Australia, New Zealand, and International Reconstruction

Abstract

During the Second World War, the Anglo-Saxon Allies differed over certain aspects of the future management of the international economy. Australia, New Zealand, and Britain argued that full employment should be the key postwar economic objective.² By comparison, the USA, supported by Canada, gave priority to building a multilateral regime of free trade and unrestricted payments.

The Commonwealth [of Australia] is so dependent upon world dynamics originating in the USA and UK, that it must become in the main a consenting party to world co-operation programmes rather than a powerful influence upon those programmes. Viewing the massive economic pressures in the world as a whole, the Commonwealth can do little more than to respond intelligently to international planning.

G.L. Wood, Professor of Commerce, University of Melbourne, 1947 ¹