Big Brother Brookes

Manhattan reporters went down to the imposing Cunard Building in lower Broadway last week to have a look at the elder and distinguished statesman brother of famed onetime Australian tennis champion Norman Brookes.

Brother Herbert Brookes is 62. He was recently appointed Australia's first Commissioner-General to the U. S. Up to now the office has been merely "Commissioner" and its incumbent a sort of glorified Australian commercial attache assisting the British Embassy in Washington. "Yes, I taught Norman to play tennis," twinkled the Commissioner-General. "But he has been responsible for himself for some time. I am really a businessman, you know." Thus modestly Big Brother Brookes alluded to the fact that he is profitably interested in Australian pulp and paper milling, makes a business of sheep raising in Queensland.

Within two minutes Businessman' Brookes got briskly down to cases. It was time for people to realize, he said, that Australia will not submit to encroachment of a much heavier U. S. tariff on her wool and meats without raising a customs wall of her own against U. S. motor cars, cinemas, farm implements -products which the Dominion can also buy from the Mother Country. Stressing the fact that Australia now buys from the U. S. every year six times as much as she sells to the U. S., suave Commissioner-General Brookes asked in effect if such a very good cus tomer does not deserve generous treatment.

"It would be a pity," he concluded diplomatically, "if anything should occur to mar the present friendly feeling which Australians have for Americans. The United States is Australia's model. We study everything you do and endeavor to imitate you to the best advantage. We have the greatest admiration for Ameri can spirit and vigor, and American methods generally. We want to be like Americans. It seems to me that the wise thing would be for our two countries to get closer and closer together. . . ."