In Steps Scullin

Modest, middle-aged James Henry Scullin, the new Laborite Prime Minister of Australia, moved out last week from his home in Melbourne to Canberra, the Kangaroo Continent's flat and dusty capital. Scorning what he termed "unnecessary expenditure," Mr. Scullin refused to occupy the official Prime Minister's residence, just vacated by his reactionary Nationalist predecessor Stanley Melbourne

Bruce (TIME, Oct. 21), and moved into an unpretentious Canberra hotel for his term of office.

Just as modest was Norman J. Makin. newly appointed Speaker of the Australian Parliament. At news of his appointment he summoned reporters, announced that he would follow the precedent of previous Labor Speakers and wear neither wig nor robes in Parliament.

With his trunks unpacked, one of the first official acts of Prime Minister Scullin was to lead his new Cabinet one by one before the omnivorous eye and ear of the talking cinema. Mindful of British and U. S. audiences he said:

"We live on a great island continent away from the other continents and unprotected. It is therefore of great importance to us not to become embroiled in quarrels that have stained the history of olden lands.

"If Australia hesitates to receive immigrants it must not be conceived in an unfriendly spirit or as a lack of desire to fraternize with the peoples of other lands but merely as a desire to protect Australians from the misery of unemployment."