banner of the newly formed United Australia Party, led by a former Labor minister, the Tasmanian Joe Lyons. For a few brief years, some degree of domestic political and economic stability, if not tranquillity, began to emerge. Conscious of the ominous noises-off emanating from the Japanese, and from Germany and Italy, Lyons began the job of restoring Australiaâs defences as best the nationâs finances would permit.
It was a modest start, but it was something. In 1933, Britain offered the RAN the loan of five destroyers of Great War vintage. HMAS Stuart was a destroyer-flotilla leader, launchedin December 1918. The other four were ships of the even older but equally sturdy V & W class (so called because their names all began with a âVâ or a âWâ), Vampire , Vendetta , Voyager and Waterhen. In a rational world, they would have gone quietly to the breakersâ yard years before, their passing mourned only by those who had sailed in them. Instead, these five would become the storied Scrap Iron Flotilla of ships and men whose exploits in the far-off Mediterranean would write an indelible page in Australian naval legend.
The next year, 1934, things got better again. The government announced a three-year building program for the navy, which would include much-needed improvements to the dockyard at Sydneyâs Garden Island and, most encouraging of all, the acquisition of those three modern light cruisers from the Royal Navy: Sydney , Hobart and Perth . Recruiting was fired up again, and young men were encouraged to join the naval reserves, where they could learn a seamanâs skills at weekly drill nights, row a whaler around on weekends and pick up a few extra bob into the bargain. Should there ever be another war, they could be quickly mobilised.
As the â30s wore on, the spectre of a belligerent Japan began to loom larger. The trade-union movement feared that iron exported to Japan would be turned into steel for weapons of war that one day might be aimed at Australia. The crunch came in November 1938, when waterside workers at the New South Wales steel town of Port Kembla refused to load a British tramp ship, the Dalfram , with a cargo of pig iron from the BHP mill destined for the Mitsui steelworks in Kobe. Over the next few weeks and into Christmas, the dispute spread to other ports, with ships blacked and wharfies locked out from their jobs. In reply, the Lyons government threatened to use the sweeping powers of the Transport Workers Act, popularly reviled as the Dog-Collar Act, to send in strike-breakers if necessary and to deprive the wharfies of their licences to work on the waterfront.
By January, 7000 men were out of work. The FederalAttorney General, a silver-tongued Melbourne lawyer named Robert Menzies, went to Port Kembla to confront the workers on the docks. Union leaders reluctantly cleared a path for him through an angry crowd. Menzies told them that government policy decreed the iron should go to Japan. That policy could not be set aside by a trade union or anyone else. In the end, it was the Dog-Collar Act that broke the unionâs resistance. The wharfies crumbled and the pig iron was loaded and shipped. Forever afterwards, trade unionists would refer to Menzies contemptuously as Pig Iron Bob.
Every so often, though, the Lyons Cabinet sought reassurance that the British were awake to the Japanese threat. Comforting noises flowed smoothly back from London. As ever, Singapore would be the rock upon which any Japanese wave would break. The British had resumed work on the naval base there, in fits and starts, as the Depression receded. Some Australian leaders, however, held strong doubts about the promise of âMain Fleet to Singaporeâ. While still in opposition in 1936, the new Labor leader, John Curtin, put his finger on the matter with telling foresight:
If an Eastern first-class power sought an abrogation of a basic Australian policy, such as the White
It was a modest start, but it was something. In 1933, Britain offered the RAN the loan of five destroyers of Great War vintage. HMAS Stuart was a destroyer-flotilla leader, launchedin December 1918. The other four were ships of the even older but equally sturdy V & W class (so called because their names all began with a âVâ or a âWâ), Vampire , Vendetta , Voyager and Waterhen. In a rational world, they would have gone quietly to the breakersâ yard years before, their passing mourned only by those who had sailed in them. Instead, these five would become the storied Scrap Iron Flotilla of ships and men whose exploits in the far-off Mediterranean would write an indelible page in Australian naval legend.
The next year, 1934, things got better again. The government announced a three-year building program for the navy, which would include much-needed improvements to the dockyard at Sydneyâs Garden Island and, most encouraging of all, the acquisition of those three modern light cruisers from the Royal Navy: Sydney , Hobart and Perth . Recruiting was fired up again, and young men were encouraged to join the naval reserves, where they could learn a seamanâs skills at weekly drill nights, row a whaler around on weekends and pick up a few extra bob into the bargain. Should there ever be another war, they could be quickly mobilised.
As the â30s wore on, the spectre of a belligerent Japan began to loom larger. The trade-union movement feared that iron exported to Japan would be turned into steel for weapons of war that one day might be aimed at Australia. The crunch came in November 1938, when waterside workers at the New South Wales steel town of Port Kembla refused to load a British tramp ship, the Dalfram , with a cargo of pig iron from the BHP mill destined for the Mitsui steelworks in Kobe. Over the next few weeks and into Christmas, the dispute spread to other ports, with ships blacked and wharfies locked out from their jobs. In reply, the Lyons government threatened to use the sweeping powers of the Transport Workers Act, popularly reviled as the Dog-Collar Act, to send in strike-breakers if necessary and to deprive the wharfies of their licences to work on the waterfront.
By January, 7000 men were out of work. The FederalAttorney General, a silver-tongued Melbourne lawyer named Robert Menzies, went to Port Kembla to confront the workers on the docks. Union leaders reluctantly cleared a path for him through an angry crowd. Menzies told them that government policy decreed the iron should go to Japan. That policy could not be set aside by a trade union or anyone else. In the end, it was the Dog-Collar Act that broke the unionâs resistance. The wharfies crumbled and the pig iron was loaded and shipped. Forever afterwards, trade unionists would refer to Menzies contemptuously as Pig Iron Bob.
Every so often, though, the Lyons Cabinet sought reassurance that the British were awake to the Japanese threat. Comforting noises flowed smoothly back from London. As ever, Singapore would be the rock upon which any Japanese wave would break. The British had resumed work on the naval base there, in fits and starts, as the Depression receded. Some Australian leaders, however, held strong doubts about the promise of âMain Fleet to Singaporeâ. While still in opposition in 1936, the new Labor leader, John Curtin, put his finger on the matter with telling foresight:
If an Eastern first-class power sought an abrogation of a basic Australian policy, such as the White
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