As a TIME correspondent in Canada for 14 years, Ed Ogle had seen it all before. He watched as the nation's Red Ensign, with its British Union Jack, was replaced by the red and white maple leaf flag; he heard the familiar strains of God Save the Queen fade out when O Canada became the national anthem. Now based in Australia, Ogle is again witness to a growing spirit of nationalism in another Commonwealth nation. The new mood Down Under has been fostered largely by Gough Whitlam, Australia's first Labor Party Prime Minister in 23 years and--as Ogle discovered --a hard man to interview. After doggedly trailing the Prime Minister, who could not find a break in his busy schedule, Ogle finally decided to camp on Whitlam's doorstep. He was rewarded one morning when Whitlam suddenly appeared and invited him in.

"Whitlam could squeeze me in," Ogle reports, "only because a diplomat from one of the Southeast Asian countries had not shown up." The interview that followed was the first that Whitlam had given to any correspondent, foreign or Australian, since taking office. Ogle's report on Whitlam and the new course he has set for his nation is the basis of this week's World story, written in New York by Associate Editor Edwin Bolwell, who has a special affection for Australia. He was born and lived there for 25 years.

Another Australian-born writer, Associate Editor Robert Hughes, was also involved with a subject that seemed close to home. Working with files from TIME correspondents in Italy, Turkey and Switzerland, he wrote this week's Art story on archaeological thievery. Hughes brought to the story a firsthand knowledge gained while he was living in Port' Ercole, Italy, in 1964 and 1965. It was an area settled by the ancient Etruscans, and was honeycombed with tombs. "Every farmer you met had an ancient pot or two in his house," Hughes recalls, "except the ones who were off in Tuscania making fakes. Tomb-robbing was the local cottage industry." Hughes made his contribution to the local economy. Buying Etruscan pots from farmers and amateur dealers at top prices of from $15 to $20 each, he eventually accumulated some 40 pieces, at least half of them fake. "My eye was very naive," he confesses. During his later travels, he stored the collection with a friend in Florence where it was destroyed in the great flood of 1966. "Maybe if I hadn't bought them," says Hughes ruefully, "they'd still exist."

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