‘Australian sailors wanted’: Labour supply and Australian shipping,c. 1870–c. 1914

In the pre-1914 era Australia did not develop an ocean-going merchant navy. The problem is well recognised in previous studies that assumed that it was high Australian wages that made the operational cost of deep-sea vessels uncompetitive on a global scale. This article reconstructs historical shifts in the Australian market for a seagoing workforce and demonstrates there was low recruitment of Australian labour. Drawing on new sources and inspired by efficiency wage theory the article argues that it was this shortage of a domestic labour supply that constrained the development of a national deep-sea shipping industry.     

F. L. McDougall: Éminence grise of Australian Economic Diplomacy

This paper examines the principal economic ideas of F. L. McDougall, a largely forgotten, sometime government official and 'amateur' economist who exercised an enigmatic influence upon Australia's economic diplomacy in the interwar years. Beginning with his conception of 'sheltered markets', the international manifestation of the Bruce Government's vision for Australia of 'men, money, and markets', the paper explores McDougall's later advocacy of a 'nutrition approach' to world agriculture and its extension into 'economic appeasement'. McDougall's ideas were theoretically unsophisticated, and realized little in the way of immediate achievements. In the longer run they could be viewed more favourably. Naive perhaps and idealistic certainly, McDougall's ideas were part of a broader movement that, after the Second World War, redefined the role of international economic institutions. If nothing else, McDougall's active proselytizing of his ideas lent Australia an unusual 'voice' in international forums at a time when it was scarcely heard.