Testimonial - Jacqueline DWYER (née Playoust)
The Courrier Australien has touched many people of French origin including myself. In the 1930s my parents subscribed to this journal to access events in Australia and France that were of interest to the
French community. It was largely written in French.
As a child I observed and collected these new French words just as I was learning to read in the English language at my Australian primary school. At home I learnt to recognise diverse French words from French children’s books, gramophone records and baggage labels. My father, Jacques Playoust, joined in the chase.
Australia was in formative phase when this historical journal was founded. The country was then a cluster of separately administered colonies. The exciting period of the gold rush had come to an end that had led to a depression. Fortunately, the new gold, wool, was creating a wealthy Australian economy. The wool trade brought a number of French and Belgian experts to buy at Australian auctions. Georges Playoust and his younger brother Joseph from Tourcoing were amongst these. Huge quantities of wool were needed to supply the hungry textile mills of northern France and Europe.
The Courrier Australien, established in 1892, reliably recorded the development of the French business world and actively influenced it. The journal had for some time deplored the lack of a French Chamber of Commerce and so displayed a notice by the Consul-general, Biard d’Aunet, on the front page to hold a meeting to be held in the Wool Exchange to frame the constitution of a new Chamber. The wool buyer Georges Playoust was elected President.
A banquet was held at the Hotel Australia to celebrate the new Chamber. Eminent guests included the Premier of NSW, George Reid, who was accompanied by several of his ministers. Their presence was a recognition of the value placed on the French- Australian wool trade to New South Wales. The dinner was described by the Courrier in French and English, and by the Sydney Morning Herald in English.
The Courrier then designated itself as the official press agent of the Consulate, the Chamber of Commerce and the Alliance Française.
Old photographs of Sydney show the close proximity of the various French institutions at this time, the French Consulate, the new Chamber of Commerce, the Alliance Française, the French Benevolent Society, all within a short stroll to the Wool Exchange, leading to a strong community awareness.
The Australian colonies federated to become the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, and within two years, George Reid was elected Prime Minister, but soon to be defeated by strong Victorian opposition to his support of free trade.
Celebrations of the Bastille Day, 14th of July 1914
The French Australian Chamber of Commerce still thrives today under the name of French Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FACCI) an example of the continuity of French Australian relations, fostered by the Courrier Australien.
Celebrations began at the Consul-General’s reception at the Consulate, followed by a popular picnic in the pleasure gardens by the harbour at Cabarita. These picnics had been planned by a committee of members of the French Benevolent Society to raise funds.
Special guests dined in a central pavillion. Speeches were delivered in either French or English. Georges Playoust usually delivered frequent vibrant patriotic speeches in French, carefully transcribed by the Courrier. But he was absent on this occasion.
He was in mid Atlantic with his wife and son returning to Sydney by ship in the shadow of the Great War of 1914-18. When the French army was mobilised, his son Stéphane broke his journey to report to his regiment in France.
In July 1914, a prominent statesman, the francophile William Holman, Premier of New South Wales, addressed the guests and was carefully reported by the Courrier. He began by expressing regret at the absence of Mr. Playoust.
Only 10 years had passed since the signing of the Entente Cordiale by the British and French governments. Mr. Holman, after stating that he had always supported civilisation, said that it was only when these two nations worked together that civilisation progressed the most rapidly. He said that “sympathy between the French and the English races was a duty to the general interests and harmony of the world”.
Premier Holman’s government gave direct financial aid to French charities for the four years of war. He also accepted the co- presidency with Mme Playoust of an important new charitable fund, the French Australian League of Help. Its aim was to create workshops where volunteers would make high quality garments to send to France for the civilian victims, the widows and orphans of war.
Only 26 years later the Second World War began when German forces controlled by Hitler’s Nazi party invaded Poland. Waves of Hitler’s tanks then rolled into France and the weaker French forces were defeated. People were divided by their loyalties, some feeling loyalty to the aging pacifist leader Maréchal Petain, others were inspired by a crackling radio emission from London when General de Gaulle called on French people to continue their resistance to the Nazis.
I heard this short wave broadcast in Sydney when it was replayed by the ABC. I was able to observe how active a part was played by the Courrier in supporting the Free French movement, its edges coloured in red and blue. Andre Brenac, a close friend of my family, spoke publicly of his support for De Gaulle, using the Courrier Australien as his mouthpiece.
The journal slumbered for a time after these glorious days and the death of the owner, but through a gesture of two public- spirited people the newspaper was revived in digital form and now informs a now much larger French community daily with topical and serious minded news.
Historians, scholars and friends are combining to put together a lasting edition of the Collector to be valued by generations to come.