Scenes de la Vie Militaire — — L. R. Burrow s

Aboriginal Art — — — — R. M. Berndt

Stories

Poems

Book Reviews

1962

iSSION BY POST AS A PERIODICAL TWO SHILLINGS Buying Australian-made benefits us all Clyde (N.S.W.) Refinery will be placed That's why buying locally is in Australia. Local materials will also more than just buying — it's play a big part in the new £6-million a far-reaching investment. HT lubricating oil plant at Geelong (Vic). Recent annual purchases Shell's policy of buying Australian- by the Shell Group in made has not only AustraHa have totalled meant support for some £12 million. Quite reaching local industry, but a sizeable in- also been encourage­ vestment ! ment for much spec­ And with ialised equipment — Shell's cur­ investment rent vast expansion programme, this fig­ previously imported — to be produced ure is likely to reach new heights. in Australia. Shell's continuing expansion For instance, more than 80 per cent of programme, of course, means additional the £9-million materials order for the supplies of quality petroleum products giant Catalytic Cracking Unit at the made in Australia.

•*»9«««wx.*(^,o.v,..^fe5^ ^ WESTERLY Published three times a year by the Arts Union of the University of Western Australia

EDITORS I. M. Brumby, J. M. S. O'Brien

Contents No. 1, 1962

ARTICLES

SCENES DE LA VIE MILITAIRE L. R. Burrows 3 ABORIGINAL ART R. M. Berndt 16

STORIES

CUSTODY Lloyd Davies 8 THE RETURN William Grono 12 THE CULVERT Kathleen Anderson 22

POETRY

MAGI Charles Higham 1 WHEN TREES WERE SWORDS Griffith Watkins 11 MARCH THROUGH PERTH Dorothy Hewett 15 THE FRIEND M. Collins 18 WORLD AT BAY Olive Pell 18 REEF Charles Higham 20 AXJTUMN INTO WINTER Griffith Watkins 21 EUCLA D. H. Henderson 24 BAPTISM D. H. Henderson 24

REVIEWS (p.p. 25-30) by P. W. Jeffery, L R. Burrows, B. K. de Garis, F. K. Crowley.

WESTERLY EDITORIAL:

Of Interest To Subscribers

when the Commonwealth Government decided not to act on their advisory board's recommendation to give "Westerly" a grant to help it to become a quarterly on the grounds that it was not at the time a quarterly, the Arts Union decided to eliminate this ground for objection as soon as possible. It is a distinct possibility that as from next year Westerly will appear four times a year.

Meanwhile in 1962, with the emphasis upon the Common­ wealth Games in November/December, it was decided to take advan­ tage of our non-quarterly status and not align our pubHcation dates with the University academic year as heretofore. This then is the first for 1962. The second and third will appear just prior to the Games. We shall combine them into one healthy volume for which the price will be 5/-. This will mean that subscribers at 6/- a year will receive the benefit.

In taking this step of nearly trebling our usual size we have no intention of producing another Tourist's guide—in this case to the Austrahan Hterary scene—^but we shall endeavour however to obtain articles, stories and poems from as many of the leading Australian hterary figures as possible. Copies of the Games issue will be posted to subscribers as usual free of postage charge.

WE$TER1.Y Scenes de la Vie Militaire

L. R. Burrows

VELYN W^AUGH'S latest novel, Uncon­ a commission in the Royal Corps of Hal­ ditional Surrender (Chapman and Hall, berdiers, and Men at Arms describes the E 1961), is subtitled "The Conclusion of early months of training that culminate, for Men at Arms and Officers and Gentlemen". Guy, in a fantastic raid at Dakar. The book With it he brings to completion his Crouch- is dominated by two remarkable warriors; back trilogy of war-time experience. Apthorpe, a fellow junior-oflBcer, the only At the beginning of Men at Arms it is one of the new recruits who "looks like a August, 1939, and Guy Crouchback is 35 soldier," "burly, tanned, moustached, primed years old. The Crouchbacks are a family with a rich vocabulary of military terms"; of old-established Catholic gentry in reduced and Brigadier Ritchie-Hook, a ferocious, pir­ circumstances. Guy is a romantic, "spiritually atical Cyclops whose demonic obsession is crippled and socially isolated, numbed and "bifiPing the enemy". Apthorpe is a superb desiccated by previous misfortune". Eight comic character, and his battle with the years ago he was deserted by his wife, Vir­ brigadier over the possession of the thunder- ginia, and has since lived miserable and box (a portable chemical closet) is hilarious. lonely in the family villa in Italy, "set apart Apthorpe is defeated (biffed with a bomb in from his fellows by his own deep wound, that the rears) but Apthorpe was bogus any way, unstaunched, internal draining away of life an old pretender, and in the end, as he lies and love . . . deprived of the loyalties which iU in West Africa, he is kiUed off unintention­ should have sustained him". The announce­ ally by Guy himself with the surreptitious ment of the Russian-German alliance shocks gift of a bottle of whiskey. The consequen­ him from his self-regarding apathy; at last ces of this, and of Guy's participation in the there is a cause that claims his allegiance; irresponsible raid instigated by murderous "eight years of shame and lonehness were Ritchie-Hook, leads to Guy's being sent back ended". "The enemy at last was plain in in disgrace to England. view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast In Officers and Gentlemen Guy is trans­ o£F. It was the Modern Age in arms. What­ ferred to the Commandos, trains with them ever the outcome there was a place for on the Island of Mugg, and goes off with him in that battle." Before leaving for Eng­ them to Crete. After the fall of Crete, he land, Guy pays a sympolic visit to the tomb manages to escape in a small boat steered of Roger of Waybroke, a Knight Crusader by a "queer" (in all senses) N.C.O. named who never reached the Crusade but fell in Ludovic. In this volume, more sombre in a local battle in Italy. He touches the "sword tone than Men at Arms, Guy's illusion that of honour", still bright, and says, "Sir Roger, he is assisting humbly in a noble cause are pray for me and for our endangered king­ painfully deflated; the loss of honour comes dom." bitterly home to him in the conduct of a new After some initial difBculties Guy obtains friend, Ivor Claire, whom Guy has seen as

WESTERLY "the fine flower of them all . . . quintessential Waugh has a savage field-day with the bum­ England", but who, in the chaos of defeat on bles, blunders, and horrors of miUtary and Crete, deserts his men. Worse, Claire's pohtical practices and malpractices m Jugo­ cowardice is hushed up by influential friends slavia; and Guy Crouchback, baffled and both civil and miUtary. But the disintegration angry, comes to the "consummation of his into dishonour of the Holy War is even more crusade. strikingly dramatized in the panic disinte­ A dull, dry, negative figure in the two prev­ gration of a Brigade-Major, Fido Hound, who ious volumes, this innocently romantic and also deserts and is murdered by a fellow-des­ reticent gentleman has proved an excellent erter, Ludovic. Russia, the arch-enemy, has foil for all the monstrous opportunism, now become a gallant ally; and in England treachery, chicanery, and plain stupidity of itself the Modern World is as rampant as the British Army (oflBcer types) and of the ever—vidtness the Trimmer Affair. Trimmer war in general. In this volume, where he chucked out of the Halberdiers, is an ex- is less involved in public military affairs. hairdresser, a cad, a man of dubious social Guy's private and spiritual life quickens and origins, who enjoys a fevered weekend with comes positively to the fore. His father Guy's former wife before being pushed into Gervase (who personifies, in Mr. Waugh's a small Commando raid arranged for pub- intention, "the abiding values which _ co­ licitiy ptuposes to boost morale. He behaves existed with and survived all the political ingloriously but is presented as a national clap-trap") dies, leaving his son a valuable sum hero: "The upper classes are on the secret of money and a more valuable morsel of list. We want heroes of the people, to or religious wisdom that serves him henceforth for the people." He is then sent to make as a touchstone of right behaviour: "Quant­ public appearances throughout the country, itative judgments don't apply. If only one and Virginia, against her wishes, is sent with soul was saved, that is full compensation." him to keep him in good heart. No wonder His father's funeral service brings Guy to a that Guy feels in despair that "he was back realisation of his spiritual apathy, and he after less than two years' pilgrimage in a rays that God will show him what service Holy Land of illusion in the old ambiguous Ee may do and help him to do it. The world where priests were spies and gallant chance arrives when Virginia entreats him to friends proved traitors and his country was marry her. Knowing she is with child by Trim­ led into blundering dishonour." mer, Guy consents to the marriage for the sake of the unborn child's soul. It is his Unconditional Surrender, as one might ex­ "first positively unselfish action". He says, pect "completes the disillusionment of the "Here was something most unwelcome, put hero": Book One ("State Sword"') opens with into my hands; something . . . beyond the a description of the crowds paying homage in call of duty'; not the normal behaviour of an Westminster Abbey to a sword "made at the oflScer and gentleman; something they'll laugh King's command as a gift to 'the steel-hearted about in Bellamy's". Later on, in Jugoslavia, people of Stalingrad," an ironic and symbol­ Guy is likewise chiefly concerned vdth en­ ic contrast to the opening scene of Men at deavours to evacuate a crowd of displaced Arms where Guy had visited the "sword of Jews, concerned, that is, vidth an "act of honour" and dedicated himself to the Holy mercy", a positive personal striving after War. After a couple of blank years of "sold­ good works. This act of charity and compas­ iering on" with the Halberdiers in Britain, sion is only partly, and after much frustration, he is sent to a parachute-jumping school successful; and his friendly interest in one commanded by Ludovic who, fearful of Guy's Jewish couple results only in their condem­ knowledge of the crimes in Crete, incarcerates nation by a People's Court. It is a bitter himself in an absurd and sinister fashion that "consummation". excites suspicions of madness and then, though Guy has injured himself and been reported Moreover, Guy is brought to recognise and as "too old", highly recommends him for im­ acknowledge his own complicity in the guilt mediate employment, pondering the while on of war, to set his earlier patriotic idealism Uriah the Hittite. So Guy is flovm out to at a baser valuation. The Jewess he tries in Jugoslavia, where he is attached to the British vain to help says to him: "It is too simple mission aiding the communist partisans. Mr. to say that only the Nazis wanted war. These

WESTERLY communists wanted it too. It was the only end of the grotesque and decrepit Ritchie- way in which they could come to power. Hook, who is killed when indulging in a final Many of my people wanted it ... It seems spot of single-handed biffing of the enemy. to me there was a will to war, a death wish, There is one scene in particular of delicious everywhere. Even good men thought their humour, when Guy's Uncle Peregine, a private honour would be satisfied by war. simple, almost virginal old bore, takes the They could assert their manhood by killing ood-time girl Virginia out to dinner and is and being killed. They would accept hard­ f rought to confess that he had hoped Virginia ships in recompense for having been selfish was intent on seducing him. The contrast and lazy. Danger justified privilege. I know between Peregine's slyly innocent primness Italians . . . who felt like this. Were there and the unvarnished directness of Virginia's none in England?" "God forgive me," says responses and vocabulary is excellently comic. Guy. "I was one of them." One's first impressions are that the Crouch­ If Unconditional Surrender, then, completes back trilogy is probably Mr. Waugh's best a disillusionment, it also initiates a quickening performance so far; it is certainly his most and development of self-awareness and the ambitious and best sustained novel. Object­ virtues of the contrite and compassionate ions could, of course, be raised. Mr. Waugh's heart. This development is not startling outlook is sharply limited in some directions, either in degree or kind. It would have been as is well known by now. Perhaps, the social startling false to Guy's nature to make it Hmitations arouse the most dissatisfaction in so, and Mr. Waugh present it quietly and many breasts. The objection here would not convincingly, neither sentimentalizing nor be that this account of the war is confined to, shrilly overemphasizing. (One might com­ in V. S. Pritchett's witty phrase, "a Who's pare the nostalgic "lushness" and shrill over­ Who of our National Peru." Waugh after all emphasis in the treatment of religious matters is scathingly critical of many of his oflBcers in Brideshead Revisited.) The appropriate and gentlemen, and there is little of the smug, effect, in any case, must be that of let's-play-public-school-soldiers juvenility that How far that little candle throws his marred Put Out More Flags. The objection beams. would rather indicate the grotesque ugliness of prejudice that is responsible for the charac­ So shines a good deed in a naughty terization of Trimmer as Modern Common world. Man and that offers no counterbalancing ex­ It is perhaps necessary to point out that Shak­ ample of a less obnoxious type. There is espeare is saying here that a good deed does some justice in this objection, I think. Waugh not throw its beams very far in a naughty can biff his bugbears as maliciously and un­ world; it is a little candle. Yet even a tiny fairly as any one-eyed brigadier; and one-eyed beacon of light plays its small part in dis­ is, as Crouchback is fond of remarking, the pelling night's blear-all black. mot juste. (Ironically, no doubt, Guy's due reward The familiar objections to Waugh's political for his virtue is not entirely postponed to the and religious limitations cannot be so easily hereafter. Virginia is killed by a flying- made with this trilogy. True, communism bomb, and our concluding glimpse of Guy in may seem to be too facilely equated with 1951 shows him happily married and pro- evil; but in partial qualification one may say creative, fatter and thriving, settled in the that guilt and evil are not exclusively res­ ancestral Lesser House as his father had erved for Uncle Joe's children, as Uncle hoped. As his brother-in-law says, "not with­ Crouchback recognises. As for the Cathol­ out a small, clear note of resentment": "Things icism, I doubt that one could reasonably com­ have turned out very conveniently for Guy.') plain of "institutionalism" here: Guy's rehg- ious lessons may also be understood and Though the ferocious and/or hilarious approved by "humanists". comedy of Mr. Waugh is not as prominent in this last volume as in the earlier two, it not Mr. Waugh has, thank God, turned away absent. We are given the ironic success of from the vercharged "poetic" style and feel­ the grotesque Ludovic with his massy, lush, ings of Brideshead; cultivated his inimitable bad novel. The Death Wish; and the fitting gifts for comedy, whether satirical, grotesque.

WESTERLY or humorous; and chastened into a more effec­ recent past transformed and illuminated by tive resti-aint his "seriousness" has meant for disordered memory and imagination." Waugh a defiant defence, and championship "These novels," one reviewer has asserted, of his "loyalties" to an upperclass, to a church, "are as near faultless as it is possible for and to a past time; and the championship has novels to be." Incompetent to press such a been detrimental, in many critics' view, to claim, I would say that they are indeed ex­ a satisfactory artistic detachment, Crouch­ tremely well-written within their due limit­ back, clearly, is a Waugh man; the loyalties ations. There are brilliant scenes and he has been deprived of and seeks in battle brilliant sequences, contrived and executed are Waugh's loyalties. But Crouchback, the with great skill; powerfully effective in the "crippled" romantic, although given his creat­ economy and pace of their narration; con­ or's war experiences, is sufficiently different­ tinually revealing Waugh's unerring eye for iated from him in other ways; and it is not, detail and unerring ear for dialogue; sharp in any case, embarrassingly over-championed, and crisp in their laconic understatement. is treated with some detachment, vniSx suffi­ The trilogy as a whole, one senses again and cient "coldness". Waugh has learned from again, has an overall intricacy and harmony the mistakes of Brideshead. There is surely of structure that is dense with ironic and a self-directed irony in the comment on Ludo- symbolic cross-reference. I heartily recom­ vic's The Death Wish: "Kali a dozen other mend Mr. Waugh for the D.S.O. (War Artists). English writers, averting themselves sickly P.S.: There are, it will interest the curious from privations of war and apprehensions of or pedantic to know, two slight errors of the social consequences of the peace, were "continuity" in Unconditional Surrender: Ivor even then (1944) . . . composing . . . books Claire becomes Clare, and, more strikingly, which would turn from the drab alleys of Mr. Elderbury has changed into Mr. Elder­ the thirties into the odorous gardens of a berry.

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WESTERLY Magi

Charles Higham

Here they found treasures, deep In the throttling roots of trees; Skulls with emeralds And hollow eyes that weep Tears of dark amethysts; Hands like the claws of birds Empty, but in their clutch Those golden, studded sherds.

The three were wanderers. Worshipping kings who fell Thrust down below those aspens. Nuzzled by bitter curs. Crammed in their mouths like stones They cram in vampire jaws, The rubies, sapphires, pearls. Stifle these emperors.

We know them in our blood: Heaped in their golden pride That came to homage Him. But though they bent and cried Nothing could stop the flood Of Iffe's conupiscence. Until the end they knew That aU save passion, died.

Carols and hymns relate The coming of these kings. Kneeling, abasing their pride. Humble with crown and plate Before the manger laid. Now these and the tyrants too Lie in the shifting earth: I hold their blazing rings.

WKTERLY Custody

Lloyd Davies

HEY stood in the gardens outside the "Yes you've got to do that all right. But pillared entrance to the Court. never get identified. It leaves you unpre­ T A firewheel tiee cascaded scarlet blos­ pared for the other side. soms through its glossy leaves, unnoticed by "Litigants are never objective. And you've them. got to be. For their sake you just can't The wife, triumphant and effusive, was afford to let them sweep you along on their thanking her solicitor in a voice intended for torrent of righteous indignation. the other two. The nods of his greying head "They're never so righteous and indignant and his smile shared her success; but his as in these Cutstody cases. They forget the subdued answers implied (as much as was fundamental thing, the welfare and happiness proper) that her obvious elation was not of the child. The kid just becomes a piece altogether in good taste. of emotional property, a prize to be won or She left him with a final two handed lost. elbow-shake and a "so there" grin in the "I remember one case that taught me a direction of the others. A woman friend lot of lessons. joined her, exclaiming "Darling". They em­ "Let's call 'em Mr. and Mrs. Smith—^just braced and, arm and arm, dot-dotted away to be original—^Percy and Mary. up the path, a victory roll to their departing bottoms. "It was in about my third year of practice Phillip waited decorously apart while the when the wife came to me. She was a lovely husband and young Stephens chewed over looking woman. In her late twenties, their defeat, drawing circles in the gravel with dark hair cut across the forehead in the their shoes, pocketing and unpocketing their fashion that the Duchess of York had then hands. just made so popular. She had large 'please help me' eyes. When they had parted with a hand-clasp and a commiserating smile he walked over to "There was a pathetic sweetness about her Stephens who stood vacantly thumbing his that tried to compete with her bitterness. file, the husband's worry still heavy on his But it never had a hope. Her mother came forehead. with her on all her interviews and made sure "Feel like an adjournment George?" the bitterness stayed constant. Any soft Stephens brightened. hearted tendency to 'understand Percy's point "Sounds like a good law to me, Phil." of view' was firmly rebuked. "The mother was a tall imperious old girl, her face perpetually pouted in an expression "You know I feel pretty sorry for my bloke." of outrage as though her next sentence was Stephens frowned at the golden ripples always going to be 'How dare he?' in the glass he abstractedly fingered on the "Together they built up a pretty grim out­ counter in quick movements to and fro. line of Percy's villany. Surely no one but an "He's pretty keen on those kids and you've utter bastard would have left a loving got to admit she never gave him much of a attractive young wife, a sweet little daughter spin," he continued. who idolised him, not to mention tibe beauti­ "You don't want to get too wrapped up ful riverside home the old lady had let them in your client George. It doesn't do them share with her rent free. And it wasn't as any good you know. though she ever interfered like some "Oh but you've got to stick up for them," mother-in-laws do. said Stephens. "All just to go and live with some litde

WESTERLY rninx of a thing who'd made up to him at bang outside the door of the bar where the Department. In short the usual two- Percy was having a few drinks after work. dimensional picture of an undefended action. "You can guess what happened when "Mary sued simply for Judicial Separation. Percy came out. Even I couldn't help The old lady jumped on me when I suggested smiling at his account of it in the subsequent that a divorce be preferable. litigation. '"What and leave him free to marry that "'It was a stiffing hot evening', he said, woman? Mary doesn't want to marry again. 'and the thought of going home in the bus had She has her child and she's never cared for almost spoilt the taste of the beer. And then the other business'. suddenly there was the car right in front of "The Judge was inclined to pick a bit me.' when he heard that Percy had been put out "'I remembered I still had an ignition on the grass for the past eighteen months. key on my key ring so I said well, why not, it's Still it was a clear cut case of adultery and my car'? he had to grant her decree. "That's just how he told it too. The judge was on his side from the start. It was obvious "Percy got hit to leg over maintenance. he was vastly amused by the whole thing We argued successfully that the old lady's and Percy played right up to him. money—and she had stacks of it—shouldn't be taken into account in assessing mainten­ "Mind you I wasn't prepared for Percy. ance. So while in fact Mary and the child I'd never seen him before. I only knew him lived in comfort in the family home Percy from my instructions and from his affidavits still got soaked for half his Civil Service pay which as you know never convey any sense per fortnight. of character except perhaps that of the prac­ "When the custody case came up they titioner who prepares them. opposed him even having access. "I had always imagined Percy as a mean- "They used to bring the child, Eileen, faced shifty little man. In fact he was tall, with them to my office. She was a little well built, suntanned vdth a terrific sense of pigtailed thing or about eight. Her grand­ dry humour that flickered in his grey eyes, mother used to punctuate the interviews vdth twitched in the lines around his mouth and 'He broke your poor little heart didn't he seemed almost to taunt in his slow ironic darling? You never want to see him again do drawn. you sweetheart'? "He had that complete frankness that "The child would look up with wet grey Judges go for in a big way. eyes and mumble 'Yes' and "No' behind a "He admitted to me under cross exam­ chewed handkerchief, look down again and ination "Yes I probably would have handed it sniff. back too if they hadn't called in the police "Mary was under a terrific emotional strain. and tried to get me arrested for car stealing'. The effect of it was to make her "But before I could pounce. His Honour more bitter. Perhaps it was just with the interrupted 'But after that you insisted on effort of steeling herself for the fight. standing on your rights eh'? Math that bland Tercy got his order for access for what smile of his and little lift of the eyebrows— good it was to him. After all there is a limit you know. to how often you can call to pick up a kid "'As long as your Honour agrees they are that kicks and screams 'Don't let him take my rights' and they exchanged a grin that me' with two women calling out "brute' and just about made me fold up my brief there the neighbours looking on. and then. "About a year later it bubbled up again. "Down we went of course and from then on This time it was over Percy's car. Mary's bitterness became absolute. "When he cleared out, Percy had left it "It was only a one-day action and the with his wife—along with the joint bank costs weren't very high, they could have account and everything else except his paid them out of house-keeping. But they clothes. Never argued about a thing. Mary had a better idea. and her mother went on treating the car "Mary sold her rings—or at anv rate ad­ as their own. vertised them for sale. Then little Eileen "One evening the old lady left it parked was enjoined to cut the advertisement out of

WESTERLY the paper and pin it to a letter written in Percy grinned with one side of his mouth her childish copybook handwriting:— and stuck out his jaw, " 'Dear Daddy, " 'I thought we'd better check that she's old Look what you have brought us to; enough to do so without me getting slung to pay your costs'. in for contempt of Court'. "When this got back to me, in a stiff note "I told him he had better ask his own from his solicitor, I was very nearly rude solicitor about that, pretending I didn't know to her. It was a good thing I wasnt how­ he'd only come to gloat. ever, as the old lady died not long after and " 'Well, as her family soUcitor, perhaps you we got a great deal more business both can re-assure her that my consent is enough from the estate and from Percy's application for her to get married on, whatever her for reduction in maintenance which followed mother says'? Mrs. Smith's accession to the family wealth. "Then he became serious. "The estate took some years to wind up "'Actually, Mr. Reid, I did think it was and I saw quite a bit of both mother and only proper that you ought to have a bit of daughter. a yarn to her about what she's doing. If "I noticed how more and more Mrs. Smith you'll excuse me I'll leave you do it'. tended to centre her whole life around the "When he'd gone I asked Eileen to tell child. I noticed too, as the girl grew up, me about it. With an outpouring of ag­ signs of revolt against her mother's domin­ grieved resentement she told me of her ation. This of course really matured when mother's hysterical rages, how she had railed Eileen went to the University. against 'That nasty young man' his 'common For those who care to look for them, there parents', the reproaches of 'after all I've done are numerous heresies to be embraced at our for you', threats of 'not a penny of my mon­ centres of higher learning (although fortun­ ey', that went on and on until they corroded ately in most cases the flirtation is only tem­ and snapped the last bonds of love and porary). Rejection of Parents—even of duty. Parents wealth—is not uncommon. At that "It was when she described her eventual particular time (just after this last war) it meeting with her father and his mistress that was the thing. she really became vehement. "But I doubt if these things would have " 'After all those years of hearing about profoundly influenced young Eileen had it 'Your wicked father and that little whore' not been for her mother's attitude to that to go and live with them and find out what other feature of University life, co-education. they really were. Dad so cheerful and full "I had to point out to Mrs. Smith several of fun I'd always dimly remembered he was. times that I could not write solicitor's letters And June. She's a really beautiful person. I to people merely because their sons had kept never knew what love was until I saw them Eileen out late at nigth. When the girl together. Do you know they've never had finally fell really in love with a young ex-ser­ kids because Mummy wouldn't let them get viceman and talked about marriage it was married and they thought it would be wrong the end. to have children who would be illegitimate? "Mary Smith called on the lad's parents " '111 never forgive Mummy for lying to me and abused them; she stopped Eileen's allow­ about them. It's no good you telling me I ance and wrote to the University disclaiming ought to try and make it up with her. I responsibility for further fees. I was given won't ever'! instructions to draw a codicil to her vdll "And she hasn't ever. I tried the practi­ leaving everything to the Dog's Home in the cal approach first. I pointed out that she event of her daughter marrying. risked losing quite a considerable family "I had seen all this coming some time in fortune. advance. However, I was not prepared for "'I don't want her lousy money. It des­ the next development. troyed her. It's not going to buv me. Let "Eileen called at my office one day not her leave it to her stinking old dogs'. with her mother but with Percy her father. " 'I b-ied, tactfully, to point out that there "'I think you know my daughter Mr. Reid. was much that her mother had in fact done She's living with me now, for the time being' for her; her upbringing, her education.

10 WESTERLY " 'All she's ever given me is hate. Hate for a mother for fear of handing on her shame the two sweetest people I've ever met. She's is now a devoted de-facto grandmother. going to get all that back too. With interest'. "Whether they ever wiU become reconciled "Which she has. depends, I suppose, on how deeply the "Eileen now has three children, but Mary mother's iron, so to speak, has entered the Smith has never seen them. She called at daughter's soul. If not, those derelict dogs Eileen's house (a nice little brick and tile are going to be wealthy animals, provided war-service job) not long after the first one the solicitor for the Smith estate can find was born. Eileen refused to let her see the his way aroimd the Testator's Family Maint­ baby and ordered her off the place. enance Act. I'm glad I no longer act for "June the de-facto wife who was never Mrs. Smith. It'll be some headache." —-

When Trees Were Swords

Griffith Watkins

When trees were swords. Wounding the gallows of the sun. He rode a man's shadow Out of the midday's love, Though a boy's wonder Packed his head and guts. From the eclipse of his straight shoulders, The earth rang out In jumbled caramels of mirth. His eyes plucking blue from the sky And his heart a heaving song That did not want for breath. Under those burning skies He would invest the bush vdth wrath. His bland face mirroring belief, His shining forehead honing The amazed gum-vdnd down, Where trees were swords unendingly. His youth a blazing crown.

WESTERLY 11 The Return

William Grono

E TRUDGED along the hard, blue road symbol of the goldfields), and, most per­ that led—and had been leading for many sistent of all, a hand lighting a lamp. H miles and days—towards Coolgardie. These obscure crepuscular visitors insinuated He was sweating. The sun, huge in the themselves into his mind and lingered there, afternoon sky, blazed far ahead of him. But, continually drifting in and out of his con­ for the past few miles, he'd been unaware sciousness like moths. But, if he tried to of the heat, the road, the occasional car catch on as one flickered past, to examine it, roaring past, even the throbbing in his head. to pin a meaning to it (What flowers? Whose He had been staring intently at the bush. hand?), it would elude him and flutter back The anonymous bush: red earth dulled into the dark of his mind. by its cover of black ironstone gravel; tufts They increasingly perplexed the mind of dead grass; blue-bush, saltbush and snap- they inhabited, so fragmentary were they, and rattle; untidy mallee; dull-green gimlet so detached from all associations. He be­ trees bronze in the hot light; a few mullock came obsessed by them. He slept less and dumps; all merging into a vast grey sea of worked badly. So badly, in fact, that when bush which spread to a remote horizon he told the boss that he wanted "to go up to beneath the delicate blue of the sky. And, the goldfields for a couple of weeks", the boss as he walked he stared intently, almost plead­ had paid him straight away, and then, even ingly, at the bush. It was the country of though it was apple-picking time, had told his childhood. him not to worry about coming back. Fifty-eight years ago after his mother So now ,after a lifetime spent among cool had died, he had run away from home— forests and populated hills, he was staggering, ending a strenuous childhood—and had never tired and sick, searching for the remains of an returned. Nor had he seen his father or old gold-mining settlement, for the survivors brother again. (Once, in France, he'd heard of a long-distant past. Remains that prob­ that his brother was in a nearby unit. He ably don't exist, he told himself. Or, it they hadn't been able to visit him then and had do, how—since they would then be existing learned later that his brother had been killed.) outside the bounds of his own uncertain His father, too, must have died years ago, memory—^would he recognise them? Feelings but he didn't know when. During those fifty- of doubt and futility swept over him again. eight years he'd tramped and worked through­ Perhaps those strange, fugitive images had not out the south-west of the state. He had been memories of his childhood but had wandered haphazardly from job to job— been illogical creations of his own imagin­ farms, timber mills, road gangs—sometimes ation. He felt desperate. I shouldn't have staying weeks, sometimes years. He had come, he thought. I shouldn't have come. drunk, fought, played football, loved, and His eyes searched the bush for some hint, had, on the whole, enjoyed a simple life of some re-assurance. The bush, was immense gregarious, and at times, lonely, pleasures. in its indifference. A life rarely disturbed by regrets or mem­ Suddenly, in a glare of corrugated iron; ories. Coolgardie was before him. The road had He had been surprised, therefore, when, a climbed a slight rise and there, surrounded few months ago, his mind had suddenly by its fabled gold-bearing hills, was Cool­ been invaded by a succession of vague and gardie, stunned in the bright heat of the apparently meaningless images, from a for­ afternoon. He moved into the warm shade gotten past—a tethered goat, a pair of muddy of a salmon gum and rested. The road, boots, some yellow flowers against a rusted though, didn't falter; it swept down and oil fence, a black poppet-head (that stark straight through the seemingly dead town

12 WESTERLY with its weatherboard houses, crumbling It was a fairly big dam but the water was sandstone buildings, listless pepper trees and lower than he'd expected. On the other side rusty fences; on past the scarred hills and a boy in a striped shirt was playing at the grey slime dumps and into the bush again edge, digging in the mud like a busy wasp. as it sped towards Kalgoorhe. A few bone- The old man stumbled down to the water, white goats were treading delicately across the baked crust of the bank crunching under one of the parched hills. his feet. He stooped and filled his pannikin It meant nothing to him, this dying town, but the water was too hot to drink. He except that he'd come too far. It can't be tipped it out slowly, enjoying the sound as far back, he thought and he turned to retrace it trickled back. He stood there awhile and his steps along the road. watched the boy who didn't seem to have The sun moved closer. Its rays slanted noticed him. Then he slowly rechmbed the down onto his white-stubbled face, and the slope and looked around. road reverberated with heat. I should have Away from him stretched the barren acres brought a hat, he told himself, I should have of an abandoned gold-field; drab heaps of bought a hat. And then he was annoyed to sun-scorched earth that sprawled haphazard­ realize that the words were repeating them­ ly to the edge of the approaching bush. selves, were inanely accompanjdng his heavy Scattered here and there were some dusty steps. I should have brought a hat. I should pepper trees—survivors of a vanished gener­ have brought a hat. He stopped and wiped ation. On the far side, against the sky, some sweat from the corners of his eyes stood the poppet-head of a deserted mine and and stared about him. squatting beneath it, like the husk of some • I: must keep going, he thought, I can rest decayed animal, was the now decrepit driv­ after. Anyway, it can't be far now. ing-shed. It was the only building in sight. - He hadn't been walking for long when his He could not see where the boy Uved. eyes were caught by a glimpse, a gash of He heard a cry and turned. The boy, yellow in the bush. His aching legs hurried he saw had raised his arm and was waving. forward. A car, black and glittering, swerved The old man half-waved tiredly and turned to a halt and a voice, heavy with condes­ away. At that moment a stone hit the water cension, called, "Do you want a lift mate?" a few yards away. He turned but the boy But he was off the road now, pushing through had clambered up the bank and was al­ the scrub, a wire fence, bushes that plucked ready disappearing down the other side. at his clothes: skirting the old workings, Exaggerated laughter floated back across the dumps and costeens, through another fence, disturbed water. and on, the bleached grass cracking under­ His head was throbbing again. It's the sun, foot, until he could clearly see, across a he though. I must get out of the sun. He stretch of old alluvial ground, the tree, an took a step, stumbled down the bank, and autumnal poplar, rich with golden leaves. fell headlong into the tree. He lay where He paused for a moment, breathless, his he had fallen, quite still. heart wild, his throat burning with the effort Violent stripes of gold and green light— of quick breathing; and then, moved forward harsh dry particles in his mouth—a dark roar again . The tree stood serene and immobile of blood—his cheek pierced by a sharp pain: in the hot still air as he crossed the broken it took him some time to realize that he was ground. As he approached he savv the reason lyiiig with his face in the dirt, staring at some for its survival; it was growing by the side of blades of grass . He vaguely wondered how an earth dam. long he had been there. His body ached; Reaching the tree it pleased him that all his bones seemed to have jolted out of underneath it a pool of grass, a kind of soft place by the fall. Then, fighting back the buffalo-grass, and dappled shade. He shpped fatigue he slowly" and painfully pushed him­ off his swag and waterbag, and sat doMm. The self over and into a half-sitting, half-reclining air seemed cooler and thicker here. He felt position against the tree. He uncorked the happy, almost refreshed. After a while he waterbag and took a long drink. untied his pannikin and got to his feet. He He could only see, from where he sat, leant a moment against the tree, and then the brown earth of the dam and the light-blue carefully climbed up the loose side of the sky. But he didn't care. Now that his quest dam. had failed; had been doomed to failure from

WESTERLY 13 the start. This plimdered land could tell (black-and-whit^ e cows i„n. a_ gree^ n paiddoekc , him nothing. And even if it could, even if it blue smoke rising in a valley) but his mind had been his birth place and these dumps returned again and again to the monotonous and pepper trees had been the silent com- bush, the straggling rust-coloured heaps of anions of his childhood and this very tree waste, the blazing trees. Ead been planted by his own mother, it still He looked up. A slight wind, presage of meant nothing. He was a hfetime too late. the approaching cold, moved thinly through Any meaning they might have held for him the tree . Some leaves twitched and a few had gradually been lost over the intervening broke off. He watched them drift down. years: people had died or gone away, houses One landed on his knee. Another fell in his and shacks had been puUed down and shifted, hair. And a third on his cheek. He felt too dumps had eroded, and his own memories tired to brush them off and soon he fell had faded and died. Nothing remained the asleep. same, he felt, except the sun and the bush. With abrupt ferocity a willy-willy whirled across the desolate ground tearing at every­ A feeling of loneliness enveloped him as thing in its erratic course, whisking dust he thought of the vanished people who had and twigs and withered bits of grass far into once lived and loved and worked here, the the air, frantically shaking and whipping the dead generations of men—his mother, brother sinuous foliage of the pepper trees, exploding and father among them. the poplar like a golden firework—and then, He settled down further in the grass, suddenly, it was gone. All was quiet again. resting his head on the swag, and closed his But, for a long time after the wind had pass­ eyes. I'll rest now, he thought, camp here ed, the leaves and scraps and dust filtered tonight, and tomorrow, tomorrow morning, down through the red air, falUng gently on I'll start out on the way back. He tried to the trees, the grass, the dam, the earth, and think of the farm he'd left a few days before on the exhausted body of the old man.

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14 WESTERLY March Through Perth

Dorothy Hewett

With fixed bayonets in the wheat windy summer, I saw you march like leaves and confetti strewn Among the stone armed windows full of people; And the clapping crested, trembled like a flummox of confetti Lost in the bayonets, lost in the long slouched arm And shoulder, the hand and the glint. Passing like long silver grass frozen without tears.

And my tears unshed on my eyelashes press like a pain Under the spike of bayonets, flashed and transmitted To the opposite side of the street, street and arms swinging. And the bright orange boots; but no one clapped Loud enough, we have forgotten how to clap. To scream or shout or cry out. We stand, sometimes we smile self consciously. Sometimes we shift our feet and the heat Is part of our blood, as it has always been part of it.

Shy, insecure, not believing much, we watch. We like the men to be tall, we like the bushmen Brown and long, that pleases us; other things. The broken-off twist of streamer, the band playing "Waltzing Matilda", but I cried. I saw you coming towards mc, smiling and out of place. Like a face in a forest of shining spear grass, your strange elusive face in planes and segments Of emotion, and I was reminded of Christ among spears. And the shuffle of feet, and the long climbing shoulder. Men in unison, only your face detached And strange, your mouth lifted at the corners. And a hush went over the whole summer, "Another good boy has gone into the sea."

WESTERLY 15 Aboriginal Art

Some thoughts upon the subject inspired by C. P. MOUNTFORD'S ABORIGINAL ART in the "Arts in Australia" series, 1961. Langmans; p.p. 1-32, Illustrated.

Dr. R. M. Berndt

This small and well-illustrated booklet on When the focus of our attention shifts to Australian Aboriginal art is a welcome ad­ an ahen situation, there are two things we dition to the growing body of Uterature on can do. We can look at the designs, and this topic. From the point of view of the perhaps in doing so find them pleasing or general pubhc, its value rests on the repres­ displeasing as the case may be. Much dep­ entativeness of the photographs, some of ends on whether they conform to our own which have hitherto been available only in canons of aesthetic taste. If we are fortunate more expensive editions. Anthropologically, we are told, as in the booklet under review, or for the student of comparative art, its that such designs mean certain things—that usefulness is limited. The text (or annota­ it is not simply a matter of identification, but tions) is too brief and, in my view, over that, in addition, they have certain associat­ simplified. It suffers from being primarily ions. Whether this will serve as an aid to descriptive, without an attempt being made aesthetic appreciation is another matter. But to place the works of art it discusses on their if we go further, and want to understand social and cultural perspective. I know, of such production, it is necessary to consider course, that as far as Western Exnopean art the function of art in that particular society— generally is concerned, the argument runs the place of the artist, for instance, or the mat to appreciate the productions of partic­ question of style. It is in these directions ular artists, to understand what they are at­ that the present booklet is deficient. Never­ tempting to say, involves on one hand pers­ theless, this is a good introductory study, and onal interpretation (that is, an artist is said we could hardly expect to find such a good to be expressing himself, individually, al­ coverage in a volume of this size. though in doing so he conforms broadly to the Mr. Mountford, however, starts off on the dictates of a particular School), and on the wrong foot when he states that Aboriginal other the provision of a label attached to such art is of interest to overseas students because a work leaving the way open to the viewer ". . . . it is only in Australia that one can to "work it out for himself". The fact that observe the art of a living stone-age man the work of Western European artists is in­ . . ." (p. 3). The inference is that by study­ fluenced by their ovvm social and cultural ing Aboriginal art we obtain, in some oblique environment, and that they can never get too fashion, a greater understanding of Palaeo­ far away from this if they want to sell their lithic art. "This is misleading. Aboriginal art products, or at least create something mean­ is not comparable to "stone age" or "primitive" ingful to themselves or to others, is often lost art (pp. 4, 5 and 13); except for the work sight of. In any case, we can take this social of people who are now extinct or dispersed and cultural background as partially given; through alien intrusion, or perhaps as in the after all, it is our OWTI—or part of our own, or case of some rock paintings and engravings belongs to part of our tradition. of which present-day Aborigines have no

16 WESTERLY knowledge, it is a living, contemporary art. counts, and in some cases these tell of their It is produced by people possessing a cultm-e association with contemporary human beings. different to our own—having their own stan­ Human hair brushes are also used generally dards, their own style(s). Much of it is in Arnhem Land for painting on sheets of highly sophisticated art. However, lack of bark; while "ground painting" (p. 10) is car­ good technical equipment has been a limiting ried out ritually as far north as the Wave Hill factor right through the ages. The genius district. The Kangaroo-man, called by Mr. of Aboriginal art is the extent to which indiv­ Mountford Kandarik (Gandagi), was respon­ idual artists have triumphed over the restric­ sible for taking over the ubar ritual and the tive nature of their tools. special drum from women who (acorcding to several myth versions) originally possessed It is true, as Mr. Mountford says (p. 3), these (p. 15). And the painted designs on that all Australian Aborigines "practise a Queensland shields (p. 24) should not be similar way of life as simple hunters and thought of as resembling a "coat of arms"; food-gatherers . . ."; but it is also important they were selected by artists for their myth­ to remember that upon this seemingly com­ ological significance and to emphaise tiieir mon basis a wide range of different cultural close connection with the physical and natural expressions has developed, and these are as­ environment. Finally, the Panaramittee sociated with varying art styles. For instance, "crocodile" (p. 30) has been variously inter­ there were probably over 500 separate preted—^in one version it is a magical stick "tribes", as social and cultural units, scat­ made up of a criss-crossing of strings and not, tered over this Continent at the time of as it appears to be, the head of a sea-going initial European settlement; and although crocodile. each did not have a distinctive form of art, a number of "art areas" can be distinguished. One other question concerns the evaluation Mr. Mountford also indicates that "long of "static" and "dynamic" art. To Mr. Mount­ isolation" (p. 3), from other peoples has left ford the X-ray drawings of western Arnhem Aboriginal art uninfluenced by external Land are "essentially a static art" (p. 7) while sources. But from what we know today, the Mimi art shows "a strong sense of action." the Aborigines were in contact with "outside" I find it difficult to categorize in this way. groups; and this is particularly the case in True enough, in Mimi art figures are drawn Arnhem Land, Cape York Peninsula, possibly in movement (small figures hunting, nmning Bathurst and Melville Islands, and perhaps and dancing and so on), while in X-ray art the northern Kimberleys. the figures are bolder and more detailed in treatment, and there are not so many separate Most certainly Aboriginal art is different figures incorporated in a group. There are to our own, but it is a mis-statement to say obvious stylistic differences, as well as diff­ (of this, or any art) that "the subjects of then- erences in subject. But if we speak in aesth­ art are beyond the realms of our knowledge; etic terms, we do not necessarily use such their sj^nbolism is unlike anything we possess labels as "static" or "dynamic" (or "action") to . . ." (p 4). If it is understood by the people refer to a contrast of subject matter. I who create it, it can also be understood by would suggest that it is rather a question anthropologists, or by others who try ser­ of line and of treatment; a still life study iously to explore it. Of course, where the can be said to have "movement", a running people have completely disappeared, leaving figure may be "static". as tangible evidence of their presence in the country carvings, engravings, and paintings Mr. Mountford has been studying Aborig­ without adequate clues which would 'explain" inal art since before 1928. From that time them, then information about these is not until the present he has published many art­ recoverable—we can only speculate on their icles and several books, and has become a meaning and significance. recognised authority on his subject. Over the years he has focused his attention almost A few further points need comment. Con­ solely in that direction; and he has been res­ trary to Mr. Mountford's information X-ray ponsible, perhaps more than any other ethnol­ art often depicts human and spirit beings ogist, for communicating his enthusiasm to (p. 4); also, the Mimi spirits are the subject members of the general public and for mak­ of many myths and pseudo-historical ac­ ing available to them a very large body of

WESTERLY 17 outstanding Aboriginal art productions. ing, and is a form of language. Living Abor­ The debt we owe him, in this respect, is con­ iginal art has all this, and does aU this, in siderable. its traditional setting. If it is to have mea,n- Whether traditional Aboriginal art will ing for us, as AustraUans, we must learn its eventually make an impact on the develop­ language. ment of "white" Australian art is yet to be The few points of criticism I have made seen. Up to date its influence has been should not detract from the worthwhileness negligible—except in its debased form, in of Mr. Mountford's booklet, nor should they the shape of commercially produced items for deter those who are really interested in Abor­ the tourist market. A major barrier to its iginal art. While this can never, in a person­ acceptance has been its divorcement from its al sense, become our own art, it is being own social and cultural complex. AU art is increasingly recognized as part of our nat­ symbolic in one way or another; and all great ional heritage. It is pertinent to remember art (and there is much of Aboriginal art that our interest in Aboriginal art has in­ that is great) has something to say to its creased in inverse proportion to the disappear­ patrons and to its viewers; it must have mean­ ance of traditional Aboriginal life!

The Friend World At Bay

Some lovers, by benevolent moons, are graced Like a submarine that's drunk, With the kind benedictions of the sacramental the herring shot from root to trunk, Stars; their love splashed silvery branches barking at its fins, And dolphin-joyous on the slow-paced tipping up the balance of its scales, Pulse of their love's gentle, till seeing red, in gloom, a purple wine, Tideless mystery. fear turned it to a porcupine that swallowed its own tail Some, from the tumescent heat. on trackless tides to roll and wail Pluck with Promethean fingers with eyes red neons streaming Their exultation in the chorused loins: too brimful for seeing. Torn by a blood-chained beat OLIVE PELL. That, thickening lingers Until death unjoins.

This man clasped only the cold "Thank you"; cherished the turned Away embarrassment. This tempered friend Dared the worthiests' grip; and stood, old. And alone, and yearned That God would give him end.

M. COLLINS.

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WESTERLY 19 Reef

Charles Higham

The bitter weather rusts Those iron palings where Rags, bones and bits of tin Lie heaped beside the bin Of scooped-out rock and sand. Birds howl in the air Like scraps of paper tossed From the back maw of the sky: An anchor juts from the soil.

Easily, the rusted nib Scratches the symbols down: The ruin of days and years, Eyes brimmed with savage tears; You know the empty truck. Rust ruins every crown. Poets all cry together The sorrow of things that pass. And watch their poems die.

Crumple the paper up. Out on the reef the storm Breaks, cracks to a spear of moon. Surfers comb out and turn Crying, towards the beach Where arms are dark and warm. End threnodies and go Out where you know the body. Home where the tongue rejoices.

20 WESTERLY Autumn Into Winter

Griffith Watkins

Setting himself afloat Over anxious autumn's gear. Who shall undo the creaking seas. At this season of the year?

Through whooping-wet-winded Tenements of crest and trough. My warm-marrowed men. Hollow tunnels with their cough; Under the cross of mast And pitching horizon. Coiling their lives on the hook's hard line, Eyes and lips sealed in the wind's raw whine.

All is one season to eye and tail. Lying on their levels below, Dreaming of pot and hook Beneath the waves' exploding tow: Until the bond is made; And brown hands haul the price The pain insists upon Into the new kingdom come. And so, blunt winter, Tired of sacrifice. Grinds tiie white sky dovra, Taking the singing From my salt-kept boys' strong fingers, Growling for them against the breakwater's shine Where their hearts are held tight By the sea's green vine.

WESTERLY 21 The Culvert

Kathleen Anderson

LL CUT your throat you swine!" She attempt to keep them from the cold, not heard the quick scuffle of feet in the thinking of the walk through the frosty grass "Ikitchen , the voices rising in hate, the that reached past her ankles. Her jumper clash of the knffe as it hit the table and was last on, and she took time to do up the bounced onto the floor. She heard her safety pins. It had once been her mother's mother's sob as the old man snapped her and was much too large, but it was all she against the wall, heard her mother collapse had. Reluctantly she turned the handle and to the floor, screaming abuse. The drawer crept into the kitchen. Her mother stood of the kitchenette shut on the butcher's knife; by the stove, leaning her head on her arm, somewhere a rooster crowed. It was late . . . and her arm on the mantlepiece. In one nearly time to get up she thought. Then hand she held a potholder, with the other the sobbing stopped, her mother dragged she flipped fat lifelessly over the eggs in the past into the front room, slamming the door pan. The girl waited uncertainly; the woman behind her. The key turned in the lock, the did not look up. spare mattress thumped as it hit the floor. "Want anything to eat?" "You can find someone else to warm your "No-o. I mean ... no thank you," she bed for you from now on." There was sil­ added quickly, suddenly looking forward to ence then. The girl dozed. the frosty walk. She never did have break­ The alarm went off. Half past five, and fast. She was too scared father would come her mother would be stirring to light the fire. in for his, then she would be trapped; it was She'd just lie there for a few minutes to keep always best to keep out of his way, especially out of the way, then get dressed to go for after they'd been rowing. the cows. She shivered under the thin blan­ "Starve then. Starve to death for all I kets, snatching the last bit of warmth before care. I should never have had you in the plucking up courage to put her feet onto the first place." Her mother's voice rose, then cold boards. Another frost this morning. broke. "You were only forced on me any­ She could see it through the window, thick way. But don't worry! There won't be any and white, crusting the grass, but it would more where you came from." Her mother's soon steam away when the sun showed over crying followed her as she hurried around the far ridge and caught the ice in his long, the side of the house, milk bucket in one warm fingers. How she loved to watch the hand and a tin full of water to wash Mary's clouds cling with last desperate hope to the teats, in the other. It slopped down the hollows between the rolling hills, before they, side of her dress, and she gave a little moan as too, were plucked from their hiding places the cold cotton clung to her leg. and sent chasing to the sky. It was a game Most mornings she liked to stand for a between them, she knew, and the sun always minute or two at the front of the house and won. look out across the mile upon mile of hills The plunge was made at last. She stood, rolling away to the distant horizon; see the dragging on her pants and dress, hopping giant salmon gums swelling to the sky; see from one foot to the other in some useless the creek through the trees, winding along till

22 WBTERLY it reached the road near the gate where she cry. I won't. He can't make me cry. She caught the school bus, and rushed under the was kicking in the frost now, past caring, past culvert there. Her country. The country pain, past tears. The belt rose and fell. "Bawl, she was part of; the country she loved with you little beast, bawl!" He grunted with the dull, unknowing passion of a person who the effort. "I'll make you howl for mercy." can be sure that her country is the only thing She threw up her arm to protect her head, in the world which will love her in return. and a long red bruise went from shoulder to She was bound to it, and it was her only elbow. friend. Most mornings, but not this morning, as she was already running late. Mary's flank was soft and warm. She buried her head there, sniffling back the Down the hill from the house she went. tears. Long white streams hit the side of Mary was in the front paddock, probably the bucket, making squeaky noises, while her at the far end. Why didn't the old devil come stiffening fingers, numb from pain and cold, up to be milked? The Camerons' cows did. tried to hurry. She musn't miss the bus, as Lily Cameron said so. And the Camerons' that only meant another thrashing, and she had a shed to milk in when it rained, and couldn't stand another on top of the swelling Lily had two big brothers to help her. Her weals. Why did her parents hate her so? bare feet cut a green track through the crusty Lily Cameron's father never hit her. Be­ whiteness. Goodness it hurt; she'd try not sides, she tried to hard to please. If they to think about it. Her father said nothing only knew how much she loved them, maybe hurt if you told yourself often enough that it they'd be kinder sometimes. In future she didn't. Maybe that would work when she must try harder to be good. The froth crept was bigger. up the side of the bucket, too slowly it seem­ She put the bucket and water out of harm's ed, but only a few more squeezes and Mary way behind the strainer post and reached would be finished. up to undo the gate that led into the front Her lunch lay wrapped in newspaper on paddock. The loop was tight, too tight. the kitchen table, and she scooped it up as She jerked at it, ignoring the pain. Fear she ran through the door, down the hill, past lent desperation to her efforts. It was getting where her father was hunting the ewes and late. She mustn't be late, she'd miss the bus. rams with his dogs, and on towards the One last, sobbing wrench, the loop let go, road gate to the school bus. She didn't have the gate fell with a crash of frosty wire at a chance. She saw the white top of the bus her feet. She'd leave it open to save time, through the trees. It didn't even stop. Still and glanced quickly around to see no one she ran, not believing, not daring to . . . was in sight. Mary wasn't too far away, so there'd be plenty of time to bring her The bus driver would have pulled up through and worry about struggling to do up behind that clump of jam trees, and she the gate afterwards. She forgot her father's couldn't see it from where she was. Faster warnings, forgot his threats, forgot everything, her stubby legs moved. The bus would as she picked her way among the stones wait. She couldn't stand another thrashing. hidden in the frost. It wouldn't take a Not today. minute. The road wound silent among the trees, She heard him scream from the top of the still dusty where the bus had passed. A hill. Her heart bucked with fear. He came magpie called his drowsy call, and the little panting through the open gate, bellowing as creek bubbled under the culvert. She stood he ran, unbuckling his belt in his stride. staring down the road, half expecting the Her stricken eyes saw them, hurrying with bus to come back for her. She sat down to eager bleats to join the ewes, a dozen of them wait. She waited a long time, her lunch still or more, their long bags bouncing between clutched in her grubby hand. their hind legs in their haste. Frantic, she Then she knew the bus wouldn't be com­ moved to stop them. Too late, her father ing back after all, but she wouldn't go home. was on her, seizing her hand, flailing her in She'd wait there under the culvert until the his rage. She gasped with pain and fear. bus came back in the afternoon, and go home The belt rose and fell. It struck into her as though nothing had happened, get home back, her bottom, her legs. No tears, T won't at the usual time, and mother and father

WESTERLY 23 would suspect nothing. She was hungry. Two Poems by D. H. Henderson Just one sandwich, then she'd wrap her lunch up again and hide the rest in a space between the beams under the culvert, where it would keep cool till lunchtime, and the butter wouldn t melt. Jam again. She chok­ Eucla ed back another sniffle. WTiy couldn't she have fish paste or meat or something, and be like the other kids for a change. Tne sand­ Struck in carlight see the house of sand wiches were wrapped up, still untouched, Lies crouching. We are overland, her hunger suddenly gone, and she ducked And Lords of the Dunes. her head as she searched under the culvert Ours the scribbled names upon the walls. for a hiding place. There was one, and the Ours among the thousand scrawls. newspaper package went in, as far as she could push it. Something brushed her fingers Signatures among the ruins— in the dark. Bending dowm she washed her Less than Pyramids, but kinder camping hands in the creek. She'd play cars in the grounds sand with some flat stones, until the sun told For wanderers: the echoing sounds her it was time for dinner. She shivered. She'd changed her wet clothes before she'd That convolute about the land— left the house, and the sun was warm now, Caught with the myriad scalpel grains but still she shivered. Sift the house-shell's: eye holes stare across the plains, This one's a Ford, this one's a Chev, and this one's an Austin like the Camerons'. She Pale ribs slow drowning in the slack of sand. bent over her cars and the world was lost to her dream. She shouldn't feel sick. May­ be it was the sun, as she was hot now. She'd chmb the bank and lie under the trees for a while, then she'd feel better. Another Baptism shiver. She felt very sick now. She sat on the grass, rubbing her hand against her dress. When faith of old and strong parental love It was itching . . . probably where father had hit her. Did lead, not sensing sin before the Holy Dove: Mother would know what to do. Mother We brought on, nuturing nature's seed— would give her something to make her feel better. Mother would put her to bed and Which from commingled lust did breed, she wouldn't be sick any more. That was it! Saw out of love's irony the paradox revealed, She'd go home to mother, and father wouldn't Our son in Holy Church most safely sealed. belt her for missing the bus if he knew how sick she was. She cried a little with the His infant soul, erect from sullen apathy. pain. It wouldn't take long to walk home, then mother could make her well . . . not Touched by the man who gave his life to long . . . God- Bewailed the solemn moment with an instant They found her a couple of hundred yards up the track, her legs doubled under her cry— chest vdth pain, her tears dried in dirty patches on her cheeks, one hand stretched "Our rose enfoliate, the hungry sod. out and clawed around a tuft of grass, her Knows well his earthly nourishment face turned towards home. She'd been on Needs no such fine embellish' her way home, home to mother and father. menf— In the darkness of the culvert a shiny black body spun a new nest for the eggs Yet. later pray, his soul awakened, bold. bloating her red-striped abdomen. May taste his God, and join the heavenly fold. lA WESTERLY private moments, was his excep­ fact that they axe very different tional command of technique . . ." in their technique and efiEect. One feels that the coupling of Christian and poets—poets and BOOKS technique and sensitivity should Christian, both Buckley and Webb create great poetry, (as is with regard their role as existential and Donne) but in Mackenzie's case I vocational towards that final and cannot agree. It is not enough divine end, when all men will to master technique, nor to ex­ be "Masters in Israel". But be­ Selected Poems perience the harshest ecstasies of cause Buckley enquires far more privacy, and to retail these in a deeply into his own hfe's purpose Kenneth Mackenzie. speedily recognised diction of than Webb, I consider him the (Angus ir Robertson, 25/-} moons and beach white sands for superior poet, despite the occas­ love, or the skulls and birds and ional pyrotechnical phrase or VENNETH MACKENZIE was spiders of death as Mackenzie subject of Webb's poetry. ^ born in Perth in 1913 and left has done for the majority of his Life is a Christian stewardship this state for New South Wales verse. One must comment on to Buckley and accordingly his where he wrote two books of the universal from the uniqueness poetry reveals that in every mom­ poetry and various novels. He of particular experience with all ent of existence there is the nec- worked as a joinrnaUst in Sydney, the originality one can muster. essit)' of the divine end—all sit­ but after the war he Uved princi­ When one reads the refined uations and roles are occasions pally at Kurrajong, an orchard vagaries of Hugh McCrae, the lit- for Christian witness, precept and district. He was drowned near erateur, who tried to emulate action. His poems LATE TUT­ Goulbum in 1955. Shandy and Boswell, one realises ORIAL, READING TO MY SICK It is because Douglas Stewart that Mackenzie would obviously DAUGHTER, TO PRAISE A believes him to be "a poet of the have appealed to writers of his WIFE, and WALKING IN IRE­ first quality" that he has grate­ generation of Australian literary LAND are as much incidents fully edited this collection of his bohemianism, for Mackenzie has shaping and affected by his life poetry. In his introduction Stew­ the grace of finely turned verse, as they are witnesses to the div­ art comments on his sensitivity but he lacks the blunter truth ine contentions that must be re­ and his sensuousness. of later times. solved as far as possible during Mackenzie's early poems are P. W. JEFFERY. his life on earth. most often hymns of praise to the TO PRAISE A WIFE is con­ sexual act with both its physical cerned with the physical and of­ and mystical appeal. His later Christians and ten unreasoning nature of sexual poems show how, with the same relationships as opposed to the zest, he attacked a life of sim­ divine purpose of the individual plicity on an orchard, and ac­ Poets personality which is to save its cepted his children as the un­ soul. Like Donne he asks that conscious windfalls of his youthful "Masters in Israel": Vincent the human anger of thighs be laid desire. Finally, he approached the Buckley. Published Angus & aside for the purity of twin souls last shudder of death with the Robertson. Price 17/6. conversing in the quietness of same elemental wonder. "Socrates and other Poems"; space, but with the important diff­ The physical marvel of exis­ Francis Webb. Published Angus & erence in that Donne is romanti­ tence and the beauty of nature Robertson. Price 16/-. cising earthly love into its own that made up this poetic life was Both published with the assis­ divinity, whereas Buckley wants chronicled with an impressive var­ tance of the Commonwealth the souls separate, yet mutually iety of verse forms—^from the res­ Literary Fund. respecting each other, in the traint of the sonnet and the coup­ greater love of and for God. But let to the sensuous splendour of DOTH Buckley and Webb are Buckley is truly human and real­ the blank verse of his long poems. friends, and in fact we are giv­ ises that this is paradisical and Of this, Stewart says, en to believe in Buckley's IM­ that earthly love has its own "But what those of us who PROMPTU FOR FRANCIS elevating mystery, when he says: wrote verse ourselves chiefly ad­ WEBB that they are concerned " The smart mired in Mackenzie, for poets like with the same ends. But this And swarming of the blood's other tradesmen tend to talk shop friendship and common Catholic no text and leave the raptures for more outlook should not obscure the For the brash display of words."

WESTERLY 25 and again, "Rhyme must serve, and the his faith, and his only uncart- • "See you become my soul, my twisted heart limp after, ainty is the paradox of the earthly flesh, my eyes. Unioinding its own and every­ mystery. Webb, on the other Beauty in passion reconciled: thing's long coil." hand, lacks this consistentcy and And then my field, and then my He affirms that, makes me wonder whether he is harvest-world." "Each poem, too, is solar to yet established in his faith and Unashamed, and often em­ the world of man and time, and approach. phatic of his role as a poet, he will be raging soon. Unlike Buckley who often discusses as Yeats before him the Even if the heart die, some few writes from life and tries to wrest very branch, trunk and roots of his will see it the divine meaning from occurr­ art and its purpose in such poems At midnight flaring like the ences in nature or liistory, Webb as LATE TUTORIAL and IM­ pitch of noon:" often uses the mask to give us PROMPTU FOR FRANCIS thereby providing the Christian an imposed, but seemingly implic­ WEBB. The tutor contemplates witness that he and Webb must it truth within the character or the dying shade of afternoon and offer if they take their art ser­ incident that he selects. The tries to ensnare it in words, until iously. mask is a terrifying audacity, for his pupils come Buckley invites comparison with the poet must convince us with it that what he says is no counter­ "To teach me something of "ieats for both are concerned feit thing but an actuaUty. Again my destiny; with the symbohc meanings of it has the freedom of free ranging That love's not pity, words are poetry and of Ireland, but their time, line and external thought, not mine alone. resolution is quite different, for Yeats is romantic in his solution as in EYRE ALL ALONE, where And all are twined on the great he selects the solitude of that central tree'' whereas Buckley analyses all ex­ ternal happenings by the logic of explorer's march, to create the Their timid guesses and unreas­ the inner, intellectual soul. Yeats effect of the soul's journey. But oned trust in his words make often drifts off into the midst off such freedom has its own consis­ liim want to tear down the un­ mytli for he fearlessly accepts the tencies and I found it hard to ac­ mentionable wall of pain that con­ fury and mire of his human self, cept that Eyre is metaphysic in his ceals their desire for learning, and but Buckley as in WALKING IN thirst as in the section WATER, to reveal to them their need and IRELAND or SINN FEIN: 1957 or that his bitter trek nudged his role, rejects the blood's impulse, fired him past the "sands of Exodus". "O man is sick, and suffering by archetypal tale, as irrational. Eyre is an actuality whose person­ from the world. Intuition is not enough for Buck­ al diary was in Webb's own words And I must go to him, my ley, he refuses to be a rhapsode "infinitely more dramatic that this poetry mouthing the rhythms and rhymes poem can pretend to be" but Lighting his image as a ring of of his race. As a result, his poet­ Webb sees "his journey as sug­ fire. ry is rigid and concise, for he gestive of another that is com­ The terrible and only means . . would like to make only state­ mon to us all." Now either Webb ments of the absolute truth. Be­ is talking to us about a thing we he has. But he knows that such cause of this, his writing be­ know well, or Eyre is telling us truth would be too blinding and comes paradoxical when he can­ of a journey unique to himself, .so he contents himself with liom- not resolve an intuition into an and I found it unconvincing that ilies to avoid the embarrassment exact statement. He does not use Eyre's actual struggle through the of such a revelation. the paradox as an arresting poet­ dessert was similar to my spirit­ In IMPROMPTU FOR FRAN­ ical invention, but as the nec­ ual journey, for I confused the CIS WEBB he repeats the prob­ essary adjunct to his analytical Eyre that I know from my history lem, that "there is nothing here method—to truthfully state his book with the Eyre that Webb they will understand", but he in­ quandary, when no absolute state­ asked me to imagine. If Webb sists that he and Webb ment can be made. had posited the title as "ALL ALONE" without specific refer­ " cannot cease Impressive in his sincerity, ence or given me an archetypal Visioning an age without barrier Buckley's concise control comes or symbohc Voss, I could easily or taint." from his immolating faith, and his have accepted the invention of for this is their Christian duty and forays into the intricacies of hum­ journey and the validity of the poetic vocation. Poetry has to be an relationships illuminate life's mask of the stumbling explorer. beaten down to the divine end supernatural significance. His of instruction and spiritual delight; poetic approach is as consistent as Yet when Webb adopts the

26 WESTERLY mask successfully as in THE Taken by women (so I interpret) it BRAIN WASHERS, he brilliantly Gurge and cither braces or relaxes their low succeeds in providing the poetic bosoms, either uplifts or dejects corollary of Buckley's IN TIME Heave —one is reminded of Ahce's ad­ OF THE HUNGARIAN ventures with her little botdes of MARTYRDOM. Both poets, I This Vital Flesh physic, and how she never knew feel ,were inspired by the trial of William Baylebridge. whether she would dwindle or Cardinal Mindszenty and his pur­ (Angus ir Robertson, 42/-) expand. With men (the strong), ported confession. Buckley takes provided tliey suck in this vein- this historical Cardinal and intel­ Pulse-quickening wine, we pour maddening fire, it has a uniform lectually affirms him as the ever our charge in song: effect and sends them raging for recurring martyrdom of the Church Into the red-filled chalice of more and more potent liquors, through history. Webb is, how­ this verse "mightier proofs"—brandy, no ever, more intuitive, and step­ We empty it; look! how it lures doubt (80 proof), Scotch Whisky ping clear of the actual incident to taste! (86.8 proof), and finally the de­ and time creates the mask of the This resolute physic doth appal mon itself, gin (94.4 proof). archetypal priest, who will al­ or raise The bowl is burning, really ways be persecuted by the anti- Low bosoms, this vein—mad­ burning, for it needs an iron hand clericals, until he confesses to the dening fire. to lift it (perhaps a velvet glove, abominations that they feel it nec­ Sucked in, compels to mightier too): mulled claret is it? flaming essary to hear. The priest, as the proofs the strong. brandy? rum punch? By this poem itself, rises in the impressive Drink, ye with hearts, deep time who cares or knows? logic of his sanity and strength, from the burning bowl! That red powder: it must, I until the suspense of his persec­ See! even now we lift it to think, be an aphrodisiac of some ution snaps his earthly self into your lips kind, possibly dried red-back a convulsive jerkiness of confes­ Witli iron hand, strong potion spider finely ground. It maddens sion. Though the priest monot­ for the strong. men's veins, and in some women onously reiterates an external 'To rouse the entrammelled fit (notoriously kittle cattle) has an monologue, Webb shows us that from beds of ease / on our gruff astringent and elevating effect on he is listening to an even more horn we blow these messages,' a familiar erogenous zone. Images consistent refrain—the overwhelm­ explains William Baylebridge in of brassiere and brasserie are ing silence of God's eternal ac­ his Prologue to The New Life". cleverly conjoined. And a further ceptance. Some horn, some message. One message from Mr. Baylebridge It is this unevenness of Webb's readily imagines the fit, started provides additional evidence, for poetic purpose and control, which from their beds of ease and extri­ after a number of similar calls to makes me disregard his brilliant cating themselves from their tram­ toping (Come, Life's elect! / Feel phrasemaking and Buckley's state­ mels (fishing-nets? fetters? tresses broader for tliis draught— / Drink ment that they are equal wit­ of a woman's hair?), shaking till you split or till / You put your nesses. Yet ,if Webb could either muzzy heads over the terms of utmost on!—note the witty pun dominate his mask so convincingly this invitation to a "sacramental" in "broader", "more like a broad") as to make me beheve his imposed drinking-party. Pulse-quickening there follows, at an appropriate truths, or when the masks them­ wine is emptied into red-filled interval, a number; of calls to selves have sufficient focus and chalices: how can this be? How tupping. Husbandry, for exam­ force to create the universal trutli can you pour wine into chalices ple. out of their own essence, he will already full? And what is this Hast a full share of generous have taken Buckley's warning: "red"? Well leave that for a grain, "Old friend, be careful: Words moment: the resultant fluid, what­ And sow'st thus? Plant, and would become our home ever it is, "lures to taste". It plant again! And cosset us, till one dark day has clearly, though, been doctored we find them since it is now described as a Let fertile land Not fallow stand; Dwindled to ash, or rigid as the physic that is resolute—resolute tomb." in that, presumably, the red stuff Nor the god's gift, not lightly and I will accept him equally (some medicinal powder) has now given, profane! with Buckley as true Christian and dissolved (late Middle English, Hast a fit clarion? poet; true poet and Christian. but B is given to archaisms). This And so on. But perhaps Fit P. W. JEFFERY. physic has strange properties. Marriage Sacred is better.

WESTERLY 27 Holy, ever holy, be breed . . .": that is the point strength, our Spur, our consol­ The staff of this humanity! (hast a fit projection?). To breed ation our immortality. It flowers not in the myriad for the super-race and the super­ Uncredulous babe! why fret? seed state, when children Why squirm and lour? Tliat drops from the consenting State-fathered, too, would knaw Come, niceness quit! weed— no taint condition Wholesome the milk flows yet That ne'er sliall serve it, nor In any scrupulous supposition. That ne'er ran sour despise Nor shall for ever— As the old song says, the sub­ With impotence to fertilise. jects interesting but the rhymes is Though it run O art thou strong in sight and mighty tough—and the poetic Through an eternity of nipples thew? language, we may add, less excit­ Thy seed it asks, and largely ingly pregnant than the message. The milky way of eternal tipple: too. Mr. Baylebridge is in this vol­ what more could one want? For Give greatly, or a worse mis­ ume very much the philosopher— "Death is not": the lamp of life carriage poet, as he explains in his Pre­ passes from hand to hand in a Must thou answer for to mar­ face, concerned with man not as never-ending relay-race to the re­ riage. an individual but "as grouped in­ sounding cheers of "Play up, play Holy, ever holy be to nations" and, even more, "as a up, and play the game!" Not The staff of this humanity! part of the life-force". "How Newboldt's game, of course, but There are some difficult prob­ squalid is this world of man's! the old game—"tilling some pot­ lems of interpretation here—in how dull!" he exclaims in a poem ential womb". on poetry. lines three to six especially—^but I Now, you can call this sort of must not linger on them. Still, Breath lapses into prose. Rebel! thing "philosophy" if you like— one should remark the word Life now in terms of its exalted I wouldn't want to, and I can't miscarriage, so wonderfully ap­ ten. imagine any professional philo­ propriate, in its context; and it is Till faith—as only thus she sopher wanting to. But the truly important to pick up the imph- can— relevant point to make is that it is cations of "strong in sight and Restored, shall find the next very poor poetry. Much of This thew". This is no vulgar orgy, accent for Man. Vital Flesh is just tedious didactic and one is warned off indiscrimin­ doggered, "gurge and heave", Some of the clarion-calls to the ate fertilisation. One must, in where language is handled clum­ next decade we have already glan­ planting one's seed, be fit oneself sily, imprecisely, and unimagin­ ced at. The opening poems of and have a sufficiently penetrative atively. "Philosophy" becomes This Vital Flesh offer a panoptic vision to recognise a fit piece of operative in poetry only when "it view of man's ascent so far—^his fertile land. For Mr. Bayle­ is tried on the pulses", when it is ascent from "primal ooze". bridge is a engenist, and will imaginative experience, felt life. countenance the filling of sound From tmiversal throes, immense To do Baylebridge justice, he sees vessels from virile loins (to use Pas-t the accompt of reeling this clearly as a matter of theory. his own phraseology) only in the sense. In his notes to this volume he sacred interests of creative evo­ By primal forces space that speaks of a poem as being "the lution. He abhors "impure ex­ cleave symbol of a significant experience" cess" and bids man beware of In their ungripped velocities. and emphasises that "the poet's women who are "patrons of ster­ Through cataclysmic gurge and sense of language .... vividly ile peace" an dare "keen to sap heave liberates, for its effect on imag­ thy knees". Fit women, too, Outmatching Chaos ination, some meaning beyond the must be strong in sight and thew: Through aeons of suchlike cata­ first meaning it bears Since weakling are to perish, clysmic images the earth labours communicates the peculiar charac­ wives. until "I ter of the author's experience with To save their labour and their Was worked, whole into flesh the most penetrating vigour, the at last." finest definition, and the subtlest Will keep their tillage clean, Enfin Balyebridge vint, climbing detail." Agreed; but it is just and freed upon "the shoulders of all time", these qualities I find conspicuously From planters of degenerate and bearing his banner with the lacking in Baylebridge's poetry, seed. strange device. Excelsior. The and I have attempted to indicate "Projection fit is what? To Life Force is our refuge and these lacks in my brief analysis

28 WESTERLY and quotations. For one final ex­ mantle, I would prophesy gloomily biographies which consciously or ample I offer Art's Potency: that in the near future, when Pro­ unconsciously inflate the import­ Art can rear, its attestation fessors of Australian Literature ance of their subject, or attempt whole, have got themselves and their re­ to show him in a favourable light; Temples for the questing soul; search students going, we are often the biographers of great In the clay whose travail yet is doomed to see a number of theses men can afford to paint them not on Baylebridge's thought; his debt "warts and all" and the humanity This soul, to urge it, art can to Shakespeare, Blake and Shelley; thus revealed leaves their great­ plot. his love-life; and whatever else ness the more stiring. But in can be dredged up. That will be this case Miss Heney has metho­ Can one really find here "pene­ "excelsior" indeed. Personally, as dically laid bare a petty and un­ trating vigour, the finest definition, I have already obeyed one of attractive soul, and at the same and the subtlest detail"? How fine Baylebridge's injunctions while time diminished the already minor and penetrating is the metaphor reading his verses ("I laugh in significance of his work—leaving of rearing temples? What exact­ your navel"), I shall with light­ us with what? To her, the new ly—or even inexactly—do the last some heart follow his further ad­ image seen "in a glass darkly" two lines communicate? Despite vice: is a "less admirable, but much his theories (beter expressed in From all that springs from more humanly pitiful figure"; to his prose than in his verse) Bayle­ •super-fatulence, keep off! many others he may seem scarce­ bridge's "significant experience" ly vrorthy of admiration or pity. never takes on "vital flesh". I advise my readers to do the same. The pages and pages of some­ Yet Baylebridge has been rather L. R. BURROWS. what repetitive detail through hightly praised. One need not which the "Polish Count" is inch take seriously the reviews in the by inch exposed, become more daily press—the Sydney Morning understandable when seen in the Herald which classed him with light of previous work on Streze­ Blake, Shelley, and Tennyson; the In A Dark lecki. The favourable if myster­ Sunday Times (Perth) which ious image of the man which was thought "this book is extraordin­ accepted by most of his contem­ ary". But the academics have Glass poraries, was for years perpetuated taken him on his own terms: by biographers. And of these The Story of Professor Howarth regards him "as there have been an inordinately Paul Edmond Strezelecki. a prophet-poet, writing to convey large number, in both Polish and H. M. E. Heney. a vision" and carrying on "the English, for a man of his stature, great traditions of English liter­ (Angtts

WESTERLY 29 English sources in the original, ranges, rivers and streams in var­ wartime Treasurer and post-war and spent many years gathering ious parts of the continent, named leader—and J. T. Lang—the belli­ and assimilating her material. Her to honour the legend of ""The cose pre-war Premier of New biography must be accepted as Count". South Wales. They had much in thoroughly definitive. Apart from B. K. de GARIS. common. Both beheved that the its historical value, "In a Dark secret of political power was the Glass" will also attract some read­ manipulation of money. Both ers simply as a nineteenth cen­ believed that the free enterprise tury biography, although a little trading banks were the wicked more lightness of touch would agents of their political opponents. have made it more readable. The Great Both men believed that they only What can finally be said of needed to control the banks in Paul Edmond Strezelecki? In the Bust order to be able to refashion field of Australia exploration he Australia society in the interests of may stand as one of the earhest By J. T. Lang (410 pp., illust. the Labour movement. In the (but not as he long sought to index. Angus & Robertson, Syd­ ultimate neither were successful claim, the first) explorers, and also ney, 1962)." and both were wrong. The Aust­ the namer, of the Gippsland; and ralian voters decisively rejected the as the conqueror and namer of TURING ITS brief history the proposal to nationalise the private Mt. Kosciusko—probably the Australian political Laboiur trading banks; and it was also only native peak of which most movement has thrown up more shown that the control of banking Australians could call to mind the than a score of brilliant leaders. could be achieved without resort name. In the field of science But many have kicked away the to such a drastic expedient. There Strezelecki's "Physical Description ladder of their ascent. Having was, however, a most important of New South Wales and Van risen on the backs of the workers, contrast between the policies of Diemen's Land" is now almost they have been corrupted by pow­ the two men. Chifley stood firm forgotten except by scientific an­ er and prestige and have ended on the party's platform of nat­ tiquarians, but its sections on their days as wealthy or titled ional unification, even if it meant Tasmanian geology were not "scabs", the toadies of the rich. the subordination of State Labour superseded for many >'ears; his The galaxy of ex-Labour rogues leaders. J. T. Lang, representing early advocacy of irrigation is impressive—Holman, Hughes, the oldest, the largest and the schemes was sound, and although Scaddan, Pearce and Lyons to wealthiest of the six States, was his claims to be the discoverer of name but a few. Most of them a federalist of the old school, Gold in Australia were meaning­ found the discipline of trade union believing that the federal compact less, he may well have been one democracy when transplanted into was a static agreement providing of the many who knew of its Parliament too galling. Most of for the mutual protection of the existence before Hargreaves. them found that the Labour move­ Commonwealth and State gov­ ernments. The ready acceptance which his ment was merciless in its punish­ glib tongue, suave manner, and ment of leaders who would not Lang's most recently published aristocratic pretensions won in be led by the rank and file or book of memoirs, which deals Australia throw an interesting who tried to change its character mainly with the Depression of the light on early colonial society. In and its direction in their own nineteen thirties, shows how he the small and overwhelmingly interests. Then there were other fought a lone battle to preserve Anglo-Saxon community there was Labour leaders who were so ob­ some measure of financial indep­ something delightfully exotic sessed vwth a missionary zeal to endence for the States against the about a European name, even to implement the Movement's plat­ rapidly increasing power of the the educated Franklins. Later in form that they failed to realise Federal Government. His book his life, Strezelecki received some­ that the political organisation de­ also shows that his fight (and how thing of the recognition he had al­ pended upon the community at he relished a fight!) was too late, ways craved—-acceptance by fel­ large and not only on trade and that he mistook a temporary low scientists, an honorary degree, unions for an electoral mandate. economic disaster for a political and a genuine title. But if his These, perhaps, have caused the mandate; "The Great Bust" broke name lives in the minds of Aust­ greatest damage. Amongst them every government in Australia, ralians it is likely to be through were J. B. Chifley—Australia's Labour and Nationalists alike. the more permanent memorials, Lang shared a common political the host of moimtain peaks and "This review by courtesy THE CRITIC, experience with most of his op- W.A.

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WESTERLY 31 ponents in having been returned to formative, argumentative and and non-Labour abke—Bruce, power to cure an unemployment entertaining. It has a wide can­ Page, Gibson, Nie-Meyer, Lyons problem that nobody could cure, vas on which are painted in sev­ and Scullon—Lang paints them as and having been defeated for eral dimensions the usurers, loan- a galaxy of guilty men who pre­ the same reason. The electors mongers, economics professors, ferred to protect the bond holders were indeed as merciless as Lang, absentee creditors, parish pump rather than feed the starving un­ though Lang would have it that tories, Canberra-corrupted union­ employed. If this book is to be they were also ignorant. How­ ists, anti-Labour judges, poUtioal read as an explanation of the com­ ever, Lang's book is a monument pimps and the frightened and gut­ plexities of Australian financial and to his own ignorance, or dehb- less Labour leaders who together political history during the nine- erate unwillingness to face up to a shared public affairs with J. T. teen-twenties and 'thirties, then it rapidly changing situation. The Lang during the inter-war years. should be taken in small doses financial autonomy of the States The book cannot be excelled for with great care. But if it is to be began to decline as soon as the its candid comments on the nat­ read for an insight into the mind first federal parliament met in ion's leaders and for the way in of one of Labour's greatest and Melbourne in 1901. Financial res- which the one pure, uncorrupt­ most mistaken leaders then it is a ponsibihty for the war of 1914- ible, visionary leader of the Aust­ priceless volume. Australian pol­ 18 accelerated the process, and ralian Labour movement stood itical autobiographies are extra­ the Financial Agreement of head and shoulders above the ordinarily scarce. Lang's book is 1927 (which was written into the morass of gullible and degenerate a gem. Constitution by a referendum place-seeking politicians! Labour F. K. CROWLEY. which Lang imsuccessfully op­ posed) sealed the financial fate of the States; if they had any auto­ nomy left it was certainly gone by the end of the war of 1939- 45. Lang refused to accept this progression. He would not agree to the financial unification of Australia THE CRITIC is- and seemed to beheve that New South Wales could remain within the Federation and yet misbehave a journal of criticism published every itself to the detriment of the other six governments when it chose to three weeks which contains reviews do so. Lang was wrong in fact of Perth theatre, painting, music and and wrong in tactics, and he was mistaken in thinking that the Com­ articles of general interest. monwealth Constitution was un­ enforceable. He was mistaken in thinking that he could get the Subscribe (15/- per year or special support of the Labour movement "donation" subscription £3/3/-) and to defy the power of the Com­ monwealth. He was also wrong in THE CRITIC will be posted to you, by thinking that the people of New writing to: South Wales woud support him. In the end he was rejected by both the Labour movement and THE EDITORS, the electors of New South Wales. Since then he has been very bitter THE CRITIC, and highly vocal, and has spent much of his time and energy justi­ UNIVERSITY OF W.A. fying his politics, abusing his en­ emies and cataloguing the villains Also available at all leading bookshops of Austrahan pohtics. The Great Bust is his most successful book in Perth. on all three counts. It is in­

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