Canberra 1913-1953
Abstract
Unlike mo et earlier writing about Canberra, this then in is
concerned principally with its population.The dev3lopment of the
national capital and the activities of its political masters in
building or changing the physical structures which constitute the
national capital are considered mainly from the point of view of
the inhabitants of the city.Although their community life has
inevitably been shaped by the soecial destiny of their town as a
national capital,the people of Canberra are drawn from all corners
of the continent and do not differ markedly from their compatriots.
The assertion made . frequently,that Canberra is a city without a
soul,is one of the many loose,pejorative generalisations which
have been hurled at Canberra since its foundation and have
induced in many Canberra people a defensive attitude towards
their fellow Australians.The soul of a community could well be
another name for the feeling of belonging,which reaches its full
flower only when the population includes a large proportion of
natives.The 1954 census,which marks the end of this work,revealed
that only 20.86$ of the population was then native born.The soul
existed in fact but it was still a very young soul.
Conceived originally as the one concrete expression of the
ideal of nationhood to emerge from the federal compact,the image
of Canberra began to be distorted almost from the point of conception
by the pressures of practical politics.lt war clear that there
had to be a national capitaland the experience of Canada had
demonstrated the dangers of selecting an existing citv for the
purrose.The idea of an independent territory and a new city was
copied from the Washington experience and jealousy between the
nation’s two principal cities,Sydney and Melbourne,dictated a
site which was remote at the time but has since proved to have
real n advantages for a national capital. The task of launching a totally new city in an undeveloped
wilderness was daunting,hut the 3800000 Australians who faced it
in the early years of the 20th century were inspired by a combination
of naivety and pride which made them in some respects,a
new breed of people.Sharing membership of a British Empire which
still quite literally ’rule! the waves',they were properly proud
that in .just over a hundred years they had overcome the handicap
of a poor start and had succeeded in imposing on a particularly
intractable continent far from the centres of European civilisation,
a. re sonable facsimile of the civilisation which those centres
boasted.Seeing themselves as a rising new nation ready to manage
its own affairs,they were prohe to boast that their new world
would avoid the mistakes of the old and,when the moment came to
build a capital,aspired to something in conformity with their own
hazy ideas of future grandeur.