Australian governments and automotive manufacturing, 1919-1939

Australian Journal of Politics and History

Volumn 45, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 376-391

  Conlon, R M ^a   Perkins, John ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0033431326     PISSN: 00049522     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8497.00071     Document Type: Review

References (81)

1. Anne Capling and Brian Galligan, Beyond the Protective State: The Political Economy of Australia's Manufacturing Industry Policy (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
2. John Laurent, "'Industry Policy' and the Australian Motor Industry, 1920-1942", Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. LXXX, 1994, pp. 91-115. We note that Laurent employs inverted commas to denote policy in this regard.
3. Ibid., p. 115.
4. It should be remembered Australian protectionism of the 1930s was superimposed on a background of increasing protectionism throughout the world as countries reacted to the Depression by cutting imports.
5. S. Butlin, War Economy 1939-1942 (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1955), p. 5.
6. The influence of the highly protectionist Scullin tariff of April, 1930 was still apparent in the Australian Tariff of the early 1970s. See A. Capling and B. Galligan, Beyond the Protective State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 97.
7. R.C. Mills, "The Tariff Board of Australia", Economic Record, vol. III, no. 4, 1927, p. 53. Regarding "revenue considerations", the contemporary Australian economist R.C. Mills was of the view that "Since the [1914-1918] war this aspect of the tariff has been considerably emphasized"; ibid.
8. R.C. Mills, "The Tariff Board of Australia", Economic Record, vol. III, no. 4, 1927, p. 53. Regarding "revenue considerations", the contemporary Australian economist R.C. Mills was of the view that "Since the [1914-1918] war this aspect of the tariff has been considerably emphasized"; ibid.
9. Hughes even wanted Germany to pay in cases where Australians had gone into debt to buy war bonds and had in consequence become bankrupt and "lost their homes". See B. Baruch, The Making of the Reparations and the Economic Sections of the Treaty (New York: Harper, 1920) p. 6; T.W. Lamont "Reparations", in E.M. House and C. Seymour (eds.) What Really Happened At Paris (New York: C. Scribner, 1921) p. 269; C. Bergmann, The History of Reparations (London: Ernest Benn, 1927) p. 5.
10. Hughes even wanted Germany to pay in cases where Australians had gone into debt to buy war bonds and had in consequence become bankrupt and "lost their homes". See B. Baruch, The Making of the Reparations and the Economic Sections of the Treaty (New York: Harper, 1920) p. 6; T.W. Lamont "Reparations", in E.M. House and C. Seymour (eds.) What Really Happened At Paris (New York: C. Scribner, 1921) p. 269; C. Bergmann, The History of Reparations (London: Ernest Benn, 1927) p. 5.
11. Hughes even wanted Germany to pay in cases where Australians had gone into debt to buy war bonds and had in consequence become bankrupt and "lost their homes". See B. Baruch, The Making of the Reparations and the Economic Sections of the Treaty (New York: Harper, 1920) p. 6; T.W. Lamont "Reparations", in E.M. House and C. Seymour (eds.) What Really Happened At Paris (New York: C. Scribner, 1921) p. 269; C. Bergmann, The History of Reparations (London: Ernest Benn, 1927) p. 5.
12. The states did not cede the power to impose income tax to the Commonwealth until the uniform Taxation Act, 1942. The states levied income tax until June, 1942.
13. Coach and Motor Builder, June 1921.
14. Australian Motorist, May 1921.
15. Ibid., December 1921.
16. Ibid., July 1921, September 1924, June 1927.
17. See for example, Sydney Morning Herald, 5 February and 10 July 1930.
18. Sydney Morning Herald, 25 September 1931.
19. In the late 1920s and early 1930s the Victorian Labor Government introduced a series of measures which sought to protect the interests of rail- and tramways employees by limiting competition from private lorry and bus operators. Amendments to the Highways and Vehicles Act, and provisions of the Country and Urban Motor Omnibus Act and the Ministry of Transport Act had the practical effect of prohibiting the use of commercial passenger and freight carrying motor vehicles (of capacities specified to exclude taxis) where there was a rail or tram service in operation See Australian Motorist, especially March 1928; May 1928; September 1930, April 1933.
20. C.H. Winer and C. MacPherson, The Delusion of Protection (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1931) p. 129.
21. Australian Archives (hereafter AA) ACT, A461/1, D418/1/6, part 2.
22. L.J. Hartnett to E. Riley (General Manager of General Motors, New York) 10 December 1936. (GMH Deposit, Mortlock Library, Adelaide (hereafter, "Mortlock"), BRG 213/65/9. See also Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates (hereafter Hansard), 16 November 1978, p. 1529 and 11 December 1938, p. 2542, for the suspicions in this matter of Frank Forde, the Deputy Leader of the ALP Opposition at the time.
23. Hartnett to Riley, 10 December 1936, Mortlock, BRG213/65/9.
24. Ibid.
25. Hansard, 7 December 1937.
26. Hartnett to Riley, 10 December 1936 (emphasis added). GMH's original partners in the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation were BHP and Broken Hill Smelters Pty. They were soon joined by ICI and the Orient Steamship Company.
27. AA ACT, A6006/1, 1st Lyons July-November 1938, H.V.C. Thorby to J. Lyons, 15 July 1938.
28. The economist J.B. Brigden, a "moderate" supporter of protection, identified this function of the Tariff in the mid-1920s. See "The Australian Tariff and the Standard of Living", Economic Record, vol. I, 1925, p. 29.
29. AA ACT, A425/1, 38/4030.
30. See Collin Forster, Industrial Development in Australia 1920-1930 (Canberra: Australian National University 1964) p. 4.
31. Australian Motorist, June 1921.
32. Cited in Coach and Motor Builder, November 1923.
33. By the later 1930s local producers supplied about 80 per cent of more than 7,000 units. (AA Melbourne, MP730/19, IT20).
34. Ibid. A425/1, 39/9503, Ronaldson Bros. & Tippett to Minister of Trade and Customs, 4 July 1934. This Ballarat firm claimed in its letterhead to be the "Largest Manufacturer of Engines in the Southern Hemisphere".
35. Coach and Motor Builder, November 1923; Australian Motorist, November 1923.
36. Coach and Motor Builder, November 1923; Australian Motorist, November 1923.
37. Coach and Motor Builder, November 1923.
38. AA ACT, A461/1, D418-1-6, part 1.
39. See E.D. Kennedy, The Automobile Industry (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941), p. 74; S.A. Cheney, From Horse to Horsepower (Adelaide: Rigby, 1965), pp. 63, 98ff.
40. See E.D. Kennedy, The Automobile Industry (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941), p. 74; S.A. Cheney, From Horse to Horsepower (Adelaide: Rigby, 1965), pp. 63, 98ff.
41. See R.P. Thomas, "Style Changes and the Automobile Industry During the Roaring Twenties", in L.P. Cain and P. Uselding (eds.), Business Enterprise and Economic Change (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1973).
42. Australian Motorist, April 1926.
43. Ibid., November 1923.
44. Ibid., May 1931.
45. Zentrales Staats Archiv Potsdam, Auswärtiges Amt, Abt. II, vol. I, Krogmann to Foreign Office, 6 May 1933.
46. Laurent, "Industry Policy", p. 99.
47. See J. Stanton, "Protection, Market Structure and Firm Behaviour: Inefficiency in the Early Australian Tyre Industry", Australian Economic History Review, vol. XXIV, no. 2, 1984, especially p. 102.
48. AA Melbourne, B1535/931/1/430.
49. AA ACT, A461/1, B418/1/6, part 2.
50. AA ACT, A425/1, 36/10700.
51. AA ACT, A 461/1, D418/1/6, part 3. As the authors of a recent study of the development of the automobile industry in the USA observe: "The key to mass production wasn't ... the moving or continuous, assembly line. Rather it was the complete and consistent interchangeability of parts and the simplicity of attaching them to each other", J.P. Womack, D.T. Jones and D. Roos, The Machine that Change the World: based on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5-million dollar 5-year study on the future of the automobile (New York: Associates, 1990) pp. 26-7.
52. In the USA the proportion of "closed cars" in total sales increased from 10 to 22 per cent between 1919 and 1922, came to predominate in the mid-1920s and effectively eliminated the "roadster", Thomas, "Style changes", p. 128.
53. Coach and Motor Builder, February 1925. The major Australian motor-body producers were responding to increasing imports of completed "closed" cars, in spite of the heavy import duty involved.
54. By 1925 around 75 per cent of the bodies produced by the Fisher company for General motors were of the "closed" type, Coach and Motor Builder, May 1925.
55. D.G. Rhys, "Concentration in the Inter-War Motor Industry", Journal of Transport History, New Series, bol. III, no. 4, 1976, p. 253.
56. AA ACT, A461/1, D418/1/6, part 1.
57. Australian Motorist, December 1926.
58. 53 AA ACT, A425/1, 45/3666.
59. Australian Motorist. May 1921.
60. C.F. Baldwin, "The Automotive Market in Australia", [U.S.] Trade Information Bulletin, vol. 611, 1929, p. 26.
61. AA ACT, A461/1, D418/1/65, part 3.
62. AA Melbourne, MP394/1, 5/81/15.
63. Coach and Motor Builder, June 1925.
64. Forster, Industrial Development, p. 34.
65. For Australia in 1926 the ratio motor vehicles to population was 52 per thousand inhabitants, for New Zealand in 1924 the ratio was 54/1000; in 1931 for Australia 81/1000, and New Zealand 130/1000; in 1937 for Australia 102/1000, and New Zealand 163/1000. See, Populations: Australian Bureau of Census and Statistics, Yearbook of Australia, various years, and Department of Statistics, Official Yearbook of New Zealand, 1991. Motor Vehicle registrations: Australian Motorist, 1 March 1926 and 1 November 1938; Australian Bureau of Census and Statistics, Australian Yearbook, 1930; Tariff Board, Report No. 850, Engines and Chassis for Motor Vehicles, 1938, Appendix C.
66. For Australia in 1926 the ratio motor vehicles to population was 52 per thousand inhabitants, for New Zealand in 1924 the ratio was 54/1000; in 1931 for Australia 81/1000, and New Zealand 130/1000; in 1937 for Australia 102/1000, and New Zealand 163/1000. See, Populations: Australian Bureau of Census and Statistics, Yearbook of Australia, various years, and Department of Statistics, Official Yearbook of New Zealand, 1991. Motor Vehicle registrations: Australian Motorist, 1 March 1926 and 1 November 1938; Australian Bureau of Census and Statistics, Australian Yearbook, 1930; Tariff Board, Report No. 850, Engines and Chassis for Motor Vehicles, 1938, Appendix C.
67. For Australia in 1926 the ratio motor vehicles to population was 52 per thousand inhabitants, for New Zealand in 1924 the ratio was 54/1000; in 1931 for Australia 81/1000, and New Zealand 130/1000; in 1937 for Australia 102/1000, and New Zealand 163/1000. See, Populations: Australian Bureau of Census and Statistics, Yearbook of Australia, various years, and Department of Statistics, Official Yearbook of New Zealand, 1991. Motor Vehicle registrations: Australian Motorist, 1 March 1926 and 1 November 1938; Australian Bureau of Census and Statistics, Australian Yearbook, 1930; Tariff Board, Report No. 850, Engines and Chassis for Motor Vehicles, 1938, Appendix C.
68. For Australia in 1926 the ratio motor vehicles to population was 52 per thousand inhabitants, for New Zealand in 1924 the ratio was 54/1000; in 1931 for Australia 81/1000, and New Zealand 130/1000; in 1937 for Australia 102/1000, and New Zealand 163/1000. See, Populations: Australian Bureau of Census and Statistics, Yearbook of Australia, various years, and Department of Statistics, Official Yearbook of New Zealand, 1991. Motor Vehicle registrations: Australian Motorist, 1 March 1926 and 1 November 1938; Australian Bureau of Census and Statistics, Australian Yearbook, 1930; Tariff Board, Report No. 850, Engines and Chassis for Motor Vehicles, 1938, Appendix C.
69. Australian Motorist, March 1925.
70. Australian Motorist, February 1921, March 1925.
71. Tariff Board, Report No. 850, Engines and Chassis for Motor Vehicles, September 1938, Appendix E.
72. G. Maxcy and A. Silberston, The Motor Industry (London: Allen & Unwin, 1959), p. 48. The estimate is based on a car with a 1,500 cc engine used to travel 8,000 miles in a year.
73. Australian Motorist, March, 1935.
74. AA ACT, A461/1, D418/1/8, part 3.
75. Sir Henry Gullett, Hansard, 22 May 1936.
76. Tariff Board Report No. 850, 1936, p. 22.
77. AA ACT, A461/1, D418-1-6, part 3.
78. Hansard, 9 May 1939, p. 250.
79. AA ACT, A425/1, 36/10700.
80. AA Melbourne, MP394/1, 5/81/107, part 5.
81. G.A. Street, Hansard, 9 May 1930, p. 250.