Review of Reviews, 119/OS. 



GO AHEAD, AUSTRALASIA 1 



TTie^ise Cknc/ Progress 



o/^ fAe 



Employees at Ballarat Workshops. 



It would be a difficult matter to decide the exact 

 position in the scale of human progress which should 

 be assigned to inventive genius, but it is an un- 

 doubted fact that the ability to create, 

 to " make," and to find the quickest 

 and easiest methods of making, should 

 be placed amongst the first attri- 

 butes which go to the development 

 and maintenance of a nation. This ap- 

 plies more especially to the science of 

 mechanics, and in reviewing the condi- 

 tion of the world we find, in the past es 

 in the present, that those nations lacking 

 in that quality have inevitably gone to 

 the wall. Many of these have possessed, 

 it is true, a creative genius of a very 

 high order fiom the artistic stand- 

 point, but where the merit is purelv ar- 

 tistic, with a consequent ignoring of the 

 utilitarian aspect, the nation possessing it 

 has invariably had to give place in the struggle for 

 precedence to the communities, of hard-handed 

 iiard-headed toilers who make things for " use." 



Mr. H. V. M Kay. 



If, again, in the same community, we find two 

 bodies of men complementary to each other, one 

 working honestly to produce the primary necessaries 

 of life, and the other with active brains 

 and clever fingers making it easier for 

 the first to produce more and more 

 abundantly ; if, in fact, we get the far- 

 mer who will grow the crop, and the 

 agricultural implement maker who will 

 supply him with the means of harvesting 

 it cheaply, quickK . and without waste, we 

 get the safest combination for the mak- 

 ing of a strong, self-reliant and virile 

 ^ , nation that it is |)ossible to have. Here. 



^ I ■'- in Sunny Australia, we have such a com- 

 bination. We have a strong, hardy and 

 willing body of primar\- producers dis- 

 tributed over our large areas. Sparselv 

 distriliuted, we must admit, at the pre- 

 sent time, but that is not the fault of the 

 land. But it is not in our province to discuss that as- 

 pect of the question here. In the various centres, we 

 have groups of men who have not only been fashion- 



