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Source 7.72. The Versailles Peace Conference” extract from Crossroads: Asia and
Australia in world affairs (Cowie, 1980, p. 205).
The involvement of Australia in constructing the peace agreement, The Treaty of Versailles,
provides an opportunity for textbooks to highlight the role Australia played, and in particular
prime minister Hughes’ attempts to make Great Britain acknowledge Australia’s status as an
independent nation. The modern world emerges, in addition to the extract included at Source
7.72, describes this as “…Hughes fought strongly to be heard as a separate voice, as an
independent delegate from an independent nation” (Lawrence et al., 1986, p. 306). Although
this did not eventuate to the degree Hughes wanted it to, something which the textbook skips
over in its attempt to highlight the growing independence from and dissociation of Australia
with Great Britain, the textbook does allude to this by stating “thus, at the peace treaty
discussions, Hughes sat on committees, acted as a delegate for the British Empire, and was
entitled to negotiate the terms of and finally sign the peace treaty as the leader of an
independent nation” (Lawrence et al., 1986, p. 306). Aligning The Treaty of Versailles with a
type of discourse of ‘coming of age’ for Australia as a nation, Source 7.73 highlights the
military involvement of Australia in WWI as more or less fast tracking the process of
dissociating from Great Britain in areas of national and strategic importance, namely foreign
policy.
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