The Month's New Reading

With Judy Tudor

Little has appeared this month to brighten the year’s barren period in book publishing: An -important” offering in inter national relationships; a piece of Pacificiana; and a few items in the light and gaudy category.

ALTHOUGH one adage of the author business is that hard writing makes easy reading, important books differ in that they are hard to write and not partic ularly easy to read either.

Australia’s Outlook on Asia ful fils the requirements: it is full of maddening little numbered refer ences to an appendix which does not do a thing for any reader who was not living back in 1956, or has not got a complete file of The Svdney Morning Herald and the Parliamentary reports at his com mand.

But the work does go far towards showing that an expert’s back ground is in inverse importance to the subject in which he is expert.

This expert is Professor Werner Levi of the University of Minnesota, who was born in Germany, edu cated in Geneva, Paris, Berlin, Heidelberg and Frankfurt; did re search at the London School of Economics; went to the United States in 1939, worked three years in a furniture factory: won two scholarships to the University of Minnesota where he has been in one manner or another since.

It says much for modern methods of research, travel and scholastic attainment that what Professor Levi has to say about Australia and her relationship with Asia is very accurate.

One is left nonetheless with the impression that the professor is not at all pleased with Australia’s at titude —that from the outset, it has been pretty narrow minded. Some thing like the attitude of an old maid to the male; either trying to ignore the creature; or peeping timidly under her bed expecting the monster to rush out and rape her.

Doesn't Solve Problems The book does not attempt to solve any problems: it does not even tell Australians where they could have done better. It presents a reappraisal of the situation from the earliest days of colonisation up until about 1956, and to this ex tent may inspire Australians to take stock.

Whether they will act on the stocktaking; or whether they could, is something else again.

According to Professor Levi, it is

only in the post War II period that Australians have come to realise that geographically, they are part of Asia and as such cannot ignore that Continent.

The planners and first colonists of Australia spared a thought or two to Asia —but only as a possible source of cheap labour. Australia in its early years looked towards Europe for help in its various pre dicaments, regarding itself as a far outpost of white civilisation. Until 1840 Asia had no part in the ideas of Australian colonists.

But with the end of transporta tion some pastoralists took second though on cheap Indian or Chinese labour. The rest of the colonists were against it—and the reasons they gave, racial and economic, were much like the reasons given against Asiatic immigration since.

The foundation of Australia’s at titude to Asia had already been formed.

In the mid-nineteenth centun and the gold-rush period there wa a relatively large migration c Chinese and when goldfields re turns diminished there was muc; agitation against them. But Aus tralians of that day attacked th problem in the opposite manner t today’s defenders of The Whit Australia Policy: They advocate exclusion on racial grounds (i.e. ai Asians were inferior) when the res reason was economic. Today, th White Australia Policy is said to t based on economic grounds and no racial discrimination.

"Persecuted”

At the time, Victoria, NSW an South Australia restricted Chines immigration and those Chinese i the country were at times persecute and terrorised. The restrictive legis lation was repealed in the nei decade and Chinese migration re sumed in the 1870’s; but pubL opinion was still tinged with “yelloi peril” thinking.

A healthy trade developed betwee Australia and China —in 1850 Au: tralia taking 3J million pounc weight of tea from China, and shij on the run calling southbound t Manila for coffee, cigars and suga China was thus useful to Au;. tralia —and it came as a shoo when China was defeated by Japa in the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese wa This defeat had two results fi Australia: tea thenceforth had be got from India and Ceylon; ar

)an, and not China, was elected the role of the suspected villain.

Substance was given to these ars when Britain signed with pan a trade agreement which is disapproved of by the Aus ilian States who were already inking Protection, and were afraid a flood of cheap Japanese goods.

Interesting Years

rhe first few years of the 20th atury were interesting. In 1901 me Australia’s Immigration Re action Act on which the White stralia Policy was based. In 1902 itain signed a defence alliance th Japan; and in 1905 Japan beat J Russians.

F’or this latter feat there was ne admiration, and Japan was is thought to have proved her danced state of civilisation and have become a major power. In w of this, and Britain’s alliance, stralia softened its immigration icy for the benefit of the Jap ese (see panel), although this s not to say that many Austra as did not continue to regard )an as a peril.

Vhen war broke out in 1914 )an helped Britain in China, but ! also helped herself by occupy the Marshalls, Carolines and rianas instead of waiting for stralia to do so, as had been nned. And, what was much se, a secret pact between Britain 1 Japan agreed to make the oc •ation permanent. The Australian eminent had been informed and i acquiesced, but when the secret > revealed, after the war, Aus lian public opinion was incensed, ivas regarded as encirclement.

'he relative calmness of the 1930’s I followed by the build-up of ling against Japan in the 30’s m she began her China adven ts and thrust out into the Pacific mning an arrogance that made n the most insular Australian jre of a Japanese “problem’’ fie four years of the Pacific War n no part of this book. The post

war years are treated as a study of Australia’s attempt to impose a tough peace on Japan; her re luctance to resume normal relations with that country: and the gradual shift of Australian apprehension back to China —this time a Red China.

Admirable Treatise

This is an admirable academic treatise from a professor who oc cupies a chair of political science in a university as far away as Minnesota. It is also of value to the student of international affairs

—particularly if he does not happen to be Australian. As a proposition it might even be of interest to the average thinking Australian—but if he did not realise it before he certainly realises now the signifi cance of his position down here at the butt end of Asia, and his feel ings on the subject are far from academic.

Professor Levi discounts entirely the theory of an empty Australia and an overcrowded Asia casting envious eyes south. Asians don’t migrate, he infers. The Chinese who did simply went to other over crowded countries.

Nor does he see as significant, the fact that everything—and more that Australians feared from Jap an for 50 years, were finally proved and justified in 1941-45. In a foot note—which is the nearest he ever gets to comment—he says that “No Australian has ever speculated on

hat the nature of Australian ipanese relations might have been ad the two nations joined in utual aid and used their com ementary qualities to develop temselves and Asia”.

Which has about as much prac ;al value as an Australian pro ssor suggesting that it would be fine thing if Israel and Egypt uld get together for the good of e whole Middle East. Perhaps it >uld be a better world if it were n by political-scientists and not politicians who are fallible—and aietimes faulty.

Lhen again, perhaps it would not.

Australia's Outlook On Asia, Published

Angus and Robertson, Ltd. Australian price, '6.)

le Good Oil

HE trend of Australian writers to copy the American style of adventure writing—all sex and igh guys—is probably based on ! presumption that to be Aus lian does not necessarily commit i to writing about gum-trees, it and beef cattle.

Jut whether the present output this sort of material is any im vement on the traditional for la is a moot point. Certainly Creary Moves In, a piece of lurid r enture fiction set in Indonesia, I written by someone called ;hael East, is not even in the le firmament as Brigalow, an ellent piece of traditional Aus lian writing by R. S. Porteous. ;viewed in January PIM) . ■ McCreary is any indication of it we are in for now that Aus ians are getting an international look, we’ll settle for the bulls the dust.

McCreary and his creator are arently better known than we ik. McCreary has already had entures in the Red Sea—in 78 alments over some Australian ideasting station, and before a audience of 7,000,000 in Britain, he present epic, the first in c form, is about an international ncier-crook, a beautiful Indo rse who has been rescued from *othel, and, of course McCreary. cCreary is hired by the inter onal crook and falls in love with girl who is the crook’s mistress. > brings its own complications. cCreary, who is an oil man, gets job of finding, drilling and ging in an oil well—and the he sets about this and the ess that crowns his efforts, in -r the six weeks that are per ed for this feat, make the efforts he Australian Petroleum Com /, which has spent £3O million 20 years trying to do the same g m Papua-New Guinea with success, look very puny indeed, t*. East—according to the jacket -writes to entertain. Well, he n t entertain us—although on

the numbers we are in the minority.

Could over 7,000,000 TV viewers be wrong? (McCREARY MOVES IN, published by Wm.

Heinemann, Ltd. Australian price, 17/-.)

Gardner Leaves it

to Fair

A FTER that piece of baloney it is a treat to get a piece of good, solid honest American cops and-robber stuff from Erie Stanley Gardner, with all the trimmings of curvaceous females and court room scenes that cut the District Attorney down to size.

For Beware the Curves, Gardner writes as A. A. Fair, which his publishers carefully explain has

been used by him since 1939 as a pseudonym for his Bertha Cool- Donald Lam series.

Why the duplicity has been re vealed is not stated. It is not im portant anyhow; Big Bertha Cool, raucous, miserly and 10 times larger than life, partner of Donald Lam in a private detective agency, is a monument to the Gardner-Fair talent; Donald successfully proves that a private eye can be smarter than the police force, the judiciary and any criminal. The result is a fricassee that will tempt the palate of all Gardner fans.

With Bertha and Lam, ESG now has a foot in all camps. His Dist rict Attorney series takes care of that side of the Law. Perry Mason represents the infallible practitioner

criminal law. Don and Bertha present that apparently indis nsible ingredient of American b, the private detective agency.

EWARE THE CURVES, published by Wm. nemann. Australian price, 16/-.)

hen the Flag

I lowed Trade

OW much interesting history of . the Pacific islands is lost in old German records is in ated in a recent American trans on of Among the Savages of the ith Seas, written by a German ster mariner, Captain Alfred ■ens and published in 1888. aptain Tetens’ particular savages e of Yap and Palau, and N-W nds of New Guinea, which he ted and observed between 1862 I 1868. luring this period raiders and enturers operated around the rshalls, Carolines and Marianas, lout reference to the fact that 7 nominally belonged to Spain ) had discovered some of the nds in the 16th century and med the lot in 1686. The three ips were not exploited by the niards although they visited ’e occasionally from their Phil ines possession, in roughly the e latitude but farther west, i 1885 the Germans raised their at Yap and claimed much of adjacent territory drawing ent protests from Spain. But many finally got the three ips (in 1899) after a payment Spain of $4,000,000. it Captain Tetens’ adventures in area took place over 20 years re that and his descriptions of e islands and islanders, in their ntive state, are exceedingly in sting. And his description of visits to the Hermits, Anchorites Ninigo Islands, now part of the

;rahan Trusteeship Territory of

Guinea, shows the changes that ' taken place there in 100 years, numerous, howling savages of time had become a dying race l . a t the end of the German in 1914. This depopulation was to have begun in 1890 when Germans punished them for ler of a trader. it the most interesting of all lat part of the book that deals the House of Godeffroy, the

rprising import-export firm of

iburg whose pioneering adven -3 laid the foundations of the nan colonies in the South Seas. ie family was originally French m 1685 had left its home in La lelle and, with thousands of

r dispossessed Huguenots, found

im in Prussia. sar Godeffroy, a grandson of family founded the firm of J.

C. Godeffroy & Son in Hamburg in 1766. (In 1878 the firm’s South Seas business was taken over by the r mrr Tr;,,~ Firm Deutsche Handels & Plantagengesellschaft).

In 1865 the Godeffroy brig Vesta was fitted out for a trading expedition to the Caroline and Palau T „. . , , Islands, and Captain Tetens was in charge. The Company’s detailed instructions to him were typical Of the thoroughness Of the German merchant firmq nf the nevinrl tmrl mercnant nrms or me period, and a Valuable insight into how the almost untapped wealth of the South Seas was at that time regarded: REAL ESTATE on those islands is what we most emphatically do not wish to acquire at present unless of course some comes to you for almost nothing. But even in that case, expensive buildings are to be avoided. We know from experience that money so invested can practically be given up for lost.

BECHE DE MER. In Hongkong as you are aware, certain kinds are preferred; write to us about the different varieties; we Shall be pleased to learn that you have obtained abundant amounts of the more highly priced ones.

COPRA. Next to beche de mer the prepara tion of c °P ra should have v° ur attention and * e t t° u ' d r J t h J" t k b t L d °H?! to the greatest advantage during the dry season. Exert yourself to take several hundred weights with you the first time you go to Hongkong and also to install the proper facilities on the islands for the wholesale de livenes as soon as you find that the proper preparation can be assured. We will then send out a ship capable of taking the specified amount.

SHELLS of mother-of-pearl we recommend to your attention; be on the watch for pearls as well, since they occur in the shells.

The Captain was also advised to look nut fnr cnttrm tnhcicr’n inHiorv

„b’ tobaCCO ’ mdjgO,

anc *’ although it must be secondary to business interests” to collect specimens of the the flora and fauna

FASHIONS IN CHURCHES:—The Evangelical Lutheran church a mile or so outside Lorengau, Manus NG, conforms to the general architecture of the whole district— which is distinctl y Quonset Period. A steeple has been added to this war relic, it has been furnished appropriately and, from the inside, looks much like any other church.

There is scarcely a building in Manus that does not have something of the war period incorporated—although the Administration has built a few single quarters recently Quonset buildings are not objects of loveliness—and when they have a couple of stove chimneys pro trudin g from t hem look like and an illustration of Pumpkinville, P one of the fairy stones of our youth. But the man who invented Quonset huts and the Americans who left them behind after war - provided the South Pacific with a vast store of temporary buildings that seem as though they might endure for ever.

The other church is in Kavieng—the new headquarters of the Most Rev. A Stemper new Vicar Apostolic of Kavieng, New Ireland. The Vicariate was created last year* by separation from Vunapope, New Britain (PIM, Feb., p. 141). Bishop Stemper's church can perhaps be regarded architecturally as "Island Mission". It is painted in eye arresting colours and looks picturesque on it knoll not far from the whartf area of kavieng

1 the islands for the Godeffroy useum in Hamburg. He was fur shed with instruments and a book instructions. [AMONG THE SAVAGES OF THE SOUTH SEAS, jlished by the Stanford University Press, mford, California. Price $3.75.)

immer Interlude

|F considerable stature is Loon’s ’ Cry, the third novel of Mercedes Mackay which we suspect iws largely from the experiences, not the actual life, of the writer.

Mercedes has been quite a girl: rn in Cornwall, five years on the ge, married a Canadian mining jineer, years of prospecting in rthern Quebec and Tanganyika; ht years in Nigeria where she i a radio station, and since 1948, the BBC Overseas Service with Bkly broadcasts to West Africa, ese scenes are varied enough to •vide material for two dozen r els; or even a plain biography.

Tie merit of Loon’s Cry lies not nuch in the story of the woman, ;lyn Merrit, living alone in a eside house in Quebec, but in lyn’s no-account neighbour, Tom. n is small-part Indian, lives in abin, does odd jobs for the com lity, believes washing is danger ly unhealthy and saves up his life for an annual jag at the he love of Tom’s life is his >e, Joe, and although most man ual relationships in novels are ng this one is used deftly and not. The situation with Tom ;s an unexpected and near rious turn when a strange lan with three children turn it his door and move in. le friendship between Evelyn old Tom is based on her accept ' of his faults and a knowledge luman nature. She fails how , to understand her own human ire and enters upon an alfair ;h has an unexpected ending, le weak point of the novel is Evelyn is living at the remote at all. The death of their 10 old son had thrown her apart i her husband. She remains at lake, for reasons not adequately i, w;hile he returns to Africa invites a native woman into >ed by way of consolation. iis book is an incidental re ler of how few novels with a

idian background come this

and the writer’s keen observa and ability to create atmos e add considerably to the lure of reading it. )N'S CRY, published by Wm. Heinemann. ban price, 20/-.)

Amazing

’hers Wunderlich

celebrate their 70 years in

Australian industry, Wunderlich

;td. has brought out an an at

tractive book which illustrates the many avenues of company enter prise in Australia today.

Wunderlich is, of course, a big name in Australian building—tiles, metal work, asbestos cement, ceramics from their various estab lishments can be seen down any suburban street and in the sky scrapers that pierce the city skies.

But even more interesting than the products they make, are the people who founded the company.

Seventy years ago, Ernest and Alfred Wunderlich began the enter prise in Sydney and later they were joined by their brother Dr. Otto.

Alfred Wunderlich, now 93, is still Chairman of Directors. Ernest, the senior brother, died in 1945 at

the age of 86. Dr. Otto died in 1951 in his 90th year.

If there is any similar record of longivity, and service in one busi ness, in the annals of Australian industry we have not heard of it.

The second generation is repre sented in the person of Charles Wunderlich, son of Alfred, who is one of the three managing-directors of the company.

The early history of the Wunder lich enterprise was described in three previous publications pub lished to mark the company’s 20th, 40th and 60th anniversaries. The present volume deals mainly with the last 10 years of the big com pany’s activities. It was produced by Mr. A. A. Raschke, advertising manager for Wunderlich Ltd.