Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/37/1 - January - February 1916 - Part 3

19
well. He ws a brilliant speaker
& he must have made _^as High Commr at least 1000
speeches - a few serious; mostly
bufoonery, but nearly all worth
listening too & to. And yet I
cannot remember his having
made a single unwise statement.
As long as he ws responsible to
Australia - tt is to say, as long
as Australia had him under / 
whip, & could have turned him
out instantly if he misrepresented
her - so long he represented her
most faithfully. He had a genius
for knowing exactly what Australians
wd think on any point
& he reflected their opinions like
a mirror.
Now that he cannot be
turned out of office _^- not by all /
Australians  tt xxx exist- he
is beginning to talk sheer heresy;
that we must remould our
policy & cannot any longer, after this
war, treat our fellow subjects as
if they were aliens - by wh he

20
means tt we must open / door
to / population of India.
Why? Australia has done
every ounce tt she cd in this
war, - has taken it more
seriously than Britain - why
shd her positn be altered one
fraction because Indians too have
chosen to fight. Do Britain or
India owe us less after this
war than before it?
But tt is not really / point.
The point is tt / moment George
Reid cuts himself free from /
Australian people. while still
claiming to represent us (& of course
/ British people thinks that he
does) he talks this stuff wh he
knows (& none better) wd be disowned
by Every Australian worthy the
name. We do honour / Indians
after this war - none more than I do.
But our country is our country,
we intend, it to be a white country
& it is / virtues o / Indians tt
make them dangerous to us &
not their vices. And so w /

21
Japanese.
Now Andrew Fisher, who
arrived is a few days (or rather
to ago as High Commr, has
none of Reid's ability as a speaker.
He is rather a dull tedious
speaker, w a monotonous
Scotch accent. But He is short
hasty tempered & his success has
made him rather overweening &
unable to endure opposition. He
will possibly be unnecessarily
rude to those he doesn't understand 
- & there are very many whom
he does not understand because
altho' he has a certain Scottish
acuteness his understanding is
not very deep; indeed he is often
inexpressibly stupid at grasping
another man's argument - I know
because I have heard him engaged
in such arguments. But he is a
man of conviction, a man of
clean clear purpose, an

22
Australian to the last & pretty
fearless - as politicians go - in
forcing those behind him to face
xx what he believes to be the
fact. When that wobbler, Deakin,
who had twenty times the brains
& ability of Fisher, established
an Australian Navy & refused
to urge / Australian people to
pay for it - indeed actually
passed an Act for / payment of
annually recurring defence
expenditure out of loan money
- Andrew Fisher, the labour
man, sd tt Australia shd pay
for her ship bldg out of her annual
taxation or he wd go down - &
he wd have, too. If he cd not have
induced / people of Australia to
repeal Deakins act & put their
hands in their pockets for / money
wh he thought ws necessary
I believe Andrew Fisher would

23
have gone out. He wd have
risen all / stronger later on,
I have no doubt. And so wd
Deakin if he had taken the
same course & bn ready to
fall w his opinions on this
or some twenty other questions.
But Alfred Deakin cd never
face a fall - he must always
get round a difficulty, never
through it, because tt wd
put him temporarily out of
power. He wd never ask /
people to do anything it
didn't want to do - He
always had to be on / winning
side w / result tt he betrayed
all his friends, one after another,
/ moment they looked like
losing. Charming man tho' he
ws personally, too charming to be
quite sincere, he could not face
a fall - w / result that he

24
fell - crashed more utterly
than any statesman of my time
in Australia.
Of course Cook was a
man who set his sails, too, to
steer w / wind tt blew. But
then nobody ever prof expected
anythin else of Cook - He ws a
skilled politician & scarcely
professed to be more &
he ws a far stronger man
than Deakin. It is true tt he
and Miller made a party question
out of this war & tried to win
a general election by turning
/ war into a party cry - but
then no one expected much else of
Joe Cook & Miller. They were
party men pure & simple &
they cdn't help thinking more
of their own portfolios than anything
else when / war broke out. That
is to say they reconciled their

25
consciences very easily to /
idea tt they & they alone were
the party fit to conduct Australia
in war time. No one expected
much else of either. They elect
might have known tt to have an
election at all during war time
wd disgust Australians - but
/ Liberal politician in Australia
has a very mean conception
of his electors. The people
turned them down & threw
them out - Sir George Reid has
been dragging Anzac into his
election speeches in England
for wh we all owe him
something of a grudge. But his
again was a case tt didnt affect
us very much because it was
a private election in England.
But Deakin, the Australian,
the founder o / A.N.A., ought to
have known better; & when he
turned Australia's feeling as to /

26
Imperial Navy in 1909 into
a party cry because he saw
a chance (with Joe Cook it
came more natural) to get
into power with it - he
committed what, to some of us,
was an unforgivable sin.
However - this is all
a propos of George Reid's refusal
to neglect to father the Anzac
Book as we expected him
to, well, / fact tt his name
is not in / preface of it (tho'
it was is in / text) is his loss &
not ours.
Collins, Reid's official secretary
had never been told by R. of the
Anzac Book. Douglas Reid had,
& had mentioned it to old
Kneebone of the Publicity Dept.
I went & saw Kneebone, &
after him to see H.C. Smart
who had bn made Controller of /
Australian Military office.

27
Smart, who has a great deal
more to do than most, at once
rang up two or three publishers
of those whom he sd were
suitable; gave me a room
in his office: interviewed
the publishers representatives
w me next morning. By
midday our minds were
pretty well made up ^as to wh publisher ws / best. By
one o'clock we had particulars
prepared of the no. of coloured blocks,
n^o. of photos & process blocks,
no. of line blocks, no. of pages
etc. ^& sent out to the publishers;
by next day we had their
price & had fixed up with
Cassells - who, I have no
doubt at all were much /
best qualified. Smart showed
me how to make up a book o /
magazine on single sheets, illustratns
as far as possible on / right

28
hand pages; making up /
full single pages first & fitting
in / other articles, pictures,
head & tail pieces afterwds.
It took me / whole of one night
&, as I started unexpectedly
early for France, / whole of
the second night after that, to
get the thing into order -
working till 8.30am & just catching
the 8.50 am. train at Charing X.
In all of this the officers
in the Press section of the War
Office were exceedingly kind.
Both in getting me leave to go to France
& in ^getting me leave to publish my photos in the
Book (the War office has closed
down entirely on unofficial
photos unless you like to
flout them wh anyone is
perfectly free to do) as being an
official Army Corps publication