Introducing Australia
$3.00 By JOHN DAY
AUSTRALIA, which is less widely and accurately known in this country than it should be, is fortunate in this introduction. For Mr. Grattan has studied the Commonwealth thoroughly, likes Australians, and attains a happy balance of facts and impressions in this all-round survey of Australian life. There is very little about the huge islandcontinent, with its 7,000,000 inhabitants and its 2,975,000 square miles of area, that does not find a place in this closely packed yet attractively written book. Australia seems destined to loom larger on the American horizon as an important ally in the Far Eastern war, and Mr. Grattan has many interesting things to tell about the Australian war effort, which has been magnificent, although there is no conscription for overseas service; about the growth of Australian industrial self-sufficiency (a very similar process is to be observed in Canada); about the Australian naval base at Port Darwin, which, after Singapore and Soerabaja, is of capital importance for sea operations. It is important to remember the enormous distances, the poor communications, and the population distribution in Australia; there is a ‘dead heart ‘ of about one million square miles of waterless waste in the centre of the country. The author is also a compendium of information on many things Australian, from government and social institutions to how sheep are shorn and how Australians curse.
W. H. C.