Storm . . . .

Brain

TOCALITY : Canberra, Australia.

Scene : The Cabinet room, Par liament House. Time : During a

Cabinet meeting.

Prime Minister Chifley presiding.

The other gentlemen of the Cabinet doze, or try to take an intelligent interest in proceedings.

Mr. Chifley: I see Judy Tudor has been to Fiji.

Other Gentlemen (in chorus): Not

Judy Tudor?

Mr. Chifley: Yes. I saw in the “Sydney Morning Herald”

Other Gentlemen (breaking in): THE Judy Tudor? My! My!

Mr. Calwell (Immigration) (modestly): Yes. I ok’d her passport some months ago. That proves that I do let women out of Australia sometimes.

Mr. Chifley: That’s not the point. She says that in Fiji the inhabitants simply wallow in Australian beer —bottled, mark you—while you know as well as I do that the Australian worker has to queue up practically all day long to get in the 4.30 rush when the pubs open. Now is this right? Is it good for industry? Above all, is it good just nine months before the elections? What have you got to say, Mr. Minister for Customs?

Senator Keane (Trade and Customs); Well, I’ve given Fiji a quota, of course.

Its part of our post-war export plan.

They like our beer over there. But I didn’t realise that they were wallowing.

They simply didn’t say a word! How ever, maybe we could cut down on it— specially if Judy Tudor says so. (The door opens and another gentle man enters.) Mr. Chifley: You’re late, Eddie.

Mr. Ward; Sorry, Ben. I’ve been work ing out a set of Trade Union rules for the New Guinea native plantation workers. What’s this about that Judy Tudor?

Mr. Chifley: Well, it- appears like she’s been to Fiji, and she says that the in habitants wallow in our beer. We’re thinking of cutting down their quota.

Mr, Ward: A class-war, that’s what it is! Take no notice of what she says!

She’s the tool of capitalistic interests.

You know what the paper she works for called me in its last issue? “A gutter politician and a snarling demagogue!”

It’s nothing but a plot to deprive the Fiji workman of his beer—and the Fijian, let me tell you, is a cousin of my own Fuzzy-wuzzies. If you must do something about the Fiji beer quota, Keane—increase it. Increase it! It’s a plot nothing less ” (Curtain.) ♦ * * fITHE following clipping from a Suva X paper, dated January 17 (sent in by “A Friend”) brought on that brain storm.

“Fiji to-day is out of this world.

Imagine, if you can, a land where there is no rationing; where English spirits, Australian beer, and American cigar ettes are to be had in apparently in exhaustible supply.” This appears in the “Sydney Morning Herald” and is signed by Judy Tudor, apparently a recent visitor to Fiji. Residents will not need to be reminded that to-day cigarettes are not even under the coun ter, English spirits are hard to procure, we are rationed by Australia in regard to draught beer and bottled Australian beer is unprocurable. In view of the fact that Fiji is rationed by Australia in regard to beer, and is on a quota from Australian whisky distributors,

the wrong impression given by these remarks might easily have a detrimen tal effect on future supplies.

HOW things must have changed in Fiji between November* (when I left) and January 17. 1 repeat (but now in a meek voice) that while I was “appa rently visiting Fiji” I saw more bottled Australian beer in two months than I saw in Australia in the two previous years. Moreover, that wherever I went people had Scotch whisky (and gin and sherry and most things one could fancy).

I don’t know where they got it. I didn’t ask. I only know that they had it.

By comparison: none of the people I know in Sydney have any whisky (or if they have, they drink it in secret be hind locked doors). Occasionally, they have a little local gin, or a bottle of pure, unadulterated “plonk.” It is impossible to buy bottled beer (unless one is re lated to the publican) and one of the disgraces of Australia at the present time is the 4.30 to 6 p.m. pig-swill at the public bars.

I am quite ready to believe that Fiji, in company with the rest of the world, suffers great shortages. The only dif ference is that while people, in the Outer Darkness, really go without, Fiji resi dents, by some manner of contrivance, still have. The miracle of the loaves and fishes is just old stuff now.

The thought that I am believed to have such influence with the Commonwealth Government has kept me in high fettle for a month past. My ego is now fit to bust.

However, if the idea were not quite so quaint, I might have been badly cast down to think that I had, all blunder ing, hurt Fiji (which I liked and did find out-of-this-world) on its tenderest part: to wit, its beer and whisky ration!

I think of the feelings of that poor bloke as he penned that paragraph, be lieving, as he did, that I had gummed up the works; and believe me, my withers are wrung—well, some! —JUDY TUDOR.

Moscow Radio claimed recently that the Russian Institute of Malaria Medi cal Parasitology has developed a new drug. Known as streptotrycin, it is said to destroy certain bacteria,hitherto im pervious to known drugs.