This book is the first detailed study of what happened when the well-established Australian colonial governments joined together to form the Commonwealth of Australia. It tells how the State politicians, anxious not to lose the political limelight, strove to maintain their former power and status virtually unchanged, and how the politicians of the new Commonwealth Government seized every opportunity to enhance their own authority and prestige.

This is a collection of various documents, correspondence and memoranda dealing generally with the boundaries up to 1962. They have been reproduced as faithfully as is possible in this format from original material in Canberra, London and The Hague. Some of the translations are official; others have been made for this volume. Documents and Correspondence on New Guinea{u2019}s Boundaries is a complementary volume to Dr van der Veur{u2019}s main study Search for New Guinea{u2019}s Boundaries which is described on the back flap of this book.

Migrant organisations supply more than mere support for in dividual immigrants. They enable those who so wish to preserve something of the life, language and culture of the home country. The three groups of migrant or ganisations studied here - Polish, Dutch and Maltese - differ widely in their aims and success. The Polish migrant organisations in Melbourne are mainly intent on preserving Polishness, not only among those who migrated here from Poland but also in the younger generations who were small children when their parents came to Australia or who were born here.

The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania 1825-50 is the first detailed and documentary history of the seminal period of Roman Catholic missionary activity in Oceania. Before 1825 there had been sporadic missionary efforts but from the founding of the Prefecture Apostolic of the Sandwich Islands in 1825 there was continued development in Australia, New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.

The great post-war immigration boom has affected Australian society in many ways. Little is known, however, about how New Australians have affected, and been affected by the Australian political system. This study, carried out in Brisbane, is concerned with the two largest groups of post-war immigrants, the British and Italian.

More than three thousand years ago incredibly skilled navigators from Southeast Asia began their voyages of discovery to the Polynesian Islands. Settling there, they developed a distinctive and complex culture. In the past two decades archaeologists and anthropologists have succeeded in reconstructing the course of those voyages and the emergence of a Polynesian culture. In this volume an outstanding group of scholars takes the story of Polynesia from its origins near the eastern tip of New Guinea to the first encounter with Europeans, just two hundred years ago.

In March 1871, in the aftermath of France's humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the workers, radicals, and 'little people' of Paris rose in revolt. The rebels saw themselves as heirs to a great French revolutionary and Parisian tradition, carriers of the demand for popular initiative and popular participation. They were republican, anti-clerical, and, to a large extent, socialist. The Commune of Paris which they proclaimed on 26 March 1871 was dedicated to these principles and beliefs.