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The First Australian Department of External Affairs, 1901-16

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

K. A. MacKirdy*
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Abstract

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Type
Notes and Memoranda
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1959

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References

1 This Journal, XXV, no. 2, May, 1959, 109-28 (hereafter cited as Eayrs).

2 Another of the original departments, Home Affairs, was also suppressed at that time. Its duties were divided between Home and Territories and a second new creation, Works and Railways, which also took over the north-south transcontinental railway project from the Department of External Affairs.

3 S. M. Bruce and J. H. Scullin followed Hughes's precedent in holding the portfolio in conjunction with the prime ministership. When J. A. Lyons became Prime Minister in 1932 he allotted the portfolio to his chief lieutenant, the Attorney General, J. G. Latham. Pearce assumed the portfolio on Latham's retirement from politics.

4 See Pearce's explanation in defending the department's estimates, Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, 1935, CXLVIII, 2340 Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Parliamentary Debates).

5 Australian Outlook, III, 10, 1949, 209–14.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., 209.

7 E.g., J. C. Watson (Lab.) and Higgins, H. B. (Ind. Lib.), Parliamentary Debates, 19011902, IX, 12053, 12055.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., 12053 (italics added).

9 Willard, Myra, History of the White Australia Policy (Melbourne, 1923)Google Scholar remains the standard authority on this subject; on this period see pp. 119-34, 182-6. Most members of Parliament of all political persuasions favoured a more rapid repatriation of Kanaka labour than the Queensland sugar planters had anticipated.

10 “It must be recollected that the department of External Affairs is the Prime Minister's department” (Barton in Parliamentary Debates, 19011902, IX, 12053 Google Scholar). It is noteworthy, however, that communications with the various states constituted an important portion of the duties of the secretary of state of the United States in the early years of the Union.

11 Those of Sir Edmund Barton, 1901-3 (he was created G.C.M.G. on June 26, 1902); Alfred Deakin, 1903-4 and 1906-8; and G. H. Reid, 1904-5.

12 J. C. Watson, 1904, and Andrew Fisher, 1908-9. Fisher also assumed the treasurership in his two later administrations, 1910-13 and 1914-15.

13 Canada, House of Commons Debates, 1909, col. 2003. See Eayrs, 122.

14 E.g. his assertion, while speaking in support of a measure to restore the House of Commons seat which Prince Edward Island had lost in the 1913 redistribution, that the Australian constitution required that each “province” (sic) have, as nearly as practicable, two members in the Lower House for each senator (Canada, H. of C. Debates, 1914, p. 616 Google Scholar). Section 24 of the Australian Constitution provided that the total membership of the Lower House of the federal Parliament be “as nearly as practicable” double that of the Senate. At the time of Borden's comment each Australian state had six senators.

15 Sawer, Geoffrey, Australian Federal Politics and Law, 1901-1929 (Melbourne, 1956), 90.Google Scholar

16 Parliamentary Debates, 1911, LXIII, 4622-3, 4910–2.Google Scholar

17 Ibid. In 1912 the Public Service Commission was moved from Home Affairs to the new department.

18 Australia, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1910, p. 945 Google Scholar; 1913, pp. 955-6.

19 The appointment of a high commissioner was recommended in the speech from the throne in 1902 and raised periodically thereafter. Turner, H. G., The First Decade of the Australian Commonwealth (Melbourne, 1911), 247–50.Google Scholar A small London office existed prior to the appointment of a high commissioner.

20 The various high commissions, legations, and embassies which Australia has established throughout the world since 1939 are all under the jurisdiction of its new Department of External Affairs. The London office, however, is still attached to the Prime Minister's Department.

21 The inconveniences arising from the failure to establish such a department are set forth by Joseph Pope in his memorandum of May 25, 1907, quoted in full in Eayrs, 111-13.