by K. R. Bolton
[←304]
The Puzzled Patriots, p. 122.
[←305]
The Puzzled Patriots, p. 128.
[←306]
The Puzzled Patriots, p. 177.
[←307]
Stephensen, Nationalism in Australian Literature (Adelaide: Commonwealth Literary Fund Lecture, 1959).
[←308]
The Puzzled Patriots, p. 178.
[←309]
The Viking of Van Diemen’s Land (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1954).
[←310]
The Cape Horn Breed, with William H. S. Jones (London: Andrew Melrose, 1956).
[←311]
Sail Ho!, with Sir James Bisset (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1961) and several other books with Sir James.
[←312]
Sydney Sails: The Story of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s First 100 years (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1962).
[←313]
The Pirates of the Brig Cyprus, with Frank Clune (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1962).
[←314]
The History and Description of Sydney Harbour, with Brian Kennedy (Adelaide: Rigby, 1966).
[←315]
Foundations of Culture in Australia (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1986).
[←316]
The Puzzled Patriots, p. 180.
[←317]
Fairburn to R. A. K. Mason, December 28, 1931, cited by Denys Trussell, Fairburn (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1984), p. 116.
[←318]
Fairburn to Geoffrey Potocki de Montalk, August 6, 1926, in Lauris Edmond, ed., The Letters of A. R. D. Fairburn (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 6.
[←319]
Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism, 1891. http://wilde.thefreelibrary.com/Soul-of-Man-under-Socialism
[←320]
Trussell, p. 49.
[←321]
Fairburn, “The Rationalist,” Collected Poems (Christchurch: Pegasus, 1966), p. 95.
[←322]
Trussell, p. 91. Throughout his life, Fairburn maintained that homosexuality was not merely a personal preference, but an actual subversion, and referred to a “Green International,” an informal conspiracy of homosexuals who were distorting the arts to their own temperament. He came to regard the “dominance” of “pansies” in the arts as largely responsible for “the decadence of contemporary English and American writing.” Fairburn to Eric McCormick, ca. 1951 or 1952 (Trussell, Fairburn, p. 249).
[←323]
Trussell, pp. 105–106.
[←324]
Fairburn, “A New Zealander at Home. Our Two Countries,” Star, August 3, 1931, magazine section, p. 1 (Trussell, p. 91).
[←325]
Fairburn, “Deserted Farmyard,” Collected Poems, p. 89.
[←326]
Trussell, p. 109.
[←327]
Trussell, p. 114.
[←328]
Trussell, pp. 109–10.
[←329]
Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, 2 vols. (London: Allen and Unwin, 1971), Vol. II, p. 506.
[←330]
Fairburn, New English Weekly, July 14, 1932, p. 314.
[←331]
Trussell, p. 113.
[←332]
Eric Bentley, The Cult of the Superman (London: Robert Hale, 1947).
[←333]
Spengler, The Decline of The West, Vol. II, pp. 506–507.
[←334]
Fairburn to Mason, January 29, 1932 (Trussell, p. 116).
[←335]
Fairburn to Guy Mountain, July 23, 1930 (Trussell, p. 112).
[←336]
Trussell, p. 111.
[←337]
Fairburn to Clifton Firth, December 23, 1931 (The Letters of A. R. D. Fairburn, p. 60).
[←338]
Fairburn to Clifton Firth (The Letters of A. R. D. Fairburn, p. 60).
[←339]
Fairburn to Clifton Firth (The Letters of A. R. D. Fairburn, p. 60).
[←340]
Trussell, p. 113.
[←341]
Trussell, p. 113.
[←342]
Trussell, p. 114.
[←343]
Stuart Murray, Never a Soul at Home: New Zealand Literary Nationalism in the 1930s (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1998), p. 117.
[←344]
Fairburn to Mason, December 28, 1931 (Trussell, p. 116).
[←345]
Fairburn to Mason, August 1931 (Murray, Never a Soul at Home, p. 120).
[←346]
The Labour Party, mainly through the persistence of the popular John A. Lee, a one-armed ex-serviceman, was campaigning for election on a platform of nationalizing the Reserve Bank and issuing “state credit.” Although this was not the same as Douglas’ Social Credit, the Douglas tour of New Zealand had provided an influential impetus for financial reform. Again, at Lee’s insistence, the Labour government did issue 1% state credit to finance the iconic state housing project, which reduced unemployment by 75%, but the government was too hide-bound by orthodox finance, and Lee split from Labour amidst much bitterness. See: Erik Olssen, John A. Lee (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 1977). Also: Cedric Firth, State Housing in New Zealand (Wellington: Ministry of Works, 1949) “Reserve Bank Credit,” p. 7.
[←347]
Harry Holland, Labour Party leader.
[←348]
Fairburn to Mason, June 16, 1932 (The Letters of A. R. D. Fairburn, p. 77).
[←349]
Stuart Murray, Never a Soul at Home, pp. 36–37.
[←350]
Trussell, pp. 132–33.
[←351]
Orthodox “Douglas Social Crediters” do not believe in party politics, and it was therefore a contentious move when the majority of Social Crediters gradually moved into becoming a full-fledged political party, now known as the Democrats for Social Credit, a very dim shadow of what Social Credit was in Fairburn’s time.
[←352]
Trussell, p. 135.
[←353]
Fairburn to R. A. K. Mason, December 22, 1931 (The Letters of A. R. D. Fairburn, p. 58).
[←354]
Fairburn to Firth, December 23, 1931 (The Letters of A. R. D. Fairburn, p. 61).
[←355]
Fairburn to Guy Mountain, February 4, 1932 (The Letters of A. R. D. Fairburn, p. 65).
[←356]
Fairburn, “The Arts are Acquired Tastes,” radio talk; New Zealand Listener, July 5, 1946, pp. 21–22.
[←357]
Fairburn, “Notes in the Margin,” Action, New Zealand, 1947.
[←358]
Fairburn, “The Auckland School of Art,” Art in New Zealand, December-January 1944–1945, pp. 21–22.
[←359]
Fairburn, “Art in Canterbury,” Landfall, March 1948, pp. 49–50.
[←360]
Fairburn, “Art in Canterbury,” Landfall, pp. 49–50.
[←361]
Stalin came to similar conclusions from another direction, launching a campaign in 1949 against “rootless cosmopolitanism” in Soviet culture.
[←362]
Fairburn, “Landscape of Figures (Memories of England, 1930),” Collected Poems, p. 88.
[←363]
Fairburn to R. A. K. Mason, June 24, 1932 (The Letters of A. R. D. Fairburn, p. 80).
[←364]
Fairburn to R. A. K. Mason, June 24, 1932 (The Letters of A. R. D. Fairburn, p. 80).
[←365]
Fairburn to R. A. K. Mason, June 24, 1932 (The Letters of A. R. D. Fairburn, pp. 80–81).
[←366]
Fairburn to New Zealand Listener, September 11, 1953 (Trussell, p. 263).
[←367]
Trussell, p. 263.
[←368]
Fairburn to the Editor, New Zealand Listener, June 18, 1955 (The Letters of A. R. D. Fairburn, p. 228).
[←369]
See for example: G. Pascal Zachary, The Global Me (St. L
eonards, New South Wales: Allen and Unwin, 2000). Zachary, a senior business correspondent, celebrates the way by which globalization is making interchangeable cogs of humanity, not bound to place or culture, to enable a more efficient utilization of talent under capitalism. The world situation seems to be precisely what Fairburn feared would develop several decades previously.
[←370]
Fairburn to the New Zealand Herald, February 4, 1955 (The Letters of A. R. D. Fairburn, pp. 225–26).
[←371]
Fairburn, The Woman Problem and Other Prose (Auckland: Blackwood and Janet Paul, 1967), “Spoken English,” p. 93.
[←372]
Fairburn, “Dominion,” http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/
authors/fairburn/dominionfull.asp
[←373]
Ezra Pound, “Canto XLV, With Usura,” Selected Poems 1908–1959 (London: Faber and Faber, 1975), pp. 147–48.
[←374]
Trussell, p. 176.
[←375]
Fairburn, Dominion, “Utopia,” I.
[←376]
Fairburn, Dominion, “Utopia,” I.
[←377]
With usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags . . .
with no mountain of wheat, no strong flour . . .
WITH USURA
Wool, comes not to the market
Sheep bringeth no grain with usura . . .
And stoppeth the spinner’s cunning . . .
[←378]
Fairburn, Dominion, “Utopia,” I.
[←379]
Fairburn, Dominion, “Utopia,” IV.
[←380]
Fairburn, Dominion, “Utopia,” IX.
[←381]
Fairburn, Dominion, “Elements,” IV.
[←382]
Fairburn, “The Land of Our Life,” unpublished essay, p. 5 (Trussell, p. 199).
[←383]
Fairburn, “A Nation of Officials,” in The Woman Problem and Other Prose, p. 47.
[←384]
Trussell, pp. 198–99.
[←385]
Fairburn to NZ Herald, August 28, 1946. Trussell, p. 198.
[←386]
Fairburn, “Europe 1945,” Collected Poems, p. 97.
[←387]
Fairburn, The Woman Problem and Other Prose.
[←388]
Fairburn, “The Woman Problem,” in The Woman Problem and Other Prose.
[←389]
Stephanie de Montalk, Unquiet World: The Life of Count Geoffrey Potocki de Montalk (Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press, 2001), p. 19. Hereafter Unquiet World.
[←390]
Unquiet World, p. 84.
[←391]
Unquiet World, p. 144.
[←392]
Unquiet World, p. 86.
[←393]
Unquiet World, p. 146. Fairburn wrote to communist poet R. A. K. Mason in 1932 that if a future Labour Government did not enact a Social Credit economic policy he would start a fascist movement.
[←394]
Unquiet World, p. 142.
[←395]
Unquiet World, p. 142.
[←396]
Greig Fleming, ed., Aristo: Confessions of Count Geoffrey Potocki de Montalk (Christchurch, New Zealand: Leitmotif Press, 1993), p. 15.
[←397]
Aristo, p. 30.
[←398]
Aristo, p. 27.
[←399]
Unquiet World, p. 62.
[←400]
Unquiet World, p. 68.
[←401]
Savitri Devi, The Lightning and the Sun (Calcutta: Savitri Devi Mukherji, 1958), Ch. III: “Men in time, above time and against Time.” Potocki’s post-war friend, the avid Hitlerite Savitri Devi, formulated a cyclic paradigm of the outstanding historical individual, which was inspired by Hinduism.
[←402]
Unquiet World, p. 63.
[←403]
Unquiet World, p. 20.
[←404]
It is of passing interest that a few years ago, under the Helen Clark Labour government, New Zealand dispensed with the British orders of merit in favor of typically bland New Zealand orders; a decision that was reversed under the present national government.
[←405]
Unquiet World, pp. 46–47.
[←406]
Unquiet World, p. 79.
[←407]
Unquiet World, p. 79.
[←408]
Unquiet World, p. 83.
[←409]
Unquiet World, p. 86.
[←410]
Denys Trussell, Fairburn (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1984), p. 48.
[←411]
Unquiet World, p. 91.
[←412]
As one might expect, the form of “socialism” advocated by Wilde is quite different from that pursued under Marxism. Wilde believed that socialism, or the common ownership of property and co-operation rather than competition, would free all from economic servitude and daily drudgery, and allow the creative to pursue their creativity. The “socialism” of Wilde would enhance rather than eliminate “individualism.” It would not be based on the state holding economic power, as it now has political power, otherwise “Industrial Tyrannies” would result, which would be worse than the present system. Wilde saw property ownership as a “burden” and a “bore” that intruded upon one’s pursuit of creativity, while lack of ownership under the present system conversely resulted in destitution. “The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is. . . . With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” http://wilde.thefreelibrary.com/Soul-of-Man-under-Socialism
[←413]
Fairburn, p. 49.
[←414]
Fairburn, p. 109.
[←415]
Fairburn, p. 115.
[←416]
Fairburn, p. 110.
[←417]
G. P. de Montalk, Kahore, Kahore! (Hamilton, New Zealand: The Mélissa Press, 1988). Kahore is, loosely translated, Maori for “no,” or “of no benefit to us,” and which Potocki states was “what the chieftains said when the pakehas wanted to buy Remuera.”
[←418]
Unquiet World, pp. 93–94.
[←419]
Unquiet World, p. 94.
[←420]
Unquiet World, p. 106.
[←421]
Unquiet World, p. 110.
[←422]
Unquiet World, pp. 120–21.
[←423]
Unquiet World, p. 131.
[←424]
Unquiet World, p. 135.
[←425]
Unquiet World, p. 146.
[←426]
Unquiet World, p. 147.
[←427]
Unquiet World, p. 160.
[←428]
Unquiet World, p. 158.
[←429]
Unquiet World, pp. 163–64.
[←430]
“I was subjected to such a boycott as is unheard of in the annals of world literature. The whole thing had a most unfortunate effect on my life. It extinguished my career as a poet.” Geoffrey Potocki de Montalk, 158.
[←431]
Unquiet World, p. 177.
[←432]
Unquiet World, p. 195.
[←433]
Geoffrey Potocki de Montalk, “Social Climbers of Bloomsbury,” The Right Review, London, 1939.
[←434]
Unquiet World, p. 207.
[←435]
Joseph Pearce, Bloomsbury and Beyond: The Friends and Enemies of Roy Campbell (London: Harper Collins, 2001), pp. 153–221.
[←436]
G. P. de Montalk, The Right Review, No. 1, October 1936.
[←437]
G. P. de M
ontalk, The Right Review, 1936.
[←438]
Unquiet World, p. 213.
[←439]
Unquiet World, p. 213.
[←440]
G. P. de Montalk, Prisoner at Buckingham Palace (Hamilton: Mélissa Press, 1987). Reprinted in Aristo, pp. 53–58.
[←441]
Aristo, p. 55.
[←442]
Aristo, p. 57.
