Imperial theory and colonial pragmatism : Charles Harper, economic development and agricultural co-operation in Australia

274 Pages·2017·2.46 MB·English

by  Harper

IMPERIAL THEORY AND
COLONIAL PRAGMATISM
CHARLES HARPER, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND
AGRICULTURAL CO-OPERATION IN AUSTRALIA
David J. Gilchrist
PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THE
HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic
Thought Series
Series editors
Avi Cohen
York University
Ontari, Ontario, Canada
G.C. Harcourt
The University of New South Wales
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Peter Kriesler
University of New South Wales
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Jan Toporowski
School of Oriental and African Studies
WC1H 0XG, United Kingdom
Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought publishes contri-
butions by leading scholars, illuminating key events, theories and indi-
viduals that have had a lasting impact on the development of modern-day
economics. The topics covered include the development of economies,
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David J. Gilchrist
Imperial Theory and
Colonial Pragmatism
Charles Harper, Economic
Development and Agricultural
Co-operation in Australia
David J. Gilchrist
University of Western Australia
Crawley, Australia
Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought Series
ISBN 978-3-319-62324-5 ISBN 978-3-319-62325-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-62325-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017948244
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
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To Debbie
Book Abstracts
In the British Empire’s settler colonies, co-operative agriculture was a
critical economic model. In Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and
Australia it helped build public capital, drove economic development and
impacted political arrangements. In the case of colonial Western Australia,
the story of agricultural co-operation is inseparable from that of the story
of Charles Harper. Harper’s life is the stuff of Boy’s Own legends—he was
a self-starting, pioneering frontiersman who began life on an isolated
farm providing a subsistence existence to become a political, commercial
and agricultural leader in the British Empire’s most isolated colony dur-
ing the second half of the Victorian era.
Using Harper’s life as a foil, this book examines Imperial economic
thinking in relation to the co-operative form of economic organisation,
the colonial development of public capital and socialism. It uses this dis-
cussion to demonstrate the transfer of socialistic ideas from the centre of
Empire to the farthest reaches of the Antipodes where they were used to
provide a rhetorical crutch in support of purely pragmatic co-operative
establishments.
vii
Contents
1 The Long Stagnation 1
2 V isions of English Co-operation in the Victorian
Age: Western Australia’s Intellectual Inheritance 23
3 I mperial Demands, Local Imperatives 71
4 C harles Harper—A Life 87
5 B ending Co-operation to the Western Australian
Economic Problem 141
6 A ustralian Colonial Socialism in Word and Deed:
The Socialisation of Economic Problems
in Colonial Australia 163
ix
x Contents
7 A Step Too Far: Western Australian State
Socialism (1912–1930) 209
Bibliography 231
Index 255
1
The Long Stagnation
Charles Harper (1842–1912) was a Western Australian pastoralist, news-
paper proprietor and influential politician. He was a frontiersman, a busi-
nessman and a powerbroker. The central story told in this volume is that
Harper established co-operatives in Western Australia, prior to the Great
War, as a means to overcome the economic problems faced by frontier
settlements that suffered from the tyranny of distance and inadequate
capital and infrastructure. Specifically, Harper believed that co-operatives
would contribute to the building of the private and public physical capital
needed to settle colonists on the large, variable-quality and low-y ielding
Western Australian landmass. He further believed that co-operatives
would provide the countervailing power needed to oppose the monopo-
listic enterprises that commonly characterise the incomplete markets in
such frontier settlements. It is argued that he was successful in establishing
co-operatives for these pragmatic ends because he provided the leadership
that was required to persuade potential co-operators that the benefits of
working in concert to achieve a common end outweighed the free-rider
and other costs that commonly arise from such arrangements (Olsen
2000[1965]). This narrative is elaborated upon and verified by presenting
a biographical account of Harper with an emphasis on what I argue is his
primary legacy his role as a pragmatic co-operative promoter.
© The Author(s) 2017 1
D.J. Gilchrist, Imperial Theory and Colonial Pragmatism, Palgrave Studies in the
History of Economic Thought Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-62325-2_1