REVIEW ARTICLE

‘Prophets with Honour’: Federation Studies Reviewed

Marian Simms

This essay reviews a selection of the books published to commemorate the Centenary of Federation in 2001. Five were produced with financial support from the National Council for the Centenary of Federation’s History and Education Fund. Presumably without the Fund’s Grants scheme this body of work would not have seen the light of day. I write as someone whose edited collection, 1901: the Forgotten Election (St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 2001), would not have appeared at all, or would still be a work in progress, without the support of the Council, which funded extensive research assistance.	1
The Council is to be congratulated for its efforts to fill the ‘big black hole’ in Australian political history scholarship. Understanding the foundation period of the Australian political compact is crucial for proper analysis of contemporary trends, choices and, hence, prospects. This is not to say that all good recent work on Federation was initiated/sponsored by the Council. Work by Helen Irving on women and Federation, and the edited Oxford Companion, spring to mind. Earlier books by Stuart Macintyre on political culture and ideology have been important.	2
This review essay does not cover all the major books sponsored by the Council. For example, the two party histories, True Believers and Australian Liberalism, are not included here. This is mainly because they did not primarily focus on the Federation period, but used the Centenary as an opportunity for reflection on the past 100 years of politics.	3
These books, and some of the others that were published to commemorate the Centenary, are important mostly for the questions they have raised rather than the problems they have solved. The one exception is John Hirst’s book, The Sentimental Nation, which is based on the premise that, without the emotional support for the emerging nation, all the careful drafting, learned legal analysis, and earnest debate would have been worthless. Hirst’s analysis is realistic, for he does not pretend that the nation was created by popular groundswell on the part of vigorous nationalists. One indicator of the value of The Sentimental Nation is that, almost immediately on publication, it was picked up by other students of Federation. For example Michael Roe, in The State of Tasmania: Identity at Federation-Time (also under review here), noted that Hirst’s analysis provided a useful substructure to the more technical and legal analyses, such as those included in Roe’s book. What Roe is alluding to is Hirst’s capacity to provide the human dimension to historical analysis, a skill which many biographers might envy.	4
Roe’s comment provides a useful clue as to the development of a more general criterion for assessing this disparate group of books, namely: Does the work provide a ‘flavour’ of the period? Two other criteria are, as follows: Does the book serve as a useful reference work? And, does the book further our understanding of the historiography of the period, in terms of contributing to nascent debates and schools of thought?	5
Let me commence with a broad overview of Federation historiography. A landmark here is L.F. Crisp’s Australian National Government, Longman Green, (many editions), which has presented Federation as a ‘top down’ affair, dominated by the big end of town. Crisp’s significance is based on the fact that it was widely read by generations of students, that it was informed by his solid research, and that it readily lent itself to party political as well as scholarly, academic debate.	6
The Crisp view can lead to the interpretation that the Australian system contains an original flaw. Formed by capital, in its own interests, and aided by deferential lawyers, labour and its supporters were largely excluded. According to Crisp, some of the early radicals, such as H.B. Higgins, did have some influence, mainly through the creation of a new province for law and order via the arbitration system. This broad left view, which Crisp’s work both personified and fuelled, was traditionally critical of the Senate and the whole federal compact, until well into the seventies.	7
The Centenary of Federation celebrations also provided the occasion for the rearticulation of the ‘top down’ view of Federation. Former Prime Minister Paul Keating’s speech to the Australian Labor Party’s (ALP) Centenary of Caucus dinner in May 2001, which referred to the founding fathers as a ‘forelock-tugging’ bunch, typified the old Labor view that Federation lacked legitimacy, and made the next day’s front pages. Almost immediately, the current Prime Minister John Howard turned on Keating, strongly criticised his reading of history, re-affirmed the significance of the event for ‘all Australians’, and re-claimed the front pages for the Liberal Party. On other occasions, Howard has consciously re-invoked Sir Robert Menzies’ reading of Australian political history as the work of the ‘forgotten people’, largely comprising self-employed farmers, business people and the white-collar salariat.	8
The Sentimental Nation (Hirst) and Edmund Barton: Prime Minister of Australia (Reynolds) have the most to say about the wider significance of Federation. Hirst writes the white middle classes into the process of nation building, by examining their role in the creation of Australian nationalism. Hirst’s book is also a significant contribution to the history of the Australian provincial middle classes, an under-researched area in a society marked by its continuing fascination with labour history. The Reynolds study of Barton was re-issued in 1999 with a new introduction by Frank Moorhouse, and it includes the original introduction by Menzies, who identified Barton as a true Liberal and progenitor of Menzies’ own modern Liberal Party of Australia, formed in 1944/45. In this vein, Stuart Macintyre has, for many years, identified the Federation-period political leaders as part of the broad Liberal tradition, and not the arch-conservatives of the Crisp approach. Additionally, some of the Depression era Federation interpreters, such as G.V. Portus, had drawn the connection with liberalism, especially as embodied in the Free Trade movement, as a reflection of the broad interests of international capitalism.	9
Edmund Barton: the One Man for the Job (Bolton) is remarkably silent on these broader questions, preferring to tackle the ‘nuts and bolts’ of Barton’s emergence as Prime Minister and his leadership of the Federation movement. Bolton’s case is made in a compelling fashion, and he convinced this reader – who admits that (the late) Clem Lloyd’s work on George Reid was turning her into a Reid fan – that there was a sense of inevitability about Barton’s emergence as the Governor-General’s nominee, to be confirmed by the subsequent election results. However, as compared with his treatment of Sir John Forrest in an earlier biography, the approach to Barton is less about politics and more about personalities. The Bolton biography whets the appetite for Barton scholarship. Barton’s time as New South Wales Attorney-General cries out for more work, particularly on topics such as voting law and administration and relations with the fledgling NSW Labor Party. A close reading of NSW Parliamentary Debates indicates that Barton sometimes seemed to ‘lose the plot’ and to be deliberately vague on matters of detail. I doubt that he was interested enough in ideas to be termed a consistent Liberal, as compared with the Victorians such as George Higinbotham and Isaac Isaacs. Barton was often the pragmatist, but was not consistent enough to be labeled an opportunist. Barton ‘of the hustings’ is covered in The State of Tasmania, which is particularly strong on the 1903 election campaign when Barton journeyed to Tasmania and was accused of ‘toadying’ to the workers by the Hobart Mercury (p. 179).	10
The two Barton biographies provide something of the flavour of the period, but it is, again, The Sentimental Nation which stands out with its imaginative flair. Some of the works associated with more modest publishers did well on this count. For example, One Flag, One Hope, One Destiny (Earnshaw) and The State of Tasmania (Roe) provided lively accounts of their subject matter. Earnshaw’s book – a biography of Sir Joseph Carruthers – provided a rich array of illustrative material. Roe’s account of the perpetual Tasmanian identity crisis was also well-illustrated and included maps and diagrams. Both also deal rather well with the problem of tensions between state and federal matters. Earnshaw’s work grapples with the problem of what happened in the States after Federation. Federation meant that the ‘best and the brightest’ went federal, leaving their state interests behind. Due to health problems, Carruthers decided not to run for a federal seat, and subsequently became NSW Premier. Without Federation, the competition for the top job would have remained tough, and Carruthers’ career would have been less illustrious. At the time, it was widely predicted that State and local politics would shrink, as the federal level grew. One stand out feature of Australian federalism is that the States have remained significant and have regularly attracted considerable political talent.	11
An additional value of Roe’s work, and that of the Ballarat group behind Becoming Australians: the Movement Towards Federation in Ballarat and the Nation (Livingstone, Jordan & Sweeney), is that, by focusing on regional and rural Australia, they provide a useful corrective to the usual heavy emphasis on Melbourne and Sydney. Becoming Australians is the product of the Ballarat-based Australian Studies Centre, and comprises conference papers from 2000. It includes a broad range of topics, notably architectural history, as well as social and political history. And dare I add that Hirst’s work also provides strong evidence of the importance of provincial Australia to the whole Federation movement. The Australian Federation has a reputation for its relative homogeneity, as compared with Canada, yet regional differences have nonetheless been significant. On this point, it would have been useful to have seen more analysis of the Tasmanian interest in Proportional Representation (PR) in Roe’s work. Why did Tasmania experiment so early with such a ‘new fangled’ electoral system? Roe mentions why the State opted for ‘Hare-Clark’ in half a page, but, given the international interest in PR, it seems a shame that more discussion was not included. State differences led to state rivalries, in some cases fuelled by economic competition, in others by cultural rivalry. For example, while the Tasmanians referred then, and have continued to refer, to PR as Hare-Clark, the South Australians battled for a time with the rival term, Hare-Spence. A tribute to the ‘Mother’ of Federation, that ‘Grand Old Lady’ of South Australia, Catherine Spence, whose own preferred term was ‘effective voting’.	12
Roe’s discussion focuses on the impact of Federation on Tasmania rather than the impact of Tasmania on the Australian polity. He concludes that Tasmania prospered under Federation. Domestic free trade lowered food prices, and the protective national tariff protected Tasmanian agricultural produce from New Zealand competition. In a modest fashion, The State of Tasmania contributes to Federation historiography by concluding that Federation was an economic boon for Tasmania. It was also the only book in this group that included much economic analysis. This is ironic given the overarching significance of the so-called ‘fiscal faith’ debate in the Federation process.	13
Roe’s grasp of detail is impressive. Consequently, his study is likely to be of great value as a reference work. It is not only for the reference shelf, for it teases out the implications of much of the information presented. His discussion of the administration of the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 in the lead up to the 1903 election is of great significance. He correctly points out that, while the 1902 legislation specifically excluded Australian ‘Aboriginal natives’ from voting, it also reaffirmed the constitutional provision (section 41) under which those with a State franchise could not be ‘prevented’ from exercising it federally. Roe has unearthed some fascinating correspondence from Federal Attorney-General Alfred Deakin to Tasmanian Henry Propsting, where Deakin stressed – incorrectly – that all ‘“Aboriginal natives of Australia” were excluded’ (p. 176). Roe notes that the gap between section 41 and the administration of the rolls in Tasmania was vast. He describes energetic Tasmanian roll cleansers removing those with ‘foreign’ names, thus attempting to implement the 1902 laws. In Australia, as elsewhere, the ‘devil’ is in the ‘detail’. How useful it would be to have such information available on all the States.	14
During the recent public discussions over the Centenary of the passage of the 1902 Franchise Act, much academic and media commentary praised the inclusion of (white) women, and bemoaned the apparently blanket exclusion of Australian Aborigines. How different it might have been to have a series of State-based analyses, confirming whether some Aborigines voted in those early elections and whether, even at the time, there was a widespread misunderstanding of the Franchise legislation and its implementation! Unfortunately, Roe does not confirm whether Deakin was genuinely confused about the 1902 legislation, or was willfully misreading it to deprive all Aborigines of the vote. The State of Tasmania also covers economic and technological development, describing the new federal government’s eager adoption of the role of promoter of the economy. The turn-of-the-century optimism about the role of the state as the promoter of public welfare stands in stark contrast with the contemporary pessimism.	15
Few of the other books are on such solid ground as Roe’s. The lavishly illustrated and beautifully presented Australian Life at Federation contains an amazing miscellany of material and information. It is reminiscent of the old Henry Parkes museum at Parkes, which I visited during the 1980s. There rusty farm machinery nestled beside priceless pieces of Parkes’ correspondence. Some of the material in Australian Life is incredibly beautiful and interesting, such as the glossy reproduction of C. Watkins’ painting ‘Darling Downs’ – a naïve style painting of a glossy, fat sheep, reminiscent of certain of the animal paintings of the United States Federation period of the previous century. Yet, the logic behind the choice of artifacts is not always clear and the accompanying text is drawn from a fairly narrow range of secondary sources, with little evidence of primary texts. The project, drawing together archeologists and historians, had much potential. Since some of Peter Spearrit’s pioneering work of the 1970s (specially his work on Sydney), which brought social science research skills together with social archeology, there has been little innovative work of that type.	16
The concept behind Australian Life at Federation is good and worthy of emulation for the next round of commemorative activities. Therefore, in planning for the Sesquicentenary of Federation, we should aim for more cross-disciplinary team projects, and more detailed reference works.	17
At the beginning of the Centenary research processes, politician-turned-academic John Bannon made the modest call for more solid research narratives. This conference paper was subsequently published as a short essay in the Ballarat collection (Livingstone, Jordan & Sweeney). Putting to one side the bigger historiographical, philosophical and political questions, can we answer Bannon’s question in the affirmative?	18
Hirst’s The Sentimental Nation would be widely accepted as a good example of historical narrative. The two Barton biographies are handicapped from the outset, for Australian biographers are inevitably in a difficult position due to the chronic dearth of diaries and papers. There are simply too many gaps. (Current politicians please take note; do keep detailed and frank diaries).	19
One way to deal with the shortage of personal material is to focus on major policy issues. As noted above, there is more to be said about Barton the NSW Minister. Another possible approach is to examine politicians as a group. Geoffrey Hawker’s work on candidates and Members of Parliament (MPs), also undertaken with support from the National Council’s History and Education fund, has utilised a sociological approach, by analyzing factors such as age, birthplace and religion. This type of approach had been pioneered in Australia by Joan Rydon and published as A Biographical Register of the Commonwealth Parliament 1901-1972 (Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1972).	20
Political geography has its uses. For example, what was the impact of choosing Melbourne as the home of the interim Parliament? How did it affect the health and careers of the Sydney politicians, such as Barton and Reid? Feminists, such as Rose Scott, had been ‘anti-billites’, arguing, inter alia, that setting up a new seat of government away from the existing ones was anti-democratic. It would limit the involvement of housebound women, amongst others. She predicted that women would be slow to take up the opportunity to run as federal candidates (provided under the 1902 Electoral and Franchise Acts) due to issues of distance.	21
At the outset of this article, I referred to the heuristic value of many of this group of books. The broad questions remain. What type of Australian state was constructed in 1901? What was the relative role of particular groups, classes and individuals in its construction? Did the process of constructing the Federation occur differently in the component parts? How has the Australian Federation worked, from the perspective of different groups of citizens and the various parts of the country? How well have those findings and subsequent debates been circulated to the general public? These are some of the questions the Sesquicentenary of Federation may well be asked to answer.	22

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