Between the wars

The war was still a terrible memory in the 1920s. Sixty thousand young men had not come back. There were cripples (калеки) on the streets - former soldiers - to remind people what the battlefields had been like. There was a great pride in the achievements of the Anzacs, but also horror at the human losses. People wondered what it had all been for and looked for ways to forget an unhappy world.

Sport helped. Cricket, tennis and football matches drew big crowds of spectators. When Australia won three gold medals at the Paris Olympics in 1924 the people at home marvelled at how such a new country could produce so many great athletes.

It was a great time for breaking records - in aeroplanes, motor cars and on bicycles. One man rode his bike from Sydney to Perth in just 26 days. Then two men made the journey by car in only 6 days. This was miraculous progress.

For well-off (богатый) people in the cities there was an occasional opera or ballet to see. The most popular entertainment of all was probably dancing. Every community had at least one building which could be used for dancing. In the country, people rode into town to fox-trot (танцевать фокстрот) the night away (всю ночь) in a council or church hall. The men danced in special shoes called dancing pumps. The women wore shorter and shorter skirts and hair.

In the cities there were spacious and stylish dance halls, and ten or twelve piece bands (оркестры из 10-12 человек). Increasingly they played music from America, especially jazz. For many people the 1920s was the jazz age. It was also the age of films. Australians liked to see films about their frontier history. The convict era and bushranging were favourite subjects. But soon Hollywood films were all the rage (очень популярны).

Work on the new federal capital at Canberra continued after the war. Parliament had selected the site in 1908, and construction had begun in 1913. The capital was transferred from Melbourne to Canberra in 1927.

Times had been hard for many people in the 1920s, but there had also been many signs of progress. The cities had grown. New roads and railways had been built for the new suburbs. Huge irrigation schemes commenced (были начаты). People talked about Australia's great future - 'Australia Unlimited' it was called.
The Great Depression

The Great Depression, the worldwide business slump (спад, кризис) of the 1930's, had a disastrous (пагубный) effect on Australia's economy. Australia was unable to sell its wool and wheat and metals overseas. Many wool, wheat, and sugar producers went bankrupt. In the worst of the depression, nearly a third of the country's workers had no job. The Australian Government was heavily in debt to Britain.

With no money people stopped buying goods. The factories that made the goods stopped producing so many, or closed down altogether. So, more people lost their jobs.

By 1932 about one in every three Australian workers was unemployed, and in some places the number was even higher. Australia was in the grip (в тисках) of a depression.

Governments seemed unable to solve the problem. Many people offered suggestions. Some said “print more money”. Others said “print less”. Some said “give everyone free bread”. Some said “overthrow the rich and start a society like Russia”. Some said “pray”.

A small 'dole' (пособие по безработице) was paid to the unemployed but it was not enough to keep them - particularly if there was a family to feed. Soup kitchens (бесплатные столовые) were set up by local councils and the Salvation Army (Армия спасения). Governments also established a system they called sustenance (поддержка). The workers called it " susso". Unemployed people were given food and clothing in return for doing useful work, like building roads or clearing land. Not all the work was useful - much land they cleared grew back to bush within a few years. The workers who did 'susso' hated it. They felt that they were being treated as inferior citizens - rather like convict labour even though they had committed no crimes.

There were beggars in the streets. There were people with malnutrition (недоедание), and skin diseases caused by bad diets. Long queues formed outside shops and factories every time a job was advertised. Occasionally there were street marches by unemployed people who wanted to show the world that something should be done.

A lot of men and women went to the country. It was called going 'on the track'. These people wandered about in search of work by day and slept under the stars by night. There were often camps of unemployed people in country towns, as there were in the cities.

Some farmers and townspeople gave them jobs to do in return for food or a few shillings. Some who had no work to offer gave them food anyway.

There was not much farm machinery in the 1930s so farmers needed more workers at various times of the year. The unemployed could earn a little money in the countryside, following the harvests (уборка) of hay (сено), vegetables and fruit. Or they picked up jobs clearing farms of rubbish and cutting wood. And there were rabbits in the country - rabbits to be trapped. Rabbits provided a meal and their skins were worth a bit.

People suffered a great deal in many other ways. The depression ended the hopes of thousands of young people for a good education which would let them do the things they dreamed of. But Australians coped as best as they could. They could not buy clothes or furniture or toys, so they made them. They could not buy much food so they grew what they could in their backyards and swapped (обмениваться) or shared it with neighbours.

They could not afford to pay much for their entertainment, so they went to football and cricket which were cheap. And they organized their own amusements - there were card nights (вечер игры в карты), community singing, neighbourhood picnics and sports days.