Looking North: Australia's Relations with South East Asia 1919 -1939 By Nicole Adler, BA (Hons) UNSW A Thesis for Submission for the Degree of Master of Arts (Honours) 1996 Acknowledgements i - ii Introduction - Australian Independence and the Search for a Foreign Policy 1-14 Chapter One The White Australia Policy and Perceptions of South East Asia 15-36 Chapter Two The Australian Government - Diplomacy, and Defence 37-74 Chapter Three Trade:- South East Asia, Australia's New Market? 75-114 Chapter Four Intellectual Responses to South East Asia 115-135 Chapter Five Travelling and Working in South East Asia:­ 136-153 Australians Confront the North Conclusion 154-159 Bibliography 160-180 Looking North Acknowledgements This thesis has been to greater and often smaller extents a part of my life for the past five years. Not surprisingly, its end is something of a welcome relief as well as providing a sense of accomplishment. While the views and work contained within this thesis are my own, it could never been completed without the help of many people. My first thanks go to my supervisor, Professor John Ingleson. His guidance and patience over the length of this thesis have been invaluable. He managed to push me to greater efforts without pushing me over the edge. His particular understanding of my 'isolation' from the University and the need to work and live, at the same time as studying, made all the difference. The completion of this project could never have been achieved without his academic advise and input. As with all things in my life, I have been strongly supported by friends and family. Special thanks go to my 'old' University friends, Sean Brawley and Susan Shaw, whose continuing friendship and interest in this thesis have meant much. Other friends who have always asked after the progress of my work and encouraged its completion include Anita Khosla, Dianne Montgomerie, and Marlene MacDonald. Pamela O'Hara has been my friend and constant support for the last six years. Her continued love and encouragement of all I do, can never be underestimated. John has put up with my visits from the early Narellan days and has always made me welcome in his home. My special network of friends within the Postgraduate Section at UNSW, have also provided special support, not just of my University studies, but of my life generally. Many of the faces have changed, but the interest and nagging of me to finally submit, have remained constant. Particular mention of Jane Gatwood and Anne Gordon needs to be made, as they have been there from the beginning. Anne in particular has become a friend and ally in the joys of postgraduate study. The new comers to the 'Nicole Adler Thesis Saga' have been no less supportive. The constant humour of Edwina has made work at UNSW a pleasure, and she along with my other lunch Looking North Acknowledgements i i time buddies, Anne and Jill, have always given me an excuse do something else besides my thesis. Ben O'Hara, is of course the one who bore the brunt of this thesis. His love and understanding can never be measured. He gave me a confidence in myself that others could not see. Any success I have in the future will be partly his. Our friendship will always continue. As has always been the case my family are my strongest support. My sister Penny is there for me always and even with her busy life, and as we live far apart, she is a constant source of friendship, love and strength. Peter, Dorian and Millicent are as dear to me as family can be. They are what makes everything else have value. My final thanks go to my mother Val, to whom this thesis is dedicated. Everything I am, or will be, I owe to her. She has always given unfailing and unquestioning support and love. She has never doubted me and more importantly she has made me believe that I can achieve anything. She certainly made it possible for me to complete this thesis. This work is not completed just because of her moral support. It is completed because of the number of times she was a proof reader for me; the suggestions, or should I say corrections, she made to both my grammar and my spelling; the financial support she has given me throughout my University years; and the new found interest she displayed in all things South East Asian. While this thesis, is in the end, my accomplishment, the fact that I had the good fortune to attend University and develop an interest in history is hers. Nicole Adler March 1996 Lookiq North Introduction 1 HN1'RODUCTiON Australian Independence and the Search for a Foreign Policy In late 1993, Professor Stephen Fitzgerald, Chairman of the Asia-Australia Institute at The University of New South Wales, giving the annual lecture at the St James Ethics Centre, spoke critically of Australia's approach to Asia. Australian business interests went for the .... short haul, the quick return and profit jackpot. .... Instead of providing leadership in the public discussion on Australia's involvement with Asia, he said Australian education institutions went to Asia for the money. The change was led by people who had no knowledge of or intellectual interest in the societies they visited ... .1 Fitzgerald believed that Australia's discovery of Asia had been largely unplanned and ill conceived. The result is that our engagement with Asian countries have tended to be a succession of waves of collective enthusiasm, without thought, without context, dominated by short-term material goals.2 Indeed, it is very difficult to make a case for Australia ever having viewed Asia in general, or South East Asia (SEA) in particular, differently. Even if SEA was not taken as a whole and we focus only on Australia's nearest neighbour, Indonesia, it is hard to judge the importance of each nation to the other. There seems to be a general assumption that, at least politically, Indonesia is very important to Australia. The question is whether or not Indonesia feels the same way about Australia. When Australia and Indonesia are concerned with defence or foreign affairs they both tend to look north. This leaves Indonesia looking away from Australia. 111te Australian, November 10, 1993, pg 1 2The Australian, November 10, 1993, pg 2 Looking North Introduction 2 History also conspired to make it difficult for Australia to even speak with its own voice, rather than that of the Empire. It is this independence that was at the crux of Aus~ralia's relations with SEA in the inter-war years. The issue of exactly when Australia gained her 'independence' from Great Britain has been dealt with by many writers and, for the purposes of this thesis, the exact timing is not as important as the extent to which Australia was truly independently governed. In the main It will be seen that the major steps in the independence process can be isolated, that the process began in 1917 and effectively ended with the Statute of Westminster in 1931, that Australia in general opposed the process. Other dominions struggled for independence; Australia struggled for continuing dependence and, frustrated, tried to proceed as though independence had not occurred.3 Even prior to the cessation of hostilities in World War I, Australia was struggling with its desire to represent its own interests in the expected new world while, at the same time, remaining loyal to Great Britain. Australia wanted a voice, but essentially a voice that would sing in complete harmony with the 'motherland'. The exact form this new relationship would take was viewed differently by different people. Prime Minister William Morris Hughes wanted "Australian influence in the formation and execution of empire policy, with the whole empire at Australia's call if that policy should misfire."4 Others like Dr Walter Henderson, who became head of the new External Affairs Branch of the Prime Minister's Department, did not believe that Australia needed any form of independence from Great Britain. For Henderson, Australia's ····:Population was British, her trade was mainly British, her investment sources principally were British, she had few contacts with the world outside the empire, and these few could be handled through League of Nations connections.5 3W.J. Hudson and M.P. Sharp, Australian Independence: Colony to Reluctant Kingdom, Melbourne University Press, 1988, pp 6-7 4W.J. Hudson and M.P. Sharp, Australian Independence .... , pg 70 5W.J. Hudson and M.P. Sharp, Australian Independence .... , pg 88 Looking North Introduction 3 From today's stand-point it is often impossible for Australians to comprehend what the British Empire really meant. Nevertheless, it was this often highly emotional tie which was at the crux of so many of the decisions made by Australia in the early post-war years. To better understand Australia's bond with Great Britain is to better understand her lack of ties with SEA. Australia had for its first hundred years of white colonisation focused solely on its own borders. It was too busy maintaining a tenuous hold on a relatively hostile landscape. There was no time, or energy, left to look beyond its own shores. As the nation grew into the 1900s, this attitude changed. Australians now had the luxury of looking further afield but, for many years, further afield still meant Britain and Europe. In time, looking beyond Australia's borders meant looking at all of Asia. It is difficult to assess whether or not Australians in the 1920s and 1930s had a concept of regions in Asia.