A New Zealander In Sydney Town

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 466, 22 September 1928, Page 28

A New Zealander In Sydney Town

(THB SUN’S Correspondentj SYDNEY, September 14. Norman Lindsay, one of the greatest of them all, is the latest person to rouse the ire of all good Australians. Some time ago the famous etcher wrote a private letter in which he referred to Australia as a moribund hole, hardly above the mental level of backwoods America/’ Australians who have been particularly loyal, in the main, to the talented Lindsays, were extremely annoyed, so brother Norman was called upon for an explanation. Ho said: “What can be said for a country as rich as this that refuses to support a national orchestra, a country that owns a great _jx>et and does not read him, a country that is notorious as a dumping-ground for third-rate English and American novels—a country that does not possess one novelist, and, if it did, does not possess a publisher who would publish him —a country that has not produced a singlo musician or even a single inventor of note. “This is painful. The only genuine tribute of respect we can pay to mental energy in Australia, is to its medical group of clinics in experimental surgery and X-ray analysis, who are undoubtedly doing fine work here.” There is a good deal of truth in what Norman Idndsay says. John Brownlee’s Countess With the grand opera season almost closed, comes news of the en-

I g&gement of John Brownlee, the fam- ' ous Australian baritone, to an Italian countess. Brownlee, of course, has been Melba’s greatest discovery of re- | cent years. The future Mrs. Brownl lee is the Donna Carla Oddone di ! Felleto, and their attachment dates I from the days when the Australian singer was a student in Paris, and the countess likewise bent on a course of study. She is described as a distin-guished-looking girl, with a wonderfully fair skin, blue eyes, and masses of dusky hair. John, incidentally, joins the Narkunda later in the month, en route tp Italy and his Italian eontessa. Lebbeus Hordern Dead The sensation of the week was undoubtedly the death of Lebbeus Hordern, brother of Sir Samuel Hordern, and a member of the well-known millionaire family of Sydney. The child of his first marriage, now on his way to Europe to join the first Mrs. Lebbeus, will inherit, so say the gossips and they always know, no less a sum than £2,000,000. The second wife, a daughter of Judge Barry, is a sister of Roger Barry, the actor. Though a prolific spender, the late Lebbeus Hordern assisted many worthy objects that one would not usually associate with a man of his temperament and tastes. One of his last public gifts was a cheque for £5,000 to SquadronLeader Kingsford Smith and FlightLieutenant Ulm, conquerors of the Pacific—and the Tasman. Mr. Bruce Boycotted Broken Hill, the miners’ centre, has taken a most unreasonable dislike to poor Mr. Bruce. The Prime Minister cannot attribute any specific reason for it, unless, of course, it is because of his spats, and one would hardly wear spats to —Broken Hill. The Workers’ Industrial Union has decided that in the event of the Prime Minister visiting their town no alderman or official

belonging to the Australian Labour Party shall take part in the welcome.. Doubtless Mr. Bruce is woefully upset at the boycott. Mention of the Prime Minister, who with Mr. Coates shared the distinction of being the “baby” of the last Imperial Conference, recalls the fact that he is ageing. Though still well on the sunny side of 50, the cares of office are undoubtedly weighing upon him. Mr. Bruce is a politician who takes his job tremendously seriously. How he ever came to enter politics, let alone assume the high office he holds with such distinction, will always puzzle the visitor. Australian politicians do not all speak with a Cambridge accent. Roman Catholic Education

The other day I heard Mr. Bruce being informed of the fact that Australia and New Zealand were the only two countries in the Empire which do not subsidise Roman Catholic schools, and in another breath, assured very definitely that there was no such thing as “an organised Catholic vote.” As the Commonwealth Government has the educational control of its own Federal Territory at Canberra in its own hands, so to speak, it was suggested that a commencement should be made there with a subsidy for Catholic education. The Prime Minister, in his reply, was nothing if not frank. As the six sovereign States, he said, were overwhelmingly in favour of the present system—as In New Zealand—of free, compulsory and secular education, he would not interfere at Canberra. If any change was to be made, he declared quite definitely, it would have to come from the States themselves, and not from the Federal Government. ERIC RAMSDEN.