Australia and the Depression
The 1920s was a time of great prosperity for Australia. Entertainment popularity had increased with musical theatre, opera and stage comedies drawing large audiences. Transport boomed with increasing numbers in car owners and the introduction of commercial aviation in the early 1920s. The Australian Government borrowed heavily from overseas for investments during this opulent period. By the late 1920s there was a significant decline in the volume of international trade . The American stock market crash in October 1929 accelerated a decline in prices for farm commodities in Australia. Due to both international as well as internal factors, Australia was now drawn into the depression along with the rest of the world. As a result of this, the economy suffered greatly and Australia could not pay back the millions of dollars worth of loans borrowed during the 1920s boom. Effects of the depression would lead to the unemployed and unskilled in society carrying the strain of the depression. Social divisions would widen as the depression took a greater toll on the working class. Australia borrowed heavily from overseas during World War I in order to finance the war effort. They owed large sums of money through investments and loans.
What affected America would have an affect on the rest of the world. The Commonwealth would have to make the credit available, but refused to do so. People became desperate and bitter as mass unemployment and economic hardship threatened to ruin them. Those who had borrowed in 1920s to build up farms were now in economic crisis. G Theodore, proposed to "expand the money supply so that production would be stimulated, unemployment reduced and prices restored to their 1929 level. The movement appealed to conservative returned servicemen who were strongly anti-Communist and deeply suspicious of the Labor Premier of New South Wales, Jack Lang, and his political and economic response to the Great Depression. The depression caused a deepening in social division in Australian society as the working class bore the burden of the depression, while the middle class and rich were not so affected. Men began searching the country for any job they could do to earn some money for survival. ' The organisation believed that it was acceptable to use violence in order to achieve its objectives. Australia borrowed money from Britain to pay interest loans from World War I, fund public works and development projects and to pay pensions. In order to do so, immigration schemes were introduced. The continuing fall in overseas prices meant that the efforts had no effect. The economic circumstances of the Great Depression have lead to changes in Australian society, for example subsidies to ensure and guarantee the price of exported material. The New Guard defeated the Lang Government in June 1932 but diminished from the political scene by the late 1930s.
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