Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Introduction
- Part I The palaeoeconomic history of Aboriginal migration
- Part II Development, structure and function of Aboriginal economy
- Part III Disease, economics and demography
- Part IV The establishment of a bridgehead economy: 1788–1810
- 16 Introduction
- 17 History and theory
- 18 Free lunches, antipodean style
- Part V The takeover process: 1788–1850
- Bibliography
- Appendix 1 Preliminary model/checklist of Aboriginal migration to Australia
- Appendix 2 NOAA depth contour maps
- Index
18 - Free lunches, antipodean style
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Introduction
- Part I The palaeoeconomic history of Aboriginal migration
- Part II Development, structure and function of Aboriginal economy
- Part III Disease, economics and demography
- Part IV The establishment of a bridgehead economy: 1788–1810
- 16 Introduction
- 17 History and theory
- 18 Free lunches, antipodean style
- Part V The takeover process: 1788–1850
- Bibliography
- Appendix 1 Preliminary model/checklist of Aboriginal migration to Australia
- Appendix 2 NOAA depth contour maps
- Index
Summary
Convention in privatising official roles
The process of privatisation in Botany Bay during and after 1793 depended on, to say the least, an elastic interpretation of instructions received from Whitehall. No doubt the military rules were accorded some protection from retribution by laziness, indifference and ignorance in the Colonial Office. But unless the superior productivity of officer-farming could be demonstrated, the self-interested mode of approach to public service in Botany Bay might still have been exposed to serious risks had the officials been unable to make an effective appeal, explicitly or implicitly, to prevailing mores. This matter was important in relation to the grant by officers to themselves of private property rights in both land and convicts, and in respect of the trading ventures in which they engaged.
So long as prevailing codes in Britain allowed the use of public office for private benefit, an appeal did not need to be explicit. Rather, such codes tended to make ambivalent the evaluations and directives of Whitehall and of subsequent governors's execution of instructions. Colonial Office directives after 1795 often seem muddled and inconsistent, supporting and criticising public farming, complaining of private enterprise yet providing substantial support to it, blaming governors for failure to control yet rewarding those whose activities the governors failed to check. No doubt distance and ignorance contributed to confusion; but many comments by Whitehall are redolent of an admiration for those who were doing well by doing good. This reflected the blurring of private benefit and public propriety in Britain and throughout the Empire.
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- Economics and the DreamtimeA Hypothetical History, pp. 158 - 182Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993