Protecting the National Interest: The Labor
Government and the Reform of Australia's Colonial
Policy, 1942-45

Huntley Wright

With the Japanese invasion of New Guinea and Papua during World War II, it is not unsurprising that the Labor Governments of John Curtin and Ben Chifley found it difficult to disentangle colonial from strategic interests. Acknowledging the difficulty, however, still leaves unanswered the important question: does this suggest an unwillingness to break with attitudes of the past, or did it provide the basis for colonial reform? Prior to the Japanese occupation of New Guinea and Papua, Australia's strategic aspirations centred on the simple act of possession. After 1942 however, shocked by the lack of resistance to the Japanese advance in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, possession was no longer held as the sole criterion for security. The view of the Labor Government was that regional security could not be guaranteed unless it had 'an adequate basis in economic justice'. In this essay, I argue that what marked the defensive concerns of the Curtin and Chifley Governments was precisely the degree to which Australian economic-strategic interests became entangled in a policy of colonial reform.

Introduction
Australia's imperial presence, first in Papua and later in New Guinea, arose almost entirely out of a concern for defence. From the outset of white settlement in Australia, Pacific isolation prompted fears concerning the ambitions of other imperial powers in the region. First the French were feared, followed by the Russians and then the Germans. In 1884 Britain acceded to antipodean pressure and divided the Island of New Guinea east of the 141st meridian with Germany. This division took place on the undertaking that the larger Australian colonies would fund Britain's administration of British New Guinea. This situation changed in 1902 when the task of administration was transferred from Britain to the Commonwealth of Australia, and in 1905 the new Federal Parliament passed the Papua Act renaming British New Guinea the Territory of Papua.	1
German control of New Guinea ended with the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when an Australian military expedition captured the administrative centre of Rabaul. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Australian Prime Minister William Hughes sought annexation of New Guinea on the basis that for Australia 'it was a matter of life and death ... our security can never be assured unless there is full control of these territories, which are the outer bastions of our defence'. 1 Hughes, to use the words of Ian Downs, 'had been a nationalist striving for strategic security'.2 In the negotiations on the future of German New Guinea, Hughes was not prepared to give an inch and the Class C Mandate securing Australian control of the Territory was 'invented to satisfy his demands and those of South Africa, permitting a closer association with the metropolitan power than in the case of B Mandates'.3	2
Given the Japanese invasion of New Guinea in December 1941 and Papua in April 1942, it is unsurprising that the Labor Governments of John Curtin and Ben Chifley encountered a degree of difficulty in 'disentangling colonial from strategic interests'.4 Yet, does this support conventional opinion, most fully developed by Brian Jinks, of an implicit failure to break with attitudes of the past? The problem with Jinks' account is that he does not consider the possibility that uniting colonial and strategic interests within a revised framework might have occurred.	3
Prior to the Japanese occupation of New Guinea and Papua, Australia's strategic aspirations centred on the simple act of possession. Consequently, colonial development and welfare was limited by the 'financial resources of the Administrations, except for an annual grant of £42,000 made by the Commonwealth towards the costs of the administration of the Territory of Papua'.5 After 1942 however, shocked by the lack of resistance to the Japanese advance by the colonised peoples of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, possession was no longer seen as constituting the strategic totality it represented for Hughes.6 The view of the Labor Government, as outlined by post-war Administrator of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea Colonel J.K. Murray, was that 'security may well be wrapped up, to an extent unappreciated by the Australian public, in an adequately conceived and vigorously implemented policy of native welfare'.7 What marked the defensive concerns of the Curtin and Chifley Governments was precisely the degree to which Australian economic-strategic interests became entangled with the promise of colonial reform.	4
In this essay, I argue that two distinct strands of policy governed the reform of Australia's post-World War II colonial policy. The first strand emerged in 1942 as an attempt to fend off attacks from US Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who, in the words of one Australian official, regarded the British Empire as 'imperialistic and based on selfish interests and [the] repression of colonial liberty'. 8 Expressed in strategic terms, the response from Labor Minister for External Affairs Dr. Herbert Vere Evatt, came in the form of a reformed colonial trusteeship: a growing belief in the interventionist role of the state and the importance of 'community' was projected onto the Territory of Papua and New Guinea as a means to ameliorate colonial poverty.9 Adding strength to this projection were the signs of 'degeneration' and 'distress' produced by the Australian Military Forces' unrestrained demand for indentured Papuan and New Guinean labour.10 Announcing the end of 'unfair exploitation', of which the abolition of all indentured labour was central, Commonwealth revenue was to be directed toward the provision of indigenous welfare.11	5
The second strand of policy, emerging from the Department of Postwar Reconstruction and gaining impetus with the crippling drought of 1944-45 in Australia, dealt primarily with the question of economic security. Diplomatic pressure from the United States to establish a 'new', multilateral, postwar economic order was strongly resisted by the Chifley Government. Committed to a domestic policy of full employment, this resistance was based not on a rejection of multilateralism as such. Rather trade reform was regarded as secondary to establishing a framework for international collaboration on production, consumption and employment policies. However, unable to extract a commitment from the United States to a policy of full employment, Chifley retreated to a program aimed at making Australia 'independent of dollar supplies'. 12 Central to this program was the development of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea as both a market for Australian goods and a source of agricultural (dollar saving) imports.13	6
Trusteeship and the Provision of Colonial Development and Welfare
Broad proposals by both the Australian and New Zealand Labo[u]r Governments concerning the form and terms of their respective colonial presence in the postwar Pacific, although well under-way by 1942, were forced onto the international stage with the signing of the 1944 Australian-New Zealand Agreement. The Agreement was a product of frustration. Evatt, in particular, resented the failure of the American and British Governments to consult Australia in the preparations for peace. The Agreement 'was striking', as Trevor Reese explained, 'not merely because the two Dominions acted without Britain, but because they made independent decisions on matters of major political and international importance'.14 One of the areas designated as a subject of joint concern for peace in the South Pacific was colonial trusteeship. In the section on Dependencies and Territories , Articles 26 and 27 articulated the strong territorial ambitions of Australia and New Zealand. Fearing American domination in the South Pacific after the defeat of Japan, the Agreement stated:	7
26. The two Governments declare that the interim administration and ultimate disposal of enemy territories in the Pacific are of vital concern to Australia and New Zealand, and that any such disposal should be effected only with their agreement and as part of a general Pacific settlement. 27. The two Governments declare that no change in the sovereignty or system of control of any of the islands of the Pacific should be effected except as a result of an agreement to which they are parties. 15
Having attempted to reinstate their colonial presence in the South Pacific, the next section of the Agreement dealt with the form in which that presence was to continue. Under the sub-heading, Welfare and Advancement of Native Peoples of the Pacific, Article 28 stated:
[T]he two Governments declare that ... the doctrine of trusteeship is applicable in broad principle to all colonial territories in the Pacific and elsewhere, and that the main purpose of the trust is the welfare of the native peoples and their social, economic and political development.16
For Evatt, the need to reform colonial policy emerged with the public realisation that 'no world or regional system of security ... can be permanent unless it has an adequate basis in economic justice'. 17 The Minister's observations were not, however, directed at the pre-war Administrations of Papua and New Guinea. Rather, showing a good sense of the ideological, 'economic justice', or ending 'unfair exploitation' meant the destruction of the Japanese 'co-prosperity sphere' which, according to Evatt, saw 'Japan ... get the prosperity while the subjected peoples get ... the status of serfs and slaves'. For the Minister, the rejection of 'illegitimate' imperialism, rather than the reality of non-development in the Territories of Papua and New Guinea, provided the diplomatic platform from which to present the case for colonial reform. In a speech to the Commonwealth Parliament (a speech which was to be repeated throughout the War as forming the basis of Australian colonial policy), Evatt declared:
In the postwar world the reorganisation of these regions cannot be based on the Japanese system. War now fighting to end that system. Moreover, our postwar order in the Pacific cannot be for the sole benefit of one power or group of powers. Its dominant purpose must be that of benefiting the peoples everywhere. If freedom from want means anything, it means the age of unfair exploitation is over ... In short, we must found the future Pacific policy on the doctrine of trusteeship for the benefit of all Pacific peoples.18
Advising Evatt on colonial policy was External Affairs Second Secretary (Pacific Section) W.D. Forsyth, who among other things, was responsible for preparing the material on trusteeship for the Australian-New Zealand Agreement. Like Dr H.C. Coombs and DR John Burton, Forsyth personalised the emerging political presence of organised labour within the state apparatus and its manifestation in the form of ideas on Keynesian economics, state-sponsored welfare and trusteeship in colonial policy. He was Research Secretary for the influential Australian Institute of International Affairs, whose members included anthropologists, and advocates for colonial reform, Peter Elkin, Camilla Wedgwood and Ian Hogbin. 19 On colonial policy, Forsyth rejected notions of laissez-faire and, like the phalanx of advisors which Coombs and Burton came to symbolise, found in Canberra a Labor Government whose commitment to planning was indicative of a time when wartime controls concealed the inherent weaknesses of the capitalist state. 20
The context in which metropolitan ideas on trusteeship and development came to permeate Australia's postwar colonial policy was one of anti-colonial nationalism. Politically, the US State Department's push for a new, multilateral, international order (see below), found expression in the view that economic development was conditional on political independence. Fearing that an 'end to Empire' in the Pacific and Southeast Asia would further strengthen the influence of US economic interests in the region, Australian nationalism reacted by formulating a position on colonial reform that drew explicitly on the shift to 'positive' colonialism in Britain.21 Thus, conscious that 'colonial administration' could no longer be 'treated as a domestic matter', Forsyth outlined the 'Australian Interest in the Colonial Question' as concerning first, 'the winning of the war'; and second, 'ensuring future security', for which 'stability in the Pacific area is essential'. The Department's interest in attaching both goals to a policy of colonial reform was two-fold:	8
A Declaration on Colonial Policy might provide a positive general directive for political welfare in the Pacific. First: Maximum resistance to Japan in Southeast Asia requires a bold statement of United Nations aims. Second: it is necessary also to satisfy public opinion in China, India, the United States and elsewhere in regard to imperialism and the future of the colonies.22
In a letter to Curtin dated December 1942, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, outlined the US State Department's position on colonialism as reflecting a 'wide-spread and deep-rooted feeling ... which regards the British Colonial Empire as equivalent to the private estate of a landlord preserved for his own benefit'.23 In August 1942, diplomatic expression of this view had come in the form of a draft on colonial policy by US Secretary of State Cordell Hull. In Hull's own words, the draft declared that it was the 'duty and purpose of those United Nations ... to co-operate fully with [colonial] peoples ... in order that they might become qualified for independent nation status'.24 To achieve this, five procedures were proposed, all of which dealt with national independence, or as Attlee saw it, with the dismantling of the British Empire. Of particular concern for the Deputy Prime Minister was the provision for the 'establishment of an International Trusteeship Administration composed of representatives of the United Nations'.25
British views regarding the setting up of an International Trusteeship Administration were split.26 Whereas the Tory-dominated War Cabinet rejected the idea, a section of the Labour Party and the influential Fabian Colonial Research Bureau 'were willing to admit some degree of international accountability'. 27 Evatt supported the latter. By arguing for a form of international supervision (as distinct from international administration ), the aim was to clearly distinguish postwar trusteeship from prewar imperialism, or as the Minister put it, to force an 'advance in English Tory policy'.28 For Evatt:	9
We are morally bound by the Atlantic Charter to endeavour to assure to 'all the men in all the lands' freedom from want as well as from fear. It is common knowledge that in many dependent territories want is widespread ... Reports and analyses by an independent expert body would unquestionably stimulate and assist more energetic action to improve the conditions of dependent people.29
It is difficult, as Wayne Reynolds points out, to support the view most forcefully advanced by Kylie Tennant that Evatt 'distrusted European imperialism or that he put the colonial question "in a special compartment of idealism"', that is, 'unrelated to questions of "security, strategic interests, or economic or power alignments and rivalries"'. 30 The Australian position on international supervision, although opposed by Attlee and the Colonial Office, had a strong pragmatic component. Noting that 'international concern in the welfare of dependent peoples had increased and would increase', Evatt argued that any 'reluctance to acknowledge that "trusteeship" implied some duty or responsibility would provoke very hostile criticism', and in doing so would threaten the imperial status of Australia, New Zealand and Britain.31
Evatt's position that 'trustee states should accept accountability to an international body', stopped well short of the system of international administration proposed by Hull. Indeed, international administration, as advanced by the Hull Draft on colonial policy, was seen by Forsyth as contrary to the Australian national interest. Concerned that 'Britain and the Netherlands' might lose 'interest or influence in the Western Pacific', the Second Secretary saw a situation where Australia:	10
may in future have use for a European counter-weight to American or Chinese influence in this region. For this reason alone it is not to our interest to advocate international administration (as distinct from supervision ) of colonies or to press for a colonial settlement unduly onerous for colonial powers.32
Demands for colonial reform came not only from the United States and other anti-colonial powers, but also from home. In the domestic arena, sections of the Australian labour movement were sympathetic to the demands for self-determination and for 'positive' measures to raise the living standards of colonial peoples. For example, the Australian Communist Party aligned Building Workers' Industrial Union of NSW, in holding Moscow's line on self-determination, asserted that 'there can be no general postwar advancement for the working-class, while the colonial peoples remain oppressed'. Union Secretary P. Barclay wrote to Curtin asking him to instruct the Australian delegation to the April 1945 San Francisco Conference to pursue not only international collaboration on full employment, but also for a resolution to the colonial question based on:	11
1.     The right of self-determination for all oppressed colonial people and minorities. 2.     A guarantee of practical economic assistance to raise the living and cultural standards of the colonial people. 3.     Friendly mutual agreements between nations calculated to raise the cultural and living standards of all peoples. 33
In so far as the prewar reality of non-development in the Territories of Papua and New Guinea came to inform Australia's official position on the colonial question, self-determination was never going to be a likely proposition 'in the foreseeable future'.34 Thus, as early as 1943, Forsyth criticised the Hull Draft on colonial policy for 'unduly stressing self-government to the exclusion of the provisions relating to welfare'. Indeed, the Second Secretary suggested that 'to make autonomy the principle concern is ... unreal, it might well be grounds for a charge of lack of intellectual and even moral integrity'.35
Evatt's efforts in forcing the acceptance of international supervision at the San Francisco Conference were successful. Article XI of the United Nations Charter held the colonial powers responsible for the economic, social and political development of 'their' dependent peoples, whilst Articles XII and XIII established a Trusteeship Council with powers to inspect and review the progress toward self-government in the trust territories. In a letter written by Evatt to J.L. Mulrooney from San Francisco, the reader is left with the distinct impression that the Minister saw his efforts as reconciling Australia's imperial interests with the labour movement values through a visibly reformulated colonial policy. He wrote that the Government's position on international accountability 'only amounts to recognising a duty of decency towards helpless people. If the Labour Movement does not stand for that, it does not deserve to exist'.36	12
Labor, Colonialism and the Sterling Area
In his book, The Political Economy of Postwar Reconstruction , Peter Burnham challenges the view, widely accepted by Liberals and neo-Marxists alike, that Britain 'capitulated' to an American-imposed multilateral economic order in 1945, thereby 'transferring the mantle of hegemony to the United States'.37 As a necessary correction to what he calls the 'capitulation thesis', Burnham describes the postwar conditions that confronted the Attlee Labour Government as being such that: 'whilst the expansion of American accumulation primarily depended on the financial reintegration of Western Europe, the British state perceived its fundamental interests to lie primarily with the Sterling Area nations'. That is, in order to 'overcome the inappropriate structure of production and trade' experienced as a result of the dollar gap, the Attlee Government discarded multilateralism, and instead 'used dollar aid to restructure trade and stimulate production' within the sterling area, thereby gaining 'some degree of independence from the United States'.38	13
In their article, 'A Turning Point for Australian Capitalism: 1942-52', Melanie Beresford and Prue Kerr advance an Australian version of the 'capitulation thesis' in which it is argued that the Curtin Government's acceptance of the terms of Article VII of the 1942 Anglo-American Mutual Aid Agreement (hereafter, Article VII) led to the 'cutting of the apron strings which tied Australia to a declining British Empire ... and to the re-orientation of trade flows and capital intake towards the increasingly powerful American economy'. 39 Article VII extracted from the signatories a commitment to the reduction not of tariffs as such, but rather their discriminatory application. For the United States, the aim was to eliminate the system, fixed at Ottawa in 1932, of imperial preferences, dollar pooling and the non-convertibility of sterling.40 Capitulation, in this sense, referred to the subordination of Anglo-Australian relations to US capital: 'in a large measure, the stance taken by [the Curtin and Chifley Labor] Governments on international issues was due to a recognition of the vast increase in American power during the War and the fact that Australian capitalism could not survive independently of this power'.41	14
Notions of Australian capitulation to United States imposed multilateralism, have been separately challenged by David Lee and Scott MacWilliam. Just as Burnham argues for Britain, Lee suggests that the Curtin Government's paper commitment to the terms of Article VII strengthened rather than weakened Australia's economic relationship with the British Empire. The US State Department's failure to give an international guarantee on a policy of full employment and an unwillingness to reshape its economy vis-à-vis the domestic consumption of internationally produced commodities, acted to re-focus Australian accumulation within the collective security of the sterling area. 42 Importantly, for MacWilliam, this reconstitution of Anglo-Australian relations had a very concrete outcome expressed in Australia's colonial relationship to the Territory of Papua and New Guinea: fearing American economic power, 'both Britain and Australia gave an increased importance to their colonial territories, as sources of raw material and as political-strategic frontiers vital to the national self-interest'. 43	15
One of the problems with Beresford and Kerr's account is their failure to recognise the important formative premises of post-1945 economic policy. In August 1942, Curtin established an Inter-Departmental Committee to consider the implications of Article VII on Australia. 44 The Committee reported that without international economic collaboration, Australia's postwar exchange position was:	16
likely to be somewhat unsatisfactory given that:     1.   London funds will be relatively low.     2.   Export markets may be moderately good for a while, but surpluses accumulated during the war will probably not be immediately marketable. Moreover, Australia is already committed to making gifts to countries devastated by war.     3.   The long-term prospects for export markets are not very good, and markets may be expected to sag after a certain time (differing for various commodities, depending on overseas developments).     4.   Hence there will be a tendency for London funds to remain weak.45
However, whilst it was acknowledged that to remain tied to the sterling area was likely to 'involve acute difficulties', including the possibility of depression, the Labor Government's acceptance of Article VII was partial and not without its own conditions. Underpinning this partial acceptance was that in addition to pledging to eliminate discriminatory trade practices, Article VII promised international collaboration on issues relating 'to increased production and employment, consumption and world trade'.46 For the Australian officials this, rather than the issue of trade discrimination, represented the 'root of the matter'. That is, expanded production and employment would be accompanied by increases in both consumption and international trade which in turn, would lead to the further socialisation of consumption. It followed that 'the removal of trade barriers should accompany and fortify these movements rather than precede them'.47 As Evatt submitted to Cabinet in January 1944: 'the best way, and in fact the only way, of achieving the objects of Article VII is to seek first those conditions of expanding production and full employment ... and then when this has been substantially achieved [we can] ... consider the remaining matters associated with commercial policy'.48
The order of emphasis given by the Labor Government to Article VII, reflected a definition of 'community', derived from Labor's statist philosophy, as including those 'less fortunate citizens' who, as surplus population during the Depression of the 1930s, had been excluded from the prewar economy.49 In short, postwar development doctrine for Australia was formulated by Chifley to deal with the problem of unemployment. As Coombs put it: 'it had been the widespread unemployment of the thirties that had impoverished and rendered empty of achievement, the lives of many, and it was the fear of its return which Governments were most anxious to counter'.50 The 'Full Employment Approach', thus became the 'basis of the policy which Australian delegations to all international economic conferences of the next few years [1942-49] were instructed to promote unremittingly'.51 This almost exclusive emphasis on the policy of full employment, as opposed to reducing discriminatory trading practices, articulated a somewhat different response to the question of international collaboration than that espoused by the US State Department. Expanding on his submission to Cabinet quoted above, Evatt spoke of a convergence in domestic and external policies on matters relating to consumption and production. He argued:	17
We believe that domestic policies, and in particular policies to maintain high levels of employment, should be the fundamental basis of all international economic collaboration. The need for economic collaboration arises from domestic policies. A primary objective of governments should be to raise living standards. Increased living standards and increased consumption should lead to increased trade both within and between countries ... Therefore, we regard high levels of employment as a fundamental principle in international economic collaboration. 52
Planning for the postwar international economic order was not simply an economic question but was also a deeply political one. For Chifley, international collaboration on full employment meant subjecting domestic employment policies to international supervision. In a proposal that was sure to antagonise the US Congress on populist and nationalistic grounds, the Australian Government sought a commitment to full employment that would have subordinated the jurisdiction of the nation state on domestic employment matters to the principle of international collaboration. In commenting on the agenda for the 1943 British-American talks on the 'orderly' application of Article VII, Chifley sought from Attlee additional undertakings, including:	18
1.     To make available to others a record of employment on an agreed plan through an appropriate international secretariat. 2.     To report to others periodically through an appropriate secretariat on the state of its domestic employment and to interchange information about economic policies directed at maintaining employment; and 3.     To consult with others if domestic unemployment reaches serious proportions, for the purposes of examining possible national and international measures to restore the level of employment. 53
Clearly, Chifley regarded international collaboration, through multilateralism, as the most effective means of avoiding a postwar depression, and hence widespread unemployment. However, without a firm commitment from the United States on a policy of full employment and consumer expansionism, the Australian Prime Minister feared that his plans to diversify Australia's economy would collapse under the weight of a serious trade deficit and a shortage of dollars. As Gregory Pemberton explained: 'having virtually eliminated Australia's debt to London, Chifley had no desire to emulate with America the imbalanced trade pattern it had with Britain'.54 Of the official correspondence on this issue, Australia's position was most clearly put by the High Commissioner to London, S.M. Bruce. In a report on a conversation with John Maynard Keynes dated January 1943, Bruce informed Chifley that:
I pointed out to Keynes that while all Dominions were anxious to bring about an expansion of International trade, and as long as there was any hope of doing that, [they] would not listen to any idea of an Empire Economic Unit. If, however, International economic co-operation was impossible the Dominions would be prepared to cooperate in Empire economic solidarity.55
At the San Francisco Conference, Evatt secured a pledge from the United States to commit itself to a policy of full employment.56 At least in public, this was upheld as a victory for the Australian delegation, both in the local and overseas press. However, in private, the Labor Government held that it was not sufficient that the objectives of 'full employment' and a commitment to 'steadily rising standards of living', be simply included in the United Nations Charter. Rather, 'they must be omnipresent considerations in daily decisions'.57 In this sense, the Government failed to obtain from the Americans the necessary level of commitment it had sought. Moreover, the terms in which the US State Department linked 'the employment problem' with 'problems of exchange and trade' remained only partially acceptable to the strong protectionist elements within the Labor Party. Of particular concern was the claim by US Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, that it would be 'most unfortunate if full employment were sought in some countries by measures which have the effect of reducing employment in other countries, as for instance by the encouragement of uneconomic production or by the erection of ... [trade] barriers''.58
Bruce's outline of the Australian position to Keynes proved discerning: the failure of the Americans to commit to a policy of full employment, saw Chifley 'get on with the job of consolidating the British Empire economically'.59 With respect to the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, this greatly increased its potential importance as both a market for Australian commodities and a source of agricultural imports. In contrast to the 'limited optimism' regarding domestic agriculture, the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and the Interdepartmental Committee on Australian Territories were 'initially enthusiastic about the prospects of the Territory, and its potential contribution to Australia's economy'. 60 This optimism, combined with the need to erect a defence against anti-colonial forces, saw a substantial increase in the flow of revenue from the Commonwealth Government to the Territory Administration. In this sense, Australian and British postwar colonial practices were particularly unified.61 What remains to be shown is how plans to promote indigenous welfare were to be reconciled with demands for increased economic activity.	19
Reconciling Colonial Development and Indigenous Welfare
Informing Evatt's approach to the colonial question was an overwhelmingly welfarist agenda. The Minister did speak of 'economic advancement', but dealing primarily with 'global designs' the problem of how to reconcile this with the provision of indigenous welfare was easily avoided. As a result, there is some truth to the claim made by W.E.H. Stanner that Evatt produced a 'political rather than an administrative theory of colonialism'. However, to conclude therefore that whilst 'Australian international and diplomatic policy made a distinct contribution to the postwar problems in New Guinea', it offered 'no visible contribution to their solution', is not an altogether accurate assessment.62	20
Plans for the reform of Australia's postwar relationship with the Territory of Papua and New Guinea were formulated at two levels during the war: by the Army through the Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs and by the Department of External Affairs.63 As Commander and Chief (Australian Armed Forces), General Thomas Blamey outlined to Curtin, economic development meant correcting the 'past abuses which had accompanied imperialism in the Pacific colonies'. The perpetuators of this 'abuse', in the form of the breakdown of indigenous 'community', were 'the powerful forces of commercialism' which operated outside the colonial state. For Blamey, however, wartime idealism combined with the executive power of the Army, presented the Labor Government with a unique, 'epoch making', opportunity to exercise policy on the 'highest moral level as a justified weapon of power politics to protect not only the future of the native peoples of the Pacific but the strategic security of Australia'.64	21
The same sense of corruptive development, or development not in keeping with itself, permeated the plans of the Department of External Affairs. In an undated memorandum, External Affairs Officer T.A. Pyman noted that 'welfare and development are not opposed, but [are] complementary conceptions'. The 'basic problem' of colonial trusteeship for the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, Pyman concluded, related to 'reconciling the demands of development and welfare', thereby 'establishing a tempo for [the] development of resources which will benefit [the] inhabitants ... and bring no social injury to them'.65 Social injury, in this sense, referred to the negative effects of primitive accumulation: indentured labour and the dissolution of indigenous 'community'.	22
In primarily rural social formations, particularly those of British colonial Africa and the Pacific Territories, colonial practice in the period after 1945 was re-directed to check in advance the separation of households from their customary lands. Under revised thinking on trusteeship, the provision of colonial development and welfare was reworked with the 'peasant farmer' as its object. As Forsyth explained in a memorandum dated November 1943: 'development by Europeans with native labour is not practicable to any extent and ... it is not in the native interest'.66 As a form of production, the plantation system, Forsyth stated, was 'doomed from the beginning'. Repeating what had earlier appeared in Britain as the 'paramountcy of native interests', the Second Secretary declared that 'native policy' in postwar Papua and New Guinea was 'to be based on the broad principle that the interests of the natives are paramount and that nothing should be allowed to impinge on this principle'. It followed that in place of European enterprise, Forsyth envisaged 'a scheme of modified collectivisation under the direction and control of the government , with the cultivation of such crops as the world needs':	23
The native would receive most of the profits but a percentage would be levied for the purposes of native welfare generally. It would be many years before it produced results, and it would require a large expenditure of energy and money. It is, however, the surest way of bringing the native to the full stature of citizenship, for it supplies the necessary objective.67
For Forsyth, the victory over Japan in Papua provided an early opportunity for advancing the strategic-economic interests of Australia within the framework outlined above. In a memorandum dated six months earlier, he impressed on Evatt that:
Papua is the first colonial territory from which the Japanese have been completely ejected. It has been suggested that this affords an opportunity for the Commonwealth Government to give a practical lead towards the kind of postwar settlement it wishes to see in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. W AR the first colonial power which can yet do this and are thus in a position to influence the colonial settlement in this region. To take part confidently in discussions concerning the colonies of other powers we need to feel that we have gone as far as possible in the practical implementation in our own colonies of the principles we advocate.68
By October 1943, in keeping with his desire 'to give a practical lead and a demonstration of ... [Australia's] sincerity', Forsyth had completed plans providing for the amalgamation of the Administrations of Papua and New Guinea; proposed a Development and Welfare Act which borrowed heavily from Britain; and had suggested a wide-ranging 'Native Welfare Charter' that, fearing 'the possibility of criticism that there is a conflict between Australian policy and Australian practice', recommended the abolition of indentured labour.69
However, the war-time devastation of village agriculture and social life made the implementation of plans to expand indigenous 'cultivation of such crops as the world needs' difficult. Indeed, it was not until after Labor's electoral defeat in 1949 and the appointment of Sir Paul Hasluck as Liberal Minister for Territories in 1951 that the colony began to report increases in the output of marketed crops.	24
Importantly, Hasluck's development program for the Territory, reinforced by a further increase in the flow of revenue from the Commonwealth State to the colonial Administration, reaffirmed Labor's position on the importance of food production. Declaring that agriculture was as important to the metropolitan economy as coal, Hasluck emphasised the need to expand food output in the Territory so as to earn sufficient 'dollars to pay for goods Australia requires to buy from the U.S.A. and other dollar countries'. As the Minister explained:	25
New Guinea can help Australia to reduce her dependence on imports. If New Guinea produces more kenaf or sisal, tea, coffee or cocoa, copra or rubber and sends them to Australia, Australia has to spend less on these products in other countries and has more to spend on other goods she needs. If New Guinea sells them to other countries Australia has more money to spend on other goods she needs from overseas. In the same way New Guinea can help with the dollar gap. The more rubber New Guinea sends to Australia, the less Australia needs to buy from Malaya and the more Malaya has to sell to the USA for dollars.70
Conclusion
It is erroneous to dismiss the Curtin and Chifley Labor Governments' promise of colonial reform as political rhetoric devoid of substance, and hence a continuation of the past. In the period immediately following the end of hostilities, Commonwealth policy toward Papua and New Guinea, as stated by Administrator Colonel J.K. Murray, held that 'basic rehabilitation of the native economy by the native people necessarily, rightly and naturally, ... [is given] precedence over the rehabilitation of European interests'.71 However, the priority given to war compensation and the 'demobilisation' of the indentured labour force, coupled with the realities of wartime devastation and problems of staff recruitment, meant that the conditions for realising a 'nation of peasant producers' were not entirely favourable.72	26
It is erroneous to dismiss the Curtin and Chifley Labor Governments' promise of colonial reform as political rhetoric devoid of substance, and hence a continuation of the past. In the period immediately following the end of hostilities, Commonwealth policy toward Papua and New Guinea, as stated by Administrator Colonel J.K. Murray, held that 'basic rehabilitation of the native economy by the native people necessarily, rightly and naturally, [is given] precedence over the rehabilitation of European interests'.71 However, the priority given to war compensation and the 'demobilisation' of the indentured labour force, coupled with the realities of wartime devastation and problems of staff recruitment, meant that the conditions for realising a 'nation of peasant producers' were not entirely favourable.73	27
Endnotes * I would like to thank Scott MacWilliam for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper, and also the two anonymous Labour History referees. 1. Cited W.R. Louis, Imperialism at Bay 1941-1945: the United States and the decolonisation of the British Empire, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1977, p. 93. 2. I. Downs, The Australian Trusteeship: Papua New Guinea, 1945-1975, Government Printing, Canberra, 1980, p. 4. 3. J.K. Murray, 'Problems and Policy', Monthly Notes, vol.1, no.1, 1946, p. 13. 4. B. Jinks, Policy, Planning and Administration in Papua New Guinea, 1942-1952, with Special Reference to the Role of J.K. Murray, PhD thesis, Department of History, University of Sydney, 1975,p. 88; see also D. Denoon, 'Capitalism in Papua New Guinea: development and underdevelopment', Journal of Pacific History , vol. xx, no.3, 1985, pp. 123-124. 5. Territory of Papua-New Guinea: Expenditure and Revenue, 27 March 1947, accession 12, box 3875, file 1-1-3, Part.1, Papua New Guinea National Archives, Port Moresby. 6. Departmental View on Australian Interests in the Colonial Question, 15 April 1943, Department of External Affairs (hereafter DEA), series A989, file 43/735/1021, Australian Archives, ACT (hereafter AA ACT). 7. Murray, 'Problems and Policy', p. 13. 8. Bruce to Curtin, 17 December 1942, DEA, series A606/1, file R40/3/1, AA ACT; and Attlee to Curtin, 11 December 1942, DEA, series A989, file 43/735/1021, AA ACT. 9. General TA Blamey to Curtin, The Situation in the Australian Colonies, 4 February 1944, Department of Army, series A742/1, file 284/1/57, Australian Archives, Victoria. 10. Natives of Papua and New Guinea - Representations by Missionary Bodies, Department of External Territories (hereafter DET), series A518/1, file C213/3/2, AA ACT. In August 1942, the number of labourers under contract to the Army totalled 8,000. By September 1944 this figure had jumped to 40,000, peaking in 1945 at 55,000. Should the prewar pattern of European plantation development be intensified, the dissolution of indigenous 'community' caused by the Army's unrestrained demand for labour, provided a window through which the advocates of colonial reform could view the excesses of primitive accumulation. P. Ryan, 'The Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit', in K.S. Inglis (ed.), The History of Melanesia , the University of Papua New Guinea and the Research School of Pacific Studies, Port Moresby, 1968, p. 540; and G. Long, The Final Campaigns , Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1963, p. 83. 11. Commonwealth of Australia Parliamentary Debates (hereafter Commonwealth Debates ) , 3 September 1942, pp. 81-83. 12. D. Lee, Search for Security: the Political Economy of Australia's postwar foreign and defence policy , Allen and Unwin, Canberra, 1995, p. 37. 13. S. MacWilliam, 'Papua New Guinea in the 1940s: Empire and Legend', in D. Lowe (ed.), Australia and the End of Empires: the impact of decolonisation in Australia's near north, Deakin University Press, Geelong, 1996, p. 30. 14. T. Reese, 'The Australian-New Zealand Agreement, 1944, and the United States', Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, vol. iv, 1966, p. 3. 15. Australian-New Zealand Agreement, Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives of New Zealand, vol. 1, 1944, p. A-4. 16. Ibid . 17. The Postwar Settlement in the Pacific. Statement made by Rt Hon. DR H. V. Evatt, Minister for External Affairs, at the Overseas Press Club, New York, 28 April 1943, in Current Notes , vol. 14, no. 5, 1943, p. 147. 18. Commonwealth Debates, 3 September 1942, pp. 81-83. 19. See A.P. Elkin, Wanted - A Charter for the Native People of the South-West Pacific , Australian Institute of International Affairs, Sydney, 1943; and H. Hogbin and C. Wedgwood, Development and Welfare in the Western Pacific , Australian Institute of International Affairs, Sydney, 1943. 20. P. Hasluck, The Government and the People, 1942-1945, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1970, p. 444. 21. MacWilliam, 'Papua New Guinea in the 1940s', p. 30; see also P. Hasluck, Legation in Washington to Department of External Affairs, 22 December 1942, DEA, series A989, file 43/650/1, AA ACT. 22. Departmental view on Australian Interests in the Colonial Question, 15 April 1943. 23. Attlee to Curtin, 11 December 1942. 24. C. Hull, Memoirs , Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1948, p.1235. 25. Ibid. 26. Louis, Imperialism at Bay, p. 107. 27. Ibid. 28. Evatt to Mulrooney, 11 May 1945, DEA, series A3195, file 1945, AA ACT; see also Minutes of British Commonwealth Meeting, 4 April 1945, DEA, series A7386, AA ACT. 29. Territorial Trusteeship Statement by DR H.V. Evatt, Australian Minister for External Affairs, 10 May 1945, DEA, series A1066/4, file P145/179, AA ACT. 30. W. Reynolds, 'Dr. H.V. Evatt: Foreign Minister for a small power', in D. Day (ed.), Brave New World: Dr. H.V. Evatt and Australian foreign policy , University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1996, p.153; see K. Tennant, Evatt: politics and justice , Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1970, p. 197. 31. Minutes of British Commonwealth Meeting, 4 April 1945. 32. Departmental View on Australian Interest in the Colonial Question, 15 April 1943 (original emphasis). 33. Building Workers Industrial Union of N.S.W to Curtin, 6 March 1945, DET, series A461/8, file F387/1/1, AA ACT. 34. WD Forsyth, Notes on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of New Guinea, Papua and Nauru, 10 November 1943, DEA, series CP637/1, file 44, AA ACT. 35. Draft Memorandum by WD Forsyth, 7 April 1943, DEA, series A989, file 43/735/1021, AA ACT. 36. Evatt to Mulrooney, 11 May 1945. 37. P. Burnham, The Political Economy of Postwar Reconstruction , Macmillan, London, 1990, p. 5. Sophisticated accounts of the 'capitulation thesis' can be found in T. Brett, The World Economy Since the War , Macmillan, London, 1985, pp. 141-143; and K. Van der Pijl, The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class , Verso, London, 1984, pp. 35 and 167. 38. Burnham, The Political Economy of Postwar Reconstruction , pp. 8-9; see also MacWilliam, 'Papua New Guinea in the 1940s', p. 28. 39. M. Beresford and P. Kerr, 'A Turning Point in Australian Capitalism: 1942-1952', in E. Wheelwright and K. Buckely (eds.), Essay in the Political Economy of Australia, volume four, Australia and New Zealand Books, Sydney, 1980, p. 148. 40. L. Crisp, Ben Chifley, Longmans, London, 1960, p. 200. 41. Beresford and Kerr, 'A Turning Point in Australian Capitalism', p. 149. 42. D. Lee, 'Protecting the Sterling Area: The Chifley Labor Government's response to multilateralism, Australian Journal of Political Science, vol. 25, no. 2, 1990, pp. 178-179. 43. MacWilliam, 'Papua New Guinea in the 1940s', p. 30. 44. See Lee, Search for Security, pp. 11-12. 45. Australia's Position in Relation to Article VII of the Anglo-American Mutual Aid Agreement: Report by the Interdepartmental Committee on External Relations, 20 August 1942, DEA, series A4144, file 11, AA ACT. 46. Ibid. 47. United Nations Economic Proposals: Full Cabinet Submission, 18 January 1944, DEA, series A2700, file Vol.8, AA ACT. 48. Ibid. 49. B. Chifley, Things Worth Fighting For, Australian Labour Party, Melbourne, 1953, p. 85; see also W.J. Waters, 'Australian Labor's Full Employment Objective, 1942-45', Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. xvi, no. 1, 1970, p. 50. 50. HC Coombs, Trial Balance: issues of my working life , The Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1981, p. 6. 51. L. Crisp, 'The Australian Full Employment Pledge at San Francisco', Australian Outlook, vol.19, no.1, 1965, p. 5. 52. Statement on International Affairs. Made by the Minister for External Affairs, DR H. V. Evatt, in the House of Representatives, 19 July 1944, Current Notes , vol.15, no.6, 1944, p. 160. 53. Chifley to Attlee, 7 September 1943, DEA, series A 989, file 43/735/58, Part.1, AA ACT. 54. G. Pemberton, All the Way: Australia's road to Vietnam , Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1987 , p. 3. 55. Note of Conversation with Keynes, 7 January 1943, DEA, series A989, file 43/735/1021, AA ACT (emphasis added). 56. See Crisp, 'The Australian Full Employment Pledge', pp. 5-19. 57. Department of External Affairs to Evatt, 3 October 1945, DEA, series A1066, file H45/771/4, AA ACT. 58. Eggleston to Evatt, 16 March 1945, DEA, series A1066, file ER45/2/3/2, AA ACT. 59. Note of Conversation with Keynes, 7 January 1943. 60. W. Timms, The Post World War Two Colonial Project and Australian Planters in Papua New Guinea: the search for relevance in the colonial twilight , PhD thesis, Research School of Pacific and Asia Studies, The Australian National University, 1996, p. 70. 61. MacWilliam, 'Papua New Guinea in the 1940s', p. 35. Commonwealth grants to the Territory Administration totalled £252,500 in 1946, increasing to £2,018,500 in 1947 and reaching £4,184,500 in 1949; see Territory of Papua-New Guinea: Expenditure and Revenue, 27 March 1947; and Downs, The Australian Trusteeship , p. 66. 62. W.E.H. Stanner, The South Seas in Transition: a study of postwar rehabilitation and reconstruction in three British Pacific dependencies , Australasian Publishing Company, Sydney, 1953, pp. 93-95. 63. For a discussion of the role of the Army Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs in reforming Australian colonial policy, see H. Wright, 'Contesting Community: the labour question and colonial reform in the postwar Territory of Papua and New Guinea', Journal of Pacific Studies , forthcoming. 64. Blamey to Curtin, The Situation of the Australian Colonies as at January 1944, pp. 3-4. 65. WD Forsyth, Notes on Memorandum Entitled 'Conditions in Papua New Guinea', undated, DT, series A1838/283, file 301/1, AA Canberra. 66. Forsyth, Notes on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of New Guinea, Papua and Nauru, 10 November 1943. 67. Ibid . (my emphasis). Coombs expressed similar sentiments; see Coombs to Halligan, 15 November 1945, DET, series A989/1, file 44/735/144/6, AA ACT. 68. Memorandum by WD Forsyth, 29 March 1943, DEA, series A989, file 43/735/3, AA Canberra (emphasis added). 69. Cited in Louis, Imperialism at Bay , p. 296 (original emphasis). 70. P. Hasluck, Draft Statement by the Minister on Agricultural Expansion in New Guinea, 4 March 1952, Department of Territories, series A518/1, file B927/2, AA ACT; see MacWilliam, 'Papua New Guinea in the 1940s', p.36. Research is now showing that contrary to the prevailing ideas (dependency thesis) of the 1960s and 1970s, growth in the production of export crops by indigenous Papua New Guinean households was substantial, particularly after 1951. See H. Wright, State Practice and Rural Smallholder Production: late-colonialism and the agrarian doctrine in Papua New Guinea, 1942-1969 , PhD thesis, School of Global Studies, Massey University, 1999; H. Wright, 'A Liberal "Respect for Small Property": Paul Hasluck and the "landless proletariat" in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, 1952-1963', Australian Historical Studies , forthcoming, April 2002; and MacWilliam, 'Nationalism and Self-Sufficiency: rice production in late-colonial Papua New Guinea'. 71. J.K. Murray, Memorandum on the Policy of the Administration, 8 September 1947, DET, series A1838/283, file 301/1, AA ACT. 72. See H.Wright, 'Contesting Community: the labour question and colonial reform in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, 1942-1946', Journal of Pacific Studies , forthcoming, December 2001. For an excellent account of the difficulties the Territory Administration had in attaching Commonwealth r venue to indigenous agriculture in the immediate period of post-war reconstruction, see S. MacWilliam, 'Nationalism and Self-Sufficiency: rice production in late-colonial Papua New Guinea', unpublished paper. 73. Blamey to Curtin, The Situation of the Australian Colonies as at January 1944, p. 3.

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