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AUSTRALIAN SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY BETWEEN THE WARS
Abstract
This paper is concerned with the early development of Australia‘s industrial technology infrastructure. It will attempt, in an exploratory rather than conclusive way, to establish a somewhat different perspective on the institutional development of science and technology in Australia. By drawing on a specific case study — the power struggle between the Munitions sector and CSIR — it is argued that industrial R & D became disconnected from the economic planning function of the State, and that under CSIR’s aegis IR & D became an item of conspicuous consumption rather than a strategic investment for secondary industry.
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NOTES AND REFERENCES
Grimshaw C.. 1958. . Australian nationalism and the Imperial connection, 1900–14. . Australian Journal of Politics and History . , Vol. 3((2)): 165
Quoted A.P. Elkin, ‘The challenge to science 1866; the challenge of science 1966’, in A Century of Scientific Progress, Centenary Volume of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Australasian Medical Publishing Co., Sydney, 1968, p.24.
W. M. Hughes, 15 January 1916, quoted G. Currie and J. Graham, The Origins of CSIR: Science and the Commonwealth Government 1901–1926, CSIRO Melbourne, 1966, p.44. See also R. White, Inventing Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1984, pp. 134–5.
Quoted D. P. Mellor, The Role of Science and Industry: Australia in the War of 1939–1945, Series 4 (Civil), Vol. 5, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1958.
C.B. Schedvin and K. Trace, ‘Aspects of the pre-War history of CSIR’, Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science Conference, Melbourne, 1976.
NSW TAFE Archives. G.H. Knibbs and J.W. Turner, Report to NSW Legislative Assembly on Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Other Forms of Technical Education, 28 September 1905, p.15–16.
Quoted Ian Wark, ‘The CSIRO Division of Industrial Chemistry, 1940–52’. Original manuscript, CSIRO Archives, Series HM 44, p.8. See also C. B. Schedvin, Australia and the Great Depression: A Study of Economic Development and Policy in the 1920s and 1930s, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 1970.
C. B. Schedvin, ‘Environment, economy and Australian biology, 1890–1939’, Australian-American Conference on Scientific Colonialism, University of Melbourne, 1981.
Cited Science and Industry, 2 (3), March 1920, p. 147.
Currie G. and Graham J.. 1968. . The growth of scientific research in Australia: The CSIR and the Empire Marketing Board. . Records of the Australian Academy of Science . , Vol. 1((3)): 25––35. .
A. E. Leighton, ‘A Personal Note’, Science and Industry, 2, 1, January 1920, pp.445–6.
Quoted Mellor, op.cit., p.7.
Loc. cit., p.13.
Loc. cit., p.26.
R.W. Connell and T.H. Irving, Class Structure in Australia, Longman Chesire, Melbourne, 1980, p.272. Refer also L. Hartnett, Big Wheels, Little Wheels, Gold Star Publications, Melbourne, 1973, ch.12.
C. B. Schedvin, ‘The culture of CSIRO’, Australian Cultural History, 2, 1982/3, p.82.
Schedvin, 1976, op.cit.
R. MacLeod and E.K. MacLeod, ‘The social relations of science and technology’, in C.M. Cipolla (ed.), The Fontana Economic History of Europe, Vol. 5, Harvester Press, Sussex, 1977, p.343.
The material for this section is drawn chiefly from CSIRO Archives, Series HM 12, ‘Economic Research and CSIRO’.
A.C.D. Rivett to L.S. Ragster, 4 April 1928. CSIRO Archives, Series HO G18.
Chas. H. Wickens to A.C.D. Rivett, Memorandum on Economic Investigation Service, ibid., June 1928.
Substantially the same as Shann's address to the University of W.A., 8 November 1932. Reprinted in E.O.G. Shann and D.B. Copland (eds), The Australian Price Structure 1932 — Documents Illustrating the Phase of Financial Reconstruction, November 1931 to November 1932, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1933, pp.225–45.
See P. Cochrane, Industrialization and Dependence: Australia's Road to Economic Development, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane 1980, ch.3.
For a more detailed account of the motives and background to the SITRC, see A. T. Ross, The Arming of Australia: The Politics and Administration of Australia's Self-Containment Strategy for Munitions Supply 1901–1945, PhD Thesis, University College of the University of NSW, 1987, chs.2–4 and Annex F.
Quoted I. Wark, op. cit., p.11.
Secondary Industries Testing and Research — Extension of Activities of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Report, February 1937, p. 19.
Currie G. and Graham J.. 1970. . G.A. Julius and research for secondary industry. . Records of the Australian Academy of Science . , Vol. 2((1)) November;: 10––28. .
For a more detailed account, see A. T. Ross, op. cit., ch. 3 and Annex D. A. summary of CSIRO's position is contained in CSIRO Archives, Series 577.
D. P. Mellor, op. cit., p.26.
Currie and Graham, 1970, op. cit., p.23.
R. G. Menzies, National Broadcast, 16 June 1940.
G. Blainey, The Steel Master, Sun Books, Melbourne, 1972, p. 199; and Connell and Irving, op. cit., p.274.
Mellor, op. cit., p.43.
For a fuller version of the mobilisation of scientists for the war effort, refer J. Moran, Scientists in the Political and Public Arena: A History of the AASW, 1939–49, M. Phil. Thesis, Griffith University, 1982.
My italics. Foreword by G.L. McHenry, IHC Chairman of Directors, ‘From Ploughshares to Swords’. Australian War Memorial Archives, D.P. Mellor Collection. Series 417/20/28. Material for this section is also drawn from Victoria Museum, Rural Science Archives, Series I61/A.AA/0270.
G.L. McHenry, ibid.
This section draws from the following sources: John Lack, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 10, 1891–1939, pp.291–4; Victoria Museum, Rural Science Archives, ‘The Sunshine Harvester Works’, op cit.; Australian War Memorial Archives, op. cit.; and ABC, Countrywide, 21 Feb. 1984.
G. Blainey, 1972, op. cit. H. C. Bolton, ‘Some themes in the development of optics in Australia’, Australian Physicist, 21, December 1984, pp.285–88 and Historical Records of Australian Science, 5, 4, 1983, pp.55–72; Hartnett, op. cit.
Indeed a CSIRO Executive minute much later recorded that the cartel bogey was often carted out in an attempt to stall expansion of strategic industries in Australia. The aluminium industry was cited as a case in point. (CSIRO Archives. Executive Minutes. Submission to the Economic Committee of Enquiry, October 1963).
Paul Grant, ‘The International Transfer of Technology for Secondary Processing Projects in Australia’, Paper to the Fourth National Conference of the Australian Mining and Petroleum Law Association’, Sydney, June 1980.
Grant also shows that the history of titanium dioxide pigments produced from Australian beach sands followed a very similar pattern. Pre-war production and markets were dominated by cartels, but wartime shortages led to local development and the potential basis for an Australian industry. In each case control was retained by the relevant MNCs through the DFI package such that future transfers could only be made by the parent company.
I. Wark, op. cit., p.8.
In Wark's view, “This one research project alone justified the Division's policy of conducting investigations on as fundamental basis as was necessary for success”, loc. cit., p.30.
My italics, loc. cit., p. 17. This view is corroborated by CSIR's 1945 Annual Report which notes the need for closer liaison with industry, claiming that “the problems of a whole industry should be preferred to those of individual companies”. Interestingly it also considered that “a team of experts in the various chemical engineering unit processes should be built up” and that “in special circumstances contract work might be undertaken, but with publication of results”.
CSIRO Archives. Draft Statement to the Committee of Economic Enquiry. October 1963, 45n.
Quoted A. Moyal, Clear Across Australia: A History of Telecommunications, Nelson, Melbourne: 1982, p. 166.
As Moyal points out the distinction was both inaccurate and invidious: “CSIR was quick to claim public credit for Australian radar work although the major part of the undertaking that brought radar into operation was the engineering task performed by the small, creative and persistently determined PMG Research Laboratories team”, ibid., p. 167.
The RRB's functions were superseded by the Radiophysics Advisory Board on the eve of World War II and the RPL was established soon afterwards. For more detailed accounts, see W. F. Evans, History of the Radiophysics Advisory Board, 1939–45, Vols. I-II and Supplementary Volume. A slightly different version is found in Marjorie Barnard, “One Single Weapon”, unpublished manuscript, NSW State Archives and Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science.
On Mellor's assessment, the stunning failure of radar equipment at Darwin “was not due to a lack of technical competence on the part of the radiophysicists, but rather to their inability to convince the Services of the potentialities of radar”, Mellor, op. cit., p.435.
A. Moyal, op. cit., p. 167.
Refer J. Moran, ‘Rhetoric and representation in Australian science in the 1940s and 1980s’, Prometheus, 1, 2, December 1983, pp.271–90; and J. Moran,’ Australian Scientists and the Cold War’ in B. Martin et al. (eds), Intellectual Suppression, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1986.
Anon., ‘Science in Vacuo’, Australian Quarterly, September 1942, p.39. Attributed to Eric Ashby. Certainly the views expressed are consistent with the Ashby-Vernon Report presented to Cabinet some months later, E. Ashby and J. Vernon, The Enlistment of Scientific Resources in the War Effort, April 1942.
Ronayne J.. 1979. . Further Thoughts on Diversity and Adaptability in Australian Science Policy. . Minerva . , Vol. 17((3)): 443––58. .