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Student Archival Essays
- Australia and the Interwar Internationalism Movement
- In her study of the League of Nations Union in Britain, Helen McCarthy argues that “the League of Nations inspired a rich and participatory culture of political unrest, popular education and civic ritual." Was the same true in Australia?
- Interwar Internationalism: Refugees
- A Broad Unity for Peace: An historical examination of the International Peace Campaign’s Australian Peace Congress, 16th – 19th September, 1937
- Interwar Feminism in Australia and the League of Nations
- What were the primary factors in the failure of the League of Nations Union in Australia to create what Helen McCarthy terms a ‘rich and participatory culture of political protest, popular education and civic ritual’?
- Analyze how the ‘Myth of Collective Security’ was cultivated and evolved in Britain, compared to Australia by the LNU
- The League in Nations: the Effects of Identity
- Paths to Peace: A comparison of the voluntary peace groups in Britain and Australia
- The League of Nations: Lessons and Legacy
Australian Relationship with Britain
The relationship between Australia and Britain is of categorical importance, due to the primarily British origins of the Australian population and the subsequent British legal, educational and governmental systems that were put into practice. Australia became part of the commonwealth in 1901, it was recognised as a dominion at the 1911 Imperial conference, was recognised as an independent nation through the Balfour Resolutions at the 1926 Imperial Conference and accorded formal authority through the 1931 Statute of Westminster.[1] Although the King of Britain declared war on behalf of the British Empire, and thus indirectly committed Australia to the war effort, the participation of Australia in the Great War was arguably the beginning of the nations foreign and defence policies. Throughout the period of the war and the League, Australia was very largely reliant upon the status of the British Empire. Similarly, this era marks a period of Australian politics that seemed to shadow the British movement, with regard popular education, civic ritual and political protest, among a number of other crusades.
[1] F.S. Northedge, The League of Nations: Its Life and Times 1920 – 1946 (New York: Leicester University Press, 1986), 47.