The Awful Australian - Valerie Desmond - Bog

This strange, topsy-turvey country, not content with having fruit with
stones on the outside, has made the unique experiment of handing over its
government to its peasantry! Other lands have at times fallen under the
sway of the hoi-polloi, but this has always been temporary, and the result
of some hysterical upheaval. But in Australia this has not been the case.
The electors calmly and deliberately voted the Labour Party into power in
April, 1910, and, since then, two of the six ridiculous States that this
country of four and a-half millions has divided itself into have also calmly
and deliberately decided, by majorities, to entrust their national guidance
to butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers.
That any body of people should do this¿even in a country where every
man and woman, irrespective of education, wealth, or social position has a
vote¿seems unintelligible to the English visitor. It certainly was
unintelligible to me at first. It grew more of a mystery when I saw and
heard several of the Labour leaders. Then I saw and heard the Liberal
leaders, and I no longer wondered.