SIR , ENGINEER: THE FABRIC OF A CONSERVATIVE STYLE OF THOUGHT

PHILIP GISSING

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

School of Science and Technology Studies University of N.S.W.

AUGUST, 1999 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am especially grateful to my supervisor, Dr David Miller, of the School of Science and Technology Studies, UNSW, for his astute comments and patient consideration of the issues raised by my evolving research. In the course of my research, I spent many happy hours in the University Archives, and wish to record here my deep appreciation of the unstinting support given me by the University Archivist Laurie Dillon and the staff of the Archives. At one stage, Laurie had interviewed Baxter on behalf of the university’s oral history project, and was personally responsible for the removal of his papers to the Archives following his death. I therefore benefited from Laurie’s deeper than usual understanding of my subject. It would be appropriate here too to thank the members of Sir Philip Baxter’s immediate family, his son Denis, and his daughter and son- in-law Valerie and Brian Craven, for their hospitality and frankness during visits I paid to them. Denis Baxter also made available to me the books and papers of his father in his possession, and provided me with a typescript of the play that became a focus of my research. Although the full extent of my personal debts could never be adequately set forth here, I would like to thank the staff and students of the School of Science and Technology Studies for their continued encouragement over a period of time that proved to be more protracted than I (and perhaps even they) could have possibly imagined when I embarked on my PhD research.

In particular, I would like to acknowledge the friendship and support of David Oldroyd (my associate supervisor), Randall Albury, Paul Brown, Guy Freeland, Tony Corones, Gavan McDonnell, John Merson, Peter Slezak, Yvonne Luxford, Valentino Migotto, Lachlann Partridge, Harshi Gunawardena, Jo Wodak, Soula Georgiadis and Jorg Illi. I acknowledge specific debts to some of these people below, but for now let me say that the spirit of collegiality that I encountered in the School of Science and Technology Studies will remain an enduring memory of my time there. As I write these lines, I am reminded that as long ago as 1989, it was my enrolment in a first year subject called ‘The 17th Century Intellectual Revolution,’ taught by David Oldroyd and Tony Corones, that first stimulated my interest in STS. It is appropriate to mention here too the support I received as a casual tutor in the Department for the History and Philosophy of Science at the , specifically from the co-ordinators of HPS 2, Allan Chalmers and Michael Shortland. My thanks to them both, and also to Shari Lee. Dr Paul Brown kindly read Chapter 7, which benefited greatly from his comments, while Nigel Smith, a fellow PhD student in the School of Sociology, performed a similar service with regard to the material on Mannheim. Naturally, neither of them should be blamed for any remaining solecisms. I would also like to acknowledge here the encouragement and support of Dr Jim Franklin of the School of Mathematics, who on more than one occasion alerted me to sources that I might otherwise not have come across (specific debts of this kind are acknowledged in the endnotes). Throughout the period of research and writing, the Reader Services staff of the UNSW Library gave invaluable assistance with inter- library loans and CD-ROM bibliographic searches. The Sydney office of Archives was also very helpful, as was Tim Sherratt of the Australian Science Archives Project in , where I was able to consult the papers of Sir . I would also like to note here that during the period of writing and research, I was employed from time to time in a number of administrative areas of the university, specifically Undergraduate Admissions, the International Office, and the Office of the Faculty of Arts. In their own way, the relationships I developed here have helped to sustain me as much as my relationships with academic supervisors and colleagues. I would like to acknowledge specific debts to Anita Anderson, Margaret Scott, Graham Mayne, Randall Albury, Helen Milfull, and the members of the Admissions and Re- enrolment Committee of the Board of Studies in Science and Mathematics in the years when I acted as its Secretary. It is appropriate to end these reflections with an acknowledgement of the role played in my life by my family, Roseanne, Philippa and Genevieve. May we long make music together! TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page No. 1. CHAPTER ONE 1 The Foul Sluggard’s Comfort 2. CHAPTER TWO 42 The Conservatism of Philip Baxter 3. CHAPTER THREE 72 Philip Baxter’s Other Island 4. CHAPTER FOUR 103 Baxter and the Atom 5. CHAPTER FIVE 135 Adventures in Redbrick 6. CHAPTER SIX 177 Engineering and the Community 7. CHAPTER SEVEN 207 The Gospel of St Philip Baxter 8. CHAPTER EIGHT 254 Concluding Remarks BIBLIOGRAPHY 270 APPENDIX 277 Typescript of The Day the Sun Rose in the West ABSTRACT This thesis is concerned with the life and career of Sir Philip Baxter (1905-1989), particularly during the period following his arrival in from England in 1950. But the thesis is not a conventional biographical study in terms of either the sources used or its guiding themes. Instead, my subject’s values and attitudes are portrayed as reflections of a ‘conservative style of thought’, a concept developed by Karl Mannheim. This approach, centred on close readings of key texts, permits a deeper understanding of a figure who polarised opinion over a long career as Chairman of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, and as Vice-Chancellor of the University of NSW. My picture of Baxter draws significantly on the Archives of the University of NSW, which provided the bulk of my primary sources, such as correspondence files, typescripts of articles and talks, newspaper clippings, official documents and personal memorabilia. This material is a substantial but curiously unrevealing source for Baxter’s life. Although I rely largely on written material, on several important occasions I refer to discussions I had with Baxter’s children, colleagues and students. Insights thereby gained into Baxter’s childhood reading, and the circumstances of the composition of his play, The Day the Sun Rose in the West, profoundly influenced my portrayal of Baxter. Throughout, I argue for an appreciation of the significance of such material, even though in a more conventional study of an engineer/administrator it would be thought of only marginal interest. In Baxter’s case, certainly, careful interpretation of such material enables the construction of a compelling portrait of the man despite the unrevealing primary records and the still often fervently partisan personal recollections of those who knew him. My major conclusion is that previous characterisations of Baxter as a cold war warrior of the post-war period in Australia have failed to appreciate the complexity and coherence of his attitudes and philosophy. Secondly, I demonstrate that the notion of a ‘conservative style of thought’ captures that complexity as evidenced in the many facets of Baxter’s career and interests. 1

CHAPTER ONE

THE FOUL SLUGGARD’S COMFORT How inexpressibly comfortable to know our fellow creature... not only to see into him, but even to see out of him, to view the world altogether as he views it.— 1 Thomas Carlyle

This nineteenth century explanation of the fascination of biography provides a useful starting point for my work on Sir Philip Baxter. In itself, it serves as a justification for my enterprise, as being potentially a source of ‘inexpressible comfort,’ but more to the point, it stresses the importance of the outward view. To

‘see into’ someone is but the first step in our acquisition of knowledge about them, since it need take no account of ‘the world’ at all. My thesis focuses on the second step, the higher order task of ‘seeing out’ of my subject, which necessarily involves sensitive contextualisation of his activities and ideas. ‘The world,’ however we may wish to define it, is inevitably involved here, and it is hardly surprising that the main theoretical concepts around which I have organised my reflections come from the discipline of sociology.

My major conclusion is that previous characterisations of Baxter as a cold war warrior of the post-war period in Australia have failed to appreciate the complexity and coherence of his attitudes and philosophy. Further, I argue that that coherence is best apprehended and delineated through the sociological conception, due to Mannheim, of the ‘conservative style of thought.’ This receives a full discussion in Chapter Two, but it is worth noting here that the word ‘style’ has been carefully chosen, 2

to forestall any expectations that what is intended is a systematic exposition of ideas, with explicit logical connections. To attempt to develop such a system is to divorce the ideas from their social context and, in terms of Carlyle’s dichotomy, to suppose that we can discover them by ‘looking into’ someone. My view on the other hand is determinedly outward, unfolding and developing through a series of separate, but related studies of Baxter in a variety of contexts. Before embarking on these detailed studies, though, I feel that it would be helpful to address a number of important methodological questions, and assemble some of the basic materials on which subsequent chapters are based. Hence the sequence of ‘preliminary remarks’ which constitutes the rest of this chapter.

Preliminary remarks: The hermeneutic approach to biography

In an interview with himself, included as one of the ‘asides’ in his biography of Charles Dickens, Peter Ackroyd asks rhetorically ‘Is it a fault, or a virtue, that I often imply more certainty and assume more authority than in fact I possess?’ Here, Ackroyd draws attention to the critical tension at the core of all biographical writing. Commenting on his own methods, he continues:

Take the relationship of Charles Dickens with his wife. Certain incidents are recorded and certain matters became the object of gossip and speculation, but the real of their marriage cannot be recovered; but of course that did not stop me from interpreting it in a very direct way. I might be quite wrong. I might be half-wrong and half-right. I suppose you might call it the uncertainty principle, but it is a principle quite impossible to build into biography; of all forms, the biographical one seems to demand certainty and clarity. Once you introduce 3

ambiguities and doubts, the whole enterprise starts to collapse.2

A critical assumption here is that a marriage, or (to relate Ackroyd’s thoughts more closely to my concerns), a career as a vice-chancellor of a university, has a ‘real nature,’ which requires interpretative skill to make it live for the reader. This can be disputed, and once having embarked on a speculative voyage, some readers will demand that the ship return forthwith to the safe harbour of verifiable facts and incidents. At this point, it is enough to raise the possibility that such a safe harbour is itself an illusion, inspired by adherence to the dogmas of scientific method.

In my approach to the task of writing a biographical study of Sir Philip Baxter, I have used a number of hermeneutic strategies drawn from sociological and literary theory. One strength of this approach is that it puts the cards on the table, so to speak, in the same way in which Ackroyd blithely admits the possibility that he has ‘sometimes imposed a pattern where no pattern really exists.’3 I would only take issue here with Ackroyd’s too ready admission of weakness, hinging on a dichotomy between ‘imposed’ and ‘real’ patterns, and an implication that the pattern we might impose is at best an admissible makeshift, in the absence of a pattern that literally leaps out at us, begging to be noticed. It may be that the ‘real existence’ of a pattern is of a different order than the ‘real existence’ of the pebble which I kick as I walk along the road, but given the risk of running aground here on the shoals of ontology, I will adopt as axiomatic the proposition that there is no fundamental distinction between the imposition of a pattern, and the recognition of its existence. In 4 other words, if you can see the pattern, then for your purposes it is really there. Thus, Ackroyd is quite right to persevere in his efforts to make connections, even if he is plagued by doubts that these connections might be spurious.

Having said that, though, one still has to acknowledge that mere assertion that something is the case does not make it so. Interpretations can still strike one as idiosyncratic and consequently wide of the mark, a phenomenon which should be familiar to anyone who spends even five minutes a day thinking about their friends and colleagues, and the way in which even those who are closest to us can ‘misread’ our motivations and approach us at cross purposes. Consequently, any interpretation has to be related back to what, with some serious reservations, I will refer to as the ‘evidence.’ This evidence, in the case of biography, typically takes the form of correspondence, recollections of acquaintances, institutional records, diaries, speeches, contemporary newspaper accounts, and so on. My reservations about the term ‘evidence’ are prompted by concerns that the items which constitute it, if so labelled, are thereby circumscribed, since the label has prescriptive as well as descriptive connotations. Consequently, it can appear that our body of evidence can only be enlarged by more assiduous trawling in the same seas. There is an assumption of priority here, as though the evidence is essentially self-selecting, and the task of the biographer is to gather it all together, and then, and only then, begin the second-order task of making the connections between the individual fragments which constitute it.

This Baconian conception has come under serious challenge, with biographical writing based on Freudian 5 assumptions, to take perhaps the most influential twentieth century example. Freud is most famous (or perhaps infamous) for his use of psychoanalytic theory as a hermeneutic strategy. In his classic study of Leonardo da Vinci (which appeared in 1910, and constitutes his only full-length biographical study of an historical figure), Freud makes much of what earlier biographers would have regarded as trivial detail, interpreting it in terms of his theoretical understanding of the ‘psychical genesis’ of homosexuality.4 After a series of general remarks about homosexuality, he turns to the case of Leonardo, and the received traditions about him:

Few details are known about the sexual behaviour of the great artist and scientist, but we may place confidence in the probability that the assertions of his contemporaries were not grossly erroneous. In the light of these traditions, then, he appears as a man whose sexual need and activity were exceptionally reduced, as if a higher aspiration had raised him above the common animal need of mankind.5

Needless to say, Freud does not accept this interpretation, but on theoretical grounds begs leave to doubt whether what he calls ‘sexual desire in the broadest sense’ (or libido) had no role in the formation of Leonardo’s mental life, even if that desire had ‘departed far from its original aim, or [had] refrained from putting itself into effect.’6 On theoretical grounds, then, Freud claims a warrant for seeking evidence for the expression, however attenuated or redirected, of a libido that we all share by virtue of being human. The evidence that he cites points for him in one direction, namely that Leonardo was a homosexual.

To begin with, Freud notes that Leonardo ‘took only strikingly handsome boys and youths as pupils,’ nursing them when they were ill ‘just as his own mother might have tended 6 him.’ Anticipating the clamour of the critics, Freud acknowledges the objection ‘that Leonardo’s behaviour towards his pupils has nothing at all to do with sexual motives and that it allows no conclusions to be drawn about his particular sexual inclination.’7 Freud meets this objection by pointing to a number of peculiar features of Leonardo’s behaviour, which make sense once we assume that he was homosexual. In particular, Freud notes the fact that Leonardo’s diary contains detailed and precise records of expenditure on clothing for his pupils, when there is no evidence that Leonardo made records of his expenditure in other areas, nor that he had any independent interest in account keeping. Where previous biographers had commented on these diary entries by adducing them as evidence for ‘the artist’s kindness and consideration for his pupils,’ Freud points out that ‘what calls for explanation is not Leonardo’s behaviour, but the fact that he left these pieces of evidence of it behind him.’8 This is a critical distinction, which directs us to the inner life, rather than to the outward effect, of any given action. In the present case, Freud cites Leonardo’s reckonings of his pupils’ expenses as

....another instance of the scanty remnants of Leonardo’s libidinal impulses finding expression in a compulsive manner and in a distorted form....[H]is pupils, the likenesses of his own boyish beauty, had been his sexual objects....and the compulsion to note in laborious detail the sums he spent on them betrayed in this strange way his rudimentary conflicts.9

Whatever the fate of Freud’s speculations in Leonardo’s case, it is clear that his psychoanalytic approach to biography has been very influential. Underlying it is an assumed principle of unity, or belief that all the evidence is tending the same way, if only we could see it in the correct light. Critics like Karl Popper, then, are quite right to point out that psychoanalysis is 7 unfalsifiable, even if they have done nothing more than discover a truism. If in my attempts to ‘see out’ of Sir Philip Baxter I have not adopted the style and methods of psychoanalysis, it is because the extant material did not suggest such an approach to me. I readily concede that it might suggest such an approach to others, and in principle there would be no reason in advance to reject it. My own research is informed more by sociological and literary theory, as I will explain in more detail later, but to conclude this section of preliminary comments I would like to return to the remarks of Peter Ackroyd with which I began. Recalling his rhetorical question, ‘Is it a fault, or a virtue, that I often imply more certainty and assume more authority than in fact I possess?,’ and applying it to my own work, I would reply that it is both. Indeed, the adoption of a hermeneutic approach makes this answer inevitable. Whichever interpretative strategy is adopted, critics will always be able to fault it, on the grounds that the particular details being adduced do not compel adoption of the underlying theory. Against this we can put the consideration that it is only in the context of the theory that the details assume any significance. In that sense, then, a hermeneutic approach such as I have adopted does not in fact ‘imply more certainty and assume more authority’ than I can justifiably lay claim to. Rather, by explicitly setting out the theoretical basis for my interpretation, it makes the grounds for whatever authority my judgments might possess as transparent as possible.

Preliminary remarks: Philip Baxter and

My choice of Sir Philip Baxter as a focus for research was motivated in the first place largely by the fact that not much scholarly attention has been devoted to the character and scope 8 of his professional life. What little there is has been rather dismissive, with the exception of the study by his former university colleague Al Willis focussing on the early history of the University of NSW. A sceptic might wonder whether I should not have taken warning from this circumstance, on the grounds that there might be very good reasons for this prior lack of interest. At the time of beginning my investigations, though, I took it on faith that someone who was intimately involved in the early development of atomic energy policy (to mention just one of Baxter’s activities) would be worth more than a cursory glance, and the final outcome would justify the years I would need to devote to the task. I took comfort, too, in the reflection that some of the notes of caution that were expressed to me at the time were based on a judgment that Baxter had been shown in the fullness of time to have been on the wrong side, and in any case did not have a particularly engaging personality. My view then, and I still hold it, is that we would have an extremely lopsided view of history if scholars only investigated the success stories of people they personally liked.

Fortunately, I remembered that some years ago I had come across the work of Judith Brett on the career of Sir Robert

Menzies, and it struck me that in some ways Menzies’ treatment at the hands of historians provided an interesting parallel with Baxter’s. If, as Judith Brett claims, Menzies has not been accorded much scholarly attention, despite the fact that he remains Australia’s longest-serving prime minister, this is at least partly due to what she has diagnosed as a ‘general lack of interest in conservatism.’ There is always a tendency to take the Establishment for granted, and focus more on the rebels, since 9 their very outspokenness provides an obvious point of departure for discussion. Those who are in power, and presumed to have the interests of big business, or big science, or powerful overseas friends at heart, are comparatively uninteresting, we think. If so, we think wrongly, since a finely nuanced account of even the most pedestrian servant of the state is bound to provide some points of interest (and one could never say that Baxter would fit such a description).

In her studies of Menzies, Brett is engaged in a process of re-evaluation, not necessarily by way of correction of earlier accounts, but in an attempt to widen our understanding. As she puts it,

[t]here are eulogies on the right, and polemic on the left, but the general understanding of the dynamics of his popular appeal, his personality and his political style remains superficial.10

Brett mentions certain reasons for this, related to the timing of Menzies’ retirement, and the fact that the release of his papers was held up until the appearance of the official biography. These, however, remain only partial answers — as Brett argues,

[t]he unavailability of the papers may have hampered sustained biographical projects, but there has long been enough public material on which to base interpretive work on Menzies’ political appeal and speculation on his place in the cultural imagination. His neglect must also be seen as part of Australian intellectuals’ general lack of interest in conservatism.11

The interesting thing here is that with some shifts of emphasis, one could say very similar things about Sir Philip Baxter. He too has been the subject of eulogy and polemic and, towards the end of his public life, the target of widespread animosity. There are 10

important differences. Menzies, Australian born, but emotionally tied to England, a lawyer and politician, as opposed to Baxter, born in Wales, but identifying much more strongly with his adopted country, a chemical engineer and university administrator. It is true, too, that Philip Baxter does not loom so large as Menzies in the ‘cultural imagination’ of Australia. If he is remembered at all, it is as the advocate of who, as chairman of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, tried to enrol the country in the growing nuclear club. It would be wrong to conclude from the nature of the animosity which these activities provoked that Baxter can be accurately summed up under a dismissive label such as ‘cold war warrior’ or ‘soulless technocrat,’ and promptly forgotten. One aim of my thesis, then, is to recapture the complexity of a figure like Baxter, not because I would wish to revive his ideas, or reclaim him as an unjustly neglected precursor of contemporary positions, but rather for reasons similar to those advanced by Judith Brett for her interest in Menzies.

In her subsequent book which grew out of the early article in Meanjin, Brett expanded on her analysis of Menzies’ crucial radio talk of May 1942, entitled ‘The Forgotten People’. As she put it, this speech ‘bespoke a much more complex and more interesting politician than was captured in any of the popular representations,’ and it was a reading of this speech which sparked her interest in the subject.12 There are two things of interest here. First, the way in which Brett approaches sources like speeches and articles, which are usually taken to represent the ‘public face’ of, in Menzies’ case, a very public figure, have given me useful insights into the process of my own research. It is 11 often supposed that to arrive at some estimation of the whole personality, we need private insights, such as those provided by personal correspondence, interviews with family and associates, diary entries and so on, in order to get beyond the projected image of a person in texts explicitly intended for public scrutiny. Brett denies this. At one point, she sets out several characterisations of Menzies by political colleagues and (one would have assumed) close acquaintances like , Percy Spender and John Bunting.13 Her perusal of these recollections fails to unearth even one contemporary ‘who claims to have known Menzies intimately.’ Her conclusion is worth quoting here in full:

Revealed in these biographical reflections from Menzies’ contemporaries is a disappointment that they have failed to reach the real Menzies, and the feeling that there is a degree of incompleteness in their grasp of the man. The conventional biographer, too, may well feel frustrated by the paucity of personal material in Menzies’ voluminous papers. How can one reach the private Menzies behind the public performance? Perhaps one is looking in the wrong place and the solution is, like the purloined letter, right in front of one’s nose: the public man is the real man and the task is to read his life and his character where we find it — in the shape of the public life.

I can certainly sympathise with this, and agree that method is largely dependent on the materials available, which in the case of Sir Philip Baxter also contain very little of a personal nature.

The second point of interest in Brett’s having placed such stress on a particular speech of Menzies is that I, too, had first been impressed in my study of Baxter with a speech — in this case, a lecture entitled ‘The Foul Sluggard’s Comfort,’ delivered at the University of NSW in October 1972 as the third Wallace

Wurth memorial lecture.14 This came at a critical point in Baxter’s life, a point at which his hopes for a nuclear power industry had 12 been dashed, and he was in a position to speak publicly about the consequences, as he saw them, of government inaction. In a sense, he was now in opposition, just as Menzies had been back in the 1940s, when, rejected by the voters in favour of Curtin’s Labor Party, he sought to reconstitute the basis of a conservative ascendancy. A career cannot be explained by a single speech, but Brett is concerned that this speech, and others like it, has been too readily dismissed as a collection of vacuous platitudes, and not seen as worthy of detailed analysis. I agree with her, and hence feel that Baxter’s speech will amply repay the close study which I give it.

Despite its obscurity, the title (a quotation from Carlyle) gives some indication of the stark pessimism of Baxter’s lecture. Delivered some three years after his retirement as vice-chancellor of the University of NSW, it did not celebrate the achievements of the university, but presented an apocalyptic vision of the disaster threatening a society facing overpopulation and consequent depletion of energy resources and raw materials. We were a profligate, self-centred lot, and needed to be stirred from our apathy. By the mid to late 1970s Baxter had become a scourge of his society, and scourges are never welcome. ‘A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.’

Baxter, following Carlyle, has harsh words for those ‘foul sluggards’ who, however intensely they apprehend the possibility of great evils to come, take solace in the thought that such evils were not likely to occur in their lifetimes. Foreseeing the possibility of mass starvation and death as a result of overpopulation and depletion of resources, he has a grim message for us, but unlike the ‘foul sluggard,’ finds no comfort in the fact that ‘the matters 13

[he has] been talking about are not likely greatly to inconvenience [him].’15

All this, no doubt, would have made Baxter’s audience feel rather uncomfortable. ‘It seems almost certain,’ he declares,

that disaster will follow due to excessive population, excessive consumption, serious overcrowding and pollution, all beyond the level that the planet can support. The nature and course of this disaster cannot be predicted. While man could destroy himself, it seems more likely that he will survive, somewhat battered, and try to build again.16

This, coming near the end of Baxter’s talk, and standing explicitly as a drawing together of his argument, holds out a very bleak and austere vision of the future, akin to the dystopian scenarios of an HG Wells. One can readily imagine the embarrassed glances among the members of Baxter’s audience, the stifled coughs, the slight movements in the seats. This is not what we expected — we imagined that a memorial lecture would be a stylised hymn of praise to the institution known as ‘Baxter’s University,’ a pointing to past achievements and anticipations of greater glories to come. Instead, the university community is left to ponder a desolate future, in preparation for which Baxter can only suggest that ‘we think about the problems and discuss them in calm and unemotional ways.’ It is as though a fundamentalist preacher, having castigated us for our folly, and sketched in lurid detail the hell-fire and brimstone awaiting us, ends his sermon before inspiring us with the vision of repentance and salvation.

Little wonder, then, that the chancellor, in his vote of thanks, struggles for words. How to thank Jeremiah? — a difficult task. Hesitatingly, the chancellor permits himself a small criticism: 14

I feel that [Baxter] has not given enough credit to what the scientists, the engineers, technicians, chemists and people generally who work in those fields will be able to do to avert disaster.17

Somehow, the audience must be saved from despair. On the spur of the moment, the uncomfortable must be explained away.

Baxter’s identification with Carlyle, the nineteenth century conservative and prose stylist, is no accident, since Carlyle’s concerns in the essay from which this quotation is drawn closely parallel those of Baxter in his role as social critic. I have chosen this speech of Baxter’s, then, as an appropriate starting point, a choice made even more compelling by its relationship to a decisive turning point in Baxter’s career. Thus, just as Brett argues that in Menzies’ case it is possible to see in the ‘Forgotten

People’ speech a crucial turning point, not only in the style and tone of his political rhetoric, but in the shape of his personality, I would argue that this one speech of Baxter’s, standing at the conclusion of his active career as university administrator and driving force behind Australia’s nuclear power research, is a rich source of clues as to his chief concerns, and his changed relationship to his adopted society. He is no longer directing its course, but has become its scourge. Here, more so than in the somewhat more measured documents which date from the period of Baxter’s ascendancy, we find a strident pessimism which takes the form of predictions of inevitable global disaster, even though this pessimism is mitigated to some extent by the depiction of a post-holocaust world organised and governed along more rational lines by an autocratic but benevolent world government. 15

The quote from Carlyle comes from his essay on the self- styled Count Cagliostro, or Giuseppe Balsamo, whom Carlyle describes as ‘the most perfect scoundrel that in these latter ages has marked the world’s history.’18 The passage from which Baxter took the title of his talk runs as follows:

But with a nation...it may be said to hold always that general Suffering is the fruit of general Misbehaviour, general Dishonesty. Consider it well; had all men stood faithfully to their posts, the Evil, when it first rose, had been manfully fronted, and abolished, not lazily blinked, and left to grow, with the foul sluggard’s comfort: ‘It will last my time.’19

The career of the bogus count stands for Carlyle as a sign of the death-throes, or ‘stertorous last fever-sleep,’ of the old feudal

European world.20 But if this period (the last half of the eighteenth century) was the ‘very age of...quacks and quackeries of all colours and kinds,’21 then where should we look for an explanation of this phenomenon? Not, for Carlyle, to the prevailing economic distress of the period — those political economists who suppose that the normal conjunction of economic distress and moral decay implies a simple relationship of cause and effect are, in Carlyle’s words, guilty of ‘what is vulgarly called putting the cart before the horse.’ In fact, ‘temporal distress, [or] misery of any kind, is not the cause of immorality, but the effect thereof.’22

For Carlyle, looking back from the 1830s, it was the sedulous devotion to all manner of spurious visionaries, quacks and frauds, which set the late 18th century apart as an age of death and transition, with an inevitable consummation in the frenzy of the French Revolution. Baxter, too, is concerned with a society gone irremediably wrong, beset by the twin evils of uncontrolled population growth and rampant consumerism: 16

A whole science of marketing and advertising, which itself unproductively spends large amounts of money, is designed to persuade people to consume more; to scrap what they have and buy something new which they often do not need and sometimes can ill afford.23

In a society riven by this sort of malaise, it is as though the peddlers of secrets of the Illuminati and other such nonsense decried by Carlyle, have been replaced in our own time by the image-makers of the advertising world. Throughout his talk, Baxter seems to be setting out to cause discomfort in his audience. Instead of celebrating, like Menzies, the values of a supposed decent, conservative, middle class Australia, Baxter castigates it as sadly wanting in the face of impending catastrophe. Following Carlyle, he reads the signs of his own times as pointing towards violent upheaval. The sin, for Baxter, as for Carlyle, does not consist of active wickedness, but of sloth and indifference in the face of impending disaster:

Economists, demographers and others who have studied the situation in these [undeveloped, or Third World] countries conclude that there seems no obvious alternative to famine and disaster on an unprecedented scale.24

This is a view which Baxter generally endorses, but he draws different conclusions from it. If in third world countries population is growing much faster than the provision of arable land, then this causes massive migration by young, uneducated and unskilled people to the cities, in search of ‘non-existent employment.’ Inevitably these young people

...drift into crime, beggary and prostitution, and often into what has been called functionless employment provided by governments, thus causing a further diversion of resources away from areas which are more important.25 17

Implicit in Baxter’s message, though, is a denial that the misery of the urban poor is the result of economic factors (such as an absolute scarcity of arable land). As he puts it, ‘the community must ultimately accept the blame,’ and if it cannot adapt its institutions to cope with impending disaster, then those institutions deserve to be swept away like the rotten feudal society in which Count Cagliostro was able to thrive. Even those groups alerting society to the problems of environmental pollution do not wholly escape Baxter’s censure, despite the fact that he expresses his own concern about the uncontrolled exploitation of resources. Although some conservationists are ‘very responsible in their aims and attitudes,’ others, we are told, are ‘so wild and irresponsible that they are accurately described as eco-nuts.’26

In any case, ‘eco-nuts’ or not, Baxter concludes that ‘if man does not take steps to ensure his own survival, then he will perish and this will be an event of no significance in the universe.’27 This, however, is a conclusion which Baxter soon resiles from, since it is as unpalatable to him as one presumes it would have been to his audience. There may be dreadful plagues, mass starvation and global nuclear war, and thousands of millions may die, but there is still reason to contemplate a post-apocalyptic world controlled by an ‘intelligent and benevolent’ world government, which means, according to Baxter, that ‘it will not be democratic in the sense that we use that word today.’ As we shall see, this anti- democratic stance is typical of Baxter’s attitudes, and it is worth noting that it was an attitude he shared with Bernard Shaw, whom he quotes at this point in connection with the supposed aim of a world government: 18

The global aim will not be to preserve the world as nature made it, but to use man’s outstanding ability to alter his environment to create a better world. Man will say with Bernard Shaw, through the voice of Don Juan Tenorio, [that] religion ‘was a mere excuse for laziness, since it had set up a God who looked at the world and saw that it was good, against the instinct in me that looked through my eyes at the world and saw that it could be improved.’28

And, if his audience at the Wallace Wurth Memorial Lecture had found his message unpalatable, he could have retorted, like Shaw:

[I]t annoys me to see people comfortable when they ought to be uncomfortable; and I insist on making them think in order to bring them to conviction of sin. If you don’t like my preaching you must lump it. I really cannot help it.29

One interesting aspect of Baxter’s advocacy of nuclear power is its association with Shavian notions of a masterful ‘Life Force’ or, to use a Nietzschean term, ‘Will to Power.’ The speech from which Baxter has taken the above quotation contains the ringing declaration that

...as long as I can conceive something better than myself I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it. That is the law of my life. That is the working within me of Life’s incessant aspiration to higher organisation, wider, deeper, intenser self-consciousness, and clearer self-understanding.30

Of course, there is nothing quite so high-flown in Baxter’s writings — he was, after all, an engineer and administrator, rather than a speculative philosopher and playwright. There is, however, something of its spirit in Baxter’s concept of technological evolution:

Each successive step in man’s evolution from a hunter dwelling in caves to an astronaut who can land on the moon has been achieved by advances in technology. By controlling and harnessing the powers and resources of nature man has gained mastery over all other living species, 19

and has reached a stage of complete and absolute dominance on the planet earth.31

This dominance, however, has its dark side, since there is a danger that technology, wrongly applied, could destroy civilisation. Typically, however, technology is assumed here to be neutral with respect to values. Technological innovation itself cannot be blamed for the problems of atmospheric pollution and depletion of resources, and what Baxter looks forward to is not a world which has forsaken technology, but one in which decisions about its application are left to his projected benevolent world government. Thus, Baxter’s attitude to nuclear power, and the arguments he mobilised in its favour, have complex origins, and cannot just be dismissed as the simple-minded solutions of a cold war warrior. There is no simple determinism here and, as in the case of Robert Menzies, what is interesting about the study of a single life is the attempt to identify the subtle interplay between individual circumstances and broader social themes. Although I do not propose in this case to emulate Brett’s strategy of invoking Freudian psychology to explain the course of her subject’s public life, her close attention to Menzies’ speeches and writings, treating them as subjects for careful literary analysis, is an approach worthy of emulation in the case of Philip Baxter.

Preliminary remarks: The shape of Baxter’s career

From what I have already said, I think it would be fair to say that my thesis is a biography in the special sense in which Freud’s work on Leonardo, or Brett’s work on Menzies, are biographies. That is, it constitutes what could usefully be conceptualised as a second-order, or meta-biography. In the absence of the exhaustive, chronological account of Baxter’s life 20 that would be needed to underpin such a study as I have envisaged, though, I feel duty bound to provide as much of a ‘straight’ account of his life as should enable the reader to put my reflections into an appropriate context.32

John Philip Baxter was born on the 7 May, 1905, in Machynlleth, North Wales, the son of John and Mary Netta Baxter.33 As Angyal tells us, Baxter’s father was an engineer with the British Post Office. After moving with his family to Hereford, Baxter attended school in that town, passing the Northern Universities Matriculation exam at of 14. According to Baxter’s own recollections of his school days, it was most likely in 1913 that he began school in Hereford, but in a letter of 1962 to a Mr RG Ruscoe (who was writing a 50th anniversary history of Hereford High School for Boys), Baxter admits that he ‘cannot remember with certainty.’34 As this is one of the few surviving documents in which Baxter comments in any detail on his life or career, it is worth quoting from at some length:

The school was small and Mr Allen was of course Headmaster. When I left, which was, I think, in 1921, to go to the University of the school had grown considerably and Mr Crompton had replaced Mr Allen, but only a short while before...Mr Crompton came at a time when I was near the top of the school, and I remember particularly the personal interest he took in teaching me mathematics and encouraging my interest in science. I also recall visiting his home where we discovered to our surprise that he was an enthusiastic marksman with an air gun....

I have very happy recollections of the young science master at the school, but I cannot remember his name. He encouraged my interest in science and gave me a great deal of freedom to use the school laboratories in any way I liked. He must have been quite young because my recollections of him are of a young man, and to schoolboys most of their teachers seem at least middle-aged. 21

Baxter was obviously a more than capable student, as his matriculation at the age of 14 indicates. At that time he was considered too young to attend university, but after passing the London University Matriculation examination two years later, he obtained special permission to enrol at Birmingham University.

In 1925 Baxter graduated with a BSc with first class honours in chemistry. He was awarded the James Watt Research Fellowship (worth £250 per year), and in 1928 completed a PhD in mechanical engineering, also at Birmingham. His thesis, with the title ‘The combustion of carbonic oxide,’ was supervised by Professor FH Burstall. ‘Thus,’ as Angyal puts it, ‘the BSc in chemistry and the PhD in mechanical engineering produced a chemical engineer; in those days there were no degree courses in chemical engineering.’35 After receiving his doctorate, Baxter joined Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) on the recommendation of Professor Burstall, commencing work as a research engineer at Billingham, County Durham. Imperial Chemical Industries itself had only been incorporated since 7 December, 1926, following the merger of Brunner, Mond & Co, Nobel Industries, the United Alkali Company and British Dyestuffs Corporation.36 Billingham had been part of the Brunner Mond operations, and was involved in an expansion of ammonia production. It was also noted for the size and sophistication of its laboratory. As an early historian of Billingham has noted,

its workshops were thus particularly large and well equipped by contemporary standards. Slade [RE Slade, the Chief Chemist at Billingham] had copied the new laboratory at University College, London, where he had worked, and provided a number of small laboratories and offices where work could go on relatively free from distractions.37 22

As Reader comments, Brunner Mond had ‘provided themselves at Billingham with a first-class research centre under a scientist of academic distinction [ie, Slade] who was also a member of the general management.’38 The young research engineer, then, could be said to have fallen on his feet, beginning his career at the British chemical industry’s most advanced research centre. Baxter was not to stay long at Billingham. In 1927, Dr Alexander Fleck arrived to take charge of work on alkali and cyanide, as part of an expansion program that saw the number of technical staff increase from 21 to 47.39 Fleck later became Chairman of ICI, but for the moment the significance of this development for our story is that in 1931 Fleck arranged for Baxter to be transferred to as Research Manager of the Central Laboratory in ICI’s new General Chemicals division. Baxter’s rapid rise continued when, in 1935, he was promoted to Research Manager of the whole division, which employed 12,000 people. The Billingham experience was significant in other ways too. Baxter joined the Dramatic Society in nearby Stockton-on- Tees, where he met his future wife Lilian May Thatcher.

Baxter’s work at Widnes concentrated on development of new products involving and . This led most notably to the new insecticide gamma benzene hexachloride, or Lindane, work which also culminated in several patents bearing

Baxter’s name as sole inventor.40 He was thus at the forefront of significant research, this time relevant to agriculture, and was also partly responsible for getting ICI involved in the early stages of research into the possibility of an atomic bomb based on . Here his involvement began with a request from at Liverpool for some hexafluoride. After the 23 war, the Widnes Weekly News of 8 March, 1946 proudly announced Baxter’s role as follows:

In the course of an article in the Liverpool Daily Post [on] Monday on the subject of the atomic bomb, Sir James Chadwick, Professor of Physics at Liverpool University, refers to the assistance of Dr JP Baxter, of Widnes, in the research work which was carried on in America.

Sir James writes: ‘In January, 1940, we began in my laboratory in Liverpool to collect apparatus and material to examine the fission properties of uranium in detail. We had done little more than this when Dr Frisch and Professor Peierls, of Birmingham, also came forward with the idea, presenting it in a beautifully coherent manner. Through the agency of a committee under the chairmanship of Sir George Thomson, a committee known later as the , we joined forces; Dr Frisch came to work in Liverpool and Professor Peierls took charge of all theoretical work. About that time also I got in touch with Dr JP Baxter, of ICI, Widnes, who on his own responsibility gave us much- needed help on the chemical aspects of our problem, and who thus prepared the way for the wider participation of ICI, Ltd, which was to prove so valuable later on.’41

British research on the atomic bomb was carried out under the innocuous name of , and Baxter was a member of a panel responsible for chemical research, which in its turn reported to the Tube Alloys Technical Committee.42 The full membership of the panel is given as follows: Professor WN Haworth (Birmingham University — Chairman), Dr RE Slade (ICI — Vice- chairman), Dr FE Simon (Oxford University), Dr JP Baxter, Dr J Ferguson (ICI Alkali Division), Mr JR Park (ICI Billingham Division), Mr MW Perrin (Tube Alloys Directorate — Secretary).

Ellyard and Cockburn’s biography of Sir also contains some details which bear on Baxter’s early involvement with atomic energy.43 In mid-October 1941 the MAUD committee was disbanded by the government, and all work on nuclear power 24 was placed under the control of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), at the time headed by

...another old Cavendish man, Edward Appleton. Within DSIR, the supremos of ‘Tube Alloys’ (TA), as the uranium project was now to be code-named, would be a pair of research executives from Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), Wallace Akers and Michael Perrin. ICI had been involved in an advisory capacity since early in 1941, and had petitioned the Government for permission to take over the whole of nuclear work going on in Cambridge, so as to be on the ground floor of the postwar development of nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

It is somewhat surprising, then, that ICI eventually decided not to take on the post-war development of nuclear power in England. In October 1945 Akers approached ICI officially about the construction of nuclear reactors and ancillary equipment, acting on earlier indications that the board of ICI would accept a contract for this work.44 However, the ICI board ‘had now changed its mind and refused the contract for both practical and political reasons.’45 Among the reasons canvassed by Gowing were the practical difficulties of coping with demands for secrecy, and fears by ICI that its involvement in such a crucial industry would make it a likely target for nationalisation. As Gowing suggests, the ICI board may well have been motivated by simple commercial considerations, although there is no record of ICI having taken this into account. At least, if this were the case, it is likely that it would have made his future with the company seem less attractive to Baxter. Baxter, however, continued his involvement with nuclear technology, following on from his successful stint of secondment to the electro-magnetic separation plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In 1944 he had been appointed to the board of ICI, and promoted to the position of Research Director for General Chemicals. That summer, he took a team of British chemists to Oak Ridge, ‘reportedly to tackle difficulties 25 which had developed in the electro-magnetic plant,’46 and ‘was such a success...that he was asked to become personal assistant to the General Manager of the plant, with general responsibility for co-ordinating all activities in research, development and production.’47

Back in England, and despite ICI’s withdrawal from the game, Baxter still tried to maintain a presence in the field. In 1947 he offered to help with the development of the chemical separation plant intended to extract from the irradiated fuel rods recovered from the atomic pile. In a move which we can see as typifying his approach, he suggested that the Minister should ask Lord McGowan for substantial help from General Chemicals over a period of five years. According to Gowing’s account, Baxter thought that ICI ‘would be very unenthusiastic but might agree if it were put to them as a national duty. Although no such approach seems to have been made,’ she continues, ‘Baxter’s people at Widnes became deeply involved in the chemical separation work.’48 Here is an early example of the tactician at work, trying to manoeuvre his company into the sort of work he regards as important, almost against the will of the rest of management. The trick is to make the call come from outside, preferably from on high. As we shall see, this tactic served Baxter well in Australia too, at least up to a certain point, as he tried to steer atomic energy policy into what he considered to be the appropriate paths. But I anticipate. For the moment, it is noteworthy that Baxter’s decision to move to Australia coincided more or less with the onset of difficulties in the chemical separation work. In October 1948, Christopher Hinton, the engineer in charge of the production of , advised 26 that the chemical separation plant would not be ready in time to take the plutonium from the piles, and the delays ‘intensified fears that the process might not work, that even a minor defect in it might put the plant permanently out of use,’ necessitating adoption of the less efficient American method.49

In this context, a letter from Akers to Baxter referring to the latter’s intention to move to Australia takes on added significance. Akers, referring to a recent discussion with Baxter, commented that ‘I can fully understand your reasons for wanting to move to a dominion, which you explained to me some time ago.’50 Nowhere are those reasons explicitly stated, but the letter lends credence to suppositions that Baxter felt that there was no real future in Britain, and that the work had been taken out of his hands. Why did he make this move? According to Angyal, Baxter

...was well-off and certain of further rapid advancement in ICI, but apparently he became restless and began to look for greener pastures. He was disappointed when ICI withdrew from the production of nuclear energy; having four young children, he was unhappy about the political and economic situation in post-war England.51

By themselves, these reasons do not seem strong enough, given that Australia was hardly a likely candidate for developing a nuclear energy program on its own account. In England, as Angyal points out, Baxter was a consultant on the British post-war Atomic Energy program, and was involved in the construction of Harwell and Windscale. As a member of the Chemical Separation Plant Committee, he was directly responsible for some of the research work on separation of uranium . It may be that, as a consequence of ICI’s reluctance to devote resources to the research, Baxter felt unable to exert any real control over it, and was frustrated by the programme’s failures. All this must remain 27 conjectural, but there is nothing conjectural about Baxter’s eventual decision, which I return to in Chapter 3.

Angyal says little about Baxter’s political views, beyond commenting that he initially had ‘leftist tendencies,’ but ‘shifted towards the right at a time when the general trend was in the opposite direction.’ He served on the Widnes City Council from 1939 to 1950 as leader of the Conservative councillors, and was also the local party chairman. Angyal comments that Baxter prided himself on the fact that the Conservatives held the division of Widnes for that whole period, only losing it after he had left for Australia.52 In any case, at the end of 1949 Baxter resigned from ICI and set sail for Australia, arriving on 16 January 1950.

Baxter’s career following his move to Australia from his native England in 1949 was bound up with the newly founded NSW University of Technology, and subsequently with the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, of which he became the Chairman in 1956. Until his retirement as vice-chancellor of the university in 1969 (by which time it had become the University of NSW), Baxter combined the two roles, often explicitly trying to link the work of the university to the broader questions of national development which were the province of the commission. Well before Paul Keating, as Prime Minister, created an image of himself as a ‘big picture man,’ Baxter was attempting to realise his own big vision of a technologically sophisticated and self- sufficient Australia, able to defend itself in what he saw as an increasingly hostile world.

On 1 January 1953, he became director of the university, following a vote by the council. In 1955 this title was changed to Vice-Chancellor, a position which Baxter held until his retirement 28 on 30 June, 1969. His long term as vice-chancellor was marked by a rapid growth of the university, but also by a number of what Angyal refers to diplomatically as ‘disturbing incidents.’ In 1956, for example, the University failed to appoint Russel Ward as a lecturer in history, despite the fact that his appointment had been recommended by a selection committee.53 This led to the resignation of RM Hartwell, the Professor of Economic History, who had served on the selection committee. Hartwell claimed that Baxter and Wallace Wurth, the Chancellor, had asked for a security check on Ward, and rejected his appointment when they discovered that he had been a member of the Communist Party of Australia. Hartwell’s letter of resignation of 14 May 1956 stated that ‘I cannot continue to work in a university with a political test for its lecturing staff.’54 As Angyal puts it, the ensuing controversy, which lasted for some six years, ‘caused much damage to the university’s morale and reputation.’ It would be unfair to characterise Baxter’s period as vice-chancellor solely as one of debilitating controversy, although full consideration of these matters will have to wait until Chapter 5.

Baxter was also active in the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, serving as its Deputy Chairman (appointed in 1953) and Chairman (appointed in 1957). Following his retirement from the university, Baxter continued as full-time chairman of the AAEC until 1972. His work in this area has been exposed to critical scrutiny recently by Alice Cawte in her book Atomic Australia, in which she comments that ‘[w]hile the definitive history of the AAEC and the bizarre Jervis Bay episode awaits the declassification of the official records, the origins of the AAEC’s degeneration lie much earlier.’55 In Chapter 4 I take up these 29 issues in more detail, but to round out this brief survey of Baxter’s career, I need to point out that his interest in the arts was reflected in his efforts to establish the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) at Kensington, and in his appointment as the first chairman of the Trust, a position which he held from 1968 to 1975. In Chapter 7, I discuss in some detail Baxter’s artistic endeavours, in particular his long association with the theatre, as actor, director and (finally) playwright, and show how they are related to his more public activities.

Professor Rupert Myers, who in 1969 succeeded Baxter as vice-chancellor of the University of NSW, spoke of his predecessor as the ‘essential founder’ of the university, thereby suggesting the crucial importance of Baxter’s role in its growth. As far as the development of the university’s administrative structure and its academic profile is concerned, this is clear enough, but there is more to the notion of ‘essential founder’ than that. Myers is hinting at a conception of Baxter as the figure who imbued the new institution with a soul, who appreciated the core meaning of the legislation which brought it into being, and fleshed out the bare bones of its system of governance. As ‘essential founder,’ then, we are to gain an understanding of Sir Philip Baxter as the one person who truly comprehended the essence of the institution in his charge.

One can argue about the relative importance of individuals in the development of an institution as variegated in its structure as a university. In thinking about such issues, I have tried to give appropriate weight to Baxter’s individuality on the one hand, and

31 the things he held in common with others by virtue of professional and disciplinary allegiance, on the other. Whether Baxter’s influence was malign or beneficial is another question that will elicit different answers, depending on the individual experiences of the people concerned, and the varying preconceptions they might bring to the question. As I argue below, I have discerned a consistency of approach in Baxter’s career, adducing evidence for it that is not traditionally brought to bear on such questions.

Preliminary remarks: Methodology

I have already made some comments on this head. Here, I would like to give a further account of my choice of material, and the ways in which I deal with it. The concept of conservatism has already been raised in connection with comparisons between Baxter and Menzies, and in fact my basic thesis is that Baxter’s ‘world view’ can most readily be subsumed under Mannheim’s characterisation of the ‘conservative style of thought.’ In Chapter Two I embark on an extended discussion of Mannheim’s use of the concept of ‘style’, and the way in which it has subsequently been developed in the field of Science and Technology Studies. Another way of looking at this is to see the conservative style of thought as a ‘regulative principle’ or heuristic device for apprehending coherence. It functions in a similar way to the principle of uniformitarianism in geology, a principle which is taken as axiomatic.56

My thesis also takes account, among other things, of Baxter’s childhood reading, and an analysis of it informed by Edward Said’s work on ‘structures of attitude and reference.’ By itself this information proves nothing, but taken in conjunction with other evidence it can be highly revealing of underlying themes. To 32 that end I devote considerable attention to an analysis of the books identified by Baxter’s daughter as constituting his favourite stories of childhood, which he read himself and also read to his own children.57 This constitutes important evidence for Baxter’s moral outlook, underpinning his attitudes to technological development, and its role in promoting the ‘national interest.’ It is important to stress here that I am explicitly rejecting a reductionist causal account of the significance of this material. Just as it would be manifestly absurd to claim that an explanation for the course of a river is to be sought exclusively in a study of its mountain source, so I am not claiming that Baxter became a chemical engineer because of the influence of his childhood reading — such decisions can often hang on the most obscure contingency which, its moment having passed, would defy reconstruction by even the most conscientious effort of introspection. Nevertheless, just as our appreciation of the river is deepened if we are familiar with its source, so can our understanding of a life be enriched by an awareness of anything which may have influenced its early contours and shape.

We must take account, where they exist, of actors’ accounts of their reasons for adopting a particular course of action, but these are not privileged sources of information, since they too are reconstructions of events which can never be recaptured in all their details. If lives are only available to us in words, then methods of literary theory may be more appropriate to their study than the methods of positivist social science. It is misleading to suppose that accounts of a life can be built on a bedrock of uninterpreted raw ‘data,’ such as letters and diaries. Biography, at bottom, is a text, rather than simply a product of empirical 33 research, and in combing through archives the researcher is already engaged in a process of ‘writing.’

In Chapter Three, then, the focus shifts from ‘styles of thought’ to another, more recent, theoretical construct, namely the ‘structures of attitude and reference’ which Edward Said has discerned in his study of the relationship between imperialism and literature. Exactly what he means by this will be discussed in detail in that place, but a few words here on the relevance of this approach are in order. Said claims that the colonial relationships underpinning European society in the nineteenth century are not merely reflected in cultural products, but that these cultural products are themselves partly constitutive of the structures of colonialism. The relevance of this for my study of Philip Baxter is that his favourite childhood reading (or at least the two examples mentioned to me by his family) included books which fall, by virtue of their date and their subject matter, squarely into the period with which Said is concerned. Both of them, Johann Wyss’ The Swiss Family Robinson and Jules Verne’s Dropped from the Clouds, are novels of colonisation which give a central role to technological accomplishment. Verne’s book in particular, with its engineer/didact hero figure, seems perfectly suited for the role of providing Baxter with his own ‘origin myth.’

The colonialism of Wyss and Verne operates at various levels. At the most obvious, the protagonists of their stories are literally taking possession of a landscape, but this ‘taking possession’ does not in the end rely on charters or proclamations, nor does it have anything to do with traditional identification with the land. The land is theirs, because they know how to exploit it, and how its raw materials can be transformed into useful 34 products. This sort of ideology is at least as old as Bacon, but it is given added point in a late nineteenth century context by having easily identifiable referents in everyday experience. The encounter of engineering skill with virgin territory, as it is played out in this genre of popular literature, provides a ready validation of the colonial enterprise, which is shown, not as stemming from any self-aggrandising impulse for conquest (nothing of the conquistador here), but from the natural expansion of a superior civilisation to the furthest corners of the globe. The heroes of Wyss and Verne at least partially derive their immense appeal from their combination of the figures of the ruler and the savant, allowing them to be read not merely as conquerors of land, but as masters of the domain of useful knowledge. They are no mere theoreticians, but leave behind them, as part of the fashioning of their new island homes, tangible, concrete evidence of their skill as builders and artificers.

It still remains to account for the full mythic power of these stories. This can only be done by tracing the circle, or rather the spiral, back to the idea of ‘Civilisation’ which, totally transcending their wealth of finely observed detail, gives the stories a timeless, Platonic reality. It is the fleshing out of this idea that constitutes whatever ‘meaning’ these stories possess, and it is only at the margins that we can continue vicariously to stage this process. The metropolitan centre is thoroughly ‘played out,’ and the cycle of development can only be renewed in an unspoiled setting. It is hardly surprising, then, that the achievements of the heroic engineers of Wyss and Verne take place at the margins, rather than at a metropolitan centre. Here, I think, is the key to the mythic significance of these stories for someone, like Philip 35

Baxter, for whom that metropolis had lost all its attractions. Australia was hardly an uncharted frontier, but it could take on for Europeans the mythic significance of a terra nullius, awaiting passively the imposition of meaning.

The imposition of meaning, and associated conceptions of leadership and responsibility, also inform the later chapters of the thesis. The ‘conservative style’ of Carlyle is a recurring leitmotif, and this is quite in keeping with Baxter’s views. At various times these parallels struck me as particularly compelling. One such occasion, which I discuss in more detail in Chapter Five, on Baxter’s career at the University of NSW, occurred during a reading of Carlyle’s Past and Present, where the organic conception of a living community exemplified by the monastery of St Edmundsbury in the thirteenth century seemed to me to have remarkable similarities to Baxter’s conception of the university. The notion of leadership which Carlyle applauds assumes the presence of a strong and wise leader, unmoved by the immediate concerns of any individual or faction, who will not turn a deaf ear to advice, but ultimately is willing to act alone, and take full responsibility for those actions. Underlying Baxter’s clashes with academic staff over standards of teaching and other matters was a differing perception of leadership. Baxter’s critics on the Professorial Board had much more in mind the idea that a vice- chancellor was merely a first among equals, who would only act following extensive consultation with academic staff. For his part, Baxter was an activist vice-chancellor, who resisted the notion that he was at all beholden to his academic colleagues. He put great stress on the ultimate authority of the governing Council of the university, with its mixture of political and industrial interests 36 outside the campus, and explicitly welcomed the involvement of these interests. Conflict was inevitable, particularly with those who valued the idea of the university as an independent critic of society, and saw their vice-chancellor’s close involvement with industry and government as a threat to that independence.

Chapters Four and Six are concerned more directly with Baxter’s relationship to the engineering and development issues of his career in Australia, but they are unified both by their relationship to the central organising principle of ‘styles of thought,’ and by the various ways in which they exemplify the notion of colonialism sketched out above. Chapter Four concentrates on the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, and the wider ramifications of Baxter’s attitude to its research agenda. Despite Baxter’s protestations to the contrary, the push for Australia to have its own nuclear power station had a lot to do with a desire for Australia to achieve self-sufficiency in defence matters, and ultimately to possess its own nuclear deterrent. In Chapter Six, I turn my attention to the attitudes of the wider engineering community to questions of development. While in Chapter Four the discussion is focussed on a single research establishment, here I use material gathered from a survey of professional journals to gain insight into the environment in which Baxter worked as a chemical engineer at ICI in England, prior to his move to Australia at the end of 1949. In the Australian context, I repeat the exercise, using the journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia to trace the different perceptions of the role and responsibilities of engineers. Chapter Seven in effect represents a recapitulation and culmination of the ideas developed in the thesis, through a discussion of the play which 37

Baxter wrote as a vehicle for his views on national development, defence policy and racial questions.

Preliminary remarks: A note on sources

This thesis relies largely on written sources, since its methodology is fundamentally text-based. I have not relied extensively on interviews with Baxter’s former colleagues or acquaintances, and where I cite such material it is intended more as illustrative of matters already discussed, than as establishing any point in its own right. As far as sources are concerned, the most significant collection of material on Baxter is the Archive of the University of NSW, which apart from the wealth of official documents in its care (such as Professorial Board minutes and Vice-Chancellor’s correspondence files, to take just two examples) also holds the collection of Baxter’s personal papers taken from his home after his death. This work was supervised by the University Archivist, Mr Laurie Dillon, with the co-operation of Sir Philip’s family. In addition to this, I have obtained valuable material from the Australian Archives, both in Sydney and Canberra, and have had lengthy discussions with two of Sir Philip’s children, Valerie Craven (and her husband Brian Craven) and Denis Baxter. Denis Baxter made available to me relevant papers still in his possession, and allowed me to examine the contents of Sir Philip’s library.

At an early stage, I tried to obtain relevant material from ICI archives in England, but my attempts proved fruitless. I wrote to ICI, enclosing a copy of Angyal’s memoir, and asking if the company had kept records relevant to Baxter’s career. In reply I 38 received a thank you for the Angyal material, and an assurance that I already possessed more information than they could provide me with. ICI did send me confirmation of the dates of Baxter’s appointment and subsequent promotions, but that was about it. Later, while trying to flesh out the story of Baxter’s titanium research in the US (I comment on this in Chapter Three), I wrote again to ICI, quoting the company file numbers to which Baxter referred in his report (fortunately, a copy of this report was included in Baxter’s personal papers held by the UNSW Archives). This second letter received no reply.

Thus, at a very early stage, while I was still working out a plan of attack, I was made aware of the practical difficulties of accessing sources relevant to Baxter’s life and career prior to his move to Australia. Family commitments prevented my travelling to England or the US, even if I had been convinced that what I might find there would justify the trip. It was quite likely, for example, that I would be denied access to material on Baxter’s wartime pursuits. In any case, I had conceived my task as one of concentrating on Baxter’s career in Australia, since it had always been my intention, even as I was putting the finishing touches on my Honours thesis, to focus any postgraduate research I might undertake on an Australian theme.

Apart from these considerations of its scope, the nature of Baxter’s documentary legacy is also of significance in any estimation of his character. The papers stored now at Kensington contain little of any personal nature. There are few extant letters to colleagues or friends which talk openly of personal concerns, and what there are tend to adopt an ironic, self-deprecating tone. 39

This fact alone reinforces a perception of Baxter as a very private person, with little interest in notoriety for its own sake. In addition to this, there is plenty of evidence that suggests that Baxter only reluctantly placed his thoughts on controversial topics on paper, and much preferred to resolve problems by discussion. The results of these discussions could where necessary then be officially recorded by means of bland resolutions which effectively disguised the often heated debates that produced them. These matters must await fuller development in due course, and my indebtedness to particular documentary sources will be noted as I proceed.

1 T. Carlyle, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. IV, Chapman and Hall, London, 1839, p. 3. 2 P. Ackroyd, Dickens, Sinclair-Stevenson, London, 1990, p. 893. 3 Ibid., p. 894. 4 S. Freud, ‘Leonardo da Vinci and a memory of his childhood,’ (trans. Alan Tyson) in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 11, pp. 57-137, Hogarth Press, London, 1957. 5 Ibid., p. 101. 6 Loc. cit. 7 Ibid., p. 102 8 Ibid., p. 103 9 Ibid., p. 106 10 J. Brett, ‘Menzies’ Forgotten People,’ Meanjin, 1984, 43, pp. 253-265, at p. 253. 11 Ibid., p. 253. 12 J. Brett, Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People, Macmillan, Sydney, 1992, p. 3. 13 Ibid., pp. 196-198. 14 J.P. Baxter, The Foul Sluggard’s Comfort, University of NSW, Sydney, 1972. The lecture was given on the 26 October, 1972, and subsequently issued as a pamphlet by the university. 15 Ibid., p. 20. 16 Ibid., p. 19. 17 Ibid., p. 20. 18 T. Carlyle, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. IV, Chapman and Hall, London, 1839, p. 315. (The two parts of the essay on Count Cagliostro first appeared in Fraser’s Magazine in July and August, 1833). 19 Ibid., p. 338. 40

20 Ibid., p. 335. 21 Ibid., p. 336. 22 Ibid., p. 338. 23 Baxter, op. cit. (note 14), p. 11. 24 Ibid., p. 9. 25 Ibid., p. 9. 26 Ibid., p. 12. 27 Ibid., p. 15. 28 Ibid., p. 17. The quotation is taken from Act 3 of Man and Superman, the ‘Don Juan in Hell’ dream sequence. See G. Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Penguin, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1946 (first published 1903), p. 175. 29 G. Bernard Shaw, ‘Epistle Dedicatory’ to Man and Superman, op. cit. (note 28), p. viii. 30 Ibid., pp. 174-175. 31 Baxter, op. cit. (note 14), p 7. 32 In what follows, the details are, unless stated otherwise, taken from S.J. Angyal, ‘Sir Philip Baxter 1905 — 1989’, Historical records of Australian science, 1990, 8, pp. 183-197. 33 Ibid., p. 183. 34 UNSW archives, Accession number CN 423, box 31. The letter is dated 16/3/1962. Throughout this thesis, references to the archives of the University of NSW will cite accession number and, where necessary, box number. 35 Angyal, op. cit. (note 32), p. 183. 36 A full account of these developments can be found in W.J. Reader, Imperial Chemical Industries: A history, Vol. I, Oxford University Press, London, 1970, pp. 451-466. 37 V.E. Parke, Billingham: The first ten years, ICI, Billingham, 1957, p. 63. 38 Reader, op. cit. (note 36), p. 366. 39 Parke, op. cit. (note 37), P 109. 40 Angyal, op. cit. (note 32), p. 184. 41 UNSW Archives, CN 1066, Box 5. 42 Pamphlet, Statements relating to the atomic bomb, put out by the Directorate of Tube Alloys in 1945, p. 22. See UNSW Archives, CN 1053, Box 16. 43 S. Cockburn and D. Ellyard, Oliphant: The life and times of Sir Mark Oliphant, Axiom Books, , 1981, pp. 108-109. 44 M. Gowing, Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy, 1945-1952, Vol. 2, ‘Policy Execution,’ Macmillan, London, 1974, p. 156. 45 Ibid., p. 156. 46 Unsigned obituary, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 September 1989, p. 11. The plant, code-named Y-12, was designed to produce with a higher concentration of the fissile isotope U235 than occurs naturally. 41

47 M. Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy 1939-1945, Macmillan, London, 1964, p. 259. 48 Gowing, op. cit. (note 44), p. 173. Those interested in a fuller account of this work, and Baxter’s role in it, should see pp. 402-423 of Gowing. 49 Ibid., p. 411. 50 Sir W. Akers to J.P. Baxter, 12 November, 1948. Letter in the possession of Denis Baxter, whom I thank for making it available to me. 51 Angyal, op. cit. (note 32), p. 185. 52 Ibid., p. 184. 53 Ibid., p. 188. 54 Quoted in A.H. Willis, The University of New South Wales: The Baxter Years, New South Wales University Press, Kensington, NSW, 1983, p. 81. 55 A. Cawte, Atomic Australia: 1944-1990, University of NSW Press, Kensington, 1992, p. 97. These matters will be discussed in more depth in Chapter 4. 56 I owe this parallel to Rosaleen Love, whom I have to thank for a perceptive critique of my thesis. 57 Valerie Craven, personal communication. 42 CHAPTER TWO THE CONSERVATISM OF PHILIP BAXTER

...[E]very mortal has a Problem of Existence set before him, which... must be to a certain extent original, unlike every other; and yet, at the same time, so like every other. — Thomas 1 Carlyle

An important aspect of how we grapple with the ‘problem of existence’ is the construction of what in German is referred to as a Weltanschauung, or world view. Here, I am interested not so much in ideas or trends of thought, decontextualised and abstractly considered, as in their instantiation or working out in a particular individual, at a particular time and place. Carlyle, who in the above quotation captures neatly the tension between regarding people both as unique individuals and as representative of certain types, appears often enough in Baxter’s speeches for the circumstance to strike one as noteworthy. I would argue that Baxter’s use of writers like Carlyle (and Edmund Burke) is not mere window dressing, but gives us insights into his style of thought which would otherwise remain inaccessible.

There is, then, more than merely a surface affinity between

Carlyle and Baxter. Early on it occurred to me that if we would like to say something about ‘what manner of man [Baxter] is,’ then as a first approximation we could characterise him as representing a certain type, the authoritarian conservative who feels that people, left to their own devices, cannot be trusted. In 1971, for example, Baxter argued that the ‘distasteful and ugly problems’ of modern life had not 43 been created by industry and technology, but by ‘the uses to which industry and technology are put,’ in order to satisfy the demands of ‘a population which can best be described as lazy, ignorant, quarrelsome and superstitious.’2 This mode of thinking is also reflected in various comments made by Baxter in his interview with UNSW archivist Laurie Dillon. Responding to a question about his reasons for resigning from ICI, Baxter refers to his involvement with the Conservative Party, and his attempts after the war to get the party to adopt a plan to move certain industries out to the farther reaches of the empire. According to Baxter, it had become obvious to him that Britain could not sustain the projected post-war growth in population, and it made sense to shift the wool industry (say) to Australia, the primary source of raw material. Churchill apparently dismissed the idea, leaving Baxter with feelings of disquiet about the future of his children in an over-populated Britain.

The point of this is that it indicates Baxter’s strong commitment to a notion of government as an agent of social engineering.3 (The significance of Baxter’s comments on Churchill will be taken up again in Chapter 3.) It may be objected, of course, that advocacy of ‘social engineering’ would seem to rule out the use of a term like

‘conservative’ to characterise Baxter, since conservatives are usually supposed to favour preservation of traditional practices and structures. However, I would wish to distinguish between the sort of planning envisaged by the American technocracy movement, which did look forward to a fundamentally new society, and the more pessimistic vision of someone like Baxter, for whom the role of planning was rather to foresee, and, by technological means, to avert 44 disaster. There is no evidence that Baxter looked forward to a society based on an enlightened rationality. Rather, as we shall see when we come to discuss his vision of the future in Chapter 7, the ultimate fate of the globe is imagined to depend on the exertion of power by the ‘developed’ countries which have finally agreed to a truce after an exhausting nuclear war. Decisions had to be left in the hands of those capable of making expert assessments of where society was heading, and acting in accordance with desired goals. Hence Baxter’s intense dislike of both radicalism (the masses being swayed by clever demagogues) and free market capitalism. If left to their own devices people will satisfy their immediate desires and opt for the cheapest alternative, rather than the one which is uncompetitive at the moment, but offers the only hope for a viable future.

So far, so good, perhaps, although it may be objected that I have invoked the general notion of ‘authoritarian conservative’, and used it as a way of making sense of various bits of information about Baxter, without making it clear just what is implied by this term beyond my collection of these bits. How useful is it really to apply terms like ‘conservative’ to Baxter’s views? Is Baxter at all representative of more general tendencies, or, to use Carlyle’s formulation, would the attribution to him of a more wide-ranging pattern of thought help us to ‘view the world altogether as he [viewed] it’? To start with, the word ‘conservative’ does not merit a separate entry in Raymond Williams’ otherwise excellent little volume Keywords. But this I would suggest has more to do with the fact that it is only fairly recently that conservatism has been argued for as a coherent ideological position.4 As the philosopher Roger 45 Scruton puts it, ‘it has been common for intellectuals in our time to believe that the conservative position is no longer “available”.’5 It remains to be seen just what such a ‘conservative position’ might entail, and it is at this point therefore that I propose to discuss Karl Mannheim’s notion of ‘styles’ of thought, since there are several reasons for thinking that this may be a fruitful approach.

In the first place, Mannheim’s approach represents a significant advance on the ‘casual intuitions and gross generalities’ that culminate in the formulation of such crudities as ‘bourgeois thought’ or ‘proletarian thought.’6 For Mannheim, patterns of thought cannot be deduced unproblematically as a function of membership of a particular class, where ‘class’, in this context, is conceived as reflecting an objective relationship to means of production. In other words, the form and content of a particular ‘style of thought’ cannot be simply ‘read off’ from a previously determined class allegiance. Here, as at least one recent commentator has pointed out, the adoption of a term like ‘style’, and the avoidance of any references to ‘ideology’, allows Mannheim to distance himself from more traditional (and cruder) Marxist analyses based solely on supposed class interest.7 The problem with these more traditional accounts is that they rely on ready-made, off-the-shelf conceptions of ideology that are simply made to fit, resulting in a crude determinism. Mannheim’s project, on the other hand, is avowedly an empirical one — ‘styles of thought’ are constructs based on careful analysis and interpretation of relevant textual material. 46 Secondly, according to Mannheim the construction of styles of thought provides us with access to what he refers to as an ‘intermediary level between the most abstract and the most concrete.’8 At the level of abstraction, thought is considered as a kind of ideal entity removed from contingent social structures, while the latter approach stresses individual personality as the ‘ultimate fountainhead of all thought.’ As Mannheim puts it, ‘[t]he former school makes the history of thought appear artificially homogeneous and indiscriminate, while the latter atomises it.’9 The insight that he wishes to capture is that both these approaches ignore the relationship between the form and content of ideas and their social contexts.

Mannheim’s project thus takes on the following form:

We want to look at the thinkers of a given period as representatives of different styles of thought. We want to describe their different ways of looking at things as if they were reflecting the changing outlook of their groups; and by this method we hope to show both the inner unity of a style of thought and the slight variations and modifications which the conceptual apparatus of the whole group must undergo as the group itself shifts its position in society. This will mean that we shall have to examine all the concepts used by the thinkers of all the different groups existing in any particular epoch very carefully, in order to see whether they do not perhaps use identical terms with different meanings. Thus the analysis of meanings will be the core of our technique. Words never signify the same thing when used by different groups even in the same country, and slight variations of meaning provide the best clues to the different trends of thought in a community.10

The affinity with Raymond Williams’ project is worth noting here, if only parenthetically. As a concrete example of his method, Mannheim chooses the development of conservative thought in 47 Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century. According to his analysis, it was the French Revolution which prompted the development of polarised styles — ‘[d]ifferent styles of thought developed along party lines, so that we can speak of “liberal” and “conservative” styles of thought, to which we shall later have to add the “socialist” style.’11 Conservatism emerges here as a reaction to the rationalism of the enlightenment:

Modern rationalism as a method of thought finds its clearest and most radical application in the modern exact sciences. In that form it mainly arose in opposition to two main streams of thought — medieval Aristotelian scholasticism on the one hand, and the philosophy of nature of the Renaissance on the other.12

Implicated here is the rising capitalist bourgeoisie, although Mannheim cautions us against crude determinism:

It is not that every individual bourgeois approached the world in this way continuously and at all times, but merely that the social aims of the bourgeoisie as the propagators of capitalism made such a consistently abstract and calculating form of experience possible.13

However, a one-sided emphasis on the triumph of rationalism obscures the fact of the perseverance of older styles of thought in the Romantic movement. As Mannheim puts it, romanticism ‘seized on the submerged ways of life and thought, snatched them from oblivion, consciously worked them out and developed them further, and finally set them up against the rationalist way of thought.’14

One significant feature of Mannheim’s analysis is the stress laid on right wing opposition to capitalism. This is seen, for example, in the differing attitudes to property characteristic of revolutionary liberalism, and the oppositional conservatism which it called into 48 being. The important distinction here is that between concrete and abstract approaches, a distinction ‘reflected in the modern use of the term “concrete” with anti-revolutionary implications.’15 Capitalism, on this view (here, Mannheim is explicitly identifying himself with the marxist tradition) represents a triumph of progressive reformism, and the replacement of local allegiances (based on historic identifications with the land) with the more abstract conceptions of the capitalist market. Use value, an essentially qualitative concept, thus gives way to the purely quantitative concept of exchange value, which owes nothing to the concrete properties of its bearer in any particular case, and the dialectical, or historicist, approach is superseded by the methods of the so-called natural sciences, with their emphasis on timeless, universal laws. (Thus, in Marx, we find the following:

It is only the expression of equivalence between different sorts of commodities which brings to view the specific character of value-creating labour, by actually reducing the different kinds of labour embedded in the different kinds of commodity to their common quality of being human labour in general.16

Typically, Marx adds a footnote to the effect that Benjamin Franklin was one of the first economists ‘to have seen through the nature of value,’ albeit that he is ‘not aware that in measuring the value of everything “in labour” he makes abstraction from any difference in the kinds of labour exchanged[.]’ Commentators on Marx who complain that there is ‘nothing new’ in the labour theory of value miss the point. That this is an insight of bourgeois political economy is precisely what Marx is trying to demonstrate, at the same time as he 49 attempts to show how it is limited by lack of a dialectical perspective.)

In Mannheim’s view, the proletariat thus takes from conservative thought the stress on practice and the concrete, even though one must take into account the structural differences deriving from the fact that the proletariat is a class whose adherents ‘have become blended by...having been torn out of the old background of “estates” and “organic groups” in which their ancestors had lived.’17 This emphasis on origins allows Mannheim to account for the apparent contradiction between the ‘inherently irrational “chiliastic” elements in proletarian thought’18 and the fact that ‘the basis of the proletarian mentality is strictly rational and fundamentally related to the positivist trend of bourgeois philosophy.’19 Proletarian consciousness is the product of rationalism, but in transcending this historically limited and conditioned form of natural law rationalism, it calls of necessity on ‘the irrational element at the basis of all revolutionary action.’20 Further, proletarian revolutionary consciousness is connected with the conservative tradition in that both rely on dialectical thinking:

There was an inner necessity in Marx’s taking over the idea of dialectic from the conservative Hegel. The concept of dialectic — the logical sequence of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis — seems, on the surface, extremely rationalist, and indeed it was an attempt to condense the whole process of development into a single logical formula, and to present the whole of historical reality as rationally deducible. Yet this type of rationalism is nevertheless completely different from that other type which finds expression in the bourgeois ideal of the natural sciences. The latter seeks to establish universal laws of nature; it is a democratic, non-dialectical type of thought.21 50 For all its plausibility, however, there is one particularly troubling aspect of this formulation, and that is its stress on ‘inner necessity’. Does Mannheim in fact avoid the problems of teleology that have aroused the scorn of critics like Popper, who throughout his writings takes issue with ‘the Marxist doctrine that our opinions... are determined by class interest, and more generally by the social and historical situation of our time’?22 Leaving aside the question as to whether this is an accurate characterisation of Marx’s position, it is worth noting here that Popper goes on to tar Mannheim with the same brush, claiming that the latter’s theory of the social determination of scientific knowledge is nothing more than a development of the simple Marxist view already quoted.

It is thus the necessitarian aspect of Marxist thought that Popper finds objectionable. Only science, rigorously marked off by Popper’s criterion of the falsifiability of its theories, can in his view justly lay claim to discovering ineluctable laws of behaviour. Now, if by this reference to necessity Mannheim does mean to say that styles of thought contain entelechies, or that their development is in a strong sense pre-ordained, then his work does not represent any real advance over the crude Marxism we have already dismissed. Nelson, however, argues that Mannheim’s comments along these lines can be interpreted in a weaker sense more in line with the overall tenor of his sociology of knowledge:

One could claim...that the initial conceptual and categorical structure of a style of thought constrains the range of subsequent ‘developmental pathways’ of the style, but does not, as do teleological entelechies, uniquely determine the choice of any one path.23 51 In any case, as Nelson points out, a strong interpretation of Mannheim’s use of the term ‘necessity’ would conflict with the emphasis he places elsewhere on the way styles of thought are modified by the incorporation of ideas from opposing styles. Mannheim’s analysis of how proletarian thought takes its stress on practice and the concrete from conservative thought (as we saw above) works quite well without needing to postulate any immanent tendency, and perhaps all we need say on this is that in Mannheim’s own ‘style’ of thought, the concept of ‘necessity’ no longer has the same connotations that it may have had for Hegel and Marx.

Thirdly, Mannheim’s characterisation of styles of thought does, I believe, evade the problem of imputation that has plagued attempts to ascribe ideologies to whole classes. Here is how Barnes characterises the problem:

Whether and how thought or belief can be attributed to social classes, or other formations, as the consequences of their particular interests, constitutes the problem of imputation in the sociology of knowledge...When it was first considered by sociologists and historical materialists, they built upon the hypothesis that the contrasting concepts, beliefs and overall styles of thought of different social classes were intelligible entirely in terms of their different interests and objective positions in the social structure; thought was effectively made a direct function of social interest.24

The difficulty can be put simply by asking how many workers in fact partake of the ‘proletarian consciousness’ that on any objective view would seem to be in their interests? Very few, it would appear, given the small interest shown in the self-styled workers and socialist parties in Australia. However, the classical statement of the problem of imputation (for example by Child in the 1940s) itself stumbles over 52 the difficulty of where one can expect to find an ‘integrated totality of thought.’25 For Child, if it exists ‘neither in the mind of any individual nor in the collective minds of any group’ (as claimed by Mannheim), then it is impossible to understand how it can have any influence over the judgments of individuals.26 A ‘style of thought’ must be instantiated somewhere (apart from the investigator’s own mind), or be banished to a Platonic heaven of ideal forms. He accuses Mannheim of failing to even discuss this obvious consequence of his (Mannheim’s) ideas, and yet, as we have seen, Mannheim devotes a lot of attention to this dichotomy between the abstract and the concrete, indicating that he is fully aware of the problem. Child simply misses the point that although styles of thought may be idealisations, this does not completely empty them of empirical content. Nelson comments that for Weber, ‘ideal types are explicitly regarded as heuristic devices that aid in the formulation of causal hypotheses, they are not in themselves hypotheses,’ and a similar comment would apply to styles of thought.27 They are in effect starting points for further research in the sociology of knowledge, allowing theorists to formulate hypotheses as to why particular thinkers may diverge from the ideal style type. As Nelson comments, ‘the value of an ideal type is that it allows us to fit certain ideas into a common frame and it allows us to see how ideas located in different times and regions diverge from the style of thought we have created on the basis of materials drawn from a particular time and place.’ The construction of a style of thought is then an exercise in hermeneutics, the product of which remains open to revision and modification in the light of evidence. There is always the possibility 53 that our style of thought ‘may fail to make sense of the empirical material to which it is applied and will consequently need modification in the light of evidence that some particular strands of thought are not typically conjoined as the analyst had initially assumed.’28

A fourth reason for thinking that Mannheim’s concepts can be useful in this case is that they have informed recent significant work in the history of science, indicating that other researchers have found ‘styles of thought’ to be useful heuristic devices. In a 1976 paper on the race — intelligence controversy, for example, Jonathan Harwood set out to ‘relate this controversy to the contrasting world-views of environmentalists and hereditarians, manifest both in the content of their political commitments and in the style in which their scientific positions are expressed.’29 Harwood, then, explicitly rejected the notion that the position an individual scientist happens to take in an ostensibly ‘scientific’ controversy can be explained purely in terms of differing interpretations of narrowly defined ‘scientific’ evidence. The evidence in question here is data on IQ scores among black and white Americans, and the extent to which such data is said to support an ‘hereditarian’ as opposed to an ‘environmentalist’ explanation for the gap in IQ scores between the two groups. In his first paper on the question, Harwood discusses what he describes as the ‘professional factors’ influencing theory choice, such as disciplinary allegiance and adherence to a particular philosophy of scientific method. Indeed, it is in the context of a discussion of method that he introduces Mannheim’s notion of ‘style of thought’ to characterise the mutually antagonistic ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ 54 methodological orientations which characterise the two positions.

This soft/hard dichotomy can, Harwood argues, be assimilated to Mannheim’s distinction between the historicist or dialectical thinking which, as we have seen, characterised the nineteenth century conservative reaction against the ‘natural law’ or ‘bourgeois liberal’ thought of the Enlightenment. The following characterisation of this distinction is taken from Harwood’s article:30 55

NATURAL LAW THOUGHT CONSERVATIVE THOUGHT

Rationalism and a faith in the A stress on intuition and the limits of scientific approach rationalist thinking

Quantitative thinking and continuity A stress on qualitative differences and discontinuity

A preference for abstraction and A preference for the particular, the theory concrete and practice

An atomistic and reductionist The view that the whole is greater conception of wholes than the sum of its parts and that the individual parts can be understood only as parts of the wider whole

An insistence on the universal An antipathy towards explanation in application of principles terms of general laws

An orientation toward the future (and An orientation toward the past progress) rather than the past

‘Static’ thinking, in the sense that A certain ‘dynamism’, seen in the use ethical justifications are made on the of concepts like ‘dialectic’ and the grounds of ‘the right reason’ rather stress on historical and than in terms of historical explanation developmental explanation/justification

It is worth noting here that Harwood’s characterisation, while it aims at being comprehensive, should not be taken as an exhaustive check list of influences and tendencies, or indeed terminology. Alert readers will notice, for example, that his characterisation of conservativism makes no explicit mention of the role of the Romantic 56 movement in preserving and refashioning the styles of thought apparently superseded by the Enlightenment (think of German Naturphilosophie, for example). This need not overly concern us, since the tendencies normally subsumed under the title of ‘Romanticism’ are implicit in the ‘Conservative Thought’ side of Harwood’s dichotomies, albeit in a reworked nomenclature.

Harwood’s approach is to take these dichotomies one at a time, and examine to what extent the dispute between hereditarians and environmentalists can be understood as a reflection of them. To take the last point, for example, Harwood claims that hereditarian writings typically adopt a psychometric perspective within which the origin of differences in IQ is irrelevant. What matters are the measured figures right now. A ‘substantial number of environmentalist writers,’ on the other hand, have been influenced by Piaget’s ‘developmental approach which is concerned with the “history” of individuals’ cognitive changes.’31 Further, psychometric research focuses on averages of whole populations, therefore dealing with abstractions, as opposed to Piaget’s emphasis on ‘the dynamic and “dialectical” relationship between the organism and its environment.’ Finally, the process of mental growth is viewed within the psychometric tradition as continuous and quantified, taking no account of the qualitatively distinct stages that characterise Piagetian analyses of development.32

There is no need here to go into more details. However, some of Harwood’s conclusions are worth further comment. One of his main points is that the conflict between environmentalists and 57 hereditarians with regard to the significance of IQ tests cannot be explained simply as a ‘boundary dispute’ between competing disciplines. At first sight, it may seem plausible to equate the hereditarian position with practitioners of the ‘harder’ sciences like biology, while the environmentalists ‘are more likely to be social scientists or educationalists’33. This approach runs into difficulties, however, once we begin to take account of the exceptions to this neat conclusion. As Harwood puts it, the ‘boundary dispute’ hypothesis ‘cannot...explain why scientists of similar professional training and affiliation occasionally adopt quite different positions.’ Further, consideration of the intellectual biographies of two of the participants in the dispute, Herrnstein and Jensen, ‘suggest the inadequacy of explaining scientific styles of thought solely in terms of professional socialisation.’34 This leads to Harwood’s suggestion that commitments to one side or other of the controversy ‘can be considered as scientific reflections of contrasting “world-views”.’35 In the end, he finds that the environmentalists ‘are associated with political positions which lie, to varying extents, left of (the American) centre.’36 This is surprising, given their identification with a conservative style of thought, but is no cause to revise our earlier conclusions. Rather, it is an indication of the inadequacy of conventional political usage of such terms as ‘left’, ‘right’, ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal,’ which ignore their social and historical context. We have already seen, for example, how Mannheim accounts for the conservative element in proletarian, or radical, thinking, as opposed to the rationalism of the liberal bourgeoisie. Thus, for Harwood, the use of an historically conditioned concept 58 such as ‘style of thought’ is helpful for identifying those features which give coherence to an individual’s views and actions. For example, the emphasis on the wholeness and unity of society in environmentalist rhetoric can be traced back to the holism characteristic of the conservative style. Those on the environmentalist side of the race and IQ controversy typically express concern that the hereditarian position, if it holds sway over policy makers, will lead to exacerbation of existing inequalities in society with the dismantling of compensatory programmes for the urban poor and underprivileged.

In his later book-length study of the German genetics community from 1900 to 1933, Harwood once again invokes the notion of ‘style of thought’ to explain the different commitments to what he characterises as the ‘comprehensive’ as opposed to the ‘pragmatic’ orientation within German research. The former concentrated upon developmental genetics, while the latter emphasised transmission genetics.37 In each case, however, the differences reflected wider concerns, such as the fragmentation of learning into specialised disciplines, which could be explained as manifestations of the different ‘styles of thought’ informing the two research traditions. In his earlier paper, Harwood anticipates this later study by referring to the ‘mandarinate’ of senior academics and civil servants of the Weimar republic who resisted the democratising tendencies of modernisation. The intellectual productions of these increasingly embattled mandarins, according to Harwood,

reflected their search for cultural and political wholeness in the face of an increasingly fragmented society. In the rebirth of Idealist philosophy and loosely ‘romanticist’ intellectual 59

traditions they saw an antidote to the analytical, utilitarian, disintegrative strains of modernisation and democratisation.38

For Harwood, a crucial aspect of Mannheim’s work is that it relates thought to what particular social groups are ‘trying to do.’39

Here, the emphasis is on practice — we can only understand why certain concepts and thought patterns seem to cohere in something identifiable as a style, if we can see how the group which we take to be a bearer of that style is deploying it in order to achieve certain aims. Harwood, following Mannheim, adopts the notion of the ‘basic intention’ of a style of thought in order to link the two realms of social and intellectual history. For Mannheim, conservative thought owes its distinctive character to the fact that ‘it is embedded in [a certain] way of experiencing the outer and inner world.’ In other words, there is an ‘authentic conservative mode of experience’ which does not become self-reflective until ‘other ways of life and thought come upon the scene..., against which it must distinguish itself in ideological struggle.’40 In the process, however, this ‘authentic, unconscious’ way of life disappears, since it is no longer appropriate in a context in which it can only be maintained by an effort of conscious intellectual work. As Nelson has pointed out, although Mannheim identifies a pre-theoretical, fundamental design of ‘authentic’ modes of experience, he leaves open the question of the source of the structural properties of this ‘authentic’ culture which can generate ‘formal homologies in both theoretical discourse and in such “atheoretical” cultural objectifications as art, mores and religion’ (and, Harwood would insist on adding, science).41 For our purposes, this is not an insuperable difficulty, since we are not primarily 60 concerned with articulating the Mannheimian paradigm. In any case, Harwood is happy to regard the search for the ‘basic intention’ of a style of thought as a useful prompt for historians to be alert to connections between intellectual and social history.42

A further contribution along these lines is due to Smith and Nicolson, who have invoked Mannheim’s notion of conservative thought to characterise the ‘Glasgow School’ of chemical physiology in the 1920s, which participated in debates over the role of vitamins in the aetiology of rickets. As the authors put it, they are interested in Mannheim’s concept as ‘an aid to understanding the Glasgow group’s discourse.’43 However, their very attempt to do this stems from a basic misunderstanding of Mannheim’s project. Smith and Nicolson seem to regard the conservative style of thought as a list of terms which is non-specific as to time or place. Conservative thought, they tell us, is ‘holistic, concrete and historicist.’ Mannheim, having defined it in this way, then apparently discussed ‘how the thought of the French Enlightenment was adopted in Germany by the reforming bureaucracy, and the conservative style was developed by the aristocracy and its allies in defence of the traditional order.’44 This is fair enough as far as it goes, but the authors take no account of how the situation in Germany in the nineteenth century is comparable to that of Glasgow in the 1920s, and I am afraid that my suspicions are inevitably aroused by comments such as the following: ‘Taken as a whole, the discourse of the Glasgow group stands as an impressively comprehensive articulation of conservative thought.’45 The difficulty here is that ‘conservative thought’ has become reified, and we run up against the problem of imputation which, as we discussed earlier, Mannheim’s analysis 61 appeared to have circumvented. The leap from identifying certain broadly defined characteristics (such as ‘holistic’) of a person’s attitudes, to imputing to them a previously characterised ‘style of thought’ is simply not warranted, and adds nothing to the story.

Harwood, on the other hand, is aware of this problem, and points out that in order to claim that particular positions in a controversy ‘can be considered as scientific reflections of contrasting “world-views”...one would ideally like to have detailed biographical information about the major disputants.’46 It is precisely this ‘detailed biographical information’ which permits an escape from the abstract ‘Third World’ of disembodied thought, while at the same time resisting the tendency to view thought solely as the product of individual personality. The value of Mannheim’s approach, in my view, is that it encourages a constant awareness of cultural meanings, rather than individual meanings. Thus, to return to the opening of this chapter, and Philip Baxter’s ‘Foul Sluggards’ speech, it is important not to explain away these references to Carlyle as simply the idiosyncrasies of a retired academic, on the one hand, or, on the other, to jump without further thought to an imputation of a disembodied style of thought. The references, though, can certainly serve as grist to our hermeneutic mill. They may tell us something about the nature of Baxter’s conservatism, and suggest ways in which he can be said to have adopted a ‘conservative style of thought.’

Adequate documentary evidence for a full-scale intellectual biography of Philip Baxter simply does not exist. Nowhere, for 62 example, are there the diaries or letters which would allow one to show that he was influenced by this or that writer, or had wrestled with particular ideas at such and such a time, and come to such and such a conclusion. Nevertheless, there are enough resources available to demonstrate in broad outline the nature of Baxter’s thought, and to show how it influenced his actions as a public figure. As we have seen, Baxter, and others like him, have often been dismissed as soulless technocrats, but I hope to show in the course of this study that such a characterisation is mistakenly one- dimensional. Once again, it is the idea of ‘styles of thought’ that I believe will help to give our characterisation of Baxter the necessary depth. In any case, I think it is useful to engage critically with Baxter’s own writings, in order to determine how, as a ‘thinker’ in Mannheim’s terms, he is representative of a particular ‘style of thought.’ At all times, I think it is important to keep in mind the provisional, hypothetical nature of Mannheim’s enterprise. Recall how he wants to describe various thinkers’ ways of looking at things ‘as if they were reflecting the changing outlook of their groups.’47 The way is always open for revision of earlier claims.

In describing Baxter as a conservative, we are using a term which, as Raymond Williams would put it, is part of an active vocabulary, the meaning of which is not exhausted by linguistic analysis. Returning to the table of dichotomies we looked at earlier, I would like to stress that there is nothing absolute about them. They should be considered merely as guides to interpretation, helping us to make sense of individual pronouncements by fitting them into a larger pattern. Immediately problems arise. Consider the column on 63 the left, under the heading ‘Natural Law Thought’ — is it not more likely that we would want to make room for Baxter on this side, rather than the other? Was he not a scientist, and was he not on the side of progress? Yes, and no. In the first place, we have to make sense of the contrast between the members of what Gary Werskey has described as the ‘visible college,’ the left wing scientists and fellow travellers of the Communist Party of Great Britain like JD Bernal, with their vision of a rationally organised, ‘scientific’ society (which they took to be exemplified by Stalinist Russia), and the more pessimistic outlook of a Tory engineer like Baxter. Certainly, Baxter was capable of imagining possible futures, but the fruition of his dreams had nothing to do with social revolution, and the heralding of a new, more rational and hence more egalitarian society. For Bernal and the other left wing scientists, the key lay in planning, and there was a strong link between social organisation and technological advance. Capitalism, with its reliance on a profit motive, was inherently inimical to the progress of science, so only in a socialist state could it flourish to the fullest extent.

Baxter, on the other hand, had little faith in the possibility of a new, and better, society, because he had little faith in people. He shared Carlyle’s despair at the inability of the people of Europe to see through the Cagliostros of this world, and deplored the activities of those he characterised as demagogues (Ralph Nader, Gofman and Tamplin, Paul Ehrlich and so on). Baxter would have heartily endorsed the sentiments of the philosopher Roger Scruton, who in his defence of conservatism as a political doctrine dismissed what he described as the contagion of democracy: ‘Consider those many 64 institutions (school, church, university) where there must be a principle of authority (as legitimate power) and where there cannot be democratic procedure without the immediate collapse of the institution.’48 For theorists like Scruton, the power of the state cannot be vested in the ‘forum of speculative change,’ which, in the British case with which he is primarily concerned, translates as ‘the opinion- ridden turmoil of the Commons.’49 Power, then, does not derive from the will of the majority, or any such democratic formulation. In the latter part of his life, as Baxter’s public pronouncements became more and more strident, these themes emerged ever more starkly as he railed against the meddling of ‘amateurs’ in fields such as nuclear energy policy. In February 1977, for example, the NSW Teachers Federation released a booklet arguing against uranium mining, prompting Baxter to produce a counter-blast which he called the ‘Parable of the unwise passengers:’

It happened that an aircraft — a large jumbo jet... was approaching its destination...when the captain said that the weather had closed in at the airport and that the instrument landing equipment was out of order.

He said fasten your seat belts and do not worry — he and his crew had years of experience and expertise and he was sure that they could land the aircraft safely.

At this point three passengers jumped to their feet and one produced a gun. He went to the captain and said you will maintain height and circle — we are going to hold a democratic inquiry, involving all passengers who wish to join in to determine how best this aircraft should be landed.

We have no confidence in experts, the people always know best. We will tell you what is to be done. He held his gun to the captain’s head. The captain said OK. 65

The three men now appointed a committee, with a passenger who was making his first flight as chairman — they said he was most suitable since he knew nothing about the matter. The committee listened to what each passenger had to say — some were very emotional and some insisted on saying everything five times — but finally they finished and the committee met to consider the matter.

Then the chairman said they had reached a conclusion which was that they could see no reason why the captain should not land the aircraft but subject to strict conditions. These were:

(1) No people asleep in houses under the flight path were to be disturbed — which might mean turning the engines off.

(2) No oil was to be spilt on the grass on the airfield.

(3) The seagulls who nested on the airfield should not be disturbed or harmed.

The captain started to say he would do his best when the three men interrupted him again and said that report is no green light for landing the aircraft — we must now have an extended debate among all passengers to make sure everyone understands the issues.

So they talked and talked for some hours when the captain suddenly broke in and said — we have two minutes fuel left then we shall crash.

The three men grabbed their hand luggage and each produced a parachute bearing the name of a foreign rival airline. They rushed to the emergency exit and jumped to safety — shouting happy landings as they went.

The engines missed a few beats and stopped. The plane dived steeply and crashed into a large high school full of children: 680 people died and many were injured.

The next day the head of the environmental association said he was sure the public would be delighted that no grass on the airfield had been defiled and that the seagulls were still sitting. 66

The three men burned their parachutes, produced new identification papers and retired wealthy men, but no one ever found out where the money came from

P.S. — The head of the environmental association said to the parents of the children that it had been a wonderful example of participative democracy at work. He was going on to say something else, but they lynched him, so we shall never know.

In true biblical fashion, Baxter provided an explanation of his story:

The parable shows exactly what could happen when you took notice of amateurs in a situation, like the world energy crisis, which only the experts could solve.

The big freeze in the United States and the resultant deaths of many people and disruption to industry is a direct example of this. Power utilities have been saying for the past seven years that more power stations, not necessarily nuclear, were needed, but the environmentalists opposed them.

The people from the foreign airline who bailed out are used in the story to highlight the way in which environmentalists were used by people who had most to win if the west didn’t speed-up its nuclear energy program...Russia and the oil companies and oil producing countries.

The jumbo was like the earth. We are all on board, and we must rely on the experts for help. Like the jumbo we are running out of fuel, and unless nuclear energy is used to get us out of the crisis, the world faces a war which could ultimately lead to everyone’s destruction.

You don’t hold a democratic meeting of everyone in the street when you feel ill to decide what action to take. You call a doctor, who, if it is serious, sends you to a specialist.

The main objective of the parable is to highlight that there are crises where only the expert knows the answers.

The theory that ‘the people’ must always decide can be deadly and lead you straight to disaster.50 67 Baxter, then, as a public figure, was not the type who used homespun images to celebrate the values of his contemporaries, and add to their feelings of security. Rather, he castigated them as sadly wanting in the face of impending catastrophe. The importance of technology for Baxter was not that it made possible a glorious new future. ‘Progress’ in that sense was a seductive chimera, and advocates of it had to be resisted, if necessary from the pulpit. There is an interesting point of comparison here with Menzies, to whose ‘Forgotten People’ speech we have already referred. Menzies’ strategy in 1942 was more subtle than Baxter’s, in that he played on people’s fears that their interests would be neglected, in order to generate a constituency for himself. It may very well be, as critics have maintained, that this middle class of ‘forgotten people’ was so nebulous that it was little better than a self-serving fiction on Menzies’ part. Nevertheless, to leave the matter there is to give up the attempt to understand Menzies’ subsequent success. The organised left had an explanation ready to hand, ascribing the failure of the electorate to reject Menzies to the ‘false consciousness’ engendered in the working class by an opportunist Labor Party. The problem of circularity here hardly needs spelling out, and I would refer readers interested in this question to the work of Judith Brett which I have previously cited. The point of comparison with Baxter and his ‘Foul Sluggard’s’ speech is that Baxter was no longer working towards establishing a constituency, and was no longer concerned about offending people’s sensibilities.

This was not always the case. In 1957, Baxter addressed the Annual Conference of the Institution of Engineers in Perth, on the topic ‘Education for the Nuclear Age.’ Here, once again, is the theme 68 of reliance on expertise, but it is clear that it is in the interests of preservation of traditional values:

The Institution of Engineers is an informed and powerful body with Commonwealth wide interests. I commend this problem of community education in the need for the greater use of technology, and the more extensive training of engineers and technologists in Australia, to the Institution, as a fitting subject for a Crusade, the success of which will be measured by whether Australia is still a white and Christian country in the year 2,000 AD.51

Not, it must be noted, a democratic country. Here, I have tried to indicate that Baxter’s vision is profoundly historical and dynamic, and his moral judgments reflect a concern for current exigencies, rather than universal principles. He is not speaking here as a committed Christian, rather as someone for whom the organised Christian churches can be useful allies. It is not Christian morality as such that concerns him, but the fact that Christianity is the religion of Europe, just as white is the colour of its inhabitants. At this stage of his career Baxter was much more optimistic about Australia’s future as an essentially European country, but a European country far removed from the obvious signs of decay in the old world. This is an early example of Baxter’s constituency-building activity, seeking to enrol the Institution of Engineers as an enthusiastic partner in his projects.

Fifteen years further on, as we have seen, the tone has become more despairing. It will be my concern in the rest of this thesis to consider this change in more detail, particularly in the contexts of university administration and atomic energy policy, but for the present I hope I have demonstrated that Mannheim’s 69 characterisation of a conservative style of thought will be at the very least a fruitful starting point.

1 T. Carlyle, op. cit. (note 1, Chapter 1), p. 4. 2 These remarks are taken from Baxter’s keynote address to the Control Electronics, Telecommunications Instruments and Automation conference, Sydney, 16 Feb, 1971. UNSW Archives, CN 1066, Box 6. 3 My thanks to Nigel Smith for drawing my attention to this, and other points in this chapter which required clarification. 4 Williams, R., Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society, revised edition, Fontana, London, 1983. 5 R. Scruton, The meaning of conservatism, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1980, p. 11. 6 K. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, pp. 275-6, as quoted in R.D. Nelson, ‘The Sociology of Styles of Thought’, British Journal of Sociology; 1992, 43, 25-54, at p. 25. 7 Ibid., pp. 26-7. 8 K.H. Wolff (ed), From Karl Mannheim, Oxford University Press, New York, 1971, p. 134. 9 Ibid., p. 134. 10 Ibid., pp. 134-5. 11 Ibid., p. 137. 12 Ibid., p. 143. 13 Ibid., p. 145. 14 Ibid., p. 147. 15 Ibid., p. 161. 16 K. Marx, Capital, Penguin, Harmondsworth, p 142. 17 Mannheim, op. cit. (note 8), p. 149. 18 Ibid., p. 150. 19 Ibid., p. 151. 20 Ibid., p. 149. 21 Ibid., p. 150. 22 D. Miller (ed.), A Pocket Popper, Fontana, London, 1983, p. 367. 23 Nelson, op. cit. (note 6), p. 45. 24 B. Barnes, Interests and the growth of knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1977, p. 45. 25 A. Child, ‘The problem of imputation in the sociology of knowledge’, Ethics, 1940-41, 51, 200-219, at p. 205. See also A. Child, ‘The problem of imputation resolved’, Ethics, 1943-44, 54, 96-109. 26 Ibid., p. 206. 27 Nelson, op. cit. (note 6), p. 40. 28 Ibid., p. 40. 70

29 J. Harwood, ‘The race-intelligence controversy: A sociological approach I — Professional factors’, Social Studies of Science, 1976, 6, 369-94, at pp. 369- 370. See also J. Harwood, ‘The race-intelligence controversy: A sociological approach II — “External” factors’, Social Studies of Science, 1977, 7, 1-30. 30 Ibid., pp. 376-377. 31 Ibid., pp. 381-382. 32 Ibid., p. 382. 33 Ibid., pp. 371-372. 34 Ibid., p. 383. 35 J. Harwood, ‘The race-intelligence controversy: A sociological approach II — “External” factors’, Social Studies of Science, 1977, 7, 1-30, at p. 1. 36 Ibid., p. 8. 37 Harwood, J, Styles of Scientific Thought: The German Genetics Community 1900— 1933, Press, Chicago, 1993, p. 7. 38 Ibid., p. 12. 39 Ibid., p. 11. 40 Mannheim, op. cit. (note 8), p. 101. 41 Nelson, op. cit. (note 6), p. 40. 42 Harwood, op. cit. (note 37), p. 352. 43 D. Smith and M. Nicolson, ‘The “Glasgow School” of Paton, Findlay and Cathcart: Conservative Thought in Chemical Physiology, Nutrition and Public Health, Social Studies of Science, 1989, 19, 195-238, at p. 197. 44 Ibid., p. 197. 45 Ibid., p. 224. 46 Harwood, op. cit. (note 35), p. 1. 47 See note 10. My emphasis. 48 Scruton, op. cit. (note 5), p. 56 (emphasis in original). 49 Ibid., p. 69. 50 ‘The Parable of the Unwise Passengers,’ The Australian, Friday 18/2/77, p. 11. 51 Typescript held by UNSW Archives, CN 1053, Box 16. 72 CHAPTER THREE PHILIP BAXTER’S OTHER ISLAND

I am concerned in this chapter with the significance of Philip Baxter’s move to Australia, and its possible connection with the attitudes embedded in the favoured literature of his childhood. At first sight, it may seem rather odd to concern oneself with such apparently tangential details of the life of a professional engineer and administrator. Surely such matters would be of interest in the case of a writer, so that it would be germane to any account of Patrick White’s life, say, that his favourite book as a young boy was Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, but the fact that Philip Baxter enjoyed Jules Verne hardly seems worth recording in any serious account of his actions.1

On the contrary, I would argue that any such sense of oddity stems from an unfortunate tendency to compartmentalisation, which imposes preconceived criteria on what we take to be significant. Our subject’s eventual career thus imposes itself on our judgments about the relative importance of the vast range of disparate facts we may have accumulated about him or her. Of course, some principles of selectivity are essential to avoid being confronted with a ‘blooming, buzzing confusion,’ but when these principles are invoked uncritically, they may stand in the way of a more finely nuanced account. In the course of my research, the most interesting leads have come from snippets of information which on other criteria may seem to have been the least promising. In this category I place such details as Baxter’s liking for what the French call ‘Robinsonnade’ literature, and his practice of reading examples of it to his children.2 Indeed, the 73 significance of this literature only became more apparent on further investigation. When I read (or, in the case of Johann Wyss’ The Swiss Family Robinson, re-read) the two examples mentioned to me, I was impressed among other things by the importance they attached to engineering skills. Indeed, in both cases these skills were fundamental to survival in a strange environment. The patriarch in Wyss’ book is of course a pastor, but he is also a polymath with a wealth of engineering expertise at his fingertips.

Although this notion of survival in the novels we are concerned with is tied up with a small group of individuals, it is also both explicitly and implicitly linked with broader questions of the nature of imperialism, and the ‘European adventure’ in the southern hemisphere. It is of course possible to see this as a by- product of nineteenth century colonialism, with works of art merely reflecting an imperial reality, but recent work in literary studies, most notably by Edward Said, has cast doubt on this traditional view. I propose therefore to examine Said’s work in some detail, since it provides us with an interesting perspective on the significance of ‘cultural’ products such as literature, music and art, which indicates that such products have a much more profound influence than has been thought hitherto.

Edward Said, in his book Culture and Imperialism, addresses this issue by focussing on what he describes as a ‘serious split in our critical consciousness’. That split entails the drawing of a sharp distinction between the domain of economics and politics which is normally implicated in discussions of Western imperialism, and the domain of national culture which is typically regarded as consisting of ‘unchanging intellectual 74 monuments, free from worldly affiliations.’3 On this view, explanations for the European conquest of Africa, South America, Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific focus on such economic factors as the imperatives of a rising population, an unsatisfied need for raw materials, and a desire for capital accumulation. Thus, whether the analysis be Malthusian or Marxist, the driving force is economic, and the economy imposes its own ‘iron laws’ on processes of development. Marxists used to talk of the economic base and the ideological superstructure, with the latter consisting of a network of values and ideas which only served to justify the relations of dominance and subservience at the base level of economic production. Writers and artists, far from living in stratospheric regions of pure thought and inspiration, were inevitably either reflecting or, if they were more enlightened, reacting against, the prevailing economic orthodoxy. Even in the latter case, though, without a proper international working class perspective a writer could merely achieve a partial victory against the ruling capitalist class, and their work would inevitably reflect the dominance of bourgeois ideas.

For all their radicalism, then, Communists still maintained that the factory floor remained the primary focus of revolutionary change, and were suspicious of those whose commitment seemed purely intellectual. In Said’s work, however, we see an attempt to transcend this dichotomy, by arguing for a more complex relationship between works of art and their settings in a real world. Said clearly accepts the Marxist point that works of art and literature cannot simply be explained by recourse to timeless aesthetic principles, but does not want to preserve the base/superstructure dichotomy underlying the Marxist view. For 75 Said, there is an essential connection between the two, and the ‘background’ of a work like Dickens’ Dombey and Son, say, should not be regarded simply as a context. In his view, a novel by Dickens does not simply take the great metropolitan centre of London as an evocative narrative setting, the important spatial differentiations of which are a ‘passive reflection of an aggressive “age of empire.”’4 Rather, these differentiations are derived, at least in part, from distinctions already established by earlier narratives.

Said uses the musical analogy of counterpoint to illustrate his idea, giving as one example the ‘counterpoint between overt patterns in British writing about Britain and representations of the world beyond the British Isles.’5 It is not simply that cultural products (novels, essays, plays, paintings, poems, operas and so on) follow in the wake of the explorers and colonisers, celebrating their discoveries and showing how colonial administrations fit into the natural order of things. Rather, the spatial differentiations between metropolis and colony which loom so large in nineteenth century fiction, for example, are derived as much from earlier novels as they are from eye-witness accounts of imperial outposts. Said talks of ‘tendencies — whether in narrative, political theory, or pictorial technique — that enabled, encouraged, and otherwise assured the West’s readiness to assume and enjoy the experience of empire.’6 As an example of this process, he embarks on a detailed reading of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, deliberately choosing a novel by this most domestic of writers as perhaps the most stringent test possible of his hypothesis. If Mansfield Park can be shown to exhibit these tendencies, then presumably a fortiori so can works which deal more explicitly with an imperial reality. If New South Wales plays 76 such a significant role in the plot of Dickens’ Great Expectations, for example, then in Said’s view that has as much to do with tendencies already present in Jane Austen’s work, as with any information Dickens may have acquired concerning England’s

Australian colonies. The plot twist here is that the hero, Pip, owes his ‘great expectations’ to a convict, Magwitch, who has grown rich in New South Wales. Dickens finished the novel in 1861, while Mansfield Park dates from 1814.

Mansfield Park, then, is in Said’s terms a ‘pre-imperial’ novel, but one which nevertheless is still implicated in the ‘rationale for imperial expansion.’7 In order to demonstrate this, Said emphasises a feature of the novel not often accorded central importance, namely the fact that the Bertrams, the owners of Mansfield Park, also own land in Antigua. At one level, this works as a convenient plot device — Sir Thomas Bertram’s absence while seeing to his interests in the West Indies provides the space in which moral misjudgments can flourish at home, setting up the conflicts which drive the plot. However, in Said’s view there is a lot more to it than that, and he claims that there is a kind of symbiosis between home and periphery:

The legitimacy of Sir Thomas Bertram’s overseas properties [is] a natural extension of the calm, the order, the beauties of Mansfield Park, one central estate validating the economically supportive role of the peripheral other.8

Here is another example of the counterpoint between metropolis and colony that looms so large in Said’s analysis. It is one of the roles of fiction to dramatise the appropriate differentiation and ordering of spaces, a process which leads in Said’s terminology to the construction of ‘structures of attitude and reference.’ These structures enable us to link the ‘geographical context of [the] 77 struggles for (and over) empires,’ to a ‘distinctive cultural topography’ that evades any ascription of cause and effect.9 One is not prior to the other, a point which Said attempts to make more intelligible, as we have seen, by evoking the metaphor of musical counterpoint.

So, to recapitulate, Said is concerned with the connections between metropolis and periphery, and many of the moral dilemmas which so occupy Fanny in the early sections of Mansfield Park only become crucial because Sir Thomas Bertram is overseas, seeking to improve the fortunes of his property in Antigua. Said’s point is that Bertram’s role in Britain’s imperial enterprise provides as it were a counterpoint to the theme of his need to re-assert authority at home:

More clearly than anywhere else in her fiction, Austen here synchronizes domestic with international authority, making it plain that the values associated with such higher things as ordination, law, and propriety must be grounded firmly in actual rule over and possession of territory.10

There is an interesting parallel here with Carlyle’s essay on the ‘Nigger Question’. In that essay, Carlyle argues that if the abundance of produce in the West Indies takes away any incentive for the ‘Quashee’ labourers to work on the British-owned sugar plantations, then it is a positive duty to force them to. This is not to say, however, that there is any temporally determined causal link between culture and imperialism. In fact, Said urges that we abandon simple notions of causality and their reliance on establishing temporal sequences, in favour of a critical programme aimed at discerning the ‘counterpoint between overt patterns in British writing about Britain and representations of the world beyond the British Isles.’11 Further, the ‘inherent 78 mode for this counterpoint is not temporal but spatial’ — in other words, there is no attempt here to argue a clear causal link between Austen’s novels, say, and the more or less explicit programmes of colonial expansion that characterised 19th century Britain.

However, neither can culture be let entirely off the hook. Although, as Said puts it, ‘cultural forms like the novel or the opera do not cause people to go out and imperialize,... it is genuinely troubling to see how little Britain’s great humanistic ideas, institutions, and monuments... stand in the way of the accelerating imperial process.’12 Literary criticism will miss the point, then, if it fails to account for the ways in which writers like Jane Austen portray complex geographical distinctions. An important point here is that only certain individuals can assume the authority bestowed by the ownership of land. In Sir Thomas’ absence, there is a moral drift which is only arrested on his return, but his decisive resumption of power bears no signs of gratuitous despotism. A man of few words, he quickly reinstates himself ‘in all the wonted concerns of his Mansfield life,’ and by the time he has ‘resumed his seat as master of the house at dinner,’ has taken decisive steps to eliminate all traces of recent frivolity. According to Said,

[m]ore clearly than anywhere else in her fiction, Austen here synchronizes domestic with international authority, making it plain that the values associated with such higher things as ordination, law and propriety must be grounded firmly in actual rule over and possession of territory.13

This is not the place to embark on a full explication of Said’s reading of Mansfield Park.14 However, we have derived enough from his work to enable a richer understanding of the more explicitly imperialistic literature of the later 19th century, and its 79 possible impact on Philip Baxter. It is important to reiterate, though, that the approach here involves an explicit rejection of causality based on a simple temporal sequence. Just as Said rejects the notion ‘that Wordsworth, Austen, or Coleridge, because they wrote before 1857, actually caused the establishment of formal British governmental rule over India after

1857,’ so I would also stress that Baxter’s reading of Verne and Wyss in his childhood in no way actually caused him to move to Australia in 1949. Rather, I am claiming that one can detect a pattern between the characterisation of the adventurers in these books and their spirit of colonial adventure, and the way in which Baxter approached his various activities in Australia.

In Said’s view, an important aspect of ‘the great age of explicit, programmatic colonial expansion’ was the way in which earlier writers, such as Jane Austen, had situated their work in a larger world beyond the British Isles.15 In the process, they played a part in validating Britain’s imperial role, by tying it to the propagation abroad of certain core values and ideals. The strong sense of mission, of shouldering the ‘white man’s burden’ which colours British perceptions of its colonial role, thus cannot be dismissed as mere self-serving propaganda. Recall that in the previous chapter, we referred to Baxter’s speech in 1957 to the Institution of Engineers in Perth, a speech in which he tried to enlist the Institution for a Crusade, ‘the success of which will be measured by whether Australia is still a white and Christian country in the year 2000 AD.’ Here is neatly captured that strong sense of mission, still flavouring the way in which Baxter expressed himself, testifying to the strong hold of the attitudes of his childhood reading. 80 Turning now to a detailed consideration of the novels that so impressed Baxter, we have already noted that they both emphasise engineering as being crucial for survival. Before I proceed, though, a note of caution is in order. I am far from claiming that Baxter’s attitudes to engineering and development were derived solely, or even largely, from these books. In Chapter Six I address this issue more systematically, and show that similar attitudes to Baxter’s were expressed by professional peers who, for all I know, never read a page of Verne or Wyss. My aim in this thesis, however, was not to conduct a full-scale sociological study of engineers, since my interest was primarily biographical. The point is that although Baxter’s world-view was no doubt an amalgam of attitudes and values derived from a wide variety of sources — parents, friends, professional associates, teachers, books — the fact that his daughter mentioned the two novels with which I am concerned here surely means that they had some significance for him.

As far as The Swiss Family Robinson is concerned, most readers will have come across the story in some shape or form, and will be aware of how it takes the basic plot device of Defoe’s famous story (sailor shipwrecked on island), and rewrites it with a collective protagonist, namely a bourgeois patriarchal family.

There the similarity ends, since the later book is very much a myth of conquest or subjugation, given historical specificity by its implicit invoking of 19th century colonialism.16

An important feature of that myth is the power of western reason. The narrative is hardly underway before we are given a demonstration of that power, in a re-enactment of the story of how Archimedes moved a fully loaded ship. Having constructed a 81 boat, the shipwrecked family discovers that ‘the machine we had contrived was so heavy, that, with the strength of all united, we were not able to move it an inch from its place.’ However, with the aid of a crowbar, the father ‘easily’ raises the front of the boat, while his son Fritz places a roller under it. I will let the father, and narrator, take up the story in his own words:

‘How astounding,’ cried Ernest, ‘that this engine, which is smaller than any of us, can do more than our united strength was able to effect! I wish I could know how it is constructed.’

I explained to him as well as I could the power of Archimedes’ lever, with which he said he could move the world, if you would give him a point from which his mechanism might act, and promised to explain the nature of the operation of the crow when we should be safe on land.17

What the family is embarking on is a process of colonisation, and it is clear at the outset that their most valuable resource is their reason. At a fairly obvious level, accounts like this serve a didactic function, and it is noteworthy that immediately following the episode with the crowbar, the wise father uses it to illustrate his consciously adopted pedagogic procedure:

One of the points of my system of education for my sons was to awaken their curiosity by interesting observations, to leave time for the activity of the imagination, and then to correct any error they might fall into.18

The wise father as polymath and patriarch assumes here an unchallenged sovereignty, becoming, almost literally, a lord of his own creation.

One thing that immediately strikes the reader is the abruptness of the story’s beginning, a feature it shares with the Verne story. The members of the family have no biography, as it were — their presence on the ship has nothing to do with the 82 working out of any personal conflicts, and nor is the story concerned with their personal development (the comparison with Defoe is quite telling here). If they learn anything at all, it is about the more efficient use of technology, and we leave them at the end of the story essentially as we discovered them at the beginning. This, however, only makes the characters more suitable as bearers of the myth of the white man’s burden. The Robinson family, the details of their personal history almost entirely absent from the account, can thereby stand as mythic archetypes of European colonisers.

Another noteworthy feature of the story is the vast array of animal and plant life living (incredibly, from our point of view) on the one island. We meet kangaroos, buffalo, a giant boa constrictor that can swallow a donkey whole, rubber trees, sugar cane, coconuts — the list goes on. However, it is important to resist the temptation to scoff at this — the fact that Johann Wyss got his notions of ecology and geographic dispersion ‘wrong’ is really the least remarkable thing about the book. Indeed, this inclusivity is an important component of the colonial myth. Nothing is left out of the European purview — the metropolitan culture’s conquest of the world is made to seem a natural outcome of an inherent superiority. Indeed, the metropolitan culture is not merely conquering the world, but actually creating it. The mythology of colonialism demands a desolate island — desolate not because there is nothing there, but because, in a mythic sense, the island has yet to be created. To set out the process by which a desolate island is turned into a kingdom — Terra Nullius transformed into Terra Repletus — is a function of such stories that transcends their more obvious didactic and entertainment functions. 83 Part and parcel of this process is the draining of semantic significance — the island is also desolate insofar as it is devoid of meaning, an empty signifier awaiting the bestowal of its mythic signified by the European settlers. Hence the elaborate naming rituals, as the Robinson family gathers to bestow titles such as Felsenheim, Cape Disappointment and so on, the landscape appropriated to a European story, a European myth. However, the subjugation goes much deeper than mere naming — everywhere we turn, the patriarchal figure at the head of the clan divines uses for the various natural productions encountered on the way. An industrial revolution in miniature, naturalised by being placed on an island, but nevertheless involving the destruction of ‘the primitive.’

Among the more macabre incidents in this process is the killing of the iguana, which allows itself to be stabbed while entranced by the whistling of the father:

Continuing to whistle my most affecting melodies, I seized a favourable moment to plunge my switch into one of his nostrils. The blood flowed in abundance, and soon deprived him of life, without his exhibiting the least appearance of pain; on the contrary, to the last moment, he seemed to be still listening to the music.19

Here in this brief scene the ‘primitive’ meets its end, almost willing its own death at the hands of the ‘civilisers’. This little episode encapsulates for us the very distinction, with music for the primitive portrayed as a pre-rational phenomenon, producing merely a visceral pleasure. It is not that music only exists in Europe — rather, it is that in Europe music has become a science, with expressive devices related to a mathematical understanding of key relationships. 84 So, if at the beginning the island is unknown, by the end of the book it has taken its place as a feature on the landscape of conquest. So much so, indeed, that it can be described, albeit with jocular intent, as ‘an organised colony, and maritime power,’ half of which can be bestowed on a new arrival, the ‘distinguished machinist’ Mr Wolston. As the narrator puts it, ‘I immediately assured [Wolston] that I would willingly share with him the half of my patriarchal empire.’20 That empire, we come to realise, is a microcosm of European society, with all the appurtenances of civilisation, yet a European society somehow made anew in an exotic location. It is a strange sort of newness, though, set against the timelessness of an enduring landscape, housing a stable flora and fauna. It’s an ideal context for the renaissance of European techniques and values, borne to the new/old by settlers who have become archetypes, peripheral to the flow of history, untrammelled by memory and the excrescences of time. Underlying the apparently artless tale of adventure is a sense of the transcending of old ties, and the opportunity for showing the old world what might be possible given a clean slate.

Dropped from the Clouds, the Verne story with which we are concerned, is also rich in such suggestions.21 One noticeable difference with the Wyss story, however, is its thorough-going secular character. The small band of aeronauts whose balloon ‘drops from the clouds’ into the sea at the beginning of the book contains no traditional spiritual mentor, and significantly from our point of view looks to the engineer among it as the unquestioned leader. As we are told at one point, ‘[t]he engineer was to them a microcosm, a compound of every science, a possessor of all human knowledge.’22 Further, allied to this knowledge are certain 85 well-defined characteristics, as set out in the following brief description of the engineer Cyrus Harding:

A man of action as well as a man of thought, all he did was without effort to one of his vigorous and sanguine temperament. Learned, clear-headed, and practical, he fulfilled in all emergencies those three conditions which united ought to insure human success, — activity of mind and body, impetuous wishes, and powerful will. He might have taken for his motto that of William of Orange in the 17th century: ‘I can undertake and persevere even without hope of success.’23

The members of this small band, then, have nothing to rely on but the skill and perseverance of their leader, a situation made even more extreme by the circumstances of their reaching the island. They are literally without resource, since they do not have the benefit of a wrecked ship loaded with provisions. Verne even stresses this point, explicitly contrasting his story with previous survival narratives. ‘The imaginary heroes of Daniel De Foe or of Wyss, as well as Selkirk and Raynal shipwrecked on Juan Fernandez and on the archipelago of the Aucklands,’ we are told, ‘were never in such absolute destitution.’24 Alexander Selkirk (1676-1721) was the sailor who served as the model for Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Verne’s juxtaposition of the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary’ at this point enhances the credibility of his narrative by emphasising the points of contact with historically attested ‘facts.’

One might be tempted to remark that no readers would be taken in by this conceit: surely we know that the engineer Cyrus Harding and his doughty band are just as much creatures of the literary imagination as Crusoe and the Swiss Family Robinson. Yet, it is surely highly flattering to the reader to be taken into the author’s confidence in this way. Here, we are being told the basic premise of the story, as though the author is freely admitting us to his workshop/laboratory, where we can see that all his elaborate 86 plot contrivances are akin to the careful preparation of reagents prior to conducting a chemical experiment. In effect, Verne is telling his readers that the literary experiments of Defoe and Wyss, although based on actual events, only revealed part of the truth about human ingenuity, since they compromised on their initial conditions. Much of Verne’s book is taken up with inspiring stories about the efficacy of applied scientific knowledge, but the literary artifice we have been discussing makes it a far more potent bearer of that message than it otherwise might have been. Having been apparently taken into the author’s confidence, the reader is flattered with possessing the author’s omniscience, and having just as great an interest in the outcome of the experiment. The literary devices here parallel the scientific method that the novel extols, since its very structure reiterates that of a controlled experiment, in which extraneous factors are methodically eliminated.

Another important feature of Verne’s story is the relationship between the survivors and their country of origin. They all come from the United States, and are escaping from the town of Richmond, Virginia, where they are being held by Confederate forces. Verne thus locates the story with exactness at a point during the American Civil War, which is explicitly identified as a watershed in the evolution of human affairs. In the elaborate naming rituals that follow the castaways’ ascent of the island’s highest peak, the engineer Cyrus Harding modestly declines the honour of having his name bestowed on the island: ‘Let us give it the name of a great citizen, my friends; of him who now struggles to defend the unity of the American Republic! Let us call it Lincoln Island!’25 The symbolic value of this gesture is to associate the 87 island with political struggles in the northern hemisphere, giving the daily round of activity of Harding and his compatriots a significance beyond mere individual survival.

Thus, two themes come together in stories such as Verne’s. First, there is the crucial role of technical competence for even mere survival, and second, there is its powerful mastering impulse. It is not enough merely to establish a beachhead, to live frugally, sparely, without leaving a trace on the landscape. The westerner must produce the landscape anew, symbolically by acts of naming, practically by creating boundaries and defining spaces. As we have seen, the explicit acts of naming in Dropped From the Clouds are tied to the experience of the American Civil

War, the eventual outcome of which is presented as a triumph of enlightenment. They also follow the successful scaling of the island’s central peak, from which the castaways can look down on a landscape

...displayed under their eyes, like a plan in relief with different tints, green for the forests, yellow for the sand, blue for the water. They viewed it in its toute-ensemble, nothing remained concealed but the ground hidden by verdure, the hollows of the valleys, and the interior of the volcanic chasms.26

With just one ascent, all mystery is dispelled — the castaways now know they are on an island, which conveniently displays itself as a map, with sharp divisions between different topographical features (and economic zones). Exploration here has a beginning and an end — it is said to be ‘finished,’ and all that is left to do is to ‘descend the mountain slopes again, and explore the soil, in the triple point of view, of its mineral, vegetable, and animal resources.’27 In a typical burst of enthusiasm, the sailor Pencroft urges his companions to ‘make a 88 little America’ of the island, and to consider themselves not as castaways, but as ‘colonists, who have come here to settle.’28.

It is up to the Americans to fill the space of the island, to bestow significance on its topography by mapping and naming it. The island becomes incorporated into a scientific discourse, its life constrained by categorisation into the tripartite division of ‘animal, vegetable or mineral,’ prior to which it represented an undifferentiated mass. Naming is a crucial part of this process, particularly its ceremonial aspects. At first, the motive for naming is strictly utilitarian — it is rational to give prominent features names, to enable the quick transmission of information and directions. Why, then the need for debate? It is all part of the mythology. The honouring of Washington, Grant and the Union cause in the naming of the more significant landmarks incorporates the island into a particular version of Western history. It is not simply nostalgia that makes the reporter Gideon Spilett say: ‘“I should prefer borrowing names from our country....which would remind us of America.”’29 Rather, by invoking the Union cause the castaways are explicitly testifying to their confidence in the leadership of the ‘great citizen’ who is fighting for the preservation of the American republic. The island can now figure in a list of possessions or assets, and as such the beginning of its existence dated precisely. Thus Verne concludes this chapter by explicitly linking the naming of Lincoln Island with events in the United States:

Now this happened [on] the 30th of March, 1865....[S]ixteen days afterwards a frightful crime would be committed in Washington, and...on Good Friday Abraham Lincoln would fall by the hand of a fanatic.30 89 The island is inextricably linked with the conflicts of the northern hemisphere, but thousands of miles away from the ‘frightful crimes’ of a country rent by civil war, a new outpost of civilisation is to be fashioned as a showpiece of the enlightened spirit of untrammelled enterprise.

Typically, that spirit of enterprise manifests itself in the novel as decisive action, rather than divisive debate. The other members of the band have their special skills and appointed roles, but all defer to the engineer, the only one with the knowledge and experience to determine what may be possible. Even if they do not see how the engineer’s schemes are to be accomplished, their confidence remains undiminished. In any case, opposition would most likely be futile, since, we are told, the engineer ‘was not a man who would allow himself to be diverted from his fixed idea.’31 Perhaps the best example of this optimism occurs when Cyrus Harding decides to manufacture nitro- glycerine for a major excavation project. The aim is to open a new outlet for a subterranean stream, thus draining a cavern and allowing human access to it. If this means shifting a mass of granite, then, says Harding, I will blow it up.32 The reaction of the sailor, Pencroft, is interesting: ‘To employ great means, open the granite, create a cascade, that suited the sailor. And he would just as soon be a chemist as a mason or boot-maker, since the engineer wanted chemicals.’33 Here we have a succinct expression of the romance of engineering — the idea of ‘employing great means,’ even if the steps involved are time- consuming and involved, as is clear from Verne’s painstaking account, makes the project attractive to the layperson, at the same time as it prevents any serious questioning 90 of it. Those who know how, the story affirms, are best able to determine what and why.

The episode with the nitro-glycerine, however, stands at the end of a long line of triumphs, all tending inexorably to this apotheosis of the engineer’s skill. Very early in the piece, the sailor Pencroft tries ineffectively to make fire in the same way as the ‘savages’, by rubbing sticks together. His failure to do so is a sign that such recourse to primitive methods is culturally inappropriate. White men do not have the ‘knack,’ and although Pencroft is enjoined not to despise the native practice, it is made very clear that emulation of it in this case will not succeed. There is a definite order of technological advance, and the artefacts that Harding uses must at least bear some traces of civilisation. So, he takes the glasses of two watch faces, and contrives to stick them together to make a lens, so that he can focus the sun’s rays. Simple, elegant, but above all, improvisatory. The engineer is aware of first principles, certainly (in the present case, the theory of lenses), but his main attribute is the ability to make do with materials not specifically designed for the purpose.34

This, however, is just the beginning of the story of the technological development of the island. As we have seen, surveying and mapping is an important part of this process, and it is followed by identification and accumulation of resources. At one point, the engineer tells his little band, pointing to various minerals he has collected: ‘“My friends, this is iron mineral, this a pyrite, this is clay, this is lime, and this is coal. Nature gives us these things. It is our business to make a right use of them.”’35 So, they proceed, under instruction, to make bricks and clay utensils. 91 The ages of technological development familiar to all of us from high school history classes are here condensed in a hasty recapitulation, as it were, since by page 117 we are told that if ‘[t]ill then the engineer’s companions had been brickmakers and potters, now they were to become metallurgists.’ The castaways are able both to make history (or, perhaps, recapitulate it) and record it almost simultaneously: ‘On the morning of the 20th of April began the “metallic period,” as the reporter called it in his notes’.36

Another significant point here is the invoking of a moral imperative in the injunction to make a ‘right use’ of resources, a duty imposed by the bountiful Nature that gave them to us. Engineering, then, in its broadest sense, needs no external justification, since the power over nature that it promises us is the best way of carrying out that duty. On an island far removed from civil strife, we have the best chance of escaping the political quagmire that stands in the way of a realisation of this truth. This is one meaning of the escape from captivity of Cyrus Harding and his friends, an escape which frees them from the interference of party and faction. Ultimately, might and right become one, a view which Carlyle, contemplating the Chartist agitation in England, expressed as follows:

How can-do, if we will well interpret it, unites itself with shall- do among mortals; how strength acts ever as the right arm of justice; how might and right, so frightfully discrepant at first, are ever in the long-run one and the same, — is a cheering consideration, which always, in the black tempestuous vortices of this world’s history, will shine out on us, like an everlasting polar star.37

It is this moral dimension that we see reflected in Baxter’s attitudes to technological development, which provides not only a 92 path towards unlimited power, but also underpins a realisation of the just society. The two go hand in hand, but in Baxter’s case it is as if their proper development depends on a move to a new world, away from the convoluted politics and social structure of the old. It is in this light that Baxter’s antipathy towards England can be understood, not as simply a reaction to thwarted hopes, but as a realisation, however inchoate, of a sense of higher purpose. Of course, there is no direct evidence, in the form of self-conscious reflection, for this claim, but I hope to show that it is at least plausible, and makes sense of a career move that might strike one on face value as rather improbable.

Something of Baxter’s feelings for his native country can be gleaned from remarks he made during his appearance on Monday Conference in 1972. Monday Conference was a weekly current affairs programme on the ABC, hosted by Robert Moore, with one or more invited guests taking questions from a panel of experts and a studio audience. Each programme was devoted to a particular issue of current importance. The panel on this occasion comprised Dr. Peter Pockley, at that time the director of ABC Science Programmes, and Elizabeth Riddell, a feature writer for the national daily newspaper The Australian.

Baxter told the Monday Conference audience that although in England he ‘was very much interested in politics and political things’ and held a senior position in ICI, on only one occasion was he able to talk to a government minister.38 In Australia, on the other hand, he had enjoyed the opportunity for long discussions with Menzies, Gorton, and the various ministers responsible for the Atomic Energy Commission. In other words, he had the ear of the government, even though he typically 93 backed away from any suggestion that he in fact was responsible for government policy. One possible explanation for Baxter’s move to Australia, then, would stress the disappointment he felt at his exclusion from the real councils of power in England. The system was against him, for all his good work on behalf of the local Conservative Party and his senior position with ICI. However, this sort of explanation owes too much to a causal account of a person’s actions. We are accustomed to framing explanations in terms of cause and effect, a practice which paradoxically leads in the long run to a great weakening of explanatory power. How does this happen? First, if Hume is correct that our notion of cause is built on nothing more than the constant conjunction of two events or states, then we are bound to be disappointed when it comes to explaining human actions. These are by their very nature unique — the antecedents of any of my actions will be different from those of any other person, for all that researchers may be able to identify common characteristics.

If one asks why Philip Baxter moved his family to Australia in 1950, we need to be aware that such a question can be answered on various levels, not one of which should be assumed to have superior explanatory efficacy. Part of that answer, I would maintain, is captured by the concept of the island and its conquest underpinning Baxter’s childhood reading. The appeal of Australia thus had more to do with associations stretching back to early childhood. For a person like Baxter, convinced of the great significance of the abilities conferred on him by his specialised training and subsequent wartime experience, the task of fitting back into ‘the old scheme of things’ at ICI after the war perhaps 94 would have seemed like a step backwards. The appeal of Australia, at that time still a ‘dominion’, lay primarily in its isolation and strangeness, as a country free of the scars of European conflict.

According to his own account, as stated in an interview he gave in 1982, Baxter had already incorporated Australia into his broader vision of a new world after the war, but had been disgusted by what he saw as Churchill’s callous indifference to the future of his own people. British working men would be needed to fight the Russians, he was told, and could not be spared for any scheme to establish textile industries in Australia.39. Baxter also stated during this interview that he was ‘attracted by the idea of a new country.’ Australia, then, may very well have been that ‘new country’, or island, which would provide him with the setting in which all his skills as an engineer could be brought into play. It is here that we begin to see how a writer like Verne may have provided Baxter with the raw material for the construction of myth.

Naturally, it would be foolish to assert any direct link between this literature and Baxter’s later actions. After all, plenty of boys might be enthralled, as I was, by the exploits of James Bigglesworth, without ever entertaining any real desire to become aviators. Rather, I am supposing that in constructing a life or a persona, we make use of the most deeply ingrained symbols and associations, in a manner suggested by Lévi-Strauss’ characterisation of the bricoleur, given to the re-assembly of already existing cultural materials. Or, acting on the hint provided by Said, we can characterise our task as that of charting a ‘cultural topography,’ centred on significant landmarks such as, in 95 this case, novels by Jules Verne or Johann Wyss. The metaphor is no longer temporal, but spatial, and with this move away from temporality the concept of cause is drastically attenuated. We are mapping a terrain, rather than drawing a line through time, and this terrain cannot be neatly dichotomised into the factual and the imaginary.

I have already referred to the combination of theoretical knowledge and improvisatory flair in Verne’s engineer hero, and it is worth noting that Baxter was proud of his ability to improvise, and was less concerned with how a thing looked, than with how it functioned.40 Everywhere, the injunction to make a ‘right use’ of the available materials provides an underlying moral imperative, which colours Baxter’s practice as well as his considered programmatic statements. Take for example the paper he presented to a symposium on atomic power held at UNSW in November, 1963. Despite its rather bland title (‘Ten Years of Nuclear Progress: A Survey’) the paper contains a series of the sorts of futuristic visions made familiar to us in the works of Verne and others. Here is an example, a prophecy of an automated fleet of nuclear propelled submarine cargo vessels:

...[I]n the future the world’s merchant marine may go underwater. With nuclear power this should present few problems, and the reduced energy consumption for a given speed, and the independence of storms and rough weather when navigating at depth must surely bring this about. Freed from the complications of rough weather, automatic control and navigation should not be difficult, and it would then be possible to dispense with a human crew.41

In the case of Baxter and his futuristic visions, it is the ‘structures of attitude and reference’ of works such as Verne’s that make them possible, and add to their plausibility. It is not 96 simply a case of cultural productions reflecting a material reality. The assurance with which Baxter outlines his grand projects is not based on a sober assessment of engineering possibilities — rather, it is implicit in, and gains its strength from, long familiarity with a certain style of narrative. As an engineer, he has helped to bring order to the world — his role is vindicated by the success of efforts to separate isotopes of uranium, or develop new insecticides (to name just two of the activities with which Baxter was associated). We are used to the idea that an engineer is able to fix things.

This is certainly the dominant theme in the reaction of the popular press to Philip Baxter’s arrival in Sydney. To one well acquainted with his subsequent career, it is surprising that the Daily Telegraph, for example, focused not on the possibilities of nuclear energy, but on new technology based on the metal titanium.42 Here we have the image of the researcher, sleeves rolled up, having emerged from the backroom of classified military and proprietary research, to inaugurate the new epoch, the ‘Titanium Age.’ But why this emphasis on titanium? Further research into ICI’s commercial activities at the time indicates that it had as much to do with a determination not to let the fruits of previous work go to waste, as it did with any inherent logic of development. Titanium was uppermost in Baxter’s thoughts because he had recently, at the behest of his employer ICI, been investigating its commercial potential.

Baxter’s original involvement with titanium research had to do with ICI’s need to decide whether it ought to pay the Foote Mineral Co of Philadelphia $5,000 for Foote’s ‘know-how’ on the extraction

98 of titanium from its ores. From 24 March to 11 May, 1949, Baxter led a delegation to America to study this question, and although the language of the delegation’s final report is determinedly polite, it is clear that its members felt that the Americans were out to make a ‘quick buck’:

...the Foote information was much less advanced and unique than had been represented. Foote are a small organisation, and are thought to be heavily in debt. They seemed on the one hand over anxious to sell their information while it still had some value, but on the other hand they were not successful in covering up its limited extent.43

ICI, in short, were not to be fooled. The particular process being pushed by Foote was based on the decomposition of titanium iodide vapour, and although Baxter and his colleagues recommended the construction of pilot plants to test this and other processes, they pointed out that the Americans had so far not devised any method for producing the metal in the form of ingots. The various methods employed up to that time were not suitable for large scale working, and the relatively simple expedient of melting in carbon crucibles led to undesirable carbon contamination. With its high melting point (1,725 deg. C) and great reactivity, titanium had to be handled in a very good vacuum or in an environment of high purity argon or (hence Baxter’s interest in the industrial applications of such processes reflected in his comments to journalist). The point is that the tone of the discussion in the Telegraph and elsewhere suggested that there is a simple temporal sequence from knowledge to application. The only relevant constraints are those which might stem from a lack of suitably qualified and trained people to deal with the problems. This can be handled by appropriate education policies, and there is no sense of the 99 difficulties associated with trying to establish a dichotomy between technological development as such, or in its essence, and what we are often tempted to describe as its social or political context.

Interestingly, the report on titanium prepared by Baxter and his team does reveal to us the presence of some of these difficulties. Faced with explaining the size of a research effort (said to be of the order of $US5-10 million annually), which could not be justified on the likelihood of a commercially viable process, Baxter’s team ascribed the enthusiasm of the American research effort to ‘that country’s preoccupation with defence matters...It seems clear that military uses will predominate for some time and that price will not be the only factor which will decide the uses of titanium.’44 Note here the presence of different levels of rationality. At a fairly basic level is ‘price’, by which is meant the outcome of the normally operating mechanisms of a capitalist market economy. The message being conveyed here is that the research effort on titanium cannot be explained on this level, and one must have recourse to a distorting factor, namely the presence of military priorities. Thus, it is the need for defence capacity which transcends the normally conclusive arguments based on economic viability. It is by such a mechanism that seemingly contradictory statements about the viability of future technology can be reconciled. At a basic level of explanation we have what amounts to a technological determinism — the thing will be built, the only limit being the greater or lesser amount of research effort we can devote to it. Or, as H.G. Wells put it in his vision of the future, The World Set Free, ‘[t]here is a kind of inevitable logic now in the progress of research.’45 We are to 100 suppose a base level of technological progress, a ‘real’ course of development that we never actually observe (just as we never observe any object moving in the way prescribed by Newton’s First Law), deflected by other imperatives (or, to sustain our analogy with Newtonian mechanics, acted on by impressed forces). Thus the old question, should we make guns or butter? The implication in this innocent sounding question is that it is immaterial to the success of technological development which direction we choose — the capacity to do either is assumed, and has no inherent moral significance, beyond the sort of puritanical utterances we have already observed in the writings of Verne, where the engineer urges us to make a ‘right use’ of materials.

Thus, the titanium story provides us with an example of a characteristic pattern of thought, involving the ability to juggle what seem to be contradictory points of view. The first is that of the hard-headed realist, properly scornful of the exaggerated claims of the Americans, and fully aware of the substantial technical obstacles that stand in the way of the realisation of the ‘Titanium Age.’ The second is that of the visionary who boldly prophesies a wholesale revolution in industrial processes, and the end of centuries of reliance on the steel industry. As George Eliot remarked, ‘it is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view’46, so there is no need to be surprised at this. Of interest here is the fact that Baxter’s more optimistic pronouncements are associated with the move to Australia, and the strong sense of a ‘fresh start’ that we get from the images in the Telegraph article of the impatient researcher eager to get started on developing the ‘almost everlasting’ trains and buildings of the future. This is the significance of the ‘other island’ of my 101 title, the context in which the engineer can assume his rightful role of leadership. To use Said’s term, it is the ‘structures of attitude and reference’ of stories like Verne’s that underpin Baxter’s actions here, authorising a space for the realisation of his ambitions. Always there is the sense of building on hard-won knowledge, and fashioning things anew in a new world.

1 White volunteered this information during an interview replayed some years ago on ABC Radio National. I have remembered this detail, but not the date or the circumstances of the interview. 2 See note 57, Chapter One. The books concerned were The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann Wyss, and Dropped From the Clouds, by Jules Verne. 3 E.W. Said, Culture and imperialism, Chatto and Windus, London, 1993, p. 12. 4 Ibid., p. 13. 5 Ibid., p. 97. 6 Ibid., p. 96. 7 Ibid., p. 100. 8 Ibid., p. 94. 9 Ibid., p. 61. 10 Ibid., p. 104. 11 Ibid., p. 97. 12 Ibid., p. 97. 13 Ibid., p. 104. 14 See pp. 95-116 of Said’s book. 15 Ibid., p. 97. 16 This discussion of The Swiss Family Robinson first appeared in an essay called ‘Discourses of subjugation.’ See Inklings: a journal of words and images, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1995, pp. 4-6. My thanks to the Inklings Collective for permission to use this material here. 17 J. Wyss, The Swiss Family Robinson, Oxford University Press, London, 1949, p. 16. 18 Ibid., p. 16. 19 Ibid., p. 154. 20 Ibid., p. 424. 21 J. Verne, Dropped from the clouds, Sampson, Low, Marston and Co., London, n.d. The novel forms part 1 of the book known in English as The Mysterious Island, first published in France in 1874 with the title L’Ile mystérieuse. See A. Evans, Jules Verne Rediscovered: Didacticism and the Scientific Novel, Greenwood Press, New York, 1988, p. 166. 22 Ibid., p. 65. 23 Ibid., p. 13. 24 Ibid., p. 41. 25 Ibid., p. 92. 102

26 Ibid., p. 87. 27 Ibid., p. 88. 28 Ibid., p. 89. 29 Ibid., p. 90. 30 Ibid., p. 92. 31 Ibid., p. 75. 32 Ibid., p. 137. 33 Ibid., p. 137. 34 Ibid., p. 74. 35 Ibid., p. 100. 36 Ibid., p. 120. 37 T. Carlyle, Critical and miscellaneous essays, Vol. V, Chapman and Hall, London, 1839, pp. 358-9. 38 Transcript of Monday Conference, 24 April, 1972. UNSW Archive, CN 1053, Box 50, p. 17. 39 J.P. Baxter, interview with Laurie Dillon, 5 February, 1982. Tape and transcript held at UNSW Archive. 40 Denis Baxter, personal communication. 41 J.P. Baxter, ‘Ten Years of Nuclear Progress: A Survey,’ presented at symposium on atomic power, UNSW, 7 November, 1963. Typescript held by UNSW Archives, CN 1066, Box 5. 42 T. Birrell, ‘Man in search of the Titanium Age,’ Daily Telegraph, January 21, 1950, p. 25. 43 J.P. Baxter, Titanium — Extraction, Fabrication and Metallurgy — Report on visit to USA by J.P. Baxter, Maurice Cook, R. Chadwick, E. Stables. UNSW Archives, CN 1066, Box 5, p. 31. 44 Ibid., p. 7. 45 H.G. Wells, The World Set Free, Ernest Benn Ltd, London, 1927, p. 193. 46 G. Eliot, Middlemarch, Penguin, London, 1985, p 91 (first published 1871-2). The quotation comes from the end of Chapter 7. 103 CHAPTER FOUR BAXTER AND THE ATOM

To tell the full story of Philip Baxter’s involvement with atomic weapons research, and his subsequent role in the formation of Australian nuclear energy policy, is a task well beyond the scope of this thesis. It is worth pointing out, too, that this chapter is explicitly not intended as an exhaustive history of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission up to the time of Baxter’s resignation as Chairman. Given the 30 year rule on release of Cabinet papers, that would have to wait until 2003 at least, and in any case my concern here is with what Baxter’s activities in the Commission tell us about his style as a policy maker. It is his relationships with colleagues, politicians and bureaucrats that are of interest here, as much as the actual decisions he helped to make.

As we saw in the previous chapter, Philip Baxter’s arrival in Australia, the ‘other island’ of his hopes for the future, created something of a stir, with journalists eager to claim his decision to migrate as somewhat of a coup for this far-flung outpost of empire. In the Daily Telegraph of 21 January, 1950, journalist Tony Birrell told us that ‘[w]hen John Philip Baxter walked down the gangway of Orcades in Sydney...he was stepping, in effect, from back room to front room.’ Australia presented him with the chance to escape from both the ‘hush-hush work on chemicals for warfare,’ and the ‘toil in top-secret atom plants.’ Now, he would be able to devote ‘a decade or so to clear up some of the problems which [had] been gnawing at his brilliant, well-disciplined mind.’1 By drawing this distinction between the confining world of military research in England, and the seemingly illimitable opportunities afforded by 104 conditions in Australia, the writer played neatly on the well-worn trope of the hidebound, class-ridden old country, as opposed to the bracing sense of freedom in the new. Note the use of the word ‘toil,’ for example, in connection with Baxter’s previous work on atomic energy — whatever allowance we might wish to make for the powers of invention of the journalist, this perception of the work as wearisome drudgery must at least in part have come from Baxter himself, and perhaps reflected his dissatisfaction with how the work was being organised.

It is ironic, then, that despite all the protestations in the Telegraph article about wishing to wash his hands of research directed by others, and create a niche for himself in academia from which he could help to usher in the new titanium age, it did not take very long for Baxter to become involved yet again in the ‘hush- hush’ world of atomic energy. According to Baxter, while the Orcades was still docked in Adelaide before continuing its stately progress towards Sydney, he had

...received a telegram...[which] said: ‘I am setting up a committee to study the Australian requirements of nuclear energy, would like you to be a member of it,’ signed Menzies, who I had never heard of.2

Now, it is highly unlikely that Baxter had ‘never heard of’ Menzies. In 1941, Menzies spent four months in England, during which time he visited cities such as Sheffield, Manchester and Bristol and spoke at various public and private gatherings in London.3

Menzies’ reverence for the ‘old country’ has been well documented, and there is no need to go over this material here. However, it is worth pointing out that at least one thing on the Australian Prime Minister’s mind was the possibility that he might 105 become a member of the British War Cabinet. He received a standing ovation after an address to the Empire Parliamentary Association, prompting a note in his diary to the effect that ‘some of these fellows would not mind my defeat at Canberra if they could get me into the House of Commons.’4 Baxter, as a hard-working Conservative Party member and local councillor in Widnes, would have been well aware of Menzies’ activities, and speculations concerning the latter’s political future in England. Baxter’s profession of ignorance, then, can best be interpreted as an example of the humour of the experienced raconteur.

This is not the only example of Baxter’s typically dry wit. He described this committee of Menzies as the best he had ever served on — within half an hour it had resolved that it should be wound up on the grounds that its terms of reference were restricted to the industrial uses of nuclear energy, and excluded discussion of military applications.5 However, this account is as much the product of Baxter’s fancy as anything else. The first annual report of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission explains that in 1949 the Chifley Labor government set up an Industrial Atomic Energy Policy Committee, with Mark Oliphant as chairperson.6 The membership of the committee is given as follows: Dr FWG White, Chief Executive Officer, CSIRO (Deputy Chair); Professor JP Baxter, Professor of Chemical Engineering, NSW University of Technology; HP Breen, Secretary, Dept of Supply and Development; HJ Goodes, Treasury; Prof LH Martin, Professor of Physics, ; and Dr HG Raggatt, Director, Bureau of Mineral Resources. In fact, the committee was not disbanded until April 1952, on the grounds that ‘the problems committed to it required consideration within the framework of wider terms of reference.’7 106 Those ‘wider terms’ apparently had a lot to do with discovery and exploitation of uranium ores, since the new committee, dubbed the Atomic Energy Policy Committee, was set up under the Minister for Supply, and given specific instructions to advise on such issues. It was essentially an interdepartmental committee, with representatives from Supply (as chairperson), Defence, Treasury, Defence Production, National Development, and the CSIRO. Martin, Raggatt and White carried on from the old committee (Martin, for this purpose, wearing his other hat as Commonwealth Defence Scientific Adviser).

None of this really squares with Baxter’s comments to Ellyard, the import of which is that he (Baxter) had nothing to do with the recommendation to establish the AAEC. The transcript continues as follows:

The Prime Minister accepted the resignation of the committee, and appointed a[n] inter-departmental committee of some kind which I had nothing to do with[.]....[This committee] finally recommended to the Government that the Atomic Energy Commission be set up.8

Ann Moyal, on the other hand, identifies Baxter and Oliphant as the ‘major architects of the committee’s proposals.’9There is a curious puzzle here. Why would Baxter want to underplay his pivotal role? Later in his interview with Ellyard, Baxter once again presents himself as extremely reluctant to undertake the nuclear business:

I must admit my reaction when I was invited to be the deputy chairman [of the AAEC] was utter and complete astonishment and I had some reservations about taking it, because one of the things that I had originally hoped to achieve by coming to Australia was to shake the atomic energy business off once and for all.10 107 According to Baxter, the war had left him ‘weary and tired,’ and the work he did up to 1949 on the British atomic energy programme made ‘a severe demand on time and effort, a time when I could have devoted all my efforts to the company’s [ICI’s] direct interest.’11 Yet we must also take into account Baxter’s statement that in the late 1940s he was ‘rather disappointed that ICI had decided that it would not as a company concern itself with the nuclear energy programme.’12 It is interesting that, according to WJ Reader, Baxter’s ‘disappointment’ was shared by others within ICI who had worked on the Tube Alloys project during the war, and found subsequently that this was of no great advantage to their careers, ‘once it had been settled that ICI were not going to be allowed to take charge of the development of nuclear energy.’ Reader puts down the post-war departure of several key figures from ICI to this circumstance.13

As a further example of Baxter’s apparent reluctance to have anything to do with atomic energy, the following excerpt from his interview with Hazel de Berg is worth quoting:

In 1953 Sir Robert Menzies invited me to visit him in Canberra, and told me that he was proposing to establish an Australian Atomic Commission, and asked me if I would be one of its members. I consulted the chancellor of the university, Dr Wallace Wurth, and he encouraged me to accept this, saying that he thought it would be both for the benefit of the university and myself to do so. I therefore accepted the invitation and when the Commission was established, I found that I had been appointed its deputy chairman.14

This is a continuing motif of Baxter’s own statements on his role. Events apparently simply overtake him — at all times he emphasises his distance from the sites of decision-making, fashioning a peripheral figure who yet will answer the call when the 108 force of circumstances compels his involvement. Thus the story of the shipboard telegram, or the summons to Canberra. However, it is at the very least implausible that Baxter would have been greatly shocked to ‘find’ that he was the vice-chairman of the Commission, or that he could say nothing (as he tells David Ellyard) as to why Mark Oliphant had not been appointed as a member. The government would surely have canvassed his views as to the composition of the AAEC, and it is hard to believe that Oliphant’s possible appointment would have been a matter of indifference to him. After all, it was Baxter and Oliphant who alone in Australia at that time had experience of large-scale nuclear engineering, Baxter on the problems of uranium recovery from the electromagnetic separation plant at Oak Ridge, and Oliphant as part of Lawrence’s team at Berkeley.

There are other anomalies in Baxter’s various accounts of the creation of the AAEC. As explained above, I find it hard to believe that Baxter had ‘never heard’ of Menzies prior to receiving the telegram on board the Orcades. The committee that lasted for 30 minutes is also an invention, and there is a problem of dates, too, concerning Menzies’ alleged summons to Baxter in 1953. Although the act establishing the AAEC was not assented to until April 15, 1953, and the commissioners not officially appointed until the 17th of that month, the decision to establish the commission was announced the previous November, and the commissioners selected at that time. At its establishment, the AAEC had only three members, as follows:

Chairman — (secretary, Department of Supply). Deputy chairman — Prof JP Baxter (vice-chancellor, NSW University of Technology). 109 Member — Hugh Murray, BSc, BE (general manager, Mt Lyell Mining and Railway Co).

The composition of the Commission did not change until Stevens’ resignation in September 1956, at which time Baxter was appointed as part-time chairman, and in March 1957 Harold Raggatt (secretary of the Department of National Development) became his deputy. Baxter, however, persevered with attempts to find a full-time chairman. On 18 October 1957, for example, he wrote to Raggatt, urging him to take on the job.15

On the research front, Baxter was involved from the outset in charting the Commission’s course. In June 1953, Baxter and Dr FWG White of the CSIRO left on a fact-finding tour of the UK, the US and , returning three months later with ‘a comprehensive picture of the general overseas position as it existed at that stage.’16The language of these reports is at times frustratingly vague — it is stated that the Australian effort should be organised so as not to overlap with British research, and that what we require are ‘specific Australian development objectives’ as the rationale for ‘a national programme, with some degree of self- sufficiency.’17This of course could cover a multitude of sins, but what it meant in practice was a decision to build a research reactor at Lucas Heights, using the plans of the E.443 reactor at Harwell in England. Once again, Baxter was instrumental in negotiating the details of the co-operation. With Stevens and Prof LH Martin, he visited England again in 1954, an effort that culminated in Australian government approval of the Commission’s proposed research programme.

Also by now, the Commission had declared that ‘[t]he principal objective of [its] research programme [was] to develop 110 means for the economic production of industrial electric power from nuclear fuels.’18 What this meant in practice is made clearer in the 1956-57 annual report, in which we are told that the AAEC had identified two power reactor systems for further study. These were the high temperature gas cooled reactor (HTGCR), and the liquid metal fuel reactor (LMFR).19 Both systems are said to be capable of producing electric power at less than 1/2d per kilowatt hour and, in the case of the HTGCR, ‘at a capital cost of the same order as those of conventional power stations.’20 The LMFR was relatively quickly abandoned, its official death-knell being sounded, in typically bland language, in the 1958-59 annual report.21 According to Moyal,

[t]he liquid-metal fuel system initially favoured by Baxter was quickly abandoned by Dalton, however, as ‘a chemical engineer’s dream but a metallurgist’s nightmare,’ and work concentrated on the HTGCR22

GCJ (Clifford) Dalton was the Chief Engineer at Lucas Heights at the time. No source is quoted for this remark by Dalton, but Baxter’s personal interest in the LMFR concept is borne out by the fact that he was named as supervising professor of a £5,000 grant awarded to the University of Technology for ‘chemical engineering research into the properties of boiling sodium metal.’23

Further elucidation of the rationale behind these two systems came in a talk Baxter gave to the Atomic Industrial Forum in New York, in October 1957:

...[B]oth [the HTGCR and LMFR systems] offer the promise of power generation through the medium of gas turbines and may therefore enable the power station to dispense with cooling water, which is a serious problem in Australia as soon as one gets away from the coastline. Secondly, they offer, we believe, the best possibilities for the development of small units of low capital and operating costs, and when combined with the thorium uranium 233 cycle offer possibilities of breeding.24 111 As it happened, the HTGCR concept was to prove unfruitful, and by the mid 1960s the Commission had adopted a new strategy. Cabinet papers from 1965 provide some insight into the means by which the Commission, through the Minister for National Development, sought to convince the government to commit itself to a speedy introduction of nuclear power. The centrepiece of this strategy was a submission of August 1965, and perusal of this document, together with some examples of contemporary correspondence in Baxter’s own files, provides conclusive evidence that this was indeed the critical moment of change for the Commission, as Baxter attempted to re-orient its priorities.

Before considering this document in detail, however, it is worth noting that Baxter remained a staunch advocate for the HTGCR programme, and the research on beryllium and its oxide that was at its heart, despite the fact that it had been assigned a lower priority. According to Ann Moyal, the AAEC’s only reward for this ‘laborious and, in the opinion of some, misconceived’ effort was a conclusive demonstration that a particular technology was not viable.25 To the end, however, Baxter emphasised the value of the research as a form of training, invoking a military analogy to make his point that the eventual outcome of the exercise could readily be reconciled with the expectations of its advocates. To call the work a failure because it did not lead to the eventual construction of a reactor was

...rather like saying that an elaborate set of military manoeuvres carried out in peace time, against an imaginary enemy, which leaves the forces at the end better trained, more experienced and in every way more competent to perform the ultimate task of defending their country, was a waste of money because no real battles were fought and no blood was shed.26 112 This analogy is at best misleading. With the benefit of hindsight in 1975, it was comparatively easy to claim that the AAEC research programme had only a ‘limited’ mandate to ‘build up a multidisciplinary team covering the whole field of nuclear technology,’ and that the ‘difficult and challenging’ nature of the beryllium oxide concept made it unlikely that it would provide the basis of a commercially viable power station.27 On examining the record, however, it appears that Baxter is being evasive here. In 1958, Ernest Titterton wrote that one of the main aims of the programme at Lucas Heights had been to develop ‘new types of power reactors for the economic production of nuclear energy (having in mind special Australian conditions),’ a theme that came to characterise official pronouncements justifying the research effort.28 It is noteworthy that these ‘special Australian conditions’ are frequently invoked, without any attempt to spell out precisely what they are, or how they should impinge on the design of nuclear power stations. It is perhaps not coincidental that the Holden had been marketed as ‘Australia’s Own Car’ for the previous decade, for all that it was modelled on a Chevrolet. If we could have our ‘own car,’ then presumably we could have our own . Here, there is a clear association of the research programme with the generation of electric power in commercial quantities, an association only strengthened by comments emanating from the AAEC. As early as 1957-58, we are told in the Commission’s annual report that ‘beryllium, or its oxide beryllia, has important use in atomic energy as a sheathing for fissile material used in nuclear reactors operating at high temperatures, and as a moderator.’29 That same year, the federal government prohibited the export of beryllium, ‘in order to safeguard Australia’s potential 113 requirements...for atomic energy purposes.’30 The following year, the AAEC purchased 248 tons of beryl, out of total sales of 274 tons, and at the end of 1961-62 its total purchases stood at 700 tons.31

Such thorough commandeering of resources suggests at least a reasonable expectation that beryllium would be required in commercial quantities, and was not merely being acquired for use in ‘multidisciplinary research.’ Further evidence that the beryllium oxide moderated HTGCR concept was being touted as the basis of a viable reactor is provided by the optimistic tone struck by successive AAEC reports, at least until the early sixties. The 1961- 62 report, for example, mentions 1980 as the ‘approximate date when the [HTGCR] concept could be developed to a commercial stage.’32 Although we are warned that the Australian HTGCR concept ‘faces stiff competition’ from overseas reactors that have already been developed to a commercial stage, the report goes on to reassure us that

provided certain design problems can be satisfactorily solved, a dispersed fuel, beryllium oxide based, high-temperature gas-cooled reactor should yield lower plant and equipment costs than most other gas-cooled systems.33

This comment is clearly pointing to the eventual construction of a commercially viable power reactor, despite the caveat just referred to. Such an impression could only have been enhanced the following year, with June 1965 and June 1966 specified as the target dates for a preliminary report and a final report, respectively, on ‘an integrated materials/ physics/ engineering feasibility study of a particular reactor design.’34 114 According to Moyal, it was about this time that the beryllium programme began to founder, a view borne out by Alice Cawte’s more recent study, in which she claims that

Baxter’s scientists were privately admitting that the home- grown reactor technology simply could not compare with developments overseas. They were aware that research teams in both France and the USA had already investigated and abandoned beryllium as a moderator.35

Of course, this sort of objection could have been raised at any time. Indeed, the absence of overseas success with beryllium was put forth in the first place as a mark in its favour, as providing Australia with an independent research theme. Baxter reiterates this argument in his reply to Moyal. Overseas authorities, he tells us, ‘felt we should have a theme of our own for work in Australia.

We felt that also.’36 Yet now, some eight or nine years further on, doubts began to creep in. A letter from the Australian atomic energy attaché in Washington, Ian Bisset, to Maurice Timbs, the acting executive member of the AAEC, was quite explicit about US reactions to the Australian project. Bisset advises Timbs that US researchers at Oak Ridge

were not particularly enthusiastic about the BeO-based system,...due to the unsatisfactory irradiation behaviour of beryllium oxide, particularly its cracking and powdering at high doses.37

Timbs was an economist who, prior to his appointment to the AAEC in December 1960, had worked for the Prime Minister’s department. Even more telling, perhaps, for Timbs was the comment that even if these technical problems were overcome, the Americans felt that the cost of beryllium oxide (as opposed to graphite) would rule it out as a moderator. 115 The creation of the position of executive member of the Commission stemmed from a reorganisation in 1958, following dissatisfaction within the prime minister’s department over the advice it had been getting from the AAEC. 38 As Cawte puts it, ‘[t]he bureaucrats were convinced that the Commission’s deficiencies were the consequence of having too many scientists.’39 In fact, they opposed the appointment of Baxter to replace the retiring chairman, Jack Stevens, and only went along with it ‘for want of a better alternative.’40 Note that this is only three days after Baxter’s letter to Raggatt.41 It would be incorrect, therefore, to conclude that Baxter actively sought the position of chairman. Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that Timbs and Baxter clashed on various aspects of nuclear policy. At the time with which we are concerned in the beryllium story, the Commission consisted of Baxter (chairman), Raggatt (deputy chairman), Leslie Martin, BF Dargan and Timbs (acting executive member). In this group, Timbs is the odd person out, a non- scientist who yet took an active part in debates over research priorities. It may very well have been Timbs who prompted re- assessment of the beryllium project, acting (at least in part) on the advice he had received from Bisset.42

At this point, at least in public, Baxter was still trying to hold the line. In November 1963, for example, he told an audience at a symposium on atomic power at the University of NSW, that the HTGCR with a beryllium oxide moderator

...provides both challenge and problems. Picked in the nineteen fifties, when it seemed an outsider in the reactor race, it has steadily improved its position in a diminishing field, and is now attracting a considerable amount of international interest. Australia’s early start has put it in a favourable position in regard to this project.43 116 This, of course, is nearly twelve months after the letter from Bisset to Timbs on US reactions to the BeO reactor. By the end of October, 1965, when Baxter gave the James N. Kirby paper to the Institution of Production Engineers, more doubts had crept in (at least as revealed on paper), to the extent that ‘power reactors of the heavy water moderated type, fueled with natural uranium dioxide seem to offer the best opportunity for economic operation in Australia in the next decade or so.’44

Not surprisingly, this change is eventually reflected in the official AAEC documents. Citing ‘greatly improved prospects for the introduction of nuclear power into Australia,’ the annual report for 1966-67 tells us that AAEC research will now concentrate on ‘heavy-water moderated natural uranium fuelled reactor systems, since these show most economic promise.’45 Gone without remark is any notion of an ‘independent theme’ — this is basically the approach of the Canadian CANDU reactor. Apart from this, however, these statements present us with an interesting paradox, in that any such ‘greatly improved prospects’ could only have come about on the advice of the Commission itself. Here, the impression is conveyed of the AAEC as a mere servant of government, awaiting the directive which will provide the impetus for its research effort. As Moyal and Cawte have shown, however, on questions of atomic power the AAEC was effectively the government, a situation which seems to accord with Baxter’s own preferences. In his rejoinder to Moyal, Baxter cites three reasons for the suspension of the beryllium project, the third of which is that ‘it seemed that there was a growing probability that the Australian government would wish at an early date to move into nuclear power generation.’46 This should not have surprised Baxter, given 117 that he would have been the source of the pressure to move that way! Baxter here suggests that the beryllium project was dropped because the government wanted to move into nuclear power before the HTGCR could be turned into a working concept. It is highly likely, however, to have been the other way around — the beryllium project had run its course, and the AAEC desperately needed a new rationale for its research.47

In any case, by 1964 there is a definite change of tone in the Commission’s progress reports. Now, there is no talk of feasibility studies and deadlines based on a 200 MW reactor. Instead, we are told that ‘some preliminary design studies are...in hand on small beryllium oxide moderated cores of a few megawatts (electrical) output.’48 Indeed, we are very much back at square one:

[C]omplexities of the materials, physics and engineering problems of the HTGC reactor are such that it will be difficult to extrapolate data from laboratory experiments with enough confidence to arrive at a good assessment of the technical and economic feasibility of the system.49

No longer are just a few design problems standing in the way — there is not even sufficient confidence in laboratory work stretching back some seven or eight years to go ahead with planning a power reactor of commercial size. It is little wonder that the HTGCR is given the official coup-de-grace in the following year.50 It is also perhaps no coincidence that in the same year the annual report takes up the notion of joining the US ‘Plowshare’ program, speculating that nuclear explosives might have a role in excavating a harbour in north-west Australia.51 One can perhaps sympathise with Ernest Titterton’s assessment in 1968 of the AAEC as ‘a group of people with know-how but with no major objective.’52 118 However, as I have already stated, by 1965 it was evident that the beryllium project had little chance of success, and Baxter was lobbying for a change in direction. In March 1965 he wrote to Timbs, giving a clear indication of his dissatisfaction with current progress. Baxter referred to a ten-day period between meetings of the International Association of Universities and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Tokyo in September, and shared his thoughts on how best to use this free time:

I could fill in this time by visiting Japanese universities and perhaps looking for mathematical staff, but it occurs to me that it might perhaps be more profitably spent, particularly if current proposals for reactor development in this country should be approved, by visiting Canada at that time for discussions with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. on the steam generating heavy water reactor system.53

This is a clear indication that Baxter had already made up his mind about the new direction for the Commission, centred on the Canadian nuclear programme, and it only remained to convince his colleagues. In a subsequent letter to Timbs (who was in Washington at the time), Baxter set out his plans for a meeting of the Commission on the HTGCR programme, arguing for a speedy resolution of the problem:

I do not think we should wait until you come back from overseas. I think it would be bad for morale at the establishment if it were felt that the Commission were not seized with some urgency over this matter and I propose to hold the meeting with the Deputy Chairman, Mr Boswell and Mr Dargan quite soon. I propose to conduct it in a very formal way and have a complete record made of everything which is said. We will have the section leaders concerned with the programme before us and quiz them individually. The record should be useful in case we have any arguments about the programme in the future.54 119 It is by no means too fanciful to see in this letter yet one more example of Baxter as puppet-master, stage director, or choreographer. On the 18 May, he wrote to Timbs, who was now in Paris, concerning Timbs’ plan to visit Canada on his way home from Europe. Baxter wrote that he was happy to leave this to Timbs, but indicated that he did not think that such a visit would serve much purpose.55 ‘I do not see much point in detailed discussions with the Canadians until we know whether Cabinet is likely to approve of the proposals we are putting before them,’ he wrote, showing that his thoughts were still centred on Canada. As we have seen, Baxter himself was contemplating a visit to Canada in September, and may have wished to handle all the preliminary discussions himself. Baxter also told Timbs about the meeting of the Atomic Energy Commission which had discussed the winding back of the HTGC programme. This must have been less than smooth sailing, since Baxter refers to it as ‘a most interesting meeting,’ and comments on the need for a ‘reasonably full record of what was said.’ The meeting took place on 14 May. Agreement, however, was finally achieved to Baxter’s satisfaction, and he informed Timbs that

Our colleagues on the Commission were, I think, completely satisfied at the end that the programme which is proposed, which is of course briefly to continue the studies in the materials and physics fields but to ease back on the engineering studies until the questions which have been asked in the other two areas have been solved. The Establishment put up certain proposals for alternative engineering studies, in particular the study of a small package reactor using beryllium oxide, and I think the Commission felt that this would be a good subject for a short investigation, providing it took second priority to any demand for engineering staff for the SGHW programme should that be approved.56

The following month, Baxter wrote to RW Boswell, the Secretary of the Department of National Development, to try to set 120 up a meeting on the SGHWR. proposal. He informed Boswell that he had spoken to the Minister for National Development, David Fairbairn, on 10 June, 1965, and obtained the minister’s agreement for discussions with other federal government departments on the proposal. Baxter proposed a meeting with representatives from the Prime Minister’s Department, the Treasury, External Affairs, Defence and perhaps Supply, and suggested that ‘there might also...be some merit in involving Trade in such discussions.’57 The inclusion of Defence in these discussions is noteworthy, indicating a clear recognition of the military importance of nuclear power in the Australian context.

All these considerations are evident in the submission to cabinet in August 1965 on a ‘Proposal for design and cost study of a nuclear power station suitable for installation in Australia.’58 Perhaps Fairbairn had second thoughts, because the submission was withdrawn, and therefore led to no decision by Cabinet. This is made more specific in the preface to the document, which recommends that, if it can be shown to be economical and reliable, a 250 MW SGHW nuclear reactor be installed in in the early 1970s.59 According to the submission, preliminary cost estimates for this type of reactor ‘show that it would produce power for 0.45 to 0.50 pence/kWh, and that it could be built for about £32 million.’ This is typical of the optimistic tone of the submission, and its claims to certain knowledge. There are references to ‘the known scope for further advances,’ and readers are assured that ‘it can now be stated with certainty that nuclear plant will shortly be installed for the economic production of power in areas with low conventional fuel costs.’60 Throughout, there is an impression of urgency — since costs are coming down, the argument runs, it is 121 obvious that nuclear power could be introduced into Australia much earlier than previously thought, so the time for development work has already arrived. At best, however, this argument is disingenuous. The figures supporting the claim of increasing competitiveness of nuclear power come from US Federal Power Commission predictions that by 1975, 1,000 MW(e) units will be producing power for 3.5 to 4.1 mills/kWh, and will therefore be competitive with coal in the 15-22 cents per million BTU range. A footnote informs us that 1 US mill is equivalent to 0.107 pence Australian, but then adds unhelpfully that ‘because of different financing arrangements etc., direct currency conversion is not valid.’ This does not deter the writer(s) of the submission, however, since they undertake the conversion anyway, and explain that ‘under local conditions, power cost estimates would be lower than those obtained by converting the [US] figures to Australian currency — i.e. rather less than 0.37 to 0.44 pence/kWh for plant operating by 1975...’61

There are two further points worth noting here. First, there is the question of the size of the reactor on which the US estimates are based, stated to be 1,000 MW(e). Since nothing this large was being proposed for Australia, and the unit cost of electricity is said to decrease with size, it was somewhat misleading to give estimates of costs ‘under local conditions,’ based on US figures assuming a much larger unit. Second, there is the question of the quality of the coal that was being used as a basis for comparison. A footnote on this point tells us that ‘10 cents (US) per million BTU is equivalent to average quality black coal (11,500 BTU/lb) costing 23/- (Aust.).’ One could conclude from this that coal ‘in the 15-22 cents per million BTU range’ is in fact of lower than average 122 quality, thus weakening any assertions about the alleged competitiveness of nuclear power. It may very well have been the case that awareness of the insubstantiality of the document at this point was one factor which prompted its withdrawal, but this of course is pure speculation.

Problems also arise when we consider the claims concerning the possibility of nuclear power being introduced into South Australia. ‘By 1973,’ we are told, ‘the Electricity Trust [of South Australia] expects to be commissioning conventional units of 200 electrical megawatts capacity.’ Based on an oil price of £6.12.0 per ton, the cost of power from an oil-burning unit of that size would be ‘not less than 0.55 pence/kWh...No other state has such high fuel costs for large central station power generation...and thus nuclear power has good prospects of early introduction.’62 However, once we note that the need for 200 MW(e) units is based on projections of power demand eight years into the future, the case for immediate commitment to a nuclear power station in South Australia becomes less forceful. The argument becomes even more tenuous given that the British SGHWR was not expected to be in operation until 1967. The document provides us with an interesting study in the language of technological optimism, as it strains to create an impression of the present reality of the

SGHWR, and the consequent need for immediate government action. This is made explicit in a draft letter to the South Australian Premier for the Prime Minister’s signature. Despite the caveats already referred to, the letter begins with the bold declaration that ‘some Australian power authorities are giving serious consideration to their use from about the mid-1970s.’63 The letter avoids specifying which ones, since there were no such 123 authorities, unless one were willing to permit liberal interpretations of the word ‘serious.’ In 1960, for example, F Sykes, the Vice- Chairman of the NSW Electricity Commission, had commented that there was ‘little or no likelihood of nuclear power becoming economically favourable in the New South Wales power system before some indeterminable point of time beyond the year 1975.’64 Sykes’ pessimism is based on the comparative cheapness and ready availability of coal. In the next paragraph of the draft letter, however, we are given some indication of the importance of the SGHWR to the maintenance of the Atomic Energy Commission’s research effort:

The introduction of nuclear power to Australia will give rise to many problems — financial, technical and political — some with important international implications. In order to come to grips with these problems, to develop the necessary industrial ‘know-how’, and to provide appropriate training for personnel in the many different fields involved, the Commonwealth has been exploring the possibility of constructing a nuclear power station in Australia.65

Once again, as with the HTGCR programme, the introduction of nuclear power is being tied to a need for training a suitable cadre of technically competent staff, and undertaking research. The specialised nature of the technology is advanced as an argument for a continuing role for the AAEC, with the underlying assumption that the state electricity authorities in the normal course of events would not have the capacity to purchase and commission nuclear reactors using their existing resources. There is no real advance here over the initial arguments for the HTGCR programme. Australia is said to need a research theme in order to develop the expertise necessary to run a nuclear industry, and that research theme must be conducted at an industrial level, with a 124 view to early integration of nuclear power stations into the existing electricity grids. In this context, Baxter’s vehement opposition to ’s research efforts at the University of Sydney take on added significance. Over and above any reasons for personal dislike, (and it is clear that Messel’s entrepreneurial activities were not universally approved), the basic premise of Messel’s proposals involving small research reactors on campus ran counter to Baxter’s desire for the closest possible relationship between atomic energy and industry. Baxter wanted research, training and application to be effectively indistinguishable, a desire made concrete in the scenario for the South Australian SGHWR. This would begin as a ‘design/cost study,’ but despite the assurance that carrying out this study would not commit any party to further steps, this possibility is brushed aside in the next section of the letter, which considers reactor choice and financing arrangements. What need for a study, after all, when we can assert that the reactor type chosen for this study ‘could be largely fabricated in Australia, ...has relatively low costs considering its small size,...would operate on natural or near natural uranium, and...would be suitable for medium and larger size plants.’?66

Throughout the submission, the emphasis is on self-reliance, a feature that has important implications for the integration of the reactor into Australian defence policy. On this point, it is worth noting that the submission was sent to the Prime Minister’s Department, which provided notes on its ‘Defence and External Relations Aspects.’67 These brief notes, which run for only two pages, canvass many of the issues which emerged during the controversy over the later proposal to build a nuclear power station at Jervis Bay. Thus, paragraph 3 of the document notes that 125 ‘[w]hile it is not yet (mercifully) necessary for the Government to decide whether or not it wants to proceed to develop capacity to produce a nuclear bomb, there is a significant defence problem at this stage.’ The nature of this ‘problem’ is that purchase of reactor parts overseas may tie Australia to agreements designed to prevent the diversion of fission products to the construction of nuclear weapons. This of course was precisely the problem that the government had with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, ratification of which was strongly resisted on the basis that it would prevent Australia from developing its own nuclear deterrent. The fundamental problem, for Baxter, was to establish Australia as an independent nuclear power in time for it to achieve a credible deterrent. It is significant that in the following year Baxter chose to join the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, an organisation known for its hawkish views on defence policy. As one example of this, the Association steadfastly maintained its support for Australian involvement in the Vietnam war, right ‘to its shameful end,’ to quote Peter Coleman.68 Baxter joined the Association on 20 July, 1966, following an approach the previous April from Sir John Eccles of the John Curtin School of Medical Research at ANU.69

The theme of self-reliance, and its significance for Australia’s defence policy, became ever more critical to Baxter’s thinking, and developments in South East Asia only made the problem more acute. His decision to throw in his lot with the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom did not necessarily reflect a hardening of attitude, or a desire to identify more explicitly with the extreme right. Baxter preferred style was to cast himself in the role of a trusted servant of government, removed from the strife of 126 party, but things had reached the stage where allies were only to be found on the margins, and he needed a forum for views that were becoming increasingly difficult to accommodate in mainstream political discourse. Baxter was no longer able to get his way with skilful organisation of meetings, and backroom machinations. Questions were being raised, and it was necessary to try to win the hearts and minds of the population at large. For Baxter, these were crucial questions. The sort of nuclear industry that Australia had (assuming that it had one at all) would determine its capacity to defend itself from an Asian invasion, and given this framework of global politics, the rejection of nuclear power on narrow economic criteria was, as far as Baxter was concerned, not only short-sighted but dangerous.

Following Moyal and Cawte, I have argued that the strategic importance of a nuclear deterrent provided an implicit sub-text for the twists and turns of AAEC policy evident in the available documentation, and is largely responsible for the apparent aimlessness of its research effort. It is important to note, though, that this remains a contentious issue. The most recent extended contribution to the assessment of the AAEC’s research programme has come from Keith Alder, who had a long and distinguished career with the Commission. He joined the AAEC in 1954, and after training at Harwell was appointed as the first leader of the Metallurgy Section at Lucas Heights (1957). In 1962 he became the Director of the Lucas Heights Research Establishment, and six years later was appointed as a member of the AAEC. From 1975 until his retirement in 1982 he served as the General Manager of the AAEC.70 127 Writing as recently as the end of 1996, Alder specifically takes issue with the ‘oft-quoted opinion that “the Commission lost its way”.’ Being an ‘eyewitness account,’ Alder’s book gains immediacy and credibility from its author’s personal involvement with the AAEC, but suffers on the same account from a naive tendentiousness. Alder feels that his close working relationship with Baxter entitles him to dismiss the claim that Baxter wanted Australia to have its own nuclear deterrent. He writes:

In Alice Cawte’s book Atomic Australia is a chapter ‘Baxter, Beryllium and the Bomb,’ most of her sources being newspapers. I worked for and with Baxter for 30 years, and never once did I hear him propose work in Australia directed towards bombs. If he had I believe I would have been the first to know, for where else but Lucas Heights could such work have been done?71

Two points are worth noting here. First, Baxter’s career to date had involved him in two highly secretive endeavours aimed at the development of a nuclear fission bomb (Tube Alloys in Britain and the in the US). Leaving aside questions of personal proclivities, Baxter’s career had progressed in an environment dominated by the need for industrial and military secrecy. He lived, ate and breathed secrets. It is hardly likely that someone who had thrived in this atmosphere would unburden himself on such a matter, even to close colleagues, unless it were absolutely necessary that they be taken into his confidence.

Secondly, it is almost a cliche to say that the distinction between civilian and military research is very difficult to draw. The work at Lucas Heights may not have been expressly directed towards the development of nuclear weapons, but this is hardly surprising given the furore such an announcement would have provoked. Baxter may have been a controversial figure, but he did 128 not court controversy. Far better to couch the research programme at Lucas Heights in terms of a push towards a local nuclear energy industry, rather than preparation for the construction of nuclear weapons. Thus, it is no criticism of Cawte and other commentators to say that their conclusions are based on inferences from incomplete accounts (indeed, Cawte’s work is characterised by an exemplary attention to both primary and secondary sources, such as Cabinet papers). These incomplete accounts are all we have, and all we can expect is a more or less convincing ‘fit’ between the circumstances and details clamouring for our attention. Plausibility may not be the same thing as truth, but the historian is entitled to ask, with Pilate, ‘What is truth?’ I, for one, cannot see any compelling answers on the horizon, and I remain unconvinced by Alder’s counterfactual conditional argument.

As it happens, I am not so much concerned with arguing the case against the Commission’s research programme. Given my present task, I am more interested in the insights we gain into Baxter’s style of formulating and implementing policy. ‘The experts must in the end be trusted,’ he tells us, warning that to submit technical matters ‘to the ballot box, the street demonstration, or the politician who has a divine conviction that he understands technical problems, can only lead to trouble and possible disaster.’72 He might have added AAEC executive commissioners to his list. Earlier, in a reference to Timbs’ advocacy of the US PWR reactor for Jervis Bay, he commented that

[t]he non-technical member [of the commission] accepted the assurances of American reactor salesmen that their system was the best, but we did not consider his judgment to be technically informed.73 129 According to the official record, the proposal to build a nuclear power station at Jervis Bay stemmed from discussions between the commonwealth and the states which began in March 1969.74 In November of that year, Bechtel Pacific Corporation Ltd. was engaged to assist in drawing up the specifications for the station and assessing the various tenders, a move that, as Cawte puts it, ‘amounted to a vote of no confidence in Baxter and the AAEC.’75 By now, Baxter had been removed from his earlier pivotal role in decision making, and his place taken by Timbs. It is interesting to note that it was now Timbs, not Baxter, who travelled overseas on behalf of the commission, to liaise with Bechtel on a tender process that had explicitly thrown open the field to all comers, including the enriched uranium reactors that had never before figured in AAEC thinking. As we have seen, the commission had earlier advocated the Canadian CANDU concept, using natural uranium. By the end of 1970, however, Baxter had transferred his support to the British Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor (SGHWR), which used slightly enriched uranium,76 a change of heart which Moyal describes as ‘not uncharacteristic of Baxter’s method of absorbing advice and reassembling it in a diametrically different stance.’77

This is perhaps not quite fair — the SGHWR concept did call for the use of heavy water as a moderator, and notions of ‘likeness’ and ‘difference’ are more problematic than frequently supposed. Be that as it may, many of Baxter’s comments on the issue sound like special pleading, and provoke suspicion that there is a hidden agenda. In 1975, for example, it was the safety of the SGHWR that was put forward as the main reason for its appearance at the top of the list of tenders,78 even though in his other writings Baxter played 130 down the risks of nuclear technology, and implied that technological solutions could be found for any safety problems. The debate had simply got out of hand, and it was necessary to employ whatever arguments seemed to be of service. Above all, Baxter wanted nothing to do with US reactors, and once again, although technical reasons were cited, I feel that defence considerations were central to his thinking. It was not simply a question of buying a reactor, but of minimising any interference in the way that reactor was to be operated. There can be no doubt that Baxter wanted Australia to develop a credible nuclear deterrent, and he would not have wanted to give the US any opportunity to interfere in the matter, on the basis that it had supplied the technology. The British, on the other hand, had insisted on acquiring their own nuclear deterrent, and would presumably be less likely to make the sale of a nuclear reactor to Australia dependent on its agreement not to use it for defence purposes.

Even though the Jervis Bay fiasco represented the end of Baxter’s involvement with the AAEC, he continued as a vocal advocate of nuclear power. To such an extent, in fact, that his former colleagues found this advocacy something of a mixed blessing. In February 1978, Baxter attended a farewell dinner for

AAEC scientist Dr GM Watson, an event which the staff journal recorded as follows:

Former Chairman Sir Philip Baxter, in proposing a toast to the AAEC, recalled his experiences of its formation. In responding, Chairman Professor Don George drily remarked that from the press it sometimes appeared that Sir Philip was still the Chairman.79

No doubt this remark elicited a laugh from the assembled worthies, but behind the joke is resentment at the interference of a man 131 whose ideas were no longer wanted. Atomic energy was now off the agenda, and the AAEC was not far away from another re- statement of its purpose, and rebirth as the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. Baxter was left to reflect on what he saw as the short-sightedness of his contemporaries, and their refusal to face the facts.

It only remains here to comment on how Baxter’s advocacy of nuclear power bears on our characterisation of his conservative style of thought. In the context of the engineering community advocacy of nuclear power may indeed be regarded as ‘radical,’ on the basis that it is a new technology, and a conservative engineer would favour coal-fired power stations. In Baxter’s case, though, it is the way in which nuclear power fits into a broader conception of historical development, and the steps which must be taken now to avert coming disaster, that provides the justification for a particular kind of technical innovation. Advocacy of coal-fired power, on the other hand, is informed by the reductionist approach characteristic of what Mannheim called ‘natural law thought.’ The official view of the NSW Electricity Commission took for granted that the power generation industry was a self-contained, discrete part of society, and that the question could be easily resolved by comparing the relative cost of nuclear versus coal-fired power. The apparent paradox of a conservative like Philip Baxter advocating a radical new technology (at least in the Australian context) vanishes once we consider the broader societal context, and not confine our view to narrowly conceived technical and economic criteria. Of most importance for our characterisation of Baxter as exemplifying a conservative style of thought is the conjunction of his advocacy of nuclear power, and his identification with pressure groups usually 132 identified with the right wing of politics. It is also worth noting here that the AAEC story provides extensive and detailed corroboration of the points raised in the previous chapter regarding the engineer/hero, alerting us to technological possibility, and urging us, according to his own lights, to make a ‘right use’ of resources.

1 See note 42, chapter 3. 2 Interview with David Ellyard, 6 May, 1980. The original transcript is held at the Oral History Section of the National Library of Australia, while a copy is held at the UNSW Archives. 3 Brett, op. cit. (note 12, Chapter 1), p. 246. 4 Menzies’ diary for 11 March, 1941, quoted in Brett, op. cit. (note 12, Chapter 1), p. 247. 5 Ellyard interview, op. cit. (note 2). 6 AAEC Annual Report, 1953, p. 7. 7 Ibid., p. 8. 8 D. Ellyard, op. cit. (note 2). 9 A Moyal, ‘The Australian Atomic Energy Commission: A Case Study in Australian Science and Government,’ Search, 1975, 6, 365-384, at p. 366. 10 D. Ellyard, op. cit. (note 2). 11 Ibid. 12 Interview with Hazel de Berg, 16 March 1970. The original transcript is held at the Oral History Section of the National Library of Australia, while a copy is held at the UNSW Archives. 13 W.J. Reader, ICI: A History, Vol 2, p. 293. 14 H. de Berg, op. cit. (note 12). 15 J.P. Baxter to H. Raggatt, 18 October, 1957. UNSW Archive, CN 1066, Box 6. 16 AAEC Annual Report 1953-54, p. 37. 17 Ibid, p. 37. 18 AAEC Annual Report 1954-55, p. 37. 19 AAEC Annual Report 1956-57, p. 26. 20 Ibid., p. 27 21 AAEC Annual Report 1958-59, p. 19. 22 Moyal, op. cit. (note 9), p. 368. 23 AAEC, op. cit. (note 21), p. 35. 24 Typescript, pp. 8-9. UNSW Archives, CN 1066, Box 5. ‘Breeding’ refers to the possibility of a in which more than we started with are left over to initiate further fissions. 25 Moyal, op. cit.. (note 9), p. 369. 26 J.P. Baxter, ‘Some comments on Ann Mozley Moyal’s “The Australian Atomic Energy Commission: A Case Study in Australian Science and Government”’, Search, 1975, 6, 456-458, at p. 456. 27 Ibid., p. 456. 133

28 E. Titterton, ‘Atomic Energy Development in Australia,’ Nature, May 24, 1958, pp. 1433-1434, at p. 1433. 29 AAEC Annual Report 1957-58, p. 20. 30 Ibid., p. 20. 31 AAEC Annual Report 1960-61, p. 36; AAEC Annual Report 1961-62, p. 22. 32 AAEC Annual Report 1961-62, p. 29. 33 Ibid., p. 29. 34 AAEC Annual Report 1962-63, p. 28. 35 Moyal, op. cit. (note 9), p. 369. Cawte, op. cit. (note 25, chapter 1), p. 110. 36 Baxter, op. cit. (note 26), p. 456. 37 I. Bisset to M. Timbs, 19 Sept, 1962, UNSW Archives, CN 1053, Box 16. 38 Cawte, op. cit. (note 55, Chapter 1), pp. 103-104. 39 Ibid., p. 104. 40 Unsigned minute to the prime minister, 21/10/57, quoted in Cawte, op. cit. (note 55, Chapter 1), p. 104. 41 See note 15. 42 For further discussion of this point, see Moyal, op. cit. (note 9), p. 369. 43 ‘Ten years of nuclear progress: A survey,’ paper presented at Symposium on Atomic Power, 7 Nov, 1963, University of NSW, typescript, p. 4. UNSW Archives, CN 1066, Box 5. 44 J.P. Baxter, ‘Atomic Energy in the Future of Australia,’ unpaginated booklet, p. 10. UNSW Archives, CN 1053, Box 2. 45 AAEC Annual Report 1966-67, p. 38. 46 Baxter, op. cit (note 26), p. 456. 47 For a more detailed discussion of this episode, see Cawte, op. cit. (note 55, Chapter 1), p. 113. 48 AAEC Annual Report 1964-65, p. 38 (my emphasis). 49 Ibid., p. 38. 50 AAEC Annual Report 1965-66, p. 44. 51 Ibid., p. 76. 52 E. Titterton, quoted in Moyal, op. cit. (note 9), p. 383. The story of Australia’s involvement in the Plowshare programme and the ill-fated Cape Keraudren project has been well told by Cawte, op. cit. (note 55, Chapter 1), pp. 121-124. 53 Baxter to M.C. Timbs, 31 March, 1965. UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 34. 54 Baxter to M.C. Timbs, 28 April, 1965. UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 34. 55 Baxter to M.C. Timbs, 18 May, 1965. UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 34. 56 Ibid. 57 Baxter to R.W. Boswell, 11 June, 1965. UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 34. 58 Cabinet submission No. 1022, Australian Archives, Series A 5827/1, Vol. 32. 59 Ibid., p. ii. 60 Ibid., pp. iii-iv. 61 Ibid., pp. 4, 6. 134

62 Ibid., p 8. 63 Ibid., p 43. 64 F. Sykes, ‘Development of the electricity supply system and the future of nuclear power in New South Wales,’ The Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, 1960, 32, p. 146. 65 Cabinet submission No. 1022, op. cit. (note 58), p. 43. 66 Ibid., pp. 45-46. 67 ‘Notes on Cabinet Submission No. 1022: Defence and External Relations Aspects,’ 10 November, 1965, signed by P.H. Bailey, First Assistant Secretary, Prime Minister’s Department. 68 See P. Coleman, ‘The Prodigal Sons: The unlikely story of Richard Krygier and the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom,’ Quadrant, November 1986, 30, pp. 10-21, at p. 18. 69 See J.P. Baxter to J. Eccles, 20 April, 1966, and J.P. Baxter to H.R. Krygier, 20 July, 1966, UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 35. 70 These biographical details are taken from K.F. Alder, Australia’s uranium opportunities: How her scientists and engineers tried to bring her into the nuclear age but were stymied by politics, Pauline Alder, Sydney, 1996, p. 6. 71 Ibid., p. 7. In fairness to Alice Cawte, I should point out that the chapter in her book is actually entitled ‘Baxter, Beryl and the Bomb,’ and of 171 citations, only 35 are to newspapers. 72 Baxter, op. cit (note 26), p. 458. 73 Ibid., p. 457. 74 AAEC Annual Report 1968-69, p. 13. 75 Cawte, op. cit. (note 55, Chapter 1), p. 128. Also see AAEC Annual Report 1969-70, p. 18. 76 See Moyal, op. cit. (note 9), pp. 374-377, for a full discussion of this episode, based on interviews with leading participants. 77 Ibid., p. 375. 78 Baxter, op. cit. (note 26), p. 457. 79 AAEC Staff News, No. 1035, 9/2/1978. 135 CHAPTER FIVE ADVENTURES IN REDBRICK

In the previous chapter, we saw how Philip Baxter tried to build a nuclear power industry in Australia, an effort which ended in 1972 with the federal government’s withdrawal from plans to build a nuclear reactor at Jervis Bay. The recalcitrance of both the beryllium at the heart of Baxter’s favoured HTGCR concept, and the human material with which he had to deal, had defeated his best endeavours. Nuclear power, then, remained one part of Baxter’s integrated concept for his adopted country that was never put into place. I say ‘integrated,’ because despite the seemingly natural division between Baxter’s activities as vice-chancellor of the University of NSW, and chairman of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, examination of the record shows a constant effort to direct both these institutions to solving the problems of Australian development (at least as Baxter conceived them). If it was the Commission’s task to establish Australia’s credentials as a nuclear power, then it was the task of the university to produce the men and women who would establish and maintain the industries which would drive the country’s development. Above all, according to Baxter, Australia needed a dramatic increase in the supply of engineers and technicians, and the best place for training this cadre of technical experts was the university. Thus, Baxter’s ‘adventures in Redbrick’ constitute a complementary sphere of activity to his work with the AAEC, and an obvious subject for the present chapter.

This concept of the university cuts across long-standing traditions of academic independence, with the university conceived 136 as standing aloof from society, and certainly not concerning itself with the needs of industry. There is potential for conflict here, but however the individual circumstances of the battles over academic governance, university funding, curriculum, student activism and so on may vary, it is possible to see in them the signs of a more general contest with a significant bearing on the theme of conservatism. While Baxter’s critics sneered at the ‘degree factory’ at Kensington, Baxter for his part lashed the professoriate over what he saw as its complacent attitude to the inefficiency of the university, as reflected in its failure rates. This, surely, was a sign of the university’s failure to live up to its broader social responsibilities.

As indicated in Chapter One, one reason for attributing a conservative style of thought to Baxter, at least insofar as his career at the University of NSW is concerned, is that he had an organic conception of its role, which has remarkable parallels with Carlyle’s account of the monastery of St Edmundsbury in thirteenth century England. As we saw in Chapter Two, one of the characteristics of conservative thought drawn from Mannheim’s work was the view that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and that individual parts can be understood only as parts of the wider whole. This is contrasted with the atomistic or reductionist conception said to be characteristic of ‘natural law thought.’ It would be dangerous to push this dichotomy too far, since this could divert attention too much toward the general, at the expense of the specific. It does, however, help us towards a deeper understanding of Baxter’s position in the university, which from some perspectives is arguably the very opposite of conservative. Was not Baxter trying to overturn centuries of 137 hallowed tradition in the groves of academe, by making the universities much more responsive to priorities set outside them? Indeed, was he not explicitly critical of the conservatism of his colleagues, to the extent of commenting sarcastically on the ‘eleventh commandment’ of university people: ‘Thou shalt not do anything for the first time?’ Indeed he was, but far from invalidating my thesis as to his style of thought, these considerations only alert us to the difficulty of terms like ‘conservative,’ and to the need to emphasise that the meaning of such terms cannot be considered separately from the context of their use. Baxter certainly took an active approach to the vice-chancellorship of the university, and sought to impose his views as to its direction. However, the particular policies he advocated can be given widely divergent characterisations, depending on whether we are seeing them in the context of the relatively narrow sphere of their immediate application, or considering their significance for a broader conception of community.

These considerations give us some hint of the complexities of terms like ‘conservative’ and ‘radical.’ Mannheim’s idea of a ‘style of thought’ is helpful here because it directs our attention away from content, as expressed by particular policies, and towards style, which does not depend on a coherent, self-contained map of abstract concepts, but on concrete relationships within a given historical context. Thus, in this case, it is quite possible to impute a conservative ‘style of thought’ to an individual actor whose policies in a given context may be described as ‘radical’ or ‘progressive.’ 138 Universities: The English experience

Baxter was himself a graduate of what has been described as ‘Redbrick,’ a generic name for Britain’s burgeoning university sector in the early years of the twentieth century, centred on the industrial North and Midlands. Since Baxter came to the University of NSW as Professor of Chemical Engineering without any prior experience as an academic, it will be useful to consider the background to this early experience, if only because Baxter’s conception of the University of NSW shares many characteristics with it.

As we saw in Chapter 1, Baxter was ‘snapped up’ by ICI soon after obtaining his doctorate. His experience of university, then, was based on his life as a student at Birmingham, and a period following the war when he had served on the Council of the . Both these institutions were part of that peculiar state within a state referred to as ‘Redbrick.’ Universities at Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds all received their charters in the early 1900s, having evolved from colleges originally established within the previous fifty years to provide higher levels of training in science and technology. The history of these institutions is relevant here for two reasons. First, Baxter himself, as a graduate of the , was entirely a product of Redbrick, and second, the early curriculum of the University of NSW was based on diploma courses offered by Sydney Technical College, reflecting at least partly the British experience of growth in the university sector based on already existing technological institutions. Thus, there are British antecedents for the path of development of the University of NSW, and Baxter would have been well aware of these. 139 First, let us consider a post-war view of Redbrick:

They [the Redbrick universities] were created from nothing and they have grown and prospered largely on local generosity, and made scholars...out of such material as remained to them when the choicest pieces had been eliminated [that is, the brightest students had gone to Oxford or Cambridge]. In the world that is coming they will of necessity be given greater opportunities and show that they can achieve greater results. But even were that not the case, it would still be a glorious and a happy lot to be both a university teacher and a pioneer.1

One can forgive the writer his rhetorical flourish here — he has a point to make, and the need as he sees it is urgent. In fact, neither the University of NSW, nor any of the British ‘redbrick’ institutions, were created ex nihilo, and indeed the nature of their antecedents had a lot to do with the perception that they were in some sense second-class institutions, or not ‘real’ universities. Birmingham University, for example, was one of a number of so-called ‘civic universities’ which emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century. These institutions rejected the traditional Oxbridge idea of a liberal education based on literary and classical studies, and emphasised the importance of vocational training. A piece of doggerel in an Oxford broadsheet c. 1914 runs: ‘He gets degrees in making jam/At Liverpool and Birmingham.’2 In this respect they reflected the interests of a clientele for whom careers in the Church, civil service or legal profession (those gentlemanly pursuits so well suited to the graduates of Oxford and Cambridge) were out of the question, and who therefore needed training specifically oriented towards careers in industry. It is hardly surprising, then, that the curriculum of these institutions emphasised science, technology and commerce. However, these changes did not happen overnight. The plans for Owens College in Manchester, founded in 1851 on the basis of a bequest from the 140 cotton merchant John Owens, illustrate some of the tensions between local demands for useful training, and traditional concepts of what a university should provide. A report on the general plan for the college still asserted the importance of a liberal education, and proposed that the curriculum should be based on classical languages and literature, mathematics, natural philosophy, and moral philosophy. In this context, ‘mathematics’ of course meant pure mathematics, removed from any reference to engineering or commercial applications. However, the authors of the report acknowledged that many students would require immediate vocational training. In the words of the executors of the trust:

In a locality where men’s minds and exertions are mainly devoted to commercial pursuits, it seems particularly desirable to select, as an instrument of mental training, a subject, which, being general in its nature, and remote from the particular and daily occupations of the individual, may counteract their tendency to limit the application, and, eventually, the power of applying the mental faculties.3

‘Mental training,’ then, was considered as something that could not be accomplished by vocational education, although the report goes on to consider the question of the ‘large proportion’ of students who would not want a traditional liberal education. These, it is envisaged, could simply omit the classical components of the course, and take those subjects most obviously relevant to their intended careers as engineers or machinists. Here, there are still traces of the old aversion to trade, and that distinction between ‘gentleman’ and ‘professional’ which looms so large in English life and letters, along with an almost grudging admission that the new institutions in the industrial centres of England could not survive as copies of Oxford or Cambridge. 141 However, whatever the intentions of its founders may have been, it was at Owens College that Henry Roscoe helped to establish the pattern of the professor who was intimately connected with the concerns of local industry.4 Roscoe, a graduate of University College, London, and Heidelberg University, became Professor of Chemistry at Owens College in 1857, and had no qualms in undertaking large amounts of commercial advisory work. Of course, such consulting work could be very lucrative, but Roscoe also recognised its importance for the college. In his autobiography he boasts that

...there were I believe few engaged in that district in any large way of business in which chemistry plays a part who did not show their appreciation of the value of scientific education by sending their sons or their managers to learn chemistry at Owens College.5

In Sanderson’s view, Roscoe’s importance in establishing the pattern of the civic universities cannot be overestimated, and it is of interest here that Baxter, a product of the sort of institution that Roscoe helped to pioneer, should have devoted so much of his attention as vice-chancellor of the University of NSW to extending and defining the university’s relationship with industry.

For its part, Birmingham University had its origins in Josiah Mason’s Scientific College, established in 1870 by a local industrialist who, from ‘his long and varied experience...in different branches of manufacture,’ had become convinced of the benefits of more systematic scientific training. That Mason was what one could call a single-minded practical man is attested by the conditions attached to his beneficence. In founding the college, he declared that his intention was to promote 142

...thorough systematic education and instruction specially adapted to the practical, mechanical, and artistic requirements of the manufactures and industrial pursuits of the Midland district...to the exclusion of mere literary education and instruction, and of all teaching of theology and of subjects purely theological.6

Here, one notes that far from doffing his cap in the direction of Oxford and Cambridge, Mason explicitly rejected them. Mason’s College in any case was forced by external factors to widen its curriculum. As we have seen, Owens was envisaged from the start as a university along more or less traditional lines, and in the 1880s it provided the focus for the federal institution known as Victoria University. The desire of other northern colleges to join the federation tilted the balance in favour of introducing arts-based disciplines, since a balanced curriculum was seen as a precondition of entry. One can see in all this a variety of pressures and restraints which helped to determine the final shape of the institution. Birmingham, too, in seeking a university charter, was required to demonstrate that its claim to university status was genuine, and that it was not simply a technical college pretending to be a university. Birmingham’s first vice-chancellor, the Oliver Lodge, lamented ‘the unfortunate impression abroad that Birmingham either does not possess or does not encourage a Faculty of Arts,’7 and actively promoted its growth, a shift away from Mason’s original intentions which, as Lowe puts it, ‘was not universally welcomed.’ In 1911, for example, a local ratepayers’ association complained that Birmingham University was ‘of no use whatever to the industrial classes,’ since it was diverting funds intended for their education to the ‘wealthy and well-to-do.’8 143 The NSW University of Technology

There are obvious resonances here with the early history of the NSW University of Technology, which grew out of Sydney Technical College. Early critics were troubled by the association of the terms ‘university’ and ‘technology,’ arguing that the limited educational scope implied by ‘technology’ precluded the use of the term ‘university.’ The Sydney Morning Herald, in an editorial marking the Kensington site’s foundation ceremony on 25 February, 1950, stressed the importance of the distinction between the University of Sydney and the ‘new technological centre.’ If this distinction were properly understood, the NSW University of Technology

...may well aid and buttress the University of Sydney. By taking over much of the burden of routine instruction, it can open the way for more original research, social leadership, and free discussion and interchange of ideas at the senior institution.9

In this early version of the binary system of tertiary education, the new university was viewed as a threat to the availability of research funding for Sydney, and some at least wanted to see it confined to a subordinate role.

The early years of the university were troubled by disputes over autonomy and academic independence, disputes in which Baxter consistently sided with the Council, presided over by Wallace Wurth, the head of the Public Service Board, and stood apart from his disgruntled fellow professors. In June, 1951, for example, four professors signed a document called a ‘Prayer to the Council,’ in which they set out their grievances with the administration.10 In this document, they professed ‘deep shock’ at the resignation of one of their number, the Professor of Applied

145 Physics, NF Astbury, and ascribed his action, after less than 18 months in the job, to dissatisfaction with the lack of administrative autonomy enjoyed by professors.11 The NSW University of Technology was at the time still being administered by the NSW Department of Technical Education, a situation which, in the words of the Prayer, was robbing the Professorial Board ‘of any real initiative or authority. The professors, instead of being the leaders and the main force in the University’s development, are slaves to a complicated machine.’ The NSW University of Technology could never be a ‘real’ university until it had achieved autonomy from the control of the Public Service Board, and took full responsibility for its own administration. Whether or not Astbury’s resignation stemmed from such feelings, or, as Willis claims, had as much to do with the financial difficulties he was experiencing while attempting to settle in Sydney, is beside the point here, and certainly does nothing to undercut the significance of the grievances. It is worth noting here that the prayer itself raises this issue, concerning itself in sections V and VI with the more tangible problems of staff housing and professorial salaries. However, the authors do not attempt to spell out just how much the appropriate ‘academic atmosphere’ depends on such material conditions. The four who signed the prayer, AE Alexander, RM Hartwell, DW

Phillips and FEA Towndrow, called on the Council to initiate immediate discussions with the Professorial Board, with a view to full autonomy for the university by 1952.

According to Willis, Baxter (along with the other foundation professor, HJ Brown) was not asked to sign the Prayer, since his opposition to it was well known.12 Writing of these events some 146 twelve years later, Baxter argued that these early demands for autonomy

...came mainly from the academic staff, the Council perhaps realizing better the difficulties which had to be overcome. Some of these demands were emotional and intolerant, and served mainly to confirm the opinion of those who thought the staff had not yet reached that level of experience and maturity which autonomy would require. The attitude that, provided autonomy was obtained, it mattered little if the ship should sink in troubled financial waters, did not appeal to men like Wallace Wurth who saw the interests of the students and the community as taking precedence over those of less experienced academics. The Council, composed of men of great experience and wisdom, moved with a powerful sense of public duty, shared the Chancellor’s views and worked for autonomy at the proper time.13

Wurth, the first Chancellor of the university, was also the Chairman of the NSW Public Service Board. Here we have an early taste of Baxter’s antipathy towards academics, or at least academics with the temerity to openly question organisational imperatives. The authors of the prayer may have quoted Cardinal Newman to the effect that ‘a university is not a school or a group of schools, but an atmosphere,’ and argued that ‘to plan a university and to create one are two different matters,’ while the ever practical Professor Baxter, in his somewhat peevish reflections on the events of the time, lectured his colleagues on the advantages of allowing the NSW government to continue providing such services as personnel, library, purchasing, maintenance, accounts and building planning.14 Of course, Baxter and his opponents were talking past each other here. What Baxter regarded as a necessary link with existing administrative machinery, sparing the fledgling university the task of trying to perform functions for which it did not have adequate resources, the signatories to the prayer regarded as a source of bureaucratic interference, and an 147 impediment to the untrammelled pursuit of scholarship. Here also we see an emphasis on the importance of management, and an attempt to locate the managerial function in the council. In this respect at least Baxter envisaged the university as a kind of corporation, with a clear demarcation between the operatives and the managers.

At the time of the prayer, of course, Baxter was still just one of a number of professors but, in the words of Willis, he was obviously marked for higher things:

From the moment that Baxter’s powers of leadership and decision were revealed it was clear to many that here was the leader the University needed. The staff at the workplace working daily with Baxter knew it from the earliest days. Members of the Council saw it more directly when he was Acting Director for a period in 1951 while Denning was overseas.15

Willis would say with Carlyle, then, that the University Council had ‘contrived to accomplish the most important feat a body of men can do, to winnow-out the man that is to govern them: and truly one sees not that, by any winnowing-machine whatever, they could have done it better.’16 In this passage, Carlyle is taking issue with ideas of universal suffrage, and the ballot box (or ‘winnowing machine’) as the method of choosing leaders. Writing in the 1840s, he sees the only hope of alleviating the plight of the unemployed and getting England back on track as a return to the methods of its past, when men took counsel together as a community, and those with true qualities of leadership emerged naturally in the course of events. Thus it was that the monks of St Edmundsbury chose Samson as their Abbot, as one and all they wrestled with their consciences and, through any number of twists and turns, eventually settled on the right candidate. Here is not the place to 148 take issue with Carlyle’s rhetoric. Rather, I introduce it here because it gives us in words more resonant than I could command a feel for the conservative cast of mind underlying the conception of leadership implicit in Willis’ account of Baxter’s rise to the vice- chancellorship. The democratic conception of government, with a final decision being nothing more or less than the sum of a vast number of decisions made separately by discrete individuals, is as we have seen the antithesis of the conservative style of thought, for which the individual is always subordinate to the community. In Willis’ account, individual members of Council may have been casting ballots, but one gets the impression that the decision, even if not unanimous, was somehow forced on them by an acknowledgement of the superior qualities of one of the candidates, just as in Carlyle’s evocation of the 13th century Abbey of St Edmundsbury, the assembled monks all found themselves deciding for Samson, and rejecting the claims of the Prior.

In any case, the bare facts of Baxter’s election as vice- chancellor are as follows. In February 1952 he had been appointed as Deputy Director of the University, and at the end of that year the assembled Council of the University voted for his appointment as Director.17 The position of Director in the NSW University of Technology was equivalent to that of Vice-Chancellor in universities using more traditional nomenclature. (In March 1955 an amendment to the University’s Act of Incorporation, among other things, changed the titles of President, Vice-President and Director to Chancellor, Deputy Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor respectively, thereby achieving uniformity with the other Australian universities.) In Willis’ view, this victory for Baxter over the existing 149 director, Arthur Denning, represented a victory for the advocates of autonomy, since Denning (who was also the Director of the NSW Department of Technical Education) had steadfastly maintained that the university’s interests would be better served if it retained its link with the Department.18 Denning’s views were contained within a report on the question of autonomy prepared by a special subcommittee of Council, established in August 1951. According to Denning, ‘the whole Technical Education system exists not only for the student in employment but for industrial and national survival. This must not be imperilled by any decision to separate arbitrarily the University from Technical Education...The two systems are so interlocked that any real and satisfactory division of functions at this stage is impossible.’

Baxter’s critics would hardly have thought of his election as a victory for autonomy, particularly given his views as stated above, although in a vote between Baxter and Denning, a victory for Baxter may have seemed like the lesser of two evils. In any case, after only three years in Australia, Baxter had been installed as the Director of its newest university, an ascent not perhaps unexpected given the upwards slope of his career with ICI, but nevertheless noteworthy since he had spent his entire working life since graduation in industry. He was not a ‘scholar,’ had little sympathy with any ‘traditional’ conceptions of the functions and organisation of a university, and was at odds with the views of several of his colleagues.

Here, the anti-democratic strand of conservatism manifests itself, as indeed it underpins many of the disputes which marked Baxter’s period as vice-chancellor or, in Rupert Myers’ words, as 150 ‘essential founder’ of the university. Before I give a more detailed account of some of these disputes, it is necessary to issue a mild caveat, to the effect that any such account could give a misleading impression of a period of unmitigated storm and stress, since I do not take particular note of those moments of calm which punctuate it.

Universities: a disputed terrain

Throughout his career, Baxter often showed his impatience with the idea of universities being managed by their professors. Both publicly and privately he advocated the principle of leaving ultimate responsibility for the affairs of the university in the hands of a governing council with minimal representation from the academic staff. In November, 1963, for example, he wrote to Mr B Downs, the head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Loughborough Institute of Technology in Leicestershire, and included the following advice on the desirable composition of a university council:

I would endeavour to ensure that the governing body would have a large majority of lay members interested in industry and commerce as well as education, and experienced in the field of applied science, engineering and technology. I would seek to restrict the academic membership of the governing body to certainly not more than 20 per cent and I would endeavour to establish the complete authority of the governing body in both administrative and academic matters within the University. In my experience the greatest difficulty in developing a University of Technology is the desire by most people who have an academic background rigidly to follow traditional university structures and procedures. This needs to be balanced by a governing body which is able and well informed and interested in the real purposes which the University is required to fulfil.19 151 Loughborough, like a number of Institutes of Technology in Britain at that time, was in the throes of becoming a university, and it is perhaps worth mentioning here that it subsequently awarded Baxter an honorary D.Tech. (in 1969).

The following May Baxter returned to this theme in a comment on the proposed structure of the council for Macquarie University. In his view, it appeared from press reports that Macquarie would be ‘virtually hand[ed] over...to a governing body of academics and I could imagine no worse fate [for] a university.’20 What a university really needed was room for the vice-chancellor ‘to create an administration of the kind which he wanted,’ rather than be frustrated by Professorial Boards and faculties.21 These comments come from a letter to LW Weickhardt of ICI, concerning the retirement of George Paton as vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne. Indulging in a bit of gratuitous advice, Baxter suggests that the university might have difficulty in finding a replacement for Paton unless it is able to guarantee that the vice- chancellor will have real power. Here, Baxter was no doubt thinking of the events that led to the establishment of the National Institute of Dramatic Art at Kensington, after Paton’s desire to have it at Melbourne was frustrated by his Professorial Board, which felt that it was not an appropriate activity for a university.

It will be apparent from this last comment that Baxter’s doctrine of the primacy of council was really just another way of urging the primacy of the vice-chancellor. Baxter himself, in an article in which he explains his role, points out that the vice- chancellor ‘is a full member of the governing body and is its executive member. He is a member of all its committees and is the chairman of its academic committee. All matters which come to the 152 council come through the vice-chancellor...’22 Even set out in such bland terms, this description gives a good indication of the extent to which the council was Baxter’s vehicle. If any proposals contrary to Baxter’s views did happen to make it to the highest levels, there was always the threat of dire consequences if the members of council should happen to go along with them. In October 1962, for example, the Staff Association on campus proposed, among other things, that the deans of the faculties should be elected, rather than being appointed by council, and put forward notices of motion to that effect. This was always a sore point at UNSW, being contrary to the practice at other universities. The importance of the deans in Baxter’s scheme of things, and their role in the Vice- Chancellor’s Advisory Committee (another of Baxter’s innovations) will be discussed in due course. On the 30 October Baxter moved to head off the challenge, writing to council members in the following terms:

...I anticipate that it will be proposed to give the Staff Association representation on the two committees [i.e. the Personnel and Executive Committees of Council] and to provide for the Deans to be elected by the Faculties. I believe these three propositions, if approved, would do irreparable harm to the whole administrative and academic structure of the University, and I am completely opposed to them.23

Naturally, council members were urged in the circumstances to attend the meeting on the 12 November, and one can imagine just how enthusiastic they would have been to support the Staff Association resolutions.

But if there was dissatisfaction at the University of NSW, then this was reflected in a more general questioning of the role and status of Australian universities, questioning made more acute by the appearance in 1960 of Albert Rowe’s book If the gown fits, 153 based on his experiences as vice-chancellor of the . Albert Rowe was born on the 23 March, 1898. He graduated in physics from the Royal College of Science in 1921, worked as a part-time lecturer at the Imperial College of Science from 1927 to 1937, and in 1938 took over as head of the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) at the Ministry of Aircraft Production, with a staff during the war of about 3,000.24 He had therefore made a reputation in England as an organiser of wartime research efforts, particularly in the field of , and entered upon his appointment as vice-chancellor in Adelaide with high hopes for continued success. These hopes were not realised, and in 1960, two years following his retirement as vice-chancellor and return to England, Rowe brought out a book reflecting on his experiences.25 This became something of a cause celebre at the time, being reviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald by no less distinguished a figure than Sir Mark Oliphant.26 In a reply to the discussion which ensued, Rowe summarised his main conclusion as follows:

To varying extents, red brick universities are far less effective than they should be in fulfilling their two main functions, i.e., teaching and research. This is largely because the social revolution has radically altered the background of the average student coming to a red brick university and because government and industrial establishments are now undertaking fundamental research in the pure and applied sciences under conditions more favourable than those prevailing in university departments. These new factors call for radical changes in the administration of universities and in the distribution of responsibilities within them.27

This concern with the fate of red brick echoes Truscot’s, and indeed would be heartily endorsed by Baxter. In an article he wrote for Vestes, the journal of the combined university staff 154 associations, Baxter summed up his outline of developments at Kensington with the comment that ‘we cannot be like the professor described in Mr. Rowe’s If the Gown Fits, who wanted, not an efficient university, but a more comfortable one.’28 But, it may be asked, just what is meant here by the term ‘efficiency?’ This question was taken up by Baxter’s critics, too, who condemned the University of NSW in the pages of Nation as a ‘monument to High

Waste Culture.’29 The criticisms of Baxter here were based on an analysis of the failure rates at the University of NSW which, the writer argued, indicated that there were far too many students at the university who were admitted without satisfying normal matriculation requirements. It was these students who pushed the failure rates up and required a disproportionate allocation of resources to get them through their courses. For the writer of the Nation article, the problem lay in the pursuit of size for its own sake

— Baxter, in seeking growth for his institution, had sacrificed academic standards in order to boost student numbers. Concern with high failure rates became something of a leitmotif of Baxter’s period as vice-chancellor, although rather than attributing these to the low quality of students, he stressed the deficiencies of teaching and the examination process.

Universities and the pursuit of ‘efficiency’

Now, it is certainly true that Baxter advocated growth as vital for the development of post-war universities. Commenting on the situation in Britain in 1963, for example, Baxter asked

...why, in the situation of too many students and not enough money, the British universities should have elected to found a large number of small new institutions, instead of increasing the size of their present universities (which, by world standards, are quite small) to larger and more economical 155

institutions. There are very few universities in Britain with 10,000 students. A university of 10,000 students is quite common in other parts of the world and is clearly quite efficient in operation. It is also much more economical. The marginal cost of additional student places falls as the size of the institution increases.30

At the time, the University of NSW had about 11,000 students. Baxter thus sidesteps the criticism by invoking a different criterion of ‘efficiency,’ namely that based on the notion that it is cheaper to meet increased demand by expanding existing facilities than by building new ones. His critics would probably have conceded that if one were solely concerned with capital expenditure, then Baxter’s point was probably valid. However, Baxter’s critics were not concerned with capital expenditure, or the cost of providing buildings and services. Indeed, they turned this ideal of efficiency on its head, decrying what they saw as the joyless utilitarianism of the main UNSW campus, referred to by taxi-drivers (so the anonymous writer in the Nation tells us) as the ‘Kensington factory.’31 The desire for size, however, owed as much to a perception of the needs of post-war Australia. Baxter often returned to the theme of the shortage of appropriately trained engineers and technologists in Australia, and saw the rapid expansion of technological training as holding out the only hope for the country’s future development. The job of universities was to get highly skilled people into industry, and Baxter sometimes expressed regret when good students, after only a brief period in industry, returned to the academic fold.

Truscot, the commentator on Redbrick whom we have already quoted, remarked that ‘[i]f the first thing that strikes one about a modern university is red brick or dirty grey stone, the 156 second thing is the extraordinarily complicated nature of its working.’32 Here is another dimension to the quest for efficiency, which in Baxter’s view was hampered by the bureaucratic culture of endless committee meetings. Willis makes the point diplomatically: ‘As might be expected, [Baxter’s] relations with conservative academics were uneasy at times. He would refer to “the eleventh commandment for university people — thou shalt not do anything for the first time.”’33 Not, as we have seen, that he was the first to voice such criticism. As long ago as 1908, FM Cornford commented that ‘[e]very public action which is not customary, either is wrong, or, if it is right, is a dangerous precedent. It follows that nothing should ever be done for the first time.’34 There is an obvious similarity here with Baxter’s eleventh commandment, and it is worth noting that Baxter once commented that Cornford’s book ‘was clearly written by a man with a deep insight into academic affairs, which do not seem to have changed very much since the original was written.’

Even though Baxter was adept at the well-turned bon mot, when it comes to his more considered reflections on university administration, it is easy to be frustrated by his apparent devotion to minutiae. Even articles in journals like The Australian University, in which one would expect a more reflective approach, find Baxter sticking to a narrowly circumscribed version of the ‘facts,’ and avoiding more general speculation. Take for example the 1966 paper entitled ‘Administration in a post-war university,’ co-authored by Baxter and his eventual successor, Professor Rupert Myers. Right from the start we are immersed in detail:

The University of New South Wales was founded in 1949. Its enrolment in that year was 115. In 1966 it is expected to have 157

just under 13,000 students enrolled, studying for degrees in seven faculties. The annual rate of growth of enrolments in recent years has varied between 10 per cent and 20 per cent.35

But what is the significance of these disembodied pieces of information? It would be too easy, of course, to dismiss the authors of this statistician’s eye view of the university as dull apparatchiks, incapable of grasping the deeper significance of their actions — machine men who exist only to stoke the boilers and operate the levers. This interpretation only seems the more plausible when we encounter platitudes like ‘the structure must provide ample opportunities for discussion and consultation at many levels, and pay particular attention to communication.’36 Well, yes, it would be hard to envisage anyone disagreeing with that, but notice here too the conceit that the ‘structure,’ however we might visualise it, is something that is capable of ‘providing’ some things, or ‘paying particular attention’ to others, completely independently of human action. Thus, although Baxter’s style here may be frustratingly anodyne, it still serves a purpose, which is to take the administrative structure of the university out of the realm of controversy. Later, in a section of the paper headed ‘Examples of administrative practice,’37 we are promised ‘some specific “case studies” in administration.’ This, however, is precisely what the authors fail to provide. What various officers ‘do’ is determinedly cast in the passive voice, and specific examples of individual action are studiously avoided. This is a world in which ‘consultations are initiated,’ ‘the creation of new chairs...is discussed,’ ‘an overall priority list is debated,’ ‘a detailed brief is supplied,’ and so on, conveying the impression of a system in which individual personality plays no significant role. 158 We do have a recourse in a case such as this, through the study of official minutes which, dull and dry though they may appear at first sight, yet can be made to give up much hidden treasure. As a representative case study of Baxter’s administrative style, I propose that we visit the meeting of the Professorial Board on 9 April, 1957. Baxter attended meetings of the Board, but did not chair them. The following account is based on the official minutes of the Professorial Board. Here, it is worth pointing out that although the scope of this thesis does not permit a comprehensive survey of Baxter’s career as vice-chancellor (such a task would be tantamount to writing a history of the university), this study has been chosen as representative of his relationship with the academic staff, and the sorts of problems he encountered in trying to fashion the university according to his own conceptions. Among other business, the board considered a submission from the Vice Chancellor, headed, somewhat innocuously, ‘Examinations, and other related matters in the University of Technology.’ The title of the submission in fact masks its significance as an attack on the problem of failure rates in the university. Baxter begins his submission by setting up a distinction between ‘examination as a part of the educational process’, and ‘formal examination by the University as a means of determining whether a student should proceed with his studies at a more advanced level, or receive a degree or other qualification.’ The first type of exam does not require elaborate machinery, and is really the responsibility of individual schools. Thus, no student should ever need to face more than two formal examinations, one at the end of first year, and the other at the completion of the course. This final examination, in Baxter’s words, ‘would be a test of the student’s general competency in his professional field, and not a 159 test of his ability to remember a large number of detailed facts.’ Baxter envisaged that most of the final exams would be open book, and advocated the inclusion of ‘a serious formal oral examination by a committee of two or three senior members of the School.’ The strategy here is to reduce failure rates by reducing the number of formal examinations. Once beyond first year, progression would be assured, and the onus would be on the schools to organise their own methods of progressive assessment, which instead of placing hurdles in the paths of students, would come to be regarded more as diagnostic tools.

Baxter doesn’t stop there, however. His ‘related matters’ include a recommendation for a complete overhaul of first year courses to ensure a common first year for the faculties of Science, Engineering and Technology. ‘I would urge also,’ he goes on, ‘that first year work be replanned to start from a less advanced level than is the case at present.’ Having dealt with the later years, then, by eliminating formal examinations altogether, Baxter attacks the problem of failure in first year head on, by proposing an easier introduction to university work. And, as if that were not enough, his three page submission concludes with a proposal to reorganise the subject listings in the syllabus, to eliminate detailed division into individual subjects. (Baxter gave an example from the School of

Chemical Engineering, according to which the individual subjects of Unit Operations (6 hpw), Design (5 hpw), Calculations (2 hpw) and Materials (2 hpw) would be replaced in the handbook with the single entry Chemical Engineering IV (15 hpw)). 160 Baxter was not present at the meeting, and his colleagues remained unmoved by his appeal for urgency. ‘The Board,’ they felt, ‘should have time to consider in detail what the proposals would involve.’ On the question of entry standards, for example, Professor Myers felt that it would be unwise to make any recommendation until the report of the Committee of Enquiry into Secondary Education was available, and suggested that a joint Faculty Committee be set up to consider the proposals. Finally, the Board resolved ‘that a special meeting...be held to discuss the Vice-Chancellor’s report on examinations and related matters; the Vice-Chancellor to be asked to attend.’

The discussion at that meeting, held on 14 May 1957, brought out the two conflicting perceptions of Baxter’s proposals. Professor Rowan referred at one point to an ‘academic revolution,’ while Baxter argued that ‘the only change would be to decentralise the administrative functions to Schools.’ In any case, the submission was then referred to Heads of Schools, to enable them to consult their staffs, and the Finance and Development Committee was asked to consider the Vice-Chancellor’s proposals.

June came, bringing further setbacks. At that month’s meeting of the Professorial Board (held on the eleventh), the Registrar advised that to date no advice had been received from

Heads of Schools on the results of consultation. Professor Myers further advised that the Finance and Development Committee had not reached this item on its agenda, owing to its lengthy deliberations on the Industrial Arts degree course. It should surprise no-one that at this point the Board set up another committee, this time an ad hoc committee to co-ordinate the anticipated replies in writing from the heads of schools. 161 At the next Board meeting (9 July 1957), Professor JFD Wood, the convenor of the ad hoc committee just mentioned, advised that some reports had been received, but no action could be taken until they were all available. To facilitate the working of the committee, he asked that heads of schools submit five copies of their reports (that is, one for each member of the committee), and organise them under a common set of headings. On 10 September 1957, Professor Wood was able to tell his assembled colleagues that all the information was in, and he would prepare a draft report for consideration by the ad hoc committee, the next meeting of which would be called shortly. By 15 October, Professor Wood was still wrestling with his draft report, but hoped that the ad hoc committee would be able to meet before the next Professorial

Board meeting. Moving on to November 12, we find that Professor Wood is still preparing his report, but hopes that it will ‘serve as a basis for discussion within the committee appointed to consider the Vice-Chancellor’s document.’

Finally, on the 10 December, the Board considered Professor Wood’s long-awaited report, but resolved that ‘further consideration of it be deferred to the next meeting.’ One of Truscot’s comments is apposite here: ‘We are often told that democracies are slow by nature, but there can be few snails in the political garden to compete with a modern university.’38 On the face of it, Baxter’s initiative here was an abject failure, ground down by the Humphrey Applebys of the professoriate. (Readers unacquainted with Humphrey Appleby are advised to consult the scripts of the Yes Minister television programme.) Willis comments rather ruefully that the process of decision making in a large university results in ‘a range of arguments so detailed and 162 far-reaching that the main theme gets lost,’ but defends reformist zeal on the basis that ‘the process does set in train new lines of thought which may gradually change educational practice.’39

If, on the one hand, Baxter was using all the means at his disposal to fashion the university according to his conception of its role in society, it was also necessary to defend it against decentralising tendencies. In 1966 and 1967, one question concerning the university was pressure from Wollongong for autonomy for its university college, which had been opened in 1962.40 Baxter was committed to the growth of existing universities, rather than the creation of new ones, and resisted with all means in his power the bestowal of autonomy on the university colleges of Newcastle and Wollongong. We have already noted his comments with regard to Britain, but in the Australian context his centralising tendencies became most pronounced when he was confronted with pressure from the periphery. Thus, in a letter to WW Pettingell, the Chairman of the NSW Universities Board, Baxter began in his usual style by quoting at length the resolution of the university council on the question of autonomy.41 This is presented as a ‘given,’ a feature of the landscape as much as though it is a rock you must go around, regardless of your predisposition. Here, as elsewhere, we find an attempt to clearly distinguish the

‘institutional view’ from the ‘personal view,’ as though the two have no point of contact.

This delineation is made explicit when Baxter remarks that he ‘would also like to put before the Board my personal views on this matter.’ These ‘personal views’ take up two pages, amounting to more than two-thirds of the letter, underlining the fact that the carefully worded resolutions of the university’s council are a 163 reflection of the strongly held views of its vice-chancellor. Baxter begins by accusing the government in the earlier case of the granting of autonomy to the Newcastle campus of ‘political weakness and a lack of statesmanship.’ The decision to remove Newcastle from Kensington’s control was made ‘in the heat of a critical by-election,’ and was therefore aimed at securing a short- term political advantage rather than a long-term educational one. At this point, however, Baxter goes one step further, putting an extreme centralist position that he must have known would never be entertained by any government:

University education in New South Wales would be better administered if all five universities were combined under a single strong central administration with appropriate levels of academic autonomy at each centre. This would not only save much administrative expense but on the academic side would at least have avoided the nonsense over matriculation with which this state has been afflicted in recent times.

The five universities at that point were Sydney, New South Wales, New England, Macquarie and Newcastle (which achieved autonomy in 1966). Given that this was hardly a realistic proposal, one can only suppose that by presenting an extreme case of university integration, Baxter hoped to make his position on autonomy for Wollongong seem more of a reasonable compromise. Baxter argued that autonomy for Wollongong should not even be considered for at least six or seven years. Further, Baxter ascribes less than worthy motives to the advocates of autonomy. The creation of a new university will, he argues, create a need for a large number of senior academic appointments, leading to an ‘inevitable tendency...to promote from within the ranks of the College...persons of marginal qualifications who might otherwise have had to wait many years for such opportunities, if indeed they were ever so 164 rewarded.’ A further problem, as Baxter sees it, is that given the expense of conferring autonomy on country colleges, and the inevitable pressure of such colleges, once established, to seek to become self-governing universities, future governments will be reluctant to establish country colleges in the first place, thereby striking a blow at decentralisation. Throughout the controversy, Baxter staked a claim for the high moral ground, characterising the views of opponents as either short-sighted or self-interested, and his own views as in accord with the long-term interests not only of the university, but of the nation. Whether or not he was right on this point is of course an interesting question, but not one which I am competent to provide with a definitive answer. I happen to think that he was, but in any case I would argue that given the current state of doubt about future directions for universities in Australia, it is helpful to ponder arguments advanced in earlier debates.

Failure rates revisited

Since, as we have said, the problem of academic wastage as reflected by failure rates was a frequently recurring leitmotif of Baxter’s career as vice-chancellor, it is not surprising to find it dominating his thoughts as he approached retirement. In a talk to the University of NSW Alumni Association in May, 1969, Baxter argued that the community is right to seek a higher level of accountability from its tertiary institutions, in particular ‘an accountability of our efficiency, measured most directly, although in a variety of other ways too, by how many of the young people who come to our universities ultimately graduate.’42 This, Baxter predicted, would ‘infuriate...my critics, particularly some conservative die-hards in the School of Philosophy,’ but he 165 remained unrepentant.43 Is it not the case, then, that as far as university administration was concerned, Baxter was a radical rather than a conservative, an advocate for change rather than a defender of the status quo? (Here, I am using ‘conservative’ in the widely accepted sense of one who opposes change, and stresses continuity with the past.) As I argued earlier, however, it is the organicism of the conservative style of thought that characterises Baxter’s reflections on the structure and functions of the university. This aspect of Baxter’s conservative style, as exemplified by his career at the University of NSW, is, as I have stated already, brought out nicely by a study of Carlyle’s rhetoric in Past and Present. Carlyle’s concerns are, as explained above, contemporary, but in order to make his point he takes us on a journey ‘into a somewhat remote Century,’ by way of a discussion of the chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond, a monk at the monastery of St Edmundsbury in the 13th century.44 Carlyle is particularly taken with the character of the Abbot Samson, who in the absence of any modern democratic machinery, emerges as the successor to the previous manager of the monastery’s affairs, Abbot Hugo.

In the character of Samson, according to Carlyle, we have a true manifestation of leadership:

He is not there to expect reason and nobleness of others; he is there to give them of his own reason and nobleness...His troubles are manifold: cunning milites, unjust bailiffs, lazy sockmen, he an inexperienced Abbot; relaxed lazy monks, not disinclined to mutiny in mass: but continued vigilance, rigorous method, what we call ‘the eye of the master,’ work wonders. The clear-beaming eyesight of Abbot Samson, steadfast, severe, all-penetrating, — it is like Fiat lux in that inorganic waste whirlpool, penetrates gradually to all nooks, and of the chaos makes a kosmos or ordered world.45 166 (According to the OED, a sockman (or socman) was one who held land in socage, or by virtue of providing certain determinate services other than knight-service.) It is this organic conception of the ordered world held together by the exertions of its naturally appointed leader that justifies us in characterising Baxter’s approach as conservative. As an expression of this style of leadership, Baxter remained insistent on a system of appointed deans making up his own ‘inner cabinet,’ and meeting once a week to discuss policy (here, I am referring to the Vice-Chancellor’s Advisory Committee). As we have seen, in 1962 he lobbied Council intensively to reject a proposal to institute elections of deans, throwing the whole weight of his authority behind existing practice. His letter to the members of council, quoted above, is couched in such terms as to make it clear that a vote against Baxter’s views was tantamount to a vote of no confidence in the vice-chancellor, and we are justified therefore in concluding that this aspect of his administrative practice was vitally important to him.

The truth was that Baxter, like the Abbot Samson of Carlyle’s reflections, ‘found all men more or less headstrong, irrational, prone to disorder; continually threatening to prove ungovernable.’46

Comparisons with Baxter virtually suggest themselves, such as when we are told that, despite all his difficulties, the good Abbot has ‘a noble slow perseverance in him; a strength of “subdued rage” calculated to subdue most things: always, in the long-run, he contrives to gain his point.’47 Baxter, however, did not always ‘gain his point,’ and the unruly forces around him sometimes got out of hand. This became even more evident towards the end of his period as vice-chancellor, when after walking out of a meeting 167 organised by the Staff Association he wrote to the Association’s president, Professor LG Parry, to inform him that ‘I cannot any longer regard you or your associates as a channel of communication between the administration of the university and its academic staff.’48 Baxter’s account of this meeting is highly tendentious, and one could argue gratuitously insulting to his opponents. Because Baxter’s usual style was to avoid putting his views on controversial matters in writing, and to handle disputes by asking those with whom he disagreed to talk it over, the fact that he wrote to Parry in such terms is an indication that the dispute had gone beyond any such attempts to resolve it. In any case, had relations not been so strained, it is unlikely that we would have such a detailed account of the incident from Baxter’s point of view. In a subsequent letter to NR Wills, the Professor of Business Administration (who was in the United States at the time), Baxter hastened to assure his colleague that his retirement earlier than expected from the university had nothing to do with the current dispute, which he summed up as follows:

A few of the wild men in the Staff Association have been somewhat upset by remarks I made to the Council about the failure rates, particularly in first year, and the relationship between these and the poor quality of teaching in some areas. Most people in the University agree with me and are actively supporting a drive for improving teaching quality. The wild ones, as usual, are trying to make personal capital out of it, but you know that sort of thing never influences me in any way.49

The problem of failure rates in Australian universities (not just the University of NSW) had been a running sore for years, and was the main plank in Baxter’s call for efficiency. To suggest that it had anything to do with teaching, however, struck some academics as tantamount to impugning their professionalism. In 1967, for 168 example, Baxter wrote to Professor PI Korner, the Head of the School of Physiology, concerning the previous year’s failure rate of 34 per cent in Third Year Medicine, to assure him that any comments and criticisms emanating from the faculty’s examinations committee ‘do not imply any attack upon the academic integrity of the Head of the school involved.’ Rather, reviews of examination results by the faculty ‘are based upon the possibility, which applies to all of us, that a mistake might have been made and that it is better to rectify it rather than to let it go on to the disadvantage of the students.’50

Despite the assurance of university support for the decision to let the results stand, Baxter makes it very clear in his letter that he finds such a failure rate indefensible. Let us imagine, he asks, what a member of the public might say, given access to all the relevant information. (It is fair to say, I think, that this is a convenient if transparent ruse.) He might say, for example, that medical students generally matriculate at a higher level than average, that these particular students had already passed First and Second year, and that the failure rate in Physiology was significantly higher than that in other medical subjects. Here, of course, my purpose is not to rehearse old debates. Rather, I think that this example gives us insights into how Baxter regarded the role of the university, and how his perceptions of that role differed from those of at least some of his colleagues. I have already had occasion to refer to Baxter’s address to alumni on failure rates. In this talk, he referred to the attitude prevalent at the turn of the century among ‘older members of the medical profession and ministers of religion,’ that childbirth was intended by the Almighty to be a hazardous and painful process, and that use of 169 self-administered anaesthetic by women in labour was therefore sinful. ‘My reason for mentioning it,’ says Baxter,

...is that I think there is a somewhat similar attitude behind our university community’s reaction to the slaughter and suffering which we inflict annually upon the new students who come to Australian universities. Somehow we have come to regard it as something which always happens, something which is natural. Some of our academic colleagues are almost opposed to trying to do anything about it.51

It is worth emphasising here that at this point Baxter was on the verge of retirement as vice-chancellor, and there is a consequent lack of restraint in the tone of his remarks. It was not time for sparing anyone’s feelings, and Baxter lays the blame for failure rates squarely on the administrative procedures and organisation of the faculties. In a document he wrote for Council, Baxter explains to his audience,

I used some words...which caused offence to some people in the University. I said that the faculty organisations, from a managerial point of view, as the bodies entrusted with the task of managing our most important operation, which is teaching, were laughable.52

Now, says Baxter, he would be willing to withdraw the word ‘laughable,’ only to replace it with ‘tragic,’ on the basis that the faculties ‘carry the responsibility for the disillusion, the heartbreak and the disappointment, every year, of some thousands of young people who come to university full of high hopes and enthusiasm, hopes which are doomed to be dashed.’53 Strong words indeed, and indicative of an irreparable loss of good will between the vice- chancellor and the academic staff. As we have seen, a clear manifestation of this failure had come only a few months before, when Baxter walked out of a meeting organised by the Staff Association. It is also reflected in his comments on the success of 170 so-called ‘objective tests’ in freeing academics from the time- consuming task of marking examination papers:

I find it hard to reconcile the success of these activities over the period 1964/68 with the absence of any significant improvement in the overall pass rate in the University, and I am tempted to the base suspicion that we have relieved people of time consuming tasks possibly so that they may have devoted that time not to improving their teaching but to doing other things unrelated to the welfare of students.54

That vital ingredient in successful partnerships, trust, had all but withered away, leaving both sides angry and suspicious.

Late reflections

An interesting feature of this period of Baxter’s career, particularly from the biographical point of view, is an increasing level of self-consciousness reflected in his comments. At the end of May, he declined an invitation from the University of Sydney to give a lunch-time address on ‘The Nature and Purpose of a University,’ and in doing so exhibited a rare diffidence: ‘In many ways I would like to do this but it is a subject on which my views are somewhat inflammatory and I wonder whether in the present situation it would be prudent to air them.’55 This of course may be nothing more than the weariness of someone for whom controversy had lost its appeal, but in a subsequent letter to the editor of Tharunka Baxter is even prepared to admit to serious self- doubt:

...I am deeply perplexed and concerned about the future of the Australian universities and about some of the ways in which they are currently developing, but on some of these issues I have not yet really come to terms with myself and therefore would find it hard to put my feelings down in words for other people to read. I have, as I think you know, a great deal of sympathy with students who feel, as a particular character in one of Shaw’s plays put it — that God looked upon the world and found it good but that he looked upon the world and thought that it could be improved.56 171 It is worth recalling here that Baxter also made use of this particular quotation from Shaw in his ‘Foul Sluggard’s’ speech over 3 years later. As we have seen, Baxter’s concern for the welfare of students expressed itself largely through actions designed to reduce attrition due to failure.57 This concern for students went hand-in-hand with a desire to contain student activism, and an increasingly critical view of its advocates. As early as December 1958, for example, we find Baxter working on ways to maintain discipline on campus. At that time, he advised the bursar, Joe Bourke, that there ‘would be no difficulty in having members of your staff who are responsible for order and discipline...sworn in as special constables so that they may have authority to deal with people who break regulations.’58 This special form of campus police force may not have materialised, but the increase of student unrest in the following decade only served to confirm the vice- chancellor in his pessimistic views. On the question of drugs, Baxter sought in any way possible to inform himself of trends among the student body. In August 1967, he wrote a letter of thanks to Dr MA Napthali, the director of the Student Health Service, for sending him a copy of the Service’s 1966 Annual Report. However, as far as Baxter is concerned, there is something missing:

We hear a good deal nowadays about drug taking by students, and I am wondering if in the course of your work you have come across any evidence relevant to this matter. I do not see any reference to it in the report. It may well be that any drug takers we have would avoid you as you would recognise their symptoms, but if you have noticed anything I would be interested to know about it.59

Here once again the vigilance of the wise leader, watchful of any signs of disruptive influence in his domain. By 1969 Baxter’s 172 observant eye had become aware of grim portents at Sydney University. At the beginning of May he told Professor Wills that

So far this year our students at Kensington have been well behaved and we have had no problems. Sydney University has had several quite unpleasant incidents, including a particularly ugly one last Thursday when the Governor of the State, seeking to inspect a guard of honour of the University Regiment before a graduation ceremony, was mobbed, jostled, pelted with tomatoes and other fruit, and the whole ceremony disrupted. Public reaction is fairly strong and might even prompt the Senate of the University of Sydney to do something about it. I hope so anyhow because if the wrongdoers get away with it unscathed it might spread to other places.60

The real concern here is contained in the final sentence, reflecting a fear of a breakdown of student discipline, leaving a beleaguered administration to face enemies of order on two fronts. First, the ‘wild men’ of the academic staff, and second, the long- haired, left-wing agitators among the students. Baxter expresses similar concerns in a letter of March, 1969, in which he comments that in Britain ‘things seem to be getting rather seriously out of hand and the universities, as usual, are dithering as to what they ought to do about it.’ Although Kensington is relatively quiet, according to Baxter, he hints darkly about ‘making plans as quietly as we can to deal with any likely eventuality,’ while hoping that the university will not have to put these plans into effect.61 Baxter was responding to a letter from Nicholls, accompanying a number of press cuttings on student unrest in Britain. Whether these plans represent another version of the idea of having special constables on campus is not clear, but in any case it is interesting that Baxter’s attempts to head off the contagion of Paris 1968 did not just involve plans for punitive crack-downs. He also saw to it that the youthful high spirits on campus could be diverted from the lure 173 of student radicalism by a bit of good clean fun. I could not do better here than to quote Willis’ account:

Tharunka [the UNSW student newspaper] was...the means by which an unusual personality named Ian Channell, a Teaching Fellow in Sociology, first came to the attention of the student body at large. In July, 1968, he wrote an article ‘Soul Power and Fun Powder v Will Power and Gun Powder’ which wittily commented on the aggression and humourless intensity of the student movements of the time. Channell believed that ‘fun’ was the principal weapon to achieve worthy social ends and organised highly original demonstrations to support his thesis. Unfortunately, his progress as a higher- degree student was affected by his efforts to stimulate and entertain students, and his appointment in the School of Sociology was not renewed. Such was his influence on students that Professor Baxter facilitated his continuing presence on campus by offering $750 a year to Channell provided the Students’ Union would contribute a like amount. On 1 April 1969 Channell formally took up duty as ‘Gandalf, the Wizard of Oz’ with the duty of organising any student activities he thought fit.....and for a few years the Wizard enlivened campus activity with his offbeat humour and eccentric conduct.62

Thus did the V-C seek to neutralise the ‘aggression’ and ‘humourless intensity’ of student radicals!

It would be misleading, however, to suppose that the university was on the brink of revolution. The institution of which, in the words of his successor Rupert Myers, Baxter was the ‘essential founder,’ still bore the traces of its origins in ‘Redbrick.’ It would also be misleading, as I said earlier, to carry away an impression of a career dogged by bitter controversy, to the exclusion of all else. Any account of Baxter’s career at the University of NSW (and this chapter can hardly claim to be a comprehensive history of it) would have to find some room for the man whose professed concern for students, while perhaps it would be condemned by many as paternalistic, nevertheless expressed itself in active intervention on their behalf. Here, I am thinking of the 174 reminiscences of former students who benefited from his advice and teaching, and had their access to research facilities made considerably easier by his intervention. As far as my thesis is concerned, then, Baxter’s career at the University of NSW provided him with yet another institutional focus for expressing his ideas about the development of society, and helps to round out my account of his conservative style of thought.

1 B. Truscot, Red brick university, Penguin, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1951, p. 49. 2 Quoted in M. Sanderson, The universities and British industry 1850-1970, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1972, p. 95. 3 From The Owens’ College, substance of the report...on the general character and plan of the college (Manchester, 1850), cited in M. Sanderson (ed.), The universities in the nineteenth century, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1975, p. 92. 4 Sanderson, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 83-84. 5 Sir Henry Roscoe, Life and experiences of Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe, cited in Sanderson, op. cit. (note 2), p. 84. 6 From the trust deed of Josiah Mason’s Scientific College, 12 December 1870, cited in Sanderson, op. cit. (note 3), pp. 158-159. 7 Quoted in R. Lowe, ‘The expansion of higher education in England,’ in K.H. Jarausch (ed), The transformation of higher learning 1860-1930, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1983, pp. 37-56, at p. 53. 8 Ibid., pp. 53-54. 9 Quoted in Willis, op. cit. (note 54, chapter 1), p. 35. 10 Ibid., pp. 36-47. 11 For the full text of the Prayer, see Willis, op. cit. (note 54, chapter 1), pp. 40-43. 12 Willis, op. cit. (note 54, chapter 1), p. 43. 13 J.P. Baxter, ‘A short history of the University of New South Wales to 1964,’ The Australian university, 1965, 3, pp. 74-114, at p. 89. 14 Ibid., p. 88. 15 Willis, op. cit. (note 54, chapter 1), pp. 45-46 16 T. Carlyle, Past and present, Chapman and Hall, London, 1843, p. 103 17 See Willis, op. cit. (note 54, chapter 1), p. 68. 18 Quoted in Willis, op. cit. (note 54, chapter 1), pp. 43-44. 19 Baxter to B. Downs, 10 November 1963, UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 33. 20 Letter to The Hon. H.D. Ahern, MLC. UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 33. 21 Baxter to L.W. Weickhardt, 3/8/1966. 22 J.P. Baxter, ‘The role of the vice-chancellor in the University of New South Wales,’ The Australian University, 1968, 6, pp. 4-13, at p. 6. 23 UNSW Archives, CN 1053, Box 51. 175

24 W.G.K. Duncan and R.A. Leonard, The University of Adelaide 1874-1974, Rigby, Adelaide, 1973, p. 82. 25 A.P. Rowe, If the gown fits, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1960. 26 Oliphant’s review appeared on the 13 April, 1960, and was subsequently reprinted in Vestes, June 1960, pp. 47-49. 27 A.P. Rowe, ‘If the gown fits: A.P. Rowe replies’, Vestes, September 1960, pp. 67-71, at p. 67. 28 J.P. Baxter, ‘The University of New South Wales,’ Vestes, December 1960, pp. 11-18, at p. 18. 29 Unsigned article, ‘High waste culture: A measure of Professor Baxter’s efficiency,’ Nation, January 14, 1961, pp. 8-11, at p. 11. 30 Ninth Congress of the Universities of the Commonwealth 1963: Report of Proceedings, pp. 41-42. 31 Nation article, op. cit. (note 29), p. 8. 32 Truscot, op. cit. (note 1), p. 80. 33 Willis, op. cit. (note 54, chapter 1), p. 215. 34 F.M. Cornford, Microcosmographia Academica: Being a guide for the young academic politician, 5th edition, Bowes and Bowes, Cambridge, 1953 (first published 1908), p. 15. 35 J.P. Baxter and R. Myers, ‘Administration in a Post-War University (with special reference to developments in the University of New South Wales)’, The Australian University, 1966, 4, pp. 95-115, at. p. 95. 36 Ibid., p. 96. 37 Ibid., p. 104. 38 Truscot, op. cit. (note 1), p. 94. 39 Willis, op. cit. (note 54, chapter 1), p. 103. 40 For a brief outline of the history of Wollongong University College, see Willis, op. cit. (note 54, chapter 1), pp. 134-137. 41 Baxter to W.W. Pettingell, 11 December 1967. UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 37. 42 J.P. Baxter, ‘Academic wastage,’ The Australian University, 1970, 8, pp. 152-168, at p. 167. 43 Ibid., p. 168. 44 T. Carlyle, Past and present, Chapman and Hall, London, 1843, p. 51. 45 Ibid., pp. 112-114. 46 Ibid., pp. 124. 47 Ibid., pp. 125. 48 Baxter to L.G. Parry, 28 March, 1969, CN 423, Box 38. 49 Baxter to Professor N. Wills, 6 May, 1969, CN 423, Box 39. 50 Baxter to Professor P.I. Korner, 13 September, 1967, CN 423, Box 37. 51 Baxter, op. cit. (note 42), p. 152. 52 Ibid., p. 163. 53 Ibid., p. 163. 54 Baxter to Dr. F.M. Katz, Director, Tertiary Education Research Centre, University of NSW, 12 May, 1969, UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 39. 55 Baxter to B.R. Williams, 29 May, 1969, UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 39. 176

56 Baxter to D. Taylor, 3 June, 1969, UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 39. 57 See the section headed ‘Action on failure rates’ in Willis, op. cit. (note 54, chapter 1), pp. 102-104. 58 Baxter to J.O.A. Bourke, 19 December, 1958, UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 29. 59 Baxter to Dr M.A. Napthali, 15 August, 1967, UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 36. 60 Baxter to Professor N. Wills, op. cit. (note 49). 61 Baxter to C.E. Nicholls, Chief Migration Officer, Office of the High Commissioner for Australia, London, 7 March, 1969. 62 Willis, op. cit. (note 54, chapter 1), pp. 147-148 177 CHAPTER SIX ENGINEERING AND THE COMMUNITY

Up to now I have considered Baxter’s role in institutional contexts, namely the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, and the University of NSW. In this chapter, I am concerned with locating him in a professional context, by considering how Baxter’s views on the role of engineering in society might be considered as either echoing well- rehearsed themes in the engineering community, or striking a more discordant tone. One way of approaching this would be to consult sociological studies of engineers and the engineering profession, but for my purposes this would be too abstract, and miss the immediate ideological context of Baxter’s work. As we will see, I have preferred to concentrate on the considered written statements of the leaders of the profession, for much the same reason that I have devoted so much attention to Baxter’s speeches. Quantitative sociological analyses of professional attitudes have their place, but they are tangential to the textual analysis that is central to my methodology.

The first part of my survey involves Baxter’s formative years in England, as he carved out a career for himself, first at Billingham and then at Widnes. It is worth noting here that Baxter’s career as a chemical engineer began at the same time as that particular discipline’s nascent professional body, the Institution of Chemical Engineers, was still carving out a niche for itself in an ever more crowded environment. Thus, in 1924 we find the president of the institution, Sir Arthur Duckham, admitting to some perplexity as to what actually constituted a chemical engineer, and concluding that 178

...a chemical engineer as such does not in reality exist today. We have good chemists with some knowledge of engineering, usually gained in works experience of running processes, but the man with a thorough grounding in both arts and in the connecting art of physics practically does not exist.1

Not that this was any cause for despair, since having identified these desiderata, it was now open for Duckham to propose that the institution of which he was president should be at the forefront of attempts to realise them:

We are convinced that the technical administrator of the future must be a chemical engineer; efficiency and progress in the industrial world and in public services must depend on the sound and general training of the men who are to lead and control the forces under them, and the Institution of Chemical Engineers very fully realises this fact, and have therefore made their chief endeavour the proper training of the chemical engineer.2

All this accords with JF Donnelly’s conclusion that by the early 1920s chemical engineering had ‘reached a germinal position from which a process of slow negotiation of boundaries and growth would begin,’ with the newly formed Institution as an obvious focus for that growth and boundary work.3 Thus, Philip Baxter’s university training (degree in science, majoring in chemistry, and postgraduate study in mechanical engineering) placed him in a profession that was only in the early phases of finding an institutional voice, and asserting itself as the career path of the future. As far as Baxter’s involvement in the Institution is concerned, I have not been able to locate detailed membership lists, but that he was active is borne out by a reference to his election on 2 April, 1943 as an Associate Member of the Council.4 It is interesting to note here, too, that Baxter involved himself in the affairs of the Institution even after his move to Australia, serving as 179 chairperson of the Australian Committee of the ICE in 1961, and convening meetings to discuss the possible formation of an Australian branch of the Institution. On 24 July, for example, Baxter circulated a letter to a number of leading academics and industrial figures, advising of a meeting the following month to ‘consider seriously the action which might be taken to find out if a Branch of the Institution could now be established in this country.’5

But to return to the English scene, that all was not plain sailing in the process of negotiating the boundaries of the new discipline of chemical engineering is evident from a study of successive presidential addresses to the Institution. Twenty years after Sir Arthur Duckham’s speech referred to above, for example, FA Greene felt it necessary to remark that ‘for reasons best known to themselves certain individuals still persist in declaiming their ignorance of what a Chemical Engineer really is, and for what specific purpose he is now being educated and trained as such from the outset of his career.’6 Greene was concerned with establishing that chemical engineering was a speciality in its own right, and needed training programs designed specifically to produce chemical engineers, rather than chemists with a smattering of engineering, or engineers with a smattering of chemistry. He refers to the ‘man who has taken a Degree in Chemical Engineering’ as the ‘ “true-bred” Chemical Engineer,’ even though he immediately qualifies this remark with the observation that he is

...in no way seeking to disparage those present or future members of our profession who have or will become Chemical Engineers by adoption, viz., those who, starting as chemists, later superimpose 180

the study and practice of engineering upon their early training and experience in chemistry, and vice versa.7

(Baxter, of course, fell into the category of ‘chemical engineer by adoption.’) It would be a mistake, albeit tempting, to dismiss this as mere propaganda. The importance of sources like presidential addresses is that they can provide us with clues as to the preoccupations of a group of people who have chosen to define themselves, at least partly, by disciplinary allegiance. Part of my task here is to consider the extent to which Baxter shared or diverged from the preoccupations of his professional peers. To do this, I have looked at the issues raised by presidential addresses of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, at least up to 1950, by which time, of course, Baxter had taken up the Professorship of Chemical Engineering at the University of New South Wales. From such a survey I would expect to derive a feeling for the values and ideals of those individuals chosen by their profession to give voice to collective concerns and interests, over the period during which Philip Baxter’s professional attitudes were presumably being formed. It would be foolhardy to claim that all chemical engineers would necessarily agree with everything that their president might say, but I think it is reasonable to suppose that people in such positions of leadership would seek to appeal to as many of their colleagues as possible. We saw above, for example, how one president sought to make as strong a statement as possible about the disciplinary purity of chemical engineering, without alienating an important part of his audience.

In his second presidential address, delivered on 11 March, 1927, Sir Frederic Nathan began with the obligatory recitation of the credo: 181 ‘I believe that chemical engineering can and should play a leading part in the development of new industries and in the progress of existing ones,’ and went on to suggest that the chemical engineer ‘should always be on the look-out for cases in which he can help.’8 The way in which Nathan expounds these ‘case studies’ is in accordance with a conception of engineering as a discipline geared towards incremental improvement within narrowly conceived criteria of relevance. In his discussion of the British sugar beet industry, for example, Nathan accumulates an impressive array of data on its size and viability, and as far as the latter is concerned, concludes that on the cessation of the existing government subsidy, the industry would not be able to pay its way.9 Of course, this is where the chemical engineer can come in, if only on the question of processing of the beet. Nathan cites a process invented by a Dr De Vecchis for washing and drying the beet on the farm itself, which if it proved viable would end the situation where, as Nathan puts it, ‘rather over three-quarters of the weight delivered to the sugar beet factories is useless material.’10 Nothing, of course, is ever so simple, since even this low level of processing requires local power generation. This situation, however, can be turned to account, once we realise that fuel could be provided by the alcohol made from the tops and crowns of the beet which are removed prior to slicing and drying. All these, of course, are chemical processes, and there is therefore an obvious role for the chemical engineer in the design and layout of plant.

Now this, of course, is not a thesis on the production of sugar beet. What is of interest from my point of view is the way in which Nathan seeks a clear demarcation of the area of operation of the 182 chemical engineer, as opposed to that relevant to other experts, a distinction which he makes explicitly at various points. In discussing the competitiveness of the sugar beet industry, Nathan comments that in order to accept a lower price, the farmer could increase the yield per acre, and if possible the sugar content as well. However, these desirable outcomes, as well as cheaper cultivation and harvesting methods, ‘are matters for the agriculturist rather than for the Chemical Engineer.’11 Chemical engineers, then, should confine their attention to the manufacturing process, and seek efficiencies in that area. Similar considerations apply to the coal industry. We are told that rising prices have prompted a Royal Commission to recommend an urgent search for new methods of winning and utilising coal, in order to ensure a restoration of the prosperity of the industry, and here again there is an important distinction to be made. Nathan comments that ‘the actual mining of coal is hardly a matter within the province of the chemical engineer,’ but once it becomes a question of preparation for the market and eventual utilisation, we have entered the realm of chemical engineering. Thus, ‘the gas and coke-oven industries are chemical engineering industries par excellence, and the remarkable progress they have made in recent years is a standing example of the results of the application of science to industry.’12 The moral of the story, then, is that improvements in industry follow from the application of scientific principles, and as far as the large-scale application of chemical processes is concerned, the chemical engineer is the right person for the job. Why certain industries should be the subject of Royal Commissions, and others attract subsidies, are matters beyond his purview. If you like, they are part of the givens of industrial life, just 183 like the distribution of coal seams or the chemical properties of sugar. As an aside on this point, it is interesting to reflect on just how much labour relations loom in the background of Nathan’s considerations, without ever becoming explicit. Thus, when the Royal Commission on the coal industry refers to a restoration of the industry’s prosperity, it has in mind not just the well-being of shareholders, but is also concerned to ensure ‘a proper standard of wages and working conditions.’

In his address the previous year, Nathan took as his theme the idea of ‘Industrial Efficiency,’ and here once again we see the emphasis on application of ‘scientific methods.’ The following is typical:

The Report of the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry has dealt exhaustively and in a most masterly manner with the methods by which science can come to the assistance of the coal industry, and has shown how essential to its continued well- being such assistance has now become. Scientific methods are no less applicable to other industries, and if our position as a great supplier of the needs of the world is to be maintained in the future, the aid of science must be enlisted to the utmost possible extent. There is no doubt that industrial efficiency has fallen behind in this country, with a consequent loss of prosperity. It is of vital importance, not only to retain this prosperity, but to increase it in every possible direction if Great Britain is to keep its position as head of a great Empire.13

There are various concerns reflected here. First, signs of disquiet at a loss of competitiveness, and a realisation that Britain may no longer be able to boast that it is the workshop of the world. In the face of such trends, what can engineers offer but an improvement of efficiency, and technical solutions to social problems? Such, at least, is Nathan’s answer. How to deal with dissatisfied staff? First, 184 recognise that, along the lines advocated by Taylor, ‘scientific management’ can proceed on the basis that the interests of workers and management are by no means inherently antagonistic, but in any well organised industry will be seen to coalesce. It may be, of course, that Taylor’s methods ‘were not very suitable for application in this country [ie, Great Britain] and little was done,’ but Nathan can nevertheless point to such lights on the horizon as the foundation, in 1921, of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology. Investigations conducted by this body, we are told,

...are carried out by specially trained observers who virtually live the life of the worker for some weeks or months, saturating themselves with the working conditions of the particular factory, until, through observation and experiment, they are able to recommend changes that promote greater ease of working and abolish needless fatigue, friction and boredom.14

Nathan even cites his own experience in this regard, referring to his

...personal observation and early experiment on industrial psychology made some fifteen years ago at the Ardeer Factory of Nobel’s Explosives Company, Limited. In the manufacture of guncotton the nitrated guncotton had to be picked over by hand to remove impurities before it was reduced from the cotton waste condition to a fine pulp. The girls worked a continuous four and a half hour shift. By giving them an interval of a quarter of an hour in the middle of the shift, during which they were allowed to go out into the open air and more or less play about, their output was increased, notwithstanding the reduction in working time, and they were no doubt all the better and happier for the rest period.

Well, it seems that even frivolity has its place in the well-run business! It is perhaps not necessary to spell out in great detail the parallels here with the technocratic movement in the United States. In any case, the need for the efficient organisation of industry, and, by 185 extension, society at large, was an idea that transcended the conventional political divisions between left and right, Tory and Labour, liberal and conservative, and was shared by those who regarded themselves as apolitical. One way for the avowedly apolitical to intervene in debates about industrial organisation was to claim a scientific warrant for their recommendations, which were allegedly based on ‘experiment,’ and if implemented could lead to quantifiable improvements. Thus, we find Nathan recommending the implementation of vocational guidance, or ‘the examination of the intelligence and aptitudes of those about to take up their life’s work.’ Such examination, we are told, has as its aim the selection of the workers ‘best adapted to a given job, thereby securing a guarantee of greater productivity and at the same time safeguarding the workers from drifting into jobs for which their natural aptitudes do not fit them.’15 Thus, political constructs such as class are reduced to shadowy epiphenomena, parasitic on measurable attributes such as ‘intelligence’ and ‘aptitude’. If there is any aristocracy in an efficient society, then it is an aristocracy of talent.

What people like Nathan share with Baxter is a concept of an identifiable national interest, which can best be served by adherence to well founded principles and values. On this point I think hangs the ascription to Baxter of a conservative ‘style’ of thought, the belief in certain eternal verities, such as the nation, or the people. Here, I depart somewhat from Wiener’s insightful analysis of Britain’s industrial malaise.16 For Wiener, the problem in England stems from an aversion to industry characteristic of the financial and professional classes, except for ‘one brief historical moment, when men like 186 Andrew Ure and Samuel Smiles were discovering a moral purpose in industry and finding in its progress the material for a new kind of epic drama.’17 Since the 1880s, both scholarly and popular historical writing in England had been

...not only hostile to unregulated capitalism, but also questioned the value of technological advance, and the pursuit of economic growth itself. Through this writing there was fixed upon the English mind a strikingly negative image of what was, in the long perspective, perhaps the most decisive contribution of England to the history of the human race.18

Here, Wiener is referring to the Industrial Revolution. By the later nineteenth century, then, ‘the new industrial system was looking less and less morally or spiritually supportable. As Bernard Shaw observed in 1912, the later Dickens was showing newly sensitive readers that “it is not our disorder (as the Victorians thought) but our order that is horrible”.’19 However, the educational system of Gradgrind notwithstanding, it would be a mistake to suppose that even the later Dickens was opposed to engineering or industry. One need only mention here the contrast in Little Dorrit between the Works of the

‘very ingenious’ Daniel Doyce, smith and engineer, and the Circumlocution Office, the home of the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings.20 It will be obvious from the following what Dickens’ views are:

‘A dozen years ago, [Doyce] perfects an invention (involving a very curious secret process) of great importance to his country and his fellow-creatures....The moment he addresses himself to the government, he becomes a public offender...to be shirked, put off, browbeaten, sneered at, handed over by this highly- connected young or old gentleman, to that highly-connected young or old gentleman, and dodged back again....’ 187 It is not my purpose here to explore Wiener’s thesis in detail. Rather, I mention it because it conflates what I regard as two separate issues, namely the conservatism that seeks the preservation of deep-seated ways of life, and the conservatism that opposes technological development. The two of course can coincide, but the conservative style of thought characterised by Mannheim has no necessary connection with an anti-engineering or anti-technology stance. Thus, there is no inherent contradiction in ascribing to Baxter a conservative style of thought. On Wiener’s view, it is a matter for concern that Samuel Courtauld’s address to the Engineers’ Club in Manchester in 1942 can contain the following critique of material values:

I believe that the worship of material values is the fatal disease from which our age is suffering, and that, if we do not eradicate this worship, it will inevitably destroy our whole society and not even leave us any business to discuss. We must steadfastly keep on reminding ourselves all the time that material efficiency is only a means to an end.21

For Wiener, such sentiments are all part of the move towards the ‘gentrification’ of the industrialist, given that ‘social prestige and moral approbation’ were only obtained by escaping industry. However, the fact that Baxter would no doubt have heartily endorsed Courtauld’s comments might suggest that a rejection of so-called ‘material values’ does not imply a rejection of a career that commits one to investigating the efficient use of materials.

A further point worth making here is that Wiener has not taken into account the way in which engineering was perceived by its practitioners as a crucial player in another kind of ‘epic drama,’ 188 namely that of national survival in the face of overseas threats. Thus, in April 1941, at a time when no-one in England could have looked forward with confidence to the end of the war, F Heron Rogers nevertheless entitled his presidential address to the Institution ‘Some Post-war Problems.’22 Not surprisingly, perhaps, he has a grim message of a post-war world ‘red in tooth and claw’:

Whatever peacemongers may say, war is, as all history has proved at some period, inevitable; equally the laws of earthly existence embrace the survival of the fittest. We believe...that the fittest are those who are strong in arms and in honour....Safety first is a wholly worthless dogma. Safety can only follow on ceaseless preparation for survival, and the armouring of our weak spots.23

In this world, commerce is simply another kind of war conducted by means of trade, in which ‘the pen and brain strive to be mightier than the sword.’ Beyond this sort of rhetorical flourish, though, Heron Rogers draws quite specific conclusions concerning industrial policy. Excessive taxation, we are told, robs industry of incentive. Allowance must be made for the needs of industry to invest in new plant, particularly given the loss of three or four years due to war, and, as Heron Rogers argues, these considerations particularly affect chemical plant, which

...is more susceptible to wear, tear and obsolescence than any other type of plant used in industry. It is normally subjected to corrosion, is generally used every hour of the year, and may, from the all-too-rapid development of laboratory attempts to keep abreast of the times, become obsolete. In any case, a three- or four-year interval of time is a huge gap to cover in progress of plant development, especially when development under the spear-point drive of war brings new processes to light, and many new deviations in design.24 189 Unfortunately, argues Heron Rogers, British industry has in the past suffered from the application of the tenets of what we would describe as ‘economic rationalism,’ with the closure of domestic industries in the face of cheaper overseas competition. ‘I have vivid memories,’ he says,

of a flourishing chemical industry manufacturing tartaric and allied vegetable acids, and employing 200 persons, being closed, due to the decree that it was not manufacturing a ‘fine chemical.’ For such sin this factory, after many years’ existence, suffered extinction to a subsidised foreign competition, the price for the foreign manufactured articles under subsidy being less than the cost of the raw material to the home factory.25

The danger, as Heron Rogers sees it, is that the application of narrow criteria dictated by markets deflects the country from the ‘prime national aim’ of maintenance of industry and full employment. Further, that ‘national aim’ can only be achieved by conscious planning, taking full cognisance of the forces arrayed against the nation. Thus, his more detailed recommendations for dispersal of industry, and even its location underground. Perhaps even more important than this, however, is Heron Rogers’ insistence on self-sufficiency. On the question of oil, for example, we are told that ‘we cannot... either afford or expect to survive financially or otherwise if we continue to buy all our oil outside the Empire. It must come mainly from our own resources by synthetic processes.’26

This is but one example of many cited by Heron Rogers as possible avenues of research in which the national interest happily coincides with that of the profession of chemical engineering. We are told, for example, that 190

[q]uite apart from national needs, fortunes wait on the chemical engineer who can convert to farm use the tens of thousands of tons of sewage that daily are allowed to suffer bacteriological change or are discharged untreated to our estuarial waters.27

Further, it is important to note here that there is no sign of reticence about charting national goals, or asserting the subservience of policy to engineering considerations. Only free us from ‘unwise governmental and political interference [and] subsidised competition,’ Heron Rogers concludes, and ‘we can achieve great strides towards post-war safety and happiness in these Isles.’ That his audience took these remarks as constituting some sort of considered world view is attested by the fact that Professor AW Nash, in seconding the vote of thanks, said that ‘it had given him great pleasure to listen to the President’s Thesis on the Philosophy of Nationalism and

Internationalism.’28 Perhaps the only difference between Heron Rogers and Baxter in this respect is that by the 1970s, Baxter’s ‘Philosophy of Nationalism and Internationalism’ did not excite such gratified feelings in his audience. Indeed, as we have seen, Baxter felt that his views were not so well appreciated in 1940s Britain, either. (Here, I am referring to his proposals for relocating the woollen industry to Australia.)

Two years after Heron Rogers’ address, CS Garland once again took up the issue of post-war planning, with a fervent plea to his colleagues to take politics more seriously.29 Given that ‘in the last resort [politics] determines whether and how we shall continue to exist as a nation it will be agreed that the time for a delicate disdain of politics by men of science has long since passed.’30 Naturally, there are differences of emphasis. Garland, for example, is much more 191 concerned with what he takes to be the problems associated with bureaucratic control of industry, and takes comfort from Churchill’s pronouncements that ‘private enterprise, the source of so much that we have today, is not to be stifled.’31 Nevertheless, both speakers make a claim for the centrality of chemical engineering in the post-war world. In the British case, then, there is at least some evidence that Baxter shared some of the concerns of his professional colleagues. It still remains to ask, in an Australian context, how typical were Baxter’s attempts to view engineering as part of a broader vision of the development of society. Were engineers in Australia more concerned with narrowly conceived professional interests? In order to explore these and related questions, it will be necessary to survey an appropriate sample of published lectures and articles in professional journals. Here, I am not attempting anything like a quantitative survey (numbers of column inches per issue, for example), mainly because I think that such approaches are not particularly illuminating, and indeed can be quite deceptive, by seeming to invest an individual historical interpretation with an unwarranted aura of objectivity. Beyond asserting that my work is based on a survey of the relevant material, I am content to let my interpretation stand or fall on its own merits.

For the purposes of my thesis, then, I surveyed The Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia for the period 1949-1972. These dates were chosen because they coincided with Baxter’s arrival in Australia, and his retirement from the AAEC. To begin with, I looked at the presidential addresses given by the outgoing president of the Institution of Engineers, at each Annual General Meeting, in order to 192 see whether there were any interesting trends in these major ‘keynote’ speeches. The basic data are summarised in the table at the end of the chapter beginning on page 196 (biographical material is taken from Who’s who in Australia).

Some things stand out on even a cursory inspection. Most of the presidents of the institution in this period were drawn from the ranks of civil or electrical engineering, with six presidents, from Nimmo in 1949 to Callinan in 1972, having obtained their civil engineering qualifications from the University of Melbourne. The six are as follows, with the year of their presidential address in brackets: Nimmo (1949), Lewis (1953), Darwin (1958), Furphy (1960), Hodgson (1968), Callinan (1972). Melbourne graduates in other disciplines include Moorhouse (1966 — Electrical), and Langlands (1969 — Mechanical). As far as the electrical engineers are concerned, the University of Sydney is the major contributor, from Hebblewhite in 1950 to Crawford in 1967. The full list includes Hebblewhite (1950), Brain (1952), Mackay (1957) and Crawford (1967). Myers (1959) took his BSc from Sydney, but did his postgraduate study at Oxford. Sydney graduates in other disciplines include Burn (1951 — Mechanical), Gibson (1954 — Mechanical), and Priddle (1964 — Civil). Only one president, Professor Jack Roderick, did all his training overseas, at Cambridge and Bristol, while the Universities of Adelaide, Queensland and Western Australia account for the remainder of the presidents with tertiary engineering qualifications. The full list is: University of Adelaide: Parsons (1956 — Mining), Hutcheson (1961 — Naval), and Colebatch (1962 — Civil). : Risson (1963 — Civil). University of Western Australia: Leach (1965 — Civil). As far as 193 career path is concerned, the presidents over this period seem fairly representative of the profession, with public service engineers, academics and private consultants all represented. There are, it will be noticed, no chemical engineers, a situation which we can ascribe to the late development of the discipline in Australia. As David Miller has pointed out, it was not until 1963 that the Sydney Division of the Institution of Engineers established a chemical engineering branch, so it is not surprising that no chemical engineer rose to the rank of president of the Institution in the period we are considering.32

Now, to consider the presidential addresses in more detail. These fall into two main types, with outgoing presidents taking the opportunity to either discuss a specific field of interest, or give a broader view of the profession as a whole in its relation to society. As an example of the latter, in April 1972, some six months before Philip Baxter’s ‘Foul Sluggard’s Comfort’ lecture, the retiring president of the Australian Institution of Engineers, BJ Callinan, expressed a sense of disquiet over the standing of engineering in the community. ‘The present has a radically different view of the engineering achievements of the past and the profession must adapt rapidly to it,’ he told his audience at the Institution’s Annual General Meeting in Canberra.33 The contemporary view was that engineering works were largely responsible for the degradation of the environment, as a result of previous decisions based on narrowly conceived criteria of technical or economic feasibility. For example, says Callinan,

...when irrigation in Northern Victoria was commenced about 1890, the possibility of shallow, highly saline water tables was 194

not considered; and even if it had been, it is most unlikely that such possibility would have been allowed to prevent the great development and contribution that this area would make to State and National stability.34

In the past, then, engineers had certainly made mistakes, although Callinan is at pains to absolve his predecessors from any attribution of wrongdoing. By their lights, they had achieved great feats of engineering, and, given the demands for the development of the country, the engineers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had done no differently from what we would have done in similar circumstances. Evoking a different era, Callinan recounts an anecdote from his past:

I recall one of the most pungent and persistent pieces of advice given me when I was doing my course at Melbourne University. In those days, which we now recognise as unhurried, the one and only Professor of Engineering used to talk to each student each year; and when he spoke to me on this occasion I must have been sunk in some personal part of the great depression that was then strangling the world. He encouraged me with four short sentences which still ring in my memory: This is a young country; It must develop; Development is engineering; Callinan keep going.35

This quasi-syllogistic formula might constitute a simple creed, but underpinning it is a feeling that in times of doubt one must strip one’s beliefs down to the simple verities. Callinan’s is an optimistic message — indeed, one must ‘keep going’, and there is even a strategy for the engineer perturbed by contemporary criticisms of the profession. What is needed in his view is a new ‘multi-disciplinary’ approach, given that the achievements of the engineer ‘now must be measured against standards other than those of technical or economic 195 desirability.’ Increasing affluence has produced a more demanding society, with more leisure time at its disposal, and concerns for a wider range of values, leaving engineers with ‘a call and a duty to watch the environment in which we all live.’36 Of course, one could object that this is simply a shrewd move to reposition engineering as an ally rather than a villain, but in any case the interesting thing here is the fact that such a move is considered necessary. Note, though, that the engineering profession is portrayed throughout as a mere servant of society, rather than a setter of the agenda. It is not engineers qua engineers that have decided that the environment needs protection, rather it is a demand generated by rising affluence. According to this model, in the early years of the development of the country following white settlement it was the mere winning of a livelihood that assumed primary importance. Now that we were reaping the fruits of post-war affluence, it was time to make room for other values, of a more aesthetic or moral nature. Now, we could afford to care for the environment.

For his part, Callinan draws on his experiences in a ‘multi- disciplinary team’ investigating the problem of salinity in the Murray River valley, a problem affecting ‘more than half a million acres of land.’37 The moral is clear — even if engineers have been part of the problem, they are also an integral part of any worthwhile solution. The mood here is one of accommodation, with engineering considered as just one of a number of different perspectives that give investigations a requisite depth. We are not too far away here from the concept of the environmental impact statement, with its portrayal of responsibility for decisions being taken from the realm 196 of a narrowly conceived engineering rationality. But if Callinan in his address to his colleagues is searching for a new philosophical underpinning for the profession of engineering, and for that reason sounds meditative and introspective, his predecessor, FB Haigh, sees no reason for any such soul-searching. The very title of his address, ‘The northern miracle,’ conveys a message of technological wonder, with a big country (Haigh defines ‘north’ for his purposes as anything above latitude 26° S) demanding a big vision, with no room for doubt. Not even the alleged dryness of the continent should be allowed to stand in the way. Water resources, we are told, ‘though not large by world standards, are still substantial.’38 Haigh’s views reflect the breezy insouciance of engineering as unproblematic world modelling. Given appropriate analysis of the problems, the world can be fashioned at will to provide society with anything that may be desired. Considered side by side in this way, then, these speeches exhibit the two contradictory tendencies of engineering philosophy that we see reflected in Baxter’s various writings and pronouncements. On the one hand there is whole-hearted endorsement of expert opinion, and a scathing rejection of the nostrums of well-meaning amateurs and self- interested demagogues, while on the other there is a recognition of the fragmentary, provisional nature of engineering knowledge, and an awareness that the quest for certainty is illusory.

Thus, in contrast to Callinan’s, we find a truculent mood in Haigh’s address. The profession as a whole must be alerted to the possibilities, and doubts swept aside in order that we may get on with the grand work that beckons. It would be tempting, of course, to 197 ascribe Haigh’s enthusiasm to his position as the Queensland Commissioner of Irrigation and Water Supply, following a lifetime as an irrigation engineer. Surely, it was his business to plan irrigation works, and not be deterred by doubts about their appropriateness. This approach, however, is too easy, since if we go back to 1949 we find a rather different perspective from a former Queensland Commissioner of Irrigation and Water Supply. Consider the address given to the Institution in March 1949, by outgoing president WHR Nimmo. Here, Nimmo is discussing the question of water resources, the topic so breezily dismissed by Haigh:

Geographers, notably Griffith Taylor, have been at pains to tell us that Australia lies in one of the dry zones of the world....Nevertheless, journalists, seeking the sensational, continue to confuse the public mind by giving publicity to a number of impracticable proposals for irrigating vast areas, or bringing copious rains to the central deserts.39

There is here an explicit repudiation of grand schemes for the greening of the dry centre, which are attributed to the mischievousness of irresponsible journalists. Nimmo’s approach to engineering, on the other hand, is characterised by a suspicion of grand schemes, and an emphasis on past practice. Even if, theoretically, the sky is the limit, what we find is that the ‘big vision’ is associated with those with no understanding of the constraints that engineers are professionally equipped to understand and take account of. Attitudes to engineering projects, then, are not simply a function of professional commitment. In consequence, imputed career interests, while they may do some explanatory work, cannot be taken as a sufficient condition for ascribing particular 198 views to individuals. A career in irrigation and water supply engineering does not automatically translate into support for all proposals for dams and water diversion projects, just as training in nuclear engineering cannot, of itself, account for support for nuclear power stations. Not that this need give us pause — indeed, it only increases the importance of the sort of fine grained study in which I am engaged. Here, I would want to make a similar point to Harwood’s in his discussion of the controversy over IQ testing. The problem there, as we discussed in Chapter 2, was that ‘scientists of similar professional training and affiliation occasionally adopt quite different positions,’ leading Harwood to the conclusion that scientific ‘styles of thought’ cannot be explained solely in terms of professional socialisation. Nor, as we have seen in this case, can attitudes to engineering projects.

What we can say, however, is that for Haigh it was not time for reflection, but time for action. The more reflective approach we discerned in Callinan’s speech also characterises Professor Roderick’s contribution in 1970, ‘Engineering in broad concept.’ Here, we get references to ecology, and a warning against a technocratic future:

We readily recognise engineering as the major component of the technology which is changing our way of living so rapidly and, we hope, for the better; but we are not nearly so aware of the need to give proper consideration to the part these changes play in human ecology....From those who have given thought to these problems comes a warning that we must beware of moving almost by default into a technocracy in which man might well become the slave of a destructive technology.’40 199 Once again, as in Callinan’s address, there is a concern for the image of engineering. ‘It is a sad reflection upon technologists,’ says Roderick, ‘that they are in danger of becoming the ogres who despoil the environment instead of the benefactors responsible for technological and sociological progress.’41 Here, there is an awareness of external pressures on the profession, and a need to seriously address criticisms of it. Baxter, with contributions to public debate such as his ‘Parable of the unwise passengers,’ was becoming increasingly confrontationist at about this time, and urging the importance of trusting the experts, so there is an obvious divergence here from Roderick’s views. At no time did Baxter ever concede that technology might of its very nature be ‘destructive’, or pave the way to an autocratic technocracy. For him, it was always the short- sightedness of society that was the problem, the failure of the broad mass of people to think clearly about the future that made it important for the experts to bludgeon them if necessary into compliance. At another level, however, there is broad agreement between Baxter and Roderick on the extra significance attached to the notion of development in an Australian context. Here is Roderick giving part of his credo:

I am a strong believer in the sentiments expressed by Lord Casey while Governor-General, when he said: ‘We must develop Australia to earn in the eyes of the world the right to be here — and in the present turn of world events we must strengthen our country in every way possible and in minimum time.’42

Here, development is couched in terms of a duty, and Casey is invoking what has become a prominent leitmotif in post-1788 Australian history. Underlying this, almost like a constantly recurring 200 ground bass (if I may be allowed to push my musical analogy a little further) is the reiterated theme of the sparseness of the continent, the contrast of its large land mass and small population confined largely to a few metropolitan centres clinging to the coastline. Always, the feeling that we Europeans only have a precarious toe-hold on this mysterious continent, which could just as readily fling us back into the sea, or swallow us up in its ancient bush. Our right to be here is thus tied up with how we use the country — it is not enough merely to take things as we find them, leaving them more or less untouched. Thus we find the two ‘D’ words, development and defence, constantly being linked. Lord Casey’s comments above may refer vaguely to ‘the world’ as sitting in judgment on our right to be here, but I imagine there would be few who would not read a reference to Asia here between the lines. The contrast between the ‘teeming millions’ of Asia and the relatively small population of Australia had became a standard trope very early in our history, in both populist and more scholarly idioms. In the former it was linked to unashamedly racist ideologies, while at the level of intellectual discussion it was absorbed by grand geopolitical theories. Baxter specifically addressed the potential of an Asian invasion of Australia at various times in his career, and returned to this theme in his play The day the sun rose in the west. Although detailed consideration of this work is the subject of the following chapter, it is worth pointing out here that if his views may strike us today as almost bizarre, this quality owes more to their stridency and mode of expression than to their content. 201 PRESIDENTS OF THE INSTITUTION OF ENGINEERS, AUSTRALIA, FROM 1949 TO 1972

YEAR NAME DATE OF EDUCATION AND CAREER BIRTH

1949 NIMMO, William 10/2/1885 Civil Engineering. MCE (Melb), MICE, MAmSCE. Hogarth Robertson By 1949 had risen to position of Commissioner of Irrigation and Water Supply in Qld, following a career in state government instrumentalities mainly concerned with irrigation, dam construction and hydro-electricity (Tas and Qld).

1950 HEBBLEWHITE, 31/12/1885 BE (Syd). From 1913 to 1923 lectured at RMC, William Rayner Duntroon, moving to School of Elec. Engineering at Sydney Uni in 1923. In 1924 he joined the Standards Assoc. of Aust., eventually becoming its director, and a councillor of the International Organisation for Standards (1947 — 1950).

1951 BURN, Alan 19/10/1889 MSc (Tas), BE (Syd). Following experience in Switzerland on a travelling fellowship (1914), and a short public service career, became Prof. of Engineering at Uni of Tasmania in 1920, and was VC from 1945-49. Also active in technical education.

1952 BRAIN, Vivian James 26/8/1896 BE (Syd), MIEE, MAIEE. From 1922-29 worked Foxton for various electric power companies in US (such as NY Edison). In 1946 he became the chairman of the NSW Electricity Authority.

1953 LEWIS, Ronald East 17/6/1899 MCE (Melb), MICE, MAmSCE. Joined Victorian State Rivers and Water Supply Commission in 1922, and rose to become its chairman in 1936. Also active on River Murray Commission and Snowy Mountains Council.

1954 GIBSON, William Hope 29/7/1892 BSc, ME (Syd), MIMechE. Following three years Harnett in England (1917-20) as a travelling fellow, began an academic career in Mech. Eng. at Sydney Uni (as lecturer, senior lecturer and reader). Also chairman (since 1939) of consultancy firm Gibson, Battle and Co.

1955 CANDY, Charles 31/3/1894 Entire career spent as a consulting engineer in William Melbourne. 202

1956 PARSONS, Rex 13/5/1894 ME (Adelaide). Also studied at SA School of Whaddon Mines and Industries. After WWI service (Syria and Palestine) and work in the US, became principal of SA School of Mines in 1940.

1957 MACKAY, Reginald 23/3/1901 ME, BSc, BEc (Syd). After 3 years (1926-29) as a William John travelling fellow, began career as electrical engineer with NSW Dept. of Railways, becoming Snr Administrator in 1956

1958 DARWIN, Donald 11/10/1896 MCE (Melb), MICE, FAPI. Following war service Victor (MM), joined Victorian Country Roads Board in 1920 as an Assistant Engineer, and became Chairman in 1949.

1959 MYERS, David Milton 5/6/1911 BSc (Syd), DScEng (Oxon), MIEE, FIP. Following a year at Sydney as a research fellow in Elec. Eng, in 1938 he was apptd as chief of CSIRO’s Electrotechnology Division. In 1949 he became PN Russell Prof. of Elec. Eng. at Sydney, and in 1959 Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science, University of British Columbia.

1960 FURPHY, Henry 24/6/1897 BA, BCE (Melb), MICE, FASCE. A varied career Gustavus of public service (1928-30: Director of Public Health Eng, C’wlth Dept. of Health), experience in England, Germany and the US, and consultancy work (in 1933 became a senior partner in Scott and Furphy Consulting Engineers, Melbourne).

1961 HUTCHESON, Capt 9/6/1897 BE (Adelaide), MIRNA, MIMarE, RAN (retd). George Ian Dewart After a career in naval engineering, became Managing Director of Cockatoo Docks and Engineering Co in 1958. Also held senior positions in Standards Assoc. of Australia, Metal Trades Employers Assoc. and NSW Chamber of Manufactures

1962 COLEBATCH, Gordon 10/7/1910 OBE, BE (Adelaide), MICE. After 4 years as Ass’t Thomas Engineer with Adelaide Engineering and Water Supply Dept, joined Tasmanian Hydro Electric Commission in 1936, becoming Chief Civil Engineer in 1951. 203

1963 RISSON, Major 20/4/1901 CB, CBE, DSO, ED, BE (Qld), MICE, MInstT, General Robert Joseph FAIM. A civil engineer, joined Brisbane Henry Tramways in 1923, and in 1949 became Chairman of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board.

1964 PRIDDLE, Raymond 8/1/1913 BE (Hons and Uni. Medal) (Syd). In 1935 joined Arthur consultancy firm A.S. Macdonald and Wagner, becoming a partner in 1945. In 1958 joined National Capital Planning Committee. Various technical publications.

1965 LEACH, John Digby 25/11/1897 BE (UWA), CBE, MInstT. In 1952 became Commissioner of Main Roads in WA, after a career as an engineer in the state public service (Public Works and Main Roads). Also served on Senate of UWA.

1966 MOORHOUSE, 6/9/1911 DEng (Melb), FIEE, FACE, FIEAust. Prof of Elec Charles Edmund Eng at Melbourne since 1948. Also various periods as Dean of the faculty. From 1938 to 1945 worked for SECV, then joined Melb. Uni as a senior lecturer.

1967 CRAWFORD, Edwin 21/1/1903 BE (Syd), FIEAust. 1929-53: Electrical Branch, John NSW Dept of Railways. In 1953 joined ECNSW, becoming Principal Engineer (Generation) in 1967.

1968 HODGSON, Henry 3/7/1901 MCE (Melb), Postgraduate study at Harvard in Joseph Nichol Public Health Engineering (1935-36), FICE, FIEAust, FASH. In 1966 retired from a senior position with SA Engineering and Water Supply Dept. Active in Aust. Water and Wastewater Assoc., and as consultant in public health engineering for WHO in Geneva. Published Sewage and trade waste treatment (1937).

1969 LANGLANDS, Ian 24/5/1906 MMechE, BEE (Melb), FIEAust, FAIB. Since 1944, Chief of CSIRO’s Division of Building Research. Won Dixson Scholarship in Elec Eng at Melb. Uni. in 1928. Became a CSIR research student in 1930, joining the organisation in 1931 as OIC, Timber Mechanics Section, Forest Products Division. 204

1970 RODERICK, Prof. Jack 21/9/1913 MA (Cantab), MSc, PhD (Bristol), Hon DEng William (Newcastle, NSW), FIStructE, FICE, AFRAeS, FIEAust, FASCE, FAA. Challis Prof. and head of School of Civil Eng., Uni. of Sydney since 1951. Also served as Dean of Faculty, and a Fellow of the Senate. 1962-65: Member of C’ttee on Future of Tertiary Educ., Aust Universities Commission. 1965-67: Aust. Research Grants C’ttee. Also active in Standards Assoc., Aust. Academy of Science, Defence Research and Development Policy C’ttee.

1971 HAIGH, Frederick 20/11/1912 MBE, FIEAust. Since 1955, Commissioner of Bruce Irrigation and Water Supply, Qld. Began engineering career in 1937 with Mildura Irrigation Trust, moving to Qld in 1948 as Senior Irrigation Engineer.

1972 CALLINAN, Bernard 2/2/1913 CBE, DSO, MC, BCE (Melb), DipTRP, FICE, James FIEAust, FRAPI. Chairman and MD of consultancy firm Gutkridge, Haskins and Davey, Commissioner of SECV, Councillor of La Trobe Uni, Director of Lower Yarra Crossing Authority, Director of BP. From 1960-1966 served as chairman of Water Research Foundation, Victoria.

1 A. Duckham, Presidential address (16 July, 1924), Transactions of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, 1924, 2, pp. 14-16, at p. 15. 2 Ibid., p. 15. 3 J.F. Donnelly, ‘Chemical Engineering in England, 1880-1922,’ Annals of Science, 1988, 45, pp. 555-590, at p. 587. For a detailed account of the formation of the ICE, see pp. 581-587. 4 Transactions of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, 1944, 22, p. v. 5 UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 31. 6 F.A. Greene, ‘Presidential address: Our title: A reminder,’ Transactions of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, 1944, 22, pp. xii-xv, at p. xii. 7 Ibid., p. xiv. 8 F.L. Nathan, ‘Presidential address: Some industrial developments and the chemical engineer,’ Transactions of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, 1927, 5, pp. 11-17, at p. 11. 9 Ibid., p. 12. 10 Ibid., pp. 12-13. 11 Ibid., p. 12. 12 Ibid., p. 16. 13 F.L. Nathan, ‘Presidential address,’ Transactions of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, 1926, 4, pp. 11-15, at p. 11. 14 Ibid., p. 13. 15 Ibid., pp. 13-14. 205

16 M.J. Wiener, English culture and the decline of the industrial spirit 1850-1980, Cambridge, 1981. 17 Ibid., p. 130. 18 Ibid., p. 82. 19 Ibid., p. 82. The quotation from Shaw is from the latter’s introduction to an edition of Dickens’ Hard Times. 20 See Little Dorrit, Chapter X. 21 Wiener, op. cit. (note 16), p. 127. 22 F Heron Rogers, ‘Presidential address: Some post-war problems,’ Transactions of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, 1941, 19, pp. xiii-xvi. 23 Ibid., p. xiii. 24 Ibid., p. xiii. 25 Ibid., p. xiii. 26 Ibid., p. xv. 27 Ibid., p. xv. 28 Ibid., p. xvi. 29 C.S. Garland, ‘Presidential address: The chemical engineer in reconstruction,’ Transactions of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, 1943, 21, pp. xiii-xvi. 30 Ibid., p. xiii. 31 Ibid., p. xiv. 32 D.P. Miller, ‘Hybrid or mutant? The emergence of the chemical engineer in Australia,’ Historical Records of Australian Science, 1993, 9, 317-333, at p. 319. 33 B.J. Callinan, ‘Retiring president’s address’, The Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, 1972, 44, April-May 3-7, at p. 4. 34 Ibid., p. 4. 35 Ibid., p. 4. 36 Ibid., p. 5. 37 Ibid., p. 5. 38 F.B Haigh, ‘The northern miracle,’ The Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, 1971, 43, April-May 3-11, at p. 5. 39 W.H.R. Nimmo, ‘The world’s water supply and Australia’s portion of it,’ The Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, 1949, 21, 29-34, at p. 29. 40 J.W. Roderick, ‘Engineering in broad concept,’ The Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, 1970, 42, 17-20, at p. 17. 41 Ibid., p. 17. 42 Ibid., p. 20. 207 CHAPTER SEVEN THE GOSPEL OF ST PHILIP BAXTER

Ought! ought! ought! ought! ought! Are you going to spend your life saying ought, like the rest of our moralists? Turn your oughts into shalls, man. Come and make explosives with me. (Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara, Act III)

In the previous chapter, we considered the ways in which Baxter’s views reflected broader trends within the engineering community, or on occasion departed from them. In this chapter, however, we shift our focus from the arena of professional activity, and concentrate instead on Baxter’s association with the theatre. At the very least, this should serve as a corrective to perceptions of engineers in general as a rather unimaginative set of people, happiest when dealing with concrete facts, and not given to speculative flights of fancy. Indeed, I argue in this chapter that at least in Baxter’s case this interest in theatre was not simply a recreation, or an activity to be indulged in after the serious business of the day had been accomplished. Rather, the theatre was central to Baxter’s conception of society.

Baxter himself chose at the end of his working life to rehearse his views about the future of Australia by incorporating them in a play, and the fact that he did so gives added resonance to the things he was saying publicly. It is difficult to say with absolute assurance just what Baxter intended for this play. Its subject matter and style suggest strongly that it was meant as a truculent contribution to 208 contemporary debates, and its author would have had performances in mind. Indeed, the play was given a professional reading, organised by Baxter himself, even though some of the actors objected to what they perceived as its racist tendencies.1

One further point worth making here is that at the time of the play’s composition, Baxter was involved in quite a serious battle about the direction of Australia’s development, which in his view had come to depend on whether or not Australia committed itself to nuclear power generation. We have already covered this ground, at least as far as the disputes over technological choices were concerned. What Baxter’s play gives us, however, is a perspective on this issue which ignores such considerations, and impels us into a future in which all the immediate problems have been solved. It is, if you like, a glimpse of the hard-headed engineer as Utopian thinker, and it is here that Baxter comes closest to a US-style technocratic vision. Here, the playwright asks us to imagine what it might be like if the technical problems of greening the Australian inland have been solved, and, perhaps even more to the point, the organisation of both local and international affairs has evolved along more rational lines, ensuring that the gains of technological mastery are not dissipated by war and social conflict. Many, of course, both then and now, would not find this vision particularly attractive, but that is not the point here. Before we discuss this question in detail, however, it will be necessary to examine Baxter’s relationship with the theatre, in order to establish the context for his later efforts. 209 Philip Baxter’s devotion to the stage took various forms. As a young man in Billingham, recently appointed by ICI as a research engineer, he joined the dramatic society in nearby Stockton-on-Tees, and after his move to Widnes became Deputy Chairman of the Works Dramatic Club.2 Among the plays featuring Baxter and his wife were Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple (1936), and other less well-known pieces with titles like The Late Christopher Bean and The Romantic Young Lady (1938).3 Nothing remarkable there, perhaps, beyond an insight into a past world which maintained a strong tradition of amateur theatre. How many factories today, for example, could boast a ‘Works Dramatic Club?’ Here, too, we find an early reference to Baxter’s association with the works of Bernard Shaw, even if at this stage as just one of the cast.

Following his move to Australia, Baxter took an active role in the UNSW Drama Club, and was instrumental in the move to Kensington of the National Institute of Dramatic Art. In 1956 he directed The Devil’s Disciple in the Physics Theatre at Kensington, and followed this in August, 1959 with a production of Edward Percy’s 1941 play The Shop at Sly Corner.4 (According to Who was who in the theatre: 1912- 1976, Percy was also a miller, corn merchant, and company director, and served as a Conservative MP for the Ashford Division of Kent from 1943 to 1950.) These activities tended to decline in the 1960s, but of course this may have been due to increased pressure on Baxter’s time. In any case Baxter’s interest in theatre was recognised outside the university. In April 1958, the Australian National Advisory Committee for UNESCO invited Baxter to chair a session at a forthcoming conference on Drama in Education. The committee wanted Baxter to 210 chair the session entitled ‘The University Theatre — Building and Equipment,’ but since he was going to be overseas during the conference, he suggested that the committee might invite Professor Morven Brown, head of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences who, Baxter says, ‘I find has a similar interest in the theatre to my own.’5 (The conference was scheduled for 16-22 August.) This interest perhaps lay behind Baxter’s decision to accept the chairmanship of the on his retirement as Vice-Chancellor of the University of NSW. That his interest in this was not purely that of an administrator is evident from Angyal’s memoir:

Baxter enjoyed these activities very much. He loved the atmosphere of the Opera House; he liked to stroll along the many corridors and inspect various rooms and activities. After the Opera House had been opened [in 1972], he attended most of the concerts and operas. It must have caused him great satisfaction that the Old Tote was chosen as the theatre company resident in the Drama Theatre.6

Further details relevant to this can be found in Willis, who tells us that

[t]he Old Tote Theatre Company, so named because of its use of the Tote Buildings, and other facilities after the University Regiment gave them up, was a wholly professional company supported by the University, the Australian Council for the Arts and the Elizabethan Theatre Trust. The Company was established in 1963,and by the end of 1969 38 major plays had been presented.7

So far, then, we have a picture of Baxter as a keen devotee and amateur practitioner of theatre, at least as it existed up until the early 1950s. Baxter was not fond of Pinter and Albee, for example.

212 Sympathising with a correspondent who found the Old Tote’s production of Pinter’s The Homecoming a ‘disagreeable experience,’ Baxter commented that ‘a lot of modern drama [such as The Homecoming and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?] seems to concentrate upon the unpleasant and the sordid.’8 That his concept of theatre went deeper than this is evident from remarks linking drama to the development of ‘western’ culture in Australia. As far as this point is concerned, we need only consider how he argued for the importance of the theatre in the task of developing Australia as a ‘western type’ civilization. At one stage, Baxter was pursuing the Rockefeller Foundation for funds to assist in the development of the National Institute of Dramatic Art. For its part, the foundation declined to offer any substantial assistance, arguing, among other things, that the needs of the under-developed countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America should take priority. In a letter to Baxter dated 10 January, 1961, CB Fahs, the Director of the Rockefeller Foundation, commented that

we must increasingly assume that Australia, like Canada, Great Britain, and the countries of Western Europe, will more and more be able to meet its needs for scientific and cultural developments from home resources.

Baxter, in his reply, took issue with this perception of Australia as a ‘developed’ country, arguing that:

Australia is also an under developed country, though in a somewhat different way from the other areas. Australia is the largest under populated and under developed area still available for the expansion of western peoples with western culture, and the task of developing it imposes a tremendous strain upon the ten million people who live in it at present. It may well be that if the developments necessary do not proceed sufficiently rapidly, 213

in the long term our idea of developing it as a western type civilisation may fail. As a community we must devote all our available capital resources to those immediately necessary and practical things, within which the activities of the humanities and drama do not find a place. There is perhaps, therefore, a case for Foundations like Rockefeller to continue to regard Australia as a type of under developed area with peculiar local problems.9

Baxter, of course, was never one to let a potential source of funds go without a struggle, but that is not all there is to it. Here, in an earlier form, are the sorts of considerations that led to the formulation at the end of the decade of the images of ‘Lifeboat Australia,’ and the insistence on the need for a conscious cultural policy. Potential donors should be aware that it was not enough to take care of the ‘immediately necessary and practical,’ and that it was in their interests to support drama as part of the effort of making Australia safe for the western world. If Australia were going to be a potential haven for refugees from full scale nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere (as the lifeboat image suggested), then it was important that the boat not be swamped by an influx of Asian people.

As I have already indicated, it is significant that towards the end of his active public life, sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s, Baxter himself wrote a play entitled The Day the Sun Rose in the

West, and organised a private reading of it with professional actors.10

Here, I am not particularly interested in the quality of its writing or stagecraft, but rather in what the play reveals of the most important concerns and preconceptions of its author. Both in subject matter and structure, the play reveals the strong influence of Bernard Shaw. It is clear, both from a comment to me to that effect by Baxter’s son-in-law Brian Craven and a study of the text itself, that the hero of 214 Baxter’s play was an amalgam of Andrew Undershaft (Major Barbara) and John Tanner (Man and Superman). Thus, an introduction to the

Shavian play of ideas will assist our understanding of Baxter’s intentions. As we have seen, Baxter produced The Devil’s Disciple at

Kensington, and his own play bears all the hallmarks of a wide reading of Shaw. My basic premise is that Baxter chose to write a play because that was the medium in which Shaw had achieved his greatest successes. Had Baxter’s futuristic vision been derived from Shaw’s contemporary and fellow Fabian socialist HG Wells, say, then it would have been cast in the form of a novel, short story or essay.

For his concept of the stage as a forum for the presentation of ideas, then, Baxter relied on the example of Shaw, and his hero’s transcendence of conventional morality owes a lot to Shavian characters like Andrew Undershaft, the millionaire armaments manufacturer who, as Shaw puts it in his preface to the play,

has become intellectually and spiritually as well as practically conscious of the irresistible natural truth which we all abhor and repudiate: to wit, that the greatest of our evils, and the worst of our crimes is poverty, and that our first duty, to which every other consideration should be sacrificed, is not to be poor.11

In order not to be poor, Undershaft has thrown himself into the

‘lucrative trade in death and destruction,’ realising that society is not really offering ‘a choice between opulent villainy and humble virtue, but between energetic enterprise and cowardly infamy.’12 He is a true Shavian hero, in that he sees through the hypocrisy of conventional morality, and illustrates his conceptions through decisive actions. However, it is not the accumulation of personal wealth that makes Undershaft the quintessential Shavian, but the way in which he uses 215 his dominant position to bring about a more rational social organisation. In the final act of the play, set in the heart of the munitions works, Undershaft is in his element, enthusing over the success of his new aerial battleship, which ‘at the first trial...has wiped out a fort with three hundred soldiers in it.’13 With typical bravado, he informs his listeners that yes, these were real soldiers that have been wiped out, establishing his character as a man with the power of life and death in his hands, who can coolly accept the consequences of his actions. Undershaft transcends moral responsibility as conventionally conceived — his ‘gospel’ is not one of brotherly love, but of power built on money and gunpowder. If his workers are happy and contented, then this is not because Undershaft has any interest in their well-being, but because it pays him to have a healthy but docile source of labour. To his daughter Barbara’s imaginings that the armaments factory was ‘a sort of pit where lost creatures with blackened faces stirred up smoky fires,’ her scandalized father gives an assurance that his workers enjoy ‘a spotlessly clean and beautiful hillside town.’14 Following their inspection of the works, Undershaft’s family are forced to admit, as though against their will, that the whole place is ‘horribly, frightfully, immorally, unanswerably perfect,’ and report back breathlessly about the nursing home, the libraries and schools, the ball room and banqueting chamber in the Town Hall, the insurance fund, the pension fund, and the building society.15 Note that this is placed just before the reference to the success of the aerial battleship — the juxtaposition is not accidental, but makes the point with brutal clarity that the survival of Undershaft’s commonwealth 216 depends on the successful development of new weapons, and their deployment against other people. But in any case, the important thing is that the people are not distracted by concern about such questions. The ideal arrangement is to provide for all their wants, overseeing their lives with a sort of benevolent paternalism. In Undershaft’s own words, he is ‘organizing civilization,’ and the only relevant criterion of the success of such an enterprise is whether or not all variables have been accounted for. Undershaft’s son Stephen does have a slight worry at one point. Could it be, he asks his father, ‘that all this provision for every want of your workmen may sap their independence and weaken their sense of responsibility?....Are you sure so much pampering is really good for the men’s characters?’16 Undershaft’s reply is that it makes no sense to organize civilization if one thinks that trouble and anxiety are a necessary feature of human existence. If that really were the case, then one may as well leave things as they are.

One commentator sees in this exchange an exposure of a ‘major dilemma’ of Shaw’s kind of socialism:

As a moralist, [Shaw] sought to transform consciousness by developing a new and positive sense of responsibility. As a socialist, especially in his more élitist phase, he appeared interested only in efficient management by a hierarchy of experts....In this way, argued critics such as GDH Cole, he undermined the means by which his republican vision of emancipation might be realised, because the experience of responsibility required for the development of character was divorced from the day-to-day lives of ordinary working people.17

The finer nuances of Shaw’s relationship to the various trends in European socialism are beyond the scope of this thesis, as are the 217 problems of establishing his views by reference to the characters of his plays. Suffice it to say here that the corporatist, technocratic overtones of ‘scientific socialism’ being invoked here are far removed from the egalitarian, participatory tendencies of the anarcho- syndicalist wing of socialist thought. If Baxter clearly had no sympathy with the latter, then neither, arguably, did Shaw.

By the time he came to Heartbreak House, which is set in the period just before the outbreak of World War One, Shaw’s vision had perceptibly darkened, and his humour become correspondingly more bitter. The ‘Russian manner’ of the subtitle is that of Anton Chekhov, a playwright about whom Shaw comments that his ‘intensely Russian plays fitted all the country houses in Europe in which the pleasures of music, art, literature, and the theatre had supplanted hunting, shooting, fishing, flirting, eating and drinking.’18 Shaw’s magisterial scorn rises to great heights, as he castigates the leisured classes of Europe:

The nice people could read; some of them could write; and they were the only repositories of culture who had social opportunities of contact with our politicians, administrators, and newspaper proprietors, or any chance of sharing or influencing their activities. But they shrank from that contact. They hated politics. They did not wish to realize Utopia for the common people: they wished to realize their favourite fictions and poems in their own lives; and, when they could, they lived without scruple on incomes which they did nothing to earn.19

The difficulty, then, was that ‘power and culture were in separate compartments. The barbarians were not only literally in the saddle, but on the front bench in the House of Commons.’20 The strong anti- democratic tendency already evident in Major Barbara, in which the 218 real government of the country is shown to depend on the wishes of its major industrialists, is further developed here, as Shaw in his preface asserts that no correction to this state of affairs can be hoped for from what is popularly regarded as Democracy. What we find in Parliament, then, are mere orators, whose only gift is to be able to ‘edify or debauch an ignorant electorate at will.’ That they are able to get away with it is due merely to the fact that Nature, in Shaw’s terms, allows us long credits and reckless overdrafts. Important matters like sanitation, for example, may be neglected for a generation or two, with no apparent ill effects, but eventually Nature will take her revenge, striking the city ‘with a pestilence... slaughtering right and left until the innocent young have paid for the guilty old, and the account is balanced. And then she goes to sleep again and gives another period of credit, with the same result.’21

So, Shaw argues, our ‘political hygiene’ has been equally neglected, with such an important matter as international diplomacy conducted on the basis of ‘family intrigues, commercial and territorial brigandage, torpors of pseudo-good nature produced by laziness, and spasms of ferocious activity produced by terror.’ If England before 1914 managed to ‘muddle through’ more effectively than continental

Europe, this owed nothing to any foresight or intelligent planning, but only to the fact that ‘Nature gave us a longer credit than she gave to France or Germany or Russia.’22 Shaw, of course, has his own agenda here: his advocacy of science and planning is put in the service of his doctrine of ‘creative evolution,’ and his rejection of neo- Darwinian materialism. Shaw was a vehement opponent of what he regarded as the dehumanizing tendency of modern 219 science, with its teaching that our sins and good deeds are nothing more than ‘a series of chemical and mechanical reactions over which [we] have no control.’23 He acknowledges that Darwin’s work amounted to a reaction against ‘a barbarous pseudo-evangelical teleology intolerably obstructive to all scientific progress,’ and was accompanied by extraordinary discoveries in physics and chemistry. Nevertheless, the doctrine of Natural Selection, however fruitful it may have been, is a ‘lifeless method of evolution,’ by which, in Samuel Butler’s resonant phrase (which Shaw delighted in quoting) mind is banished from the universe.24 On Shaw’s account, then, science in the early years of the twentieth century had degenerated into a crudely mechanistic activity, which would allow nothing so insignificant as a moral scruple to stand in the way of the acquisition of the tiniest additional morsel of knowledge.

It is important to keep this in mind, because it is all too easy to dismiss Shaw as a crank. His attacks on vivisection, for example, might seem to be profoundly anti-scientific, not to mention the speculative extravagances of Back to Methuselah, and that paean to the ‘life force,’ Man and Superman. Why should a hard-headed engineer, such as one might have supposed Philip Baxter to have been, have any time for such nonsense? Further clues to this puzzle can be found in another section of the preface to Heartbreak House, to which Shaw gives the evocative title ‘The dumb capables and the noisy incapables.’ Here, echoing the final act of Major Barbara, Shaw comments that ‘to pass from the newspaper offices and political platforms and club fenders and suburban drawing-rooms to the Army and the munition factories was to pass from Bedlam to the busiest and sanest of 220 workaday worlds.’25 And yet, even in that ‘sanest of workaday worlds,’ one could not necessarily find people with a complete grasp of the situation. The rank and file of the ‘men of action,’ as Shaw dubs them, were not capable of giving an accurate account of themselves beyond a narrowly defined technical competence. Thus, he says, ‘it was not uncommon during the war to hear a soldier, or a civilian engaged on war work, describing events within his own experience that reduced to utter absurdity the ravings and maunderings of his daily paper, and yet echo the opinions of that paper like a parrot.’ To escape the prevailing confusion, then, ‘it was not enough to seek the company of the ordinary man of action: one had to get into contact with the master spirits.’26

It is perhaps not surprising, then, that Shaw should have appealed to a person like Baxter. Here we have an eloquent and persuasive writer setting himself up as the champion, not of wordsmiths and talkers, but of the ‘master spirits,’ the organizers and achievers of the world. If Undershaft is right, then so are the planners of the Manhattan project, the people who can look with Olympian detachment on the chaos all around them and quietly get on with the job, the ‘master spirits’ with life and death in their hands. It’s certainly true that Shaw was one of the most indefatigable talkers of them all, but then he also acknowledged a higher power, and his dramatic works were explicitly intended to argue for the wider recognition of that higher power.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that his plays are simply polemics. There is the matter of Shaw’s sometimes surreal sense of 221 humour. In The Apple Cart, he takes Andrew Undershaft’s critique of democracy to its absurd conclusion. The play focuses on a constitutional crisis between the English King Magnus and his cabinet, led by Prime Minister Joseph Proteus, which is eventually resolved in the king’s favour when Magnus threatens to abdicate and seek a seat in the House of Commons. In the preface, Shaw castigates the critics who interpreted the play as an about-face by a formerly notorious democrat, who has now become a devoted Royalist. Nothing of the sort, says Shaw, claiming that his play ‘exposes the unreality of both democracy and royalty as our idealists conceive them.’27 It is misleading to suppose either that a king could be simply a puppet which acts only at the behest of the prime minister, or that a cabinet could be an elected body which acts only at the behest of the people. Anticipating the television series Yes Minister, Shaw remarks as follows:

The nearest thing to a puppet in our political system is a Cabinet minister at the head of a great public office. Unless he possesses a very exceptional share of dominating ability and relevant knowledge he is helpless in the hands of his officials. He must sign whatever documents they present to him, and repeat whatever words they put into his mouth when answering questions in parliament...28

The king, however, is no better off. The ultimate winner is plutocracy — as Shaw puts it:

Money talks: money prints: money broadcasts: money reigns; and kings and labour leaders alike have to register its decrees, and even, by a staggering paradox, to finance its enterprises and guarantee its profits.29

Shaw’s complaint is that the elaborate machinery of parliamentary democracy, devised to prevent the tyranny of rulers, has only 222 succeeded in that aim by preventing them from doing anything important at all. What is needed is ‘a political system for rapid positive work instead of slow nugatory work, made to fit into the twentieth century instead of into the sixteenth.’30 With all this, Baxter would have heartily concurred. Recall his scathing reference to the 11th commandment of universities — ‘Thou shalt do nothing for the first time’ — and his impatience with the failure of government to appreciate the urgency of the need for a nuclear power station. We have already seen how the historian RA Buchanan has characterised engineers as essentially organization men, given neither to patronage of the arts and sciences, nor speculation about the future of society. The first part of this characterization certainly fits our picture of Baxter — even his critics, such as Jim Spigelman, comment on his total loyalty — but not the second. Buchanan comments that engineers’ ‘hard work and indifference to other commitments has meant that they have rarely been known for their social, political or religious activities,’ and describes them as ‘natural conformists in social affairs.’31 Further, insofar as generalizations can be made, Buchanan remarks that for the period he is considering (that is, 1750-1914), engineers ‘can be seen as non-demonstrative ideological conformists, anxious to identify themselves with the prevailing mores and conventions of society.’32 In this respect at least they are something like the rank and file of Shaw’s ‘men of action,’ highly competent within their narrow field of expertise, but in all other areas quite happy to mouth the platitudes of their daily newspaper. It may be objected of course that Buchanan is considering a period that lay before Baxter’s active career, and that his remarks are therefore 223 hardly relevant. However, Buchanan announces as ‘a major conclusion of his study’ the fact that ‘the pattern of professional engineering in Britain was firmly established in the years before 1914, and that however great the subsequent expansion of the profession it is to those years that we can most usefully turn to understand the current attitudes and problems of the engineers.’33

In any case, I mean it as no refutation of Buchanan’s conclusion to say that Baxter does not happily fit this image of the narrow organization man. Indeed, in his career following his resignation from ICI, I feel that, consciously or not (the distinction hardly matters), he adopted the style much more of one of the ‘master spirits’ mentioned by Shaw in his preface to Heartbreak House. In his own play, the seriousness of the intention derives something from the example of Shaw, even if there is little of the latter’s sense of the absurd. Baxter’s cast is certainly stocked with the right sort of characters for a Shavian play of ideas. The hero, the man of action, is Robert Lee, described as about 30, and recently graduated with a PhD in aeronautical engineering. Significantly, he is Chinese, although, as Baxter puts it, he is ‘tall for a Chinese, with a light complexion and dark hair.’34 Given that Robert Lee later becomes a general, one wonders whether Baxter here intends an oblique reference to the famous Confederate soldier of the American Civil War, or whether this is just a coincidence. In any case, it is of interest that that conflict was related directly to questions of race. It may be thought, of course, that by making his Chinese engineer take on some of the characteristics of the Caucasian stereotype, Baxter is simply giving way to a deeply ingrained racism. Matters are not as simple as that, 224 however, as we shall see when we consider the play’s subsequent developments. Meditations on racism turn out to be an important part of Baxter’s scheme, and lead to some of the more improbable plot developments, but for the time being it is only necessary to observe that initial impressions of Lee are of a person with an easy command of his situation. He has an ‘athletic appearance,’ and his attire is ‘very professional.’ The first words that Maria, his girlfriend, addresses to him are ‘Robert, you are punctual as usual.’ Here, we think, is a man who will never miss an appointment, even with destiny. Maria, too, is out of the ordinary. Baxter describes her as ‘a slender dark haired, olive complexioned girl...a little less than medium height, very self confident,’ with a maturity beyond her years. She is training to be a surgeon, and is nearing the end of her studies. Once again, the juxtaposition of physical characteristics and personal attributes attests the significance of race in the overall scheme of things. Maria is clearly not a frivolous person, nor is she a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

Here, we come across one of the other underlying themes of the play, that of the power of religion. Maria is the adopted daughter of Terence O’Toole, described as the Australian Minister for Defence, and subsequently the Prime Minister. He is obviously an ALP member, as the Prime Minister is referred to as Whitlock (a reference to Gough Whitlam). Baxter’s vision then is of a government dominated by Irish Catholicism, particularly given that O’Toole’s secretary is a Catholic priest, Father Anselm, who also serves as his confessor (and, as if to leave the matter in no doubt, Anselm is described as having ‘a slight Irish accent’). Within the play, this domination of government by Irish 225 Catholics works at several different levels to cast doubt on their ability to make the sorts of hard decisions required by the parlous state of Australia’s defences. In the first place, we have a prime minister in the toils of an outmoded dogma, terrified by the consequences of his own sin, and pursued by the ghosts of the past. The sin here relates to the circumstances of Maria’s birth, which eventually emerge with all the theatrical panoply attendant on the revelation of a guilty secret. The lesson here is that one cannot expect a cool assessment of a crisis from one who is haunted by personal guilt, or with his mind focused on the hereafter. It may be very well for the rank and file of society to cling to religion, but it has no place in the lives of the ‘master spirits.’ Of interest in this connection is evidence given by Baxter to the NSW government Youth Advisory Policy Committee in 1962, on the problems facing young university students:

We find students living under poor conditions and this sometimes leads them into trouble with the law. We lack the Christian influence in the University which one would like to see. We have six or seven Chaplains attached to the University, but we have no University Chapel. The churches are quite prepared to work together in a non-denominational chapel. I would like to see a religious centre in the University; we would encourage into such an arrangement Social Workers who were not associated with the churches.35

At another level, the play is invoking a long-standing tradition of mistrust of the Irish. Carlyle, for example, in his essay on Chartism in the 1830s, talks of the impoverished Irish immigrant making England an unfit place for hale and hearty yeomen, who must needs head for the New World to escape the slow, insidious process of demoralisation. In an Australian context, it has always been the Irish 226 who have been portrayed as the outlaws, the rebels, the malcontents. We have already seen how Baxter relied on Carlyle for appropriate quotations in his speeches and articles, and this is just one more example of how his attitudes have been reflected in Baxter’s writings. Of course, there is no direct evidence that Baxter ever read Carlyle’s essay on Chartism (albeit that I think it is highly likely that he did), but I am not claiming such a direct influence. All I mean to say here is that Baxter’s attitudes are not sui generis, but are clearly part of a recognisable tradition.

For the rest, the opening scene of the play introduces us to an assortment of characters enjoying the hospitality of the Minister for Defence. In Maria’s words they are a mixture of ‘politicians, supporters, journalists, ratbags, [and] bludgers’36 prominent among them being Peacock, a professor of political science, and Casey, the leader writer of the Sydney Times (who, one supposes, is meant to be taken reasonably seriously, since he is described as ‘one of the more responsible members of his kind’). Their talk begins with a discussion of O’Toole’s speech in the House of Representatives that afternoon, and Peacock is less than diplomatic about the performance of his host, describing it as a string of ‘nauseating platitudes.’ The talking point is defence policy, and Peacock (here plainly acting as the mouthpiece of Baxter’s views) has lost patience with the play-acting of parliamentary procedure, which distracts all attention from the real threat posed by South-East Asia. Peacock predicts the imminent unification of the region into an entity called the South East Asian People’s Republic, which with backing from China and perhaps even Japan would pose a definite military threat to Australia. Faced with 227 such a threat, Australia needs a defence policy based on ‘long and careful preparation,.... [with] a wide range of industrial activities behind it,.... [and] trained men and women drawn from a disciplined population.’37 Instead, in Peacock’s view, it has none of these things, and any invasion would lead to wholesale slaughter of an ‘untrained, ill armed [and] badly led’ defence force.

Clearly, it’s time for some light relief, which is provided on this occasion by ‘Blackie’ Adam (described as being ‘about one eighth aboriginal,’ with skin that is ‘not very dark’), and Alfred Mullins, the trades union boss. Baxter takes great pains to make it clear that Mullins can in no way be considered an authentic son of the working class: he has an ‘educated Australian accent’ and his clothes (‘which would fit any business executive’) are explicitly contrasted with Blackie’s working class garb. Of course, Blackie and Mullins are crude caricatures, with Blackie in particular evincing the combination of reckless bravado (fuelled by alcohol) and cringing servility that is familiar from stock characterisations of blacks (and not just in Australia). Blackie talks of the need to ‘shoot the bastards,’ and looks forward to the collapse of society, but is startled when introduced to Anselm, and ‘crosses himself selfconsciously.’ In response to Casey’s patronising and facetious characterisation of him (‘About one eighth abo I should guess — but he likes to be regarded as full blood....His most likely address — Redfern Police Station’), Blackie’s complaint resonates like the whimper of a kicked dog: ‘Lay off whitey — leave a bloke alone.’ For his part, Mullins is Baxter’s version of the intransigent union official, who thrives on disruption to industry, and is not above using violence to coerce the workforce into compliance with 228 union directives. The pair of them are clearly of no help in Australia’s situation, and at least in Mullins’ case are positively harmful. However, there is more that needs to be said about what this scene reveals of Baxter’s racial attitudes. After all, it would be easy to dismiss him on the basis of his characterisation of Blackie as a fairly uninteresting white supremacist, but there is more to it than that. Consider this earlier speech by Casey, in response to Peacock’s predictions of an invasion from Asia: ‘Of course our ancestors set a good example by their treatment of the Tasmanian aboriginals. That could provide a precedent to an invading power which did not intend to go home.’38 In other words, no matter with what ferocity any force from Asia invaded the country, we could hardly complain, since it would only be following our example. As we shall see, Baxter uses certain long-standing dichotomies (urban versus rural, ‘full-blood’ versus mixed blood) to resolve this sense of disquiet about where Aborigines fit into the picture, and resorts, as so many others have done, to telling the story in terms of individual guilt for specific acts against blacks, but at least at this stage we can note this sense of disquiet, and acknowledge that Baxter was conscientious enough not to ignore it.

A second diversion from Peacock’s diatribe on the question of defence (which clearly is the main point of this opening scene) comes with the arrival of O’Toole’s twin children, Margaret and Christopher. Conveniently they are both university students, allowing Baxter to vent his spleen against the dilettantism and futility of student protest. In response to Peacock’s question about ‘what’s new at Uni,’ Margaret replies, ‘Nothing much. A couple of lunch time demos — in aid of the 229 abolition of examinations and automatic degrees.... The commo demonstration squad was busy somewhere else, some union fight I believe, so with only students the meetings were a bit of a flop.’39 It is somewhat odd that the question comes from Peacock. As he is an academic, one would suppose that he would not need to ask what was ‘new at Uni.’ It is also worth pointing out here that as Vice-Chancellor of the University of NSW, Baxter himself advocated a considerable reduction in the number of examinations which students would have to face and, as we have seen, was also very concerned about the waste of resources brought about by what he regarded as the high failure rate. Such concerns do not of course translate into a demand for ‘abolition of exams and automatic degrees,’ but there is no doubt that in Baxter’s ideal university, admission would imply graduation. Here, in the space of a few words, Baxter rehearses several popular (mis)conceptions of student life, which, whatever the case now, were certainly prevalent in the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies. One clear message is that in order to have any clout, political action by students requires the active direction of politically committed activists, who in any case are not totally loyal to the university, since they will leave the campus if a more promising arena of political action appears elsewhere. There are thus two themes in counterpoint here, namely the lack of seriousness of students in general (a complaint that would no doubt be echoed by the left wing groups that Baxter finds so objectionable), and a concern that students’ naive activism will be co-opted by professional left wing agitators. 230 However, all this is but a diversion from the main point at issue. Peacock, after delivering himself of the opinion that far too many people are going to university, and that it would be better for most students to leave school earlier ‘and learn something which they can really understand,’ gets back to the question closest to his heart (somewhat clumsily, it must be admitted), by asking the minister when the government proposes to do something serious about defence. Given that politicians usually prefer to be doing the talking rather than the listening, it is surprising that O’Toole takes an insignificant part in the ensuing discussion, beyond referring lamely to the F111 aircraft and ‘the new ships and tanks coming some day.’ Perhaps Baxter here wished to convey the impression of the minister’s lack of competence for his important role, but whatever the case, there is little doubt that the following speech by Peacock is a neat summary of Baxter’s views on defence policy:

There are ways in which a small but technologically advanced nation could make itself secure. I mean of course through nuclear weapons and other scientifically sophisticated military devices, but your government, and to be fair some earlier governments also, have refused to consider even such elementary precautions. Whitlock we know has a psychological fixation on such matters and the man before him was little better.40

(The ‘man before him’ is a reference to Sir William McMahon, who in 1971 ousted as Prime Minister, and reversed Gorton’s previous undertaking to build a nuclear power station at Jervis Bay.) This neglect can have but one outcome: ‘We shall wake up one of these days and find we have been taken over.’ It turns out, however, that O’Toole largely concedes Peacock’s arguments, telling his guests in confidence that ‘we should have had nuclear defences years ago,’ 231 but that openly espousing such views would have cost him his job. As a politician, too, he has to take account of the fact that advocacy of nuclear weapons would have brought ‘all the rabid environmentalists, all the political cranks and academic ratbags around our heads like a swarm of hornets.’

One might think that O’Toole is a strange person to be a Minister in a Labor government, given that he has serious disagreements with his colleagues over defence policy, and characterises Labor voters as ‘the lazy, unthinking, workshy, beer swilling masses.’ No possibility of any light on the hill for O’Toole. However, before the evening is over Whitlock has been despatched, collapsing and dying after delivering a televised speech, and O’Toole has become the Prime Minister. Curtain on Act 1, Scene 1. At the beginning of Scene 2, we find O’Toole in his study, and four years have elapsed since his accession to the Prime Ministership. Clearly, in those four years little has been done to improve Australia’s defences. There is a stand-off in O’Toole’s study between the Opposition Leader Robertson, who wants immediate mobilisation in the face of the threat from Asia, and the union leader Mullins, who argues that the whole thing ‘is being cooked up to justify rearmament and conscription here.’ Mullins is confident that if the South East Asian Peoples’ Republic (SEAPR) had really been planning an invasion of Australia, then the ‘commies in the unions’ would have heard of it from their friends in Asia, and passed it on. Rather odd behaviour from a supposed fifth column, one would have thought, and a rather surprising level of trust on the part of a non-communist union official. Nevertheless, the first act ends with 232 O’Toole’s denunciation of the real culprits in this mess, as he launches into a cynical characterisation of the apathetic Australian:

I know we are unarmed, an easy prey — and a wealthy one. But that’s how Australians have always wanted it. No one wants to work or make a sacrifice — let the other fellow do it. Someone will look after us — they always have! If I went to the people I do not believe they would listen — and then we would have a worse government.41

O’Toole, then, convinces himself against all the evidence that an invasion is unlikely and, unable to act against the wishes of the trade union leader Mullins, decides to ‘pour cold water’ on any opposition calls for rearmament. His secretary and confessor Anselm merely tells O’Toole to follow his own conscience, and declares rather unhelpfully: ‘I cannot guide you. You will have to live — or die — with [your decision] after.’

After the geopolitical focus of this scene, Act 2 returns to the more private dramas of the O’Toole family. Since her graduation O’Toole’s daughter Maria has also achieved a measure of fame as a surgeon, by mastering a delicate neurosurgical technique for altering personality. While most surgeons apparently achieve only a 40 per cent success rate with this technique, Maria’s figures are up around 90. (Although one cannot help wondering what the consequences of failure of such an operation might be. Not serious enough to deter potential subjects, presumably, since we are told that Maria has a long waiting list!) Not only that, but she has given birth to a son, albeit that no-one knows the identity of the father. For the time being, however, our attention is taken up with the confrontation between O’Toole and his daughter over her origins, and the revelation 233 of the truth of her father’s guilty past. (Suffice to say here that Maria is in fact O’Toole’s natural daughter, conceived when O’Toole raped his Aboriginal secretary.) This leads to an irrevocable split between father and daughter, making Maria’s siding with the Asian invaders less ‘unnatural,’ and setting the scene for the occupation of Australia. The dialogue here is somewhat laboured, with one character after another rushing in to report the presence of vehicles and armed men in the grounds of the Prime Ministerial residence. Even here, Baxter interrupts the attempt to generate tension with a typical sideswipe. When O’Toole suggests that the men and army vehicles in the front garden may be part of a student prank or demonstration, his daughter Margaret replies that the men are ‘too quiet for students and too orderly.’

The mystery is soon dispelled when General Robert Lee arrives to present O’Toole with a document of surrender. All resistance has been crushed, and Canberra obliterated in the series of nuclear explosions which give the play its title. General Lee reports that his soldiers landing at Jervis Bay ‘saw the explosion and said it was like the sun rising in the west.’ O’Toole is coerced into signing the surrender, and then is told the full story of the South East Asian

Peoples’ Republic’s plans for Australia. Maria tells her horrified father that not only is she married to Robert Lee, but that at the urging of their scientists the leaders of SEAPR have decided that instead of annihilating the existing population of Australia, they will turn the country into a giant eugenics laboratory. The aim was to populate Australia almost entirely with a superior Asian-European cross. To achieve this, most Australian males would be sterilized, and only a small group of 234 physically and intellectually outstanding men allowed to mate with Asian women. Most of the new generation would be produced by artificially inseminating Australian women with semen from a group of selected Asian males. It is worth noting here, too, that Maria refers to the development of the interior of Australia as ‘another important part of the plan.’

The final scene of Act 2 opens to the sombre strains of the funeral march from Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. Later, we find out that amid all the torture, mental and physical, meted out to the recalcitrants of society, the young people of Australia seem to be happy with their lot. As Anselm tells the despairing O’Toole:

They are working — sixty hours a week and enjoying it apparently. Vast plans for development have been announced. All trade union bosses, politicians, idle rich capitalists, many professors and teachers, all the priests and ministers of religion have gone!42

Maria explains to her father that the Australia of the future will be ‘a great, unified, disciplined country which will be a force in the world.’ This unity and discipline will depend on the fact that the country is a one-party state, with only those of ‘proved intelligence and stability’ allowed to join the party. Ultimately, party members would comprise about ten percent of the population, while the remaining ninety percent would lead ‘ordered busy lives’ for which they had been trained from childhood. ‘What a terrible fate for my country,’ cries O’Toole, but Maria chides him for his weakness and apathy. ‘When did you ever say to Australia that the price of liberty is strength?’ O’Toole can only meekly agree: ‘I knew it to be true but I would have lost votes if I had said it...We were a nation of lotus eaters and 235 freeloaders.’ Of course, there is no place for O’Toole in the new order, and the act ends with his suicide.

There remains, however, an epilogue, set some forty years into the future. ‘The hour is dawn, and the faint first glimmerings of light are illuminating the distant Olgas’ as Maria, now aged 70, recollects in tranquillity the global conflict of the last twenty years, and hears reports from a visiting ambassador of the final attainment of rational, stable world government. The world is now organised into a hierarchy based loosely on what in modern terms would have been referred to as the Communist bloc and the Western alliance. According to Baxter’s scenario, the governments of ‘Eurocan’ (taking in North America and Western Europe) and the Central Communist Bloc (Russia and China) have agreed to end their global warfare and combine their forces for the purpose of ruling the world. As the Eurocan ambassador puts it, they will create ‘a single military force under a unified command....[and] will thus have complete power in every part of the world.’ Both sides, having concluded that the troubles of the last twenty years are due ‘to the spread in the last century of the absurd doctrine of democracy and the misconception that all men are equal,’ now assert the importance of authority and obedience to an overall global plan, and the value of national government based on the supremacy of single elite parties. That Australia has largely escaped the ravages of warfare is ascribed here to the adoption of just such a system following the invasion forty years before of the SEAPR forces.

Australia, along with India and South Africa, although not included in this governing hierarchy, are nevertheless designated as 236 ‘countries of advanced status.’ Since they possess stable governments, significant nuclear defences, and philosophies in accord with the ‘big two,’ they will be allowed to exercise some delegated authority in their own areas, and be consulted in the decision making process. For the rest, ‘they will do what they are told or perish,’ and are in effect nothing more than convenient sources of food and raw materials. The play ends, then, with a vision of a world that has reached more or less a steady state, with each country playing its allocated role in a global plan. Not that this has come about through any idealistic conception of world government, but rather through exhaustion, and an agreement between the two opposing powers in the northern hemisphere that only by combining their forces can they hope to control the rest of the world. This reference to a steady state allows Baxter to introduce the question of population, another important theme which he had rehearsed frequently in public forums. We are told that although the total world population had reached eight billion around the year 2000, famines, epidemics and almost continuous warfare had reduced these numbers to around three billion. The world powers have now settled on a target population of two billion, to be achieved by gradual reduction throughout the world, although some areas will be hardly affected by this. For example, we are told that Australia, with a population of 27 million, will not be forced to make any drastic cuts.

Population, however, is not the only variable to be regulated under this new world order. Each country will have to meet production and export targets, but this does not concern Maria, who declares that 237 it should be easy. This is a cue for the entry of her grandson John Lee, who turns out to be an engineer with some exciting news:

Today we have completed the ten metre diameter water main from the Ord to South Australia, and the desalination plants are pumping new life into the heart of Australia. It’s only the beginning of course, there is much more to be done, but it’s a dream of engineers like me, come true!...It means enormous new areas will be opened for producing food, for habitation and for recreation. In fifty years there will be millions of people living in the dead heart, living under wonderful conditions, with an excellent climate, beautiful desert scenery with large irrigated areas producing everything that man could want.43

It only remains for Maria, in the few moments left, to point some more morals for us. Australia has prospered because ‘the idiocies of elected politicians no longer frustrate and prevent the flowing of the benefits of science.’ Chief among those benefits are the nuclear deterrent, the missiles and submarines, and the observation satellites which prevented countries like Indonesia from invading Australia.44 The reference is to ‘one Asian island power,’ but Baxter can only have meant Indonesia here.

Here we see being played out one of the long-standing fears of white Australian society, namely an Asian invasion, but as with other aspects of this play, matters are more complicated than that. It turns out in the end that the conquest of Australia by the forces of SEAPR marks the beginning of the country’s preparedness to meet other threats from its Asian neighbours. Another point is that the hero of the play, Lee, is portrayed as intelligent, courteous, and decisive when he needs to be. In a scene at the minister’s garden party, which I have not alluded to before, Lee is shown defending his girlfriend Maria from the unwelcome attentions of a loutish Australian university 238 student. The contest is very much one between calm strength, and boisterous vainglory, with the outcome being very much what one would expect. The racial question is further complicated by the revelations about Maria’s parentage. She is in fact O’Toole’s natural daughter, and her mother was a young ‘half Aboriginal and half Chinese’ woman who in turn had been deserted at birth by her Aboriginal mother. O’Toole, in telling this story to Maria, accounts for this by referring to it as ‘customary’ for Aborigines to desert mixed race children. The revelation of long-held secrets about origins is of course a time-honoured theatrical technique for generating interest in a scene, but there are other noteworthy aspects of this story. Firstly, the story of Maria’s ancestry indicates that there is already an Asian presence in Australia (in this context, of course, categories like ‘Asian’ and ‘Chinese’ are somewhat fluid, if not totally interchangeable). This may be regarded simply as a plot device to make the attraction between Maria and Robert more plausible (in crude terms, Maria can be said to already have ‘Chinese blood’), but there are other points to be made here. The personalities of Maria and Robert are based on the well-worn trope of the implacable oriental, determined and efficient, but with none of the sentimentality of the European. What is interesting about the later developments of the play is that these characteristics, far from eliciting horror, are portrayed as positive virtues in the Australia of the future. The epilogue leaves one with the impression that if the white Australians had not seen their way to realising the potential of the country, then it was just as well that it was conquered by a people with a clearer vision of the future. That Maria, at the end of the play, is left to cry ‘tears of joy’ 239 at all that has been achieved, is vivid testimony to the author’s attempts to give his play a positive conclusion.

Nevertheless, this note of triumph at the end of the play has a hollow ring, since Baxter’s vision remains doggedly pessimistic. Common sense is only begrudgingly embraced by the ‘super powers’ after years of futile war, and the ‘new world order’ sketched out in the final pages is explicitly based on coercion. There is no idealism involved, nor any sense of making the world anew according to a more rational blueprint. Baxter takes the global power relations of his own time for granted, and far from holding out any hope of alleviation of the problems of the so-called ‘third world,’ regards its subservience as an important prerequisite for efficient world government. Even the technological fix outlined at the end by Maria’s enthusiastic grandson, with the possibility of a newly green ‘dead heart’ of Australia able to accommodate millions of people, sits uneasily with the previous discussion of the need for population control. It may just be ‘the enthusiasm of youth,’ as the ambassador from Eurocan tells Maria, but it is clear, particularly when we consider Baxter’s other writings on Australian development and defence, that priorities in research must take account of informed judgments about Australia’s potential enemies.

There are two points to be made about this. First, that in line with his other comments at the time, Baxter specifically rejects the notion that a nuclear war would mean the end of the world. In the discussion on the ABC television programme Monday Conference, to which we have already alluded, Baxter argues that Australia would 240 ‘have a better chance than most other places of coming through successfully.’45 By giving these speculations a dramatic form, Baxter is at the same time showing his debt to the Shavian play of ideas, and accommodating himself to a removal from the centre of action. When one is no longer writing government policy, perhaps only then does one turn to writing plays.

The second point to be made harks back to Chapter 2 and Harwood’s table of dichotomies between ‘natural law thought’ and ‘conservative thought.’46 At that point, Harwood commented that the former was characterised by ‘static’ thinking, in the sense that ethical justifications were made on the grounds of ‘the right reason’ rather than in terms of historical explanation, while the latter was characterised by a certain ‘dynamism’, seen in the use of concepts like ‘dialectic’ and the stress on historical and developmental explanation/justification. I make the point here because the exposition of Baxter’s play is indicative of this historical and developmental approach. As we have seen, his vision of the new world order is based firmly on the old, and makes no claims that it is built in accord with any timeless, universal principles. Australia is rewarded at the end for being watchful and prudent, and recognising how best to plan for likely exigencies.

In his recent study of the political thought of Bernard Shaw, Gareth Griffith tries to make some sense of the contradictory assessments of Shaw’s contribution to philosophical and political discourse.47 Is it the case, as Eric Bentley claimed, that Shaw remains at bottom really nothing more than an exasperated idealist 241 and artist in propaganda? As Bentley puts it, ‘[a]ll Shaw’s statements are “slanted.” What he says is always determined by the thought: what can I do to this audience? not by the thought: what is the most objective statement about this subject?’48 To support this contention, we might cite Shaw’s projection of a qualitative change in humanity, brought about by the workings of the life force. As Griffith argues, Shaw

...called himself a vitalist, or creative evolutionist, aligning his philosophy with the celebration of spontaneity over reason, will over intellect, as associated with the work of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in Germany and Bergson and Sorel in France. Perhaps this sounds strange — something is out of place, a discrepancy has arisen between history and reputation.49

This characterisation of Shaw’s thought, however, must be measured against his reputation as an uncompromising realist, exposing the cant and hypocrisy of society. As Griffith points out, Shaw has traditionally been placed with Diderot and Voltaire, those heroes of the European enlightenment who, on the face of it, would have had nothing to do with vitalistic doctrines of the primacy of will over reason. Hence Griffith’s concern with the ‘discrepancy...between history and reputation,’ prompting his suggestion that ‘the easiest way out of this conundrum is to assert that Shaw’s vitalism was of a peculiar sort, taking many unlikely intellectual turns, being expressed in a variety of forms.’50 We are clearly on uneasy ground here. Was Shaw at bottom a vitalist with rationalist leanings, or a rationalist with vitalist leanings? Here, once again, I think that the value of Mannheim’s approach is worth reiterating. The main point is that ideas and modes of expression are rooted in society, and consequently 242 only a sociological approach can allow us to see beyond the contradictions inherent in a more traditionally conceived ‘history of ideas’. In some cases, attempts to identify a ‘style of thought’ might be more fruitful than trying to tease out an internally consistent web of ideas from the writings of a particular thinker or commentator, and being forced to explain, or explain away, any apparent contradictions which might emerge.

I would not wish to push any comparison between Shaw and Baxter too far. There is, as I have shown, ample evidence for Baxter’s lifelong fascination with Shaw’s writings, but there is no evidence that Baxter embraced the Shavian doctrine of creative evolution, and nor would he have been likely to. One cannot help but be struck, though, by the way in which events in Baxter’s play have their echoes in Shaw. Heartbreak House, for example, ends with a series of explosions, acts of violence which Griffith reads as cathartic in their effect, ‘cleansing the world of impurity, signalling a departure into a new era of adventure and creativity....[W]hile violence is not an answer to the problem of government, it is perhaps the door through which we must pass if a new moral order is to be created.’51 Of course, this might be nothing more than an exasperated invocation on Shaw’s part of a deus ex machina, but Griffith’s speculations here are at least thought- provoking. And if Shaw’s explosions manage to kill off Mangan, the agent of plutocracy, then Baxter’s nuclear weapons attack on Canberra has the salutary effect in his view of ridding the country of politicians. 243 Baxter’s one known foray into dramatic writing provides us with the most clear-cut evidence available of the background and tendencies of his thinking, at least as he expressed it towards the end of his career. The influences on his play, however, are not exhausted by a study of Shaw. The fascination with racial questions, including attitudes to Asia, and the treatment of , is worthy of comment, if only because there is indirect evidence of possible sources for Baxter’s speculations. In June, 1954 the geographer Griffith Taylor sent Baxter a reprint of six chapters from a substantial book he had recently edited, clearly intended as a definitive statement of future directions in geography. The book, entitled Geography in the twentieth century, is notable from our point of view because it included Griffith Taylor’s advocacy of what he called the study of geopacifics.

This at least was the aspect he wished to draw to Baxter’s attention, even if he noted pessimistically in the Preface (written in 1952) that ‘I do not think that my ideas on Geopacifics will receive the attention they deserve much before 1976.’52 Perhaps, in Baxter’s case, the ideas fell on more fertile ground, even though there is no direct evidence for this. In any case, Griffith Taylor felt it was worthwhile to send Baxter some excerpts from the book, drawing his attention especially to the text between pages 592 and 607, and the ‘race-map’ on page 435. An extensive quotation is justified here, not only to give the flavour of a comparatively neglected text, but also because certain formulations strike resonances with Baxter’s writings. Having defined his neologism ‘geopacifics’ as the ‘study of geography to promote peace,’ 244 Griffith Taylor is at pains to distinguish his approach from mere pacifism:

Let us get down to brass tacks, and pose the urgent problems in a series of simple maps and diagrams....Let us explain how the patterns depend on the environment; and study the relation of human groups in an objective way, rather than in the somewhat mystical fashion of Arnold Toynbee. This great writer pays little attention to the vast accumulation of geographical data of the last thirty years; which, in my opinion, alters our whole concept of the growth of nations, and of civilization itself. It is my opinion that in the liaison subject of geography — which carries across the teaching of sciences (like geology and physics) to the realm of man; and which emphasises world-patterns — we have the answer to this extremely urgent problem. We have not much time. Rome is burning. My panacea for the world’s unrest is to implement the Atlantic Charter on the international front; and to ensure — on the educational front — that all university students are exposed to a course of lectures on civilization, preferably of an objective, graphic type such as I have tried to offer in my studies of geopacifics. If this type of scientifically-derived data is grafted on to the age-long teachings of religion we shall perhaps make real progress towards a World at Peace.53

Thus, Griffith Taylor has no objection as such to the sort of grand historical synthesis aimed at by Toynbee, but argues for a synthesis based on the ‘objective’ and the ‘scientifically-derived.’ Having rejected the mysticism of Toynbee, he nevertheless postulates a role for the ‘age-long teachings of religion’ as a kind of root-stock on which an enlightened age might be able to graft the insights of science. It is the mixture of the Utopian (‘my panacea’) and the hard-headed that this passage shares with Baxter’s vision of the greening of Australia, and assimilates it with the conservative style of thought which we have characterised earlier. Note, though, that the sort of science invoked by Griffith Taylor is determinedly empirical in its outlook, depending for its force on the accumulation of evidence 245 (hence the reference above to ‘scientifically-derived data’). In a comment on racial types which is relevant to the plot developments in Baxter’s play, Griffith Taylor asserts that

[d]ispassionate analysis of racial groups....shows that [the] three racial types, Alpine, Nordic, and Mediterranean, are the components of the peoples of China and of the northern half of India. Hence I have never been able to see that there is any racial objection to the intermarriage of Europeans with Asiatics from the areas specified. The resulting hybrids are of the same type as those which have developed throughout the ages in Europe without question.54

Here, I am not arguing that Baxter intended the marriage of Lee and Maria in his play as a working out of Griffith Taylor’s racial theories. It is worth noting, however, that there is at least a shared concern with racial questions, and Baxter may very well have been influenced by the material which Taylor sent to him. From 1920 to 1928 Griffith Taylor was Head of the Department of Geography at the University of Sydney, and although at the time the local press took him severely to task for his suggestion that Australia had nothing to fear from inter- racial marriages, it is interesting to note that similar views inform the eugenics experiments foreshadowed in Baxter’s play.

For some years, too, Baxter had been keeping up an interest in Asian affairs. Early in the new year of 1966, The Australian newspaper published an article on what notable citizens had read during the previous twelve months, under the heading, ‘What they read in ’65.’ Baxter’s list consisted entirely of books on an Asian theme:

CP Fitzgerald, Birth of Communist China; Nehru, Discovery of India; Reischauer, Japan, past and present; 246 Dennis Warner, The last Confucian; James Michener, Hokusai sketchbook; Morris West, The ambassador

On his own account, Baxter himself was surprised to find that his reading during the previous twelve months had been so narrowly focused. In his covering letter to The Australian , he commented that the books taken together ‘seem to be rather an odd collection.’55 Not so odd, though, in the context of Baxter’s concerns about an alleged threat from Asia, and the problems of defence policy. His reading was not sporadic, but was clearly directed at gaining up-to-date information on matters of concern. West’s book, in particular, is of interest here, because it deals with the puzzlement of the well-trained Western diplomat at the ‘Asian way’ of doing things. Newly appointed to the critical post of US ambassador to South Vietnam, the hero of the novel is stunned into silence by the attitude of the people on his arrival in Saigon:

Then I looked at the people and was shocked instantly into sobriety. They had no eyes for me nor for my sinister cavalcade. They did not gather in groups to wave flags and shout hosannas for the new deliverer. They looked once and then averted their eyes. Their small intelligent faces might have been carved out of teak.56

It is not so surprising, then, that Baxter’s play is full of a kind of awe at the ‘inscrutable orient,’ and relies so heavily on racial stereotyping.

It is worth noting here, too, that the close relationship between Baxter’s stage business and racial questions may have owed something to the tradition of the ‘well-made thriller’ exemplified by 247 Edward Percy’s pot-boiler The Shop at Sly Corner, a production of which Baxter himself directed at the University of NSW.57 Percy’s lengthy description of his main character Descius Heiss goes so far as to inform the reader that ‘he has a remarkable face, rugged and lined, with a hint of the Semitic in character,’ an example of the fascination with racial origins which looms so large in Baxter’s imagination.58

Another important aspect of Baxter’s vision of the future is the emphasis on development of the interior of Australia, a theme which he had rehearsed many times in public forums. In May 1961, for example, he accepted an invitation to join a Parliamentary Committee on National Development on a tour of the far north of Australia. In a letter to Jeff Bate, the Chairman of the Government Members Committee on Food and Agriculture, he wrote:

I definitely wish to come on the trip to the Northern Territory and you can regard this as a firm decision. I am looking forward to this opportunity of seeing something more of our developmental problems in the north which, as you know, is a subject which has interested me for some time.59

That this was not just another junket, at least as far as Baxter was concerned, is clear from the efforts he made to secure publicity for the visit. At the beginning of June, he wrote to P Terry, the Production Manager of Coral Sea Productions, in a bid to set up a filmed interview, including in his letter the text of a series of questions which, he suggested, he ‘would be able to answer effectively.’60 Just what sort of development Baxter envisaged is clear from the second of his proposed questions: 248

The development of large scale population in the north with accompanying industry must require considerable supplies of power, since the northern part of Australia is apparently devoid of coal. Where is this power to come from?

Where, indeed. Did I hear someone mention atomic energy? By the middle of July Baxter was back in Sydney, ‘more convinced than ever of the tremendous potential of this area and of the urgent need for developing it.’61 Once again he sought to arrange television publicity for the tour, and remained active in committees and organisations (such as the ‘People the North Committee’) as a strong advocate for development of the north. In May 1964 he set up a forum under the auspices of the Rotary Club of Sydney with the title: ‘Northern Australia and its role in our relations with our Asian neighbours,’ inviting CS Christian of the CSIRO to give a talk on ‘the agricultural and pastoral prospects’ of tropical Australia. He advised Christian that he had already asked Professor Munro of the University of NSW to talk about water resources, and indicated that a third speaker, perhaps even himself, would look at mineral developments. In his letter of invitation, Baxter assured Christian that the Rotary Club of Sydney represented ‘an excellent cross section of the senior people in business and industry and government in the state of New South

Wales.’62 The strategy is plain: talk to the people who matter, and have influence. Indeed, this is not the only occasion on which Baxter relied on contacts within Rotary to further his interests, and he readily accepted invitations to attend Rotary Clubs in the country as a guest speaker. He had an important message, and would not pass up the opportunity to address any appropriate forum. 249 Rotary, however, is not an avowedly political organisation, and one of the questions in its ‘Four-way test’ for assessing the moral probity of our actions is: ‘Is it fair to all concerned?’ In October 1965 Baxter resigned from Rotary, and by April the following year, as we have seen, was becoming involved with the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom. One can only speculate here, but the timing of this suggests to me that Baxter had become convinced of the need for more partisan intervention in discussions of foreign policy and defence. If society had to be goaded into an awareness of impending danger, then scrupulous adherence to tests of fairness and moral rectitude was no longer appropriate. It was time to engage the enemy front on. Further evidence on this point is contained in a letter to a W Kells, of the architectural firm Peddle, Thorp and Walker, in which Baxter explains his reluctance to join in a lobbying effort on northern development:

Professor Munro is correct in saying that this is a subject which has interested me a great deal during the last ten years, and on which I have from time to time both written and spoken with some enthusiasm....It would not help me or the cause of Northern Development, if the Government were to feel that I was taking part in any activity designed to put pressure upon them and I would not in any case wish to do that.63

As I have indicated, by April of the following year such restraint no longer seemed appropriate. It is interesting, though, that these considerations shed some additional light on the authorship of the anonymous article in Quadrant, ‘Australian doubts on the treaty,’ which argued against Australia’s ratification of the Nuclear Non-

Proliferation Treaty.64 Assuming that Baxter was the author of the article, his comments above at least help to explain his desire for 250 anonymity at that delicate point of government consideration of nuclear energy policy.

It is this juxtaposition of developmental concerns, and the racial concerns which we discussed earlier, that sets the tone of Baxter’s conservatism. Harking back to Chapter 2 of this thesis, we recall that our discussion began by considering Baxter’s pessimism, a pessimism that we also find reflected in Griffith Taylor’s comment that ‘we have not much time.’ Such pessimism may have led to Spenglerian meditations on the imminent downfall of civilization, but in Baxter’s case it was leavened by a strain of technological optimism which saw some hope in the widespread application of atomic energy, massive desalination schemes and the like. To refresh our memories, here are the characteristics of the conservative style of thought identified by Harwood:

A stress on intuition and the limits of rationalist thinking

A stress on qualitative differences and discontinuity

A preference for the particular, the concrete and practice

The view that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and that the individual parts can be understood only as parts of the wider whole

An antipathy towards explanation in terms of general laws

An orientation toward the past

A certain ‘dynamism’, seen in the use of concepts like ‘dialectic’ and the stress on historical and developmental explanation/justification

It may be supposed that surely the first item on this list would not really apply to Baxter, a professional engineer with a strong 251 commitment to scientific method. Yet at another level, Baxter’s play could be considered as a meditation on the limits of rationality, at least as it has been practised in the West. Representative democracy, the flower of the enlightenment, is totally inadequate — even prime ministers with a clear view of what might be required in the face of impending crisis are shown to be powerless to act on their knowledge. The play, then, standing at the end of Baxter’s career, serves as a useful point of reference for the development of his ideas, given firm shape in a dramatic situation.

1 Valerie Craven, personal communication. 2 Angyal, op. cit. (note 32, chapter 1), p. 191. 3 This information has been gleaned from labelled photographs of the relevant productions. UNSW Archives, CN 1053, Box O/S 88. 4 Ibid. 5 Letter to Baxter 14 April, 1958, and Baxter’s reply, UNSW Archives, CN 980, Box 25. 6 Angyal, op. cit. (note 32, chapter 1), p. 194. 7 Willis, op. cit. (note 54, chapter 1), pp. 207-208. 8 Baxter to P.W. Butler, 10 May, 1967, UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 36. 9 Baxter to C.B. Fahs, Director, Rockefeller Foundation, 31 January, 1961, UNSW Archives, Administration file no. 61/U138Y/10898. 10 My thanks to Denis Baxter for making the typescript of the play available to me. The typescript has been reproduced as an appendix to this thesis. 11 G.B. Shaw, Major Barbara, Harmondsworth, 1960 (first published 1907), p. 15. 12 Ibid., pp. 18-19. 13 Ibid., p. 130. 14 Ibid., p. 126. 15 Ibid., p. 130. 16 Ibid., p. 131. 17 G. Griffith, Socialism and superior brains: The political thought of Bernard Shaw, Routledge, London, 1993, p. 88. 18 G.B. Shaw, Heartbreak House: A fantasia in the Russian manner on English themes, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1964 (first published 1919), p. 8. 19 Ibid., p. 8. 20 Ibid., p. 9. 21 Ibid., pp. 11-12. 22 Ibid., p. 12. 252

23 Ibid., p. 13. 24 Ibid., p. 14. 25 Ibid., p. 29. 26 Ibid., p. 31. 27 G.B. Shaw, The Apple Cart: A political extravaganza, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1956 (first published 1930), pp. 7-8. 28 Ibid., p. 8. 29 Ibid., p. 10. 30 Ibid., p. 12. 31 R.A. Buchanan, The engineers: A history of the engineering profession in Britain, 1750-1914, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, 1989, p. 211. 32 Ibid., p. 192. 33 Ibid., p. 201. 34 J.P. Baxter, The day the sun rose in the west, unpublished typescript, p. 2. 35 My thanks to Jim Franklin for drawing my attention to this material. 36 J.P. Baxter, op. cit. (note 34), p. 3. 37 Ibid., pp. 5-6. 38 Ibid., p. 6. 39 Ibid., p. 11. 40 Ibid., p. 12. 41 Ibid., p. 31. 42 Ibid., p. 51. 43 Ibid., p. 64. 44 Ibid., p. 65. 45 Monday Conference typescript p. 20. See note 38, chapter 3. 46 See p. 53 47 Griffith, op. cit. (note 17). 48 E. Bentley, Bernard Shaw, Robert Hale Ltd, London, 1950, p. 49. 49 Griffith, op. cit. (note 17), p. 9. 50 Ibid., p. 10. 51 Ibid., pp. 241-242. 52 Griffith Taylor (ed.), Geography in the twentieth century: A study of growth, fields, techniques, aims and trends (2nd edition), Methuen, London, 1953, p. vi. My thanks to David Oldroyd for drawing this material to my attention. In fact, it was a talk by David at an AAHPSSS conference in 1993 that first aroused my interest in Griffith Taylor, and led me to believe that his views were worth following up. I would refer interested readers to David’s paper, D.R. Oldroyd, ‘Griffith Taylor and his Views on Race, Environment and Settlement, and the Peopling of Australia,’ in D.F. Branagan and G.H. McNally (eds), Useful and Curious: Geological Inquiries Beyond the World. Pacific-Asia Historical Themes. The 19th International INHIGEO Symposium. Sydney, Australia, 4-8 July 1994, International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences, Sydney, 1994, pp. 251-274. 253

53 Ibid., p. 607. 54 Ibid., p. 601. 55 Baxter to The Australian, 8 December, 1965, UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 35. 56 M. West, The Ambassador, Heinemann, London, 1965, pp. 17-18. 57 E. Percy, The Shop at Sly Corner, English Theatre Guild, London, 1946. 58 Ibid., p. 8. 59 Baxter to J. Bate, 22 May, 1961, UNSW Archives, CN 423 Box 31. 60 Baxter to P. Terry, 7 June, 1961, UNSW Archives, CN 423 Box 31. 61 Baxter to Dr. M.G. Mackay, 11 July, 1961, UNSW Archives, CN 423 Box 31. 62 Baxter to C.S. Christian, 5 May, 1964. UNSW Archives, CN 423 Box 33. 63 Baxter to W. Kells, 1 June, 1965. UNSW Archives, CN 423 Box 33. 64 X, ‘Australian doubts on the treaty, Quadrant, May-June 1968, 12, 30-34. 254 CHAPTER EIGHT CONCLUDING REMARKS

It is time to draw together the main threads of my argument, which at the outset I characterised as an attempt to show how Sir Philip Baxter fitted into a post-war world of technological optimism, and how his attitudes exhibit an underlying coherence when looked at as a reflection of a ‘conservative style of thought.’ As we saw in Chapter 2, this term, deriving from Karl Mannheim’s analysis of reactions to the French Revolution, is much broader than a simple political label. Confining ourselves now to the Australian scene, it would be a mistake to suppose that by ascribing a conservative style of thought to Philip Baxter, I am implying that he had any particular affinity with the Liberal Party. On the other hand, although Baxter’s conservatism transcended party feeling, this is not to say that he was antipathetic to the Liberal Party either.

In Chapter One I drew a comparison between Baxter and the long-serving Liberal Prime Minister Robert Menzies. The two were well acquainted, as Menzies was the leader of the government throughout most of the period when Baxter was framing Australian atomic energy policy. When Baxter’s other fiefdom, the University of NSW, instituted an annual lecture in honour of Wallace Wurth, its first chancellor, Menzies was given the honour of inaugurating the series. The university also honoured Menzies by naming its library after him.

There were important differences, though. Menzies, as Judith Brett’s studies demonstrate, was an astute politician, whose rhetoric in effect created a vast constituency, the amorphous ‘forgotten 255 people’ of middle Australia, who had no-one to speak for them. Evoking a comfortable nostalgia with imagery of hearth and home, Menzies conveyed an ideal of government as benevolent guardian of individual liberties, rather than active proponent of large-scale development. How well this matched the reality of Menzies’ several administrations is of course another matter, but not one with which I am concerned here. Menzies’ skill lay too in his ability to exploit long- standing fears of foreign infiltration and control. His strategy was simple — identify Communists as agents of an imperialistic foreign power, and hammer the line that his Labor opponents, beholden as they were to the trade union movement, were bound to fall under Communist influence.

Although Baxter in his play refers at one point to Communist influence among workers (Mullins, the union official, comments at one point that ‘we have quite a few commies in the unions’),1 it could not be said that it was antipathy to communism as such that motivated him. In fact, the supposed communist menace from South East Asia that was used to justify Australian involvement in the Viet Nam war has very little to do with Baxter’s vision of the future. The forces of the South East Asian People’s Republic in Baxter’s play are if anything under the control of a scientific/engineering elite — we are told that it is the scientists in SEAPR ‘who wanted to make the whole invasion [of Australia] a gigantic experiment in producing a new and better race.’2 This is certainly not classic Marxist ideology, but represents an apotheosis of the idea of the planned economy. That Baxter’s thoughts were running in this direction is borne out by comments he made at a conference of British Commonwealth universities in 1968. 256 On 23 August, he delivered a keynote address on ‘The Use of Scientific Knowledge by Governments and Industry,’ an address which began with the ringing declaration that ‘the civilisation of the twentieth century... is almost wholly dependent upon... the application of scientific knowledge to the affairs of man.’3

Referring to the ‘completely planned economies of the socialist type,’ Baxter goes on to characterise them as follows:

Such a plan will seek to identify scientific goals and prepare to reach them by providing, at the one end, for the education of sufficient scientists and engineers... while, at the other, planning the construction of production facilities, power stations, new agricultural ventures, new towns, research institutes, transportation systems and so on... That such systems can produce outstanding scientific achievements is obvious from the experience of the Soviet Union and it seems likely that the inefficiencies of such a complicated and inevitably bureaucratic organisation are offset by the greater concentration of national effort on scientific goals, and a generally lower level of domestic consumption, which it makes possible.4

The capitalist world, on the other hand, is hampered by the fact that ‘[f]or democratic politicians, to whom winning the next election is vital, science policy must be popular and must attract votes, or at least not lose them, and this is a straight-jacket (sic) within which science policy committees can only act with difficulty.’ The freedom of the Free World is thus a myth, and according to Baxter ‘sensible science policies are practically unknown except in socialist countries!’5 The speaker here is using hyperbole for effect (made evident to the reader by the use of the exclamation mark), but this should not be taken to suggest any lack of serious intent. For Baxter, the way forward lies in formulating ‘sensible science policies,’ and 257 such desiderata transcend concerns about individual freedoms and the nature of government. At this point the rhetoric is far removed from that of a dedicated parliamentarian like Menzies, who lived and breathed in the environment of committees and inquiries that so frustrated Baxter.

Our reflections on this point also bear on the characterisation of conservative thought that serves as a working hypothesis throughout this thesis. In the table of dichotomies set forth by Harwood,6 the first characteristic of conservative thought is said to be ‘a stress on intuition and the limits of rationalist thinking,’ as opposed to the ‘rationalism and... faith in the scientific approach’ typical of ‘natural law thought.’ Here, my ascription of a conservative style to Philip Baxter requires some modification, or at the very least some further explanation. Surely the views on scientific planning outlined above, and given dramatic treatment in Baxter’s play, place him firmly in the camp of the Enlightenment as a staunch advocate of progress.

The first point I would make on this is that, as I comment in Chapter 2, the ascription of a style of thought is in effect a starting point for further research, allowing theorists to formulate hypotheses as to why particular thinkers may diverge from the ideal style type.

Taking this approach, we avoid regarding people as mere instantiations of reified ideas. In this case, it is clear that Baxter’s early scientific training and subsequent experience as a chemical engineer can account for his views as to the efficacy of scientific research which, if only given a free rein and not hampered by the need to pander to the relatively short-term goals of politicians and 258 demagogues, is capable of solving all problems. This indeed is a strong faith, a faith which as I suggested earlier he shared with the ‘visible college’ of avowedly left wing British scientists such as JD Bernal.

My second point relates more to the special character of the rationalism underlying Baxter’s world view. As I comment in the concluding remarks to Chapter 7, it is not the rationality of the capitalist market place, which is what Mannheim had in mind in his characterisation of natural law thought. For Mannheim, as indeed for Marx, the Enlightenment with its emphasis on scientific progress was very much a bourgeois phenomenon, and I think it is fair to say that many of Baxter’s reflections on the state of society constitute a reaction against bourgeois values. In their extreme form as put in the mouths of Baxter’s stage characters, his views suggest that the fate of individuals is of very little consequence when set against the future of society. So, although on this point I would want to modify my characterisation of Baxter’s world view, I would also claim that this modification, far from standing as a refutation of my original suggestion, in fact serves as vindication of its value as a working hypothesis, and stimulus to further thought.

The comparison with Griffith Taylor, adumbrated in the previous chapter, is also instructive in this context. In Griffith Taylor’s geopacifics we have the combination of the historicist approach characteristic of the ‘conservative style,’ together with the ‘rationality’ and ‘objectivity’ of science. The apocalyptic vision is underpinned by the patient accumulation of facts and data, and the 259 conscious preparation for the future does not begin with the Utopian assumption that society could be remade from first principles. No, we must face ‘facts,’ and the way ahead will be made more or less difficult depending on the relative pliability or recalcitrance of the materials with which we have to deal.

It is this kind of understanding which helps us to make sense of the apparent anomaly of ascribing a conservative style of thought to Philip Baxter, when one of the distinguishing features of that style is ‘a stress on intuition and the limits of rationalist thinking.’ Even here, though, things are not so sharply delineated as might first appear. In a speech in 1971 to the Control Electronics, Telecommunications Instruments and Automation conference in Sydney7, Baxter at one point reminisced about his early years in the chemical industry:

I well remember the old process worker in a sulphuric acid plant who monitored the concentration of the product by listening carefully to the sound made when he spat into the circulating acid, and on this basis he adjusted the water make up to the system. His results in fact were surprisingly good.

The final sentence here is significant, indicating that Baxter had not completely lost his respect for older craft traditions with their reliance on ‘feel’ instead of itemised procedures manuals. The important thing was the final product, and there is no sense here of wishing to retain old techniques merely for their own sake. Baxter was by no means an antiquarian, and by characterising his style of thought as conservative I do not wish to imply that he was averse to new methods. 260 Another aspect of the conservative style identified by Harwood is the holistic view that ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,’ a view that we have seen reflected in Baxter’s strong anti-democratic tendencies. This view is also reflected in an emphasis on self-reliance that at times expresses itself in a forceful rejection of overseas technology. Numerous particularly telling examples of this are discussed in Chapter 4 on atomic energy policy. As we saw, Baxter insisted on developing an ‘Australian theme’ for the research programme or the AAEC, and fought to preserve it in the face of contrary advice that it made more sense economically to buy US reactors that had already been tested in commercial power generation. His reasons for this, related to what he perceived as Australia’s defence interests, are discussed in detail in that chapter, but here I would like to round out the account by relating it to other spheres. As an example taken from Baxter’s other role as Vice- Chancellor of the University of NSW, I will cite a letter concerning a suggestion that the university send a librarian and architect on a study tour overseas to examine the design of libraries:

...I find it hard to believe that we do not have in our own ranks enough experience and knowledge of what we require to enable us to design a thoroughly modern library which people from other countries might well wish to come and see. I do not share the basic assumption that progress is only made in America or that the Americans have in fact much to teach us in matters of this kind. I have seen a lot of American Universities and some of their libraries, and if we cannot do better than that then it will be a great pity.8

There are echoes here of what prompted Arthur Phillips to write his famous article ‘The Cultural Cringe’ in 1950. The immediate occasion of Phillips’ concern was an ABC radio programme called ‘Incognito,’ in 261 which two performances of the same piece of music were broadcast, and listeners invited to guess which of the two was played by an Australian. Phillips commented that the intention behind the programme was that the listener would quite often guess wrongly, or give up altogether ‘because, strange to say, the local lad [proved] to be no worse than the foreigner. This unexpected discovery [was] intended to inspire a nice glow of patriotic satisfaction.’9 The trouble, for Phillips, was ‘that such a treatment should be necessary, or even possible; that in any nation, there should be an assumption that the domestic cultural product will be worse than the imported article.’10 Phillips’ concern is, of course, with writers, and Meanjin is a literary journal. However, Baxter’s curt dismissal of an overseas tour in order to study library design parallels Phillips’ diagnosis of the cultural cringe, and his antagonism towards the idea is not inspired merely by a feeling that the trip might be somewhat of a junket (although I suspect that this is an element in Baxter’s thinking).

At the national level, Baxter’s concern for self-reliance, and the need for planning, is expressed quite succinctly in a letter concerning nuclear power development which he wrote to his fellow Quadrant supporter James McAuley, Professor of English at the University of

Tasmania. The relevant sections read as follows:

...the type of nuclear power station selected should be one which will use natural Australian uranium without the need of sending it to America to be enriched, or the need to purchase enriched uranium from America. I believe that stations using natural uranium will produce power slightly more cheaply than the American type using enriched uranium, but the advantages from the point of view of the saving of foreign exchange, which is very considerable, and from the point of view of having a power industry completely free from possible interference by foreign 262

powers who control the fuel supply do not, I think, need elaborating.

One further advantage of the natural uranium type of nuclear power station is that it is the only kind which makes a contribution to Australia’s position in relation to national security, should it ever be the policy of the Government to look in that direction for such purposes.11

The timing of this letter is interesting, coming as it does only weeks after the appearance of the Quadrant article by ‘X’ arguing that

Australia’s defence interests would by harmed by a ratification of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Once again, there is the need to preserve the fiction that, as a trusted adviser of government, Baxter has no say in its decisions, but can only comment on what would be a desirable course of action should the government so decree. Within twelve months, as we have seen, Baxter had assumed a more active role as an advocate for nuclear weapons in the circumstances in which Australia found itself.

Of interest too is the way in which, in this letter, technological development is tied to Baxter’s perception of Australia’s geopolitical interests. This letter thus serves as a useful summary of the main strands of Philip Baxter’s career in Australia, drawing together as it does the themes of defence and national development, and reinforcing the importance of his later connections with conservative forces. It is worth noting, however, that Baxter’s style of conservatism does not collapse into a simple desire to retain old techniques and methods. It is a conservatism oriented towards the preservation of certain core values, which draw their significance not from any abstractly conceived ethical system, but rather from the way in 263 which they help to sustain society. Put schematically, it is not society that exists in order to give concrete expression to an overarching moral code, but the moral code that exists in order to ensure the orderly development of society.

With these considerations in mind, it is possible to make sense of the media outrage directed against Baxter in the 1970s. He probably felt like his beloved Bernard Shaw, castigated by a shallow public opinion which could not grasp the fact that, far from suddenly adopting an alien and repugnant morality, he was simply acting like the ‘master spirit’ he had always been, telling the country at large what was good for it, even if his nostrums had become indigestible. In that sense, at least, he remained true to his vision, whatever judgment one may wish to pass on the details.

In this thesis I have considered the relationship between the various aspects of Baxter’s public persona, and argued for the existence of a deeper coherence in his attitudes and activities. At this point, no special pleading should be required to convince anyone of the importance of such a project. Baxter played a pivotal role in Australian nuclear energy policy. Further, his uncompromising stand in favour of nuclear power made him a central figure in a number of important debates related to Australian technology policy, defence, and foreign relations, and brought down on his head both violent denunciation and extravagant praise. In order to highlight the importance of a reassessment, and the significance accorded to Baxter by his contemporaries, I discuss here at least one reaction to his retirement from the AAEC in 1972. This was greeted with relief 264 by some but, as it happened, prompted a tribute of sorts in federal parliament from a young Paul Keating, the honourable member for Blaxland who, in the House of Representatives on the 19 April, 1972, expressed the wish that the wisdom and expertise of such a ‘great Australian’ might not be lost to the community.12 The time was 11.39 pm, and Keating was speaking during the so-called ‘adjournment debate,’ traditionally set aside to allow members the opportunity to parade their private hobby horses.

If the matter is looked at more closely, however, it appears that the circumstances of Keating’s speech in some ways undercut the adulatory tone of his message. Why, for example, did the Labor Party leave it to Keating to ‘place on the records of this Parliament some expression of appreciation’ of Baxter’s services, rather than entrust this job to a more senior front bench figure? Again, the tone of Keating’s remarks suggests something less than enthusiastic approbation. ‘I thought it only right’ to make such a gesture, he tells the parliament, indicating that the task is something more like a duty than a pleasure. Given that the research programme of the Commission had just been rejected by the government, what can one make of Keating’s comment that ‘most of the initiative of the Australian

Atomic Energy Commission rightly can be laid at the door of Sir Philip Baxter’? Such a statement marks its subject as either a recipient of praise, or a bearer of blame, depending on currently prevailing views, so once again it hardly counts as a ringing endorsement. To say as Keating does that Baxter ‘is a courageous man who has the strength of his convictions’ and furthermore ‘is a very great Australian’ might seem on the face of it to be more positive, but even here there are 265 signs that Keating is being deliberately guarded. It is just the sort of thing you might say in public about someone who, clothed in honours, has just retired from a long and influential career, but whose ideas have become, to put it plainly, an embarrassment. As far as the ALP was concerned, Baxter’s vehement opposition to the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty, and his membership of the right wing Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, would have made him almost a natural enemy. In the week following Keating’s speech Baxter was to appear on the ABC television programme Monday Conference to argue strongly for a nuclear power station at Jervis Bay, and the need for Australia to develop its own nuclear deterrent. It was understandable, then, that Baxter’s views would not have been entirely welcome to the ALP, given that its parliamentary leader, Gough Whitlam, was chiding the government for its reluctance to ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

By this stage, indeed, Baxter’s views had put him at odds with the other major parliamentary grouping as well. His retirement as Chairman of the AAEC had a lot to do with the failure of the then Liberal/Country Party coalition government to go ahead with earlier promises to build a nuclear power station at Jervis Bay. It would be fair to say, then, that by the early 1970s Baxter was the subject of a great deal of animosity. His opponents regarded him as reactionary, autocratic and manipulative, perhaps even callously immoral.13 On the other hand, Baxter also inspired feelings of loyalty from former students and colleagues, and was a close confidant of senior government figures for a period of over 20 years. 266 It was commonly supposed by Baxter’s critics that his attitudes were symptomatic of a particular ‘mind-set.’ As we have seen, the more extreme of these critics condemned him as a fascist, and by the early 1970s even the mainstream press was portraying his views as an unwelcome deviation from accepted canons of morality. Within eight months of Baxter’s appearance on Monday Conference to which we have already alluded, a reformist Labor government was in power in Canberra, and Baxter had been caught up in the more general antipathy felt towards the ‘cold war warriors’ of the post-war world. It may be that he simply shared the fate of all public figures who are judged to have devoted their best efforts to the ‘wrong’ side, and that rejection of his views should not be taken to imply a judgment of his character. Brian Martin’s more measured critique of Titterton and Baxter, for example, while it took issue with the views of these two ‘nuclear knights’, explicitly made no assumptions about their motivations, and found no reason to suppose that their beliefs were not sincerely held. (Sir Ernest Titterton was Professor of at the Australian National University, and was well-known for his assertions concerning the innocuous nature of radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific.) Rather, Martin accused

Baxter of seeking a scientific warrant for what were in essence questions of social policy for which there were no value-free answers. In Martin’s view, the scientist/engineer had gone too far in trying to impose a system of values based on narrow technological criteria, when in fact there is a narrowly circumscribed area in which ‘expert’ opinion can legitimately take precedence. Outside that area, the opinions of ‘experts’ should not carry any more weight than that 267 accorded to the views of any informed layperson.14 As Martin put it in his introduction:

It is well known that the views of most people — such as farmers, executives, doctors, builders, labourers and politicians — are influenced by their social and occupational positions. It is expected that, for example, automobile manufacturers will support road-building programmes. But it is sometimes believed or claimed that scientists are different, and that they adopt neutral, objective responses to issues.15

Martin is not convinced that scientists can or do adopt neutral stances. Elsewhere, he explicitly distinguishes between ‘value judgments’ and ‘technical statements,’ claiming that Baxter incorporated the former into the latter. His complaint was that Baxter attempted to invest his judgments (as to what might constitute acceptable risk, say) with the authority which we would normally only be willing to accord to technically decidable matters of fact.16 The particular statement to which Martin took exception is the following: ‘Development of nuclear power can be carried out, under proper supervision,....without danger to human health or to the environment.’ Martin is concerned that this ‘fact-like’ statement about nuclear power incorporates a value judgment about what levels of danger may or may not be acceptable.

It is unrealistic, though, to expect that Baxter, Titterton, or anyone else would have been able to preserve a clear distinction in their utterances between ‘value judgments’ and ‘technical statements,’ even assuming that this distinction is itself more than just a move in an ongoing polemic. In Baxter’s case, particularly, there are good reasons for supposing that questions of ‘technique’ and ‘value’ were inextricably linked. If the two are to be distinguished, it 268 is more the case that the values are driving the technological decisions, rather than the other way around. When Baxter urged his audiences to ‘trust the experts,’ he was not claiming that this trust should be based on a supposed ability to make purely ‘technical’ judgments. Rather, his views here were informed by the sorts of considerations we have noted in his ‘Foul Sluggard’s’ speech. Baxter’s argument boils down to the claim that in the event of a global crisis, it would be foolish to consult the wishes of the population at large, and hard decisions in the end must be left in the hands of those best equipped to make them. Baxter often expressed a low opinion of the masses, describing them on occasion as ‘lazy, ignorant, quarrelsome and superstitious.’ In his view, there was a natural hierarchy of talent, with leadership skills possessed only by a clear-headed, far-seeing elite. The anti-democratic tendencies brought into sharp focus by this remark resonate throughout Baxter’s career, and constitute one of the main elements of his conservative ‘style of thought.’

Finally, to return to the point at which I began, the inexpressible comfort which, in the words of Carlyle, we can derive from ‘knowing’ our fellow creature. This ‘knowing,’ of course, goes much deeper than merely explaining away, and it is my fond hope that I have provided at least an inkling of what it must have been like to look at the world through Philip Baxter’s eyes. As I began my research, I had thought that it would prove rather difficult to find the appropriate neutral tone in which to couch my conclusions. I wanted to avoid any portrayal of Baxter as either a villain or a hero, since even though such portrayals may be useful or salutary in their place, I felt that I wanted to let readers make up their own minds. As it happened, this 269 proved to be the least of my difficulties, and at no point did I feel any sense of strain on this score. the last thing I would want is for my comments and speculations to be taken as implying any straightforward judgment along the lines of ‘Yes, he was right about that particular issue at the University of NSW, but wrong on this one,’ as though the value of a career can be summed up in a scoreline. Rather, I have tried to see things in the round, with a certain sympathy, which naturally should not be taken to mean unqualified approval.

1 Baxter, op.cit. (note 34, chapter 7), p. 30. 2 Ibid., p. 45. 3 J.P. Baxter, ‘The Use of Scientific Knowledge by Governments and Industry,’ Tenth Congress of the Universities of the Commonwealth 1968: Report of Proceedings, pp. 259-265, at p. 259. 4 Ibid., p. 261-262. 5 Ibid., p. 263. 6 See chapter 2, p. 53. 7 See chapter 2, note 2. 8 Baxter to D.W. Phillips, 8 May, 1962. UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 32. 9 A. Phillips, ‘The cultural cringe,’ Meanjin, 1950, 9, pp. 299-302, at p. 299. 10 Ibid., p. 299. 11 Baxter to J. McAuley, 24 July, 1968. UNSW Archives, CN 423, Box 37. 12 Hansard, House of Representatives, 27th parliament, 2nd session, 5th period, p. 1845. 13 See in particular The Age, 26/4/1972. 14 B. Martin, Nuclear knights, Rupert Public Interest Movement, Canberra, 1980. 15 Ibid., p. 7. 16 Ibid., p. 46. 270 BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. ARCHIVAL MATERIAL Baxter papers, UNSW Archives Titterton papers, Australian Science Archives Project, Canberra Australian Archives, Canberra 2. 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