CHARLES DARWIN, English naturalist who visited in 1836. The whole population, poor and rich, are bent on acquiring wealth: amongst the highest orders, wool and sheep-grazing form the constant subject of conversation.All these criticisms – direct or implied – were made by people who did not live here, except the last. The Australian character has been formed in part in reaction to the put-downs of outsiders, especially the English. The alternative to rejecting the criticisms was to embrace them, an attitude that was dubbed ‘the cultural cringe’ by A.A. Phillips, a leading man of letters in the 1950s and 1960s. The last extract is a fine example of the cringe.
CHARLES DARWIN, English naturalist who visited in 1836. The whole population, poor and rich, are bent on acquiring wealth: amongst the highest orders, wool and sheep-grazing form the constant subject of conversation.
A Naturalist’s Voyage (1879), p. 444
Anon (1850s).
There vice is virtue, virtue vice,
And all that’s vile is voted nice
F.G. Clarke, The Land of Contrarieties (1977), p. 170
CHARLES DICKENS, English novelist.
In David Copperfield Dickens ships off a number of his characters to Australia, among them Emily, Mr Peggotty’s daughter, who has been ‘ruined’ by running away with the cad Steerforth.
‘You have quite made up your mind,’ said I to Mr. Peggotty, ‘as to the future, good friend? I need scarcely ask you.’
‘Quite, Mas’r Davy,’ he returned; ‘and told Em’ly. Theer’s mighty countries fur from here. Our future life lays over the sea.’
‘They will emigrate together, aunt,’ said I.
‘Yes!’ said Mr. Peggotty, with a hopeful smile. ‘No-one can’t reproach my darling in Australia. We will begin a new life over there!’
David Copperfield (1850), ch. 51
English cricketer, when spectators invaded the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1879.
You sons of convicts.
Sydney Morning Herald, 10 February 1879
ANTHONY TROLLOPE, English novelist who visited in 1871–72.
The wonders performed in the way of riding, driving, fighting, walking, working, drinking, love-making, and speech-making, which men and women in Australia told me of themselves, would have been worth recording in a separate volume had they been related by any but the heroes and heroines themselves. But reaching one as they do always in the first person, these stories are soon received as works of a fine art much cultivated in the colonies, for which the colonial phrase of ‘blowing’ has been created. When a gentleman sounds his own trumpet he ‘blows’. The art is perfectly understood and appreciated among the people who practise it. Such a gentleman or such a lady was only ‘blowing’! You hear it and hear of it every day. They blow a good deal in Queensland; – a good deal in South Australia. They blow even in poor Tasmania. They blow loudly in New South Wales, and very loudly in New Zealand. But the blast of the trumpet as heard in Victoria is louder than all the blasts, – and the Melbourne blast beats all the other blowing of that proud colony. My first, my constant, my parting advice to my Australian cousins is contained in two words – ‘Don’t blow.’
Australia (1967), pp. 375–6
J.A. FROUDE, English historian who visited in 1885. It is hard to quarrel with men who only wish to be innocently happy.
Oceana (1886), p. 191
OSCAR WILDE, Irish playwright.
Cecily: I think you had better wait till Uncle Jack arrives. I know he wants to speak to you about your emigrating.
ALGERNON: About my what?
CECILY: Your emigrating. He has gone up to buy your outfit.
ALGERNON: I certainly wouldn’t let Jack buy my outfit. He has no taste in neckties at all.
CECILY: I don’t think you will require neckties. Uncle Jack is sending you to Australia.
ALGERNON: Australia! I’d sooner die.
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Act II
D.H. LAWRENCE, English novelist who visited in 1922.
This is the most democratic place I have ever been in. And the more I see of democracy the more I dislike it. It just brings everything down to the mere vulgar level of wages and prices, electric light and water closets, and nothing else.
The Collected Letters of D.H. Lawrence, vol. 4, p. 263
H.G. WELLS, English novelist who visited in 1938–39.
Australia, very much Americanised, but intensely British, is not yet a nation.
Age, 27 January 1939
WINSTON CHURCHILL, British Prime Minister in World War II. The P.M. is in a belligerent mood. He told us that he had sent a stiff telegram, to Curtin, the Prime Minister of Australia. The situation in Malaya was making Australia jumpy about invasion. Curtin was not satisfied with the air position. He had renewed his representations to London in blunt terms. The P.M. fulminated in his reply. London had not made a fuss when it was bombed. Why should Australia? At one moment he took the line that Curtin and his Government did not represent the people of Australia. At another that the Australians came of bad stock. He was impatient with people who had nothing better to do than criticise him.
Lord Moran, Winston Churchill (1966), p. 21
US General DOUGLAS MACARTHUR, on the Australians fighting on the Kokoda Track, 1942.
Operations reports show that progress on the trail is NOT repeat NOT satisfactory.
To which Major General A.S. Allen drafted this reply: ‘If you think you can do any better come up and bloody try’ (which he did not send).
David Horner, Crisis of Command (1978), pp. 209–10
GERMAINE GREER, Australian feminist resident in England. Australia is a huge rest home, where no unwelcome news is ever wafted on to the pages of the worst newspapers in the world.
London Observer, 1 August 1982
PAUL KEATING, Australian Prime Minister 1991–96.
Patrick White and I never had a lot in common but one thing we certainly had in common – he said ‘sport has addled the Australian consciousness’ and I think it has.
Age, 17 November 2005
We’ll be off to Europe. We won’t be staying here – this is the arse-end of the earth.
Bob Hawke, Memoirs (1994), p. 501