 The Columbia Broadcasting System presents Norman Corwin's One World Flight. You are listening to the Call of the Bird, known as Laughing Jackass or Cucabura, one of the many sounds and voices recorded inside Australia. To be heard tonight on this 11th of a series of 13 broadcasts based upon Norman Corwin's recent global tour as first winner of the Wendell Wilkie One World Flight Award. This is Norman Corwin. Last September I had the experience of flying from the first day of autumn into the second day of spring. To a four-engined American troop carrier shuttling between the Philippine Islands and Australia this is a routine run, a pushover taking only a day and a night to reverse the seasons. I was especially curious about the country we were heading for because most of Australia is as little known to America as the Call of the Cucabura. All I knew sitting on these bucket seats were the easy facts that it's the biggest island on the globe almost the same size as the United States with a population equal to New York City that one-third of the country is desert as hopeless as the Sahara that the climate ranges all the way from what you'd get in the Congo to what you'd find in Ireland. I had also heard of the toughness and bravery of its fighters and the beauty of its women both of which were cheerfully admitted by Australians aboard the plane. As for politics, I had an idea from Australia's record in the United Nations that its people were solidly in line with Britain and America on world issues and had no division of opinion about such things as peace, unity, the atom bomb, Russia, the United Kingdom and themselves. In any case, the troop carrier was steadily narrowing the distance between my questions and the answers to them. 4,000 miles we flew in two great hops and one little one and we landed in Sydney, the first clean, spacious, tranquil big city we had seen in the last 15,000 miles of journey. Sydney reminded me mostly of San Francisco except that it's twice as big, its setting is less rugged, its harbor is more complex and it has more sunshine. The old parts of the town have a European feeling and some of the public buildings, especially Sydney University, could have been brought over from England. But its downtown area, the business district, has a modern and American look. There are wonderful parks and recreation grounds and not far from the heart of the city are great sandy beaches and headlands of sandstone cliffs facing the sea. Australia, I soon found out, is a young country whose frontier days are not yet over. Her people have the toughness and vitality that go along with youth and although they're friendly and hospitable, they're also independent and outspoken and proud. We hadn't been in Sydney more than a day when we ran into an expression of this quality. A wharf worker on the waterfront spoke sardonically of the fact that some people look down their noses at Longshoreman and in the same speech he proudly referred to his property holdings took a poke at Australia's Prime Minister, Mr. Chifley and had a word to say about the income tax laws which he felt favored the rich. Oh, we're terrible people. Well, few people know that I'm a wharf worker. I've only got three houses. That's all I've got. But I've got them by hard work. And I've got to pay Mr. Chifley income tax which the big man gets for nothing and I've got to get a bit of sweat on my brow. Look at the sweat running off me now. There was nothing shy or backward about these dark hands. They happily sounded off on a variety of subjects. One man named Bob Robertson introduced himself as the leading Bible lecturer of the domain. He said that what was needed in Australia and the world was practical Christianity, which he then went on to define. There is a difference between Christ's Christianity and the exploiter's Christianity and that has, to a great extent, been one of the sources of the discontent that has prevailed among the peoples of the world. Is that clear to you? That is very clear to me. Tell me, are you one of the workers here? Yes, I'm a member of the aristocracy of the working class. That's the waterside workers federation. And now we're looked upon as the aristocracy as we give leads in matters of progress that affect the workers. Not far from this dock was the district familiar to so many American boys who were stationed in Sydney during the war, the district of Woolamaloo, which I thought reminiscent of San Francisco's Embarcadero. Woolamaloo was typical of the rolling and musical native names sprinkled throughout the Commonwealth, names like Kutumba, Wallongong, Maracuca, Mura Mura, Marklebu, Eromango. The authors of these names, native Aborigines, about whom you'll hear more later, were always present in the language, but never in person. They were hundreds, in some cases, thousands of miles away. The racial stock of these workers on the waterfront, as of most people in civilized Australia, was white and almost entirely British descended. Yet I found some of them not as firmly attached to the British Commonwealth as I expected. One of these laborers startled me by saying, In Australia and America, two countries that I should, in my opinion, a lot of people's opinion here in Australia should be united together as one great country. You mean that you would like to see Australia break away from the British Commonwealth and join the Federation of the United States? I do. This was such a surprise to me that I asked three other men what status they preferred. The tie with Britain or Federation with America? Well, between America and Britain, I cannot mention that because I'll get me head chopped off. I'm an independent. Me? I'd like to see England, America and Australia all combined together. Actually, the man who said he was afraid of getting his head chopped off was in the vast minority among the Australians we met. On every side of the political fence, there was forthright speaking of mind. For example, a woman on one of Sydney's streets trolled off the whole big four in the course of recommending what to do about the world's problems. I think that there are too many petty disagreements between the large powers. I think they should become more open-minded towards the smaller powers, and they should at least try to agree like grandmothers and little children. Almost everybody we met was ready to talk fluently about the world situation. For example, fighting between Dutch and Indonesians had been going on in Java, and the waterside unions of Australia had come out in support of Indonesian independence. Longshoremen refused to load supplies for the Dutch, and when I asked one of them about it, he explained with remarkable glibness. I believe the majority of the Australian people support the view taken by the unions that the Indonesians have complete right to their independence is declared in the Atlantic Charter. The Australian people at the time of the Charter declared their adherence to it, and having declared their adherence to that principle, obviously, are in support of the Indonesians' claim, and there's been no public clamour that the waterside workers or any other union should assist the Dutch. But this nation is no mere debating site. Society are a country of talkers, as the world knows it had fought a tough war. Seven out of every ten men between the ages of 18 and 35 had served in the armed forces. They had come from the tropical north country, from the dry, flap-western plateaus, from Perth, which is as distant to Sydney as Los Angeles to New York, from the island of Tasmania off the southern coast, with its country and climate resembling New Hampshire, from the dusty, sheep-strewn plains of central Australia. The casualties among these men were proportionately twice as high as our own, and the veterans who returned had definite ideas, ideas which good or bad they expressed with remarkable facility. Lee Bland took the wire recorder to a busy street corner in Sydney one day and intercepted people at random. The first man he stopped was a sergeant, Sergeant Wood of the Australian Army, Hormon Terminal Leave after four years and considerable action in the service. Lee asked him whether he felt his four years had been well invested. He said no. He said he was afraid fascism was going to rise again. Yes, I think that it is quite possible that fascism will rear its head again, not perhaps in the same nations, but in some other country, very easily so in South American republics, and in fact any country, it could quite possibly be the United States, it could quite possibly be Britain, it could be China. It is a worry to you that the fascism may come again. Yes, it is not exactly worry. I accept it as a fact that it will come again and it will be the cause now out of a war. What would you suggest that the world do about it? Well, I can't really speak for the war but I can speak for the people of this country that they should perhaps take a greater interest in the affairs of their nation, understand how exactly it is governed and not to accept so much of what is told to them by the papers, especially to the youth of the country I think that that applies. Sergeant Wood could be classed among those of liberal and anti-fascist opinion of whom we found a great many in Australia, but there were others whose views could be classed as reactionary, shading to fascist. Such a one was the next man, Blaine Stopped, an accountant. He had served in the Air Force and the Pacific Islands and had come back with two suggestions for solving the world's problems. The universal language and monetary system, the second was a racial theory. The potential danger to world peace lies in the colored races. I can see in the, in embryo, more or less, I can see in the very backward primitive peoples of the islands and the andoacea, the preservation that I visited are potential Japanese. I consider that he, given the same opportunities to Japanese, as many people would today, they talk about raising his standard of living, educating him, and more or less raising him to our standard, which is a highly industrial and mechanical standard. I think that he, that he will possibly become a Frankenstein monster and turn on us and the virus as the Japanese. There was also an anti-Semite who spoke of what he called the Jewish occupation of Germany. Well, I was in Haerberg in 1923 and the conditions brought about by the Jews in Germany, they speak into Germany when the war was on, when the last war was on, and the conditions brought about by the Jewish occupation in Germany were frightful. I asked him whether he felt Hitler's policy against the Jews had been justifiable, and his stammering answer showed the basis for his observations in Germany. He personally was prejudiced. Well, I think that he had a lot to, he had an extra grind. I think that Hitler had an extra grind. That's my personal opinion. I personally do not like Jews. I made further inquiries about racial and religious prejudice during our stay in the country, and I was convinced that it's completely foreign to the vast majority of Australians. In fact, I found a degree of tolerance for political views, which was unusual among the countries of the world we had seen. The main course of Australian politics seemed to go through middle ground. Domestically, a middle course of social and labour under a government which had been predominantly labour for the past 42 years. On foreign policy, the attitude of most people we met, some of whom you will meet in a moment, betrayed less alarm and hysteria about the world situation than we had encountered anywhere. As in most other countries we'd visited, the focal point of all discussions on world affairs was Russia and its intentions. I was surprised to find that unlike the attitude of Australian policy as it is reflected in the conference of the United Nations, there was a good deal of go easy sentiment from people on Sydney's streets and elsewhere, a feeling that the West should try to cooperate more with the Soviets. In Sydney's Town Hall one night in the course of a question period following an address on the subject of one world, several people in the audience called for this. I should like to say that the American people that it is better for the American people to be friendly with Russia rather than hold the atomic bomb as a threat over their heads. This tolerant attitude toward Russia did not mean acceptance of communism in Australia from all that we could gather. The communists did very poorly at the national elections which fell across our visit and there were a few people who felt that communism might menace to the peace. I do, I do. I definitely do think it is. I definitely think that communism is detrimental to the future and the place of the world. But again and again we heard pleas for cooperation as against antagonism, for unity as against insularity. Mr. Robertson for another took this view. People of the world don't like fascism on account of its arrogant nature or lonely of those the strong arm tactics. People of moderate views and decency are entitled to a fair share of the good things of the world and with America, with Britain, America and Russia united they could maintain the peace of the world if they acted in sincerity. In the course of our two weeks in Australia we had a chance to visit only one other district the mining, manufacturing and sheep raising district of Bathurst ten miles west of Sydney. To get there we drove over first class roads through gently rolling farming country across a wide and beautiful river and up into mountains that resembled the Appalachians for a while then broke off into rock formations and valleys that looked like parts of New Mexico. We arrived in Bathurst to find a pleasant provincial town which seemed American western in character like some of the towns in Colorado. It was in two factories of Bathurst that our inquiries about one world met with especially vigorous recommendations for compromise on world economic issues. These highly optimistic comments came not from the ranks of labor as they had in some other countries, but from management. The owner of a prosperous canning plant Max Edgel strongly urged a cooperative peace. The bogie of communism and I think a great deal less than it was some years ago and anyway we're beginning to realize that communists are ordinary people much like ourselves and their views cannot in the long run be so very greatly different to our own and why shouldn't one be optimistic what's the good of being pessimistic? I think it's only by optimism that we can create the better world we can get better living conditions perhaps shorter hours of work and perhaps more money to spend and more leisure for sport maybe that's the best thing with the thing we all want but whatever it is, we've got to work together and be optimistic of the final result. And across the city from him in a plant by the name of the California Company the general administrator Robert Spate was also in favor of striking a balance between extremes of economic theory. To put it briefly and definitely not to commit myself in any way politically I would say that a balance must be struck between the original endeavour of private enterprise together with governmental support that should work favorably in any country you do not feel that there is an irreconcilable conflict between one and the other there may be in certain sectors but if they got together I don't see why there should be any trouble at all. We interviewed a number of workers in each factory and got some curious answers to questions I asked a seamstress named Mrs. Franks what she would recommend to solve the world's problems. The question by the way being interrupted by a klaxon signaling the end of the working day. Have you ever had any ideas of what you would do if you were a high authority and could make up laws? Oh, the only thing I'd like to do if I had in a high position I'd like to have a home for children and you know, home for children. And unequally unexpected answer came from the girl sitting across the workbench from her. If you had the chance to see any person you wanted in the world to meet any person you wanted who would you most prefer to meet? Sonja Hennie I think. Why Sonja Hennie? Oh, I don't know, I think she's so graceful and everything on skates. Oh, I'd just like to say hello Sonja Hennie that's all. And there was a chap whom Bland asked what he liked most, what he enjoyed most in American movies. What is it? Murderous. You, uh, why do you like murderous? Oh, and I'll give you something to think about. One morning we drove out over a winding country road to a sheep station. A small station pasturing only a few thousand sheep out of the 105 million which make Australia the world's leading producer. It was the shearing season and a group of laboratory sheers were on the job. They were a strong lot of men as they'd have to be for this back-breaking job. Mainly a quiet, reserved bunch as compared to the dockside workers and they seemed not so much interested in matters unrelated to to world affairs as to matters related to sheep. There was among them none of the hurly-burly animation we heard at a sheep auction and incidentally which we recorded for you. This part of the country, though only a few hours from Sydney by road, was called Back Blocks, the equivalent to our Backwoods country and the dialect of its people varied a good deal from what we heard in the city. Here's a moment of an interview I had with an eight-year-old boy. What kind of games do you play? Guess I'm the only one. Which one? Rock, paper, scissors. Rock, paper, scissors. Run around. Which one? Run around. Run around. And you run around with a lot of your schoolmates? Yeah. You go to the movies, any? Say your part? You go to the movie pictures? Yeah. What do you? When they come. Well, don't they come pretty often? Oh, they're twelve months. They're very twelve months. Every twelve months, eh? I've been here for a good while. These were the Back Blocks, districts where movies come but once a year, yet the world and its problems were well known to Terry's sheep station in Bunamagu. The tidings of war and peace, the news of Potsdam, Hiroshima, Bikini, Fulton, Missouri, all had made their way over the Blue Mountains to this place. An old sheepherder named Roughly, a bronze, thin and wiry man whose sheepdog put on a great exhibition of corraling forests, had a kind of rustic witt which made me think of the montas I have known. He, uh, had a sort of rye skepticism about his sources of information. You have doubts more or more doubts about the things that you read in the paper or about what you hear on the air? Better our local paper more than anywhere. He was not especially happy about the latest scientific accomplishments of our age. Well, now, uh, what do you think about the atomic bomb? You don't watch about that? I think it's a pity they were discovered. Now that we have it, what do you recommend we do about it? I'm not in one thing to do, let everybody have it. Far from considerations of atomic energy, hundreds of miles off to the western north of this gently hilly sheepland live the Aborigines, a fading race who numbered about 300,000 at the time of the first white settlements and who today are little more than 50,000. These, the native Australians, have been left largely to themselves in the 150 years during which the thin strip of coastal civilization which we recognize as Australia was being developed. They were left to their own resources, customs, totems, myths, birth rate and death rate. They were left to helplessness and inarticulateness, voiceless except for their songs, songs such as you hear in this recording. These people in some places as close to modern, thriving cities as New York is to Chicago are nevertheless as remote to the average white Australian as Eskimos to a Bostonian. They are dying off through no persecution. There were never any of the cruel massacres or exploitation which went along with the settling of so many other primitive countries. They were never taken in slavery, but they have never been accepted either or given any sustained concern or encouragement. They have only the crudest health and educational services and no political entity whatever. It seemed to me almost as though Australia had not yet had the time or the interest to think of ways of stopping the decline of the people headed toward extinction or of raising them from their low and backward estate. This is all the more surprising in view of the fact that in most respects Australia is progressive, fiercely democratic, imbued with a sense of equality and ambitious to achieve the highest standards of social life for its seven million people. In the basic functioning of its democratic system it is even further advanced than many in its democracy. For example, voting is compulsory. You're fined if you don't vote. The names of candidates for office are printed on the ballot without party designation or affiliation under the assumption that a voter should be sufficiently acquainted with the names and qualifications of office seekers before he goes to the polls. This helps take the emphasis off the party machine and puts it on the individual. The national elections fell across our calendar and the government was returned without any great contest. We had our microphone at the Sydney Town Hall on election night hoping to capture some of the atmosphere of the tally room but compared to what goes on in any big city here on election night it was quiet and sedate. All you could hear were occasional reports being relayed or broadcast as they came in by telephone from various parts of the city, state and country. Waitfield is sharing signs of a hard fight with a sitting Labour member Mr Smith who is just a slightest lead over Mr McBride, the Liberal candidate and former member of the National Parliament who is challenging him closely. The Australians insist on keeping their election campaigns safe from any navery in the last hour. No campaigning may be done on the radio or elsewhere in the two days prior to election. This, they say, is to prevent any unfair or illegal last-minute trick which the opposition might not have time to reply to. On election day early returns are never announced until after the polls have closed in order not to influence undecided voters. This sort of good sense was one of the dominant qualities in the Australians we met. It was mixed in with a sobriety, a strong business sense, love of country and a fanaticism for sports. They're mad about horse racing, cricket and tennis and on top of all this they have a bouncing and warm vitality which is reflected for one thing in their prolific slang. In the cultural field I found more zeal and energy than anywhere else in the world. Their press while largely conservative in politics is nevertheless lively and scrappy and torn. Books and magazines are all over. They're very proud of their artists but have a symphony orchestra in each of the five state capitals. New writers and composers are constantly encouraged. For example a composer named John Antel wrote a suite based on Aboriginal music and when the work was engaged for performance by the London Philharmonic the people of Sydney raised a fund to send him to England to hear the premiere of his work. That this was no mere hybrid movement to bring culture to the people but went deep within the government was confirmed in an interview I had with W.J. McKell then Premier of New South Wales and since elevated to the post of Governor-General of the country. Mr. McKell, born a butcher's son and in his youth Australia's middleweight boxing champion spoke with great pride of the care taken to accommodate sparsely populated areas. Devices such as travelling schools, correspondence courses, lending libraries, even itinerant orchestras and paintings. Our idea is not only to get our orchestras to our country towns but we also desire to get our pictures whatever pictures we have to the country towns. See in the art world we have established what we call travelling art exhibitions and periodically we take a number of pictures from our National Art Gallery in Sydney and those pictures are taken to the respective country towns. The interview with Mr. McKell was the last of our Australian visit. Next morning we went down to Rose Bay, one of the beautiful harbours of Sydney and boarded a flying boat for New Zealand a thousand miles away. A number of vivid impressions of Australia came along on that plane with us. Impressions of a clean, healthy, forward-looking nation which is just discovering its cultural potential and the possibilities inherent in its continent. A continent which I was told could profitably support five or ten times its present population. The single most heartening thing to me as a traveller looking for signs of peace, unity and one world was the attitude of Australians toward the rest of the globe. Their geographical isolation down between the equator and the Antarctic has given them a perspective on world affairs which is unique and refreshing for its calmness, its lack of hysteria and its general optimism. Few among them thought there would be any war and this optimism ranged from the dark end who said of the peace that it would go on for an easy hundred years and over through the business executive who said of the prospect of war I'm not worried about it. All the way up to the new Governor-General. Well my view is optimistic. There will be no war in the near future. These men were speaking for a country which, although energetic, has never tried to push anyone around. A country which has never gone to war against its immediate neighbors. Something that cannot be said of many countries on this earth. And it seemed to me last fall that Australia would prefer to keep this record intact. Especially now that its immediate neighbors include everybody in the world. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.