A collection of essays by Australian writers was criticised in the British press for having insufficient 'native' content, thereby rendering it in no way distinctive from the work of English writers.Walter Murdoch asks: 'what is the Australian writer to be allowed to be interested in, without being held to have forfeited his right to consider himself Australian?' Murdoch argues that Australians 'have the same right as Englishmen have to be interested in things which belong neither to Australia nor to England, but to the world.'