Publication: Melbourne Herald
Date: 16 June 1922
Last night we read that eight hun- dred German pianos were ready for shipment to Australia. Despondently we sought our couch and dreamed . . . Eight hundred German pianos had reached Australia, and eight hundred "good Australians" had each got one because they were cheap, and because each "good Australian" had at least one small Australian who "promised to be a good musician." And the eight hundred young Aus- tralians sat them down at the 800 cheap German pianos and practised eight hundred sorts of scales. And we could hear them all. And, behold, our dream was bad; but there was worse to come . . . Eighty astute German manufac- turers, finding that the trade for pianos in Australia was good, exported eighty thousand cheap German pianos to this fair land; and, lo! eighty thousand "good Australians" bought those eighty thousand pianos that they might be maltreated by eighty thousand young musical prodigies. And we could hear them all. And our dream was even worse. But, lo! there was more to come . . . Eight hundred astute German manu- facturers exported to Australia eight million cheap German pianos . . . Then we awoke, screaming with fear. And, shivering on our lowly couch, we re- flected: (1) We are, indeed, a musical nation. (2) After all, did we really win the war?