There was a sudden and severe economic setback in the whole country, so that instead of the normal post-war boom and chronic shortage of workers, work became scarce and hard to find.

Factories ran out of orders and began dismissing workers. There is no need to say that the overall tendency was to sack migrant workers first — initially Europeans, then English — so that migrants were the first to suffer the impact of crisis.

The big factory where Ioann Miloradowic, a priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church worked as a cleaner, was one of the worst affected by the crisis and was one of the first to begin sacking workers.

The names of workers, whose turn it was to be dismissed at short notice, were called out by loudspeakers every Thursday afternoon with instruction to come to the office immediately. These were tense minutes when loudspeakers were calling out the names of people, whose turn it was to receive their pay off. There is no need to say that the heart of every listener tended to stop beating then.

Although almost all so called New Australians were already sacked and the ax was now cutting heads of "Old Australians", Ioann Miloradowic was still sweeping the factory as if he was not a New Australian.

Why they did not sack him in the first place with the other migrants, he did not know. It was true that he worked to the best of his abilities and did a good job, and was an educated man, but so were many other migrants. May he it had something to do with his vocation? Well, although he was just a cleaner in the factory, he was nevertheless treated with much more respect than his humble job could warrant.

When the ax began its devastation among dinkum Aussies, it every week hit people of certain categories. At first supposedly lazy and bad workers were affected, although in some instances good workers had to go and bad to stay, depending on behind the scene considerations, i.e. on what terms everyone was with his foreman. Then it was the turn of people, who were wealthy men and could afford to be without work, or who had some additional job, where they worked at weekends, or some little side-business of their own, or whose wives were earning money through permanent employment.

In spite of all that turmoil Ioann Miloradowic continued his daily job of sweeping the factory as quietly as ever, without the alarming state of affairs affecting him in any way.

Then suddenly a rumour spread among workers that old John was a wealthy man, for he had a dairy farm in which he worked in the evenings and during weekends. It was a sure thing, people said, for old John said it himself.

The foreman was told of that dairy by so many people that he reluctantly went to the office and passed the information to the personnel officer. The latter was angry with the foreman and reproached him for not having told him earlier.

The foreman tried to excuse himself by insisting that he did not take this rumour seriously. And indeed, what kind of a dairy farmer can be an elderly New Australian priest, who can hardly speak English, and who does not seem to be a business type of man at all?

Ioann Miloradowic was immediately summoned to the office for an interview with the personnel officer. He went carrying his big broom which he had forgotten to put aside.

"Tell me, son, is it true that you have a dairy, as you have told to a number of people in the factory?" asked the young personnel officer.

"Yes, Sir, that is true," replied Father Ioann, standing at attention with his broom.

"When do you work in your dairy?" the personnel officer continued his investigation.

"In the evenings, when I go home. On Saturdays, Sunday afternoons, too," explained Ioann Miloradowic. "I like keeping dairy, Sir, I always did it."

"When did you buy your dairy?"

"I bought it soon after I came to Australia, Sir," readily confessed Father Ioann.

"Well, I thank you for being truthful, son," said the personnel officer.

"You can go now."

Before long, Ioann Miloradowic was called by loudspeaker to the paymaster's office and was told that he was dismissed. He was given his pay envelope and was ordered to leave without undue delay.

"Why?" asked Father Ioann Miloradowic, who was not as much astonished by the sudden dismissal, as by the inexplicably hostile way in which he was treated.

"Because of the dairy," said the paymaster.

"Is it a crime to keep a dairy?" Father Ioann could not abstain from asking another question.

He could easily understand that in the prevailing circumstances, where people were dismissed weekly in great numbers, he, too, was sacked. He only could not understand what all that had to do with his "dairy".

"Well, it is no crime, of course, but a good reason to sack you from your job," explained the paymaster. "All the more so because you, as a clergyman, should be an example for other people, but instead you saw fit to hide your outside activities, for so long, from the management of this factory."

Father Ioann wished to ask some more questions to get at the root of the mystery, but he was not allowed to waste the time of the paymaster. He was just abruptly brushed aside and told in no unclear terms to disappear out of sight.

So he went, his head bent down, back to the factory, returned his broom and buckets to the storeman, packed up his things and went to say good-bye to his foreman.

"I am sorry, John, to lose you," said the foreman. "My consolation is, however, that you will be in no need, for you have a business of your own. By the way, how big is your dairy, John?"

"How big? So big approximately," answered Father Ioann Miloradowic and showed with his fingers a size of few inches by few inches.

"What?" exlaimed the foreman. "You are kidding me! No dairy can be so small!"

Father Ioann shrugged his shoulders.

"It is the normal size of a copy-book," he said.

"Copy-book?" cried out foreman. "You said copy-book? But you were saying all the time that you have a dairy!"

"Well, it is a dairy book."

The foreman hit himself upon his forehead.

"A diary book? A diary? So you actually meant that you keep a diary, not a dairy? Eh? O, you old bugger!" shouted foreman. "Stay here for a while until I come back!"

He ran to the office and told the personnel officer that old John was dismissed in error, for he had no dairy at all and that what he was actually keeping was a diary, which he called dairy because of his poor English. And he asked the personnel officer to cancel old John's dismissal, for it was no good to do injustice to a minister of religion, even if he was nothing more than just a "New Australian".

"If so," answered the personnel officer, "let him still go for nobody should be so stupid as to be unable to differentiate between dairy and diary."

David Marquis

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