CONVICT TAINT

Thames Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 20296, 27 April 1938, Page 4

CONVICT TAINT

WOMAN’S CHARGES

LINGERS IN AUSTRALIA “INFERIORITY” TRACED BACK "Though Australians are the most comortable people in the world, they have ipon them the taint of mediocrity.” This statement was made by Mrs. H. A. Cubis, M.A., at the Historical Society (says the Sydney Daily Telegraph). Mrs. Cubis, who is the wife of a housemaster of Scots College, spoke on “Australian Character in its Origin and Development.”

"The common misfortunes of the convicts brought us much that was good; but the common degradation they suffered bred in many a sad feeling of inferiority,” she said.

“Hence Australians are a prey to an enervating feeling of inferiority, cancerous in its effect. It destroys individuality and tempts to imitation. “UNEDUCATED UPSTARTS.”

“So it is that though our origin and environment have made us individual, we have been foolishly afraid of our individuality. “In all but our political institutions we have had recourse to overseas imitations to carry us along. “One task of our future is certainly the acquiring of moral courage and assurance.

“The gold diggers, who got rich, were often vulgar and flamboyant, but they were vital, and destroyed class barriers. “The penetration of uneducated upstarts among them deprived Australia finally of the standards of conduct and culture that go with tradition and inherited leisure. INTELLECT UNHONOURED.

"Though education has since been made absolutely and generously free, we have never learned to pay honour to the unrewarded labours of the intellect, nor to rejoice in them. “To achieve a general standard of material comfort we have abandoned all mental and spiritual pursuits, education, scientific investigation and artistic effort. “Our history has been too dramatic in a sense. It has made us undisciplined, and it has developed a national lack of restraint and unwillingness to take pains.

“We have no repose. Immediate satisfactions are the only satisfactions.”