What Australia was Doing.

That day I had a letter from Australia. Here it is:

“Dear Jefson, Your cheery letter from the front was full of the powder and shot of action and riotous optimism. I’m afraid mine will be a contrast.

“Our Australia isn’t faring well. Our vigorous assertion of the strength of our young nationhood has been manifested only in a military and naval sense commercially, we are nearly down and out.

“We are outrageously pessimistic. There was an excuse at the beginning of the war, when we dropped behind a rock, stunned at the very thought of an Armageddon; then we clapped our hands on our pockets, tightened up our purse strings, and, with white faces, waited for the worst and we’re still waiting. There was an excuse for us to be absolutely flabbergasted when the Kaiser’s crowd rushed on to Paris. There may have been reason then for more than ordinary caution, but since the ’great check,’ there has been no valid reason for people to still sit tight and wait. People with money to invest are holding up most of the former avenues of activity. ‘Till the war is over’ is the only excuse they can mumble.

“Take building investments in Sydney alone. A friend showed me a list of ninety-one plans held up, totalling over L4,000,000; held up ’till the war is over,’ held up till the accumulated business will rush like an avalanche, running prices that are now low to such a high figure that the fools who waited will find they will have lost thousands. Building prices are now fifteen per cent. cheaper than before the war and twenty-five per cent. cheaper than they will be when the war has broken. Twenty-five per cent. means a distinct loss of L1,000,000 in one avenue of investment alone, not counting the tying up of the many hundreds other lines depending upon building construction and when you consider, Jefson, that such inactivity is almost everywhere, you can guess we’re in for a bad time if people don’t buck up. To make matters worse, some firms are stopping advertising, forgetting that advertising is the life-blood of their business, and by stopping advertising they’re stopping circulation of money. The firm that thinks it can save money by stopping advertising is in the same street as the man who thinks he can save time by stopping the clock.

“These are no ordinary firms, but what the local Labor League is so fond of describing as ‘capitalistic institutions.’ They hold many thousands in reserve and their annual dividends have been at least 10 per cent. for years and years and years. Moreover their businesses have not materially suffered. In some cases, indeed, there has been improvement. But ‘profits’ evidently supersede humanity; the interests of gold are greater than the welfare of human flesh and blood and even the call of country. It seems hard, Jefson, that you should be risking your life and other brave fellows shedding their blood, for such men who have neither commercial instinct nor human feeling. I fully expected some of those firms to start their jobs as an incentive to others. We only want someone to start and do something big to galvanise the smaller investors into action. It’s not capital they lack, but confidence.

“I often wonder why the men who have had the acumen to amass money have not the common sense to realise that unemployed capital is a rapidly-accruing debt. Sovereigns by themselves are not wealth. It is their purchasing capacity and their equivalent in the requirements of life that represent fortunes. Investment, not idle capital, is wealth.

“Australia is being held back a great deal by the operation of State Enterprise. It has always been extravagant, inefficient and slow; but the effects are being more keenly felt at this time. At Cockatoo Island, the Federal Shipbuilding Yard, a cruiser was built that could not be launched. (I don’t want you to mention this because we feel mighty humiliated.) Someone blundered. Who that someone was I do not suppose we shall ever know. That is the worst of being an employer of politicians. They run your business when they like, how they like, and with whom they like. You only come in on the pay day. However, the difficulty is being got over by the construction of a coffer-dam at a cost of L30,000. We have been confidently assured by the men running our business that everything will be all right in the long run. Perhaps that assurance is intended as a guarantee that we shall get a long run for our money. Anyhow, at time of writing the coffer-dam is being constructed.

“In N.S.W. the position of the Public Works Department must be much the same as the Sultan of Turkey’s no money, no friends. And no wonder! It drained the State of all spare cash for the edification of its day-labor joss, and is about to pawn the State to foreign money lenders for more. Being now on its absolute uppers, the Public Works Department is handing over work to a private syndicate to be carried out on a percentage basis. The longer the work takes and the more it costs, the better for the private company. Here again the public pays.

“State Enterprise has wrecked the people’s self-reliance and initiative. As soon as a man gets out of work now his first aim is to demand that the State make him a billet. This, of course, the State cannot do, and the rejected job-seekers, who are growing in numbers daily, are like a lot of hornets round the ears of Ministers.

“There is one way out of the difficulty, and that is, the abandonment of the whole system of State Socialism and the re-establishment of private enterprise. If that policy were to be endorsed to-morrow, plenty of capital would be found for many schemes that are held up at present, and Ministers would be relieved of all worry and responsibilities. But they’re not game, they’re just hanging on hanging on, and, I tell you, something is going to snap somewhere, sometime.

“From a military point of view there is no reason to worry. We have a big army in Egypt on the road to back you up, with more to follow. I must not say much on that matter. The censor will chop it out, but we’re coming to the point that every man who doesn’t go to the front must learn how to shoot straight. Let’s hope he’ll also learn that he can do a good deal to help fellows like yourself that are keeping the flag flying abroad, by keeping up confidence and the flag flying at home.”

I read the letter to Nap.

“There are two points in that letter,” he said. “The funk at home and the readiness to enlist. We’ve also got that funk-bee, sure. Why, when I left U.S.A. a ten million dollar war tax was launched, unemployed were swarming into the cities, factories were closing down because of the falling-off of exports, and the situation was getting so desperate that the Wilson-Bryan crowd were talking of forcing the British blockade of Germany with ships of contraband stuff. But there’s no readiness to enlist, Jefson, not on your life. I’m sorry to say the physically worst are offering themselves for their country’s service, and only ten per cent. of those offering are accepted; and though they advertise ’bowling alleys,’ ‘free trips round the world,’ and other stunts as inducements, the response is so flat that when I passed through Chicago last August to come here, the recruiting stations had a notice up ’colored men wanted for infantry!’ You know there’s a sure prejudice against the nigger, we grudge giving him a vote, but when it comes to fighting for the country, well, he’s as welcome as the ’flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la.’ I guess you Australians lick us right there.”