history, by those

Books

Australia in Island history, by those who saw it happen

Australia’s many and varied historical links with the Islands of the Pacific are given their full due in a new book, An Eyewitness History of Australia, by Harry Gordon.

Mr Gordon, the senior editor of the Herald and Weekly Times, Melbourne, devoted six years to this 450-page compilation of con temporary newspaper reports on key events in Australian history.

His labours have certainly paid off. Few would argue with Professor Manning Clark’s remark in his foreword that Harry Gordon has made a “marvellous collection” of documents, and that the pieces he has gathered together “deserved to be rescued from the huge anonymous piles of old newspapers that slumber in our libraries”.

The Islands motif is firmly an nounced in the very first pages of the book: immediately following the scant reports in the English press on the sailing of the First Fleet for Botany Bay in 1787, we read the first published report on the death of Captain Cook in Hawaii “O’why’he” was the spelling of the day —on February 14, 1779.

The process of colonisation of the continent, including the vexed and tragic question of the relations be tween the colonisers and the Aboriginal population, figures largely in the following section of the book.

But the Islands theme re-emerges with a Melbourne Argus report on the doings of the Australian con tingent sent to the Maori wars in New Zealand in 1863. Written by Howard Willoughby, who is de scribed by Gordon as “Australia’s first war correspondent”, the report is a model of thoroughness and ac curacy of observation. Despite his evident jingoism, Willoughby is still capable of acknowledging the courage of the Maori warriors, who “fought with the utmost determina tion a determination which rivalled that of our own forces ..

Henry Britton, dubbed by Gordon as “something of a specialist in South Seas reporting during the 1870 s”, writes for the Melbourne Argus of September 6, 1873, a notable report on the decades-long phenomenon of “blackbirding”. which brought 60,000 Islands to the Colony of Queensland to work as cheap labour, first on cotton and later on sugar plantations.

Britton gives this description of the trade following his examination of the case of the brig Carl, in which large numbers of a captured cargo of Islanders were massacred by the crew “The traffic was begun honestly enough by persons who were desirous of faithfully fulfilling their engagements, but it was soon found that the most disreputable captains often brought the largest number of ‘immigrants’ ...

“ ... many circumstances came to light disclosing a state of things existing on the labour grounds resembling, as regards a few vessels, some of the worst features of the African slave trade, while it was made clear that a large proportion

of the Polynesians employed in Fiji and Queensland had been obtained by unfair means.”

The book recalls a little-known episode in the career of George Er nest (“Chinese”) Morrison by rep reducing his report in the Melbourne Age of November 21, 1883, describing his abortive at tempt to walk across New Guinea, He was lucky to escape with his life after being speared by Highlands tribesmen.

Morrison describes the event as follows: “I was leading the horse some distance ahead of the rest and was just taking a steep step from the scrub into the long grass at the top when I was struck by two spears, one in the hollow of the right leg and the other in the stomach. The steep step saved me. I pulled the spears out, an d fired a shot from my Winchester. I saw no men, though they must have been within four or five yards when I was struck. I had then to lie down, as blood flowed from me freely, and my stomach B av e me great pain.”

Morrison was saved by the devo tion of his companion Lyons, of

A contemporary print of the victims of blackbirders imprisoned in the hold of a ship.

"Many died before they even saw their destination", says the caption.

whom he says: “But for his mar vellous stamina I should now be rot ting in the New Guinea bush.” And, it should be added, the world would never have heard of “Chinese” Mor rison, since he would never have got to China as the London Times cor respondent in Peking.

Sydney Morning Herald corres pondent, Fritz Burnell provides a first-hand account of the capture of Rabaul, the “new capital” of Ger man New Guinea, with his report printed on October 8, 1914.

The first flight across the Pacific Ocean by Charles Kingsford Smith and three companions in the Southern Cross is recalled with a splendid report of Smithy’s welcome at Brisbane’s Eagle Farm airport written by journalist Clem Lack (Courier-Mail, June 11, 1928).

The names of the journalists who figure in Gordon’s book as reporters of the fighting in New Guinea dur ing the Second World War read rather like an honour roll of Australian journalism in the 19405.

George Johnston reports vividly for the Melbourne Argus on Port Moresby in 1942, as the city waited for the invasion that never came.

Osmar White describes in the Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial (April 7, 1942) the heroism of five RAAF Wirraway pilots in Rabaul who put up what they knew to be a virtually suicidal resistance to the invading Japanese air force.

Geoffrey Hutton analyses in the Melbourne Argus (21 August, 1942) the special features of the fighting in New Guinea it was not only Australia versus Japanese, he pointed out, it was also man against nature. Allan Dawes (Melbourne Herald, September 7 and 29) de scribes with characteristic wit and flair the landing of the Ninth Divi sion, AIF, at Lae in that month the first opposed landing from the sea by an Australian force since the Anzacs disembarked at Gallipoli 28 years before.

Of course there is much more to Gordon’s book than all this. It sets out to be the story of Australia and the Australian people recorded as it happened by people who saw it hap pen. For Australians it has a special appeal. For non-Australians it is loaded with new insights into events that shaped the country into what it is today. Malcolm Salmon. (AN EYEWITNESS HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA. By Harry Garfaa. Pablithad by Rifby Ltd. 30 North Tarraca, Kaat Town. SA. *13.95.)