 This is the story of the Pacific and its people, of the peaceful sea and the lands and lives it touches, and their meaning to us and to the generations to come. The Pacific Story, presented by the National Broadcasting Company, and dedicated to a fuller understanding of the vast Pacific Basin. This broadcast tonight comes to you from San Francisco and Hollywood as another public service with drama of the past and present and commentary by Owen Latimore, authority on the Pacific, and director of the School of International Relations, Johns Hopkins University. Australia, rising power in the Pacific. After winging for Australia, mighty poor work of the United Nations, war planes carrying men of material to this new nation, which is playing a major role in the war in the Pacific and which is destined to wield world influence when the war is ended. There it is down there. So that's Sydney Harbor, eh? Yes. Look at that city spread out around the bay down there. City of a million and a quarter now. I've never seen anything like it. Rivers going out in all directions, like spokes from a hub. Look there. See the ferry boats? Yes. That's how you get around the bay, eh? Yes. Ferries and the big bridge. See it down there, arching across the harbor. Yeah. That connects the old city with an offshore and with many of the residential suburbs. Nearly a fifth of the people in Australia live right down there along Sydney Harbor. A lot of activity down there. Sydney is the greatest port in the world, if you ask me. Eh, what's that down there? Railroads? There to the right. Yes. Railroads run out from Sydney in all directions. Six thousand miles. They bring the produce of the interior to the coast. How old is this city? It's not as old as a lot of cities in New America. My people were among the founders. The early settlers? You might call them that. They came over with the first fleet. That was before the Middle East. Today, Sydney is the metropolis of half the Pacific. Strategically, her influence stretches out over all the islands south of the equator. Through this port moves great quantities of wool, wheat, butter, meat, fruits and minerals. Here and in the other major cities of Australia, life grows away from the old life of Australia, grows more and more toward its destiny and world affairs. Here, where this great city stands, the nation was born 155 years ago as a result of events that were taking place halfway around the world in England. There is a greater disrespect for the law of the land in England today than ever before. We are the victims of a carnival of Christ. Is it because of our severe criminal code that the number of offenders is constantly growing? Only prevail against this unprecedented outbreak by greater persistence. You mean by transporting certain classes of criminals to British positions beyond the seas, huh? We have no room for them in our jails and prisons here. We can no longer send them to America, more as the pity. The American rebellion ended then. We can send them somewhere else. Where do you suggest? To New South Wales, the coast of the Great Island of New Holland in the Pacific. Captain Cook has recorded there is nothing there. Only a wilderness inhabited by strange animals and ebony. Could there be a better place for a penal colony? Sir Joseph Banks, who was a young botanist, had accompanied Captain Cook on a visit to the strange shores of the South Pacific continent, advised that the new convict colony be established at a place he had named Botany Bay, a short distance south of the site of what is now Sydney Harbor. In 1787, the first fleet consisting of six transports and three supply ships sailed for Botany Bay under command of Captain Arthur Phillips. All right, now lift up over the rail. Lift your blokes, come on. That's it. Good old belay there. Hold him up. Don't let him slide over the side before the old man gives the signal. It makes me sick, it does. How many died now? These convicts should never have been sent out here. They were sick and old before we up the muddle. Eight months of sea. And what chance have they got? Here comes the old man. Everything ready, Mr. Patton? All wrapped in canvas, sir. Is that ready? I will read the service to the burial of the dead at sea, Mr. Patton. When I've finished, you will give the signal to slide the body over the side. It's an old story now, sir, you know. Unto Almighty God, we commend the soul of our brother, Departee, and we commit his body to the deep, insure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life to our Lord Jesus Christ. At whose coming, in glorious majesty to judge the world, the sea shall give up her dead, and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in him shall be changed and made unto his glorious body according to the mighty walk, whereby he is able to subdue all things himself. Most merciful Father, who has been pleased to take unto thyself the soul of this thyservant, grant to us who are still in our pilgrimage and who walk as yet by faith that having served thee with constancy on earth, we may be joined hereafter with thy blissful face in glory everlasting, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Over the side. I don't know about that. Carry on, Mr. Patton. Yes, sir. There's another one, Mr. Patton. What we ought to do, Arcus, is throw the old lot of them over the side and spend in eight months at sea to take a lot of college to a place that has ever seen before. It's not even the old man. The old man sends off his time down in the old time to save the sick one. And what for? To put them ashore in the wilderness if we ever see the wilderness. The government knew what it was doing when it hauled him off that far of his napsha and put him in command of this fleet. No other captain would take it. Well, Captain Phillips was a Royal Navy captain in his day, though. Well, why do you suppose they retired him to the farm? I don't know. Well, what way is he encouraging these convicts? They're lovely. Take over any minutes. Then where would we be? All I ask is if we get there and dump them on the beach. If the old man wants to stay there with them, he's welcome. I want to get back. We've been going eight months now. You're lucky if you ever see any land again. A fleet of condemned men, ill-provisioned and sick, crossed 16,000 miles of ocean. Through Captain Phillips' care, fewer died than usually died in the crossing of the Atlantic. At the end of eight months and one week, Stanker at Botany Bay, a hostile barren beach, they went ashore. This place is unsuitable for a settlement. We will organize parties and undertake to explore for a better location. The explorations carried the men of the first fleet far afield in all directions. One member returned with an encouraging report. It is a noble and capacious harbor a short distance to the north. The fleet moved northward and on January 26, 1789, the year the Constitution of the United States was adopted, Captain Phillips dropped anchor and went ashore in what is now Sydney Harbor. Here, although nearly every man in the first fleet, the soldiers and sailors as well as the convicts hated the place, here Captain Phillips sold the seeds of democracy, which were to grow into a new world in the South Pacific. Captain Phillips. Yes, Mr. Patton? They've forgotten us back in England. Ships will come with more provisions. We don't want to wait any longer. Second mate has been talking to me. We're in the offices from the other ships. We don't want to go back. We're sick of this rotten food. Even the convicts would rather go back to jail in England and stay here. Our place is here, Mr. Patton. You know we're outnumbered by the convicts, don't you? What'll happen to the rest of our food is gone? They're dangerous. Dangerous? Most of the prisoners are guilty of almost nothing. They have broken petty laws as all of us have. No more. Many of them are political prisoners. Hello, hello. Come along here. What is this? Looks like trouble. Harkas is bringing in an aborigine. Hold it up. Hold it up. Captain Phillips. Yes, Harkas? We caught this fellow starting a fire back in the bush. Is it harm anyone? Well, some of our cabins are out there in that section. Perhaps he was just making a fire to cook something. You can't trust these beggars. What we came up, we tried to run away. Oh, he was afraid of you. Let go of him. All right. Here, you two, let go of him. Yes, sir. You start fire? Well, that wasn't the only one. I saw him start the fire, Captain. He probably had no idea of doing wrong. Captain Phillips, after what that other aborigine did to you, spearing you like that, you're lucky you're alive. You're going to let this bloke go. That was months ago. The natives were afraid of us. They had reason to be. Well, they didn't even lock up the one at speared yet. We are going to make our home here. You must learn to live with these people. Let him go. In the wilderness on the shore of Sydney Harbor, Captain Phillips laid the cornerstone of the nation that was to flourish on the continent down under. He urged upon England the need of free settlers. Meantime, more and more prisoners were shipped in, 160,000 of them before what was known as the transportation was ended. The plea for free settlers continued, but they were not to appear before Captain Arthur Phillips had passed from the scene. Then on January 15th, 1793, the bridge that's farward right over here. Right on top? Yes, right on top. That's it. Now some more of that brush over there. All that brush over there. I'll put that brush right down at the bottom of the farward. This will make a fire that can spot 10 miles out. That's what we want. If there is a ship out there, we want them to know we're waiting for them. I'll pull the ship out there just before the sun went down. Must be the first ship of free settlers. Light the fire. Yes, sir. Come on, get back there. Look at that place in the night. If there's a ship out there in the dark, this will be a welcome that will be remembered long after we're gone. The next morning, the vessel Bologna holds two in Sydney Harbor with stores and provisions. Several female convicts and five free settlers with their families. My name's Thomas Rose. I'm a farmer from Bledford, Dorsetshire. I brought my wife and four children along with me. The British government paid our passage and guaranteed us two years' provisions. Besides that, they gave us 120 acres. This is where we're going to make our arms. Captain Phillips brought 70 ships to Australia, but only one survived the first eight months. In the next few years, 30 ships were brought in from India, and a few brought in from Ireland. These were crossbred, and then further crossbred with Spanish merino ships. From these came the world-known Australian Jumbuck ship. 200 Australia had 6,000 ships. In 1891, we had 61 million ships. And in 1936, we had 109 million ships. One-sixth of all the sheep in the world and producing one-fourth of all the world's wool. Australia grew on a sheep's back, and with the growth of the grazing industry grew problems which indirectly set the scene for the creation nearly a century later of the powerful Australian Labour Party. In the first half of the 19th century, the conflict developed between the free labour and the convict labour. I'm a free labourer. How can I compete with convict labour? I can't live on the wage as they pay convict labour. The convict can look to his master for a living. Who's going to help me? It ain't only that. We're free labourers, and we're subject to the same legal restrictions as the convicts. The clamour rose. After years of agitation, the supply of cheap convict labour, virtually slave labour was cut off by the stopping of the transportation of prisoners to Australia. This forced the working of the sheep stations with free labour, and the foundation for organised labour was laid. And then, suddenly, dramatically in 1850, Australia was precipitated into nationhood. You don't know? Yes, sir. There's more gold down there than Victoria when anybody ever saw before. People flocking into the gold can use them all over the world. Even from California. How many flocking in seems to me will be worth a man's wire to go down there to Victoria? The ones who know how to get the gold will get it. Get the coming country. Victoria, you're going down there alone. See you right now. If you wait till it's up, I'll go with you. Oh, I ain't got time. I've got to get there before the whole race is finished. News of the gold strikes spread like wildfire. Gold seekers swandered the baller at Victoria, which developed into the richest gold field in the world at the time. The population of Australia more than doubled, and the convictism, which had been important in the small society before this, was reduced almost to a remnant of the new Australian population. The sudden appearance of thousands of miners in Victoria brought a new problem. Now they've been crazy. Life's beyond us prospect is so high that we can't dig for gold. I'm not going to pay it. What representation do we have in the government? Yes, no representation. This is taxation without representation. No prospector is safe to work in peace now without the government demanding to see a license certificate. Monty was reasonable. Now it's robbery. The miners were driven to armed resistance. They organized a reform league and demanded right to full parliamentary representation, manhood suffrage, and abolition of miners' licenses. To defend their cause, they erected a fortification which they dubbed Eureka Stockade. The troops were deployed around the stockade and ready, sir. Keep them quiet until the order comes. Otherwise, we've come all the way from Melbourne for nothing. Our attack must be a complete surprise. Yes, sir. I command this ready, sir. Very well. Forward march! But Eureka Stockade became one of the keystones of democracy in Australia. By the 70s and 80s, the idea of organized labor swept the country. By 1856, several trades in Victoria had won the eight-hour day. The unions went from success to success until the 90s. Then depression gripped the land and the employers took a stand to resist the unions. Labor then turned to politics and at the turn of the century, Australia emerged as a nation, the Commonwealth of Australia. In World War I and World War II, Australia has undergone a vast change. Australia's international position has been transformed. One of the major reasons for this is the rapid growth of Australian industry. This is one of Australia's steelworks. Head back over there, then clear. Ready below there. Markable, the quantity of your production here. These plants have become the largest steelworks in the British Empire. And yet, it only came into operation in 1915. But you weren't turning out guns here at the start of World War I? No. There was very little industrial development in Australia when World War I broke out. But by the end of the war, we were turning out guns, shells, gun carriages, and military vehicles. That means you must have expanded here a great deal between the wars. All Australian industry developed between the wars. A whole chain of steel processing and utilizing industries was set up. I was hardly aware of that. Yes. And as private industry increased, the Australian government expanded its plans. So when the Second War broke out in 1939, our industries were all well established. And it was just a problem of changing over to wartime production. This is one of the explanations for Australia's defensive power. A second major reason for the change in Australia's international position between World War I and World War II is her outlook on her position as a nation in the Pacific. Australia holds on her own account, and apart from Great Britain, a Pacific Empire of her own. For a great many years, Australia has had what we call our island policy. For a long time, we have thought of the islands to the east, northeast, north and northwest of Australia as protective points and a strong basis for attack against Australia if some enemy power should seize them. At the close of World War I, Australia was given mandate over part of the island of New Guinea and several other islands in that vicinity, notably New Britain, New Ireland, Bugandil and Buka. And these islands, of course, are the islands over which fighting is now going on. The rising importance of Australia's changing outlook on the Pacific was set forth by Robert Gordon Menzies in his first policy speech when he became Prime Minister in 1939, six months before the outbreak of the war in Europe. He did this in the newspaper. Menzies, that new Prime Minister of Australia, says that Australia is going to begin to look out for herself in the Pacific. Does that mean that Australia is pulling away from the British Empire? No. He says here, I have become convinced that in the Pacific, Australia must regard herself as a principle providing herself with her own information and maintaining her own diplomatic contacts with foreign powers. It looks like Australia is getting ready to send out its own ministers to other countries. Probably it will, yes. But he says we must have full consultation and cooperation with Great Britain, South Africa, New Zealand and Canada. But all these consultations must be on the basis that the primary risk in the Pacific is borne by New Zealand and Australia. This was the trend of events when the war came to the Pacific. With lightning swiftness, the war came to the very shores of Australia. Must we be told the men they've been shooting out on Singapore? The Japanese have seized Farmer, the Dutch Indies, the Solomon Islands and are driving into New Guinea. Japanese planes are bombing Fort Darwin in Australia. The Pacific had struck Australia and almost overnight, Australia became a front line as the headquarters of the United Nations in the South Pacific. Australia rose as a mighty force. We are a mighty arsenal of military equipment. Five out of every six Australians are either in the armed forties or working in war industry. We have resolved to fight to our last man and our last killing. Based on little more than a century and a half, a new nation has risen on what were hardly more than barren shores in the great continent down under. Risen here, too, is the young and vigorous people who will have an important part in shaping the Pacific era that lies ahead. These are the bare facts of the making of Australia, but here to tell the meaning behind them is Owen Latimore, authority on the Pacific and director of the School of International Relations, Johns Hopkins University. The next voice you will hear will be that of Mr. Latimore. We take you now to San Francisco. In the Pacific of today and tomorrow, the Australians have a unique importance and unique responsibilities which they share only with the New Zealanders. In all the vast and wide Pacific, they are the only nations of European origin, tradition and culture. Yet they do not belong to the geographical grouping of either Europe or the Americas that are much more closely associated with Oceania and Asia. Because of this, they will have a correspondingly unique importance in the making of the peace. For what values are we fighting this war? World values or limited Anglo-American values? For what aims are we fighting? Universal aims or limited Anglo-American aims? What is the democracy in which we believe? Political democracy only or economic democracy also? In answering such questions, Australia, together with New Zealand, will have things to say that will demand the respect of the statesmen of the most powerful nations. Considering the difference between Australia's population of 7 million and our population of 150 million, the Australian army is proportionally equivalent to an American army of over 14 million. That alone is a pretty good war effort. One half of Australia's national income is being spent on the war and on reciprocal aid or reverse land lease, the Australian expenditure is reaching one-sixth of the national income. The people who are making this tremendous effort did not have, four years ago, a highly developed or even a well-developed industry. For instance, Australia did not manufacture any motor cars of its own. Yet today, and in spite of the heavy contribution of manpower to the fighting forces, Australia is manufacturing planes, including engines for the planes, tanks, destroyers, many kinds of artillery and smaller firearms, and complex and delicate optical instruments. One of the best and at the same time one of the cheapest submachine guns now in use was invented by an Australian private soldier. This remarkable development has been primarily due to the amazing success of the Australians in creating a machine tool industry. Technologically, the Australians are now abreast of the most progressive nations because machine tools are the essential without which no nation can have an independent, inventive, progressive economic life. Because the Australians have mastered the know-how of production, they will play an important part in the future industrialization of Asia. This is something we Americans have not yet fully realized. We are inclined to think that America and Britain, both of them far away from Asia, are going to be the major factors in Asian industrialization. Japanese industry and productiveness, of course, are going to take a terrible pounding before the end of the war. But that leaves Siberia on the northern side of Asia and Australia on the south as the nearest centers of highly developed industry. Consequently, Australia, although its output is much smaller than ours, may be very important as a pace-setter. All of this that I have been talking about seems to be pretty far away from the days of the transport ships bringing convicts to Australia and the days of the gold rush. Yet there is a direct historical link between them, and that link is the Australian Labour Party, which has a majority in the Australian government and is represented by Prime Minister Curtin. An Australian writer, Lloyd Ross, explains it in this way, in a pamphlet on Labour in Australia published by the Institute of Pacific Relations. The reason why the jails of England were overcrowded at the time Australia was first settled was that England was going through a social and economic revolution caused by the rise of the factory system. Consequently, among the prisoners who were sent out to Australia were political rebels. This made it easy for the Australian Labour movement, which began more than 100 years ago, to be influenced by theories imported from the England of the early 19th century, where the Chartist movement was demanding universal suffrage and other political reforms. Australia, says Mr Ross, had labour unions before it had millionaires. The Australian Labour movement has long believed in using the political vote even more than the strike vote. Labour thinking and Labour voting were influential in securing for Australia an early and progressive development of public ownership of public utilities, such as telephones and telegraphs, railways and streetcar lines, gas and electricity, and irrigation works. At the same time, the Australian Labour movement has not actually attempted to abolish private enterprise but only to regulate it in the interests of society as a whole. And it is this same idea of the interest of society as a whole which has enabled Mr Kirkin, a Labour Prime Minister, to impose virtual conscription of Labour on wartime Australia. The combination between the rapid growth of Australia's industry and the outlook of its Labour government seems to indicate that after the war the Australians will favour policies that help not merely to industrialise Asia but to raise the standard of living. Australia does not have great amounts of capital to lend but does have goods to sell. Instead of going in for long-range credit operations, therefore, the Australians would probably like their new customers to have higher incomes and more money to spend. And having themselves progressed so quickly, they are likely to believe that others can make rapid progress. Whatever they want, they are in a good position to influence international decisions. As Mr H. D. Ebert, Australian Minister for External Affairs, said in a recent speech, our right to take a full and active part in the panning of peace, not merely to be heard, should be assured to us as a result of what Australians have done toward winning the war. Thank you, Mr Lathamore. You have been listening to The Pacific Story, presented by the national broadcasting company and dedicated to a fuller understanding of the vast Pacific Basin. A reprint of tonight's Pacific Story program is available at the cost of ten cents. Send ten cents in stamps or coins to the University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The address again, University of California Press, Berkeley, California. She is written and directed by Arnold Markwood. The musical score is composed and conducted by Thomas Peluso. Your narrator, Gain Whitman. This program has been presented as a public service by the national broadcasting company and the independent radio stations associated with the NBC network. The program came to you from San Francisco and Hollywood. This is the national broadcasting company.