|
Australia suffered badly during the period of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of October, 1929 and rapidly spread worldwide. As in other nations, Australia suffered years of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement. The Australian economy and foreign policy largely rested upon its place as a primary producer within the British Empire, and Australia's important export industries, particularly primary products such as wool and wheat, suffered significantly from the collapse in international demand. Unemployment reached a record high of around 30% in 1932, and gross domestic product declined by 10% between 1929 and 1931. There were also incidents of civil unrest, particularly in Australia's largest city, Sydney. Though Australian Communist and far right movements were active in the Depression, they remained largely on the periphery of Australian politics, failing to achieve the power shifts obtained in Europe, and the democratic political system of the young Australian Federation survived the strain of the period. The Scullin Labor Government had just assumed power in 1929 when the Labor movement split over how to deal with the crisis, with Treasurer Ted Theodore failing to have his inflationary plan pass Parliament, New South Wales Premier Jack Lang losing office over a proposal to default on international loan payments, and Labor defector Joseph Lyons forming the United Australia Party which provided stable and more fiscally conservative government from 1932 until his death in 1939. Thus Australia, unlike the United States, did not embark on a significant Keynesian program of spending to recover from the Depression. Nevertheless, the Australian recovery began around 1932. Australians took consolation from sporting achievements through the Depression, with cricketer Don Bradman and race horse Phar Lap achieving long-lasting fame. ==1920s: The calm before the storm== The Great War (World War I) had depleted Britain's savings and foreign investments, and wartime inflation had upset the United Kingdom's terms of trade. A sluggish economy in Britain naturally reduced British demand for imports from Australia throughout the 1920s and this had affected Australia's balance of payments. Throughout the 1920s the Australian unemployment rate floated between 6% and 11%.〔 The Great Depression had also caused many necessary infrastructure projects to be delayed or abandoned, many of which began in the 1920s, including the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney's underground railway system〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=City Circle )〕 in addition to the Commonwealth government beginning to fund major highways.〔 〕 New dams and grain elevators were built, and the rural railway network was expanded in nearly every state. Large sums of government money were made available to provide returned First World War servicemen with farmland and agricultural equipment under soldier settlement schemes. All these publicly funded projects were paid for by loans raised by both state and federal governments. Most of these loans were raised on capital markets in the City of London at an average of £30 million per annum. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Great Depression in Australia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|