In the British mind, beneath often vehemently expressed anxiety, there is an unruffled optimism which is a source of constant mystification to friends and foes alike. The quality is ai the moment much in request. Li is in truth actively at work. ome would describe it as the Tineal descendant of that faculty. for muddling through which, although discredited as an explode ed figment of Victorian Imperialism, has its mode of expression even in this highly scientific, devoutly organizing 20th' Century. During the last few years the course of events in the great Dominion of Australia has; given rise to grave apprehen: sions. Successive. Labour administrations whether in the State or Federal Government. have been grappling with serious economic difficulties and, 89 engaged, have been heavily' handicapped by their own. political commitments and by the determined efforts of a small but! very vocal group of Communists to make Bolshevik hay while the sun of discontent shines. The railway> administra alone provided other countries with terrible warning of the weakness of state-management if protected against polit ference. Desperate expedients to delay, if not to prevent, the inevitable advance of the! instituted. Economic realities asserted themselves. The expedient merely added to the weight of the reckoning. The position was brought home to, the Australian people in the most forcible manner possible: the currency depreciated to an alarming extent. Unable any longer to delude themselves with the thought that the motto, solvitur ambulando, could be safely relied upon in so acute an emergency, the Commonwealth Government acted as the prudent citizen acts in a crisis brought about by: serious illness; they sent for a physician. Sir Otto Niemeyer, one of England's foremost financial geniuses, was "called in" to prescribe. He prescribed, after taking a pledge from the Australian Government that they would act on the pru-scription, He did not mince his words. He came from the Mother Country and he talked to Young Australia like a father. He explained what happened to in-outraged the canons of sound finance. He showed exactly how Australia had erred in that respect, He produced a scheme for extricating her from the mire of her own inexperience and unwise self-confidence.
On his departure there were anxious moments still. Australia, young nation, is highly sensitive and justifiably jealous of her reputation. It would obviously be difficult for a democratic government—Australia is nothing if not democratic—t> persuade a proud democracy to stand in a white sheet. If the Government alone had to perform that penitential gesture there might be no difficulty. are not averse frota their idols occasionally from pedestals 2 stools of repentance. It was clear however that the Govern ment themselves could not carry out Sir Otto's measures of r2- form. The people as a whole would have to endorse a comprehensive scheme of self-denying restraint. There would have to be a recantation of some treasured financial heresies. Devices for concealing budget defieits—excusable at times as purely temporary means 97 tiding over passing difficulties—had to be rejected as permanent features of Australian finance. The basic pledge demanded by Sir Otto was that Australia would in future balance her budget' in the normal manner.
From this all the rest ther borrowings, payment of followed: avoidance of unproductive debt, restriction on fur-interest out of revenue, and proper public and_ periodical' e: position of the Commonwealth's balance sheets. With an acute unemployment problem, mue! agricultural depression, partly owing to a calamitous drought, and an active and venomous volutionary party with a lurid record of industrial unrest to its discredit, the Government were faced with no light task. It plainly involved the adoption of drastic remedies which would give plenty of scope for fomenters of popular discontent and, by their irksomeness, endanger the'Government's hold on the people. It is not surprising therefore that the Cabinet— while the Prime Minister was on his way to London for the Imperial Conference—found itself involved in a dangerously explosive crisis. There was talk of the need for recalling the Prime Minister whose pledge to balance the budget was, in fact, the main issue, as it was the pivotal factor in the solution of the Commonwealth's problems. The crisis has passed—for the time being. The Cabinet intends, ce far a3 can be judged from the messages received, to. follow the resolutions adopted as the result of Sir Otto Niemeyer's findings. The due course be called upon ty: ratify the measures of reform. There will arise the tost of the Australian people. Those who properly-appreciate the sterling: commonsense and practical sturdiness of the nation as a whole, in spite of the provocation: of unwise pandering to the dangerous theories. of extremist politicians, will have no fear o2 the result, In the Imperial: Gonference lies much strength: for the Government as Mr. Ji Hy Seullin, the Prime Minister, when. in London, will be able to make clear to his colleagues in. Gonference the essential features of the Australian situation.
The sympathy. thus created. may react most. favour ably on the opinion for the support of which his Government, his absence, now bid. Recent correspondence in "The North-China Daily News" has testified, from unimpeachable knowledge, to the strength: of Australia's nationhood, the broad vision of her people and the: de-{termination of their adherence to British principles of administrsition, The asperities, whicl occasionally, acquire a'prominence beyond their deserts, in the relations between. Australians and the Mother Country should not be allowed to obscure the fundamental spirit of goodwill. governing those relations, English people sometimes do not rightly understand the curious mixture of assertiveness and, modest. self-depreciation which characterizes the Australian outlook.—They: fail to appreciate at ity true worth—except at times of stress, such as the Great War or the struggles for the "Ashes'—the intensely vigorous and capable individuality of the great Gommonwealth. 'They. are not a8, fully seized as they might be of the stupendous difficulties of governing and developing a subcontinent comprising raciahand climatic problems of peculiar complexity, 'They are apt: to think only' in terms of emigration stati divorced entirely from industrial and geographical facts. They often overlook, for example, the significant figures of population which show that to total of only 6,373,219, in a country of 2,974,581 square miles, Sydney gives 1,127,470, Melbourne 1,000,000, and: the remaining. four State capitals between them. nearly 900,000 persons. In other words practically half the population live in six towns, The wonder indeed is that Australia should. have reached manhood in the British 'Commonwealth of Nations with 10 little signs of the disabilities of the stage of adolescence: Fa: away from the heart of the pire: to which she proudly, belongs, she has played what hai often' been a lone hand. In. Her present difficulties she is not wa-ported. She has the active sympathy and, assuredly, the admiration of the Mother Country for the manner in which she is rising to the occasion,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.