ii- 919.4- * Un37p cop.^ I •1 U.Sr* Services of sup|>li|-S|>ecial service division . i A pocket tf aide o Attst Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue books. University of Illinois Library Hl'l' - H !%S Mfir 23 ^ M rt \ t '^- O, K 9 : \%h 04 L161— 1141 POCKET GUIDE TO USTRALIA AR AND NAVY DEPARTMENTS Washington, D. C. prepared by SPECIAL SERVICE DIVISION, SERVICES OF SUPPLY UNITED STATES ARMY A POCKET GUIDE TO AUSTRALIA WAR AND NAVY DEPARTMENTS WASHINGTON, D. C. :a X^AJW*^>^ A POCKET GUIDE TO AUSTRALIA \ / H (^^/>^ x^CONTENTS N , The Other Side of the World i ^ A Pioneer Land 3 - ^ f The Empty Heart of Australia 10 4 The People "Down Under" 12 Waltzing Matilda 20 ^ The Australian Commonwealth 33 V . V .^ The States 37 . Miscellaneous Information ^2 Australia at War 42 ^ Cobbers 45 Australian Slang 46 Australia is about the same size as the United States. It measures ap- proximately 2,400 miles East to West and 2,000 miles North to South. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD YOU and your outfit have been ordered to Australia as a part of a world-wide offensive against Hitler and the Japs — a drive that will end in Tokyo and Berlin. You're going to meet a people who like Americans and whom you will like. The Australians have much in common with us — they're a pioneer people; they believe in personal freedom; they love sports; and they're out to lick the Axis all the way. But there are a lot of differences too — their ways of living and thinking on all sorts of things — like tea, central heating, the best way to spend Sunday, or saluting officers and such. You'll find out about all those, but the main point is they like us, and we like them. Since American troops first landed in Australia, the Australians have gone out of their way to welcome them and make them feel at home. Australian newspapers have used up newsprint (and it's scarce) to print baseball scores 1 and major league standings and home town news — and even American cooking recipes for housewives. The Gov- ernment has made American money legal tender in the country and set up special exchange rates for American soldiers. And Australian audiences, at theatres and con- certs, honor our national anthem by rising when the Star Spangled Banner is played. No people on earth could have given us a better, warmer welcome and we'll have to live up to it. There is one thing to get straight, right off the bat. You aren't in Australia to save a helpless people from the savage Jap. Maybe there are fewer people in Australia than there are in New York City, but their soldiers, in this war and the last, have built up a great fighting record. For three years now, they've fought on nearly every battle front of the war; they've suffered heavy losses in Crete, Libya, Greece, and Malaya; and they're still in there pitch- ing. The Australians need our help in winning this war, of course, but we need theirs just as much. You might remem- ber this story when you get into an argument about "who's going to win the war": Not so long ago in a Sydney bar, an American soldier turned to an Australian next to him and said: "Well, Aussie, you can go home now. We've come over to save you." The Aussie cracked back: "Have you? I thought you were a refugee from Pearl Harbor." 2 But this isn't supposed to be an Emily Post on how to get along in Australia. It's simply a short guide book to give you a quick picture of what the Australians and their country are like, and what you may meet there. A PIONEER LAND AUSTRALIA is one of the newest countries in the world — yet the continent itself is one of the oldest. A hun- dred and fifty years ago, it was an empty land about the size of the United States, inhabited by only a few hundred thousand natives — the Australians call them "Abos" (for Aborigines) — living about the same way they did in the Stone Age. In a century and a half it has become a land of fine, modern cities, booming factories turning out war material, and fighting men, famous everywhere. It's a land of great plains, millions of sheep and cattle, of gold mines and deserts and funny animals. And it's one of the world's greatest democracies. THE DUCK-BILLEl. PLATYPUS x>t v SOVIET RUSSIA BRITISH 4/ ISLES CAPETOWN NEW 2EALA LONDON CAIRO BOMBAY 2 A. M. 4 A. M. 7:30 A. M TODAY TODAY TODAY ON MOST maps, Australia is shown away down in the left- hand corner by itself, a fact that makes Americans think it*s a long way from nowhere. This map gives a truer picture of Australia in rela- tion to the rest of the world and clearly indicates its strategic impor- tance. You will notice that Aus- SYDNEY NOON TODAY tralia lies below the equator where- as the United States lies above it. As a result the seasons are reversed. When it is winter in the United States it is summer in Australia and vice versa. The International Date Line runs north and south through the Pacific — just about at the fold of these two pages. When u >, ALASKA y%s\ ! ?^ CANADA 1 '1 UNITED XJW^-. *NBW FJiANCISC<\ P STATES /' YORK DWAY **HAWAIIAN IS. i A' ph^AMA ^AA,}^ Sp^^-k.^ ^Vi. ^S^jSTs ^^ " ( >. SOUTH FdUATOR^ Vamerica / r HONOLULU SAN FRANCISCO NEW YORK 3:30 P. M. 6 P.M. 9 P.M. YESTERDAY YESTERDAY YESTERDAY it is today on the left-hand page, it is yesterday for places on the right-hand page. When you are in Sydney, you are i8 hours ahead of San Francisco time. For instance when it is noon on Wednesday in Sydney, it is 6 p. m. on Tuesday in San Francisco and 9 p. m. in New York. The normal shipping time between Australia a*nd the West Coast of the United States 3 to 4 weeks. Because of IS the war, sea transport now takes even longer. But aviation has brought the two countries close together. The regular clipper used to take 5 days and a special plane has made the trip in 36 hours. KOALA BEARS Opening Up a New Continent. The year the Constitution of the United States was ratified, ii ships sailed from England under the command of Capt. Arthur Phillip of the Royal Navy. They carried about a thousand passengers, bound for the other side of the world to settle a new land. Eight months later, after a voyage of 16,000 miles (there weren't any Suez or Panama Canajs in those days) they put in at Botany Bay in southeast Australia. It wasn't a good spot for a permanent settlement so they moved on along the coast, finally stopping at the site of what is now Australia's largest city, Sydney. In a left-handed way, the United States had something to do with the settlement of Australia. You see, England in the early days used to send its surplus convicts to Amer- ica. But after the colonies had declared their independence, the British had to find some other place to send convicts from their over-crowded jails. Nearly half of the first group to land on the new continent were prisoners — men who were on the wrong side in politics, or had got into debt, 6 or tangled with the harsh laws of the time in some other way. All told, in the first 40 or 50 years of the settlement of Australia, England shipped over about 160,000 so-called convicts, but the traffic was stopped by 1868. For 50 years, the colonists of New South Wales (the first settlement, around Sydney) stayed close to the coastal area, except for a few expeditions by boat along the coast line. The Blue Mountains, behind Sydney, kept the settler from penetrating into the interior of the conti- nent, until in 18 13, three pioneers, seeking new pasture for their growing herds, found a pass over the range and discovered the great grasslands on the other side. Gradually, in the next 60 years, a small group of in- quisitive courageous men, explored the vast continent — men like our own Lewis and Clark who helped open up the West. The population grew slowly in the early years, until a big gold strike was made in the Bathurst District of New South Wales. Not long after other gold fields were found — in Ballarat, once the richest gold mine in the world; and at the famous "Golden Mile" in Kalgoorlie in western Australia where miners could pick chunks of gold the size of your fist oflF the side of a hill. These suc- cessive gold rushes brought thousands to the continent and the population doubled in about 7 years. 7 VTS THE TRUTH ALTHOUGH IT IS THE OLDEST CONTIN- ENT (geologically) AUSTRALIA WAS THE LAST CONTINENT TO BE OCCUPIED BV WHITE MEN. WHO DISCOVERED AUSTRALIA? GUNS FROM A PORTUGUESE MAN- OF-WAR OF THE I5TH OR I6Th CENTURY HAVE BEEN FOUND IN NORTHWESTERN AUSTRALIA . AFTER THE PORTUGUESE CAME THE SPANIARDS . BUT NONE OF THEM STAYED. TASMAN, A DUTCH EXPLORER, SAILED ALONG AUSTRALIA'S COASTLINE IN 1642 . THE STATE OF TASMANIA IS NAMED AFTER HIM. CAPT COOK, IN 1770, EXPLORED THE EAST COAST AND CALLED IT NEW SOUTH WALES. HE LANDED AT BOTANY 6AY AND CLAIMED AUSTRAL/A AS A BRITISH POSSESSION. w^ JANUARY 26, 1788 IS REALLY AUSTRAL/A'S BIRTHDAY ON THAT DAY ARTHUR PHILLIP, WITH ABOUT 1000 MEN ESTABLISHED THE FIRST REAL SETTLEMENT AT WHAT IS NOW THE GREAT CITY OF SYDNEY. IT WAS THE SAME YEAR IN WHICH THE U.S. CX)NSTITUTION WAS RATIFIED BV THE STATES WAS FIRST V Q \ DISCOVERED * ^ IN QUANTITV IN 1851 BY A MINER NAMED HARGRAVES WHO HAD JUST RETURNED FROM CAL- IFORNIA. THE GOLD RUSH DOUBLED AUSTRALIA'S POPULATION (N 7 YEARS! AN AUSTRALIAN , SIR ^-^- i . CHARLES KINGSFORD- SMITH , WAS FIRST MAN r TO PILOT A PLANE FROM THE U.S. TO AUSTRALIA .TWO OF HIS COM- PANIONS ON THAT HISTORIC TRIP WERE AMERICANS. i92S THE EMPTY HEART OF AUSTRALIA IT MAY seem strange that 3 million square miles of land — about as many as there are in the United States — have only 7 million people living on them. But there's good reason for it. Only the fringes, the coastal regions, are fertile enough for good farming. A little less than half of all the land is dry and only a quarter of that is fit for pasture land under normal conditions. About a third of the country is good grassland for cattle and sheep raising and a fifth is fair-to-middling farming country. Then there is a tropi- cal and semi-tropical region, along the east coast of Queens- land and in the northeast section. The seasons in Australia, because it is in the Southern Hemisphere, are just the opposite of ours. Summer is in December, January, and February; fall comes in March, April, and May; winter in June, July, and August and spring in our football season, September, October, and November. \ 10 The shaded areas of this map roughly indicate Australia's "good country." In these coastlands are found most of the farms, most of the in- dustries and, therefore, most of the people. Much of the unshaded area is desert. ^ Space and More Space. There's a signpost in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city that gives a pretty good idea of the bigness of the continent. It reads: Cairns 2, 614 miles Brisbane i, 349 miles Sydney 682 miles Like Americans, Australians can travel thousands of miles in a straight line and still be in their own country. From Darwin in the north to Tasmania, the island state, just across the Bass Strait from Melbourne is 2,200 miles, and from Brisbane on the east coast to Perth on the Indian Ocean, is another 2,000 miles or so. Because of all that space, a lot of people get the idea that Australians live mostly on farms or on sheep and catde stations (ranches). They don't. Most Australians live in the coast cities — one-third of all the people living in the two largest, Sydney and Melbourne. And the greater part of them make their living in industry. In the southeast and the east are the best farming, cattle and sheep ranching and most of Australia's industry. And there are the continent's highest mountains, the Great Dividing Range, with large forests and good skiing in winter. The western and central parts of the continent are dry land, bare of people, except for the roaming tribes 11 of "Abos/* The lakes you see on Australian maps hardly ever hold any water, they're just dry salt-pans much like parts of our own southwestern desert region. THE PEOPLE "DOWN UNDER'' EXCEPT for the 70,000 or so primitive "Abos" who roam the waste lands, the Australians are nearly 100 percent Anglo-Saxon stock — English, Irish, Scotch, and Welsh who through courage and ingenuity made a living and built a great nation out of a harsh, empty land. They built great cities, organized a progressive democracy and estab- lished a sound economic system, for all of which they're justly proud. And they're proud too of their British heritage and to be a member of the British Commonwealth — but they still like to run their own business and they take great pride in their independence. They resent being called a colony and think of themselves as a great nation on their own hook, which they are. And it's natural that they should find themselves drawn closer and closer to Americans be- cause of the many things we have in common. They look at the swift development that has made the United States a great power in a few generations, and compare our growth with theirs. Nearly 40 years ago, an Australian statesman said of the United States: "What we are, you 12 were. What you are we will some day be." And just a short time ago Australian War Minister Francis Forde said: "We feel that our fate and that of America are indissolubly linked. We know that our destinies go hand in hand and that we rise and fall together. And we are proud and confident in that association." You'll find the Australians an outdoors kind of people, breezy and very democratic. They haven't much respect for stuffed shirts, their own or anyone else's. They're a gen- eration closer to their pioneer ancestors than we are to ours, so it's natural that they should have a lively sense of inde- pen dence and "rugg ed ind ividualism." But they have, too, a strong sense of cooperation. The worst thing an Aus- tralian can say about anyone is: "He let his cobbers (pals) down." A man can be a "dag" (a cutup) or "rough as bags" (a tough guy), but if he sticks with the mob, he's all right. If an Australian ever says to you that you are "game as Ned Kelly," you should feel honored. It's one of the best things he can say about you. It means that you have the sort of guts he admires, and that there's something about you that reminds him of Ned Kelly. Kelly was a bush- ranger (a backwoods highwayman) and not a very good citizen, but he had a lot of courage that makes Aus- tralians talk about him as we used to talk about Jesse James or Billy the Kid. THERE ARE 120 MILLION SHEEP IN AUSTRALIA- 40 SHEEP FOR EVERY SQUARE MILE. NO WONDER ITiSTHE NO. I WOOL PRODUCING CX)UNTRy IN THE WORLD! J^ OF ALL THE SEVEN MILLION PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA LIVE IN THE TWO GREAT CITIES of^SYD/sieyANo /VIELBOURNE! NORTHERN TERRITORY IS DOTTED WITH WHITE ANT (termite) nesTS shaped like A SKYSCRAPER AND USUALLY TALLERTHAN AMAN. THEYAL- l^fS WAYS POINT NORTH AND SOUTH/ * AUSTRALIA HAS A POLL-TAX. IT COSTS :00 NOT TO VOTB ^&s Of course, the best thing any Australian can say about you is that you're a "bloody fine barstud." You'll find that the Digger is a rapid, sharp, and un- sparing kidder, able to hold his own with Americans or anyone else. He doesn't miss a chance to spar back and forth and he enjoys it all the more if the competition is tough. Another thing, the Digger is instantaneously sociable. Riding on the same train with American troops, a mob of Aussies are likely to descend on the Yanks, investigate their equipment, ask every kind of personal question, find out if there's any liquor to be had, and within 5 minutes be showing pictures of their girls and families. One Aussie, a successful kid cartoonist, who got himself transferred to an American unit for a week, could have run for mayor and been elected after 2 days in camp. He knew the first name and history of every man and officer and had drawn portraits of some of the ofl&cers. Being simple, direct, and tough, especially if he comes from "Outback," the Digger is often confused and non- plussed by the "manners" of Americans in mixed com- pany or even in camp. To him those many "bloody thank you's" and "pleases" Americans use are a bit sissi- fied. But, on the other side of the fence, if you ask an Australian for an address in a city you happen to be, he 15 won't just te ll you. He'll walk eight blocks or more to show you. There's one thing about Americans that delights him. That is our mixed ancestry. A taxi driver told an Ameri- can correspondent about three soldiers he hauled about one night: "One was Italian, one was Jewish, and the other told me he was half Scotch and half soda," said the hacker, roaring with laughter. There's one thing you'll run into — Australians know as little about our country as we do about theirs. To them all American soldiers are "Yanks" — and always will be. Australians, like Americans again, live pretty much in the present and the future, and pay little mind to the past. If they are still in effect, you might get annoyed at the "blue laws" which make Australian cities pretty dull places on Sundays. For all their breeziness, the Australians don't go in for a lot of drinking or woo-pitching in public, es- pecially on Sunday. So maybe the bars, the movies, and the dance halls won't be open on Sundays, but there are a lot of places in America where that's true too. There's no use beefing about it — it's their country. It's the Same Language Too. We all speak the same lan- guage — the British, the Australians, and us — our versions of it. Probably the only difficulty you'll run into here 16 AN INSECT KEPT AUSTRALIA FROM BEING SETTLED EARLIER. THE CORAL ((^ •'INSECT*' BUILT THE GREAT BAR- . v^ RIER REEF WHICH SCREENS THE \J^<^f FERTILE COAST OF QUEENSLAND FOR i^f^^^O^^ \Z00 MILES. EXPLORERS FOUND THB REEF ('C(^' '*" AND OVERLOOKED THE CONTINENT BEHIND IT HOW AUSTRALIA GOT ITS NAME A SPANISH EXPLORER WHO HAD NEV- ER SEEN THE GREAT SOUTH CONTIN- ENT NAMED IT 'AUSTRIALIA DEL ESPIRITU SANTO" {^ HONOR OF AUSTRIAN-BORN PHILIP III OF SPAIN. IN TRANSLATION THIS WAS MIS- SPELLED AUSTRALIA. WAGES MINIMUM WAGES FOR BIG INDUSTRIES IN AUSTRALIA HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED BY ARBITRATION COURTS EVER SINCE 1907. DiNKUM Oil DOESN'T COME OUT OF A WELL. IT'S SIMPLY AUSTRALIAN SLANG FOR THE REAL TRUTH, THE STRICT LOWDOWN. ,., [SBl SLANG GLOSSARY ' AT END OF THIS BOOK) is the habit Australians have of pronouncing "a" as "i" — for instance, "the trine is lite todi." Some people say it sounds like the way London Cockneys talk, but good Aus- tralians resent that — and it isn't true anyway. Thanks to our movies, the average Australian has some working knowledge of our slang, but it'll take you a while to get on to theirs. To them a "right guy" is a "fair dinkum"; a hard worker is a "grafter" and "to feel crook" means to feel lousy; while "beaut" means swell. Australian slang is so colorful, and confusing, that a whole chapter is devoted to it at the end of this book. Also, the Australian has few equals in the world at swearing except maybe the famous American mule skinner in World War I. The commonest swear words are bastard (pronounced "barstud"), "bugger," and "bloody," and the Australians have a genius for using the latter nearly every other word. The story is told of an old-timer who was asked when he had come to the continent. He replied: "I came in nineteen-bloody-eight." THE BLACK SWAN 18 Australian Songs and Singing. Australians, like Russians, are natural group singers. It's one of the great differences you'll notice between American camps and Australian — the singing. Aussie soldiers and girls know every American popular song from Stephen Foster's My Old Kentucky Home to the latest tune of a year or so ago. The very latest jive stuff may confuse them a bit, but they're catching on after listening to American regimental swing bands. The hit song in Australia today is Bless Them All, which has be- come almost a national epidemic — the Aussies sing it with curious variations from the original lyrics. A standard favorite all over the country is Australia's own folk song, Waltzing Matilda. In fact the Aussies have made it a classic all over the world. When the Anzac troops made their first assault on Bardia, they did it to the tune of Waltzing Matilda. They sang it in the heat and fever of Malaya. At first this song may seem less warlike than, for in- stance, a song called The Australaise, which makes liberal use of the word "bloody." But it is no less militant. The swagman (hobo) of the song represents the common man struggling against the oppressive exploiter. He prefers death to slavery and it is this defiant attitude which the Aussies hold dear. You'll find the words on the next page. 19 WALTZING MATILDA Words by A. B. Paterson; music by Marie Cowan Once a jolly swagman * camped by a billabong ^ Under the shade of a coolibah ' tree, And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy * boiled. "You'll come awaltzing Matilda, with me!'* Chorus Waltzing, Matilda, Waltzing, Matilda, You'll come awaltzing, Matilda, with me. And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled. "You'll come awaltzing, Matilda, with me!" Down came a jumbuck * to drink at the billabong. Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee, And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker * bag. "You'll come awaltzing, Matilda, with me!" Chorus Waltzing, Matilda, Waltzing, Matilda, You'll come awaltzing, Matilda, with me. And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag. "You'll come awaltzing, Matilda, with mel" Up rode the squatter "^ mounted on his thoroughbred, Down came the troopers one, two, three: And his "Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?" "You'll come awaltzing, Matilda, with me!" 20 Chorus Waltzing, Matilda, Waltzing, Matilda, You'll come awaltzing, Matilda, with me. And his "Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?" "You'll come awaltzing, Matilda, with me!" Up jumped the swagman, sprang into the billabong. "You'll never catch me alive," said he. And his ghost may be heard as you pass — by that billabong. "You'll come awaltzing, Matilda, with me!" Chorus Waltzing, Matilda, Waltzing, Matilda, You'll come awaltzing, Matilda, with me. And his ghost may be heard as you pass — by that billabong. "You'll come awaltzing, Matilda, with me!" ^Swagman, a man on tramp carrying his swag, which means a bundle wrapped up in a blanket. ^ Billabong, a water hole in the dried-up bed of a river. ^ Coolibah^ eucalyptus tree. * Billy, a lin can used as a kettle. * ]umbucl{, a sheep. * Tuckfr, food. ' Squatter, a sheep farmer on a large scale. 21 HOW U.S.A. AND AUSTRALIAN EATING HABITS DIFFER ANNUAL PER CAPITA CONSUMPTION KIND OF FOOD — II A\ADe fROtA -The IMvriALS Of THC 6ALLA^4T AuStRAL\AN AND New 2eALAM0 Arn\y CoR.PS/WHiCH FOUGHT AS A UHlt IK tJAe LAS-r WA^. Thei^gI mo ri/^iER soLD\ei2 \N Trte WORLD. -^^ rk4 ^ Wnesi -TKE Japs tirst -ftA^EA-reNeo iNVASiOMOf Australia, THE RA^? (ROYAL AoSTRALIAM AlRfORCt) fOUCHT Off TK€ ENEMY POA^6ERS WITH -fRAlMER PLAMES- ALfAOST ALLTKEY HAD. •The OwE)N Com^ oaje of tks. DEADLIEST SUS-/v\ACH|ME CUMS MADE. WAS INVENTED BY A a7-VeAR OLD Australian privatg. .American newspapers and magazines have been full of stories about the Aussies — in Greece, in Crete, in Libya, at Singapore, and in the Burma jungles. All Americans who've had anything to do with them say they're among the friendliest guys in the world — and fine physical speci- mens of fighting men. So far in this war the Australians have been in all the hot spots — wherever the going has been tough. And they have the reputation for staying in there and pitching with anything they can get their hands on — and if there isn't anything else they use their hands. During the early days of the threatened Jap invasion of their continent, Aus- tralian pilots fought off armored Jap bombers with the only planes they had — often just trainers. The Aussies don't fight out of a textbook. They're re- sourceful, inventive soldiers, with plenty of initiative. Americans and British have the idea that they are an un- disciplined bunch — they aren't much on saluting or parad- ing and they often do call their C. O. by his first name — but when the fighting begins, there isn't any lack of dis- cipline or leadership, either. Officers most often come up from the ranks, and they are a young group. The average age of Australian gen- erals today is less than 50 years — about the same as our own. The greatest Australian general in the last war was 32 a civil engineer by trade, and one of Wavell's best desert generals was Sir Iven Mackay, who is a school teacher and who put soldiering under ^'recreation" in his biography in the Australian Who's Who. The story is typical of the attitude the Anzac has toward the business of fighting. During some tough going on the El Alamein sector in Egypt, recently, a group of Aus- tralians volunteered to knock out a dangerous machine gun nest, manned by members of Rommel's Afrika Korps. As they were dashing in, one Aussie yelled to another: "Gripes, Bill, I tell you if the (censored) food in this outfit doesn't get any better, I'm bloody well going to quit." Australians are immensely proud/)f the record their men made in the last war-^any country would be proud of it. You'll see memorials to the dead of World War I all through Australia and they're honored greatly by all the people. THE AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH AUSTRALIAN government is a mixture of both the Brit- ish and the American systems. First of all it's a federation of six states established in 1900 — roughly similar to the American system of 48 states. There's a federal govern- ment with a Commonwealth Parliament, a House of Rep- resentatives and Senate, chosen somewhat on the order of 33 our Congress, and responsible for making laws concerning defense, foreign affairs, trade and commerce with other nations, customs and other functions. Members to the Parliament are elected by popular vote and a Prime Minister from the dominant party is ap- pointed and chooses a Cabinet from members of Parlia- ment. This Cabinet governs with him until they lose the confidence of Parliament or there's a new election. Gov- ernments in the six states (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and the island of Tasmania) follow pretty much the same procedure. A Member of the British Commonwealth. Australia is a British dominion, a member of the British Common- wealth of Nations — but that doesn't mean Britain owns or rules Australia. The Australians govern themselves, as a separate nation, sending their own diplomatic representa- tives overseas and managing their own relations with foreign nations. At the same time there are certain traditional ties with Great Britain which the Australians value. The King, on the advice of the Australians, appoints a Governor-General as his personal representative, not that of the British Gov- ernment. Also each state within the Australian Common- wealth has a governor appointed by the King, again on 34 the advice of the state government involved. In addition to these the British and Australian Governments exchange high commissioners, much the same as other countries exchange ambassadors. Political Parties. Today Australia has three major polit- ical parties — the Labor Party, oldest in Australian poli- tics, the United Australia Party and the Country Party. The Labor Party represents the organized labor move- ment, and is the most powerful political group in the nation. The Country Party represents the country interests in the nation and the United Australia Party is identified with no one single group. Since the formation of the Australian Commonwealth in 1900, the Labor Party has been a dominant influence in Australian politics. Since 1900 Australia has had eight Labor Governments, and four of the six states today are governed by representatives of that party. Two states, Queensland and Tasmania, have had labor governments continuously for the last 20 years. Australia's Democratic Traditions, in many respects Aus- tralia is the most democratic government in the world. Certainly in the short space of 150 years, it has made many notable contributions to social legislation in which it has 35 pioneered. It developed the famous Australian Ballot; it set up one of the first central banks in the world. Inci- dentally, much of the credit for its founding — it's called the Commonwealth Bank — goes to an American immi- grant to Australia, King O'Malley, a bearded Californian who became one of the nation's political leaders early in this century. Australians like him for his impatience with ceremony and remember him for his phrase about stuffed- shirt officials — "gilt-spurred roosters." Also the nation pio- neered in social security and workmen's compensation laws and developed a unique and workable system of in- dustrial arbitration courts which have helped to reduce strikes and disputes to a minimum. Education in the lower schools is furnished by the state authorities and nearly everyone goes to the same govern- ment school — education being free and compulsory be- THE LYRE-BIRD 36 tween the ages of 6 and 14. The present Prime Minister, John Curtin, was educated through what we would call grade school, and few of the Australian Prime Ministers or Cabinet Ministers have been college men. The state governments, for remote districts, have fur- nished correspondence courses and have set up agricultural colleges and technical schools. Each of the six states has its own university supported at least partly by the govern- ments and there are no private universities in the country. THE STATES NEW SOUTH WALES, the first colony to be estab- lished, has the most population and the largest city — Sydney. It is a center of dairy farming, fruit growing, as well as of industrial activity, much of which is built around the famous Broken Hill Proprietary Co., one of the largest industrial organizations in the world. The head of the com- pany, Essington Lewis, now in charge of Australia's war production, was once a great football player (Australian Rules). In the northern and western parts of the state are the sheep and cattle ranches (stations) — where the great Merino sheep studs are — centers of scientific sheep breed- ing which have made Australia the best wool-producing country in the world. 37 South of New South Wales is Victoria, the second most populous state in the Commonwealth, with rich wheat farms, gold, and coal mines. Northward along the continent's eastern coast is Queens- land, protected by the Great Barrier Reef. It is the most tropical part of the country, well suited for sugar growing and other tropical crops. In the western part of the state are important mineral deposits of gold, silver, many basic metals, and coal. South Australia is three-quarters dry, arid land with enormous cattle and sheep ranches. Most of the population is located along the southern coast, which has good farm land; the rest is sandy desert very much like our own Southwest. Western Australia has nearly a million square miles of land, most of which is treeless desert, but it also has the most productive gold fields at Kalgoorlie. Australia's sixth state is an island off the coast from Mel- bourne — Tasmania, named for one of the early Dutch explorers. It is both a ranching and a farming area, pro- ducing wool and a huge crop of apples yearly. Besides the states, there is the Northern Territory, a vast, unproductive area, governed directly by the Common- wealth. The only town of importance is Darwin, now garrisoned for protection against Jap invasion. 38 THE KOOKABURRA OR LAUGHING JACKASS Australia has, too, a section much Uke our own District of Columbia — the federal government area of Canberra, midway between Sydney and Melbourne, designed by an American architect, Walter Burely Griffin of Chicago. In addition, Australia has important territorial interests outside the continent. After the First World War it re- ceived, under League of Nations mandate, the former ter- ritory of German New Guinea. Rabaul, chief town and port of the area, on the island of New Britain, and Lae, on the New Guinea mainland, are in the hands of the Japs. It also has the former territory of British New Guinea, now called Papua — its population is about i,6oo whites and possibly 300,000 natives. Port Moresby is the main town and administrative center for the area. Australia also owns several other islands in the South Pacific, Norfolk Island and others. 39 ^?rtfsl?^S AUSTRALIAN COPPER THE HALF-PENNY Symbol: '/zd. Pronounced "hoy-p'ny." Value less than a cent. THE PENNY Symbol: Id. Value about T/j cents. Nickname: copper. THREEPENNY PIECE Symbol: 3d. Pronounced: "thrippence" Nickname: tray, traybit, thripp'ny bit. THE FIVE SHILLING COIN is of silver too, but is not common. However, 5-shilling notes (bills) may soon be in circulation. The term half-a-crown means 2 shillings and sixpence referred to as half-a-dollar. This is the TEN SHILLING note or bill. Symbol 10/-. Value is about $1.60.f|^ It is reddish brown. Nicknames: ten bob, half-a-note, half-a-quid. MONEY! 12 pennies make a shilling 20 shillings make a pound SILVER SIXPENCE Symbol: 6d Value about 8^ Nickname: zac. SHILLING Symbol: 1/- Value about 16^ Nickname: bob, deener. THE FLORIN OR TWO-SHILLING PIECE Symbol: II- Value about IH Nickname: two bob. THE GUINEA. There is no such coin. It means 21 shillings. Doctors' bills, subscriptions, prizes, etc. are often quoted in guineas. Don't ^_^ ^^ _ bother about it. ^This is the POUND NOTE or bill. Symbol £l. Value is about $3.20. It is green. Nicknames: quid, note, frogskin, fiddleedee. MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION AUSTRALIAN money follows the English system of pounds, shilling, and pence, but its value is about 20 percent less than the English currency in terms of American dol- lars. An Australian pound contains 20 shillings, or 10 florins, and each shilling contains 12 pence or pennies. Official approval has been given to the circulation of American dollars, but you w^ill probably need to learn how to make change in the Australian money. The following table has been prepared for your convenience. Weights and measures, the calendar, and measures of time are much the same in Australia as in America. Aus- tralia is, of course, west of the international Date Line, so that the date is one day ahead of the United States. For example, when it's 12 noon Eastern Standard Time on Friday in New York, it is 3 o'clock Saturday morning in Sydney, Australia. A couple of differences in weights and n^easures — the British "imperial gallon," used in Australia, is approxi- mately 20 percent larger than our gallon, and the British bushel measure is 3 percent larger than the American bushel. The Aussies also speak of something being a cer- tain number of "chains" long. A chain is 22 yards. Other differences are extremely small and unimportant. 42 AUSTRALIA AT WAR "FIGHT, work, or perish" — that's the slogan youll see all over Australia, and it means just what it says. Australia's doing a lot more than just providing the Allied nations with fine fighting men; she's equipping her own troops and those of Britain and the United States with a great variety of weapons and supplies — tanks, some planes, torpedo bombers, gun carriers, shells, range find- ers, as well as ships and food and elothing. Australia's swing-over to high-geared war production is an amazing example of careful, intelligent planning, tech- nical ingenuity and a ruthless cutting down of civilian consumer goods. In a good many lines of production, Aus- tralia had to start from scratch. In 1938 there wasn't any aircraft industry, but by 194 1 Australia had produced a thousand planes and production is being stepped up con- stantly. The Australians are proud of the Bristol Beaufort torpedo bomber — as proud as we are of our Flying For- tresses. And they're even prouder of the new Owen tommy- gun which they consider is simpler and cheaper to make than any other submachine gun in the world — and is par- ticularly effective under tough conditions. It was invented by a 27-year-old mortar mixer from WoUongong, New South Wales, who was a private in the Australian army. 43 PHILIPPINE ^^"^c. IS LANDS % UAM YAP WAKE V •» / CAl^Ot,^^ ^^ •', "^^^ '/VDIES INDIAN OCEAN SOUTHERN OCEAN a FQUATOfC NEA^ r^-^4' >. ,^-W2 \ "»i .^ k'^* fpoRr% ^* '.^t^- lOdESBVy ^«vC/^ «fe \ « ? \ CORAL \ SEA tl-} ^,-" j NEW C ALEDON BRISBANE 'SYDNEY TASMANIA HOB ART N EW Z EALAN D THIS MAP makes clear how once having obtained holds in the Philippines and in Malaya, it was a relatively simple matter for the Japanese to jump from one island to the next until they domi- nated the area off Australia's northern coast. It was from the bases of this northern coast and from the area of Port Moresby on New Guinea that the United Nations slowed the Jap drive south. You won't have any trouble finding out that everyone in Australia is in the war all down the line. There aren't many cars on the streets; taxis are hard to get; street lights have been turned off to save power; and the Prime Min- ister recently announced that all nonessential industries would be shut down for the duration. Clothes and food have been severely rationed and wages, prices and profits have been frozen for the duration. So life for the Aus- tralians isn't as free and easy as it was, but they're out to win the war and to hell with comforts. "COBBERS" There isn't any need for a lot of do's and don't's for Americans in Australia. Common sense and good will go a long way there as they do anywhere else. As a matter of fact, the Australians, especially the girls, are a bit amazed at the politeness of American soldiers. And they say that when an American gets on a friendly footing with an Australian family he's usually found in the kitchen, teach- ing the Mrs. how to make coffee, or washing the dishes. American troops have been welcomed in Australia with a good deal of warmth and a feeling of close kinship. The feeling that we and the Australians are "cobbers" means a fast finish for Mr. Jap. THE WOMBAT AUSTRALIAN SLANG WHEN it comes to slang, the Australians can give us a head start and still win. Their everyday speech is just about the slangiest of all the brands of English. Both of us, the Australians and the Americans, are young peoples and we like new things — in our speech as well as in anything else. And when someone coins a new phrase, it spreads around in a few days — like "I dood it." Even more than in ours, colorful, picturesque words and phrases are constantly being added to the Australian speech. Here is a choice selection which may help you to understand what they're talking about: drogo (a clumsy Australian in- sect) — rookie sheila — a babe diner — another babe sninny — a third babe shivoo — a party imshi — amscray — scram shikhered — drunk chivvy — back talk, lip plon\ — cheap wine smooge — to pitch woo stonkjered — knocked out bokp — nose shout — to buy drinks for the house 46 zac\ — a sixpence ding dong — swell yaWa — hard work bonzer — great, super cobber — pal wowser — stuffed shirt, sour puss cow — it stinks gee-gees — race horses mohje — a plug or nag brumby — a bronco billy — tin can for tea matilda — a tramp's bundle sw aggie — a tramp drop the bundle — give up ta — thanks whacks — Dutch treat beano — a gala affair deener — a shilling din\um oil — Gospel truth joes — the blues sarvo — this afternoon Nips — Japs Jerries — Germans Pommies — the British tea — supper dinner — lunch supper — late snack smof{eo or smohjE-oh — time out for smoking pudding — dessert abo — aborigine lubra or gin — squaw woop or woop'Woop — the sticks Bluey or blue — nickname for a man with red hair Wac^o — exclamation express- ing anticipation, approval or delight barrack — to root barracker — loud sports fan grafter — ^good worker crook — to feel lousy fair cow — ^a louse or heel ta-ta — ^goodby cooee — ^Yoo-hoo shandy — mixture of lemonade and light ale trouble and strife — the wife rubbadedub — a pub, bar, saloon Cool gar die safe — a rough wood and burlap food bin; substi- tute for a refrigerator in the "outback" to skite — to boast poke borak — to insult burgoo — stew cocky' s delight — molasses stager — one who fakes an injury or shows off (frorn Australian Rules football) Buckley's chance — a long shot wooloomooloo yank also Fitzroy yank — a flashy dresser push — a mob or gang shanty, leanto — a rough bush house Joe Slakes or joes — the d.t.'s; or the blues. willy willy — dry storm tornado face wash — washcloth lolly shop — candy shop wattle — mimosa (national flow- er — ^golden wattle) Collins Street Squatter — a drug- store cowboy 47 tram — streetcar petrol — ^gas bushman — a backwoodsman, not an "abo" Oscar Asche or Oscar — hard cash plates of meat — feet Jackaroo — a tenderfoot on a sheep ranch squatter — sheep or cattle rancher never, never — the dry country outback diggers — Australians bush — ^any part of Australia not a town or city; the sticks stockman — a cowboy John — a cop God stone the Crows — my my Wouldn't (pronounced wood- nit) — popular term for any complaint; a contraction of "wouldn't it give you a pain in the " Cow cohy — a dairy farmer cocky — a farmer Bastard (pronounced "barstud") — sometimes a term of affec- tion humdinger or bloody beaut — swell 48 NOTES NOTES NOTES 489077 U. S GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1942 / ^mm