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

38
He had samples of the ore of this mine assayed and although the assayer’s report was
encouraging, the syndicate was advised to wait until the price of gold rose to ensure
the mine was economically viable. It is not clear, from the surviving documents,
whether Brady became impatient and sold out his share to his partners or whether the
claim just petered out. One thing is certain though; he did not make his fortune from
it.
An enterprise more in keeping with Brady’s talents commenced at this time. In
conjunction with three members of a Melbourne family, Lionel, Pat and Gerald
Stanley, Brady formed the Pelsart Publishing Company with an office in Little Collins
Street and a capital of a thousand pounds. The Stanley family put up the money,
Brady’s responsibility being to supply the literary work for a retainer and a quarter
share of any profits. Fairly secure on eight pounds a week, he set out to do publicity
and general writing with several major schemes in mind. An Abridged version of
Australia Unlimited was commenced; a book to celebrate the Sesquicentenary of New
South Wales, to be published in conjunction with The Bulletin was planned as well as
another to publicise the Wool Industry, one for the Tasmanian Government and an
Australian Family Biography, for which prominent families would pay fifteen pounds
for a page entry, was mooted.
The scheme began well. A start was made on the abridged Australia Unlimited and
the Tasmanian volume. The Stanley brothers secured a five hundred pound contract
from the Tasmanian Government and then, according to Brady, imposed some new
conditions and the client withdrew. Brady was furious. As a result of this and other
contretemps the working capital was frittered away. Commercial ineptness on the
part of Brady’s partners as well as a failure to understand the field of publishing on
the part of all concerned seems to have been the cause of the company’s collapse, 1 but
it was becoming more and more obvious that Brady was going into such moneymaking
activities without a thorough investigation and without a down-to-earth
appraisal of the chance of success. Failure was too frequent. Perhaps it was that his
idealistic and romantic outlook swayed what should have been a more realistic
assessment of his chances. However Pelsart supplied Brady with a living for a time,
and even this was some recompense for the loss of the pot of gold which had existed
in the figments of his imagination only.
As evidence of an outlook which was more realistic when no financial interest was
involved, Brady publicly advocated the purchase in 1936 of a thousand fighter planes
to prepare for the Japanese invasion which he regarded as inevitable. Even before his
Malay States visit in 1912 he had been preaching, with vision and vehemence, that the
Asian question was one which Australia had to face. He had given warning of this
during his days on The Worker, especially when the Japanese captured Port Arthur. 2
He had also contributed a long poem to The Bulletin deploring the missed
opportunities – the failure of Australia to cultivate the inland and populate the
northern section of this vast continent or to mine its mineral wealth. He decried the
tolerance of Australians towards absentee landlords and the national preoccupation
with racing and other sports instead of a practical concern with the business of
developing the country:
1 In a letter to Arthur Stubbs, 22.1.1938, in National Library, Brady placed the whole blame for failure
on this partners. He was reluctant to admit his own deficiencies. He told a similar story to his
daughter, Moya, in a letter, 15.4.1937, in Mitchell Library
2 “Australia’s Peril”, The Worker, 7.1.1905