[in Japanese]

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Today it is well known that there is disagreement between the 'oppositionalists' and the 'accommodationists' concerning viewpoints of Aboriginal history. This thesis aims to integrate these different standpoints. In 1966, the Gurindji people, who had been working at Wave Hill Station in north-western NT, walked off the station and initiated a strike for better working conditions. Even though the world human rights movement was an external condition, Gurindji's internal factors that led to the decision to strike can't be understood without studying their social and economic history. Examining this is the aim of this paper. Investigating the continuance, transition and crisis of Gurindji tribal autonomy after contact with the European cattle industry, I will suggest a new perspective on Aboriginal history. Although facing cultural and economic difficulties caused by white intrusion, the Gurindji people were successful in sustaining their tribal life, with the help of the natural cycle, even though they received partial white economic assistance while living on the stations. They preserved their traditional socioeconomic system even under terrible labour conditions. The final strategy adopted, to get out of tribal economic difficulties and to preserve their traditional culture by separating it from that of the whites, was the strike movement at Daguragu and the independence of Daguragu Station.

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1. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the exchange rate affects the export competitiveness of primary commodities in Australia.2. As there is no single definition of export competitiveness, this paper treats export share expansion in the world market as export competitiveness. This paper mainly focuses on exchange rate and price level as factors affecting export share. Export performance is observed through the RCA (Revealed Comparative Advantage) index and CMS (Constant Market Share) analysis. The RCA index reveals whether a country has a comparative advantage for certain products. CMS analysis decomposes export change into four factors: (1) increased world demand; (2) increased market demand; (3) increased demand for each product; and (4) residual factor (regarded as the competitive factor).3. The analysis is conducted on Australian export data from 1970 to 1992. The RCA index indicates that primary commodities, such as milk, textile fibres and metalliferous ores, have a greater comparative advantage than cheese, textile yam, fabrics, made-up articles, iron and steel and non-ferrous metals. With the results of CSM analysis, export increases in primary products are mainly explained by world demand and market demand. However, from 1979 to 1985, a period of exchange rate devaluation, the competitive factor accounts for a greater proportion of increased exports.4. To examine whether exchange rate fluctuations affect the export competitiveness of Australian primary commodities a regression analysis is conducted. The real effective exchange rate (REER) and the domestic price index of each commodity are explanatory variables. The RCA index and the competitive factor of each product are dependent variables. The products are categorized into three types by the regression analysis: (1) those where exchange rate depreciation contributed to export expansion; (2) those where exchange rate appreciation contributed to export expansion; and (3) those where exchange rate and price level were not factors in export expansion of the product.5. Case (1) supports the conventional view, but cases (2) and (3) are against it. As for case (2), it is pointed out that there is a possibility that intermediate inputs are mostly imported so the appreciation reduced the cost of production. In case (3) non-price factors are more important than price factors in explaining the export expansion.

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This paper aims to explain the significance of recent multiculturalization in Australian urban society. Since Gough Whitlam came to political power in 1972, Australia has been moving toward a multicultural society which respects all ethnic cultures equally under the law. Not only in governmental administration, but also in consumption activity, the influences of multiculturalism are outstanding nowadays. This social tendency is also evident in the food industry of this country. Formerly, it was said that Australian food was an imitation of simple British cuisine. But with the contribution of ethnic foods, imported from overseas by immigrants, the food of this country has become more varied, especially in urban areas. Like Sydney, Melbourne is widely known as a cosmopolitan city. In Melbourne the number of Asian restaurants is increasing rapidly. This phenomenon is the result of several factors such as, the high coefficient of utilization by ethnic communities, the inexpensive price of ethnic cuisines, and the diffusion of ethnic foods into the host society. According to earlier studies, immigrants from South East Asia and East Asia use restaurants frequently. However, even though the number of Asian immigrants is increasing significantly, they are still a minority group in Australia. To increase their market, ethnic restaurants have had to open their doors to the host society. It is often said that Asian foods are cheaper than European foods in Australia. Certainly, some Asian foods such as Chinese and Vietnamese are less expensive than European cuisines. This is one of the most important factors for restaurants to survive in the competitive food industry. The diffusion of restaurants into the host society varies from ethnic group to ethnic group. Some ethnic groups, such as the Chinese and Italian, are outstanding in the food industry. They easily appeal to and attract new customers from outside their ethnic communities. At the same time, Australian society has changed dramatically since the 1970s. For example, the enactment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act helped to increase female workforce participation and consequently the number of dual income families. This social change has accelerated the increase in the number of consumers dining out which has aided growth in the ethnic restaurant portion of the Australian food industry.

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the roles played by Australia in the reconstruction of postwar Japan's trade networks, by highlighting the policy of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) for Japan's postwar reconstruction of its trade networks with the sterling area. While Japan resumed its trading activities in 1947, it lacked the foreign currency to finance its purchase programs. The world-wide dollar shortage forced many countries to impose tight exchange controls, hampering the expansion of trade. Hence, the SCAP concluded the Overall (Sterling) Payments Agreement and the Sterling Trade Agreement with the sterling area in 1948. These agreements enabled Japan and the sterling area countries to trade on a sterling payment basis and to balance trade at the highest possible level through a semi-multilateral settlement system, whereby several sterling area countries, including Australia, combined as a single trading party with Japan, thus minimising the need to use scarce dollar funds. Before mid 1949, however, the SCAP did not show much interest in expanding procurement from the sterling area, which could not supply Japan with adequate amounts of essential commodities such as raw cotton and foodstuffs. On the other hand, the sterling area countries continued active purchasing, through easy sterling payment, of essential cotton textiles, which might otherwise have earned dollars for Japan. These factors resulted in the accumulation of a sterling surplus in the SCAP's hands. On the eve of the devaluation of the pound sterling in September 1949, it seemed imminent that the SCAP would invoke the 'dollar clause' of the Overall Payments Agreement, which entitled it to convert its sterling funds into dollars in such an emergency. Britain was so alarmed at this danger of dollar loss that it showed its preparedness to terminate the trade and payments agreements and to risk drastic curtailment of Japanese trade, by reintroducing dollar cash payments. It was the Supreme Commander, General Douglas MacArthur, who saved this situation by making it clear that he had no intention seek dollar payments from the sterling area countries. This worked as a frontrunner for the expansion of Japan's sterling trade. It seemed necessary for the SCAP to develop Japan's trade networks on a more multilateral basis centred on sterling channels, in order to attain its economic self-reliance without excessive dependence on US economic aid and dollar trade. Under this strategy, Australia played a role not only as an alternative commodity supplier but also as a lubricator of Japan's sterling trade by earning credits through its bilateral trade surplus with Japan and circulating them within the sterling area, thus supplying the other sterling countries with the purchasing power of Japanese goods.

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