Return to Paradise

by James A. Michener

  The other thing Australians love is sport. In number of participants, tennis is the prime game, and the Aussies are convinced they’ll retain the Davis Cup. The most colorful sport is surfing. On perfect beaches, where combers from the Pacific thunder in, the Australian family collects a fine coat of tan. “We’re a nation of pagan sun-worshippers,” complain ministers during the summer months.

  Every beach is protected by Life Saving Clubs, and to see the handsomely outfitted young men parading like wooden soldiers as they go to drill is an exciting experience. R & R competitions—rescue and resuscitation—are held throughout the season. “Patients” swim madly to distant buoys, where they “drown.” On the beach a team of five goes through motions as stylized as a ballet. The beltman—rescuer—swims like crazy out to the buoy, while the shore crew play out a long silken rope. Now they drag back the two swimmers and resuscitate the drowned man. On show days, it’s a game. On other days, it saves thousands of lives.

  Australian beaches have a special problem. The surf is so rough that many dentures are knocked loose. At low tides, the guards collect them and place them in rows, from which distraught owners can claim their own. But in recent years, bums have been slipping in, trying the chompers for size, and walking off with a set that fits.

  Australia has a strong baseball league, with junior teams who wear uniforms donated by Bing Crosby. It’s amusing to read that “two sides have a fixture as finalists for the major premiership.” Girls play softball. Lacrosse and basketball are popular. Older men play bowls, “but your knee has to crick before you’re old enough to make the team.” On country stations, farmhands use a pitchfork to toss a ten-pound bag representing a sheaf of wheat over a bar. Champions toss it higher than fifty feet. Billiards is a mania with many, and Walter Lindrum was a greater champion in his game—pot the ball, scratch off it or carom—than Willie Hoppe was in his.

  The great games are football and cricket. Australians play four kinds of football, each rougher than the other: soccer (11 men, kick the ball); rugby union (15 men, handle or kick); rugby league (13 men, rougher rules); and Australian rules (18 men, kick, run, dribble).

  This last is a cross between throwing slaves into the Coliseum and a riot in an Irish pub. Body contact is violent, hospitalization frequent.

  In fact, Australian sport is a man’s occupation. Papers on Monday are a report of lacerations, who kicked whom, referees’ explanations as to why the riot developed and formal protests. One Rules game in Sydney—it’s really a Melbourne game—resulted in four fractures, a riot and the public censure of two officials.

  Even cricket—that dullest of games—becomes murder when Australians are involved. For several years England had dominated play for the Ashes, cricket’s mythical Davis Cup, but in the 1920’s one of the world’s most remarkable sportsman appeared in a small Australian town. He was Don Bradman, cricket’s Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Joe DiMaggio rolled into one. He mesmerized the opposition. Sometimes he batted for days, scoring doubles and triple centuries.

  He was knighted by the King for having practically murdered English bowlers. But they got even. In the 1930’s they developed two bowlers of super speed who heaved the ball right at Bradman’s head. When he tried to defend himself with his bat, the English captain posted half his team in the infield. And Bradman popped up.

  This outrageous sportsmanship was indefensible—wasn’t cricket, you know—but there was no rule against it. The Ashes deteriorated into a public brawl. At Adelaide, the English were razzed worse than the Giants are booed in Brooklyn. Books were written and there was some talk of dissolving the Empire.

  Finally, the rules were changed. You could no longer pack the infield, but by this time Australia had two very fast bowlers and England none. So, in the 1948 tests, Australian bowlers banged murderous shots right at English heads, and more books were written. New rules were proposed, but the Aussies say, “No matter the rules! We’ll still win!” Say the English, “Goodness! They play as if all they wanted was to win!” Reply the Aussies, “We do.”

  But to see the nation go mad, you must attend the Melbourne Cup, run at beautiful Flemington Race Track in early November. During the war an Australian stationed in New Guinea found himself in a Jungle outpost when the Cup rolled around. There was no one to bet with, so he finally talked a naked savage into backing the favorite for a couple of bob. No self-respecting Australian is ever caught without “something going in the Cup.” The betting mania on this race is unbelievable, for horse racing is the national sport, betting the national vice.

  Lotteries are popular. State governments use them to support hospitals, and famous ones like The Golden Casket have been running for years. First prize in a big one might consist of two furnished homes, a $3000 sport car, and an income for life. Horse punters—as serious bettors are called—like doubles and all ups (parlays). A Melbourne clerk recently picked eight certain winners in a row and bet $6 all up. He won $65,000 for one afternoon’s work!

  But to see the national spirit at its best, one must visit Oak Park for the August meeting. Oak Park is a cattle station on the vast plains of the north. There is no town, no railway, nothing but a big open space where the maximum amount of fun can be had.

  People begin to arrive six days before the races. They tent on station land. There’s a dance every night in the wool shed. Women wear their best. Right promptly the men—some of them near millionaires—start “to lay the dust.” They keep this up for six days, and then the serious drinking begins.

  From places as far as 400 miles away, people charter planes to see this fabulous meeting. By race time, Oak Park looks like a gold-rush town. Sixteen important bookmakers arrive to place odds on anything. Only amateur jockeys and inexperienced horses are run, but the betting is astronomical. A caterer sets up a shack where he feeds two hundred a day. Fellows and girls dance all night and raise hell all day. It’s Australia at the country races! Reported a friend with a faraway look, “Oak Park! Never in me life did I see such beautiful fist fights!”

  But Australians can also achieve great things in harnessing their mighty land. In the Murray River Valley, they have discovered a dozen ways to use every drop of water they get. Great hydroelectric projects use the streams as they form. Irrigation is practiced to make utter desert lands flourish with fruits and cereals. Then dams store what’s left for fields lower down.

  In the Latrobe Valley, east of Melbourne, great deposits of brown coal have been uncovered and the wet, not-yet formed coal is burned in special furnaces that use the steam for power and the dried-out coal for briquettes. The entire valley has become an Australian T.V.A., a brilliant project with created villages, new industries and great promise.

  The harnessing scheme I liked best was one some four hundred miles east of Oak Park. There, on a jungled tableland, I was led to the edge of a precipice and loaded into a swinging birdcage—called “The Flying Fox”—which swung out over a tremendous waterfall that roared some six hundred feet below me. Wind made the Fox sway sickeningly as spray leaped up from the black rocks below.

  When I reached the other side, I was taken to a cable car—an old coal truck dangling from a single strand of wire—and dropped seven hundred feet straight down the cliff to the foot of the falls. It was a superb trip, if one looked up at the water.

  There was nothing when I stopped but the rock floor of the huge canyon, but I was led behind some rocks and into a deep cave. There, completely protected from any kind of assault, was hidden a complete hydroelectric plant capable of generating 110,000 volts. It served an area of 400,000 square miles, yet even the penstocks delivering the head of water were buried deep in rock, up gloomy tunnels that sweated as I climbed them.

  The Australian, like his newer projects, is a powerful man, primarily Irish and English. His ancestors were petty convicts—“Selected by some of the smartest judges in England”—who had to be sent to Australia after the American Revolution had ended the traffic to Pennsylvania and Georgia. The Australi
an’s Mayflower is the famous First Fleet of eleven ships which landed in 1788.

  The Australian loves freedom. He has fought for it and established his nation in the face of great obstacles. When Captain Bligh of the Bounty was sent out to knock some discipline into the local lads, they proved too tough for him. They told him to go on back home, and he did so.

  An Australian journalist, long accustomed to the courtesies of American shops, returned to Melbourne and sought to buy his wife some chocolates. “Don’t have any,” the clerk snapped. “But there’s a box in the window!” the journalist protested. The clerk stopped dead, cupped his hands and yelled, “Hi, Mabel! Come ’ere! It’s the bloody Duke of Gloucester!”

  A railroad crew in Queensland had a boss described as “the finest man who ever drew breath.” But one utterly cantankerous workman set out to lay him low and one day did so. Said the others, “Jake was right. We was gettin’ to like the boss too much.”

  When the famous actor, Robert Morley, gave Sydney stagehands the same aloof treatment he had dished out in London and New York, they said nothing. But opening night of Edward, My Son was a riot. Curtains didn’t work, the phone behaved disgracefully, and when Morley switched a light, nothing happened. Said one, “We gave him the old Australian handshake.”

  You’ve never been insulted until you offend an Australian. Their scorn is vitriolic. They say proudly, “No bloody barstud can tell me how to do anything. But if you’re man enough to do it yourself, well … I like a bloke who knows the tricks.”

  Australians prize this arrogance, even when directed against themselves. The journalist who was accused of mistaking himself for the Duke says, “I like it that way. When I was a lad, sheep shearers got three dollars for shearing a penful. And if the owner didn’t like the results, he might not pay. You touched your cap, when you spoke to a man with money. Me? I touch my cap to nobody.”

  In order to understand Australian labor, it is necessary to visit Broken Hill. You leave Sydney and travel west by fast train. You cross the Blue Mountains and then penetrate desert waste for hundreds of miles. Names on your map refer only to stops where sheep may be loaded. You are in the Outback—the Never-Never—where wind rips across empty land. Monotony increases and you seem headed for nowhere.

  Then suddenly, you see a gaunt mine shaft, and as you approach you find not desert but a green and tree-protected city of 27,000. Many visitors call Broken Hill a miracle. It is.

  From its jagged crest have been taken multimillions in almost pure silver and lead. It was probably the richest single deposit of wealth ever discovered, and when tailings from silver mining were examined, they were found to contain new fortunes in zinc.

  In 1905, a brilliant young engineer from London, described in the official history as “Mr. H. C. Hoover, who subsequently rose to the eminent position of the President of the United States,” established processes by which the zinc could be won.

  A closely held company controlled this fantastic wealth. It was named Broken Hill Proprietary—world famed as B.H.P.—and yearly dividends of more than 100% were common. Now B.H.P. has turned its attention to making steel and is the biggest producer south of the Equator, the most powerful corporation in Australia, comparable only to Du-Pont or Armstrong Vickers.

  B.H.P. developed when most men thought that riches existed only to make rich men richer. Australian workmen were not of that opinion. In a series of protracted and brutal strikes, they established the principle that they were entitled to a substantial share of all profits.

  Today, Broken Hill is one of the most completely unionized cities on earth. And the unions are considered ideal patterns for others to follow. There is little labor strife, no wildcatting, no irresponsible outside leaders to wreck production.

  Credit for this goes to the Barrier Industrial Council, an advisory board to which all unions must belong. It is the sole bargaining authority. It conducts Union Badge Shows, when practically every workman in Broken Hill—hairdressers, blacksmiths, bakers, municipal employees, bartenders, reporters—displays his union badge.

  To join one of the good unions in this ideal city, you must (1) have been born in Broken Hill; or (2) been educated there since the first grade; or (3) lived there for eight years. Thus there is no chance for radical outsiders to take over. Says management: “Those we have are radical enough!”

  The city is a law to itself. It has thirty-nine bars which rarely close. “There’s legal closing, of course, but it’s open to a fluid interpretation.” The Barrier Council assisted by the companies, have provided good doctors, a fine hospital, excellent education, race tracks, swimming pools, picnic grounds, honest gambling and public housing.

  For example, Mrs. Velda Waiters, aged 31, is married to a miner who works underground. She and Cyril were born in Broken Hill, but as a young man he did not fancy mining. He ran away with a circus, but he was gypped out of his pay so many times that Broken Hill stability began to look pretty good. He took a job with Zinc Corporation.

  The Waiters live in a small concrete-block house with a corrugated roof, which they bought for $11 a month. They are considering a newer house, which Zinc will finance. They have recently bought a Kelvinator through Zinc at a discount of $32.

  They enjoy many industrial benefits resulting from the great strikes. For 36 cents a month, the family gets medical insurance including hospitalization, medicine and surgery. For another 14 cents, they get free dental care, but they must pay for any false teeth.

  At Christmas, they get three-weeks’ vacation with pay and a cheap ride on a Zinc train to Adelaide, where they can rent a seashore tent for 80 cents a week.

  Cyril Waiters makes about $65 a week plus all kinds of recreational facilities, a lending library, a pre-school kindergarten for his daughter, plus all the social services which labor has forced the state to provide: health insurance, charity hospitalization, free drugs, widow’s pension of $5.26 a week plus $1.60 for each child. He has unemployment insurance, financial aid when his wife is pregnant, a child endowment of $1.60 a week for each child after the first. When he grows too old to work, he and his wife may, if they need help, move into an old folks’ home where each married couple has a private flat, medical service, and $6.84 a week per person. At death, the state will provide Cyril Watters with a free grave and a Christian burial, if his family cannot do so.

  In addition to such services, every man or woman connected in any way with mining at Broken Hill receives a lead bonus—about $27 a week, depending on the world price—irrespective of his other wages. This was won as a result of a strike and accounts for the restrictions on union membership.

  Then, to complete the miracle of Broken Hill, the companies decided that some steps must be taken to halt the erosion that is crippling much of Australia. (Coastal towns are sometimes swept away by torrents of water that used to be held on the land by trees and roots.) At Broken Hill huge strips of trees have been planted, ground cover restored, and a magnificent flowering oasis created in the middle of desert land. This has been done by hauling water as far as 72 miles. It is no wonder that two local words dominate Broken Hill conversation: “It’s a beaut day. It’s a bonza town.”

  Cyril Watters has been worried recently with a touch of pleurisy, and his wife has wondered whether or not he should quit underground work. He also has an odd habit of riding home at night in the ambulance. This worries his wife, who knows that no matter what benefits the Barrier Council has won, mining is still a dangerous job. “If he gets good pay, he earns it.”

  Of course, even if Cyril did quit Zinc he wouldn’t leave Broken Hill. A man would be crazy to leave that rollicking, impudent, wonderful place.

  Australia is a worker’s paradise. An employer with religious scruples wouldn’t permit factory broadcasts of horse races. His girls quit. There are at least half a million unfilled jobs. Even the casual listener hears of many industries that would be launched “if I could get the help.” An employer must actually beg people to work for him. One fals
e step, and his whole force may walk out!

  A glaring result of labor’s domination is a critical underproduction of everything. Practically all items that go into building a house are unobtainable through normal channels. Bathtubs, toilets, tiles, telephones, cement and steel cannot be bought. As a result, the housing shortage is much worse than in America, for even the smallest town is brutally overcrowded.

  I sat in the upper chamber of Victoria State Parliament when the Minister for Works was being questioned. “Why do we have insufficient schools?” Money has been budgeted for 250. “Why don’t you build them?” No cement. No workmen if there were cement. “Why isn’t the park roadway mended?” We have the funds but no workmen. “Why don’t you build a breakwater to protect the shore?” We have the money but we can’t get men to work so far from home.

  One odd aspect of the forty-hour week is that many families find it almost impossible to shop. Stores close Saturdays and clerks won’t work late one night a week. Housewives with jobs do all their marketing during lunch hour. When I asked a woman what she’d do if she wanted to buy a dress, she said, “I’d skip out during work.” And if the boss caught you? “If he opened his mouth, I’d jolly well quit.” The post office, where an immense amount of business is conducted—telegrams, telephones, social security, old-age pension—is open from 9 to 5, so that queues at lunch hour are staggering.

  Actually, it’s a thirty-five hour week. Employees are entitled to ten minutes smoko—Cigarette and tea—morning and afternoon. It usually runs to twenty minutes each time, and on Fridays clerks start to wind up the week’s work shortly after lunch. In an expanding land that needs everything, Australia produces little.

  Yet the resulting pattern of life is wonderfully pleasing. (Says one Australian critic: “All my people want is freedom, no work, a lottery ticket and a pint of beer.”) I myself have been happier in Australia than in any other major nation except my own. Life is easy. The climate is superb. Nobody gets ulcers. And anyway, most people work too much.