Primary industry, overseas trade, and shipping, 1906-1946

Component identifier:

Series 17

Content Summary:

World War I forced upon Hughes the need for specific federal policies on three broadly related areas, primary industry, overseas trade and shipping. He was faced in particular with the need of both the British and Australian military for wool and foodstuffs (and various raw materials) and with the need to obtain some means, independent of British shipping interests, of moving supplies and troops. Papers in the collection that document some of the measures Hughes took to requisition, sell, and transport Australia's primary products comprise the bulk of the series and can also be found in Series 16 and Series 23.

The series is basically arranged chronologically and consists of correspondence, memoranda, cables and telegrams, accounts, records of conferences and statistics. These cover such subjects as Australia's overseas trade representatives (June 1917), the importation of Japanese electrical goods into Great Britain, government chartering agents (March 1918), the establishment of the Central Wool Committee, the British Australian Wool Realisation Association Ltd, meat contracts with the British Government, the Bullot Meat Process, the John Cooke Co. case (1920), the building of ships in the United States, sugar agreements between the Commonwealth and Queensland, the Bureau of Commerce and Industry, and the sale to Great Britain of Australian wool, wheat and flour, dried fruits, rabbits, meat and sugar.

The main correspondents are the Secretary of State for the Colonies, J. Jensen, Walter McLeitch, Sir John Higgins, Walter Massey-Green, Sir John Darling, H. R. Sleeman, H. B. Pitt, E. Eva, H. G. B. Larkin, W. Oldershaw, A. S. Rodgers, S. Taylor, W. S. Robinson, and organisations such as Westralian Farmers Ltd, Dalgety Company Ltd and Elder Smith Company.

Immediate source of acquisition:

The W. M. Hughes Papers were presented to the National Library of Australia by Dame Mary Hughes in 1953. The collection was received in two consignments. One consisted of papers taken from the Perpetual Trustee Company comprising material from Hughes' Lindfield home and from his office rooms at the Commonwealth Offices, Sydney; the other came directly from Lindfield. Lists of the contents of both consignments are held in the Library's Manuscript Branch. With the agreement of the executors and the Library, much of the collection, was for a time, held at the Australian National University by Fitzhardinge. He was permitted sole access to the collection while writing the biography Hughes commissioned in 1951. Fitzhardinge's own papers documenting the writing of the biography are also held by the Library (MS 5400). The papers transferred to the Library in 1953 are by no means the total collection of Hughes' personal papers, although it is impossible to say what proportion has survived. (see Fitzhardinge, p.936).

Names:

Hughes, W. M. (1862-1952)

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