Labour History: A Journal of Labour and Social History

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Footnotes

1.For accounts of public/private relationships in Australia during the twentieth century, see:Brian W. Head, ed., State and Economy in Australia(:Oxford University Press, 1983);Noel G. Butlin,Alan Barnard andJonathan J. Pincus, Government and Capitalism: Public and Private Choice in Twentieth Century Australia(:Allen and Unwin, 1982). Google Scholar

2.John F. Wilson, “The Motives for Gas Nationalisation: Practicality or Ideology?”inThe Political Economy of Nationalisation in Britain, 1920–1950, eds.Robert Millward andJohn Singleton(:Cambridge University Press, 1995), 12–16. On Australia, seeNoel G. Butlin, “Colonial Socialism”inThe State and Economic Growth, ed.Hugh G. J Aitken, (:Social Science Research Council, 1959), 26–78. Google Scholar

3.David Schap, Municipal Ownership in the Electric Utility Industry: A Centennial View(:Praeger, Special Studies, 1986). Google Scholar

6.The most notable area in which this occurred was in the case of the government’s failure to create a government owned iron and steel company:Malcolm Abbott, “The Labor Party and the Proposal to Nationalise the Iron and Steel Industry,” Labour History, no. 70 (May1996):115–30. Google Scholar

7.For the history of AGL, seeRosemary Broomham, First Light: 150 Years of Gas(:Hale and Iremonger, 1987). For the gas supply industry in South Australia, seePeter F. Donovan andNoreen Kirkman, The Unquenchable Flame: The South Australian Gas Company 1961–1986(:Wakefield Press, 1986). For the gas supply industry in Victoria, seeRay Proudley, Circle of Influence: A History of the Gas Industry in Victoria(:Hargreen Publishing, 1987). Google Scholar

8.Raymond Markey, The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales 1880–1900(:University of New South Wales Press, 1988).G. N. Freudenberg, Cause for Power: The Official History of the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Labor Party(:Pluto Press, 1991).N. Dyrenfurth, Heroes & Villians: The Rise and Fall of the Early Labor Party(:Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2011).Ross McMullin, The Light on the Hill: The Australian Labor Party, 1891–1991(:Oxford University Press, 1992). Google Scholar

9.Robert Murray, Fuels Rush in: Oil and Gas in Australia(:Macmillan, 1972). Google Scholar

10.Malcolm Abbott, “The Organization, Ownership and Performance of Privately Owned Utilities: The Case of Australia’s Manufactured Gas Supply Industry,” Management and Organizational History 7, no. 2(2012):75–93. Google Scholar

11.N. Economides, “The Economics of Networks,” International Journal of Industrial Organization 14(1995):673–99. Google Scholar

12.D. A. Chatterton, “State Control of Public Utilities in the Nineteenth Century: The London Gas Industry,” Business History 14(1972):166–78;D. Matthews, “Laissez-Faire and the London Gas Industry in the Nineteenth Century: Another Look,” Economic History Review 39(1986):244–63;R. Millward andR. Ward, “From Private to Public Ownership of Gas Undertakings in England and Wales 1851–1947: Chronology Incidence and Causes,” Business History 35, no. 2(1993):1–21. Google Scholar

13.J. Foreman-Peck andR. Millward, Public and Private Ownership of British industry, 1820–1990(:Clarendon Press, 1994).Millward andWard, “From Private to Public.” Google Scholar

14.Malcolm Falkus, “The British Gas Industry before 1850,” Economic History Review 20(1967):494–508. Google Scholar

15.R. Millward, “The Market Behaviour of Local Utilities in the Pre-World War I Britain: The Case of Gas,” Economic History Review 44(1991):102–27.R. Millward,P. A. Johnson,A. Offer,S. Ogilvie andG. Toniolo, Public and Private Enterprise: Energy, Telecommunications and Transport, 1830–1990(:Cambridge University Press, 2005).R. J. Rowlinson, “The Regulation of the Gas Industry in the Early Nineteenth Century, 1800–1860” (PhD diss., Linacre College, Oxford University, 1984). Google Scholar

16.The first municipal gasworks in Britain was in Manchester in 1817. In other countries, municipal gasworks were established at an early date in Germany (Dresden1840), and the Netherlands (Leiden1848). In a range of Western European countries such as Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, gasworks in the nineteenth century were largely taken over by local government.P. A. Toninelli, The Rise and Fall of State Owned Enterprise in the Western World(:Cambridge University Press, 2000);J. J. van Zanden, “The Netherlands: The History of an Empty Box?”inEuropean Industrial Policy: The Twentieth Century Experience, ed.J. Foreman-Peck andG. Federico(:Oxford University Press, 1999), 177–93;J. Foreman-Peck andG. Federico, “European Industrial Policy: An Overview,”inForeman-Peck andFederico, European Industrial Policy, 426–60. Google Scholar

17.Local government ownership of gasworks varied in intensity across the United States. In 1910, for instance, almost ten per cent of gas companies were local government owned, the largest numbers being in states like Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.W. Troesken, “The Sources of Public Ownership: Historical Evidence from the Gas Industry,” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 13, (1997):1–25. Google Scholar

18.See for instanceMillward et. al., Public and Private Enterprise;Millward, “The Market Behaviour”;Millward andWard, “From Private to Public”;Wilson, “The Motives for Gas Nationalisation,” 12–16. Google Scholar

19.W. Troesken, “The Sources of Public Ownership.” Google Scholar

20.B. Levy andP. T. Spiller, “The Institutional Foundations of Regulatory Commitment: A Comparative Analysis of Telecommunications Regulation”, Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 10, no. 2(1994):201–46. Google Scholar

21.Troesken, “The Sources of Public Ownership.” Google Scholar

22.Schap, Municipal Ownership. Google Scholar

23.Leslie Tomory, Progressive Enlightenment: The Origins of the Gaslight Industry, 1780–1820(:The MIT Press, 2012);Millward, et. al., Public and Private Enterprise;Troesken, “The Sources of Public Ownership.” Google Scholar

24.Because of falling material and capital costs as well as improvements in reducing gas wastage, costs and prices of gas tended to fall in many jurisdictions in the second half of the nineteenth century;Matthews, “Laissez-Faire and the London Gas Industry.” Google Scholar

25.Troesken, “The Sources of Public Ownership”;C. Castaneda, Invisible Fuel: Manufactured and Natural Gas in America, 1800–2000(:Twayne Publishers, 1999), 80–81. Google Scholar

26.Broomham, First Light. Google Scholar

27.Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics (CBCS), “Census of Melbourne Kitchens 31 December 1927,”inLabour Report 1927(:CBCS, 1927).Metropolitan Gas Company, Jubilee, 1878–1928: An Historical Sketch(:Metropolitan Gas Company, 1928).Broomham, First Light, 86. Google Scholar

28.Broomham, First Light, 86. Google Scholar

29. “Census of Melbourne Kitchens 31 December 1927”.Metropolitan Gas Company, Jubilee. Google Scholar

30.CBCS, Labour and Industrial Branch, Expenditure on Living in the Commonwealth, Report no. 4 (:CBCS, 1913), 21. Google Scholar

31.Noel G. Butlin, Australian Domestic Product, Investment and Foreign Borrowing 1861–1938/39(:Cambridge University Press, 1962), 454;Ian W. McLean, “Consumer Prices and Expenditure Patterns in Australia 1850–1914,” Australian Economic History Review 39(1999):22–23. Google Scholar

32.CBCS, Expenditure on Living, 21. Google Scholar

33. Official Year Book of New South Wales(:Government Printer, 1913), 898. Google Scholar

34.See for instanceCBCS, Expenditure on Living. Google Scholar

35.Robert Millward, “The 1940s Nationalizations in Britain: Means to an End or the Means of Production?” Economic History Review 50(1997):209–34;Robert Millward, “State Enterprise in Britain in the Twentieth Century,”inThe Rise and Fall of State-Owned Enterprise in the Western World, ed.Pier A. Toninelli(:Cambridge University Press, 2000). Google Scholar

36.Stuart Macintyre, “Australian Labor Party,”inThe Oxford Companion to Australian History, ed.Graeme Davidson,John Hirst andStuart Macintyre(:Oxford University Press, 1998), 48–49. Google Scholar

37.Robert Noel Ebbels, The Australian Labour Movement 1907–1950(:Platform of the Political Labour League of New South Wales, 1960). Google Scholar

38. The Worker, 1 February1897. Google Scholar

39.Jim Hagan andKen Turner, A History of the Labor Party in New South Wales, 1891–1991(:Longman Cheshire, 1991).Michael Hogan, Labor Pains: Early Conference and Executive Reports of the Labor Party in New South Wales(:Federation Press, 2006). Google Scholar

40.Hogan, Labor Pains, 409.Herbert Vere Evatt, Australian Labor Leader: The Story of W. A. Holman and the Labour Movement(:Angus and Robertson, 1940), ch. 26. Google Scholar

41. New South Wales Political Labor League, untitled pamphlet(:The Worker Print, 1913), 15. Google Scholar

43.Bede Nairn, “Holman, William Arthur (1871–1934),” Australian Dictionary of Biography(hereafter ADB),National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, accessed July 2014,http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/holman-william-arthur-6713/text11589. Google Scholar

44. The Worker, 20 February1897. Google Scholar

45.Evatt, Australian Labor Leader, 122. Google Scholar

46. Sydney Morning Herald, 4 April1906, 9; 11 May1905. Google Scholar

47.Hogan, Labor Pains. Google Scholar

48.Australian Labor Party (ALP), Official Report of the Second Political Labour Conference(:ALP, 1902). Google Scholar

49.ALP, Official Report of the Third Political Labour Conference(:ALP, 1905). Google Scholar

50.See for instance his 1906 election policy speech, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 October1906, 6;G. Sawer, Australian Politics and Law, 1901–1929(:Melbourne University Press, 1956), 62. Google Scholar

51. The Worker, 9 March1922, 24. Google Scholar

52. The Advertiser, 13 June1922, 6. Google Scholar

53.Australian Gaslight Company, Annual Report(:Australian Gaslight Company, 1913), 1. In New South Wales, the Labor Party never proposed taking over the small, regional-based, local council-owned gasworks. Its attention was on the mainly Sydney-based, private gas companies. Some local suburban councils were unhappy about the conduct of the gas supply contracts they had with the private companies and for this reason supported regulation (but not nationalisation).The Sun, 31 January1911; 25 August1911. Google Scholar

54. Sydney Morning Herald, 1 October1910. Google Scholar

55.Ibid., 22 April1910. Google Scholar

56.John M. Ward, “Wade, Sir Charles Gregory (1863–1922),” ADB, accessed July 2014,http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wade-sir-charles-gregory-8938/text15707. Google Scholar

57.Bede Nairn, “McGowen, James Sinclair (1855–1922),” ADB, accessed July 2014,http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mcgowen-james-sinclair-7360/text12785. Google Scholar

59.The 1912 Act also made provision for the prescription and testing of the purity, power, illumination and pressure of gas, as well as the testing of gas meters. For an account of the origins of the gas regulation regime in New South Wales, see:Malcolm Abbott, “The Motivation and Effectiveness of Gas Industry Economic Regulation in New South Wales, 1912–39,” Australian Economic History Review 53, no. 2(2013):167–86. Google Scholar

60.In Britain, legislative controls on prices and dividends had been written into the early Gas Acts for London, Nottingham, Oxford, Worchester and Bristol in 1812–19;Falkus, “The British Gas Industry”;Tomory, Progressive Enlightenment. Google Scholar

61. Official Year Book of New South Wales(1916). Google Scholar

62.Evatt, Australian Labour Leader. Google Scholar

64.Government industrial tribunals had operated in New South Wales throughout the 1890s and 1900s;Official Year Book of New South Wales(1913):911–12. Google Scholar

65.Ibid., 914. Google Scholar

66.New South Wales Parliamentary Debates(hereafterNSW PD), Legislative Assembly 46(28 August1912):768. Google Scholar

67. The Sun, 31 January1911; 25 August1911. Google Scholar

68. Evening News, 13 August1912;The Sun, 25 August1911 Google Scholar

69.Bede Nairn, “Carmichael, Ambrose Campbell (1866–1953),” ADB, accessed July2014,http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/carmichael-ambrose-campbell-5506/text9369. Google Scholar

70. NSW PD, Legislative Assembly 46(28 August1912):768. Google Scholar

71.Bede Nairn andNan Phillips, “Cusack, John Joseph (1868–1956),” ADB, accessed July2014,http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cusack-john-joseph-5856/text9957.NSW PD, Legislative Assembly 75(1919):959. Google Scholar

72. Sydney Morning Herald, 5 September1912. Google Scholar

73. NSW PD, Legislative Assembly 46(4 September1912):886–90. Google Scholar

74. NSW PD, Legislative Council 49(14 November1912):3247. Google Scholar

75.Ibid. Google Scholar

77.Election Policy Speech, Sydney Town Hall;Sydney Morning Herald, 15 October1913. Google Scholar

78.1915 Labor Conference, The Australian Worker, 8 April1915, 17. Google Scholar

79. The Advertiser, 9 April1915. Google Scholar

80.Bede Nairn, “Storey, John (1869–1921),” ADB, accessed July2014,http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/storey-john-8686/text15195. Google Scholar

81.Campaign speech by John Storey at the Masonic Hall, Drummoyne, 12 February 1920, reported inSydney Morning Herald, 13 February 1920.Nairn, “Storey, John (1869–1921).” Google Scholar

82.Chris Cunneen, “Dooley, James Thomas (1877–1950),” ADB, accessed July2014,http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dooley-james-thomas-6000/text10247. Google Scholar

83.Campaign speech by James Dooley at the Bathurst Town Hall, 16 February 1922, reported inSydney Morning Herald, 17 February1922. Google Scholar

84.Bede Nairn, “Lang, John Thomas (Jack) (1876–1975),” ADB, accessed July2014,http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lang-john-thomas-jack-7027/text12223. Google Scholar

85. Sydney Morning Herald, 19 May1925, 10. Google Scholar

86.New South Wales, The Statutes of New South Wales Passed during the Session of…(:Government Printer, 1912, 1932, 1935).Sydney Morning Herald, 4 March1932, 13. Google Scholar

87. Sydney Morning Herald, 21 April1941, 11. Google Scholar

88.Miners Federation leaders at the meeting in Sydney in 1948 called for the nationalisation of the industry.Courier Mail, 15 July1948, 3. The President of the union, for instance, advocated the takeover of the industry;Sydney Morning Herald, 9 July1952, 4. Google Scholar

89.Broomham, First Light. Google Scholar

90.Rolf Gerritsen, “The Creation of the Gas and Fuel Corporation of Victoria: A Study in Political Economy”(paper presented to the 22ndAnnual Conference, Australasian Political Studies Association, Australian National University, Canberra, 27–29 August1980).Proudley, Circle of Influence. Google Scholar

91.Broomham, First Light, 174. Google Scholar

92.Broomham, First Light. Google Scholar

93. The Advertiser, 24 September1924, 12. Google Scholar

94. The Capricornican, 30 December1916, 28. Google Scholar