history
Joe Rich
Brian Matthews
Federation
Text Publishing $19.95pb, 184pp
1 876485 11 6
David Headon and John Williams (eds)
Makers of Miracles: the Cast of the Federal Story
MUP $34.95pb, 254pp
0 522 84858 3
Conditions that facilitated and impelled the spasmodic federation movement are brought into sharp focus. The interspersion of formal conferences with unofficial meetings is pithily traced and the main issues that were debated, together with the factors that determined attitudes towards them, are ably catalogued. With a graphic clarity which never becomes simplistic, Matthews also charts the connections between all this and the constitution that progressively emerged -- appending a copy for handy reference -- before evocatively describing the celebrations. A further appendix, comprising a chronology of the salient steps, furnishes an additional useful reference tool -- although an index would have been better.
While nothing new is said, relevant scholarly disputes are outlined and the author is no mere amanuensis for previous writers. His contribution lies principally in his endowment of the events with a keen sense of organic reality by presenting them against a backdrop of ordinary people going about their affairs -- eating, smoking, popping pills and watching flanneled fools throw balls at sticks. Cricket is very effectively employed as an allusive contrapuntal theme, competing (pretty successfully) with federation for public attention yet demonstrating, via interest exhibited in matches against visiting English sides, that the notion of 'Australia' was unselfconsciously entrenched in the popular mind well before it materialised politically. The weather, too, provides background illumination as Melbourne's enervating heat sapped the energies of constitution makers while rain produced a sticky wicket at an intercolonial engagement in Sydney.
Matthews supports the view that, although Aborigines took little active part in the enterprise, the consensus among whites that they were irrelevant was a radical shaping factor since strong disagreement on that score would probably have accelerated the achievement of federation, imbuing it with greater passion. More broadly, he agrees with those who maintain that Australia's relative freedom from violent civil strife in the nineteenth century may have engendered national myths forged not by 'the spirit of the youthful [sic] land' but by extraneous events like the Gallipoli campaign. This seems to disregard Aboriginal experience which testified that violence was far rarer during the first century of European contact. The ferocity of the onslaught on indigenous society surely, itself, became (and remains) part of the spirit of the land.
There is some carelessness with facts -- Vida Goldstein was not a Sydney feminist -- and some lack of balance: the involvement of New Zealand and Fiji in the discussions is noted but no attention is given to their reasons for dropping out; nor is much said about the impact of convictism on later attitudes to government. Nevertheless, this is an empathetic, authoritative study, enlivened by its breezy, arresting prose, rising at times to lyricism and vividly conveying the author's enthusiasm for his subject. It deserves a wide readership.
Makers of Miracles must be judged by more scholarly criteria, having begun life as a collection of papers delivered to an academic conference. The main focus is on participants in the federation process whose success appeared to Alfred Deakin 'to have been secured by a series of miracles'. It is, apart from the absence of Western Australians, a reasonably representative group, ranging from rumbustious radical Charles Kingston and felicitous phrase-maker Henry Parkes (still often falsely accused of being the 'Father of Federation') to such lesser figures as feminist Rose Scott, champion of local flora and fauna J.W.R. Clarke, and God who, curiously, gets invoked in the Australian constitution but not the American despite evangelical religion's greater strength in the latter country.
Understanding is enhanced by a number of finely woven biographical sketches including, notably, Jeff Brownrigg's perceptive picture of bureaucrat and 'closet academic' Robert Garran, who was 'always winnowing language, collecting ways of saying things and measuring the quality of prose', and John Williams' probing treatment of Tasmanian electoral reformer Andrew Inglis Clark, every room of whose house displayed a portrait of the Italian republican, Giuseppe Mazzini.
Especially noteworthy among efforts to explain the distinctive roles of the individuals examined, is Marilyn Lake's nuanced teasing out of the complex connection between Rose Scott's opposition to federation -- as inimical to the maternalistic public function women were supposedly best fitted to play -- and the informal political tactics Scott was led by her disenfranchisement as a woman to adopt. Also impressive in this regard is Kay Saunders' daring elucidation of sometime Queensland premier Samuel Griffith's involvement as a reflection of his need to shed his lower middle class, nonconformist Welsh origins by reinventing himself as an aristocratic Anglican.
Some contributions explore completely new ground. Such is Tessa Milne's meticulously documented, incisively sympathetic picture of pious, teetotaling, Presbyterian farmer Robert McGeoch, a delegate to the Corowa and Bathurst federal conferences. Some revise accepted versions. Thus, Norman Abjorensen presents a cogently structured, persuasive argument showing New South Wales premier George Reid as less erratically inconsistent than is generally allowed.
Some proffer interesting speculation that points the way to further research. Geoffrey Bolton suggests that Edmund Barton's role may have been facilitated by his overcoming of an alcohol problem. David Headon entertains the possibility that journalist and politician E.W. O'Sullivan influenced Miles Franklin's early writing. And John Rickard wonders whether H.B. Higgins was impelled by expediency to favour some protection of state powers.
Stuart Macintyre sheds light on the influence contextual determinants, such as the 1930s Depression, have exercised on the evolving approach of historians to the federation story. And, not surprisingly, these papers strongly reflect current preoccupations. Helen Irving provides an illuminating analysis of late nineteenth century attitudes to environmental conservation. Mark McKenna considers the significance for Aboriginal religion of the decision to include God in the Preamble, and Di Langmore, in order to account for the increasing prominence of prime ministers' wives in recent times, postulates the progressive weakening of a 'glass wall' separating women's lives from the public spheres inhabited by their husbands.
But the quality is uneven. Alison Broinowski's chapter on the implications for Australian-Japanese relations of racist assumptions that informed the federal impulse contains little that is new while some of its judgements oversimplify to the point of serious distortion. Her claim that after 1919 'militarists were in the ascendant' in Japan is a very misleading summary of that nation's complex political dynamics during the two subsequent decades.
Generalisations are not always adequately supported. Headon provides no evidence for his view that 'the term "Federation father" sits more comfortably [with O'Sullivan] than most'. McKenna claims that those opposed to mentioning God in the Preamble were usually 'people who placed principle above expedience' and that 'a healthy scepticism about any declaration, in a civil document, of religious belief' is 'quintessentially Australian' but substantiates neither contention. Nor does John Bannon show why '[b]ullying and manipulative behaviour' are 'to be expected' from one who in childhood was looked after by servants. And Langmore, contending that Deakin's reaction to his wife's election as president of the Lyceum Club was condescending, should surely have revealed what it was that he said (or did).
Some chapters fall short of fulfilling their stated promises. Peter Haynes sets out to show that the 'peripatetic history' of Tom Roberts' depiction of the opening of Federal Parliament and the 'more stable genesis' of Mandy Martin's painting, Red Ochre Cove, 'provide interesting insights into the visualisation of our country's history and ethos'. But while the peregrinations of Roberts' work are described in detail, no such related insights are adduced. (Nor is a reproduction included of Martin's less well-known picture.) Al Gabay's paper on 'Alfred Deakin and his Friends' exhibits the same fault albeit to a lesser extent, inasmuch as it includes a lengthy biography of eccentric secularist Thomas Walker, which barely touches on his friendship with Deakin -- or on federation.
Reasoning is sometimes sloppy. It is difficult to see how Griffith's assertion that the Australian constitution 'will be a permanent glory to the British Empire' shows that he preferred the Westminister system of government to that of the U.S., while Abjorensen infers people's appreciation of Reid's work from tributes paid to him in obituaries and at a memorial service.
Finally, the incidence of carelessness in some chapters is too intrusive to be passed over. A reference to Henry Parkes' political reverses turning him into a missionary for federation is puzzling until one realises that the writer meant Edmund Barton. And clumsy expression too often blurs meaning -- as when we are informed that much of Inglis Clark's `encyclopaedic knowledge of American constitutional law can be traced to the United States'.
Such shortcomings notwithstanding, Makers of Miracles undoubtedly throws useful light on a number of individuals and their roles in the push for federation.