After six months at the Centre, I feel the time has come for me to look back on what has been done and to cast forward to what remains to be done. On the first count: we have had several very high-profile speakers; we have three new corporate supporters; we have a Centre lecturer once again (albeit only a half-time) one; a new Menzies Centre Studentship scheme has been inaugurated; and a series of business briefings is in prospect. On the second count: the Monash lectureship arrangements have still to be renegotiated; the Centre lectureship needs to be made full-time; we must to press ahead with our funding drive, particularly by finding more corporate support, by widening the Australian universities subscription scheme, and by attracting research grants. By my calculations we are about half-way there.
A highlight of the first half of 1997 was Prime Minister John Howard's Menzies Memorial Lecture in June. Clips were shown across Australia in prime-time television news and it was widely reported in the national press. The focus on the Centre generated by John Howard's visit helped to attract a sponsorship agreement with Rio Tinto for our Menzies Lecture programme and this, in turn, led to P&O;'s decision to support the Reese Lectures and Telstra's to back our new 'Australia Updates' briefings. All of this made it easier to budget for re-instating the Centre's Lectureship. Further, Kim Beazley, Leader of the Opposition, spoke at the Centre in July. It is important that we maintain this new momentum into 1998 and beyond.
This month our first Australian undergraduate enrols at Queen Mary and Westfield College under the Menzies Centre History Studentship scheme. The scheme enables Australian BA students to spend a year studying at QMW and at Kings and relies on the teaching credits the Centre builds up with those colleges by teaching British students in the Centre's BA Australian History course.
The Centre's usual round of activities has continued. Another teaching year has ended successfully. Conferences have convened, with Monash University, on the History of the Book in Australia and, with the Australian War Memorial and the Imperial War Museum on Australian military historiography. Seminars have met weekly, including among them two extraordinary meetings. Ken Colbung explained to us his mission (now carried out) to repatriate the head of Western Australian Aboriginal leader Yagan, which had languished in Liverpool museums for 160 years; and the doyen of English cricket writers, E. W. Swanton, reminisced about 75 years of watching Anglo-Australian test cricket. Yes, he watched his first test in 1921! And there have been some marvellous Literary Links evenings, from Beth Yahp and Helen Garner to Robert Drewe, Herb Wharton and the Changi POW poets.
A stalwart during his term at the Centre was our latest Monash Lecturer, John Arnold, who batted not an eyelid on his first day when I sent him jet-lagged into the trenches of BBC Radio 4 to talk about the Ashes, the republic, and Australian popular culture. He went on to run an excellent conference and to do a vast array of very useful things. John, you are sorely missed! Incidentally, our other media appearances this year have included the Bougainville crisis, the Pauline Hanson affair (I addressed an English-speaking Chinese audience of some 80 million on this issue on the BBC World Service), university fees, the PM's visit, Barwick's death, Wik, and 'the stolen generations'. Few, particularly in Australia, realise the extent of this part of the Centre's operations. Through the London media the Centre regularly offers informed comment on Australia to Britain, Europe and the rest of the world.
What lies ahead? In immediate prospect, we have our Public Service Fellow John Ryan's conference on Industrial Growth and Jobs in Australia and the OECD in October and in November symposia on Australian Investment in Europe and on Three Centuries of Science in the Pacific. For next year, conferences or symposia are being planned on Higher Education in Britain and Australia after Dearing and West, The Australian Churches and Social Justice, Australia and the British World c. 1880s-1930s, Pacific Prospects: Strategic Concerns for Australasia and South-East Asia in the 21st Century, and Australian and British Sporting Traditions. See you there!
CARL BRIDGE
Since April 1997 the following have been academic visitors at the Menzies Centre:
We are delighted to announce that on 27 April 1997, Dr Kate Darian-Smith gave birth to a baby girl, Zoe Darian Vlahogianis, weighing 7lb 4oz. Congratulations from everyone at the Menzies Centre.
Bernard Attard was appointed this month to a half-time position as Lecturer in Australian Studies at the Centre. Previously he was a lecturer in the Department of Economic History at the University of New England, where he taught introductory surveys on the development of Australian economic institutions and the growth of the international economy in the twentieth century. His main research interest is in Australia and the international economy. He has published on Australian capital raising overseas, and amongst forthcoming publications is a survey of the political economy of Australian commercial policy during the 1930s.
Bernard holds a combined honours degree in history and literature, and an MA from Melbourne University. In 1991, he completed a D.Phil thesis at St. Antony's College, Oxford, on the history of the Australian High Commission in London up to 1939. While writing up, he also recorded an oral history of the jobbing system of the London Stock Exchange for the Centre for Metropolitan History at the Institute of Historical Research in London University. He has also worked as a graduate trainee in the Minerals Division of BHP.
Born in London, Bernard emigrated from Malta to Australia with his parents and two siblings in 1967. He vividly remembers the screening in Valetta of 'They're a Wierd Mob' which he can only believe was intended to send prospective new Australians expectantly on their way. He also recalls his subsequent bemusement on finding himself in outer suburban Melbourne with not a beach in sight. Having the misfortune to arrive in the week that Harold Holt drowned, he vowed never to go into the water again.
Carl Bridge
From Carl Bridge's diary.
John Ryan
John Ryan, the Australian Public Service Visiting Fellow, gave a seminar paper at the Centre in May on contemporary industry policy in Australia. He has been organising the major conference 'Raising Economic Growth: Industry Development Strategies' which will be held on 21 October and involve senior policy makers from Australia, Canada, France, Ireland and the UK as well as the OECD. He has initiated the new briefing series 'Australia Updates' which is being sponsored by Telstra. John continues to chair the OECD Industry Committee which oversees the OECD research work on industry policy issues. The Committee also has the responsibility for preparing for the first meeting of OECD Industry Ministries in February 1998.
John Arnold
As the Monash Lecturer John Arnold spent six weeks at the Menzies Centre over June and July. Having been involved in the establishment of the original Monash/Menzies agreement and visited the Centre briefly in 1995. He planned with Carl Bridge a strategy for maintaining and strengthening the Monash link.
In addition to assisting with preparations for the Menzies Lecture given by the Prime Minister, John attended two functions at Australia House on behalf of the SRMCAS at which the Prime Minster spoke, including the launch of the Ashes cricket exhibition in the presence of the touring Australian team.
He also did several radio interviews in relation to the Prime Minister's visit and fielded queries ranging from student university fees in Australia to supplying titles of Australian novels that had potential as possible films. One of his major activities was to organise a conference entitled 'The History of the Book in Australia: the British Connection'. Held in conjunction with the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University, the one day conference featured some ten speakers plus a panel on the various national histories of the book currently in progress. The papers from the conference are currently being edited for publication by SRMCAS.
John hopes to continue his close association with the SRMCAS by spending some of his study leave in 1998 at the Menzies Centre.
SRMCAS has been connected with Australian prime ministers since its beginnings: founded by Malcolm Fraser, opened by the Queen Mother in the presence of Bob Hawke, named after Sir Robert Menzies, and now honoured by John Howard, who gave the 1997 Menzies Lecture, the Centre's premier annual public lecture (sponsored now by Rio Tinto).
Mr Howard spoke on 23 June to an overflow audience of 300 Australians and Britons, business people and academics, students and officials, journalists and citizens. He took as his subject 'Australia and Britain: The Contemporary Partnership'.
In a wide-ranging and penetrating survey, he spoke about what his government was doing to achieve rising living standards throughout the community, to expand job opportunities, and to extend an effective social security net; and why foreign investors in Britain and elsewhere could have great confidence in Australia's future. Mr Howard went on to speak about the values and ideals that underpin his government's reform program, and that come from the modern tradition of Australian liberalism Sir Robert Menzies helped to create. He spoke too of Sir Robert's contribution not only to Australia's national development but also to Australia's engagement with Asia, and of how this was now an even more important factor in Australia's foreign economic and security relations.
Finally, he reminded us that Australia's interests were not confined to its own region, that what happened in Europe affected Australia in profound ways, that Australia faced no choice between its geography and its history. No two countries in our respective regions knew each other better, trusted each other more, had closer relationships than Australia and Britain. These were compelling reasons for both of us to keep our friendship and mutual understanding up to date and active -- in which SRMCAS plays a most useful role -- and to use them to shape our futures.
By Michael Cook
by Tom Griffiths and Libby Robin
Being a part of a pinkish-red rather than a green generation, I am more accustomed to thinking about empire than ecology. These, as Tom remarks in his admirable introduction to this volume, are words that usually suggest very different dimensions of life on earth ... One is natural, the other social; one is local and specific to place, the other is geographically ambitious; one is often seen to be scientific, amenable to laws, and exclusive of humanity; the other is political, quixotic and historical'.
In many ways Crosbs 'call for inclusion of the natural world in historical explanation' provides the context for many of the papers in this volume as Tom says in his admirable introduction. But if Crosby provides the starting point, many of the papers in the volume show that the picture when approached from 'the margins' is both less dramatic and more complex than is hinted at in his broad brush strokes. As Michael Williams puts it, the 'relations between imperialism and ecology suggest that it was a far more complex and varied phenomenon than much current writing would have us believe. Imperialism must not be equated narrowly with western colonialism; it is a more useful and generic geographical concept that includes exploration, organization and settlement as well as exploitation': and crucial among these is major ecological change. Thus Ecology and Empire not only deals with the impact of settlers on the evironment in Crosby-an terms, but also emphasises the impact of indigenous peoples on their environment over a very long 'duree'. It examines the impact of imperial scientific thought on both African and Australian environmentalism; explores the relationship of conservation to nationalist identity; and illuminates the relationship of economic to environmental change.
The book -- unlike Gaul -- is divided into five parts. The first, 'Ecologies of Invasion' brings new perspectives, including Eric Rolls' dealing with the four 'disruptions' of the Australian environment from its break from Gondwanaland 70 million years ago to the most recent 'disruption' as a result of the arrival of new immigrants after World War II, and Tim Flannery's equally wide-ranging and ambitious chapter, dealing with what he terms historical ecology. Part 2, 'The Empire of Science', looks at the 'correspondence and tensions' involved in the reshaping of an initially imperial ecological understanding by colonial imperatives so that -- as Tom puts it -- a 'science in place, rather than an abstract, universal science, is a driving creative force'. All four contributors are interested not only in the nexus of reciprocal scientific understandings that bound the imperial centre and the colonial periphery, but also in the network of scientific exchanges that occurred between settler societies themselves. I found Part 3, 'Nature and Nation', perhaps the most fascinating section of all. To quote Tom yet again, 'Notions of "empire" and "nature" are unpacked to reveal nature as a political and psychological tool and versions of ecological imperialism that are Afrikaner, Scottish and Australian rather than amorphously European'.
As an old-fashioned materialist I suppose I wish that Part 4 on the 'Economy and Ecology' could have been longer and more systematic: here we deal in all too short a space with the ways in which a range of ecologies in the USA, Australia, India, China and Japan, in Latin America and in South Africa were transformed by the advent of the new modes of production, market relations and global capital which 'confronted contested and integrated with pre-exiting and enduring indigenous forms of industry and commerce. The final section, 'Comparing Settler Societies', with essays by John Mackenzie and David Lowenthal provides appropriately broad reflections and perspectives on the burgeoning field of imperial environmental history.
At the outset Tom Griffiths makes a large and ambitious claim: '"Ecology in this volume', he writes, 'does not just mean the portmanteau biota of the Europeans and the disctinctly local environments that they encountered; ecology is also the lens through which we claim to be reinterpreting imperial history.' This may be over-ambitious: a new form of ecological imperialism perhaps. Nevertheless, this is a rich and satisfying collection: a major contribution to what John Mackenzie terms in his contribution 'the multi-layered richness of the field'. It has been a particular privilege to launch a book which opens up such a variety of new directions both in environmental history and in the history of settler societies more generally.
By Shula Marks
Long after the Hancock and Menzies Rooms had filled to capacity on the evening of 24 July 1997 people continued to stream in. Friends and strangers jostled apologetically against each other, scanned the crowded rooms hopefully, and then folded themselves into the improbably small spaces which remained, ready to listen to the evening's speaker. Kim Beazley, Leader of the Australian Opposition, addressed the topic 'New Images' � An Australian Perspective, and did so with a certain amount of wit and style. Waves of laughter rippled around the audience at his many humourous asides, but there were also murmurs of agreement at his more serious assertions. His analysis of Australia's role in the Pacific region was a trenchant one, which took account of the fact that the historical connection with Britain could be both help and hindrance. Natually, the subject of an Australian republic was broached, and Beazley commented that the Australian Labor Party wished to put the option of a 'resident for President' to the Australian public in the form of an indicative plebiscite. On the subject of Pauline Hanson, he was especially acerbic, arguing that this was one public relations disaster which needed to be ruthlessly contained by the Government.
A politician who arouses fevered anticipation in his audience must be reckoned a rare commodity. One who is consistently entertaining is rarer still. On the strength of this performance, the Hon. Kim Beazley, Leader of the Opposition is just such a phenomenon.
By Edel Mahony
The Centre announces the establishment of a briefing series on recent Australian economic, political and business developments called "Australia Updates". There will be a brief every four months with the first to be held in November 1997. The speakers will be expert commentators giving an independent assessment of recent developments in their field. The speakers will include Mr James Shugg, Chief Economist, Westpac and Mr Michael Cook, former Australian Ambassador to USA. The series will target firms with business interests in Australia and is proudly sponsored by Telstra (UK) Ltd.
On Tuesday 21 October, SRMCAS will hold a conference, "Raising Economic Growth: Industry Development Strategies". The conference will examine the industry development strategies of a number of developed countries aimed at raising economc growth rates. The countries reviewed include Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Japan, The Netherlands, and United Kingdom. The speakers will inlude Mr Johnston, OECD Secretary General, Mr Higgins, Secretary of the Australian Department of Industy, Science and Tourism. Professor Luc Soete, MERIT, and Mr Haran, Permanent Secretary of the Irish Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Participation will be restricted to invitation. A conference proceedings will be published at a later date.
Some twenty-five military historians met in the Menzies Room for the afternoon of 7 July to discuss current and possible future trends in Australian military history. Speakers came from the Australian National University, the Australian Defence Force Academy, the Australian War Memorial, Deakin University, the Menzies Centre, the Imperial War Museum, and the Department of War Studies, Kings College London; and other participants came from Cork, Luton, Oxford, the British Commission for Military History, and the Australian High Commission.
Carl Bridge commenced discussion with a tour d'horizon of the subject. Craig Wilcox analysed the hunt for the Aboriginal bushrangers, the Governor brothers, at the time of the Boer War as a window on the culture of casual brutality that prevailed in the bush in colonial Australia. Joan Beaumont explained why it was important to study how the collective memory of war has evolved over this century. Peter Stanley looked at the deep parochialism of most Australian accounts of the Pacific campaigns at the end of world war two. David Horner suggested that we need composite biographies of battalion and brigade commanders to complement those of the high command. And Jeff Grey told the uneven tale of the official military history efforts in Australia, the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and India. Finally, Peter Simkins and Brian Bond came in as umpires to tell us whether any of our ranging shots had identified useful targets.
All of the above papers, together with two earlier ones presented at the SRMCAS weekly seminar�Elizabeth Richards on the 1st AIF's interaction with the French people; and Melanie Oppenheimer on the voluntary effort on the home front, 1939-45�are currently being edited by Carl Bridge for publication by the Centre.
This one-day conference jointly sponsored by NCAS at Monash and SRMCAS met in the Menzies Room on 3 July. Thirty scholars attended from as wide afield as Wales, Italy, Belgium, Canada, New Zealand, Scotland, England and Australia. Alistair Niven, Head of Literature at the British Council opened the conference with some wise remarks about not forgetting the complexity British-Australian literary connexions. Them Wallace Kirsop from Monash began the two Nineteenth Century sessions with a paper on Nineteenth Century Bookshops, and he was followed by Elizabeth Webby from Sydney on The Sydney Punch and Elizabeth Morrison on Novel Trading and Textual Tamperings. Lurline Stuart (Monash) explored His Natural Life's English readership, and David Perman (Rockingham Press) spoke entertainingly on John Smith of Ware's colourful literary career. The afternoon sessions began with a Twentieth Century session. Graeme Johansen (NCAS) presented a statistical analysis of the publication history of Australian fiction in Britain, 1900-50; John Arnold frolicked with Bloomsbury's own Fanfrolico Press and Craig Munro (UQP) read an adults-only paper on the Mandrake Press, Satanism, sex and much more. John Curtain then brought us back to earth with a shrewd analysis of the links between British publishers and Australian booksellers in the not too distant past. Next came a round table panel discussion of History of the Book projects in Australia (Martyn Lyons, UNSW), England (Ian Willison, British Library), France (Wallace Kirsop), Scotland (Bill Bell) and New Zealand (Keith Maslen). A very productive day ended on a light, witty and personal note with Trevor Glover's reminiscences of his experiences as Head of Penguin Books in England and Australia. John Arnold is editing the collected papers for publication by the Centre.
The following have been awarded Australian Bicentennial Scholarships and Fellowships to travel to Australia:
Visual Arts Fellowship: The 1997 Visual Arts Fellowship has been awarded to Claire Barber from East Sussex.
These are the Centre's most recent publications and are available from Kirsten McIntyre at the Centre unless otherwise stated:
Thank you to the following for donations to the SRMCAS library:University of Queensland Press, Jeanie Bell, 'Talking about Celia: Community and Family memories of Celia Smith', UQP, 1997; Ken Colbung, 'Yagan: The Swan River Settlement', Australia Council for the Arts, Geoffrey Davis and Dieter Riemenschneider, 'Aboriginal Culture and Literature in Australia', Cross Cultures, Readings in the Post/Colonial Literatures in English, Rodopi, 1997; Ray Markey & Jacques Monat (eds), 'Innovation and Employee Participation Through Works Council: International Case Studies', Avebury, 1997; Gillian Whitlock & Gail Reekie (eds), 'Uncertain Beginnings', Debates in Australian Studies; Craig Munro, 'Inky Stephensen: Wild Man of Letters', University of Queensland Press, 1992
The University of Wales, Lampeter, is now offering a BA degree in Australian Studies. The course includes study of Australian history, literature, culture and geography. For further information contact:
Saturday 1 November 1997
A special one-day conference on Welsh migration to Australia to be held at the University of Wales, Lampeter. For further information contact:
Seminars are to be held on Wednesdays at 5.30 pm (unless otherwise indicated) in the Menzies Room, 28 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5DS, Tel: 0171-580 5876; Fax: 0171-580 9627; email: [email protected]
OCTOBER