AUSTRALIA: Working Class Wines

In wrathful defense of their wines Australian editors lashed President Roosevelt last week, demanding that Australian Premier Joseph Aloysius Lyons "take reprisal" for Washington's omission of Australia from the list of countries assigned a quota for U. S. import of their wines (TIME. Dec. 11).

Australia was omitted, not because of any Roosevelt animus toward vineyardists down under, but because the President's quotas are based on the wine exports of countries to the U. S. before Prohibition. At that time Australia's export trade in wine was an almost invisible trickle.

Hot-gospelers for their infant industry, Australians insisted last week that if U. S. citizens are denied the delights of Australian Para Port, Michenbury Sparkling Burgundy and Chateau Tanunda Brandy, then Premier Lyons must restrict by quota the import into Australia of U. S. motor cars. Premier Lyons, calmer than most of his fellow citizens, made no open threats, quietly approached President Roosevelt through diplomatic channels as one "good neighbor'' to another.

In Bermuda samples of Australian wines were stacked ready to be rushed to Manhattan. There are no Australian vintage years because, Australians eagerly explain, "the weather is so perfect that every year is the same." Anxious not to offend the King's subjects down under, the Encyclopædia Britannica puts Australian wines in their place with a maximum of tact: "The plentiful supply of cheap grape brandy makes it possible for Australia to send to England ever increasingly large quantities of fortified wines [i. e. dosed with brandy], wines which being rich in natural grape sweetness and of a high alcoholic strength are more and more in demand among the working classes."