In last September’s issue of Quadrant, Sydney lawyer Baron Alder turned his evidently energetic mind to the contentious issue of Australia’s idea of itself, comparing the kind of image advanced in Russel Ward’s The Australian Legend of 1958 with more contemporary—and recognisable—realities. National characteristics are clearly a complex and controversial matter in which caricature often plays as large a part as sober analysis. Alder singled out the sheer self-consciousness of Australians’ image of themselves for particular criticism, whereas I suggest that a “sheep-in-wolf’s-clothing” aspect of the current national character is more damaging and disappointing—that is, timid conformism dressed in larrikin…