A MAKER OF AUSTRALIA
| THE CAPTAIN-GENERAL, a _ study of Lachlan Macquarie, Governor of New South | Wales, 1809-1821, by B. H. _ Travers; Sa raac-tmiah Head Press, price / [F one judges delinquency on the youshould -have-known- better principle, Australia’s "birth-stain" ranks above the rum racketeering of the officers of the | New South Wales Corps. Lachlan Mac- | quarie followed Bligh, victim of the "Rum Rebellion," and served for the longest period in the State’s history. His biographer’s career picturesquely illustrates Australia’s advance in the arts of peace and war since Macquarie took that isolated, confined and debased society by the neck and shook it into something like decency and order. B. H. Travers served with distinction in the last war, was a Rhodes Scholar, won Rugby and cricket blues at Oxford, and played Rugby for England. His book was begun as an Oxford thesis. / } Macquarie, first soldier Governor after four sailors, had faults and made mistakes, but Mr. Travers’s story, fully _ documented, gives some support to the _ Australian Encyclopaedia’s verdict that Macquarie was "the greatest and most beneficent Governor Australia has seen." He reformed the currency from the infamous rum basis; extended" the employment of emancipists-setting an example by receiving them at his table; fostered the exploration that pushed settlement over the Blue Mountains; | laid out Sydney and other towns; and /generally set higher standards for private and public life. Also, he had a national vision, as words on his tombstone testify: "The Father of Australia." Much of the story is concerned with Macquarie’s long and bitter struggles with "gentlemen settlers" and officials. One of his opponents was Samuel Marsdeff, and the picture presented of this famous missionary is not very agreeable. The book is rather too full of detail for the ordinary reader, and the writing is somewhat repetitive and pedestrian, but there is no question of its value as a memorial to one of the earliest makers of the Australian nation.
A.
M.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540507.2.26.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 772, 7 May 1954, Page 14
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322A MAKER OF AUSTRALIA New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 772, 7 May 1954, Page 14
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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