much greater extent than in the USA. Farming cooperatives, which became
dominant players in the Canadian grain market, were largely absent in the
eastern states.
The extent to which these structural differences influenced the fortunes of
the grain trade is the subject of this chapter. Did the hunger of profit-seekers
give the North Americans a competitive edge? Had these super-capitalists
taken to thefield in Australia, would grain have made a greater contribution
to national prosperity? Or did Australia’s peculiar geographical and climatic
situation demand a paternalistic, interventionist state?
It is contended here from the outset that North America’s dominance of the
international grain market was not predetermined. Australia’s challenges of
climate and distance were not insurmountable. Indeed, the harsh sub-Arctic
conditions of the Canadian interior posed their own difficulties. North
America’s advantage was largely achieved in grainhandlingrather than grow-
ing. The introduction of central trading, mechanised handling systems, and
efficient transportation was driven by entrepreneurs. The Australian grain-
handling system, on the other hand, relied on state investment, socialized
marketing, and central planning. A shortage of capital, the absence of political
will, and vested self-interest account for the strange delay in the introduction
of bulk handling of grain in Australia—epitomized by the concrete grain
elevator. Not until after the First World War—and after the Second World
War in some states—was this innovation embraced, by which time North
American pre-eminence was entrenched.
A century later, the consequences of these divergent paths can be seen in
the global dominance of North American agribusiness corporations. The
emergence of these corporations as players in the Australian market in recent
decades may represent thefinal triumph of the barons over the bureaucrats.
13.1 ‘Bread enough to Spare’
The conversion of grassland to grain-land in the New World was an agricul-
tural transformation of epic proportions. Vast swathes of uncultivated land in
America, Australia, Canada, Argentina, and elsewhere were turned over to
cultivation to supply expanding international markets. The boundaries
between wilderness and civilization were pushed further into continental
interiors. Innovation, mechanization, the development of efficient supply
chains, the expansion of free trade, and the frontier spirit of adventurous
migrants expanded human settlement at a previously unimaginable pace.
The demand for imported wheat grew rapidly in nineteenth-century Britain
as the Industrial Revolution drove urbanization and population growth. In
part it was encouraged by an early, bold experiment in free trade—the repeal
Barons versus Bureaucrats