1913 Canada was typically producing twice as much wheat each year
(Table 13.1).^2
The romance of taming‘a sunburnt country’looms large in the Australian
imagination. It is the narrative that invites the celebration of success achieved
against the odds. But it also offers an excuse for failure. While the challenges of
farming in Australia may be different from those in other New World territor-
ies, it is hard to argue that climate, soil, or geography are the only reasons why
Australia has been less successful as a grain producer and exporter than
Canada or the USA. Australian dominance of the wool trade, and its later
success in the supply of frozen meat, has shown that the‘tyranny of distance’
between supplier and consumer can be overcome.
For ease of settlement, Australia ranked far above Canada for the prospective
migrant. A British journalist noted in 1905:
The rich chocolate soil of Tasmania, the fertile belts of Gippsland, etc., are not
surpassed even in the choicest selection of New Ontario, the coming boom land of
Canada. Winter in Canada continues throughout half of the year, during which
time the lakes are ice-bound, the woods are silent and the earth is covered with a
mantle of frozen snow...
Many false impressions exist in Great Britain about Australia, encouraged by
exaggerated accounts of drought, expensive living, wild dogs and cannibals. Per-
sonally I am prepared to recommend Australia in preference to Canada.
(‘Australia and Canada’1905, p. 5)It is the parallels in their general environments, and not the differences, that
are striking in the comparison of Australian and North American wheat lands.
Thus Donald W. Meinig’s 1959 study comparing the wheat regions of the
Columbia interior of the American Pacific Northwest and the northern wheat
Table 13.1Annual Wheat Production in Australia and Canada, 1875– 1913
Ten-Year Averages
Australia, million bushels Canada, million bushels Australia as percent of Canada1875 13.6 21.2 64
1880 16.5 21.7 76
1885 21.8 30.1 73
1890 26.6 38.5 69
1895 28.7 42.7` 67
1900 29.3 49.3 59
1905 35.9 65.3 55
1910 52.6 95.4 55
1913 65.3 128.4 51
Source:O’Connor 1970.
(^2) In thefive years ending in 1913, wheat production in Australia was just 44 percent that of
Canada, the lowest percentage of any quinquennial period between 1870 and 1913.
Barons versus Bureaucrats