"Name oj Decency!"

In a lusty new land like Australia, many a citizen is as violently playful as an old fashioned Wild West cowboy. Last week there were Wild West doings when Premier John Thomas Lang of New South Wales tried to open the world's largest single-arch bridge, a mighty mass of steel flung across Sydney harbor.

Two days before the bridge inaugural, some members of the British House of Commons were talking with the Agent in London of the State of New South Wales, Mr. A. C. Willis. They told him they had learned of a plot in Sydney to pick up six-foot Premier Lang just as he was opening the bridge and throw him overboard into Sydney harbor, 172 ft. below.

Knowing his fellow Australians, Agent Willis could easily believe them capable of such a playful plot. He rushed from the House of Commons, dashed off a cable to Premier Lang, discovered next morning that London's urbane Press thought "someone has been pulling Mr. Willis' leg." In England Premiers are not tossed off bridges. That even Australians would plot such a thing is to Englishmen quite unthinkable.

Meanwhile Sydney seethed. Sydney is the Capital of New South Wales and its agent in London is, in Sydney's eyes, almost an ambassador. If Agent Willis had seen fit to warn Premier Lang, extraordinary precautions must be taken against the "plot."

Mounted and pedestrian police formed a solid phalanx around tall Premier Lang and the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Philip Game, as they advanced to cut the ribbon that would open Sydney's "Dream of the Century." Royal Air Force planes were buzzing high above, prepared to dive under the arch at the historic moment. Massed below the bridge was a fleet of 150 motorboats. A salute of 21 guns had begun, a band had burst into "Advance, Australia Fair!" and six-foot Premier Lang was advancing with his shiny pair of scissors--when suddenly a man on a horse spurred forward from the ranks of mounted police brandishing a sword.

"I, an officer of the Commonwealth," he shouted, "in the name of common decency declare this bridge open!" and with a swish of his sword the man on horseback cut the ribbon.

"I am," added the man, introducing himself, "Captain de Groot of the Royal Hussars!"

Since Premier Lang is not exactly popular, the Australian crowd raised a Wild West cheer, massed around Hero de Groot of the Royal Hussars and menaced policemen who tried to arrest him.

But by dogged persistence the police won their point, took Captain de Groot into custody on a charge of "offensive behavior."

The severed ribbon was tied together. Premier Lang cut it with his shiny scissors. On behalf of His Majesty George V, "of Australia King," Sir Philip Game read a message.

On foot the official party then trudged to the North Sydney end of Sydney's Dream where the Mayor of North Sydney was waiting to cut another ribbon with the very pair of scissors used by Mayor James John ("Jimmy") Walker to open the Bayonne Bridge linking New Jersey to Staten Island.

Sydney's Dream is 160 ft. wide, Bayonne's 90 ft. Sydney's steelwork weighs 37,000 tons, Bayonne's 16,000 tons. Thus Sydney's is clearly the larger bridge, but it is 25 inches shorter than Bayonne's arch which is 1,652 ft. 1 inch long and is "World's Longest Single Arch Bridge."

Famed Brooklyn Bridge, not an arch but a suspension bridge, is 1,595 ft. long. The new Washington Bridge across the Hudson River is the longest single-span suspension bridge and is properly speaking, "Longest Bridge in the World" (3,500 ft.).*

Lately Chicago's Tribune, self-styled "THE WORLD'S GREATEST NEWSPAPER,"rediscovered Australia with gusto, headlined: AUSTRALIA DEALS OUT MILLIONS IN POST WAR SPREE! FLINGS PUBLIC FUNDS ABOUT AIMLESSLY.

Into Sydney's dream bridge New South Wales has flung $50,000,000. The lighter but longer Bayonne Bridge cost $13,000,000. The extremely heavy Hell Gate Arch Bridge, carrying a four-track railway across Manhattan's East River, cost $12,000,000 and is 1,017 ft. long. Unquestionably Australia, free & easy as a cowboy on pay day, has "flung" millions which could have been saved into her Sydney Bridge. Her Labor Government insisted on paying the bridge workmen on a sliding scale which slid as living prices soared in Sydney. Originally the bridge was estimated to cost only $10,000,000. The steel, not expensively imported, was made in Australia by a steel mill patriotically erected.

Laborite Premier Lang, as everyone knows, has defaulted on debts of New South Wales -- debts partly incurred by building Sydney's Dream (TIME, April 6, 1931). This State default the Dominion Federal Treasury has made good. Australia has not defaulted (TIME, May 11), but last week the Federal Parliament took the extraordinary step of passing a bill to attach and seize the State of New South Wales's revenues from the State's betting taxes, entertainment taxes, motor vehicle taxes.

Half a century ago Sydney's dream of a harbor bridge was publicly launched by bushy-bearded, flowing-haired Sir Henry Parkes, an English-born Australian. Sir Henry had been a day laborer, had become premier, and on his way up had read Macaulay's poem "Horatius, at the Bridge." One night, as he worked his constituents up into a fine Australian frenzy, Sir Henry gestured toward the bridgeless harbor and, paraphrasing Horatius, cried:

Now who will stand on either hand And build the bridge with me?

Bridge-Dreamer Sir Henry died in 1896. His bridge, authorized by legislative act in 1922, was to have been completed in 1931, was to have been christened with champagne from the royal wine cellars at Buckingham, was to have displayed the Arms of Australia on an electric sign 1,000 ft. long, was to have sent up from its four titanic pylons "artistic tongues of flame" over 100 ft. high.

Sound films made on Sydney's Dream last week and recording for posterity that it was opened "in the name of common decency," were seized by the New South Wales police who said they would suppress them. Efforts failed to save Sydney's face by having Hero de Groot declared insane.

Throughout Australia the popular nickname of Sydney's dream bridge is "Lang's Coathanger."

*Still longer bridges exist, but they are a series of bridges, swung or arched between piers arranged like stepping stones across a river. Longest bridges of this type are the Firth of Forth Bridge in Scotland, the Samara Bridge over the Volga River.

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