“Whisky-Ruled Mentality.”

[Letter to the Editor]

Sir —Mr. Henry Dexter "does me proud” with certain of his remarks under the above title, in an open letter in your far-flung organ of the Pacific, ad dressed to my humble and aged self.

I, therefore, forgive him his witty criticisms —especially as they are really, when one analyses them, a defence of whisky-drinking in the tropics!

Dear old, wise, and selfish Lord Chesterfield gave us what we badly need, nowadays, as a chart, or “vade mecum”; but his “wise cracks*’ are hidden from the present, game-mad generation-in-plus-fours, by the eclips ing cricket and golf news. But I must quote his famous: “A letter left long enough, will answer itself.” Time will answer Mr. Dexter.

Mr. Dexter writes from beautiful Milne Bay, that wonderful and his toric harbourage, where pre-historic astronomers and voyagers graved upon the rocks their interesting evidences; and where later heroes, Captain Moresby, the noble and splendid Abel, and others, found a safe resting-place.

Now, my first experience of Milne Bay was as the guest of a hospitable pearl trader, whose dangerous vagaries nearly brought my Pacific investiga tions to a close —caused by his all too devoted attention to the whisky bottle !

How many a beautiful youth, the result of generations of parental care and civilisation, has received his fatal dose of malaria, or B.W. fever, when stretched in the inviting lounge-chairs under “pub” verandahs, with the usual, flash bare-knees, after a long looked-forward-to meeting with the “boys”—and a few drinks of that poison of tropic-hospitality— whisky!

Eve (whose apple was probably an orange, the peel of which has ever menaced the Achilles-heel of Adam)

to-day rules the modern world! Mere man can hardly enter her presence without observing the social procedure of first partaking of poisonous and ex hilarating cock-tails, or whisky.

The old, well-made, and valuable national-drinks of England, Germany, and France, beer, cider and wine, have mostly disappeared before the now prevailing Scotch pick-me-up—whose first and only excuse was that “vilain soir d’hiver” of Highland snows, and indigestible porridge-diet!

The only value of old fogies, like myself, to later-arrived humans is that our experiences may serve as guidance.

But this is proverbially unwelcome to the Dexters of the new generation!

When I arrived in Australia as artist for a London paper in 1887, the greatest writer the Pacific has seen, button-holed me at the Club, and said: “You look like a youngster who will take advice! Now, in Queensland, you must either be a teetotaller, or drink whisky like a fish. They’ll look upon you as a great fool for not getting drunk! But your compensation will come in after years, when you can regard them in that same light!”

There are great drinkers who can withstand tropic conditions, like the Boyds of Fiji and elsewhere, of past days; but they are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Probably most of our troubles in England and Papua, to-day, are born of this “whisky-mentality” which Mr.

Dexter has so kindly enabled me to have the opportunity of “gassing” at length about—not after “a few months’ experience,” as he writes; but after two or three times his experience, at any rate, of tropic conditions in the Pacific, as well as elsewhere, I am, etc.,

Arthur J. Vogan.

Pymble, 31/1/33.