Editing Stanley Bruce (section)

==="Men, money and markets"===
[[File:Australian Migration Poster, 1928.jpg|right|thumb|Poster promoting migration to Australia as part of the "men, money and markets" scheme, 1928]]
In 1923 Australia was prosperous by comparison with other developed nations of the period, having quickly rebounded economically after World War I. Unemployment and inflation were relatively low by international standards, and [[Commonwealth of Australia|Commonwealth]] revenues had grown significantly since Australia became a federation.{{sfn|Edwards|p=84}} Australia was a vast and richly resourced country with fewer than six million inhabitants, and Bruce made it his government's priority to develop Australia's economy. In his first speech to the House of Representatives as prime minister, he outlined a comprehensive vision for Australia that centred on economic development, reform of the [[Federalism in Australia|federal system]], increased Commonwealth powers over industrial relations, a greater voice for Australia within the British Empire and the establishment of a national capital. He summarised this vision as a program of "men, money and markets".{{sfn|National Archives of Australia|loc=In Office}}

According to Bruce, men were needed to allow Australia's extensive resources to be developed. In 1923, much of Australia's land was virtually unoccupied, and Bruce believed Australia had the potential to be one of the most fertile and productive nations in the world, which could sustain populations upward of 100&nbsp;million over time{{spaced ndash}} more than 16 times the population of his time.{{sfn|Lee|p=38}} Despite dissenting voices from scientists, who noted that poor climate, soils and water availability were significant barriers to large populations, the Bruce-Page government enacted policies to encourage large numbers of British to migrate to Australia.{{sfn|Lee|p=38}} Under the auspices of the new Development and Migration Commission, £34&nbsp;million in loans took place over the decade starting in 1924 to facilitate immigrant settlement through improvements to rural infrastructure, land access, and subsidising immigrant journeys ("passages").<ref>{{cite book|last=Roe|first=Michael|title=Australia, Britain and Migration, 1915–1940: A Study of Desperate Hopes|url=https://archive.org/details/australiabritain0000roem|url-access=registration|year=1995|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, UK|isbn=0-521-46507-9|pages=[https://archive.org/details/australiabritain0000roem/page/64 64–83]}}</ref> Estimates as high as half a million British immigrants over ten years were predicted at the start of the policy, whereas just over 200,000 travelled to Australia during that time period.{{sfn|Macintyre|p=168}} Bruce's settlement plan rested on rural growth. Migrants were often selected on the basis of their willingness to work on the land; state and Commonwealth governments concentrated their investment on rural development and encouraged returned servicemen to take up farms on the periphery of settled areas.{{sfn|Macintyre|pp=168–169}} Despite this, a majority of these migrants settled in urban areas, as Australia's rural areas were far more remote and difficult to work (than for example England's) and many of those taking advantage of the assistance scheme were urban workers or family and friends of those already settled.<ref>{{cite book|last=Dyster|first=Barrie|title=Australia in the Global Economy : Continuity and Change|year=2012|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-1-107-68383-9|pages=115–117|edition=Second|author2=Meredith, David }}</ref>

Immigration from outside Great Britain and her dominions was considered unpalatable{{spaced ndash}} the Bruce government upheld the [[White Australia policy]] by placing strong restrictions on immigration from other areas, notwithstanding its population growth targets.{{sfn|Macintyre|pp=125–127}} In his campaign speech for the 1925 election, Bruce stated:<ref name="Policy_Launch_Speech">
{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155676023 |title=ISSUES OF THE ELECTIONS |newspaper=[[The Age]] |issue=21,999 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=6 October 1925 |access-date=9 December 2016 |page=11 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><blockquote>It is necessary that we should determine what are the ideals towards which every Australian would desire to strive. I think those ideals might well be stated as being to secure our national safety, and to ensure the maintenance of our White Australia Policy to continue as an integral portion of the British Empire.<ref name="Policy_Launch_Speech" /> We intend to keep this country white and not allow its people to be faced with the problems that at present are practically insoluble in many parts of the world.<ref name="Bowen">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ywV16n6mOUUC&q=%22stanley+bruce%22&pg=PA301|title=The Great Barrier Reef: History, Science, Heritage|last=Bowen|first=James|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|year=2002|isbn=0-521-82430-3|page=301|author2=Bowen, Margarita|access-date=24 January 2008}}</ref></blockquote>

Money was borrowed from Britain to fund the state's programs and at an unprecedented rate. Over £230&nbsp;million was extended in loans from the [[City of London]] to state and Commonwealth treasuries during the 1920s. A further £140&nbsp;million arrived through private investment.{{sfn|Macintyre|p=168}} Bruce's plan for Australian economic development needed a much stronger role for the Commonwealth government than had been traditionally accepted. Both he and Page were "conspicuously national rather than federal in their outlook"{{sfn|Nethercote|p=126}} and sought major changes to federal-state relations in order implement their development policy. <blockquote>Increasingly our problems are becoming national in character&nbsp;... Our financial resources are curtailed and there is an immediate repercussion throughout the Commonwealth. All our problems are common problems. None can be prosperous unless all are prospering. I am more convinced that we have to look at all our problems with the eyes of a nation and not as individuals. Where a great problem confronts a State it may be solved by the co-operation of the Commonwealth for the benefit of the States, and the benefit and advancement of the whole of Australia.<ref>{{cite news |title=Industrial Problems: Mr Bruce's Address |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55272048 |newspaper=Morning Bulletin |date=20 September 1927|page=7}}</ref></blockquote>

The Bruce–Page plan of May 1923 put in motion efforts to coordinate state-federal operations in several areas, particularly infrastructure and rural development schemes.{{sfn|Lee|pp=35–36}} The ''Main Roads Development Act of 1923'' was one of the first and most important legislative accomplishments in this vein. The act leveraged Section 96 of the [[Constitution of Australia]] to grant financial assistance to the states by employing it to fund road construction and maintenance according to the plans of the federal transportation portfolio{{spaced ndash}} in effect allowing the Commonwealth to operate directly in what was constitutionality the exclusive domain of the state governments. The Act would provide a precedent for many types of "special purpose payments" that became a common feature of Australian federal fiscal relations.<ref>{{cite book|last=Painter|first=Martin|title=Collaborative Federalism: Economic Reform in Australia in the 1990s|url=https://archive.org/details/collaborativefed00pain|url-access=limited|year=1998|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, UK|isbn=0-521-59071-X|pages=[https://archive.org/details/collaborativefed00pain/page/n106 97]–98}}</ref> Despite some major successes, Bruce was more frequently frustrated by a lack of progress in many key areas of intergovernmental co-operation.{{sfn|Australian Dictionary of Biography}} The states could not be induced to standardise electrical power schemes, nor unify on [[track gauge]]s, nor [[national health insurance]] despite years of work and solid arguments in favour.{{sfn|Edwards|pp=94–95}}
[[File:StanleyBruce2.jpg|left|thumb|Bruce in about 1925]]
Although men and money had been secured, the markets component of the Bruce plan was never fully realised. At the [[1923 Imperial Conference]], Bruce lobbied consistently for the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] government of [[Stanley Baldwin]] to make changes to Great Britain's trading arrangements to give [[Trade preference|preference]] to dominion products over imports from other nations.{{sfn|Brett|pp=81–83}} He argued for Empire-wide economic trading arrangements that filled domestic demands by production from member states before seeking supplemental imports from other countries and empires. Baldwin and the Conservatives attempted to introduce such a scheme in Britain; however, the British public feared higher prices for basic products (particularly food), and this fear was a factor in the Conservative government's defeat in the [[1923 United Kingdom general election|December 1923 election]]. Baldwin's successor [[Ramsay MacDonald]] repudiated the plan, much to Bruce's chagrin, and attempts to revive negotiations foundered as economic conditions worsened throughout the decade.{{sfn|Lee|p=40}} World agricultural prices stalled in the mid-1920s as European and American agricultural production recovered to pre-war levels, and Australian exports were crowded out of markets as the decade progressed.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Federico |first=Giovanni |year=2010 |title=The Growth of World Agricultural Production, 1800–1938  |journal=Groningen Growth and Development Centre |url=http://www.ggdc.net/databases/hna/2010/world%20agricultural%20production%20_research%20economic%20history_.pdf |access-date=15 March 2013}}</ref>

In 1927, Earle Page handed down the first budget in deficit for the coalition government, and Bruce recognised that Australia's economic position was deteriorating. Federal and state debt that year totalled just over £1&nbsp;billion, of which £305&nbsp;million were war debts and the rest had been spent on development that had failed had deliver high returns.{{sfn|Cumpston|p=74}} Nearly half of the total debt was owed to overseas lenders, principally those in London. Economic growth was slow, and far lower than the levels hoped. Exports and revenues were falling behind government needs, and investors had begun to express alarm at Australia's level of debt.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Sinclair|first=W.A.|title=Economic Development and Fluctuation in Australia in the 1920s|journal=Economic Record|year=1975|volume=51|issue=3|pages=409–413|doi=10.1111/j.1475-4932.1975.tb00269.x}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Boehm|first=E.A.|title=Economic Development and Fluctuation in Australia in the 1920s: A Reply|journal=Economic Record|year=1975|volume=51|issue=3|doi=10.1111/j.1475-4932.1975.tb00270.x|pages=414–420}}</ref> Bruce persisted with his plans and believed that growing Australian exports were the key to rectifying the problems, thus justifying further investment and encouragement of population growth.{{sfn|Cumpston|p=75}} The government did act to try to manage the debt problem. By the mid-1920s, states were borrowing at unsustainable rates to fund their own programs to compensate for dwindling revenues. In response, Bruce proposed that the responsibility for all government debts, Commonwealth and state, and the authority to acquire new debt, should be handed over to a [[Loan Council|National Loan Council]] in which all states would have one vote and the Commonwealth would have two votes and the casting vote.{{sfn|Sawer|pp=131–132}} He also moved to abolish per capita payments to the states, to be replaced by a funding formula tied more to financial need. These two changes formed the ''Financial Agreement of 1927'', the provisions of which were approved by [[1928 Australian referendum|referendum in 1928]]. These changes would prove to be amongst the most significant in Australian constitutional history, as the states had now lost much of their financial independence.{{sfn|Sawer|pp=131–132}}{{sfn|Mathews|pp=9–19}} Faced with severe financial pressures and an increasing reliance upon Commonwealth transfer payments, after some resistance the states consented, although vertical fiscal imbalance between the states and the Commonwealth continued to be an enduring feature of Australian federal relations.{{sfn|Alexander|pp=69–70}}