Australian press perspectives on Lord Strickland’s Malta

Abstract

Based mainly on Australian press reportage from 1927 to 1932, when Lord Strickland held office in Malta, this article explores a mirror-like image of goings-on in a geographically far removed part of the one empire. Included in this are telling but so far barely known flashbacks from the same sources to the time when the Anglo-Maltese politician had served as a governor of three Australian states, with special reference to New South Wales, until 1917. Albeit in different ways and for diverse reasons, certain personality traits, as well as issues relating to church-state, intra-institutional and centre-periphery relations, evoked a resonance in Australia as they did in Malta. As far as governance was concerned, in Strickland’s New South Wales the tension was between governor, premier and parliament, as well as to a lesser extent between state and federal roles whereas in Malta it was between a legislative assembly and senate dominated by different parties in a diarchy, with dissonant pulls by London and Rome.