Summary of Australian History 1900-1930

Summary of Australian History 1900-1930

Federation

Federation come about after a long debate that began in the 19^th century. In 1947, the British noble Earl Grey suggested that the Australian colonies would become more successful if they cooperated in matters such as tariffs, postal services, immigration, roads and railways.

Factors that hindered moves to federate include geography and distance, the attitude of NSW, tradition, fears of the small colonies, loss of power and the labour movement.

Factors that assisted Federation included growing Australian nationalism, better communications, defence, immigration, trade, influential people and British support.

The Australian Constitution is a set of rules for how the government operates. The Commonwealth of Australia, created in 1901, was based on a constitution developed throughout the 1890s.

The Federal Parliament has a bicameral (two-house) legislature. The lower house is called the House of Representatives and the upper house is called the Senate. This is based on USA’s system.

The House of Representatives was to have MPs who represented the voters in their electorate. The total no. of MPs was determined by the population of Australia and there was to be one MP for every 30,000 voters. The smallest state, however, would have a minimum of four MPs.

The Senate was established to ensure that each state has equal representation to review legislation. There were 36 senators – six from each state.

The governor-general is the representative of the Crown. Powers of the governor-general includes giving royal assent to bills passed by parliament, ‘swearing in’ the elected PM and government ministers, issuing writs (any formal document in letter form, under seal, and in the sovereign's name) for elections and dismissing a government that did not operate within the constitution.

After Federation, the first major piece of legislation to be passed by the Commonwealth Parliament was the Immigration Restriction Act 1901. This Act provided for a dictation test. Unwanted immigrants were directed by an immigration officer to write out a 50-word passage dictated by the officer. They had to write it out in any European language that the officer choice.

The Franchise Act (1902) gave women the vote and so made them, formally and in theory, equal citizens.

The Harvester Judgement introduced basic wage into Australia. Basic wage is the minimum wage that could be given to an adult male worker taking into account the cost of living of a male with a wife and three children living in a civilised community.

The Invalid and Old-age pension scheme was placed before federal government by the Deakin government in June 1908. A pension of 26 pounds per annum came into operation from the 1^st of July, 1909.

The Maternity Allowance (or the ‘Baby Bonus’) was paid to all white, married mothers after 1912.

Australia and World War I

Australia became involved in World War I because they were allies with Britain. The colonial powers had conflicting interest in our region. The German Asiatic Squadron, part of Germany’s rapidly growing navy, had bases in Rabaul and the Caroline Islands.

World War I began after the nineteen-year-old Bosnian Gavrilo Princip murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand, next in line to the Austrian throne, and his wife Sophie. Austria declared war on Serbia on the 28^th of July, 1914.

Australia began taking up volunteers to join the war.

The Anzacs were in Gallipoli as part of a British plan to push thought the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmara and to bombard Constantinople. If Turkey were defeated, allied supplies would then be able to reach Russia, avoiding Germany’s Baltic blockade. Churchill also hoped that Greece and Romania would then be persuaded to abandon their neutrality and join the allies.

Conditions were terrible – there was heavy shelling and shrapnel fire.

The Battle of Gallipoli ended in a decisive Turkish victory. The evacuation was the most successful part of the campaign, losing no soldiers.

The campaign had particular significance for the Australians. The war changed the men from ‘Down Under’. The young men from Albury, Cootamundra, Warrnambool, etc. had emerged as members of a special and distinct group – the Anzacs. Historians have claimed that the Anzac legend was born on Gallipoli.

Germany initiated the Schlieffen Plan, to sweep through neutral Belgium and onto France, encircling Paris. The British forces needed Australia’s help to defend.

The conditions at the Western Front were preposterous. Some of the trench-feet and frostbite cases were so bad that soldiers had to be sent home.

Conscription is compulsory enrolment of persons for military or naval service. This was a hotly-debated topic, and Hughes came up with two referendums, but both times, Australia voted ‘No’.

Between the Wars

The 1920’s

The government agreed that the returned soldiers deserved ‘a fair, square deal’. A soldier settlement scheme was worked out. The state governments provided land for soldiers’ farms, and the federal government lent money to help the soldiers get established.

In the 1920s, Australia was called ‘the greatest undeveloped country in the world’. Men, money and markets were needed to develop Australia and make it rich, all these things were provided by Britain.

The government needed a lot of money in the 1920s. It needed money to give pension and to pay for the soldier settlement scheme. It needed money to build railway lines, roads and schools, new houses with electricity and water and to pay interest on loans.

Australia had a transport revolution in the 1920s. The electric tram became an important means of getting about, mainly in the inner suburban areas of capital cities.

It was the motor car that seized the popular imagination during the 1920s. Motorized vehicles were to be found in Australia from the beginning of the century but it was not until the `920s that cars were manufactured and bought in large numbers, becoming a feature of everyday life. The Ford Model T marked the beginning of the family car era.

The 1920s was a period of great change in transport in the air. On December 1919, Lieutenants Ross and Keith Smith and their crew landed a flight on 11000 miles in just over 27 days.

Such rapid progress was made during the 1920s that Australians could ring telephone subscribers in all States except Tasmania.

By the end of 1920s most suburbs and large country towns boasted one or more theatres.

The development of the wireless gave those Australians who could afford it ready-made entertainment in their own homes, and its popularity can be measured by the increase in listeners’ licences by 5 times from 1925 to 1929.

The 1930’s Depression

Compared to other countries, Australia depended heavily on overseas investment and trade. Although Australia’s production rate of wool was the highest it has ever been, the price and demand of wool was drifting downwards. Australia was a country in which any fall in export prices, reduction in exports and reduction of funds borrowed from overseas could cause significant damage to its economy.

The main external factor was the massive stock market crash which occurred in the United States of America. Many people lost everything and the United States of America was such a large part of the economy that the effects of the crash spread quickly around the world.

The government adopted the plan of Sir Otto Niemeyer, of the Bank of England. Niemeyer said that Australia had been living beyond its means and needed to cut costs, spend less and start paying back its loans. This was known as the Melbourne Agreement.

The social effects of the Great Depression were greatly affected by the inability to find employment. It was the unemployment and the ability of men providing for their families that caused the greatest distress in the depression years.

Not everybody was affected heavily however. The groups least affected were professional people and most of the middle class.

The Stolen Generation

Protectionism is the idea that Aboriginal Australians needed to be separated from white Australians and ‘protected’ for their own good. Many Aboriginal people were removed from their traditional lands and placed in reservations or missions.

As part of the protectionist policy, it was thought that something had to be done about the growing numbers of half-castes. The idea was to remove these children, make them forget their customs and culture and make them ‘European’.

By the 1930s, when it became clear that the Aboriginal people were not dying out, the government considered a new policy called assimilation. The policy of assimilation was an attempt to make Aboriginal Australians accept the way of life of white Australians. They would be absorbed into mainsteam Australian culture and were to be removed from reserves and missions.

The forced movement of Aboriginal people broke the central bond of their culture. It resulted in more discrimination against Aboriginal people.

Bibliography

"1920 in Australia." Wikipedia. 2007. 24 Nov. 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_in_Australia>

"Australian History." Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. 2007. 24 Nov. 2007 <http://www.dfat.gov.au/aib/history.html>

Posted by Proabffmm on Friday, June 6, 2008.