AUSTRALIA

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 296, 11 June 1912, Page 4

AUSTRALIA

Australia has made great progress during the past ten years. She has successfully tackled the great problem of closer settlement. She has attacked the problem of manufactures and is always making a name for the value of her goods. She has also attacked the problem of slums, and is remodelling vast areas of cities. She has concentrated with remarkable energy on agricultural education, she has a truly great military scheme which is less modilied and watery than ours, and she has wakened up to the vital necessity of keeping her magnificent territory intact. We know that the Australian is as selfreliant, vigorous and progressive as his brother on this side and seems to manage his affairs with remarkable success, if not absolute genius. The trace of 'his vitality and his self reliance is to be found in the frequent reverses he meets. There is no vital question on -which the New Zealander can instruct him, for his greatest problems are in the war against nature. No confusion of new political blood, or of young New Zealanders will tell him more than he knows about his enemies—floods, drought, bush fires, tick, snakes or malaria. Even Sir Joseph Ward could not prevent 'his rivers dwindling in hot summers or irrigate his unthinkable expanses of desert. In contemplating Australia tie young New Zealander who essays to teach it how to live must look further than the small spots of ground on which Sydney and Melbourne are built. Neither is Australia and neither is markedly Australian, and the denizens of these cities generally make the same mistake of supposing that a city is the essential point for examination in a country. There are bright minds in Australia that are being concentrated on the growing problem of decentralisation. "We can tell them nothing about it, for centralisation is our own besetting sin. There is indeed no single thing that any New Zealand politician can do for Australia, or any problem that faces the Commonwealth that can be more easily solved by a New Zealander than a Cornstalk. If there is any modesty in Australia New Zealand might examine the article and if possible borrow a supply. If there is an inspiration in the greater self-dependence of our brothers, in their unswerving courage in great difficulties, in their ardent devotion to country, it is worth observing by even the most superior New Zealander.