A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF EDWIN JAMES BRADY - Mallacoota ...

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This militancy was soon followed up by more. Urging his fellow to action, Brady
stated that “When Poverty takes Resentment to spouse, the issue of that union is
usually revolution” and wrote very feelingly about his personal experiences of lack
and deprivation, giving “golden years” to “sordid commercial work” when he could
have been serving his country better in a more creative capacity. He urged the
intellectuals in the community to become more militant:
The must become a solid phalanx, penetrative, united, aggressive, prepared if
necessary to capture governments and impose their Will, which is the Will of
Righteousness and Divinity, upon this availing community; this young,
unmoulded, unshaped, unled, unexpressed Australian Commonwealth. 1
A much more moderate tone was employed when he wrote to the President of the
Australian Literary Society, Dr. James Booth. After assuring him of his support in
any such campaign which would lead to benefits for Australian literature, he
concluded; “In the final crystallisation of human values, the history of a nation’s
enduring achievements is measured mostly bu the contributions she has made to art,
poetry and literature.” 2 Australia was regarded as handicapped in this respect because
her books could not enter the United States and Europe in any quantity while she
herself was flooded with cheap imports of serials and magazines. Brady considered
the termination of this state of affairs long overdue and once again urged that “the
creative intellects of Australia should link up in fraternal association not only for their
own protection against home and foreign exploitation but for the well-being and
development of this Commonwealth.” 3
And so the battle for Protection went on. “Furnley Maurice” and Mary Gilmore were
two more who wrote at intervals to the periodicals keeping the issue alive and urging
similar action. 4 When asked to write a short statement for Australian Authors’ Week,
Brady wrote on this topic. 5
There was a glimmer of light within the gloom when newspapers in 1936 spoke of the
Government’s intention of setting up a Parliamentary Committee to supervise a
Federal scheme for assisting Australian literature. In haste, Brady wrote to Menzies,
Hughes, Gullet, Sculllin, Curtin, Essington Lewis, Kent-Hughes and Senator Don
Cameron offering his services to this end, but his offer came to nothing.
In the early 1940’s Brady wrote several articles for Bohemia on the sad plight of
national writers, but still affirming his faith in their ultimate amelioration. 6 yet he was
fast becoming discouraged. All his journalistic endeavours in this regard, all those of
his companions, had availed nothing. Miles Franklin wrote to him, pledging support
but adding a cautionary comment:
We do not want this fellowship where a few of the lesser writers can get drunk.
We want a stirring trade-union like the Authors’ Society of London. That, till
his death, depended on Thring, the great lawyer who was stupendous for the
writers, always and everywhere. Not being a write himself his ego did not get
in the way. A writer can be president perhaps, but there wants to be a strong
man who is not a writer, who would need vision, love of country and
understanding of what writers mean to this country.
1 “Be Militant”, The Australian Journalist, 15.15.1922, p.109.
2 Brady to Dr. James Booth, 7.3.1927, in National Library.
3 “The Time is Ripe” manuscript in Australian Arts and Letters in National Library
4 Furnley Maruice, “Encouraging Australian Poetry”, The Bulletin, 19.5.1927.
5 “The Week and After”, The Herald, (Melbourne), 10.9.1927.
6 “Let My People Go”, Bohemia, February 1940; “Battle Axes to Grind”, March 1940.