1
T. A. Coghlan, London Opinion, and the Politics of AngloAustralian Finance, 1905–1909 1
This article examines the interactions between the opinions of London finance and
politics in New South Wales and the Commonwealth of Australia at the onset of the
twentieth century. It focuses in particular on the appointment and early activities of
Timothy Augustine Coghlan, who, with several breaks, held the post of agent-general
for New South Wales between 1905 and 1926, although he is better known as a
pioneering statistician and economic historian. In particular the article examines the
context surrounding his appointment, his attempts to improve his state’s image, and
his reflections on the way debt curtailed Australian independence. Though this the
article contributes to the ongoing debate surrounding Cain and Hopkins’ writings on
structural and relational power and the ‘rules of the game’, arguing that these are
useful starting points for the analysis of a pervasive politics of finance within the
British World.
On 30 March 1906 the agent-general of New South Wales (the state’s official
representative in London) sent a brief letter to the Australian Prime Minister, Alfred
Deakin, making the striking claim that, ‘So long as Australia is a borrower it must pay
attention to the opinions of this country. … our statesmen should aim for
independence of England. No country is totally free that owes money abroad’.2 The
agent-general in question was Timothy Augustine Coghlan, a man best remembered
as a pioneering statistician and economic historian.3 Between 1886 and his
appointment as agent-general in 1905, Coghlan was New South Wales’ Official
Statistician. He revolutionized the collation and presentation of statistics in the
2
colony, something widely acknowledged in Australia and Britain: he was made a
fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1893. He advised successive governments on
a wide range of issues across two decades, and contributed to the broader intellectual
life of the colony–publishing articles in the Sydney Bulletin and the Daily Telegraph.
The son of Irish migrants, he was also a member of the Catholic Literary Association.
He might have continued his career in Australia. In 1905, in Coghlan’s first year as
agent-general, Deakin offered Coghlan the newly-created post of Federal Statistician.
He declined, remaining in London until his death in 1926. Statistics loss was
ultimately economic history’s gain. While in London Coghlan wrote a pioneering
four-volume economic history of the continent – Labour and Industry in Australia,
published in 1918: a foundational work of Australian economic history.4 All of this
makes Coghlan’s comments on the political implications of Australian relations with
the London capital market and its opinions all the more intriguing.
This article examines Coghlan’s appointment as agent-general of New South
Wales in 1904, and some of his early activities in England. Through this it charts the
links between London ‘opinion’ (to use his term) and politics in New South Wales
and in the Commonwealth of Australia, federated in 1901. In so doing it seeks to
explore debates surrounding Cain and Hopkins’ recent writings on the influence of
British finance on the politics of settler societies within and beyond the British
empire. In their 1993 magnum opus they argue that since economic growth in such
societies relied on imports of British capital, it was necessary for these countries to
conform to ‘rules of the game’ to ensure that capital continued to flow. Adapting
Robinson’s model of collaboration, they suggest that the ‘rules’ were recognized by
colonial business and political elites who acted to ensure that they were adhered to:
especially at moments of economic crisis.5 R. V. Kubicek, Jeff McAloon, and the
3
recent Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Volumes on Australia and
Canada criticized this model, pointing out the considerable ‘agency’ exerted by settler
societies in their dealings with London.6 Cain and Hopkins have recently clarified
their position, distinguishing between power at what they call structural and relational
levels in international relations. The relational level refers to particular encounters
between historical actors; the structural level refers to the framework within which
these encounters took place. Hard bargaining (and the occasional fleecing of the
British investor) took place within a structure controlled in Britain. Structural power
(as Cain and Hopkins call it) was perfectly compatible with considerable agency.7
How this model might be applied analytically, and how structural power
relates to the earlier phrase – the ‘rules of the game’ – requires further explanation.8
This article makes two suggestions. The first is that we ought to separate firmly the
structural economic dependence from the notion of the ‘rules of the game’. The
process of economic development in Australia, and elsewhere, depended on global
connections, especially with Britain. Clearly an economic imbalance existed between
Britain, a creditor nation, and Australia, a debtor nation bound to Britain both by the
frequent need for fresh capital and also (especially from the 1890s) by the need to
service existing debts.9 However, it is argued that the political implications of this
dependence on British capital markets were mediated by the understandings of
political economy constructed within the City. These understandings were not so
much a neatly formulated ‘package’ (to use Hopkins’ phrase) but a rougher set of
partly reconciled assumptions concerning political economy.10 In other words
economics needs to be separated clearly from assumptions about political economy.11
The second suggestion is that the influence of these assumptions or rules within
colonial and dominion politics depended not only on shifting economic fortunes (as
4
emphasized by Cain and Hopkins) but also a shifting political backdrop, and on the
degree to which dependence was recognized and understood to have political
implications.12
Once a distinction is made between financial dependence and understandings
of political economy, the construction of those understandings (or ‘opinions’ to use
Coghlan’s word), becomes crucial to operation of the politics of finance. This in turn
requires consideration of the means through which information about political and
economic events in Australia (and elsewhere) was interpreted, and reactions to those
events articulated. Information reached the City by a number of routes. Informal
connections and correspondence played an important role, and much discussion (often
unrecorded) took place in clubs and offices in the Square Mile. 13 Yet the City also
had a vibrant print journalism which played an important role in the construction of
the rules.14 The press bought a good deal of news before financiers and investors –
often penned in Australia – and as this article shows (contrary to the recent arguments
of Thomson and Magee) news from Australia at least was by no means predominantly
benign.15 Journalists writing in the financial and general press recorded (and to some
extent shaped) the views of investors and financiers with whom they frequently
enjoyed close contact.16 Coverage in the London press frequently attracted attention in
Australian newspapers, and cuttings were often forwarded to colonial governments to
illustrate and elaborate on City opinions described in correspondence.17 The press
played crucial roles in mediating the process by which City understandings of
political economy – the rules – were applied to events overseas, and by which these
understandings were made known.
Through these suggestions, and attention to opinion formation in the City
(particularly in the press), this article seeks not so much to contradict as to refine Cain
5
and Hopkins’ model. This model becomes more subtle if we divorce structure from
power, and economic dependence from understandings of political economy. It is
capable of extension beyond the moments of financial crisis that feature heavily in
Cain and Hopkins’ account to chart a politics of finance binding Australia and the
City, generated by debt, and mediated by assumptions about the political economy.
The effects of this politics of finance depended on the ways in which these
assumptions were applied in particular circumstances by groups in the City, and in
Australian politics. The fluidity of opinion, and gyrations of political life meant that it
only became imperialistic (in other words only very occasionally led to the exertion of
decisive control on a ‘relational’ level) in certain circumstances: normally, the
coincidence of an economic crisis, relative unity of opinion in London, and power
lying in the hands of a responsive political alliance in a borrowing nation.18 However
this should not mask the pervasive if subtle pressures generated at other times by
financial dependence on the City.
To illustrate these ideas, this article examines New South Wales and
Australia’s relations with the City between 1901 and 1914 through the figure of
Coghlan. It focuses particularly on his engagement with London ‘opinion’ and
especially the financial press – not least because Coghlan himself thought this
engagement to be central to his role. It seeks to show the complex and deep links
between political life in New South Wales and the City, links generated by debt,
meditated by understandings of political economy in the City and Australia. It is
divided into three sections. The first examines the circumstances leading to Coghlan’s
appointment – which can only be explained in relation to the financial and political
exigencies facing the New South Wales government in 1905. The second looks at
attempts by Coghlan and his contemporaries to improve New South Wales’ and
6
Australia’s images in the London press. The third charts debates about Australian
dependence in 1906 prompted by moves by Alfred Deakin’s government to transfer
the debts of the states to the Commonwealth.
I
T. A. Coghlan was appointed temporary agent-general for New South Wales in
January 1905. He held the post until 1915, and was recalled between 1916 and 1917
and from 1922 to 1926, holding the position almost until his death in 1926.19 Agentsgeneral had emerged during the second half of the late-nineteenth century to represent
self-governing colonies in Britain. They liaised with the British government,
supervised colonial purchases, co-ordinated the recruitment of emigrants, and
managed relations with the London capital market.20 They were not always noted for
their calibre or vigour. In 1905 the Melbourne Age observed that, ‘the average
Australian agent-general is an ex-cabinet minister… With the attainment of office, he
has only to rest and be thankful’.21 Coghlan was by no means a model agent-general.
He was an exceptional official, not a mediocre politician and, from his arrival in
London, he rarely rested. He may have been thankful and, for Coghlan himself, the
appointment (initially temporary but confirmed in 1906) had a number of attractions.
It gave him access to archives in London to write his economic history, while,
according to Neville Hicks, his wife enjoyed London’s social whirl. Moreover, for a
long time, Coghlan hoped to become Australia’s first High Commissioner.22
However, this helps explain why he accepted the post, not why it was offered. To
understand this it is necessary to place Coghlan’s appointment in economic and
political context.
7
In the early 1890s, eastern Australia’s long economic boom came to an end.
Marvellous Melbourne’s real estate market had collapsed, and the terms of trade
shifted against the wool industry, Australia’s dominant exporter. Due to these internal
difficulties, and the Baring crisis of 1890, borrowing in London became hard. Falling
export earnings, and lower capital imports, created balance of payments difficulties
which placed a strain on the colonial budgets. Matters became worse in 1893 when a
number of Australian banks were forced to suspend payments (in part due to
withdrawals by nervous British depositors) tightening credit and creating further
economic atrophy. Finally, from the mid-1890s much of eastern Australia suffered
prolonged drought which dramatically reduced sheep numbers and hence export
earnings.23
As Cain and Hopkins point out, colonial governments responded to this
economic crisis by dramatically reducing expenditure and raising taxation to ensure
that debts remained serviced – accentuating the depression.24 All this produced
widespread unemployment in the eastern states. The difficulties of the working
classes increasingly came to be expressed in what Peter Love has called populism: a
loosely defined antagonism to a status quo perceived to favour the moneyed classes or
‘money power’ at the expense of the masses.25 If in the early 1890s economic survival
rested on ensuring credit was maintained, by the turn of the twentieth century political
survival turned partly on tackling unemployment. The New South Wales ministries of
William Lyne and John See pursued aggressive policies of public works between
1899 and 1902, winning ‘populist votes’ and the support of the emerging New South
Wales Labor Party. This policy was facilitated by a revival of borrowing in London
around the turn of the century (see Figure 1).26
8
[Insert Figure 1 hereabouts]
The woes of eastern Australia, and New South Wales in particular, had not
gone unnoticed in the Square Mile. From the 1890s, Australian borrowing was
increasingly criticised in the City – especially in the press. While a host of issues were
discussed, three proved particularly persistent: first, it was alleged that some colonies
(especially New South Wales) were over-borrowing to create employment; second,
that Australian governments were hostile to immigration which might expand
production; and third, that these problems were rooted in the democratic nature of
colonial politics, and especially the rise of the trades unions and Labor parties.
Vaguely bracketed together as ‘socialism’, these groups were accused of being
unreliable guardians of the interests of capital.27
Hostile coverage in the London press frequently originated in Australia. As
Bernhard Ringrose Wise–a former Progressive politician who moved to London in
1905–reflected: ‘no story circulates in England to her discredit which has not
originated in some article in an Australian newspaper or some speech by an
Australian politician’.28 Often such commentary deliberately sought to apply pressure
on wayward governments through the capital market. For example, the Economist’s
perennially gloomy Melbourne correspondent warned in 1902 that, ‘A disastrous
crisis will occur in Australian public finance, unless British investors decline … to
lend any more money, a step which would compel economical administration’.29 The
role of these antipodean contributions must be carefully considered. Such writers were
not shaping City assumptions about political economy but applying them in the
Australian case. The Economist’s readers did not need the Melbourne correspondent
to persuade them that extravagant public expenditure was a danger to public finances
9
and hence to investors. Rather the correspondent applied assumptions he and they
shared to show that extravagance was a problem in Australia.30 The very fact that
Australian politics spilt over into the London press reflects the degree to which
important aspects of Australian domestic politics were entwined with, and potentially
sensitive to, London financial opinion.
After a brief honeymoon with federation in 1901, hostile coverage of Australia
revived dramatically.31 By 1904 the London correspondent of the Melbourne Age
warned that ‘a large and influential’ section of the press, and many businessmen in
London regarded ‘Australia – or rather... its newer political tendencies – [with]
uniform dissatisfaction and pessimism’. This dissatisfaction rested on a fear of
Australian ‘socialism’ which was considered ‘narrow and self-centred’; ‘un-British’,
‘predatory’ and ‘incompatible with imperialism’. The correspondent warned that this
would ‘damage public and private credit, check investment… and annually divert
from the commonwealth hundreds, perhaps thousands of desirable emigrants’.32 Many
also noted the relatively low price of Australian government stocks. At one stage New
South Wales’ were lower than those of the small and relatively poor colony of Natal,
which caused consternation in Sydney.33 Further cause for alarm came in July 1903
when the underwriters who increasingly dominated the issue of colonial government
stocks temporarily refused to support further issues. The strike seems to have been
targeted at British municipal as well as colonial borrowers, and was intended to give
the market a chance to absorb the large amounts of stock left with the underwriters.34
Even if it was not intended to send an overtly political message, it was an ominous
sign of weakening credit.
[Insert figure two hereabouts]
10
Such ill omens would have been worrying enough given the desire for fresh
borrowing. However in 1904, 1907, 1908 and 1913 New South Wales had to renew
many millions of existing loans (see Figure Two above). Indeed, as Coghlan showed
in 1902, loan renewals would be a feature of anglo-Australian financial relations for
generations.35 Weak credit and low prices would worsen the terms of renewal and
potentially increase the costs of servicing the debt. In 1904, in response to particularly
acute problems on the capital market, New South Wales’ progressive treasurer,
Thomas Waddell, responded by slashing loan expenditure from £4 million to £1.5
million, reversing the ministry’s public works policy.36 Despite this, the criticism of
New South Wales continued.37 Thus, at the time of Coghlan’s appointment, the need
to renew existing debt as well as aspirations to obtain fresh capital both created good
reasons for indebted state governments to take note of London’s opinions.
These financial exigencies were reinforced by political developments.
Australian federation in 1901 shifted conflict about tariffs, the traditional dividing line
in politics in both New South Wales and Victoria, to the federal arena. State politics
became particularly discordant as close links to federal politics (where tariff policy
remained a live issue until 1907) maintained divisions between the non-Labor
parties.38 Moreover, new dividing lines emerged surrounding – amongst other things –
labour policy and public expenditure. As we have seen, the Lynn-See ministry,
composed of former protectionists drew support from Labor for a policy of expansive
public works. In this context the former Free Trade (now Liberal) party in the state
sought to revive its support by arguing for ‘reform’ of the public finances. Inspiration
came from Victoria where a mass movement (the so-called Kyabram movement) had
emerged dramatically in 1901, helping deliver office in 1902 to a government (led by
W. H. Irvine) determined to reduce expenditure and to confront trades unions. In May
11
1903 Irvine defeated a rail strike – the railways being one of the largest public sector
unions in a victory applauded in the City.39 In 1902, in New South Wales, a
Taxpayer’s Union was founded to attempt to unite the remnants of the Liberal/Free
Trade party with businessmen under the banner of ‘Kyabramesque’ reform. However,
the movement split between the tougher minded People’s Reform League (supported
by employers and other businessmen), and the more moderate Liberal and Reform
Association, incorporating the Liberal party led by Joseph Carruthers. While the
People’s Reform League failed to attract a large following, the Liberal Reform
Association constructed a state-wide organization, and enjoyed Kyabram levels of
membership. In the June 1904 elections Carruthers gained an overall majority in the
New South Wales Legislative Assembly.40
Overseas debt formed a prominent component of Liberal’s case – linking
retrenchment and the interests of the masses. Thus, one manifesto attacked the
ministry for seeking to ‘maintain an artificial state of prosperity [which] is more than
the country can bear’, resulting in ‘less employment for the people, more money
going out of the country to pay English creditors and harder times for everybody’.41
By contrast with Irvine and the Kyabram movement, Carruthers’ rhetoric of reform
was far less confrontational.42 Thus, he described the Victorian railway strike as a
‘calamity’, arguing:
Whatever system of economy was practised ought to be in stopping
extravagance and leakages in the public expenditure, and restricting the huge
system of borrowing money without making any class bear the burden for
the whole community.43
He reiterated that his reform would not be reactionary, but in the interests of ‘the
community as a whole’.44 In speeches, and in office, he proved far less willing to cut
12
budgets or confront public sector workers than Irvine.45 Consequently, he was
accused of betraying reform, not least by the Sydney Morning Herald, with criticism
of New South Wales in London (much of it of Australian origin) often used to
condemn his alleged timidity.46 As well as the need to renew loans, and the continued
desire for new capital, Carruthers had good political reasons to seek to improve the
state’s image in the London press.47 It would help disarm his critics in the state.
Prior to Carruthers’ election, agents-general had tended to do little to confront
criticism in the City. Indeed in 1904 New South Wales lacked a permanent agentgeneral. The state’s former governor, the Earl of Jersey, represented the state, and
thought replying to criticism would only likely to stir up further controversy. 48
Carruthers, along with many others, became frustrated as masterly inactivity yielded
few results. He complained in the Sydney Mail that ‘public credit’ suffered due to the
British public’s ‘dense ignorance’ and the fact that only condemnatory material
appeared in the press. He thought the ‘other side’ ought to be published and
particularly, ‘facts, such as are contained in Mr Coghlan’s statistics’.49 As a result, in
January 1905 Carruthers decided to send Coghlan to London in person to re-organise
the agent-generalship and ‘to keep a watchful eye upon the letters of Australian
correspondents to English newspapers, and to lose no time in replying to incorrect
statements or figures’.50 The Sydney Daily Telegraph supported sending the state’s
‘ablest financial expert’ to London since ‘Our credit is bad, and our need of renewal
loans is imminent’.51 Carruther’s arch-critic, the Sydney Morning Herald halfheartedly concurred, but snidely remarked that a vigorous ‘reform’ would have been
more effective.52
Coghlan’s appointment, then, is revealing. A weakening of the credit of New
South Wales, the desire to borrow for public works, the necessity of renewing old
13
debt, and Joseph Carruthers’ political exigencies all made Coghlan’s dispatch to
London desirable. He was to take on the London critics, and be seen to do so. The
appointment reflected the close links between the City and New South Wales politics,
links arising from the state’s sizable debts in Britain. These links become more
apparent in the next section, which follows Coghlan’s campaign to correct
misstatements in London.
II
On his arrival in London in spring 1905, Coghlan immediately launched an almost
single handed campaign to counter slights on Australia. Coghlan later recounted to
Deakin that, in the middle of 1905, ‘I was engaged daily in controversy, indeed for
several weeks I did nothing else but answer attacks on Australia’. He claimed to have
produced over 50 letters in the middle of 1905 alone.53 Bullish articles correcting
alleged misstatements appeared in papers such as The Times Financial and
Commercial Supplement, The Economist, The Statist, the Financier, the Daily
Chronicle, and the Daily Mail.54 Coghlan filled over 50 pages of a cuttings book with
offending articles, along with his replies, in 1905 and 1906 alone.55
Coghlan’s approach, and its limitations, can be seen in a particularly bitter
encounter with the Daily Mail in December 1905. By then Coghlan had become a
story in his own right. The Mail alleged that he had been sent to spread
misinformation. It also claimed that the state was trying to silence the paper’s Sydney
correspondent (an employee of the Sydney Daily Telegraph). The state wished to
obscure poor progress due to the ‘disastrous policy of the Labour party, which had
declared war on God, capital, and children’. Rural production and population was
14
stagnating and farmers were emigrating to Chile. Finally it alleged that ‘the
declarations published in England to the effect that Australia is now anxious for
settlers and immigrants are only means of influencing the British investor in
Australia’s favour’.56 Coghlan wrote an irate response. He denied any pressure to
silence the Mail’s Sydney correspondent, and accused the paper of doctoring a
telegram to exaggerate the numbers leaving for Chile. He concluded that, given more
space, he could:
Prove … that socialism is not rampant in Australia, that the Labour party has
not … declared war on God, children, or capital, that immigration is not
discouraged, that the birth rate (though greatly reduced) is still at the same
level as it is in this country, that the States are not burdened with debt, that the
financial condition of the country is not unsatisfactory, and that so far from
taxes being heavy, they are lighter than in almost any other English speaking
country.57
The exchange typifies Coghlan’s approach. He aggressively denied particular
allegations but rarely tackled their underlying assumptions (that a rampant socialism
should concern investors, that encouraging immigration was desirable, and so on). In
this instance, as in many others, the Mail in turn rebutted Coghlan’s letter. The agentgeneral, despite operating within the rules, rarely got the last word.58
Coghlan’s crusade certainly won supporters back in Australia. In September
1905 the Melbourne Age commented that ‘When the slanderers and libellers…
published their diatribes against Australia, Mr Coghlan seized his pen, and with the
training of a Statist, and the quill of a ready writer, promptly exposed their
falsehoods’.59 Yet, the effectiveness of the campaign was questioned by some.
Varying views can be found in correspondence with Deakin. Indeed, Coghlan’s own
15
verdicts shifted. In October 1905, he wrote that the task of ‘defending Australia’ was
‘hopeless unless the impression that we refuse admission to our own (i.e. British)
people is entirely removed’.60 However, by April 1906 Coghlan reported that ‘we are
again taken into favour – unless investors are frightened off by some extreme
proposals’. He thought the change had been caused partly by the ‘fine season’ (the
lifting of the drought had boosted trade and government revenues) but also by the
‘marked actions of the agents-general in upholding the fair name of the country’.61
Others were rather less convinced by Coghlan’s tactics; especially his vendetta with
the Mail. B. R. Wise was among several correspondents who complained to Deakin
that ‘Coghlan has again shown his inability to understand London ways. A personal
call on Harmsworth instead of a “scoring” letter would have got the “Mail”‘.62 The
former South Australian premier and retired agent-general, John Cockburn, agreed
that the Mail was, ‘hopelessly alienated’ by Coghlan’s attacks. ‘One can do wonders’,
he proceeded, ‘with the press if one goes judiciously but offensive measures are worse
than useless though the gallery may applaud’.63 Even one of Coghlan’s closer allies
amongst the agents-general – Walter James of Western Australia – wrote to his
premier that New South Wales’ confrontation with the Daily Mail would adversely
affect all Australian states’ credit.64
In fact Coghlan was not averse to operating behind the scenes. In May 1905 he
persuaded the Standard to withdraw a letter repeating the ‘usual tissue of lies’. In this
instance Coghlan played on the imperial loyalties of the Standard’s editor, H. A.
Gwynne that ‘certain papers’ were harming the ‘imperial idea’ since Australians were
‘resentful of the mountains of abuse heaped on the country since the close of the
South African War’.65 Coghlan secured, or at least claimed to have secured, a change
in the Daily Mail’s Sydney correspondent by applying pressure during the Mail’s
16
1907 confrontation with Lever Brothers. The Mail had been campaigning against
Lever’s moves to create a soap combine, and to reduce the size of a bar of soap. Lever
engaged the prominent lawyer, F. E. Smith, sued, and, in July 1907 was awarded
£50,000 in damages.66 Coghlan proudly recounted to Deakin how he exploited this
moment of weakness, and wrote to Harmsworth personally to demand that the Mail
change the paper’s Sydney correspondent. Harmsworth apparently ‘saw I was making
out a strong case for publication and capitulated’. Tellingly, Coghlan considered this
to be the ‘best day’s work I have done since I came to London’.67
Australia’s image in Britain began to improve from 1906, but rather different
techniques were added to the Coghlanesque rebuttal (which continued to be
deployed). Their basis was articulated in a perceptive report written by the Western
Australian agent-general, Walter James, in August 1905. Although an admirer of
Coghlan, James argued that:
to deal with specific misrepresentations as they arise is not sufficient; our
objective should be to alter that condition of mind which accepts
misrepresentation more readily than it listens to facts.68
James’ solution was to spend money on advertising: an activity he considered
worthwhile even if it did not increase migration since ‘we shall suffer serious
financial loss if we ignore the value of public estimation in fixing the prices we pay
for the money we borrow’.69 Over the next five years increased press advertising, a
strong showing at the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition (with Coghlan’s involvement),
and, as Bernard Attard has shown, the appointment of an Australian high
commissioner all sought to improve Australia’s image amongst potential investors.70
Again such measures again did not alter the ‘rules of the game’ but rather exploited
their looseness. They restated the country’s economic fundamentals (against the
17
backdrop of a now recovering economy) in order to minimise its alleged political
failings. As George Reid, Australia’s first High Commissioner, told a London
audience: ‘Young people in young countries could travel more rapidly than the older
people in the older countries… the advantage of a young healthy patient was that the
doctors could not very easily kill him’.71
Edwardian Australia’s defenders sought either to directly challenge or subtly
subvert the widespread notion in the City that Australia had become a risky
destination for British capital. They did not challenge prevalent notions of political
economy. Rather they recognised these rules but challenged their application to
Australia in the Square Mile (and indeed by the Australian right). Coghlan’s press
campaigns sought to deny outright that various rules had been transgressed (thus
implicitly conceding that transgression was a legitimate concern for investors). Others
followed Walter James’ advice, and (as in the quote above) argued that seemingly
undesirable political measures posed little risk to investors, an argument which was
far easier to make as the Australian economy recovered in the late-1900s. The goal of
Australia’s defenders was to transform opinions in London on Australia, not the
assumptions about the political economy of capital export underpinning those
opinions. They did not challenge the rules but played within them. In 1906 Coghlan
was to reflect on the political consequences of this relationship with London opinion
for Australia.
III
In the early part of 1906 Coghlan’s attention turned to the proposed transfer of the
debts of the states to the Commonwealth. The transfer of those debts extant on the eve
18
of Federation was permitted by Clause 105 of the Australian constitution (the transfer
of subsequent debt required the approval by referendum). This scheme had first
emerged in the federation debates of the 1890s.72 As a larger unit, it was expected that
investors would consider the Commonwealth’s finances to be more stable, reducing
risk and hence the rates of interest charge on loans.73 For the federal government,
there were also political attractions. Control of the debts created claims on the tariff
revenues that the federal government shared with the states. The constitution only
fixed the distribution of these revenues for the first ten years of the Commonwealth’s
existence. Control of the debts would create a moral claim on the customs and excise
revenues, three quarters of which were accounted for by the interest burden.74
Moreover the Commonwealth did not borrow in London before 1914 (although it
came close in 1909). Since ‘public works’ were a key economic policy tool, and were
funded by the states’ borrowings, centralizing Australian borrowing might also impart
control of development policy.75 In short, consolidation would help ‘bind the states to
the chariot wheels of central government’, as Alfred Deakin put it.76
In 1906, Deakin’s federal government began exploring the practicality of
consolidation. That spring the Australian Treasurer, John Forrest, visited London with
consolidation high on his agenda.77 Coghlan seized on Forrest’s visit to produce a
particularly wide ranging report – possibly another bid for the High
Commissionership.78 The majority of its pages focused on practical and technical
matters. However, a crucial middle section turned to the determinants of stock prices
and their political repurcussions. It was widely recognised (not least by Coghlan) that
the scheme could only result in savings if the Commonwealth would be charged a
lower rate on its borrowing. Therefore, as Coghlan pointed out, the scheme’s potential
savings turned on stock prices, and drawing on all his experience of Australian
19
financial dealings with London, produced a list of their determininants – effectively
distilling his understandings of the rules of the game.
Through this list (reproduced in Appendix One), Coghlan suggested credit was
determined by a combination of technical, economic, and political factors. Of these,
Coghlan emphasised in particular, arguing that political reputation had ‘most
influence’ on investors and financiers since ‘there is no class of persons which
political dispositions and prejudices more largely affect their dealings’.79 As a result:
… as long as Australia seeks further money from the London market, either
for new undertakings or for renewing old loans, attention will have to be paid
to the opinions of the British investors on certain political matters.
Coghlan re-iterated the low repute of Australian stocks, and thought that the
underlying cause lay ‘the ludicrous yet oft repeated assertion that there is a
considerable section of the Australian people who favour legislative proposals tending
to diminish the security of private property’.80 It was ‘useless’ to try to correct this
assertion, and futile to ignore its effects.81 Hence, Australia should direct its energies
to financial independence since ‘no country can call itself entirely free that depends
upon the opinion of a small section of the population of a far off city’.82 Coghlan was
silent on how this independence might be achieved.83
At this point, Coghlan’s views ought to be set in the context of his own
understandings of the role of British capital in Australian economic development.
Coghlan long seems to have doubted the value of borrowing overseas. In the early
1890s he condemned the expropriation of ‘surplus value’ by British capitalists in the
Sydney Bulletin.84 This scepticism crept into his official publications which naturally
took a more neutral tone, not least to avoid alarming British investors.85 For example
his Seven Colonies of Australia may have concluded that ‘the larger portion of loans
20
has been well expended’, but it also criticised the ‘vigorous policy of public works’
undertaken in the 1880s, and described payments to British investors as an annual
‘tribute’ of £16,261,000. He also wrote of payments to absentee landlords as a ‘drain’,
echoing radical Labor rhetoric and (perhaps unconsciously) critics of British rule in
India such as Naoroji and Dutt.86 A similarly cautious verdict can be found in Labour
and Industry: the excesses of the 1880s (with their painful repercussions in the 1890s)
are condemned, but British capital is granted a minor part elsewhere in a narrative
which has as its central dynamic (as Holton argues) the rise of a democratic nation
based on the development of natural resources whose equitable distribution was
secured through struggle of workers against squatters and speculators.87 It may seem
odd that Labour and Industry marginalises the role of British capital in Australian
despite its author dealing daily with the City. Yet what better way to make the case
for financial independence than to show that Australian economic development had
not, in fact, depended on London’s goodwill?
Coghlan circulated his document on States debts amongst the agents-general,
showed it to Forrest, and forwarded copies to Deakin and Carruthers. Reactions
varied. Although intended as a joint report, it was not endorsed by the other agentsgeneral. A critical letter from J. W. Taverner of Victoria invoked the doctrine of
responsible government:
To admit the right of British investors to question the particular party that may
be in power for the time being, in my judgement, would be a challenge to selfgovernment under the British flag.88
Similar sentiments were shared by John Forrest, the visiting federal treasurer.89
Confronted with the queasiness his stark admission of Australian dependence had
evoked, Coghlan defended himself to Deakin, arguing that Taverner and Forrest were
21
ignoring ‘the principal facts of the situation’.90 Carruthers released it to the Sydney
press late in June.91 The Sydney Morning Herald acknowledged the instinctive ‘blush
of national feeling’ at the idea that ‘our own affairs can be affected by any outside
consideration’, but continued that, ‘no nation, any more than any individual can be
said to be independent, self-contained, or self-supporting in the absolute sense of
those expressions’.92 Having marginally failed to coin the word globalization in
answer to fears of imperialism, the Herald continued:
So long as Australia seeks further money on the London market… we will have
to pay attention to the opinions of the British investor…. it must be clear to
everyone that if we want [British] money, and the labour market should be able
to furnish an answer to that, we must take some allowance to the views of those
whom we are in the habit of asking to lend it…93
As a result, it was essential to avoid ‘wild-cat legislation’, ‘extravagant expenditure’
or anything that suggested that ‘faddists and socialist experimenters’ were in
control.94 The logic of debt and need to maintain credit, the Herald argued,
necessitated a political response to reassure nervous British investors.
This final comment revealed the strong links between debt consolidation and
the configuration of politics in the early Commonwealth. It was a direct criticism of
Deakin who, in the complex three way politics following federation, relied on the
votes of Labor members in the federal parliament.95 Increasingly calls were heard for
Deakin to unite with the anti-socialist George Reid against Labor, calls supported by
the Herald, and many other non-Labor politicians, including Joseph Carruthers.96 In
1905 Carruthers linked this to the City’s fears of Labor, writing to Deakin, ‘we in the
State Govt [sic] know that in our financing we discover that the real opinion of
Australia and the causes that hold her back. The Labour party is the “bête noir” to the
22
forces that control our affairs’.97 Deakin was determined to resist such arguments and
stick with Labor (indeed the fusion of the two federal non-Labor parties in 1909 was
ultimately precipitated by Labor ceasing to support Deakin and the Progressives).98
Coghlan wrote rather apologetically to Deakin that: ‘Of course I quite understood
what would happen when my report reached the hands of the Australian Tories. The
true lesson taught by what I have said is that Australia cannot be itself entirely
independent until it is free from the load of debt which it has to carry’.99
Furthering fusion may be one reason why Carruthers published Coghlan’s
report; however, publication also served another of his political interests: the defence
of states’ rights against the Commonwealth government.100 In 1907 Carruthers was to
confront the Commonwealth by trying to secure the admission of wire-netting to New
South Wales free of duty.101 We saw earlier that the consolidation of the debts looked
likely to increase the power of the federal government. Coghlan’s report argued (in its
more business-like sections) that consolidation would not result in savings; and
anything that obstructed the economic case for consolidation served Carruthers’
defence of state rights. In 1908, in the Financier and Bullionist, invoked the City’s
instinctive fear of Australian socialism in defence of states rights, arguing that since
Labor had more influence at the federal level, and since this was recognised in
London, it was unlikely that the Commonwealth could borrow any more cheaply.102
In the end, the consolidation of the debts was only effected in 1927, when a
loans council was established which federalized the debt with the states retaining
considerable leeway in their development policies.103 However the controversy
surrounding Coghlan’s 1906 report highlights the links between Australian politics
and the City. It showed three different conceptions of these links current in
contemporary Australian political discourse. Two strands acknowledged the political
23
repercussions of dependence, either embracing it (like the Herald) or arguing that it
made financial independence essential (like Coghlan, or indeed many in the Labor
party).104 A third (including Forrest and Taverner) rejected this analysis, or chose not
to emphasise it, asserting that economic dependence had no significant political
effects – or ought not to in the context of ideas of responsible government. The issue
also showed the links between finance and two leading issues in the early
Commonwealth: states’ rights, and the development of federal party politics. Debt
spawned complex links between the City and federal politics. This perhaps explains
why Deakin consistently found time (even as prime minister) to write a column for
the London Morning Post.105
IV
Coghlan’s appointment , early activities, and reflections as agent-general all reveal the
central role played by ‘opinion’ in the City and Australia in intermediating between a
structural dependence on British capital, and its political implications. The New South
Wales premier, Joseph Carruthers, appointed Coghlan both because his government
needed to renew loans and had aspirations to raise fresh capital, and because hostile
commentary in the City – much of it Australian in origin – amplified and legitimated
the voices of domestic critics who wished him to retrench state expenditure more
radically, in part to maintain credit. Meeting these critics by changing policy risked
eroding support; ignoring them carried equal risks. Thus Coghlan’s appointment, and
his explicit instructions to counter hostile criticism in the City, owed its rationale to
the combined economic and political pressures originating from financial dependence.
His assault on Australia’s ‘slanderers’ equally reflected these exigencies seeking to
24
improve his states image in the eyes of potential investors (as well as other audiences,
particularly prospective emigrants). Coghlan’s campaign, along with more subtle
defences of Australia, did not seek to shift the framework of assumptions within
which Australia was judged, only the judgements reached. They took place within a
field, or set of rules, which Australian participants could not determine, and at best
could only subtly shift. This was the central point of Coghlan’s report on the
consolidation of the state debts, which explicitly highlighted the power of London
opinion. Australian reaction to the report revealed differing conceptions of the degree
and desirability of dependence, and the ways in which the views of London finance
were inextricably linked to two major political issues in the early commonwealth: the
balance of state and federal responsibility, and the federal party system.
Thus this article has examined, through Coghlan’s experiences, the ways in
which ‘opinion’ (to use his phrase) played a crucial role in the politics of angloAustralian finance. It has highlighted two forms of opinion: the ‘rules’ or assumptions
constructed in the City, and the understandings of the political implications of what
has been termed the ‘structural financial imbalance’ held in Australia. Both
interpreted, mediated, and shaped the ways in which financial connections manifested
themselves in Australian politics. The City was a key forum in Australian political
life. Opinions articulated there (often of Australian origin) were frequently relayed
back into discussions in the Commonwealth. These opinions could attain purchase (as
in 1904 in New South Wales) due to the desire (or need) for new debt, the difficulties
of managing (and reducing the burden of) existing debts, and because credit in
London was used in political discourse as a barometer of economic competence.
Image in the City could not be ignored by Australian politicians for both economic
and political reasons. The influence of the City and its Australian allies depended,
25
though, on the degree to which alliances could be built within Australian politics with
groups committed to maintaining credit, and this process of alliance building was
never solely about placating London. There were moments of economic crisis when
maintaining credit did become critical (the 1890s or the 1930s). Such moments
brought unusual clarity to the City’s thinking. Then, the stark choices faced by
Australian politicians tended to strengthen (often decisively) the case of the kind
made by the Herald in response to Coghlan’s report: that Australia’s economic fate
rested on credit in the London capital markets.106 Yet a search for moments of
decisive control should not blind us to this omnipresent and often deeply contested
politics. Such moments were, to use a well worn analogy, the tip of the iceberg.
Beneath lay a politics of finance intermediated by opinion that pervaded, but also had
the potential to disrupt, Britain’s relations with the settler societies of the British
World.
26
Appendix One: T. A. Coghlan’s List of the Determinants of Stock Prices
(Source: TSDC, 9–11)
1. Financial status of borrowing state- its sources of revenue, commitments
and ability to bear increased tax.
2. Currency of stock and conditions under which offered.
3. Amount of stock in existence.
4. Purposes for which loan is being raised.
5. The amount of stock issued but unabsorbed by investors inc. in hands of
brokers.
6. The good or bad repute of the borrowing country politically, i.e. the
estimate formed of the stability of the government by financial authorities
or by investors. [The text in italic was a handwritten insertion in the copy
Coghlan sent to Deakin. The original simply states: ‘in the eyes of financial
authorities or investors’. It is suggestive that Coghlan felt it necessary to
strengthen this point.]
7. The prevalence of continued good or bad seasons.
8. The policy of the government in regard to the encouragement of
immigration and the ability of the state to retain its population.
9. The imminence of further loans.
10. The use to which borrowed money has already been put, especially where
the state concerned already owes proportionately to its population a
considerable amount.
11. The return obtained from the productive works constructed out of the
proceeds of loan moneys.
27
12. The existence of sinking funds.
13. The employment of funds controlled by the State in the purchase of its own
stock in the open market.
28
Endnotes
[1]
Acknowledgements
[2]
T. A. Coghlan to Alfred Deakin, 30 March 1906, MS 6335/13, National
Library of Australia (hereafter NLA).
[3]
The following paragraph is based on Hicks, ‘Coghlan’; Hicks, ‘This Sin and
Scandal’ ; Haig, ‘Sir Timothy Coghlan’; Deacon, ‘Political Arithmetic’, 38–
39; Groenewegen and McFarlane, History of Australian Economic Thought,
103–107; Arndt, ‘A Pioneer’; Heyde, ‘Official Statistics’, 24–28; Fry, ‘Labour
and Industry’; Holton, ‘T.A. Coghlan’s Labour and Industry’.
[4]
Holton, ‘T.A. Coghlan’s Labour and Industry’; Coghlan, Labour and
Industry.
[5]
Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688–2000, 205–216, 240–242, 271–
274. This owes an explicit debt to Gallagher and (particularly) Robinson’s
forays; see Gallagher and Robinson, ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’, 4, 10;
Robinson, ‘Non-European Foundations’, 124; Robinson, ‘Excentric Idea of
Imperialism’, 243–44.
[6]
Kubicek, ‘Economic Power’ ; McAloon, ‘Gentlemen, Capitalists and Settlers’;
McAloon, ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism’; Schreuder and Ward, ‘What Became of
Australia’s Empire?’, 17; Buckner, ‘Creation of the Dominion of Canada’, 68–
70.
[7]
Cain and Hopkins, ‘Theory and Practice’, 204–5; Hopkins, ‘Gentlemanly
Capitalism’, 292. Hopkins originally deployed this model, adapted from
Strange, when writing about Argentina; Hopkins, ‘Informal Empire’, 476–82;
Strange, States and Markets, ch. 2.
[8]
Attard, ‘Free-Trade Imperialism to Structural Power’, 521.
29
[9]
There is vast literature on dependent development. For a classic account,
Denoon, Settler capitalism, especially 3–16; also Schedvin, ‘Staples and
Regions’; for works emphasising the crucial role of external connection
including capital imports in Australian economic development’, McCarty,
‘Australia as a region of recent settlement’; Sinclair, Process of Economic
Development, 1–14; Maddock and McLean, eds., The Australian Economy in
the Long Run 1–2; Dyster and Meredith, Australia in the international
economy, 26–36. Dependence should be distinguished from dependency thesis
(first applied to Latin American economic development), which argued that
the implications of dependence were far from benign; for an overview of this
literature, Abel and Lewis, ‘General Introduction’; for analyses of Australian
economic history in the dependista mould, Cochrane, Industrialization and
dependence: Australia’s road to economic development 1870–1939; Schwartz,
In the Dominions of Debt; on the distinction between economic dependence
and underdevelopment, Hopkins, ‘Informal Empire’, 473–75.
[10]
Dilley, ‘Rules of the Game’; for Hopkins’ usage, ‘Informal Empire’, 478–9;
Hopkins, ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism’, 292.
[11]
Susan Strange’s original model allows for four structures which Cain and
Hopkins acknowledge, based on control of production, defence, finance, and
knowledge; States and Markets, 28–31.
[12]
Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688–2000, 215–17.
[13]
Magee and Thompson, Empire and Globalisation, 198–209.
[14]
E.g. Porter, ‘“A Trusted Guide”’.
30
[15]
Magee and Thompson, Empire and Globalisation, 185–98; for more sustained
discussion, see Dilley, ‘Rules of the Game’; for the role of colonial
correspondents, Potter, News and the British World, 167–70.
[16]
Withers, International finance, 95; Powell, Mechanism of the City, 78–81;
Porter, ‘“A Trusted Guide”’, 9–14.
[17]
For typical examples, ‘Colonial loans criticised’, Sydney Morning Herald, 29
May 1909; The Times, 28 June 1904; Chronicle, 20 June 1904; Daily News,
29 June 1904, cuttings in State Record Office of New South Wales 3/3159,
CGS 14335, State Records NSW.
[18]
This reading seems consistent with Strange’s own application of the notion of
structural power, which ultimately seeks to explain outcomes on the
‘relational’ level; States and Markets, 37–41.
[19]
Hicks, ‘Coghlan’, 2–4.
[20]
Attard, ‘Australian High Commissioner’s Office’, 13–18.
[21]
Melbourne Age, 25 Sept. 1905
[22]
Hicks, ‘Coghlan’, 3.
[23]
The classic account is Boehm, Prosperity and Depression, especially 26–35,
190–207, 271–324; see also Sinclair, Process of Economic Development, 147–
74; Dyster and Meredith, Australia in the International Economy, 59–67.
[24]
Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688–2000, 221–24.
[25]
Love, Labour and the Money Power, 20–40.
[26]
The key figure was the Public Works Minister, Edward O’Sullivan; Mansfield,
‘O’Sullivan’. Also see Rickard, Class and Politics, 148–62; Rydon and Spann,
New South Wales Politics, 9–43; and Loveday, Parker and Weller, ‘New
South Wales’, 217–20.
31
[27]
Goodwin, Image of Australia, 152–65; Hall, London Capital Market, 100–6,
171–184.
[28]
Wise, The Commonwealth of Australia, 235. Similar comments were made by
the Earl of Jersey, New South Wales’s ex-governor and acting agent-general
in 1904, and by Western Australia’s agent-general Walter James; Jersey to
Carruthers, 23 Feb. 1905, MS 1638/6/140, Mitchell Library, Sydney; W.
James, ‘Memorandum for the Consideration of Agents-General on the
Question of Advertising the Resources and Developments of the
Commonwealth’, Aug. 1905, MS 1540/15/2137, NLA.
[29]
Melbourne Correspondent, Economist, 2 Sept. 1902.
[30]
London publications tended to appoint likeminded colonial correspondents;
Potter, News and the British World, 167–70.
[31]
Hall, London Capital Market, 179–84.
[32]
London Correspondent, Melbourne Age, 1 June, 1904.
[33]
Agent-General to Premier, 22 Apr. 1904, 3/3159, CGS 14335.
[34]
Davenport-Hines, ‘Lord Glendyne’, 201; Wood, Borrowing and Business,
107–8. Also see Sydney Manager to London Office, 1 Sept. 1903,
Dep.162/3123/1037/296, Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Canberra;
‘Bondholder’ to Morning Post, 27 July 1903; Agent-General to Irvine, 31 July
1903, VPRS 1225/8/7r–1308, Public Record Office Victoria, Melbourne.
[35]
Coghlan, Statistical Account, 1021–24.
[36]
Rydon and Spann, New South Wales Politics, 47.
[37]
Copeland to Treasurer, 20 and 22 April 1904, 3/3159, CGS 14335.
[38]
Rickard, Class and Politics, 165–66.
32
[39]
For the standard account, Rickard, Class and Politics, 172–187; for the City’s
reaction, Dilley, ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism’, 251–52; also see Bongiorno,
People’s Party, 55–74.
[40]
Loveday, Parker and Weller, ‘New South Wales’, 224–28; Rickard, Class and
Politics, 181–86.
[41]
Unattributed cutting, ‘State Politics: Manifesto of the Liberal and Reform
Party’, undated, MS1638/135/39.
[42]
Rickard, Class and Politics, 188–201.
[43]
Unattributed cutting, ‘Remarks by Mr Carruthers: The value of the Arbitration
Bill’, undated, MS1638/135/7.
[44]
Unattributed cutting, ‘The Liberal Programme. Mr Carruthers at Newtown’,
undated (probably Sept. 1903), MS 1638/135/26. Also see Rickard, Class and
Politics, 189–90.
[45]
Ibid., 195–96.
[46]
Rydon and Spann, New South Wales Politics, 60; for early examples, Sydney
Morning Herald, 6 Oct. 1904; 17 Oct. 1904.
[47]
The Sydney Morning Herald (e.g. 23 Nov. 1904) thought London criticism
reflected the ‘unvarnished truth’ about the state’s finances.
[48]
Jersey to Carruthers, 23 Feb. 1905, MS 1638/6/140.
[49]
Jersey to State Premier, 13 Jan. 1905, 3/3158/4, CGS 14335; ‘Our State
Railways’, Sydney Mail, n.d. (probably 1904), MS 1638/54/6/99.
[50]
Unattributed cutting, ‘Damaging Australia’s Credit, 18 May 1905, MS
1638/6/140.
[51]
Sydney Daily Telegraph, 3 Feb. 1905.
[52]
Sydney Morning Herald, 23 Nov. 1904.
33
[53]
Coghlan to Deakin, 1 and 27 April 1906, MSS 1540/1/1379, 1893.
[54]
The Times Financial and Commercial Supplement, 3 April 1905; Coghlan to
Editor, The Times, 10 April 1910; Melbourne Correspondent, The Economist,
3 June 1903 and Coghlan to Editor, 24 June 1905; Times Financial and
Commercial Supplement, 10 July 1905 and Coghlan to Editor, 17 July 1905;
The Statist, 26 Aug. 1905 and Coghlan to Editor, 26 Aug. 1905; Finanicer and
Bullionist, 24 Aug. 1905 and Coghlan to Editor, 28 Aug. 1905; Coghlan to
Editor, Daily Chronicle, 1 Sept. 1905; Daily Mail, 29 Sept. 1905 and Coghlan
to Editor, 2 Oct. 1905.
[55]
MSS 6335/60/1–45.
[56]
Daily Mail, 15 Dec. 1905
[57]
Coghlan to Editor, Daily Mail, 18 Dec. 1905.
[58]
Daily Mail, 18 and 19 Dec. 1905.
[59]
Melbourne Age, 25 Sept. 1905; for similar comments, Sydney Morning
Herald, 12 Feb. 1906; Adelaide Advertiser, 31 Aug. 1905.
[60]
Coghlan to Deakin 25 Oct. 1905, MS 1540/1/1241.
[61]
Coghlan to Deakin, 1 April 1906, MS 1540/1/1379.
[62]
Wise to Deakin, 27 Dec. 1905, MS 1540/15/1/484.
[63]
Cockburn to Deakin, Feb. 1906, MS 1540/1/1285.
[64]
James to Premier, 15 Dec. 1905, MSS 412/1/ 371–72; James to Premier, 20
Dec. 1905, MS 412/1/378, Mitchell Library, Sydney.
[65]
Coghlan to Bellairs, 24 May 1905; Gwynne to Coghlan, 25 May 1905;
Coghlan to Gwynne, 26 May 1905; Gwynne to Coghlan, 26 May 1905, MSS
412/6–7, 209–215. H. A. Gwynne was constructing a sister paper, the
Standard of Empire to attract dominion advertising contracts, and so was keen
34
to maintain favour with Australian governments; Potter, News and the British
World, 125–7.
[66]
Pound and Harmsworth, Northliffe, 304–5; Ferris, House of Northcliffe, 139–
42.
[67]
Coghlan to Deakin, 5 March 1908, MS 1540/1/1911.
[68]
W. James, ‘Memorandum for the Consideration of Agents General on the
Question of Advertising the Resources and Developments of the
Commonwealth’, MS 1540/15/2135.
[69]
MS 1540/15/2142.
[70]
Potter, News and the British World, 81–6; Attard, ‘Australian High
Commissioner’s Office’, 88. Lead by Coghlan, the Australian states began
legal action against the exhibitions organisers. Carruthers–then in London as a
special agent of the NSW government–stopped the action which he feared
would obscure positive coverage; Carruthers to Coghlan, 22 June 1908;
Coghlan to Carruthers, 23 June 1908, MSS 1638/10/83–99.
[71]
Chamber of Commerce Journal Supplement, Feb. 1911, 2. The term ‘young
country’ was frequently used to distinguish political economy in settler
societies from elsewhere; for comprehensive analysis, Rogers, ‘Impact of the
New World’.
[72]
The standard account of federal finances is Wright, ‘Politics of Federal
Finance’; for Clause 105, Coghlan, Statistical Account, 294.
[73]
Turner, First Decade, 4.
[74]
Wright, ‘Politics of Federal Finance’, 462.
[75]
Butlin, ‘Trends in Public, Private Relations’, 82–83.
[76]
Wright, ‘Politics of Federal Finance’, 364.
35
[77]
Forrest to Deakin, 22 Jan. 1905, and 2 and 23 March 1906, MSS 1540/15/480,
501, 509.
[78]
T. A Coghlan ‘The Transference of the State Debts to the Commonwealth’,
(28 March 1906), MSS 1540/15/3125–80.
[79]
Ibid., 11.
[80]
Ibid., 13.
[81]
Ibid., 14.
[82]
Ibid., 15.
[83]
Ibid., 53.
[84]
Haig, ‘Sir Timothy Coghlan’, 347.
[85]
Deacon, ‘Political Arithmetic’, 38.
[86]
Coghlan, Statistical Account, 753–54, 1043; Love, Labor and the Money
Power, 20–40. For Dutt and Nairoji, Tomlinson, The Economy of Modern
India, 1860–1970, 11–14.
[87]
Holton, ‘T.A. Coghlan’s Labour and Industry’, 340; Coghlan, Labour and
Industry, vol. 3, 1411–20.
[88]
Taverner to Coghlan, 6 March 1906, MS 6335/6.
[89]
Coghlan to Deakin, 20 March 1906, MS 1540/1/1365.
[90]
Ibid.
[91]
The seems to have been contrary to Coghlan’s wishes, and the agent-general
sent an awkward letter to his premier, claiming to be glad that the report had
been published, before continuing that negotiations about the consolidation of
the state debts were best done without a newspaper controversy. See Coghlan
to Carruthers, 3 July 1906, MS 6335/13/182.
[92]
Sydney Morning Herald, 18 June 1906.
36
[93]
Ibid.
[94]
Ibid.
[95]
The standard account is Loveday, ‘The Federal Parties’.
[96]
Rickard, Class and Politics, especially 238–41.
[97]
Carruthers to Deakin, 18 July 1905, MS 1540/15/416.
[98]
La Nauze, Alfred Deakin, 386; Loveday, ‘The Federal Parties’, 438–40;
Macintyre, Oxford History of Australia, 91–93.
[99]
Coghlan to Deakin, 27 July 1906, MSS 6335/13/172–73.
[100] For an overview, Wright, ‘Politics of Federal Finance’, 464–66.
[101] Rydon and Spann, New South Wales Politics, 87–88.
[102] Financier, 23 June 1908; Sydney Daily Telegraph, 18 March 1908. Similar
arguments were made by the Victorian Premier, Thomas Bent; Adelaide
Advertiser, 18 June 1906.
[103] Wright, ‘Politics of Federal Finance’, 475; Fitzpatrick, The British Empire in
Australia, 303–4.
[104] The cessation of borrowing was a perennial ‘plank’ of the Federal Labor
Party’s ‘fighting platform’ in federal elections; Crisp, Australian Federal
Labour Party, 263–64.
[105] La Nauze, ‘Federated Australia’; La Nauze, Alfred Deakin, 348–55.
[106] Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688–2000, 221–224, 498–501.
37
Select Bibliography
Abel, C., and C. M. Lewis. ‘General Introduction’. In Latin America, Economic
Imperialism and the State: The Political Economy of the External Connection
from Independence to the Present, edited by Christopher Abel and Colin M.
Lewis, 2–18. London: Athlone, 1985.
Arndt, H. W. ‘A Pioneer of National Income Estimates’. Economic Journal 59, no.
236 (1949): 616–25.
Attard, B. ‘The Australian High Commissioner’s Office: Politics and AngloAustralian Relations, 1901–1939’. D.Phil, University of Oxford, 1991.
———. ‘From Free-Trade Imperialism to Structural Power: New Zealand and the
Capital Market, 1856–68’. Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
35, no. 4 (2007): 505–27.
———. ‘New Estimates of Australian Public Borrowing and Capital Raised in
London, 1849–1914.’. Australian Economic History Review 47, no. 2 (2007):
155–77.
Boehm, E. A. Prosperity and Depression in Australia, 1887–1897. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1971.
Bongiorno, F. The People’s Party: Victorian Labor and the Radical Tradition, 1875–
1914. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1996.
Buckner, P. ‘The Creation of the Dominion of Canada, 1860–1901’. In Canada and
the British Empire, edited by Phillip Buckner, 66–87. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008..
Butlin, N. G. ‘Trends in Public, Private Relations, 1901–75’. In State and Economy in
Australia, edited by Brian Head, 75–115. Melbourne: Oxford University
Press, 1983.
38
Cain, P. J., and A. G. Hopkins. ‘Afterword: The Theory and Practice of British
Imperialism’. In Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism: The New
Debate on Empire, edited by Raymond E. Dumett, 196–220. London:
Longman, 1999.
———. British Imperialism, 1688-2000. 2nd ed. Harlow: Longman, 2001.
Cochrane, P. Industrialization and Dependence: Australia’s Road to Economic
Development 1870–1939. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1980.
Coghlan, T. A. Labour and Industry in Australia. 4 vols. Melbourne: Macmillan Co.
of Australia, 1969, 1st pub 1918.
———. A Statistical Account of the Seven Colonies of Australasia, 1901–2. Sydney:
William Applegate Gullick, 1902.
———. The Wealth and Progress of New South Wales 1898–9. Sydney: William
Applegate Gullick, 1887–1900.
Crisp, L. F. The Australian Federal Labour Party, 1901–1951. London: Longmans,
1954.
Davenport-Hines, R. P. T. ‘Lord Glendyne’. In Australian Financiers:
Bibliographical Essays, edited by R. T. Appleyard and C. B. Schedvin.
Melbourne, 1988.
Deacon, D. ‘Political Arithmetic: The Nineteenth-Century Australian Census and the
Construction of the Dependent Woman’. Signs 11, no. 1 (1985): 27–47.
Denoon, D. Settler Capitalism: The Dynamics of Dependent Development in the
Southern Hemisphere. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983.
Dilley, A. R. ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism and the Dominions: London Finance, Australia
and Canada, 1900–1914’. D.Phil, University of Oxford, 2006.
39
———. ‘‘the Rules of the Game’: London Finance, Australia and Canada, C.1900–
1914’. Economic History Review 63, no. 4 (2010): 1003–31.
Dyster, B. and D. M. Australia in the International Economy Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990.
Ferris, P. The House of Northcliffe: The Harmsworths of Fleet Street. London:
Weiden and Nicolson, 1971.
Fitzpatrick, B. The British Empire in Australia. 3 ed. Melbourne: Macmillan of
Australia, 1969.
Fry, E. C. ‘Labour and Industry in Australia: Review Article’. Historical Studies 14,
no. 55 (1970): 430–39.
Gallagher, J., and R. Robinson. ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’. Economic History
Review 6, no. 1 (1953): 1–15.
Goodwin, C. D. W. The Image of Australia: British Perception of the Australian
Economy from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century, (Duke University
Commonwealth-Studies Center. Publication No. 42.): Durham, 1974.
Groenewegen, P. D., and Bruce McFarlane. A History of Australian Economic
Thought. London: Routledge, 1990.
Haig, B. ‘Sir Timothy Coghlan and the Development of National Accounts’. History
of Political Economy 38, no. 2 (2006): 339–75.
Hall, A. R. London Capital Market and Australia. Canberra: 1963.
Heyde, C. C. ‘Official Statistics in the Late Colonial Period Leading on to the Work
of the First Commonwealth Statistician, G.K. Knibbs’. Australian & New
Zealand Journal of Statistics 30, no. 1 (1988): 23–43.
Hicks, N. ‘This Sin and Scandal’ Canbera: 1978
40
——— ‘Coghlan, Sir Timothy Augustine (1855 – 1926)’. Australian Dictionary of
Biography 8 (1981): 48–51.
Holton, S. S. ‘T.A. Coghlan’s Labour and Industry in Australia: An Enigma in
Australian Historiography’. Historical Studies 22, no. 88 (1987): 336 – 351.
Hopkins, A. G. ‘Informal Empire in Argentina: An Alternative View’. Journal of
Latin American Studies 26, no. 2 (1994): 469–484.
——— ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism in New Zealand’. Australian Economic History
Review 43, no. 3 (2003): 287–297.
Kubicek, R. V. ‘Economic Power at the Periphery: Canada, Australia, and South
Africa, 1850–1914’. In Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism: The
New Debate on Empire, edited by R. E. Dumett. London: Longman, 1999.
La Nauze, J. A., Ed. Federated Australia: Selections from Letters to the ‘Morning
Post’ 1900–1910, by Alfred Deakin. London: Cambridge University Press,
1968.
———. Alfred Deakin: A Biography. Sydney Angus & Robertson, 1979.
Love, P. Labour and the Money Power: Australian Labour Populism 1890–1950.
Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1984.
Loveday, P. ‘The Federal Parties’. In Emergence of the Australian Party System,
edited by P. Loveday, A. W. Martin and P. Weller. Sydney: Hale and
Iremonger, 1977.
Loveday, P., R. S. Parker, et al. ‘New South Wales’. In Emergence of the Australian
Party System, edited by P. Loveday, A. W. Martin and P. Weller. Sydney:
Hale and Iremonger, 1977.
Macintyre, S. The Oxford History of Australia: Vol 4: 1901–1942: The Succeeding
Age. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1986.
41
Maddock, R, and Ian W. McLean, eds. The Australian Economy in the Long Run.
Cambridge, 1987.
Magee, G. B., and A. S. Thompson. Empire and Globalisation: Networks of People,
Goods and Capital in the British World, C.1850–1914. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Mansfield, B. E. ‘O’Sullivan, Edward William (1846 – 1910)’. Australian Dictionary
of Biography 11, no. (1988): 106–108.
McAloon, J. ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism and Settler Capitalists: Imperialism, Dependent
Development and Colonial Wealth in the South Island of New Zealand’.
Australian Economic History Review 42, no. 2 (2002): 204–224.
——— ‘Gentlemen, Capitalists and Settlers: A Brief Response’. Australian Economic
History Review 43, no. 3 (2003): 298–304.
McCarty, J. W. ‘Australia as a region of recent settlement in the nineteenth century’,
Australian Economic History Review, 13 (1973), pp. 148–67.
Porter, D. ‘“A Trusted Guide of the Investing Public”: Harry Marks and the Financial
News, 1884–1916’, Business History, 28, no. 1 (1986), pp. 1 – 17.
Potter, S. J. News and the British World: The Emergence of an Imperial Press System,
1876–1922. Oxford: Clarendon, 2003.
Powell, Ellis T. The Mechanism of the City. London: P. S. King & Son, 1910.
Pound, R. and G. Harmsworth. Northliffe. London: Cassel and Co, 1958.
Rickard, J. Class and Politics: New South Wales, Victoria and the Early
Commonwealth. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1976.
Robinson, R. ‘The Non-European Foundations for European Imperialism: Sketch for
a Theory of Collaboration’. In Studies in the Theory of Imperialism, edited by
R. Owen and B. Sutcliffe. London: Longman, 1972.
42
——— ‘The Excentric Idea of Imperialism: With or without Europe’. In Imperialism
and After: Continuities and Discontinuities, edited by W. J. Mommsen and J.
Osterhammel. London: Allen & Unwin, 1986.
Rogers, E. ‘The Impact of the New World on Economic and Social Debates in
Britain, C.1860–1914’. Ph.D., University of Cambridge, 2008.
Rydon, J. and R. N. Spann. New South Wales Politics, 1901–1910. Melbourne: F. W.
Cheshire 1962.
Schedvin, C. B. ‘Staples and Regions of Pax Britannica’, Economic History Review,
43, no. 4 (1990), pp. 533–559.
Schreuder, D. and S. Ward ‘Introduction: What Became of Australia’s Empire?’ In
Australia’s Empire, edited by D. Schreuder and S. Ward. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008.
Schwartz, H. M. In the Dominions of Debt: Historical Perspectives on Dependent
Development. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989.
Sinclair, W. A. The Process of Economic Development in Australia. Melbourne:
Cheshire, 1976.
Strange, S. States and Markets. London: Pinter, 1988.
Tomlinson, B. R. The Economy of Modern India, 1860–1970. Cambridge Cambridge
University Press, 1993.
Turner, H. G. The First Decade of the Australian Commonwealth. A Chronicle of
Contemporary Politics, 1901–1910. Melbourne: Mason, Firth & M’Cutcheon,
1911.
Wise, B. R. The Commonwealth of Australia. London: Pitman, 1913.
Withers, H. International Finance. London: John Murray, 1916.
43
Wood, G. L. Borrowing and Business in Australia. A Study of the Correlation
between Imports of Capital and Changes in National Prosperity. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1930.
Wright, D. I. ‘The Politics of Federal Finance: The First Decade’. Historical Studies
8, no. (1969): 460–471.