opinions in their home country, it meant that Australia was home to some of the world’s most revolutionary political thinkers. Convict servitude didn’t prevent them spreading ideas of citizenship and workers’ rights, and so consequently Australia quickly developed into one of the most democratic constitutions in the world, at that time. In comparison to England, Australia was more advanced in terms of its self- governance.The governing and ruling officials, however, did nothing but slow down the developments.Their style of ruling was not dissimilar from a dictatorship, however, over time, emancipated convicts and free settlers could take the reins as the penal colony structure began to die out. ECONOMIC INFLUENCE ATTRIBUTABLE TO CONVICTS In this part of my analysis, I assess to what extent convict servitude contributed to the ultimate economic success of Australia today. Haast (2015) explains how the introduction of a convict scheme to Western Australia resulted in a large injection of capital into the colony. This injection arose from the purchase of goods and services by the penal system, which ultimately transferred money from the British Crown into the local economy; evidently, certain industries would have benefitted more than others. The convicts provided a free labour source which was fully exploited by the governing classes. Economic growth in early colonial Australia was boosted by convicts compelled to construct essential infrastructure, such as the road from Albany to Perth and the Fremantle Bridge connecting Fremantle with the road to Perth. In addition, convicts and emancipists also created more free labour by having their own children.The contribution of the convict system to Australia's early economic growth was prodigious. Penal transportation was, without a doubt, crucial for colonial economic growth (NSW, 2019). Transport links have always been essential to the act of trading, as the vast, fertile landscape of Australia required the transportation of commodities across the country to prominent ports, such as Sydney Harbour. However, at the time, convict labour was mainly employed in hard labour, such as construction, or clearing extensive areas of grassland, and, therefore, it was the private landowners and free settlers who employed convicts that were truly responsible for generating capital for the country, trading the products that they grew, or made, on their assigned area of land. If there were no cultivators, there would not have been anything to trade with, and, consequently, insignificant economic activity. Furthermore, commercial growth in Australia depended heavily on the government as the
broker of goods, money and foreign exchange (imports and exports). However, again, individual rights in property and labour were recognised, and private markets for both started to operate (Attard, 2019). Gratuitous servitude clearly had an enormous impact on the commercial growth of Australia – however, without the free settlers, the economy would have been unable to grow into different market directions. Free settlers were able to pioneer the development of the incredibly profitable woollen industry following progress in the 1820s, which meant that economic growth was based more upon the production of fine wool, and other rural commodities, for export to markets in Britain. As Table 3 (below) shows, the rise in the production of Australian wool dramatically increased between 1830 – 1850, with exports to Britain more than tripling between 1840-1850. Even by the 1830s, wool had overtaken whale oil as the colony’s most important export, and by 1850,Australia had displaced Germany as the main overseas supplier of wool to British industry. Without the crucial transport links that were created by the convicts, wool and other lucrative commodities would not have been exported so successfully. Consequently, it was thanks to the convicts that the economy began to flourish in the 19th century. Moreover, the routes carved out by convict servitude still exist today and still contribute to the economy’s growth, due to the interest from Australia’s millions of tourists. Of particular significance is the fact that the Australian Convict Sites were granted the honour of being designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed under the Cultural category in 2010. Thus, convict infrastructure still significantly contributes to Australia’s substantial Gross Domestic Product. History and Heritage continue to remain the strongest pull factors in tourism, irrespective of whether the past has been good or evil. Australian Convict Sites constitute a World Heritage property consisting of 11 remnant penal sites, originally built under the British Empire during the 18th and 19th centuries on fertile Australian coastal strips.The Fremantle Prison was particularly promoted to retain the cultural significance of Australia’s convict history. To encourage tourism in general, in 2003 the
43
Made with FlippingBook Digital Publishing Software