An Historical Assessment of Economic Development, Manufacturing, and the Political Economy of Queensland 1900-1930

The research task of this thesis is to assess the scope and scale of economic development and the evolution of the manufacturing sector within the context of the political economy of Queensland during the first three decades of the twentieth century. The historical approach used to investigative these processes draws upon interdisciplinary theory and methods from economic history, sociology, economics, as well as economic and human geography to enhance its interpretive strength. The study is, however, primarily a work of economic history which investigates the historical relationships between the economy, patterns of trade and demography, manufacturing, and the political economy in early twentieth century Queensland. The genesis of this project arose from an interest in Queensland’s economic development, and especially the evolution of its manufacturing industries and the role played by governments in the promotion of economic development, which stemmed from research conducted as an honours student at the University of Newcastle. My honours thesis looked at the establishment of the Walsh Island State Government Dockyard in Newcastle and investigated the industrialist ethos of the labour movement and the Labor party in relation to the development of the welfare state in New South Wales. During that research I became intrigued by the apparent disparity between the attitudes that the Labor governments in New South Wales and Queensland adopted towards industrial and rural development. In New South Wales, the Labor Party and the labour movement were equally, if not more, committed to the encouragement of industrialisation and manufacturing as they were to ideals of closer settlement. A similar balance in political economic strategies was apparent in the other colonies/states. This, however, was not the case in Queensland.