Limits reaffirmed: new wheat frontiers in Australia, 1916–1939

At the opening of the twentieth century, it was apparent that good agricultural land was getting scarce even in the New World. There was still a strong political need, especially in countries that owed their existence to an agricultural frontier, to open new land and increase farming population. During the 1920s, Isaiah Bowman in the United States devised what he called “scientific settlement”, a form of social planning. In the countries that had already embarked on extending their farm land, their initiative was something less than scientific settlement. As an illustration, South Australia and New South Wales legislated the resumption of certain pastoral areas for re-allocation as primarily wheat-based farmlands that would provide the heavier rural population sought by politicians. The need to reward soldiers for service in the First World War became a major stimulus to expansion. Whereas there was ample evidence of the unreliability of conditions in most of the areas chosen, the authorities dispatched settlers to relatively small properties and provided only disjointed and tardy support. When the new wheat frontier proved to be expensive and rife with failures, the authorities blamed the settlers. In the circumstances, however, the performance of the settlers was more praiseworthy than the weight of historical opinion has suggested. Even the soldier settlers, who were put at a disadvantage by the high cost of their land and interest, ultimately achieved a success rate comparable to that of civilian ‘closer’ settlers who generally had better land and easier terms of purchase.     

The Foreign Enlistment Act and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

This article examines the official response to the policy problemsraised by the over two thousand Britons who went to fight forthe Republic during the Spanish Civil War, with particular referenceto the Foreign Enlistment Act (1870). Revived in January 1937as a means of reducing the flow of volunteers and curbing therecruiting efforts of the Communist Party of Great Britain,the act proved embarrassingly unenforceable. Ambiguity overits applicability to the situation in Spain, combined with problemsof evidence, meant that no charges were ever laid against volunteerscaught attempting to leave for Spain or members of the recruitingorganization of the CPGB. Though a complete failure as a legaltool, the Foreign Enlistment Act nevertheless symbolically underlinedthe British government's declared support for internationalnon-intervention in Spain, and was never rescinded.