Jewel of the pacific and planter's paradise: The visual argument for Australian sub-imperialism in the Solomon Islands

Journal of Pacific History

Volumn 39, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 43-58

  Quanchi, Max ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 61249708778     PISSN: 00223344     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00223340410001684840     Document Type: Article

References (103)

1. The Queenslander (Brisbane), 22 and 29 Dec. 1917; 5 , 12 and 19 Jan., 9 Feb., 2 and 23 Mar., 11 May and 5 July 1918.
2. Benito Vargas, Displaying Filipinos: photography and colonialism in early 20th century Philippines (Manila 1995).
3. Although emphasising identities, constructions and identity-politics, the latest general history of the region, Donald Denoon, Philippa Mein-Smith and Marivic Wyndham, A History of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific (London 2000) ignored the role of photography and visual propaganda in creating these colonial identities.
4. Anne Maxwell has recently demonstrated the importance of photography in metropolitan exhibitions, expanding on John McKenzie's earlier analysis of colonial propaganda, and recent conferences of the Pacific History Association have begun to redress the situation, Anne Maxwell, Colonial Photography and Exhibitions: representations of the native and the making of European identities (Leicester 1999);
5. John McKenzie, Propaganda and Empire: the manipulation of British public opinion 1880-1960 (Manchester 1984).
6. For this field see: Imaging, Representation and Photography of the Pacific Islands, special issue, Pacific Studies, 20: 1 (1997);
7. Casey Blanton (ed.), Picturing Paradise: colonial photography of Samoa 1875 ta 1925 (Daytona 1995);
8. Ann Stephen (ed.), Pirating the Pacific: images of travel, trade and tourism (Sydney 1993);
9. Alison Nordstrõm, 'Samoa; stereoviews and stereotypes', Stereo World, 18: 4 (1991), 4-12;
10. idem, 'Early photography in Samoa; marketing stereotypes of paradise', History of Photography, 15: 4 (1991), 272-86;
11. idem, 'Paradise recycled; photographs of Samoa in changing contexts', Exposure, 28: 3 (1991/92), 6-15;
12. idem, 'Wood nymphs and patriots; depictions of Samoans in the National Geographic', Visual Sociology, 7: 2 (1992), 49-59;
13. Virginia-Lee Webb, 'Manipulated images; European photographs of Pacific peoples', in Elazar Barkan and Ronald Bush (eds), Prehislories of the Future: the Primilivisl project and the culture of modernism (Stanford 1995), 175-201;
14. Ken Buckley and Ken Klugman, South Pacific Focus: Burns Philp's trading viewed through photographs early this century (Sydney 1983);
15. Lamont Lindstrom and Geoffrey White, Island Encounters: black and white memories of the Pacific war (Washington 1990);
16. Judy Annear (ed.), Portraits of Oceania, Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney 1997);
17. Serge Kakou, Découverte photographique de la Nouvelle- Calédonie (Paris 1998);
18. Ron Adams, Framing the Native: Rev James Hay Lawrie's Vanuatu photographs 1891-1894 (Port Vila 1998). The many books and articles by Fr Patrick O'Reilly on photography in French possessions are an exceptional and unique contribution.
19. For a pioneering essay on links through the Coral Sea see Clive Moore, 'Queensland and its Coral Sea: implications of historical links between Australia and Melanesia', in Malcolm Gillies (ed.), Northern Exposures (Canberra 1997), 79-102.
20. Roger Thompson, Australian Imperialism in the Pacific: the expansionist era 1820-1920 (Melbourne 1980), 216 and Chs 11 and 12;
21. Ken Buckley and Ken Klugman, The Australian Presence in the Pacific: Burns Philp 1914-16 (Sydney 1983), Chs 1-6;
22. William R. Louis, Great Britain and Germany's Lost Colonies 1914-19 (Oxford 1967).
23. For documents on Australian links to the Pacific see Ray Evans, Clive Moore, Kay Saunders and Brian Jamison (eds), 1901; Our Future's Past: documenting Australia's federation (Sydney 1997), Ch. 3;
24. and Gordon Greenwood and Charles Grimshaw (eds), Documents on Australia's International Affairs 1901-1918 (Sydney 1977).
25. William McGregor, 'The Pacific Islands and their political settlement', Untied Empire, Mar, 1918, pp. 107-10;
26. William McGregor, 'The settlement of the Pacific', Scottish Geographical Magazine, May 1918, pp. 161-77;
27. Edward ImThurn, 'The present state of the Pacific Islands', Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Nov. 1918, pp. 38-45;
28. Gordon H. Scholefield, 'Problems of reconstruction in the Pacific', United Empire, July 1919, pp. 326-9;
29. A.D. McLaren, 'A Monroe doctrine for Australasia', Contemporary Review, Aug. 1918, pp. 158-63;
30. William Hughes, 'Australia and the Pacific', United Empire, Sept. 1918, pp. 293-5;
31. Frederic W. Eggleston, 'Australia's view of Pacific problems', Pacific Affairs, 3 (1930);
32. idem (ed.), The Australian Mandate in New Guinea (Melbourne 1928);
33. idem, 'The British Empire, Australia and the Pacific', Australian Quarterly, 4 (1936).
34. L.F. Fitzhardinge, 'Australia, Japan and Great Britain 1914-18', Historical Studies, 14:54 (1970), 250-9;
35. William R. Louis, 'Australia and the German colonies in the Pacific 1914-19', Journal of Modern History, 38 (1966), 407-21;
36. R.C. Snclling, 'Peacemaking 1919: Australia, New Zealand and the British empire delegation at Versailles', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 40 (1975), 15-28;
37. Roger Thompson, 'The Labor Party and Australian imperialism in the Pacific 1901-1919', Labour History, 23 (1972), 27-37.
38. As well as Brisbane's The Queenslander, The Daily Telegraph, The Week, Daily Mail and The Queensland News Budget, McMahon's material appeared in Sydney in The Bulletin (31 Jan. 1918), Sydney Mail (27 Feb. 1918 and 15 Jan. 1919) and in Melbourne in The Age (27 Apr. 1918).
39. In 1920, McMahon wrote on the Solomon Islands again for The Queenslander (28 Aug. 1920) and for the Melbourne Imder (21 Aug. 1920) and in 1921 for Brisbane's Daily Mail (30 Jan. 1921).
40. McMahon's publications on the Solomon Islands in 1918-21 included: 'Coconut growing as a career', Worlds Work, 31 (1918), 338-47;
41. 'The octopus: Germany in the Pacific', Evening News (London), 6 Dec. 1918;
42. 'The islands of the South Pacific', Dun's Review, Mar. 1918, pp. 48-9, 51;
43. 'The Gordon of the Pacific; my visit to Germany's South Sea possessions', Wide World Magazine, 42 (1918), 349-57;
44. 'Coconut cultivation', The World's Markets, Aug. 1920, pp. 27-31;
45. 'British Solomon Islands and their administration', Bulletin (Sydney), 31 Jan. 1918, pp. 6-7, 31;
46. 'Among the natives', Sydney Mail, 15 Jan. 1919;
47. 'German Solomon Islands: an asset of the Commonwealth', The Leader (Melbourne), 21 Aug. 1920, p. 51;
48. 'A Commonwealth dominion: the German Solomon Islands', The Queenslander (Brisbane), 28 Aug. 1920, p. 15;
49. 'The jewels of the Pacific', Wide World Magazine, 46 (1921), 350-6;
50. 'The jewels of the Pacific', Daily Mail (Brisbane), 30 Jan. 1921, p. 15;
51. 'The Solomon Islands', The Blue Peter (London) 1921, pp. 163-7.
52. For McMahon see Max Quanchi, 'A trip through the islands in 1918;
53. the photography of TJ. McMahon', Meanjin, 53: 4 (1994), 714-22;
54. idem, 'T.J. McMahon; photographer, essayist and patriot in colonial Australia, the Pacific and empire', in Alaima Talu and Max Quanchi (eds), Messy Entanglements (Brisbane 1995), 49-62;
55. idem, 'Thomas McMahon; photography as propaganda in the Pacific Islands', History of Photography, 21 (1997), 42-53.
56. McMahon had been a tutor in the Burnett district of Queensland prior to taking up photography and writing. At the time of his early death in 1933 he was the Brisbane Courier-Mail's 'Caravanning' and 'Man on the land' photographer and reporter.
57. Judith Bennett, Wealth of the Solomons: a history of a Pacific archipelago 1800-1978 (Honolulu 1987), 138.
58. In Papua, the exported value of copra increased threefold over the same period; see David Lewis, The Plantation Dream: developing British New Guinea and Papua 1884-1942 (Canberra 1996), Table 4, 311;
59. Buckley and Klugman, The Australian Presence, 49-52.
60. The Queenslander claimed this could be re-worded 'Consol of the Islands', The Queenslander (Brisbane), 2 Mar. 1918, p. 19;
61. Thomas McMahon, 'Coconut growing as a career', World's Work, 31 (1918), 339:
62. Bennett, Wealth of the Solomons, 139.
63. Although women appeared in several group portraits, presumably as managers' wives, the imaging was masculine following the gendered perspective that the colonial frontier, tropical adventures and plantation life was man's work, McMahon referred to the role of a manager's wife in developing European enclaves, but in 1917 there were few European women, perhaps 40, in the small expatriate population.
64. Thomas McMahon, 'The Pacific Islands. What of their future. Australia's relationship', The Queenslander, 29 Dec 1917, 14.
65. A copy is held by the Royal Geographical Society, London, PR/056713. The image on the cover was a Nauruan male. On McMahon's 'New Guinea' booklet a Fijian man appeared on the cover. In thousands of McMahon's published images there are relatively few mis-captioned or misplaced images, usually the fault of sub-editors. There were seven booklets in the scries and all used McMahon's photographs.
66. Marked copies of The Queenslander articles show new captions and sub-headings, deletions and reordering as they were prepared for other publications;
67. Brisbane, Royal Geographical Society (Queensland), McMahon Papers (hereinafler MP), 9038, 9053, Box 4.
68. The Queenslander, 11 May 1918, p. 29;
69. Workman to Bell, 28 May 1918, 14/46 and Bell to Workman, 10 June 1918, 14/12, Honiara, National Archives, BSIP, 33/1918. I am grateful to Clive Moore for alerting me to this correspondence.
70. This exchange occurred as the Minister and Acting Minister returned from separate tours of Papua and New Guinea: The Argus (Melbourne), 13 and 14 May, 21 and 22 July 1921.
71. The Queenslander, 8 Sept. 1917, p. 38
72. The Age (Melbourne), 12 Aug. 1914, cited in Thompson, Australian Imperialism, 203;
73. Cited in Stuart McIntyre, The Oxford History of Australia: the succeeding age 1901-1942 (Melbourne 1986), 178.
74. MP. The Western Pacific High Commission had been criticised in London in 1902 by Alfred Deakin. He claimed the Commissioner 'had never yet justified his title' (Morning Post, London, 11 Mar. 1902
75. cited in Evans, et al. (eds), 1901: Our future's past, 216-17.
76. An Australian 'Monroe doctrine' in the Pacific Islands was noted in 1898 (Adelaide Advertiser, 7 June 1898
77. In 1902, the visiting British colonial official, journalist and author Archibald Colquhoun claimed 'the Australian Monroe Doctrine has not yet been officially promulgated or incorporated in the national policy, but its spirit is breathed by all Australians', A.R. Colquhoun, The Mastery of the Pacific (New York 1902), 204.
78. See also McLaren, 'A Monroe doctrine', 158-63;
79. M. Tate, 'The Australasian Munroe doctrine', Political Science Quarterly, (1961), 76.
80. Extract from the London Evening Mews, 14 June 1918;
81. The Week (Brisbane), 21 June 1918;
82. see also editorials in The Week, 28 June and 19 July 1918.
83. Anon., 'The return of Mr Hughes', Round Table, 10 Dec. 1919, 179-85;
84. and Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 10 Sept. 1919, 12166-79 and 14 Sept. 1920, 4454-7;
85. W.J. Hudson, Billy Hughes in Paris (Melbourne 1978).
86. Hughes's initial request was for control over the South Pacific (excluding New Zealand's link with Samoa). Sole control of Nauru's valuable phosphate resources was adjusted to a lesser demand for a joint administration: Maslyn Williams and Barrie Macdonald, The Phosphateers: a history of the British Phosphate Commission and the Christmas Island Phosphate Commission (Melbourne 1985), 126-31.
87. Cited in Thompson, Australian Imperialism, 213 and 218. Round Table claimed, 'The average citizen of the Commonwealth (of Australia) troubles himself very little about imperial affairs at all'. (Anon., 'Australia and the empire', Round Table, 1, Aug. 1911, p. 500) The outbreak of the Great War in 1914 and the rise of Japan in the north Pacific challenged public indifference, but sub-imperialism in the Pacific was not a regular subject of debate in federal and state parliaments.
88. McMahon's photographs appeared in Lone Hand, 1 Nov. 1918, p. 508;
89. in serial encyclopaedia such as A.R.H. Moncrieff (ed.), The New World of Today (London 1922);
90. J.A. Hammerton (ed.), Peoples of all Nations (London 1923);
91. and J.A. Hammerton (ed.), Countries of the World (London 1925), with 15 of McMahon's photographs and a colour cover (a canoe prow) on Vol. 37, June 1925.
92. Extracts from McMahon's writing on mandates were reprinted in Lone Hand, on German New Guinea in the Bulletin (Sydney) and the Sydney Sun, and his descriptions of the New Hebrides, Torres Strait Islands and Norfolk Island were reprinted in Stewarts Handbook of the Pacific Islands in 1921 and on Fiji in the 1923 edition. 35 Thompson, Australian Imperialism, 221.
93. Lewis, The Plantation Dream, 89 and 104-5.
94. Lewis, The Plantation Dream, Ch. 7 ('The country of chances'). Bennett notes an Australian newspaper article in 1910 was titled, 'The wealth of the Solomons';
95. Dcryck Scarr, Kingdoms of the Reefs: the history of the Pacific Islands (Sydney 1990), 256;
96. Although world prices were high, the war limited shipping available for commercial freight. Copra was the major export, but was smoke-dried rather than hot air or sun dried and produced only 0.7 to 0.8% of the world supply (Bennett, Wealth of the Solomons, 199, 219).
97. Buckley and Klugman, The Australian Presence, 33, 28-31.
98. Thomas McMahon, 'The South Pacific Islands; their resources and prospects', Empire Review, 33 (1919), 250.
99. Anon., 'Australian administration in Papua', Round Table, June 1925, pp. 15, 573-82.
100. Mcrl La Voy, 'With a camera in the Solomon Islands', Sydney Mail, 7 and 28 Dec. 1921, 4 Jan. and 1 Feb. 1922.
101. Anon., 'The mysterious Solomons', The Queenslander, 13 and 27 Aug., 3 and 17 Sept. 1910;
102. Anon., 'Future of the Solomons', ibid., 16 Jan. 1915
103. and anon., 'In the Solomon Islands', ibid., 1 Jan. 1916.