Outpost of Empire

Many historians have differing views on the founding of Australia. In Lord Sydney's address to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, he explicitly stated the growing problems of overcrowding of jails and places to confine the felons of England. In order to ease the problem, Lord Sydney ordered the transport of convicts to New South Wales, where a colony would be established. He also mentioned the advantages of transporting the convicts, one being the flax that would be available for successful trade and commerce opportunities.

In contrast, in Geoffrey Blainey's book, The Tyranny of Distance, he argues that the colonisation of Australia was influenced solely by the material advantages available from the new land. Blainey argues that Britain's choice to relocate and house their overflowing number of convicts in Australia was a costly and slow process. Furthermore, Blainey believes that if the problem was as urgent as firstly mentioned, Britain would have chosen a quicker, cheaper and more effective option to solve its problems. For example, Blainey suggests that convicts could have been sent to colonies such as Canada or the West Indies, and this would have been a cheaper and quicker solution to the problem of overcrowding. However, as Fox disputes, Blainey's geographical argument overstates the 'importance of distance', as Australia is in fact, geographically, a substantial distance  from everything. In addition, as flax was also of better quality and more readily available in other locations, as Blainey argued that the so-called acquisition of these natural supplies could not substantiate the colonisation of Australia.

As Simon J. Potter contends, many historians have competing arguments about the foundations of Australia as there is little evidence that clearly states the intentions and reasons of the British to establish a colony in Australia. However, Potter disagrees with Blainey and writes that British jails were, in fact, overcrowded and transporting convicts to a new colony was a cheaper alternative. By using the convicts for labour, the British believed that they were able to temporarily solve their overcrowding criminal problem, establish a new colony and also obtain natural resources in the process. Unfortunately their expectations of the new colony were quite optimistic, only to find a land that was unlike the past visit, which was Botany Bay at its best. Nevertheless, Britain was successful and Australia continually became influential in an range of economic, cultural, social and political ways.

 

'The Founding of Australia' 

First Fleet arriving in Port Jackson

By Algernon Talmage R.A.

Source: 'From Penal Colony to Land of Plenty: 1786-1850' by Nicolas Brasch 

Heinemann Library, Australia (2007).