Dr. Grenfell Price, in his interesting article ‘Aid to National Literature’ published in the spring issue of Meanjin shows himself understandably anxious to emphasize the credit balance of Australian governmental aid—for there has been too grudging an attitude towards it in the past. We should recognize, more freely than we do, that the Commonwealth Literary Fund has developed comparatively rapidly from a committee discreetly rescuing elderly writers from the extremes of indigence into an institution actively assisting the production of creative work; that it has done its work usually effectively and with liberality of mind; that it has been sympathetically regarded by political leaders; and that these leaders have, in particular, supported it firmly against partisan attacks based on indifference to the principles of free speech. This is all so much to the good, perhaps more than we could have expected, and Dr. Price does well to recognize the value of such services. Unhappily, the emphasis which he has for that reason given to his article may be taken as implying satisfaction with the present state of public aid to culture. I cannot believe that we can afford the luxury of such satisfaction, and it is probably not Dr. Price’s intention that we should.

When Dr. Price declares that his investigations showed that our aid to authors compared favourably with that given in four of the five countries to which his investigations extended, he is, I take it, referring to direct aid to writers given by governmental bodies alone. To have real meaning, the picture needs to be a wider one. We need to see what funds are provided by the community—not necessarily the state—for the development of the creative arts as a whole. Looking at this wider canvas, we are unlikely to regard our achievements with much satisfaction.