'tit the interest with which the address was followed was a tribute to tho lecturer and to his knowledge of his subject. Mr. Cook concluded by repeating that the destiny-of the white race was to take the moral leadership in Paeifie affairs. If it failed to do eo western civilisation would have rehorded its worst defeat. It was for tlio people of New Zealand ’ and Australia to . deal justly and' servo Gcd and thus show the way to the older civilisations bf the East. Mr. L. M. Moss presided, and during tho evening pianoforte solos were given by 'Mrs. Vincent, songs by Mrs. A. B. Macdonald and Mr/ l’-asil Hirst ftnd recitations by“ Mrs. Nels )n Hill.