From the initial decision to found a settlement in Australia, people have been faced with the problem of distance. The distance from England and other nations to Australia was immense and not easily traversed. However the distance to the outside world was not the only type of hardship or form of distance to cope with for those who lived in Australia, for the distance from one colony or port of call to the next was also a major factor. Geoffrey Blainey’s “The Tyranny of Distance” and J. H. Bradley’s “Distance within Australia: Was It a Tyrant” discuss this problem of distance. As the distance surrounding the settling of Australia was considered to be a problem and often cursed, does this make it a tyranny or something that shaped Australians into the type of people we are today?
Distance was not really the tyrant represented in the works by Blainey and Bradley; instead it could be seen as being more of a benevolent dictator. Distance and the problems associated with it were one of the major components that forged the backbone of the early settlers. The settlers were forced to become self sufficient as quickly as possible, because they could not rely on regular delivery of supplies occurring frequently enough. Not o

The distance between places played a major role in decisions on raising families and who people met and associated with. But it was what made the people into the backbone of Australia. The will of the people to survive and to be on their own terms created the deep passion that became associated with the early settlers of Australia. Their fortitude and courage were passed on to successive generations along with their increased knowledge and ever changing perceptions of the land they lived in. Whilst hardships can make life seem impossible and difficult it does not necessarily make it a tyranny. Especially when tyranny has to be created by a tyrant, and therefore distance being an inanimate factor cannot be the tyrant to create tyranny. It can merely make life more of a challenge that it may otherwise have been. Therefore Blainey and Bradley’s perceptions of distance being a tyranny cannot be classed as correct in the context of what tyranny is but neither can their views be classed as wrong.

The early explorers not only cursed the distance and the problems associated with it, but took a great deal of pride and satisfaction in the fame associated with being the first to open up the land and assist in establishing the early roadways within the colonies. These emotions came from having virtually total freedom of choice in the way the country was settled and consequently established. England did not have a great deal of input into the actual colonization process of Australia. They provided the supplies, a basic initial currency