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

26
Even this was a limited vacation for he wanted to get material for articles and to gain
perspective against which to make decisions about the particular aspects of Australia
he was to include in the projected Australia Unlimited. Not only did this open his
eyes to the fact of the huge number of indigent people close to this country, but the
very proximity of these countries made a shattering impression on him. He began
afresh to campaign to wake his fellow Australians to the dangers of an Asian
invasion, which he regarded as inevitable, but found no comforting response. He
likened his lack of succes to the initial failure of his ancestor, a senior contemporary
of Shakespeare and member of the Irish Privy Council to which Edmund Spenser was
once clerk, to establish Trinity College in Dublin. 1 But although his ancestor’s efforts
were ultimately successful, Brady’s were not, and in spite of warnings in prose and
verse, the Japanese assaults in the Pacific were largely unprepared for.
After his Asian journey Brady returned to Melbourne, living at Mordialloc and then
Mentone. Enheartened by his recent publications, enlivened by the intellectual
challenge and physical refreshment of his overseas voyage, he decided to put his
considerable journalistic and publicist talents to good use in the preparation of a book
which would embrace the historical, geographical and industrial aspects of Australia.
It would serve not only as a comprehensive statement of Australia’s achievement but
also set out her scenic beauties in such a manner to assist both tourists and settlers.
This task was to occupy almost all Brady’s time for the next six years, and although it
caused him considerable anguish, argument and despair, it was to prove the most
profitable of all his published works.
It was on a visit to see his mother, who lived at Woollahra, that he first heard news of
the outbreak of war. The account of his strange involvement in the reception of this
news once again illustrates his familiarity with the political figures of his day:
Mr. Hughes was standing in the vestibule of the Hotel Metropole in Sydney on
a memorable Sunday forenoon in August of 1914 – a small, anxious figure,
suggesting loneliness and unease. I had come in from Woollahra with my son,
whom I had collected after booking our return passage to Melbourne. Mr.
Hughes told me he was waiting for his Secretary, Allan Box, who had gone to
newspaper offices to glean news from later cablegrams. Mr. Box returned
with very definite overseas information from London – the war gong had
struck, the combatants were in the ring!
As I sit here seventeen years later reviewing the Australian Labor Movement,
the figure of that drooping little man in the vestibule arises again in the vision
of my recollection. 2
Realising that the war would bring many changes to Australian, and anxious that
nothing should interrupt his preparation of Australia Unlimited, Brady decided to
return to his haven in Mallacoota. Her he made his permanent home, and even though
he left it on occasion for the city’s lights, attractions and business, it was to
Mallacoota that he returned for solace and regeneration henceforth.
1 Personalia, p.5, in Mitchell Library.
2 “Landslides”, The Red Objective