School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 2 of 2
-
ItemVictorian railway policy, 1850-1883( 1952)Introduction: In this thesis my aim is to present a clear outline – a narrative account – of the early history of Victorian Railway Policy, concerning the Railways as government department and the later change to statutory corporation. But in doing so, my aim is to suggest the main reasons, together with their degree of importance, for this particular sequence of events that is the beginning and most important part of Railway History. These reasons are intended to be brought out and substantiated by a significant selection of political evidence. They can be no more than suggested, however, because this evidence is confined mainly to Parliamentary documents, contemporary political writings and fairly inadequate secondary source histories. It is political evidence, rather arbitrarily defined, and therefore does not extend, for example, to the favourable or unfavourable condition of the London money market at certain times and its effects on railway policy. Nor in another direction, does it extend sufficiently to the power and influence of local pressure groups, which, together with the charges of corruption that are so often put forward as reasons for particular lines of railway, must be among the most difficult matters to investigate, gauge and verify in this subject – which is made enormous by ramifications of that kind. Nevertheless, there will be, I hope, considerable value in the disentangling and enumerating of such reasons as are plausibly given for the change and development of railway policy. They might perhaps provide interesting information about the political climate of the time, but I think they would be far more usefully employed if they were to be compared with the apparent reasons behind other public utility policies, and , especially, with the principles introducing and governing the recent British Nationalization statutes.
-
ItemThe Premiership of Sir Albert Dunstan( 1960)Writers on Australian politics have constantly stressed the need for detailed research into the Country Party's role in its structure, and some have "tended to deplore the Labour Party's almost complete monopoly of such pursuits. Out of a profound sympathy for such sentiments, as well as a desire to unearth something original, I decided to direct my attention to this need. Apart from considerations of domicile, 'which leave little elbow room for an impecunious student, there were other pressing reasons for concentrating my efforts on Victoria. In New South Wales and Queensland, the Country Party has never enjoyed sufficient power in the legislature to form its own government, but has had to be content with participating jointly with other parties of an urban non-Labour stamp, and only during short breaks in long-established Labour ascendancies. In Victoria, however, the coin has fallen on the reverse side. There Labour has achieved power only for short unstable intervals as a minority Government, until 1952 when it commanded a majority over all other parties for the first time in its existence. In its place the responsibility of governing the State has been thrown from one non-Labour party to another, frequently too hot to hold in such an unstable climate. Since 1917 the Country Party has made its own peculiar contribution to this instability, by exerting an influence out of all proportion to its electoral strength. In 1935 this culminated in its seizure of office from the party with which it had shared it for two and a half years, and its enjoyment of an almost uninterrupted decade of office under the record-breaking premiership of Sir Albert Dunstan. Until 1943 he led a minority Government composed entirely of his own party members, deriving his support from a hapless Labour Party which gained little in the way of concessions. Even when the latter withdrew its support, the Country Party under Dunstan was able to continue in office with little loss of influence despite a small grant of portfolios to the Liberals. Such a sweep of political history, with such singular features, seemed at first sight to be too great a gift for a Melbourne research worker to overlook. (From Preface)