Powerhouse economies of the pacific: a comparative study of nineteenth century Victoria and California

The comparative method is a useful tool for understanding the development of the countries and regions of the Pacific. It has especially been used for comparing and contrasting the regions of recent European settlement, which include the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. However, the comparative method has rarely been used for the (eastern) Pacific coast of Australia and the (western) Pacific coast of the USA*. In particular the two powerhouse economies of the nineteenth century Pacific, Victoria and California, have only occasionally been the subjects of comparative studies. The cause of this is mainly teleological. Looking backwards from the dawn of the twenty-first century, California appears too advanced, too rich and too 'Californian' to be compared with anywhere else in the Pacific, or on Earth. Victoria may also be Western, advanced and wealthy, but nowhere on the scale or style of California and indeed in the twentieth century it has lost its Australian pre-eminence to New South Wales. Such a loss of domination is unthinkable for California. Australian scholars may think of comparisons for Victoria, but it is very hard for those on the other side of the Pacific to consider California as anything but unique and therefore beyond comparison. An example of this view is Rothstein who argued that due to gold, for a short time, 'in the 1850s the Pacific slope resembled Australia's more than it did the other sections of the United States', but from the 1860s onwards the comparison was no longer valid as the American Pacific Slope progressed far more rapidly than the Australian Pacific Slope (Rothstein, 1975: 273-4). The few comparative studies of California with Victoria tend to concentrate on specific themes in which the two states share a common history. Two recent examples illustrate this. The first is David Goodman's Gold Seeking: Victoria and California in the 1850s, (1994). California (1848 onwards) and Victoria (1851 onwards) were the two great Gold Rushes of world history and thrust these two isolated underdeveloped pastoral economies into the world spotlight. Goodman's interest is in how the participants in these rushes thought about the social impact of these revolutionary events. Significantly, Goodman is inclined to dwell on the differences between the two Gold Rushes rather than the similarities, especially the different types of society and the different customs which developed. The second is Lionel Frost's The New Urban Frontier: urbanisation and city building in Australasia and the American West, (1991). Frost argues that nineteenth century Victoria and California saw the development of 'Pacific Cities', low density spacious cities which contrasted to the crowded European style cities which had previously developed in regions of recent European settlement. Melbourne and Los Angeles were the best examples of these new style cities (others included Denver, Oakland, Auckland, Vancouver and Adelaide). Due to high incomes generated through providing services to their rich hinterlands, the inhabitants of these cities were able to afford suburban housing and lifestyles, parks and wide streets and to avoid overcrowding and slums. The purpose of this article is to argue that the potential of the comparative tool extends well beyond these two topics. To further illustrate the value of comparison, this article presents two case studies. The first is the effect of gold on the economic and population growth of California and Victoria. The second is the wheat industry, particularly the decline of wheat growing in California and the central part of Victoria.