The colonies of German New Guinea (GNG) and British New Guinea (BNG; from 1906 the Territory of Papua) experienced different paths of development due to the virtually opposite decisions made regarding commercial activities. The establishment of these colonies in the 19th century, and all of the major events and decisions relating to them up to 1914, were based on solely commercial motivations. This thesis examines the circumstances leading to the founding of GNG and BNG. It analyses the impact of government decisions and the growth of capitalist enterprises in East New Guinea during its first 30 years (1884–1914). This thesis argues that both the German and British governments were reluctant to become involved in colonisation. In the context of the political pressures prevailing in Berlin and London respectively, both governments succumbed but insisted that the cost of administering and developing the colonies was to be borne by others. The establishment costs of GNG were accepted by the Neu Guinea Compagnie (NGC) until 1899. It was a haphazard and experimental undertaking which was expensive financially and in human life. When the German government assumed administrative and financial control in 1899 the development of GNG had generally progressed in line with Chancellor Bismarck’s view that Germany’s colonies should be treated as economic enterprises. This was despite the bureaucratic form of government NGC had established. In contrast, there were claims that BNG was to be established on defence strategic requirements and to protect the indigenous Papuan population from non-British influences. This was fallacious posturing by the Australian colonies in order to attain control over the entire eastern sector of New Guinea and adjacent islands. The objective of the Queensland sugar planters was to procure cheap labour and for Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria to prevent the setting up of competitive agricultural industries. After Britain acquired southeast New Guinea, and the recruitment of Papuan and Melanesian labour into Australia had been outlawed, BNG was left to the gold prospectors, with no sustainable plantation industry taking place until Australia assumed administrative control over the Territory in 1907. Neither colony had any military significance. Both colonies shared a common European morality in administration. By 1914 GNG had become a commercially viable enterprise; BNG, now Papua, had failed to take advantage of the 1902–1912 boom in tropical produce. Given their similar size and geography, the economic performance of the two colonies should also have been similar. That this did not occur is beyond dispute. / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, 2008

While literary critics heretofore have subordinated Conan Doyle to more "canonical" writers, the author argues that his writings enrich our understanding of the ways in which Victorians and Edwardians constructed their identity as imperialists and that we therefore cannot afford to overlook Conan Doyle's work.

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Despite the obvious importance of federation in the political and general history of Australia it has received surprisingly little attention from historians. The three major accounts of the federal movement by Deakin, Wise, and Quick and Garran, were all written during or immediately after the events narrated, by men who had participated in them; though each is a valuable primary document, all exhibit inevitable limitations of bias and concentration on those aspects of the subject best known to the author. The only full length academic study of the federal movement, H.L.Hall's, Victoria's Part in the Australian Federal Movement (London,1931), relies heavily on the earlier accounts, concentrates narrowly on one colony, and is generally disappointing. The excellent scholarly articles more recently published by Parker, Blainey, Bastin, Martin, McMinn, MacCallum et al have been concerned mainly with the reassessment of the role of a few key individuals, and discussion of the significance of economic factors in promoting federation. The general emphasis of the whole corpus of material available is on the domestic politics associated with the federal movement with particular reference to New South Wales and to the eighteen-nineties.

With the emegence of an empire, many of the devices and instruments adopted for the governance of England, were extended beyond the seas to the colonies. One such device was royal commissions of inquiry. Royal commissions, the origins of which in England have been traced as far back as the time of the Norman Conquest, were utilised by the administration in England from time to time to investigate particular problems in colonies, and suggest ways and means of solving them. In the first empire, the American settlements received bodies of somewhat similiar nature on some occasions, but their true value was displayed only when the second empire was being founded. During the turbulent years of the French and Napoleonic wars the empire was continuously extended, but only after peace was established did it become possible for the ministers in England to take stock of the empire which had been acquired. What were the purposes of the empire, what were the nature and the conditions of the colonies conquered, in what manner should this new empire of a diverse and amorphous character be governed, were some of the numerous questions which faced them through the following years. These clearly emphasised above all the need to obtain information about the colonies. The information provided by their Governors did not prove to be adequate, and there was no possibility of officials at home acquiring the much needed information. To resolve the problem, they fell back upon the age old method: royal commissions of inquiry.