REPORT OF THE 
BRITISH ECONOMIC MISSION. 
TO AUSTRALIA. 
T'o the Rt. Hon. S. M. Bruce, C.H.,,M.C.,, M.P., 
Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia, 
Canberra. F.C.'T 
PART I. 
INTRODUCTION. 
1. At the time of the Imperial Conference held in the autumn 
of 1926, the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia 
raised the question of sending a mission of four independent 
business men from the United Kingdom to Australia. It was 
subsequently arranged, at the request of His Majesty's Government 
in the Commonwealth of Australia, that the personnel of such a 
mission should be nominated by His Majesty’s Government in 
Great Britain and should proceed to Australia with the following 
terms of reference :— 
‘ To confer with the Commonwealth and State Governments, 
with the Development and Migration Commission and 
the leaders of industry and commerce in Australia on the 
development of Australian resources and on. any other 
matters of mutual economic interest to Great Britain and 
the Commonwealth, which may tend to the promotion of 
trade between the two countries and the increase of 
settlement in Australia.’ 
2. We were nominated accordingly by His Majesty's Government 
In Great Britain; our selection was approved by the Common- 
wealth Government ; we sailed from Marseilles on the Slst August, 
1928, and landed at Fremantle on 25th September. Since that 
date we have visited every State of the Commonwealth and have 
travelled some 20,000 miles within Australia. We have seen areas 
of primary production and industrial centres and have held over a 
hundred conferences with Governments and their officials, with 
representative public bodies, with labour organizations, and with 
associations of producers and traders of every kind concerned both 
with primary and with secondary industries.” In addition we have, 
as individuals, met and conferred with many of the leading citizens 
of the Commonwealth. 
3. None of us had previously visited Australia, but we appreciated 
that Australia presents the only example in the world of one people 
possessing and controlling an island continent; that, owing to its 
size and geographical position, Australia covers a large range of 
climatic conditions; and that a great part of Australia is situated 
in what is known to geographers as the arid belt of the Southern 
Hemisphere. We knew that the development of Australia had 
proceeded from harbour settlements, through pastoral settlements 
Appoint- 
nent and 
jerms of 
reference. 
Preliminary 
ybservations. 
1 4G9 
An