Bulletin

Issue: June 2006

News

American influences on Alfred Deakin

Alfred Deakin, Australia's second Prime Minister and one of the young nation's most profound thinkers, had strong views on colonialism, the future of the Pacific, race relations and our relationship with USA.

These views frequently brought him into conflict with the British Colonial Office. Federation exacerbated these tensions. Three times Prime Minister in the first decade after Federation, his influence on the new nation, both in internal and external affairs, was far reaching.

Were his views the result of his admiration of American thinkers whom he read or befriended during his earlier years as a Colony of Victoria cabinet minister? This question was raised - and answered generally in the affirmative - in a seminar on Deakin by Marilyn Lake, Professor in La Trobe University's History Program, to a crowded seminar at the John Scott Meeting House recently.

Professor Lake's research interests cover Australian history, nation and nationalism, femininity and masculinity, race, gender and imperialism, global and trans-national history - many of which inform her study of Deakin, whom she regards in many ways as a tragic figure.

Her seminar was based on research in the National Library in Australia, the US National Archives in Washington, the UK National Archives in London and the Harvard University Archives.

Her interest in the relations between leading thinkers and political leaders in Australia and the United States was prompted during her time as Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University in 2002.

A radical liberal, Deakin was handsome, intelligent, a gifted speaker and deep thinker.

According to Professor Lake, his thinking about political independence and selfgovernment was linked to his subjective investment in manhood and his admiration for the place he always called 'the great republic' evident in his relations with writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, philosopher Josiah Royce and President Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1885, when Deakin went on an official visit to California to investigate irrigation, he also went east on a pilgrimage to the grave of Emerson - the prophet of selfreliance - in Concord, Massachusetts.

Royce and Deakin were personal friends. They met in Melbourne during Royce's visit to Australia in 1888 and holidayed together and walked and talked in the Blue Mountains for a week.

They continued a friendship by correspondence, often about political philosophy, for more than 20 years. In 1908, during the visit of the United States Fleet to Australia, sent by Roosevelt in response to Deakin's invitation, Royce sent Deakin a copy of his latest book, Loyalty which Deakin quoted in his welcome to the fleet's officers and crew.

Roosevelt and Deakin shared strong views about the benefits to native peoples of European colonialism and identified as white men joined by bonds of brotherhood.

When the fleet arrived and Deakin mixed with its officers, he rejoiced in the 'richness of a natural relationship between Australia and the United States', a celebration which displeased the British Colonial Office, which already had its nose out of joint because Deakin had not consulted it before inviting the fleet to Australia at a time when Britain still controlled Australia's foreign relations.

Deakin considered that the Colonial Office destroyed Australian men's manhood, hence his attraction to the assured, self-confident, plain-speaking men of 'the great republic'.