In my last past I said that I found it interesting the way traditional patterns hold on, just as interesting the way they change suddenly. I took the Labor Party in New England as my first example. This post looks at the Country (now National) Party, the other major political party in twentieth century New England.
Whereas Labor emerged from the industrial movement among working class Australians who saw the need for a party to represent the working class, the Country Party emerged from the industrial movement among farmers and graziers who saw the need for a party to represent country Australia.
Just as New England's history made New England Labor different from that elsewhere, so that history made New England's Country Party different.
New England has been Country Party heartland. For much of the twentieth century, the Party dominated New England's political landscape outside Newcastle and the lower Hunter. The majority of the Party's parliamentary leaders, national as well as state, came from New England. During periods when swings against the Party reduced numbers elsewhere, New England largely held firm. Today the National Party in New England is clearly in trouble, but that trouble comes not just from Labor or Liberal Parties, but also from growing movement to elect independents to Parliament, a movement headquartered in New England.
Part of the reason for the Country Party's relative success in New England lies in demography.
To the south and west of Sydney, Irish Catholic chain migration was an important in early European settlement. By contrast, Scottish and especially Scots Presbyterian chain migration was important in New England's European settlement north of the lower Hunter.
So the Irish Catholic population that played such a role in the development of the Labor Party was significantly weaker in New England, the English and Scots population stronger. This translated into different voting patterns, with the base Labor Party vote weaker in New England as compared to the central west and Riverina.
New England is also different in terms of geography and climate. It is the wettest portion of NSW. The valleys in New England's humid coastal zone are far larger than those in Southern NSW, the immediately nearby tablelands larger and wetter than those in the south.
This facilitated settlement, so that New England's population was both larger and more compact. At the time of Federation, probably one person in four in NSW, one in ten of all Australians, lived in New England.
These differences in geography and demography played themselves out during the formation of the Country Party.
Within rural Australia the wheat farmers and their organisations were by far the most radical farm group. I have spoken previously of the importance of transport costs. The spread of the railways allowed land near the new lines to be opened up for wheat. These new farmers became radicalised as they struggled with recurrent droughts and the vagaries of international markets.
This was most pronounced in the west and south of NSW. Wheat production for export markets came a little later to New England and those taking up land for farming were more likely to be aready established farmers.
In contrast to the wheat growers, the better established graziers and pastoralists and their organisations were more inclined to favour the status quo, less inclined towards radical solutions. This meant that much of the drive for the formation of a new political party to represent country interests came from farmers rather than graziers.
In Victoria where the grazing interests had largely been co-opted into the Melbourne establishment, farmers and farm organisations dominated the new Victorian Country Party. As a result the new party centred on farming areas and was by far the most radical of the newly emerging parties.
The position in New South Wales was different, especially in New England. Unlike Victoria, New England graziers were less absorbed into the Sydney elites, identified far more with their own areas, and were more likely to cooperate with the farming interests. So in NSW the Graziers Association combined with the Farmers and Settlers Association to form the new Country Party. This necessarily made the Party more conservative, something that could and did lead to tensions between its different wings.
There was another difference in New England itself as well linked to the geographical differences discussed earlier, and that is the relative importance of non-wheat farming interests, especially dairying, creating a chain of dairy seats along the coastal zone. So in New England the new Country Party combined the dairy seats long the coast, the grazing seats in the centre, the mixed farming and grazing seats to the west.
I will continue this story in my next post.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
The past is always present
In a comment on my last post on the rise and fall of the paddle steamer, Geoff Robinson spoke of the change in electoral fortunes around Echuca. I commented that I found it interesting the way traditional patterns hold on, just as interesting the way they sometimes change quickly.
In cultural terms, the past is always with us even if we do not recognise it. Sometimes the past takes the form of a granite outcrop, the current Australian fascination with ANZAC day is an example, that all can see. At other times, its influence is far more subtle, largely unseen. Yet it can still be important. In other cases still such as the British empire, the granite that has marked the horizon for generations can suddenly erode in a few short decades.
Over most twentieth century New England the two dominant political parties have been the Labor and Country Parties.
Labor Party influence has been centred on the industrial city of Newcastle and surrounding mining areas. Makes sense, after all, that this should be so in traditional industrial terms. But somehow, at least as I see it, New England Labor has never quite fitted into NSW Labor. The reason for this is simple.
NSW Labor had a strong Irish Catholic influence. This stream controlled the party. By contrast, the immigrants who fed the industrial establishments in Newcastle and the surrounding mines, largely came from England and were Anglican or protestant. They shared the working class tradition, but still belonged to a different group.
There was another factor as well, the continuing conflict between Sydney and Newcastle over trade and commerce. The views of Newcastle Labor could conflict with the interests of the Sydney (Sussex Street) machine. Acute conflict or sense of neglect translated into support for independents.
In my next post I will look at the Country Party.
In cultural terms, the past is always with us even if we do not recognise it. Sometimes the past takes the form of a granite outcrop, the current Australian fascination with ANZAC day is an example, that all can see. At other times, its influence is far more subtle, largely unseen. Yet it can still be important. In other cases still such as the British empire, the granite that has marked the horizon for generations can suddenly erode in a few short decades.
Over most twentieth century New England the two dominant political parties have been the Labor and Country Parties.
Labor Party influence has been centred on the industrial city of Newcastle and surrounding mining areas. Makes sense, after all, that this should be so in traditional industrial terms. But somehow, at least as I see it, New England Labor has never quite fitted into NSW Labor. The reason for this is simple.
NSW Labor had a strong Irish Catholic influence. This stream controlled the party. By contrast, the immigrants who fed the industrial establishments in Newcastle and the surrounding mines, largely came from England and were Anglican or protestant. They shared the working class tradition, but still belonged to a different group.
There was another factor as well, the continuing conflict between Sydney and Newcastle over trade and commerce. The views of Newcastle Labor could conflict with the interests of the Sydney (Sussex Street) machine. Acute conflict or sense of neglect translated into support for independents.
In my next post I will look at the Country Party.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Rise and fall of the paddle steamer -inland river transport
In my last post I suggested that the history of inland river transport threw a clear light on economic competition between the colonies, competition that affected the history of New England. However, the rise and fall and now rise of the paddle steamer (the ships were all paddle steamers) is an interesting story in its own right.
1836 saw the establishment of the colony of South Australia. The possible use of the Murray River as a highway to draw traffic and business into South Australia from the pastoral interior attracted early attention. In 1850, just fourteen years after the colony's foundation, the SA Government offered a prize of 2,000 pounds each (a very substantial sum) for the first vessels to reach the junction of the Murray and Darling rivers. Two vessels, the Mary Anne and Lady Augusta, did so in 1853.
Between 1855 and 1859 a serious of adventurous voyages established the practical limitations of navigation along the winding sometimes tortuous river systems. A series of inland ports grew up: Bourke, Menindee and Wilcannia on the Darling; Balranald, Hay, Narranderra and Wagga Wagga on the Muurrumbidgee; Wentworth, Mildura, Swann Hill and Echuca on the Murray. Ultimately nearly 200 vessels were built to service the trade.
I have spoken before of the cost advantages of water versus horse or bullock drawn land travel. Even though the distances involved along the rivers were vast, the river vessels provided a more cost effective option for inland grown wool. This attracted freight, freight that the mercantile interests in each colony were keen to attract.
Initially Goolwa at the mouth of the Murray in South Australia was the main port. However, the river mouth created real problems for navigation, leading the South Australian Government to build a horse tramway (Australia's first public railway) from Goolwa to the nearby blue waters of the Southern Ocean at Port Elliot.
The freight business was too lucrative to allow South Australia's position to remain unchallenge. The Victorian Government quickly began to build a railway reaching Echuca in 1864. Echuca was only 250 kilometres (155 miles) from Melbourne, and the new line changed the shape of river trade. From this point, the majority of the steamers from the Murrumbidgee and Darling went upstream to Echuca instead of downstream to Goolwa. Measured by number of ships, Echuca became Victoria's second busiest port.
Fourteen years later (1878), the railway from Adelaide finally reached the Murray at Morgan. South Australia could again compete with Echuca, attracting Darling and lower Murray traffic. However, this newly acquired advantage was short lived.
NSW had begun its own railway building program. During the 1880s these lines at last reached the navigable waters of the inland rivers first at Wagga Wagga, then at Albury, Narandera and Hay. In 1887 the railway reached Bourke, a line directly designed to capture Darling traffic. Freight previously sent by ship to Echuca or Morgan was now sent to Sydney.
From the beginning of the shipping trade there had been discussions about the need for works to improve river navigability, especially on the bigger Murray. As early as 1863 an intercolonial conference resolved that action should be taken to improve Murray navigation. However, no action was taken.
NSW was the core diffficulty. While improvements to river navigation might improve the position of NSW pastoralists, they would also damage the revenues of NSW's growing railway system. It was not until 1917 that the states signed the Murray River Waters Agreement establishing the Murray River Commission. The new Commission began work on river improvements in the twenties, but by then the growing number of motor vehicles had sounded the final death knell for river shipping as a major transport mode.
Some shipping survived. However, the real resurgence of the paddle steamer came not from freight but from carriage of tourists who provided a far more lucrative marketplace. Today, steamers such as the PS Adelaide shown in the photograph and operated by the Port of Echuca again ply the Murray.
Source: Australian Heritage Commission, australia our national story, Chapter 2, "Ports and Shipping, 1788-1870, http://www.ahc.gov.au/publications/national-stories/transport/chapter2.html.
1836 saw the establishment of the colony of South Australia. The possible use of the Murray River as a highway to draw traffic and business into South Australia from the pastoral interior attracted early attention. In 1850, just fourteen years after the colony's foundation, the SA Government offered a prize of 2,000 pounds each (a very substantial sum) for the first vessels to reach the junction of the Murray and Darling rivers. Two vessels, the Mary Anne and Lady Augusta, did so in 1853.
Between 1855 and 1859 a serious of adventurous voyages established the practical limitations of navigation along the winding sometimes tortuous river systems. A series of inland ports grew up: Bourke, Menindee and Wilcannia on the Darling; Balranald, Hay, Narranderra and Wagga Wagga on the Muurrumbidgee; Wentworth, Mildura, Swann Hill and Echuca on the Murray. Ultimately nearly 200 vessels were built to service the trade.
I have spoken before of the cost advantages of water versus horse or bullock drawn land travel. Even though the distances involved along the rivers were vast, the river vessels provided a more cost effective option for inland grown wool. This attracted freight, freight that the mercantile interests in each colony were keen to attract.
Initially Goolwa at the mouth of the Murray in South Australia was the main port. However, the river mouth created real problems for navigation, leading the South Australian Government to build a horse tramway (Australia's first public railway) from Goolwa to the nearby blue waters of the Southern Ocean at Port Elliot.
The freight business was too lucrative to allow South Australia's position to remain unchallenge. The Victorian Government quickly began to build a railway reaching Echuca in 1864. Echuca was only 250 kilometres (155 miles) from Melbourne, and the new line changed the shape of river trade. From this point, the majority of the steamers from the Murrumbidgee and Darling went upstream to Echuca instead of downstream to Goolwa. Measured by number of ships, Echuca became Victoria's second busiest port.
Fourteen years later (1878), the railway from Adelaide finally reached the Murray at Morgan. South Australia could again compete with Echuca, attracting Darling and lower Murray traffic. However, this newly acquired advantage was short lived.
NSW had begun its own railway building program. During the 1880s these lines at last reached the navigable waters of the inland rivers first at Wagga Wagga, then at Albury, Narandera and Hay. In 1887 the railway reached Bourke, a line directly designed to capture Darling traffic. Freight previously sent by ship to Echuca or Morgan was now sent to Sydney.
From the beginning of the shipping trade there had been discussions about the need for works to improve river navigability, especially on the bigger Murray. As early as 1863 an intercolonial conference resolved that action should be taken to improve Murray navigation. However, no action was taken.
NSW was the core diffficulty. While improvements to river navigation might improve the position of NSW pastoralists, they would also damage the revenues of NSW's growing railway system. It was not until 1917 that the states signed the Murray River Waters Agreement establishing the Murray River Commission. The new Commission began work on river improvements in the twenties, but by then the growing number of motor vehicles had sounded the final death knell for river shipping as a major transport mode.
Some shipping survived. However, the real resurgence of the paddle steamer came not from freight but from carriage of tourists who provided a far more lucrative marketplace. Today, steamers such as the PS Adelaide shown in the photograph and operated by the Port of Echuca again ply the Murray.
Source: Australian Heritage Commission, australia our national story, Chapter 2, "Ports and Shipping, 1788-1870, http://www.ahc.gov.au/publications/national-stories/transport/chapter2.html.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Inland river transport - an aside
I have just been reading with interest the story of the rise and fall of shipping on the Murray Darling River system.
While some of its headwaters lie in New England and some New England wool was probably shipped out on it, the Darling River itself lies to the west of New England, the Murray River far to the south. Much of the history of shipping on the broader Murray Darling river system is therefore peripheral to the history of New England itself. However, there is one feature that is relevant.
The navigable parts of the Murray Darling system flowed through three colonies/states, NSW, Victoria and South Australia. During the colonial period, each was completely independent with their own taxation systems. Each colony maintained a series of boarder posts collecting tariffs on goods entering the colony. Each competed with the others for control of trade.
The history of shipping on the Murray Darling throws a clear light on this competition. This is relevant to New England because, as I suggested in an earlier post, its history too was affected by fights for control of trade and economic activity.
As an economist as well as historian, I am well aware of and indeed agree with the general arguments in favour of competition as a device for improved economic performance. However, as an historian I can also see that just because something is does not mean that it was preordained to be. Those who control the levers of political and economic power can and will shift the playing field in their direction. General arguments about the state or national interest (essentially my interests versus yours) have a long and sometimes slippery history.
I will therefore write up the history of inland shipping in a later post.
While some of its headwaters lie in New England and some New England wool was probably shipped out on it, the Darling River itself lies to the west of New England, the Murray River far to the south. Much of the history of shipping on the broader Murray Darling river system is therefore peripheral to the history of New England itself. However, there is one feature that is relevant.
The navigable parts of the Murray Darling system flowed through three colonies/states, NSW, Victoria and South Australia. During the colonial period, each was completely independent with their own taxation systems. Each colony maintained a series of boarder posts collecting tariffs on goods entering the colony. Each competed with the others for control of trade.
The history of shipping on the Murray Darling throws a clear light on this competition. This is relevant to New England because, as I suggested in an earlier post, its history too was affected by fights for control of trade and economic activity.
As an economist as well as historian, I am well aware of and indeed agree with the general arguments in favour of competition as a device for improved economic performance. However, as an historian I can also see that just because something is does not mean that it was preordained to be. Those who control the levers of political and economic power can and will shift the playing field in their direction. General arguments about the state or national interest (essentially my interests versus yours) have a long and sometimes slippery history.
I will therefore write up the history of inland shipping in a later post.
Photographic Frustrations part resolved
I managed to part resolve the photographic frustrations mentioned in my last post by a simple change in search methods.
I had been searching using general terms, ships grafton, for example. By searching on specific companies, North Coast Steam Navigation Company for example, I found a lot of new material not just on ships and shipping, but also articles on people and activities in some way associated with the companies. I ended up downloading several hundred pages of material - I still find it much easier, faster and more enjoyable to read printed pages - for later reading.
I had been searching using general terms, ships grafton, for example. By searching on specific companies, North Coast Steam Navigation Company for example, I found a lot of new material not just on ships and shipping, but also articles on people and activities in some way associated with the companies. I ended up downloading several hundred pages of material - I still find it much easier, faster and more enjoyable to read printed pages - for later reading.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Photographic Frustrations
It is almost a fortnight since my last post. I have not been completely idle. I have been frustrated.
I decided that I should start adding photos to the site. A photo really does tell a thousand words in bringing dry text alive. So I started trawling the web looking for public domain shipping photos in the first instance. I could not find any.
It is astonishing that regional centres in New England - Grafton is an example - that have a rich history do not provide photos in support. What does it matter if the photos are copied? Every attributed copied photo spreads the story. But I don't think that the real problem lies in worries about copyright. I think it's just that they have not thought about it.
If anyone out there can help me find photos, please help.
More positively, I have used some of the background material I have been collecting on the wool industry to start a new section, "On the Wool Track" on the Regional Living Australia site - see http://www.regionalliving.com.au/index.cfm?p=2332
I decided that I should start adding photos to the site. A photo really does tell a thousand words in bringing dry text alive. So I started trawling the web looking for public domain shipping photos in the first instance. I could not find any.
It is astonishing that regional centres in New England - Grafton is an example - that have a rich history do not provide photos in support. What does it matter if the photos are copied? Every attributed copied photo spreads the story. But I don't think that the real problem lies in worries about copyright. I think it's just that they have not thought about it.
If anyone out there can help me find photos, please help.
More positively, I have used some of the background material I have been collecting on the wool industry to start a new section, "On the Wool Track" on the Regional Living Australia site - see http://www.regionalliving.com.au/index.cfm?p=2332
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Towards A History of New England: pause for reflection
Blogs are meant to be about conversation, about discourse. When I began this blog, I thought of it as a way of encouraging conversation about the history and culture of Australia's New England.
Now it has evolved into something different, a vehicle for outlining New England's history, a way of providing material from my own past historical research. I do not know that this is an appropriate role for a blog. I do feel, however, that if I do not do this then other time pressures may in fact stop me ever making my work and ideas accessible to others.
The difficulty with conventional academic writing is that each block must be properly researched and presented. This takes time and focus, both lacking in my current life. So this blog is at least a partial substitute.
Now it has evolved into something different, a vehicle for outlining New England's history, a way of providing material from my own past historical research. I do not know that this is an appropriate role for a blog. I do feel, however, that if I do not do this then other time pressures may in fact stop me ever making my work and ideas accessible to others.
The difficulty with conventional academic writing is that each block must be properly researched and presented. This takes time and focus, both lacking in my current life. So this blog is at least a partial substitute.
An aside: about Tenterfield
Located on the Tablelands in Northern New England just 18kms from the Queensland border, Teneterfield has a population around 3,3oo.
To find out more about Tenterfield, go to the local tourism site, http://www.Tenterfield.com. If you would like to find out more about the town's history, you might visit the web site established by the University of New England's heritage centre - http://www.une.edu.au/geoplan/Tenterfield_index.htm.
Today Tenterfield is best known as the place from which Sir Henry Parkes, sometimes credited as the founder of Australian Federation, delivered his famous Tenterfield speech on 24 October 1889 and as the birthplace of Peter Allen (the Boy from Oz) whose song "The Tenterfield Saddler" is an Australian favourite.
Oddly, or perhaps not given that we are both locals, Peter Allen and I went to the same primary school, the Armidale Demonstration School. My old kindergarten teacher who taught us both used to get confused and think we were in the same class. In fact, Peter was in front of me and I do not remember him. However, many aspects of his life do resonate with me because of the shared experiences.
Returining to the point. while Tenterfield today is a small community isolated to some degree by history, back in the days of colonial New England the town (like many other New England centres) had every hope of growing into a major city.
From a European perspective, the area was first discovered by the explorer Alan Cunningham in 1827 on his way back from discovering what became the Darling Downs in Queensland. The first squatting property, Deepwater Station, was established in 1839 followed by Tenterfield Station in 1840.
Like other New England squatters, the Tenterfield squatters wanted to establish road routes to the east. The following is an edited excerpt from Norman Crawford's souvenir booklet published by the Back to Tenterfield Committee in 1949.
The excerpt shows the efforts put into establishing roads and the importance of the transport links to the coast. The number of bullock teams involved and their move after the arrival of the railway hints at another theme in New England's history, the dramatic impact changes in technology have played in changing New England. Finally, the reference to the black boy are an indication of the often forgotten role the indigeneous population played in development.
The edited excerpt follows:
In the earliest period of settlement in Tenterfield the only means of communication with the outside world was by means of a rough track down New England, through Tamworth, across the Liverpool Range and then down the Hunter Valley, a long, bad road. The track ended at Tenterfield in the North. All supplies had to come that way and wool and station products go that way to market. Riding horse, pack horse, and bullock dray were the means of transport.
... Thomas Hewitt, manager of Stonehenge Station, beyond Glen Innes, being a man of energy and initiative, determined to find a route to the Clarence River, then being opened up. With Archibald Boyd he had previously explored the country to the east of Glen Innes and found it too rough. With, his brother-in-law, Mr. Cowan, and a black boy, he came northward to Tenterfield, apparently late in 1840, and found a trafficable route on the southern side of the Cataract River and down the Sandy Range to Sandy Hills and then to Tabulam, thence across the Richmond Range to Busby's Flat, Wyan and thence to Grafton.
The new road was quickly opened up sufficiently for bullock drays to traverse. The first teamsters to traverse the new road are said to have been Noakes and Skinner, who took wool down from Deepwater Station. Two other early teamsters were Newman and Girard, whose names are perpetuated in Newman's Pinch and Girard State Forest.
From the earlier part of 1842 this route became the great artery of traffic from the North Coast to and from Tenterfield and Northern New England. Over 500 teams were engaged mi carrying on this road just prior to the railway connection.
At a later period the traffic to Grafton was diverted to the nearer shipping port of Lawrence. It might be mentioned here that Grafton was first known as "The Settlement," then "Woolpore' when the wool began to go there, and Grafton when fhe town was laid out. At a still later period when the road was opened from Tabulam over the Richmond Range to Casino, much, if not most of the traffic went that way. On the arrival of, the railway at Tenterfield the hundreds of teamsters transferred elsewhere as practically all freight then was carried by the railway.
To find out more about Tenterfield, go to the local tourism site, http://www.Tenterfield.com. If you would like to find out more about the town's history, you might visit the web site established by the University of New England's heritage centre - http://www.une.edu.au/geoplan/Tenterfield_index.htm.
Today Tenterfield is best known as the place from which Sir Henry Parkes, sometimes credited as the founder of Australian Federation, delivered his famous Tenterfield speech on 24 October 1889 and as the birthplace of Peter Allen (the Boy from Oz) whose song "The Tenterfield Saddler" is an Australian favourite.
Oddly, or perhaps not given that we are both locals, Peter Allen and I went to the same primary school, the Armidale Demonstration School. My old kindergarten teacher who taught us both used to get confused and think we were in the same class. In fact, Peter was in front of me and I do not remember him. However, many aspects of his life do resonate with me because of the shared experiences.
Returining to the point. while Tenterfield today is a small community isolated to some degree by history, back in the days of colonial New England the town (like many other New England centres) had every hope of growing into a major city.
From a European perspective, the area was first discovered by the explorer Alan Cunningham in 1827 on his way back from discovering what became the Darling Downs in Queensland. The first squatting property, Deepwater Station, was established in 1839 followed by Tenterfield Station in 1840.
Like other New England squatters, the Tenterfield squatters wanted to establish road routes to the east. The following is an edited excerpt from Norman Crawford's souvenir booklet published by the Back to Tenterfield Committee in 1949.
The excerpt shows the efforts put into establishing roads and the importance of the transport links to the coast. The number of bullock teams involved and their move after the arrival of the railway hints at another theme in New England's history, the dramatic impact changes in technology have played in changing New England. Finally, the reference to the black boy are an indication of the often forgotten role the indigeneous population played in development.
The edited excerpt follows:
In the earliest period of settlement in Tenterfield the only means of communication with the outside world was by means of a rough track down New England, through Tamworth, across the Liverpool Range and then down the Hunter Valley, a long, bad road. The track ended at Tenterfield in the North. All supplies had to come that way and wool and station products go that way to market. Riding horse, pack horse, and bullock dray were the means of transport.
... Thomas Hewitt, manager of Stonehenge Station, beyond Glen Innes, being a man of energy and initiative, determined to find a route to the Clarence River, then being opened up. With Archibald Boyd he had previously explored the country to the east of Glen Innes and found it too rough. With, his brother-in-law, Mr. Cowan, and a black boy, he came northward to Tenterfield, apparently late in 1840, and found a trafficable route on the southern side of the Cataract River and down the Sandy Range to Sandy Hills and then to Tabulam, thence across the Richmond Range to Busby's Flat, Wyan and thence to Grafton.
The new road was quickly opened up sufficiently for bullock drays to traverse. The first teamsters to traverse the new road are said to have been Noakes and Skinner, who took wool down from Deepwater Station. Two other early teamsters were Newman and Girard, whose names are perpetuated in Newman's Pinch and Girard State Forest.
From the earlier part of 1842 this route became the great artery of traffic from the North Coast to and from Tenterfield and Northern New England. Over 500 teams were engaged mi carrying on this road just prior to the railway connection.
At a later period the traffic to Grafton was diverted to the nearer shipping port of Lawrence. It might be mentioned here that Grafton was first known as "The Settlement," then "Woolpore' when the wool began to go there, and Grafton when fhe town was laid out. At a still later period when the road was opened from Tabulam over the Richmond Range to Casino, much, if not most of the traffic went that way. On the arrival of, the railway at Tenterfield the hundreds of teamsters transferred elsewhere as practically all freight then was carried by the railway.
Friday, June 16, 2006
History of New England: the impact of transport costs
Earlier I spoke of the way in which the combination of transport and geography had helped shape New England’s history. Drawing from Blainey’s The Tyranny of Distance, I now want to extend this discussion by focusing on the economics of transport.
New England’s European settlers had to pay two sets of transport costs, shipping costs to get goods to or from the nearest port, then land freight costs to get goods to their final destinations.
Blainey notes that transport by land was twenty times more expensive than by ship. It cost more in 1820 for a Sydney merchant to send a barrel of whale oil (whaling was then a major Australian industry) 100 miles inland than around the world to London.
The reason for this was simple. Bullock drays were the most cost-effective land transport. Limited in load and slow, a bullock team and dray cost roughly as much as a modern truck. So per ton costs were very high as compared to ship.
According to Blainey, this meant that only commodities that were extremely valuable on a per ton basis could afford transport from areas more than 40 miles from deep water.
Early European Australia lacked such commodities. By 1800, twelve years after the initial settlement, Britain had occupied just two small areas, a patch around Sydney together with Norfolk Island.
European points of presence then expanded quite rapidly, but initially they were (to use Blainey’s classic phrase) limpet ports, small port settlements clinging to the edge of the continent established for reasons of strategy and policy independent of the resources of the vast interior.
New England’s first European settlements, Newcastle (1804) and Port Macquarie (1821), reflected this pattern.
Both were located at the mouth of rivers and were established as penal settlements to accommodate the growing number of convicts. Both offered access to immediately available resources close to water. Newcastle provided access to coal, timber and also lime from the shell middens established over the generations by the local aborigines. Port Macquarie had fertile soil (the new settlements were expected to feed themselves) and timber, important in part because cutting had already depleted immediately available timber around Newcastle.
Wool changed this limpet settlement pattern. Wool was a valuable commodity, worth at least ten times as much per ton as wheat, sometimes up to twenty. This meant that it could be grown away from the coast and still shipped profitably to London. Wool also grew better away from the humid coastal strip.
The first sheep had come to Australia with the first fleet – fat tailed sheep from the Cape of Good Hope. Initially sheep were primarily another food source. This began to change in 1797 with the arrival of the first fine wool Spanish merinos, forming the base for a selective breeding program by John Macarthur and the Reverend Samuel Marsden.
The first auction of Australian wool was held at Garraway’s Coffee House in London in 1821. By 1838 sheep had moved into every Australian colony, the annual wool clip was over two million kilos and wool had become Australia’s main export (short history of the early wool industry drawn from http://www.thedag.com.au/history/WoolInOz/index.htm).
Wool may have been valuable enough to allow international sale and thus support the initial spread of settlement across inland New England, but the squatters and those who serviced or depended upon them, still had a powerful interest in lower freight costs.
For the squatters, the problem lay not so much in the direct freight cost of wool, though that was important,
Wool growing was then very labour intensive. Shepherds looked after the sheep in the absence of fences. Sheep had to be gathered for shearing and then sheared. The wool had to be washed (washed wool gained a higher price in London), dried, bailed .and then transported. All the men involved had to be fed and clothed, with much of this brought in by land freight from the nearest port. These freight costs placed a major cost impost on the industry. To overcome this, the New England squatters needed good roads to the nearest port
The impact of road improvements could be quite dramatic. The initial Great Western Road between Sydney and Bathurst was completed in 1815 and then improved. According to Blainey, the cost of carting a ton of goods between Sydney and Bathurst (a distance of around 200 kilometers) was about £20 pounds a ton in the mid 1820s. Within a few years it almost halved and continued to fall over coming decades. Wool growing profits increased as a consequence.
New England squatters were well aware of these economics. They provided the core underpinning to the fight for improved east-west communications described in an earlier post.
New England’s European settlers had to pay two sets of transport costs, shipping costs to get goods to or from the nearest port, then land freight costs to get goods to their final destinations.
Blainey notes that transport by land was twenty times more expensive than by ship. It cost more in 1820 for a Sydney merchant to send a barrel of whale oil (whaling was then a major Australian industry) 100 miles inland than around the world to London.
The reason for this was simple. Bullock drays were the most cost-effective land transport. Limited in load and slow, a bullock team and dray cost roughly as much as a modern truck. So per ton costs were very high as compared to ship.
According to Blainey, this meant that only commodities that were extremely valuable on a per ton basis could afford transport from areas more than 40 miles from deep water.
Early European Australia lacked such commodities. By 1800, twelve years after the initial settlement, Britain had occupied just two small areas, a patch around Sydney together with Norfolk Island.
European points of presence then expanded quite rapidly, but initially they were (to use Blainey’s classic phrase) limpet ports, small port settlements clinging to the edge of the continent established for reasons of strategy and policy independent of the resources of the vast interior.
New England’s first European settlements, Newcastle (1804) and Port Macquarie (1821), reflected this pattern.
Both were located at the mouth of rivers and were established as penal settlements to accommodate the growing number of convicts. Both offered access to immediately available resources close to water. Newcastle provided access to coal, timber and also lime from the shell middens established over the generations by the local aborigines. Port Macquarie had fertile soil (the new settlements were expected to feed themselves) and timber, important in part because cutting had already depleted immediately available timber around Newcastle.
Wool changed this limpet settlement pattern. Wool was a valuable commodity, worth at least ten times as much per ton as wheat, sometimes up to twenty. This meant that it could be grown away from the coast and still shipped profitably to London. Wool also grew better away from the humid coastal strip.
The first sheep had come to Australia with the first fleet – fat tailed sheep from the Cape of Good Hope. Initially sheep were primarily another food source. This began to change in 1797 with the arrival of the first fine wool Spanish merinos, forming the base for a selective breeding program by John Macarthur and the Reverend Samuel Marsden.
The first auction of Australian wool was held at Garraway’s Coffee House in London in 1821. By 1838 sheep had moved into every Australian colony, the annual wool clip was over two million kilos and wool had become Australia’s main export (short history of the early wool industry drawn from http://www.thedag.com.au/history/WoolInOz/index.htm).
Wool may have been valuable enough to allow international sale and thus support the initial spread of settlement across inland New England, but the squatters and those who serviced or depended upon them, still had a powerful interest in lower freight costs.
For the squatters, the problem lay not so much in the direct freight cost of wool, though that was important,
Wool growing was then very labour intensive. Shepherds looked after the sheep in the absence of fences. Sheep had to be gathered for shearing and then sheared. The wool had to be washed (washed wool gained a higher price in London), dried, bailed .and then transported. All the men involved had to be fed and clothed, with much of this brought in by land freight from the nearest port. These freight costs placed a major cost impost on the industry. To overcome this, the New England squatters needed good roads to the nearest port
The impact of road improvements could be quite dramatic. The initial Great Western Road between Sydney and Bathurst was completed in 1815 and then improved. According to Blainey, the cost of carting a ton of goods between Sydney and Bathurst (a distance of around 200 kilometers) was about £20 pounds a ton in the mid 1820s. Within a few years it almost halved and continued to fall over coming decades. Wool growing profits increased as a consequence.
New England squatters were well aware of these economics. They provided the core underpinning to the fight for improved east-west communications described in an earlier post.
Monday, June 05, 2006
In Praise of Geoffrey Blainey
Geoffrey Blainey is my favourite Australian historian. He writes with a force and clarity that I can only envy. He also has the capacity to bring the past alive, to point to the differences between the world we now live in and that holding at past periods.
We all live in a prison whose walls are set by our experience and the time in which we live. These walls stand between us and an effective understanding of past times. Blainey has a unique capacity to break through the walls, pointing to basic differences between the now and the past.
I say this because in my next posts on the history of New England I will be drawing from two of Blainey's books to explain elements of New England's past.
The first book is The Tyranny of Distance (21st century edition, Pan Macmillan Australia, Sydney 2001). Subtitled "How distance shaped Australia's history", the book explores the ways in which Australia's vast distances have shaped our history and thought.
The second book is Black Kettle and Full Moon (Penguin Books, 2004). Subtitled "Daily life in a vanished Australia", the book is just that, an exploration of daily life up to the First World War.
I commend both books to you as thoroughly good reads.
We all live in a prison whose walls are set by our experience and the time in which we live. These walls stand between us and an effective understanding of past times. Blainey has a unique capacity to break through the walls, pointing to basic differences between the now and the past.
I say this because in my next posts on the history of New England I will be drawing from two of Blainey's books to explain elements of New England's past.
The first book is The Tyranny of Distance (21st century edition, Pan Macmillan Australia, Sydney 2001). Subtitled "How distance shaped Australia's history", the book explores the ways in which Australia's vast distances have shaped our history and thought.
The second book is Black Kettle and Full Moon (Penguin Books, 2004). Subtitled "Daily life in a vanished Australia", the book is just that, an exploration of daily life up to the First World War.
I commend both books to you as thoroughly good reads.
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