A timely visit: the role of the Great White Fleet, naval defence and the press in the British-Australian relationship

Deposited with permission of the author. © 1995 Frank Sanders.When the Great White Fleet visited Australia in 1908 it became the focal point of an on-going test of wills between Britain and Australia. Relations between the two countries had become increasingly strained since Britain’s decision in the mid-nineteenth century to establish a new kind of relationship with its colonies. For the Australian colonies this meant moving towards independence within the Empire framework and assuming more responsibility for their own defence. This change had serious repercussions for the Australian colonies and British-Australian relations. Politically and psychologically the Australian colonies had developed an image of themselves as the inferior daughters of the superior and protective Mother Country. By changing the nature of the British-Australian colonial relationship, Britain not only challenged this Australian colonial self-image, it also heightened existing divisions among the Australian colonists. Anglo- Australian loyalists, enamoured of things British, clung to the established colonial image and remained subservient to Imperial wishes. Australian nationalists, on the other hand, tried to establish a new relationship with Britain, one in which Australian colonial concerns would have a greater voice. (For complete abstract open document