Chapter X: The Australian's Lack of Patriotism

It so happens that the Australian couldn't, even if he wanted to, say, "This is my own, my native land." That is, of course, with any degree of truth. For the Australian has long since put the country in pawn.

Instead of evincing any lofty sentiment, however, the Australian is generally to be heard cursing his country, and a good number of him get away from it the first opportunity the good God gives them. And small wonder. It is a land of burlesque. It is built on entirely wrong principles. The mountains are all round the coast, and they keep the rain from going inside. The consequence is that there is always a drought in the interior, which same remark applies also to the Australian himself.

"It's a good place to live out of," says the ignominious Australian, if you ask him anything about it.

In his dunderheadedness he can't see that he has fenced out enterprise, and is fast legislating himself out of the country. The emigration figures of Australia represent those of the inhabitants who can scrape a couple of hundred pounds together in order to escape the national debt, the suckers, and the reprehensible politician.

When it was proposed that Australia should borrow the money in England to give England a Dreadnought, one of the State Premiers was interviewed on the subject. He sounded the depths in patriotic sentiment by remarking, "It would be a good advertisement!"

It is only in a Mr. Alfred Deakin peroration or that of some other silver-tongue that you hear of Australian patriotism. Silver tongue, by the way, is a mere euphemism; there is a more direct and much shorter Saxon synonym.

If Australia were a great country, it would have the natural corollary, a great man. But it has never produced one.

Sir Henry Parkes once proposed to erect a mausoleum for the illustrious dead of Australia, but the hopelessness of getting eligible corpses caused the idea to be abandoned. There are, however, in Australia many unexplained monuments. Among the latest was one in Brisbane, raised to a deceased Rugby football player. Will the Australian ever get any sort of sense of proportion?

But a people, I suppose, must first of all have love of country before it gets a standard of measurement. If a plebiscite were taken it would be found that the memory of Edward Kelly is far more revered by the citizens of this mean country than that of any other citizen. This national hero was familiarly known as Ned Kelly. After a series of misunderstandings with the police, he died suddenly one morning.

The individual Australian, be it here remarked, does not consider the collective Australian much class, and the Australian who has travelled has a sneaking disregard for his compatriots. If he has spent two months in London, he returns an ape Englishman. So far as loose clothes and cheap mannerisms will carry him he is a Londoner. It is a noticeable fact that he imitates the most inane of insular types. The more howling the particular London ass of the period, the more sincere the Australian flattery of him. This needs no comment.

And when this two-months-in-England idiot returns to Australia some gushing she-Australian will say to him--

"Oh, Mr. Absent Two-Months (Printer, don't forget the hyphen), I can tell you're an Englishman. You're so different from the Australian."

At this Mr. Absent Two-Months will smile smugly, conscious of the higher appraisement.

Then he will commend her for her discernment in words.

"Well--er, I was born out he--ah," he will say, "But, you know, I--er have lived in England--haw!"

She just dotes on Englishmen. She likes the way they turn their trousers up at the bottoms.

Then they start. He will agree with her in sweeping depreciation of Australia and all who live in it, and he will tell her what a jolly country England is. She will sigh sympathetically to the cad, instead of calling in the dust-bin emptier to pole-axe him. It would be a more patriotic extreme.

Now how could this kind of woman kindle the spark of patriotism in her children, assuming for the moment that she was prepared to bear them? How could she instil love of country? She has no passion for things Australian. Her mother never adopted the country for a start. She was one of those wistful creatures who called Old England "Home," and her children learnt it right enough.

And these Australian women are now lending a voice in the country's affairs. The word voice is used deliberately. It is about the only thing the Australian will lend the country.