Australia Tourism Guide

After the gold rushes Australia went through several cedes of boom and bust, and the Depression of the 1890s saw the growth of new unions and their political arm, the Australian Labor Party, which protected worker's rights within Parliament and was the most successful social democratic party in the world, forming a government in 1908. Australian men at the turn of the last century were called "Cornstalks." The Cornstalk was typically two meters (six feet) tall, wearing corded pants, red shirt, a wide blue sash and a cabbage tree hat, high boots and a stock whip wrapped around his arm.

His character was described by a contemporary source as "slow, easy, indolent in the ordinary way, proud of his country and himself and capable of holding his own in anything in which he is interested." This popularly accepted view of Australians as country types was at odds with the trend towards urbanization - by the start of the twentieth century nearly half the population lived in the six capital cities.

 Australia's six independent colonies came together in 1901 to form the Commonwealth of Australia. On the first day of the New Year, a procession snaked its way through the streets of Sydney to the wild cheering of 150,000 celebrating onlookers. After Queen Victoria's proclamation was read in Centennial Park, a 21-gun salute announced the birth of the new nation. But despite its independent status, Australia remained loyal to the British Empire, and imperial foreign policy was slavishly followed.

The fireworks that saw Australia's true coming of age happened fourteen years later on the bloody battlefields of World War II. In the first major encounter involving Australian troops, they lost 8,000 men against a strong Turkish force on the beach at Gallipoli. This battle is remembered on Anzac Day (April 25), when veterans march through the streets of every capital city and major town.

 Australian soldiers, who in a nod to the country's gold-rush years were known as "diggers," went on to fight on the battlefields and in the trenches of France and Belgium. By the end of the war Australia had lost 59,000 men.

Along with many other countries, Australia's fortunes slumped in the 1930s. The Depression set in, scarring a generation of Australians. Many men without permanent employment took to the road to survive, finding odd jobs as sheep shearers, cattle rustlers, and laborers. Known as "swagmen," their swag being the small sack in which they kept all their worldly goods, they had a healthy disregard for authority. Their exploits were celebrated in folk songs, the most famous being Waltzing Matilda. World War II helped end the Depression. Japan conducted bombing raids on Australia's northern coastline between March, 1942 and November, 1943. With Britain fighting for its very survival and unable to help, the entry of the United States into the Pacific theater of war in 1941 was welcomed. Within weeks of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, 4,600 American troops arrived in Australia. On March 17, 1942, General Douglas MacArthur arrived to establish headquarters in Brisbane and over tile next few years hundreds of thousands of American troops passed through.

Although American GIs were criticized as being "over-sexed, over- paid and over here" - mainly because of their reputation for being free spenders and their success with local women - a lasting bond and mutual respect developed between the fighting men of Australia and the United States. In the aftermath of the war, the debate on Australia's future turned to its pitifully small population. To overcome this weakness the catch-cry was coined "populate or perish." And so the great postwar period of immigration began.