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The Governor–General CHAPTER V THE GOVERNOR-GENERALO, A MOST punctilious, prompt and copious correspondent was Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson, who presided over the Govern- ment of the Commonwealth from 1914 to 1920. His tall. perpendicular script was familiar to a host of friends in many countries, and his official letters to His Majesty the King and the four Secretaries of State during his period-Mr. Lewis Harcourt, Mr. Walter Long,2 Mr. Bonar Law3 and Lord hlilner'-would, if printed, fill several substantial volumes. His habit was to write even the longest letters with his own hand, for he had served his apprenticeship to official life in the Foreign Office at a period when the typewriter was still a new-fangled invention. He rarely dictated correspondence, but he kept typed copies of all important letters, and, being bq nature and training extremely orderly, filed them in classified, docketed packets. He was disturbed if a paper got out of its proper place. He wrote to Sir John Quick! part author oi Quick and Garran's well-known commentary on the Com- monwealth Constitution, warning him that the documents relating to the double dissolution, printed as a parliamentary paper on the 8th of October, 1914, were arranged in the wrong order. Such a fault, or anything like slovenliness or negligence in the transaction and record of official business, brought forth a gentle, but quite significant, reproof. In respect to business method, the Governor-General was one of the best trained public servants in the Commonwealth during the war years. - - 'This chapter is based upon the Novar papers at Raith. 'Rt. Hon. Viscount Long. President of Local Govt. Board, 19oo/5, 1915/16. Secretary of State for Colonies, 1916/18; First Lord of Admiralty, 1919/z1. 0; Rood Ashton, Troubridge, Wiltshire; b. Bath, 13 July, 18~4. Died, a6 Sept., 1914. * Rt. Hon. A. Bonar Law. Secretary of State for Colonies, 1915/16; Chancellor Df Exchequer, 1916/18; Lord Privy Seal, I~I~/ZI,Prime hlinister, 19aa/a3. B. New Brunswick, 16 Sept., 1838. Died 30 Oct, 1913. 'Viscount Milner. K.G., G.C.B., G C.M.G. Governor of Cape Colony, 1897/1901. of Transvaal and Orange River Colony, 19o1/5, meniber of British War Cabinet, 1916/18; Secretary of State for War, 1918. for Colonies, 1919/a1. B. Germanv (of British parents), a3 March, 1854. Died 13 May, ~gaj. "on. Sir John Quick, M.L.A., Victoria, 1880/8g; member of C'wealth House of Reps, 19o1/13; Poctmaster-General, i909/in: Deputv Precident. C'wealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, 19aa/3o. Of Bendigo, Vic.. b. Trweasa Farm, St. [ves, Cornwall, Eng., 14 April, 1851. Died 17 June, 1932. 168 1914-18] THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL IbY Among the non-official correspondents of the Governor- General were Lord Rosebery: his old chief and always his intimate friend ; Sir Cecil Spring-Rice,‘ the British Ambassador at Washington, for whom he cherished a warm affection; and Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, formerly President of the United States of America, a friend of many years’ standing. The numerous letters from Lord Rosebery during the war years were preserved in a special sealed packet. Spring-Rice was one of the most brilliant exponents of the epistolary art in his generation, as the two volumes of his published corre- spondence show; and the occasional receipt of a letter from him at Government House, Melbourne, must have been a glad event. The Governor-General invited Theodore Roosevelt to visit Australia in 1915 and see for himself how a young nation was responding to the call to arms; but the reply from Oyster Bay to “My dear Ronald” revealed the prophet of ‘I the strenuous life ” in a mood of depression, born of disgust with the American attitude towards the war and contempt for what appeared to him to be the evasive dialectic subtleties of President Woodrow Wilson. He did not wish to go anywhere; he was weary and sick at heart. The official correspondence was designed to give the King, or the Secretary of State, a picture of the Australian political scene, the disposition of parties, the parliamentary situation, the state of popurar feeling, the military prospects, together with cool judgments upon financial and commercial aspects. Sir Ronald travelled in every State of the Commonwealth, and had a happy faculty for genial intercourse with all sorts and conditions of men. The former provost of Kirkcaldv had learnt to be “a good mixer.” He could, by his sym- pathetic attitude and good huniour, draw people out. If he was sometimes bored he never showed it to those with whom he talked; and people who could tell him about their lives and labours on farms and sheep stations, in forests and mines, or wherever the work of the country was being done, were not the kind to weary his responsive nature. Indeed, the only instance of fatigue mentioned in Sir Ronald’s ~~ ~~ 0 Rt. Hon. the Earl of Rosebery, K.G., K.T. Prime Minister of Great Britain, 1894/5. B. 7 May, 1847. Died ar May, 1929. ’Rt. Hon. Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, G.C.M.G., G.C V 0. British Ambassador to U.S.A. 1913/18. Of London; b London, 27 Feb., 1859 Died 14 Feb., 1918. 170 AUSTRALIA DURING THE WAR [I914-18 extensive correspondence occurs in a record of his relations, not with ordinary people, who always interested him, but with a State Governor whose “conversation is like the Dee in spate,” and after a devastating evening with whom the Governor-General “ slept for seventeen hours on end.” It was customary, when he travelled, for him to be accompanied by members of Parliament for the constituencies wherein he had made engagements; and he was always especially pleased to make their acquaintance, and through them to learn not only their political views, but also what they had to tell about local industries, the trials of pioneering in wild country, and the lives of the people. He thus came to understand that in very many instances Australian public men have an extensive experience of life, and that there is often a great difference between the (‘ fire eater ” of Parliament and the platform, and the genial, breezy, anecdotal companion of the smoking room. Thirty years in the House of Commons, also, together with special experience as a party whip, had given Sir Ronald an intimate knowledge of the parliamentary mind. He had to handle a series of political crises probably as difficult as have ever faced a representative of the Crown in the Dominions; but there was never an occasion when his independence of judgment was at fault or when his decisions were fairly challengeable. The passion of parties surged in angry breakers, but the Governor-General stood steadily above the storms. He wrote as he talked, with an easy, free flow, enlivened often with flashes of humour and pointed with apt allusions. A good story which came to his ears was most likely to be passed on to Buckingham Palace or Downing Street. His comment (August, 1915) upon the extravagance of the States at a time when the stress of war should have called a halt to reckless expenditure: was accompanied by a whimsical reminder that the Federal Government was far from blameless on the same count :- “ The Federal Government preaches economy to the States (as well as to the private citizen, who is far more thrifty than his masters) and comparatively speaking it has been until recently in a position to do so. To-day, however, when there is a question of the reduction of the I9I4-ISl THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL 171 pay lists at Canberra, for P.O. buildings and other things, its attitude is that of the gentleman asked by a fellow guest to help him to his feet after dinner: ‘ No, I can’t do that, but just to show my friendship for you I will lie down beside you.‘ There can be no doubt now that our participation in Imperial loans accounts in part for the continued extravagance of all these seven govern- ments, and that but for the supply of ready money, the need for economy would have been better realised.” For the Australian people as a whole he maintained a warm, though critical, admiration, which was expressed in several of his official letters. The following estimates were both written in IgI4: “ The practical side of the Australian character comes out in their mobilisation, and will be apparent in the prosecution of the war. Being also extremely adaptable, they quickly seize on every device that suggests itself for accomplishing desirable ends, and will not, I imagine, stick at any rule-of-thumb procedure to achieve their purpose.” And again: “ Happy-go-lucky methods are typical of this people. They pursue them with a grasp of the realities,‘ an astuteness and energy which are not without success in politics but are excessively disconcerting in war time.” I1 The Governor-General worked with three Prime Ministers -Mr. Cook, Mr. Fisher and Mr. Hughes-and with Senator Pearce and Blr. Watt as Acting Prime Ministers during the two visits of Mr. Hughes to Europe. The other ministers with whom he came in closest contact were Mr. Tudor, Sir William Irvine, and Sir John Forrest, with all of whom he worked on the friendliest terms. Mr. Fisher he esteemed as a man who- “played with all his cards on the talde, and according to his own fixed rules. He was absorbed in his own opinions, which are unchangeable. Nevertheless, such is 1 72 AUSTRALIA DURING THE WAR [I91547 his honesty and public spirit that it is always a pleasure to confer with him as a friend, and as a minister it was often useful to do so.” When Mr.
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