It is all too seldom that the Western world produces someone with the critical objectivity, the insight into human nature, the ability to communicate, and the involvement with his fellow man to write revealingly about the Eastern world. In these sketches the author introduces samlor drivers and doctors, servant boys and teachers, village farmers and government officials.

In 1856, at the age of six, Samuel Shumack came to the Duntroon Estate in Canberra. He farmed in the district until 1915. Forced by injury to retire from active farming, Shumack, at the age of 59, began to record his memories of old Canberra. He was an acute and accurate observer. His stories move freely from one episode to the next. The text is enhanced by eight colour plates by artist Gray Smith. This fascinating book will be treasured by all who have an interest in Canberra's history. Chap.

The Catholics in Australia in the early nineteenth century were mainly Irish, and were served by a handful of Irish priests. In 1835 the English Benedictine, John Bede Polding, became first Bishop, and eight years later founded a Benedictine monastery in Sydney, with Henry Gregory as Prior. English Benedictine authoritarianism, conservatism, and culture were foreign elements imposed on Churchmen whose problems were largely practical and whose thinking was becoming less conservative, following the liberalising changes in Europe.

This book examines current issues of constitutional law in Australia from the perspective of a group of Commonwealth and State Solicitors-General and academic lawyers. The topics covered include : the nature of appropriation (including the Commonwealth spending power); excise duty; section 92; Commonwealth prerogative powers; industrial powers; and the Imperial connection.

This book penetrates the facade of colonial law to consider European land acquisitions in the context of a complex historical process. Its context is land, but it is fundamentally a legal study of the problems arising out of the dichotomy between traditional New Guinea law and imposed Prussian law. Though these problems arose out of events that took place more than fifty years ago, they are of immediate relevance for New Guinea in the 1970s. They are mostly still unsolved and are only now emerging from under the layers of political compromise that have concealed them.

The Aboriginal 'Embassy' on the lawns outside Parliament House, Canberra, was a striking symbol of the dissatisfaction many Aborigines feel with the justice they receive under the white man's law. This book demonstrates how that justice discriminates against Aboriginal Australians. Dr Rowley discusses typical situations - the plight of the Aboriginal employee on the northern cattle stations, the fringe dwellers round country towns, those living in the cities and those still on managed reserves.

Perhaps nowhere in Australia have working and living conditions for Aborigines been so bad as on Northern Territory cattle stations. Though the Aborigines{u2019} skill in handling cattle is acknowledged by their white employers, rarely have they gained recognition in any material way. None were paid full wages, many were fortunate if they received any cash wages at all, almost all lived in appalling conditions, and many were subjected to physical violence.

Aboriginal poverty is of the worst kind. It is the poverty of the few alongside the affluence of the many, self-generating, associated with ethnic heritage and colour, and dependent on others for alleviation. In this book an economist deeply concerned that Australians, one of the world{u2019}s wealthiest people, still have in their midst the poorest and possibly the smallest indigenous ethnic minority of any country, proposes urgently and cogently a wholly practical solution to the problem.