Wisdom From a Tale of Two Nations.

AUSTRALIA; CANADA

This article presents thoughts from David Malouf on the creation of both Canada and Australia. Last week, eminent Australian writer David Malouf delivered the fifth annual LaFontaine-Baldwin lecture, a joint venture of His Excellency John Ralston Saul and the Dominion Institute. Federations devoted to the public good, we have two of the oldest systems of government in the world and legal systems so close that decisions in your courts are frequently cited as precedents in ours. We know when Australia began, Jan. 26th, 1788, when the male convicts of the First Fleet and their guards were unloaded at Sydney Cove. One such moment was when the two men who give their names to this lecture series, LaFontaine and Baldwin, bringing with them their people, their language groups and the experience they represented, made common cause to win responsible government. As a child of Empire, my vision of Canada--" Our Lady of the Snows," as Kipling called it in one of his imperial odes--derived from tales of the rugged outdoors I read in Boy's Own Annuals and from an advertisement on Australian radio.