1 the Balance of Power in Second World War Australia: the Deliberative Role of Coles and Wilson in the House of Repres

THE BALANCE OF POWER IN SECOND WORLD WAR AUSTRALIA: THE DELIBERATIVE ROLE OF COLES AND WILSON IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FROM 1940

Christopher Hayman

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University of New South Wales

2005.

1 THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Thesis/Dissertation Sheet Surname or Family name: HAYMAN First name: CHRISTOPHER Other name/s: CHARLES DOUGLAS Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: PhD School: POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Faculty: ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Title: THE BALANCE OF POWER IN SECOND WORLD WAR AUSTRALIA: THE DELIBERATIVE ROLE OF INDEPENDENTS COLES AND WILSON IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FROM 1940. Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE)

The problem being investigated is the historical situation relating to two independent MPs holding the balance of power in the Australian House of Representatives in 1940 and 1941. The two MPs, Arthur Coles and Alex Wilson, supported the conservative Menzies and Fadden governments before shifting their support (on October 3 1941) to the Labor Party led by Curtin. The procedure followed is the examination, in the form of a historical narrative, of primary evidence in private papers (such as Coles’s), analysis of Hansard (CPD), local and metropolitan newspapers. Also examined are references to the two independents in secondary literature. The key focus of interest will be the idea that chance or serendipity played a major role in achieving all the key outcomes which many Australians (and historians like Hasluck) often otherwise depict as the triumph of good sense within a supposedly non-problematic two- party political system which self-selected the best possible leadership during time of war. Coles took over the seat of a popular Cabinet minister who had died in an air disaster. Coles’s and Wilson’s holding the balance of power was another extreme aberration, as no House of Representatives from 1906 to 1940, and none since, has not had either of the two party blocs (Labor and anti-Labor) without a majority. Hasluck, the most influential historian of Australian politics during the 1939-1945 war, viewed the fact of Coles’s and Wilson’s serendipity as evidence, in itself, of their wider historical, ideological and political irrelevance. The general results obtained by pursuing a critical historical narrative approach is that a strong counter-argument has been developed that suggests that Hasluck (and wider historical memory) has insufficiently valued as historical factors Coles’s and Wilson’s ideological aims. Coles was a representative of business progressivism and Wilson of agrarian socialism. The major conclusion reached is that Coles’s and Wilson’s wider aims led them to adopt the tactic of timing their shift to Labor so as to maximize their ideological influence on the Labor administration that would result whenever they decided to exercise their entirely serendipitously attained balance of power.

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Preface

It is possible to develop a counterfactual case against Sir Paul Hasluck’s influential The Government and the People which argues against reading too much into the fact that two independents held the balance of power in the House of Representatives during 1940-1943. Hasluck is correct in arguing that Coles and Wilson, the two independents, found themselves understood as political amateurs and cranks by the minority conservative governments they decided to support from September 1940 to October 1941. It is possible to argue against Hasluck’s and the majority view by pointing out that, far from being unrepresentative cranks, Arthur Coles was a nationally significant business person and Alex Wilson was a significant farmer-interest group representative. Coles and Wilson, it could be argued, all along, had the potential to provide either minority party-bloc not just with the votes necessary to govern but also with important symbolic cross-class legitimation for their party bloc’s business and farm policies.

Labor, after October 3 1941, openly and actively supported by Coles and Wilson did in fact forge a genuinely national, united and popularly supported war-effort. Labor’s, Coles’s and Wilson’s policy coalition was effective and focused in contrast to the severely compromised attempt by the minority Menzies and Fadden governments to work with the two independents. Labor, with Coles’s and Wilson’s explicit and open support, ushered in the Keynesian revolution, and an exponential increase in the power, scope and responsibility of the Federal level of government. Coles and Wilson, therefore, provided significant nurture and comfort towards Labor’s project, which, Labor reciprocated by validating key aspects of Coles’s and Wilson’s self-stated aims and projects.

Labor’s relationship with Coles and Wilson stands in contrast to how the non-Labor minority parties treated them. Prime Minister Menzies and even more so Prime Minister Fadden refused to take seriously the rhetoric and policy-goals of Coles and Wilson and sought to avoid having to enter into genuine negotiation with them. Post October 3 1941, Labor and the balance of power independents revived, at least to some extent, the pre 1909 mode of genuine multi-party negotiation over key national policy goals.

All this adds up to seeing the deal organised by Labor with Coles and Wilson in October 1941 as a significant moment in Australian policy history and not just the footnote it has tended to have been seen as until now.

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface:…………………………………………………………………………...... 1 Table of contents………………………………………………………………….. .2 List of Abbreviations...... 3 Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………....4 Introduction:………………………………………………………………………...5

Chapter I: A narrative historical account of the Independents in the Australian House of Representatives in 1941 with a focus on their deliberative role………………………………………………………...8

Chapter II: Literature Review……………………………………………………...60

Chapter III: Coles in the run-up to the September 1940 general election and the Immediate aftermath…………………………………………………..82

Chapter IV: Wilson in the run-up to the September 1940 general election and the Immediate aftermath…………………………………………………..111

Chapter V: Coles and Wilson between late 1940 and July 1941…………………..154

ChapterV1: The crucial end-game of July-August –1941. ……...... 217

Chapter VII: The political crisis in Canberra from late August to early October 1941. ………………………………………………………………….237

Conclusion:………………………………………………………………………...... 300

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………...309

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.

ABDA American, British, Dutch, Australian Area. ALP Australian Labor Party...... ACTU Australian Council of Trade Unions………………… ARP Air Raid Precautions AWF Australian Wheatgrowers Federation. BCPA British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines. FCP Federal Country Party FSA. Farmer’s and Settlers Association...... I.PA. Independent Policy Association (New South Wales) ...... I.PA(Vic) Independent Policy Association (Victoria)...... MPs Members of Parliament MHR Member of the House of Representatives RES Royal Empire Society SMH Sydney Morning Herald TAA Trans Australia Airlines UAP United Australia Party……………………………………… UCP United Country Party ...... VWGA. Victorian Wheatgrowers Association…………………… VWWGA Victorian Wool and Wheatgrowers Association...... YNA. Young Nationalists Association………………………..

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to express sincere appreciation to Professor Elaine Thompson as my principal supervisor. Professor Thompson has been an invaluable and absolutely essential guide and her work in regard to Australian egalitarianism has proven a great inspiration to me. I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to Professor Jo-Anne Pemberton, who was my co-supervisor for the latter part of the thesis preparation period. I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to Professor Damian Grace and Dr. Michael

Wearing who were my joint supervisors before I transferred to the School of Politics and International Relations and also to acknowledge Professor

Allan Borowski who was my acting supervisor while my two original supervisors were both on leave for one Semester. I would also like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance and advice received from Professors

Stephen Fortescue, and Gavin Kitching and from the administrative staff of the School of Politics and International Relations.

Introduction to thesis:

This thesis will explore the political history of the only time since

1910 in Australia when an entire parliament rose and fell without the

House of Representatives seeing one of the two major party blocs holding a majority of the seats. Arthur Coles was one of the two

MPs who held the balance of power and Alex Wilson the other.

Voting together Coles and Wilson could give either party bloc a safe working majority. If each decided to vote for the other side then they would produce an effective deadlock.

A key issue to be explored is why both men, who were more or less natural conservatives, and who supported the conservative bloc from late 1940 to late 1941, changed their minds and decided to support the Labor Party bloc.

What was the nature of the responsibility of the individual MP in the supposedly ‘mass society’ which had grown up in Australia and most of the rest of the world by 1941? Coles stood in 1940 as an independent but was unopposed by the major conservative party who also allowed its members to volunteer to work for him at booths and in other ways. Members of the United Country Party of Victoria, (UCP) also, actively supported Wilson. The UCP had an ambivalent relationship with the wider Country Party which ran a candidate against Wilson at the

1940 elections, just as it had done in 1937 when he had first been elected,

Coles and Wilson were like anyone else in 1940s Australia and could not coherently claim the sort of freedom to act, as they liked, in

the way most MPs said they liked to operate - until the latter part of the nineteenth century.

Considerable energy has been put into theorising the dynamics of mass democracy and a more or less consensus view is that so called independent MPs still conform to one or other of the key ideological positions of the day. In the Australian setting the electoral laws and structure of the democratic system ensured a general bifurcation into two opposing blocs or groups of parties. The Westminster system is the system underlying the way Australian parliaments run and relate to the wider structures of governance. The Westminster system, for some time before large parties had developed, had already recognised the existence of a vaguely bifurcated parliament – with a Government and Opposition sitting facing each other.

Until the 1890s, however, factions rather than parties prevailed and most

MPs resisted conforming to the discipline of a tightly organised party.

Since the early twentieth century a two party system has tended to operate as well. In some other mass democracies, there are three, four, or five party systems operating. In Australia such a multi-party system operated briefly before key factional groupings self-organised and/or were forced by wider societal dynamics into two generally opposed ‘blocs’ of parties.

Coles and Wilson, bucked the trend, but they were not alone. It was rare for the House of Representatives not to have one or more people sitting in it who described themselves as independents. The key difference between this more widely prevailing situation and 1940-1943, was, as stated above, that this

time the two main independents sitting in the House also serendipitously held the balance of power.

What does all this mean for the common-sense idea that it is best to have predictable and stable self-organising systems operating in such contexts as parliaments? A key issue to consider is whether it was problematic or not, for the good governance of Australia in 1941 for the two independents to have held the balance of power. The thesis will explore the political history of the hung parliament of 1940-1943 (mostly up to 1941) and will, within the limits of its narrative approach, seek to address all the issues raised above.

Chapter One: A narrative historical account of the Independents in the

Australian House of Representatives in 1941 with a focus on their deliberative role.

This thesis is a narrative history of the role played by the two independents who voted the Curtin Labor government into power on the third of October 1941.

The narrative rests primarily upon interpretation of newspaper accounts of both

MPs non-parliamentary speeches and of the C.P.D. record. Considerable space has been devoted within the narrative to a critical response to some of the secondary literature about Australian war-time and inter-war period politics. The main work being responded to is Volume One of Hasluck’s The Government and the People .1

Hasluck’s book can be justifiably seen as a key text and representative in its judgement that the role of the two independents was a marginal one. 2 Hasluck, in turn, was deeply influenced by the key writers about Australian politics during the several decades prior to the war such as Shann, Price, Portus and

Hancock. 3

Collingwood argued that more or less generally accepted historical judgements like ‘the Normans established effective control over England’ should be regularly put up to critical re-examination so as to free history from its ‘dependence on fixed points supplied from without’. 4 So, to state as clearly and as simply as possible, this thesis is a narrative history of a key period in the

1 P. Hasluck, 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 Australia in the War of 1939-45 . Series 4 (Civil), Vol. 1. Canberra, Australian War Memorial. 2 See T. Stannage, K. Saunders, and R. Nile (eds.) 1998. Paul Hasluck in Australian History: Civic Personality and Public Life . St. Lucia. University of Queensland Press. 3 E.O.G. Shann. 1930. An Economic History of Australia. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; A.G. Price. Causal Geography (4 th ed.). Adelaide, Rigby; G.V.Portus. 1933. Australia: An Economic Interpretation. Sydney, Angus and Robertson; W.K. Hancock. 1930. Australia . London, Ernest Benn. 4 R.G. Collingwood. (T. M. Knox ed.) (1946) 1961. The Idea of History . London. Oxford University Press: 245.

parliamentary careers of the two independent MPs Coles and Wilson. This thesis is also a counter-factual case-study rather than an all-out attempt at a comprehensive re-interpretation of Australian politics of the mid twentieth century.

It is a case-study in that focuses on Coles and Wilson and their strategy and tactics during the period 1940-1941. It is a counter-factual critical historical narrative in that it seeks to provide enough argumentation to gainsay the judgement made by Hasluck that Coles’s and Wilson’s roles were marginal at best. 5

Coles and Wilson have been remembered, on the whole, by people who often felt that whatever they did remember of the two MPs was not much worth remembering. The memory of successful politicians is contaminated by several layers of rationalisation. Politicians who end up on top of the pile, along with those who study them, sometimes fail to give due weight to key events that took place in the lobbies or to votes that just came off or almost came off. 6

The consensus view is that the two major parties more or less determined what happened in Australian politics and policy-making during the 1940’s.

Hasluck’s views about the trend of Federal political events between 1939-

1941 have become the generally accepted wisdom (as will be argued in Chapter

2). Key people writing on Australian politics in the 1930’s and 1940’s like

G.V. Portus, A. G. Price, C. H. Grattan and W. K. Hancock all concur with

5P. Hasluck, 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941… :517-518. 6 J. Dienstag. 1997. Dancing in chairs: narrative and memory in political theory. Stanford, Stanford University Press.

Hasluck’s assessment that no individual MP could play a genuinely determinative role in the political outcomes of the time. 7

G. V. Portus was perhaps the most important of these socio-political commentators and his views on the collectivist nature of Australian politics deeply influenced such key actor/intellectuals as Evatt. 8 Portus, Evatt and Hasluck can all be cited as indicating that individual MPs have to bow to the collectivistic realities of ongoing modernisation, interest-group needs and class interests. 9

Coles and Wilson have been largely forgotten in the ongoing discourse about Australian political history during the Second World War. This study will be forced to make some tentative judgements developed, partly at least, from material drawn from the highly re-worked accounts of major players like Fadden,

Spender and Jack Lang. The extreme variation in reliability of material from which judgements are being made, in itself, should not prohibit the making of some historical judgements from such material. 10

In this study no individual assessment, summation, comment, observation or judgement made after citing one particular source should be understood to carry any sense of absoluteness. In a verstehen type study, as this study is, the aim is for a general tenor, for the development of a general drift of

7 G.V.Portus. 1933. Australia: An Economic Interpretation…; A. G. Price.1945. Australia Comes of Age. Melbourne, Georgian House; C.H. Grattan. 1942. Introducing Australia. New York, John Day; W.K. Hancock. 1930. Australia … 8 See J. Walter and T.Moore. 2002. ‘The New Social Order? Australia’s contribution to 'new liberal' thinking in the interwar period’ Paper presented to the Jubilee Conference of Australasian Political Studies Association, ANU, Canberra. October 2002. http://arts.anu.edu.au/sss/apsapapers/walterand moore.pdf . 9 G.V.Portus. 1933. Australia: An Economic Interpretation…; H.V. Evatt. (1940) 1979. William Holman Australian Labour Leader. Sydney, Angus and Robertson; P. Hasluck (N. Hasluck ed.). 1997. The Chance of Politics . Melbourne, Text Publishing. 10 See D. C. Pitt. 1975. ‘The Critical Analysis of Documentary Evidence’ in G. H. Lewis (ed.) First Fights in the Kitchen: Manners and Methods in Social Science Research. Pacific Palisades, Goodyear Publishing Company: 319-331.

interpretation within the overall narrative. 11 The reason why so much space has been devoted to documentary evidence like Hansard and electorate speeches is to let Coles and Wilson speak as they wished to be understood at the time. 12

Additional focus and clarity for any judgements made is achieved by critical use of interpretative, sociological, economic and historical texts in the way that assist in grounding the research. 13 A further level of critique underlying any judgement that is ventured is achieved by critically referring to the insights from a wide range of approaches to history, sociology, class, structural issues and economics. The judgements made, therefore, cannot be dismissed as summations that are influenced by the views of one or two secondary texts or unduly reliant on any much later memoir comment. Bunzel points out that some studies that take pride in access to a newly unearthed primary material can rely too much on a narrow range of secondary sources to help interpret this material. 14 Nor can this approach be seen as naively accepting the face value self-justifications of

Coles, Wilson or any other actor. Citations in the body of the text of anyone’s comments are taken as starting point for further reflection or presented after space has been devoted to alternative explanations 15

It is another question as to how much weight can be attached to the judgements developed as the narrative develops and to the judgements made in

11 See P. Ricoeur 1981 (Translated by J. B. Thompson) Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation . Cambridge, New York, Cambridge University Press, Paris, Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme Also A. O’Hear (ed.) 1996. Verstehen and humane understanding. Cambridge, New York, Cambridge University Press. 12 A. Megill. 1989 ‘Recounting the Past: 'Description', Explanation and Narrative in Historiography’ The American Historical Review 94:3: June: 627-653. 13 See J. Corbin and A. Strauss. 1990. ‘Grounded Theory Research: procedures, canons and evaluative criteria’ Qualitative Sociology 13:3-21. 14 See M. Bunzel. 1997. Real History: Reflections on Historical Practice. London, New York, Cambridge University Press. 15 S. Rigby. 1995 ‘Historical Causation: Is one thing more important than another?’ History 80:227-242.

the summation. 16 Perhaps the question being asked is too big to ask of the material and of the main subjects? Perhaps it is a question worthy only of being asked about key historical figures like Curtin or Menzies?

It may be that the greatest usefulness of this study lies in the hermeneutic value arising from asking whether two independent MPs could have any impact on key political actors framing high policy in time of war. 17 One contribution this study can definitely make, then, is to identify the opportunities that Coles and

Wilson would have needed to take up in order to have made an historically significant contribution.

Despite Coles’s and Wilson’s relative historical obscurity more words have been printed about them than many more nominally senior politicians in Australian federal politics. McWilliams the first parliamentary leader of the Country Party springs to mind. Coles and Wilson have had much more written about them than

T. J. Collins, Herbert Brayley, Patrick Ashley and at least another third of the other Federal Ministers who held office between 1939 and 1942. Although, for many who held high office, there are at least Cabinet records and ministerial files. Coles and Wilson have only generated the sources cited in this study and the records of Joint Parliamentary Committees.

It still may be that Coles’s and Wilson’s position will remain unchanged in terms of the judgement of history. There is always, however, an outside chance that Coles and Wilson have been unduly neglected. It may be that the relative

16 J. Levy. 2002. ‘Necessary conditions in case studies: preferences,constraints and choices in July 1914’ in G.Goertz and H. Starr (eds.) Necessary conditions; theory, methodology and applications , New York,Knopf. 17 A. Magill. 1998. ‘Does Narrative have a Cognitive Value of its Own?’ in H.W. Blanke, F.J. Jaegar and T. Sandkühler (eds.) Dimensionen der Historik: Geschichtstheorie, Wissenschafsgeschichte und Geschichtskultur heute: Jörn Rüsen zum 60 Gerburtstag. Köln, Böhlau:41-52.

neglect of Coles and Wilson is part of a wider failure to focus on the role of independents and small-party politicians in mid-century Australia. 18

The purpose of this study is not to provide a critique of all the critical literature about Australian politics that appeared in the 1930’s and early 1940’s.

Key people writing on local politics in the 1930’s like G.V. Portus, however, must be acknowledged as playing a central role in influencing political actors like

Hasluck, Archibald Grenfell-Price, Evatt and even Curtin and Menzies. 19 This case-study, in order to keep focus, cannot give itself the remit to become a study of the relative roles of the other key actors like Menzies and Curtin. Nor does a case-study approach allow for an extended focus on the key contextualising factors that sustained the major party blocs. It is not even possible to devote much space to Coles’s and Wilson’s biographical details and their political activities before 1940 and after 1941. 20

Argyris points out the dangers in action focused research of not zeroing in on a key governing variable and how the actors under study took strategic actions relative to this variable. 21 Argryis also argues that a great deal of existing research needs to be in place about the consequences flowing from the key strategic decisions taken by the actors under consideration. In the case of

Coles and Wilson there is a wealth of research into how the Australian polity evolved and developed due to the pressures of the Second World War. 22

Chapter 2 will argue that Hasluck’s views about what was important in

Australian politics in the 1940’s are representative of the views held by a

18 See D. Jaensch and D. Mathieson .1998. A Plague on Both Your Houses Minor Parties in Australia. St. Leonards, Allen and Unwin . 19 See J.Walter and T.Moore. 2002. ‘The new social order…’… 20 See Chapters 3 and 4 of this study. 21 C. Argyris. 1985. Action Science, methods and skills for research. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. 22 See Chapter 2 (Literature Review).

much wider intellectual milieu. Rowse identifies this wider ‘Australian liberal’ milieu as being dominant within Australia during the mid-century. 23 In Chapter 2 it will also be argued that Hasluck’s war-history went beyond being representative of the ‘Australian liberal’ view and became a key influence on most later writing about Australian politics during the Second World War.

In any case-study it remains important to focus on the most relevant secondary text or texts which happens, in this situation to be Hasluck. A key focus in any case-study should be on any pace-setter secondary text that is generally acknowledged to sum up what is being said by the wider discourse about the subject under consideration. All the other direct references to Coles and Wilson, apart from Hasluck’s, will also be examined and critically assessed.

This thesis, therefore, will critique a range of source materials that varies widely in its reliability, quality, scope and inherent usefulness. Among the primary sources to be considered include a heretofore uncritiqued private letter from

Menzies to Coles, found in the Coles papers in the National Library. It is true that the majority of the critical judgements found within this thesis must depend on assessments formed after reading a wide range of secondary works. It is also true that most historians and political scientists might worry about judgements being formed that cannot always distinguish when they do and do not rely on hearsay and second-hand impressions. 24

Any final judgements made in the formal conclusion to this study will take the form of the sort of ‘narrative appraisal’ which seeks to connect historical

23 T. Rowse. 1978. Australian Liberalism and National Character. Malmsbury, Kibble Books. 24 I. Lustick. 1996.‘History, Historiography and Political Science: Multiple Historical Records and the Problem of Selection Bias’ American Political Science Review 90:3:605-618.

‘action’ to historical ‘sense’. 25 This study makes no claim to be engaging in the sort of ‘analytical narrative’ that extrapolates from experimentally derived demonstrations that quantitatively link ‘behaviour to determinants’.26

The final judgements made as the result of this narrative case-study will contribute to the existing discourse about the wider set of historical circumstances the case-study relates to. 27 In the case of Coles and Wilson, very little considered discourse has been devoted to them as historical problems or issues or as actors playing any sort of a role in the policy paradigm shift to Keynesianism. 28 It may be that an investigation of Coles and Wilson will serve to close down further unnecessary speculation about the historical significance of political mavericks, ‘free-spirits’ and independent MPs in Second World War Australia.

It may be that this study’s main purpose will be to point back to the historical centrality of the interplay between the two major party blocs. 29

Herbert Butterfield said, in relation to an episode in European history:

It may take one hundred and fifty years before the most critical problem is brought to the consciousness of historians or the most acute of the controversial issues is raised. Even if by this time sufficient clues are in the hands of scholars, further delay may arise because of the tendency to fit the new evidence into a framework that has been allowed to become too rigid. …30

25 J. Mahoney. 1999. ‘Nominal, Ordinal and Narrative Appraisal in Macrocausal Analysis’ American Journal of Sociology 104:4:1154-1196. 26 See C. H. Cherryholmes. 1988. ‘Construct Validity and Discourses of Research’ American Journal of Education 96: May: 421-457 also M. Levi. 1999 ‘Producing An Analytic Narrative’ in J.R. Bowen and R. Petersen (eds.) Critical Comparisons in Politics and Culture , Cambridge, New York, Cambridge University Press:152-172. 27 J. Levy. 2002. ‘Necessary conditions in case studies: preferences, constraints and choices in July 1914’ In G.Goertz and H. Starr (eds.) Necessary conditions; theory, methodology and applications … 28 I. Lustick with D. Miodownick. 2000 ‘Deliberative Democracy and Public Discourse: The Agent Based Argument Repertoire Model’ Complexity 5:4:13-30. 29 J. Mahoney. 2000. ‘Path Dependence in Historical Sociology’ Theory and Society 29:507-548. 30 H. Butterfield. (1955) 1967. Man on His Past. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 168.

Butterfield (as just quoted above) points to another key role for the historian, that of the questioner of a ‘framework that has been allowed to become too rigid.’ It may be that too much of a ‘big-picture’ and big forces at play approach has operated until now. This study acknowledges that contemporary views, as well as later views, mostly assume that Coles and Wilson were ‘interfering amateurs’. Most people assumed that they at best momentarily interrupted the playing out of other inevitably greater and truly determinative political forces.

The case for undertaking this study at all is strengthened if a compelling theoretical reason can be found to justify this sort of counterfactual re-hashing of the historical record. There has been a recent revival of historiographical interest in the role of deliberation and in actions said to have been taken as a result of such deliberation. 31 Burke’s theory of deliberation as attenuated and critiqued by Beiner, Marsh, Fenna and others will be examined below and will act as the underlying basis for this counterfactual case-study. 32

Lukacs has undertaken several studies into the climate of deliberation and serendipity surrounding Churchill’s accession to the Prime Ministership in 1940. 33

Lukacs points out that small groups of MPs played a key role in determining events and not because of force of numbers or their socio-economic clout.

Lukacs argues these small groups of MPs only had at their disposal

31 J. Elster (ed.) 1998 Deliberative Democracy . Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 32 E. Burke. (originally published 1790) ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ in E. Burke, (C.C. Eliot ed.). 1937. Edmund Burke. On Taste; On the Sublime and the Beautiful, Reflections on the French Revolution; Letter to a Noble Lord. New York, P.F. Collier and Son.198-199; R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement . London, Methuen; I Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System: Political representation, economic competitiveness and Australian politics. Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh, Cambridge University Press and A. Fenna. 1996. ‘Political Alignments, Political Economy and Political Change in Australia 1890-1940’. Australian Journal of Political Science 30:1:67-81. 33 J.Lukacs. 2002. Five Days in London May 1940. Scribe Publications, Carlton North and 1990. The Duel: 10May-31July1940, The Eighty Days Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler. London, Bodley Head.

psychological tactics and the capacity to undertake moral pleading. 34 Luckacs also points out that pure chance or serendipity played a much greater role in this deliberative context than it might have otherwise. Luckacs also judges there is some truth in the observation that deliberation-in-common, when it takes place, often seems to be the by- product of an intellectually quirky, and morally ambiguous situation like a major national calamity or immanent invasion :

To invoke Pascal again:’ We understand more than we know’. According to logic, understanding is not only the result of knowledge, it necessarily follows knowledge. Yet there are myriads of instances and examples when understanding precedes knowledge, indeed when it leads to knowledge. 35

In order to make a valid historical judgement there does not need to be data available from which it is possible to make a strongly quantifiable measurement. 36 There an increasing recognition of the role of the case study as a hermeneutic clarifier and hypothesis generator. 37 Deliberation is of its very nature a fairly intangible thing, but only as intangible as other historical factors like kindness, consideration, earnestness, fearfulness and lethargy. 38

The historical sources being analysed in this study (speeches, newspaper articles, letters, reminiscences etc.,) are strong enough to allow for a historically focused ‘hermeneutic’ judgement to be made about the presence or absence of deliberation and who helped bring deliberation about. 39 It is true that most of the sources cited and analysed in this study cannot rationally be expected to

34 J.Lukacs. 2002. Five Days in London May 1940…:1-27. 35 J.Lukacs. 2002. Five Days in London May 1940…:31. 36 See M. A. K. Halliday. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: the social interpretation of language and meaning. Baltimore, University Park Press. 37 See R. Gomm, M. Hammersley and P. Foster (eds.) 2000. Case Study Method: key issues, key texts. London, Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications. 38 See T. Skocpol (ed.) 1984. Vision and Method in Historical Sociology. Cambridge, New York, Cambridge University Press. 39 P. Ricoeur 1981 (Translated by J. B. Thompson) Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences…

generate a quantitatively definitive judgement. 40 The primary and secondary sources are unsuitable for a full-fledged experimental study or a statistical analysis of the deliberative activity of MPs in Canberra in late 1941.

It is quite possible that this case-study could be used as the starting off point for future comparative studies, comparing 1941 with other periods when it might be hypothetically posited that there were ‘break-outs’ of heightened deliberativeness. 41 In Australian federal politics the candidates for a comparative study into break outs of deliberativeness might be the Deakinite period 1901-1909, the hung House of Representatives of 1941-1943 and the polity generated by the

Senates of the 1980’s and 1990’s.

It may be that issues about instances of deliberation in history are more fruitfully approached as philosophical or moral questions. 42 If a case-study of deliberation in history raises philosophical or moral questions then this points to the valuable role that can be played by the case study approach as a bridge between the theoretical and the empirical. 43 The situation under study is a particular sub-set (i.e. Coles and Wilson) of a wider real-life deliberative context (i.e. Federal parliament in 1941). The capacity to explore the issue historically is strengthened

40 See C. Geertz. 1980. ‘Blurred Genres: The Reconfiguration of Social Thought’ the American Scholar 49:2: Spring: 165-179. 41 See S. Lieberson. 1991. ‘Small N’s and Big Conclusions: An Examination of the Reasoning in Comparative Studies Based on a Small Number of Cases’ Social Forces 70: December: 307-320. 42 See M. Oakeshott. 1975. On Human Conduct. Oxford, Clarendon Press; R. Devigne. 1994. Recasting Conservatism: Oakeshott, Strauss and the response to postmodernism. New Haven, Yale University Press. 43 See R. Gomm, M. Hammersley and P. Foster (eds.) 2000. Case Study Method: key issues, key texts. London, Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications Cf. R.G. Collingwood. (T. M. Knox ed.) (1946) 1961, The Idea of History , London. Oxford University; D. Boucher, J. Connelly and T. Madood (eds.) 1995. Philosophy, history and civilisation: interdisciplinary perspectives on R.G. Collingwood. Cambridge, New York, Cambridge University Press.

because key informing insights can be gleaned from political science, sociology and other human and social sciences beyond.44

The approach to be taken will be to take deliberativeness as a real social phenomenon and apply it to this particular case study. That is deliberativeness will be taken to be as real a social/political phenomenon as say mass-hysteria or moral panics have been taken to be. 45 Deliberation, for the purposes of this study will not be understood as being merely and only a philosophical or moral theoretical construct. 46 So, within the bounds of the necessarily self-limiting methodology outlined so far some attempt will be made to argue for upgrading the importance of the deliberative role played by Coles and Wilson .

It is easier to make the case for undertaking a study to examine such claims because of the wider movement in history, historical sociology and decision-making studies towards ‘bringing-back-in’ deliberation. 47 There is also a renewed focus on the tactics and trajectories of individual MPs as deliberative factors in determining political and policy outcomes. 48

It may well be that the only sound conclusion will be that Coles’s and

Wilson’s tactics possibly deserve a little more publicity than they have received up till now but that is about all there is to it. The exercise will at least have staked a claim for the utility of going back into the dusty rows of Hansards to

44 See G. K. Browning. 2004. Rethinking R.G. Collingwood: philosophy, politics and the unity of theory and practice. Basingstoke, New York, Palgrave Macmillan. 45 See J. Bohman and W. Rehg (eds.) 1997. Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press. 46 I. Lustick with D. Miodownick. 2000 ‘Deliberative Democracy and Public Discourse: The Agent Based Argument Repertoire Model’ Complexity 5:4:13-30. 47 See J. Bohman and W. Rehg (eds.) 1997. Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics… 48 See J, Dryzek. 1990. Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy and Political Science. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

affirm a wider faith in the role that considered and reflective discourse should have in human affairs. 49

It will remain true that in order to bring about policy change during the 1940’s, two-party politics, was the path that had the most traffic. A final argument for the utility of this study lies in the revival of interest in deliberation in cross-over studies into group dynamics, organisational change and outsider figures as facilitators of change. 50

In the case of Coles and Wilson the relative paucity of sources and the variable reliability that can be attached to them reinforces the reliance of the study on the theoretical justifications relating to deliberativeness introduced above.

It is fairly plausible to argue that much of the last sixty years (and more) of historical writing has neglected the role played by minor players and individual

MPs in potentially deliberative contexts such as parliaments. 51 This thesis is not about contesting facts, but it is about interpretation of facts that are more or less well established.

Australia’s political development during the Second World War is of ongoing interest to several hundred salaried professional academics, twenty thousand or so school teachers and many more tertiary and school students who are required to study twentieth century Australian history. It is actually quite remarkable that the myth like Gallipoli rather than the events that led up to

Kakoda still tend to grab the attention of this wider community of interest.

49 See S. Benhabib. 1992. Situating the self: gender, community and postmodernism in contemporary ethics. New York, Routledge. 50 See K. Lewin. (G.W. Lewin (ed.) 1948. Resolving social conflicts, selected papers on group dynamics 1935-1946). New York Harper; S. Stives and S. Wheelan (eds.) 1986. The Lewin legacy: selected papers on group dynamics. Berlin, New York, Springer-Verlag; C. Argyris. 1994‘A dialogue with Professors Lindblom and Argyris’ Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 4:3:357-366. 51 See D. Jaensch and D. Mathieson .1998. A Plague on Both Your Houses Minor Parties in Australia…

To reiterate - the object of the exercise is to test-out the perfectly valid historical -critical hypothesis that some genuine parliamentary deliberativeness took hold during the time Coles and Wilson held the balance of power. It is extremely important to note the caveats and self-limitations that are being placed on any predictive and analytical language that finds its way into this study.

The limitations in respect to the historical judgement forming approach that has been adopted in this study have been stated and restated in many different ways above. The caveat just mentioned about judgement-forming must especially be kept in mind because of the reliance on judgements formed from secondary and primary sources that come from a very wide range with a very varied quality of reliability. This caveat about conclusions drawn from cited documents has also been stated and re-stated in several different ways above.

The only way to remedy this recourse to relatively vague historical judgement-forming would have been to confine the historical question in hand to some minor sub-system within which Coles or Wilson operated. A good choice might be the Joint-Parliamentary committees they served on. Coles’s and/or Wilson’s contributions could be correlated with those of their fellow Committee members by such means as seeing what percentage of the text of the official reports of a committee reflected the opinions Coles and/or Wilson had expressed in general meetings of the committee.

The issue in this study is judging whether a historically significant increased amount of deliberation took place in a House of Parliament during a certain time period (1941). It may be that the sort of historical judgement being

required cannot be quantitatively substantiated at all and requires a focus on nuance rather than on any sort of absolute proof.

Caveats aside this study is claiming to proceed in the task of testing out to see if there is any chance that Coles and Wilson contributed anything of lasting political and historical significance to Australian political life. One theoretical possibility is that Burkean deliberativeness did take place with its attendant going beyond of interest-group agendas and party-bloc grandstanding. Is there a possibility that deliberativeness could have broken out in the early

1940’s, even in party-dominated, self-contained Federal political Canberra?

Is there the possibility that Coles’s and Wilson’s behaviour, particularly in late 1941, corresponds to the theoretically posited existence of the capability of

MPs to actually deliberate? The interchangeable terms ‘deliberate’, ‘deliberativeness’ and ‘deliberation-in-common’ are meant as Burke meant them. 52 The decision to opt for Burke’s understanding of deliberation was briefly outlined, much further above, when the decision to opt for deliberation as a empirical focus was first discussed. No coherent analysis could proceed without finally opting for one of the many theoretical understandings of deliberativeness. 53 Burke, along with some modern interpreters and inheritors of some (or all) of his views will now be examined in further detail.

Burke, and at least some of the other writers to be cited below, argue that independent MP’s, mavericks, outsiders and representatives of relatively

52 E. Burke. (originally published 1790) ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ in E. Burke,(C.C. Eliot ed.,). 1937. Edmund Burke. On Taste; On the Sublime and the Beautiful, Reflections on the French Revolution… ; D. Ritchie (ed.). 1990. Edmund Burke; appraisals and applications. New Brunswick, Transaction Publications; C. B. Macpherson. 1980. Edmund Burke. Oxford, New York, Oxford University Press. 53 See J. Uhr. 1998. Deliberative Democracy in Australia. The Changing Role of Parliament. Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh, Cambridge University Press: 3-34.

neglected constituencies often act as catalysts or facilitators of genuine episodes of deliberativeness. 54 A subsidiary argument to this latter one being that outbreaks of deliberativeness are rare enough anyway. 55 A further argument Burke and these writers make is that outbreaks of deliberativeness often occur against the express wishes of the normally dominant political players. 56

A number of writers who do not hold to an explicitly Burkean view of deliberativeness will also be cited at some length. 57 These post Burkeans will be cited to indicate linkages, cross-overs but also dissonance between Burkean and other views on deliberation. All the writers whose own text is quoted at length in the body of the text share Burke’s view that erstwhile marginal players end up participating more in decision-making during certain relatively rare periods when deliberativeness breaks-out. 58

The idea to test-out is the perhaps Pollyanna idea that individual MPs, can still decisively influence key political outcomes with their words as well as their actions. A further idea to test-out is that deliberativeness can perhaps best take place when the agenda of the facilitating MPs runs somewhat counter to the agendas of the generally dominant partisan blocs.

Could Coles and Wilson have played a greater historical role than the literature has tended to suggest? Is it worth bothering preserving the musty words of

54 F. Canavan. 1989. Edmund Burke: prescription and providence. Durham, Academic Press and the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy; I. Marsh. 1986. Policy making in a three party system: committees, coalitions and parliament. London, New York, Methuen. 55 See J. Uhr. 1998. Deliberative Democracy in Australia. The Changing Role of Parliament… :213-249. 56 I. Marsh .1995. ‘The Political Learning Disabilities of the Two Party Regime’. Australian Journal of Political Science 30 I Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System: Political representation, economic competitiveness and Australian politics. Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh, Cambridge: 29-35; 336-341. 57 E.g., I Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System: Political representation, economic competitiveness and Australian politics. Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh, Cambridge University Press and A. Fenna. 1996. ‘Political Alignments, Political Economy and Political Change in Australia 1890-1940’. Australian Journal of Political Science 30:1:67-81. 58 E.g. A. Fenna. 1996. ‘Political Alignments, Political Economy and Political Change…

long-dead MPs in Hansard archives? Or may we better turn to critical historical treatments of any particular period and understand MPs as ciphers of one or other of the greater socio-economic movements underway?

A further aspect that needs to be mentioned is that pure chance saw Coles and Wilson holding the balance of power between the two competing Labor and non-Labor party blocs. E.G. Whitlam, in the first flush of his election victory in

1973, replied to a letter of congratulation from Sir Arthur Coles:

I hope and believe the event will prove the most important for Australia since your vote made John Curtin Prime Minister of Australia 59

Whitlam points to the importance of the serendipity that allowed Coles to bring Curtin to power. Whitlam is also pointing out that Coles’s support sustained Curtin in power until the wider force of events rendered Coles’s support less than crucial. The idea of chance or of (in effect) Providential intervention via a series of happy coincidences is also a profoundly Burkean concept. 60 Of course, it goes beyond just Burke’s own conservative world-view. Views that link political outcomes to chance lie at the heart of a Judeo-Christian notion of history, politics, sociology and economics as R. G. Collingwood and

Oakeshott both pointed out . 61

Whitlam in his note to Coles invoked the spectre of what is called, later in this chapter, ‘serendipity in politics’. A key subsidiary concept for serendipity is the idea of deliberativeness as it originated in the pre-modern political discourse

59 Prime Minister to Sir Arthur Coles 1/2/73. Sir Arthur Coles Papers ANL: MS: 7296, Series 1 General Correspondence 1939-1977. Box 1 Folder 1. . 60 See F. Canavan. 1989. Edmund Burke: prescription and providence… 61 R.G. Collingwood. (T. M. Knox ed.) (1946) 1961, The Idea of History , London, Oxford University Press; M. Oakeshott. 1962. Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays . Oxford, Clarendon Press.

of Europe. 62 Burke claimed the capacity for deliberativeness still existed within law courts, parliaments, governing councils and elsewhere despite the influence of various sub-collectivities of interests, causes and classes. 63 Burke’s view was that deliberativeness took place when individual decision-makers had the moral sense to act in a way that transcended a calculus based upon their narrow self-interest as a member of a class, interest-group or party. 64

Hobbes, Machiavelli, Clausewitz and others took the notion of chance, common-good and the making of successful political/military decisions beyond the moral and religious bounds set for it by Burke. 65 Deliberation was a method that was always available to any wise Prince or General. Failure, defeat, confusion and bad-decision making was the result of a failure to have properly deliberated on an issue although chance and probability also played its part. 66 The alternative to proper deliberation was to put one’s faith just in chance or in such things as the stars, blind –dogma, hubris or some previous practice wrongly applied to the problem being faced. 67

Chance plays its role in that almost always there may have been a chance that a better outcome could have taken place had circumstances seen a better

62 See A. P. D’Entreves (ed.) (Translated by J.G. Dawson). 1959. Aquinas Selected Political Writings. Oxford, Basil Blackwell especially Summa Theologica Prima Secundae , Qu.97‘The Mutability of Human Law’:72-74. 63 See D. Ritchie (ed.). 1990. Edmund Burke; appraisals and applications…; F.A. von Hayek. 1960. The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, especially Chapter 4‘Freedom, Reason and Tradition’; G. Remer 1999. ‘Two Models of Deliberation’… 64 See L. Strauss. 1953. Natural Right and History. Chicago, University of Chicago Press: 300-314f; J. Baldacchino. 2002. ‘Ethics and the Common Good: Abstract vs. Experiential’ Humanitas XV: 2:25-59. 65 See A. Gat. 1989. The Origins of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to Clausewitz. Oxford, Clarendon Press, New York, Oxford University Press; A. J. Parel. 1992. The Machiavellian Cosmos. New Haven, Yale University Press. 66 M.E. Howard. 1983. Clausewitz. Oxford, New York, Oxford University Press. 67 R. Aron. (Translated by C. Booker and N. Stone). 1983. Clausewitz. Philosopher of War. New York, Simon and Schuster.

course of action taken in the first place. 68 The key to this way of thinking is the belief that something that might seem quite likely to happen can be overturned by exercise of prudent judgement accompanied by a bit of providential serendipity. 69 Burke privileges the exercise of morally informed political judgement in political decision-making in the achievement of political outcomes without conceding that this rules out genuine innovation. 70

Burke also rejects the primacy of the utilitarian option over others because of what McGee calls the ‘persistence of mimesis’ in his outlook. 71 Burke’s primacy of tradition over reason does not extend to expecting the same approach to adapting and dealing with past practices from a General as would be expected from a Bishop. (Though often bad Bishops act as Generals and bad Generals as Bishops).

Machiavelli and Clausewitz, in contrast, emphasise the need to seize the opportunity and make the right decision before it becomes too late. 72 Later humanism and much of later secular-humanism downplays the role of the intervention of luck in politics. 73 Contemporary theorists, other than explicit conservatives, tend not to see serendipity as a necessary ingredient in achieving successful political outcomes. The modernist outlook privileges technical knowledge over insight,

68 S.C. Nielsen. 2002. ‘The Public Morality of Carl von Clausewitz’ A Paper for Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association 24-27 March. 69 P. J. Stanlis. 1958. Edmund Burke and the natural law. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press. 70 J. Baldacchino. 1983. ‘The Value-Centred Historicism of Edmund Burke’ Modern Age 27:2: Spring. 71 T. Huhn. 2004. Imitation and society: the persistence of Mimesis in the aesthetics of Burke, Hogarth and Kant. University Park, University of Pennsylvania Press. 72 M. I. Handel. (ed.) Clausewitz and modern strategy. London, Totowa, Frank Cass; B.A. Lee and K.F. Walling (eds.). 2003. Strategic logic and political rationality: essays in honour of Michael .I. Handel. London, Portland, Frank Cass. 73 See J. B. Bury. 1920. The Idea of Progress: an inquiry into its origin and growth. London, Macmillan.

wisdom and tradition and often assumes (unlike Machiavelli or Clausewitz) that the role of chance can be effectively eliminated from human affairs. 74

Chapter 1 has so far outlined the argument that the roles played by Coles and Wilson might possibly have been underestimated. The underestimation arose, it was argued, due to the widely held view that Australian politics after 1909 came under the hegemonic influence of a two-party system. Under such a system the role of individuals, such as ordinary MPs, to decisively intervene and change the course of high policy is understood to be virtually non-existent.

Hasluck and most other writers following Hasluck treat this presence of two-party hegemony as what Collingwood calls an unexamined presupposition. 75 Collingwood’s long philosophical discussion of presuppositions can be by-passed, in this instance, and the heart of the matter summed up thus:

I have now to… show how Christianity jettisoned two of the leading ideas in Greco-Roman historiography, namely (1) the optimistic idea of human nature and (II) the substantialistic idea of eternal entities underlying the process of historical change’. Pagan historiography at least in these two regards started to creep back into Western historiography after the Renaissance and this became particularly so in the case of (II) in the nineteenth century with both positivism and materialism and even (really) Hegelianism and other catch-all approaches. 76

Collingwood means (as quoted just above) that the Christian view (which is essentially the same as the Muslim and Orthodox Jewish ) is that the true or right or better outcome can only be definitively judged to have taken place after the event. After the event there will often be a search for evidence that the outcome came about due to an against the grain delivery from

74 See B. de Jouvenal. 1967. (Translated by N. Lary) The Art of Conjecture. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 75 R.G. Collingwood. (T. M. Knox ed.) (1946) 1961, The Idea of History , London. Oxford University Press: 214-238; 234; 252-253; 257-263. 76 R.G. Collingwood. (T. M. Knox ed.) (1946) 1961, The Idea of History …: 46.

disaster, often upon the wings of a last minute deliverance. In such cases it is often said that events did not turn out the way that science and/or the entrails and/or the consensual and crude common sense view of the day had indicated the probable outcome to be. 77 It is out of a view of history as a story of ever present contingency that comes Burke’s view about the role of deliberation as a possible deliverer of the polity from ‘drifting’ into disaster. 78

Post Burke, other conservatives and anti-naturalists in historical explanation took up this idea of the link between deliberation and chance in social causation. 79 Collingwood argued that erroneously deterministic ways of thinking litter the historiography of all eras. All later eras (in effect) assume that history will repeat itself or that certain clear laws or trends or catch-all explanations can be found to explain every past event and predict every future event . 80 Collingwood argues that the challenging of such presuppositions is what often allows for progress to take place in the writing of history. Collingwood deals with this in his critique of Croce:

Croce has thus vindicated the autonomy of history, its right to conduct its own business in its own way, both against philosophy and against science… Consequently history must be kept free from any interference on the part of science, for unless it first established facts by its own independent work there would be no material for the scientist to handle 81

The presupposition that independents, free-spirited MPs and minor parties had little influence on Australian political history in the 1940s none the less frames and delimits the way the history of the period is read and understood.

77 D. N. Rosenthal. 1989. ‘Philosophy and Its History’ in A. Cohen and M. Dascal (eds.) The Institution of Philosophy , La Salle, Open Court: 141-176. 78 F. Canavan. 1989. Edmund Burke: prescription and providence … 79 See P. Winch. 1978. ‘Concepts and Actions’ in P. Gardiner (ed.) The Philosophy of History , Oxford, Oxford University Press: 45-50; Q. Skinner. 1978. ‘‘Social Meaning' and the Explanation of Social Action’ in P. Gardiner (ed.) The Philosophy of History …: 106-126. 80 See R. G. Collingwood. 1945. The Idea of Nature. Oxford, Clarendon Press. 81 R. G. Collingwood. (T. M. Knox ed.) (1946) 1961. The Idea of History …: 201.

That is the assumption about two-party dominance is a validly arrived at social scientific hypothesis but one that historians should continue to want to critique given Collingwood’s comment about history as being:

secured against the encroachments of science not because it already contains science as an element within itself, but because it must be complete before science begins. 82

The science, as such, should not be used as an excuse to shut down further historical critique of long held assumptions (if not supposed historical facts or generally accepted majority views) upon which scientists erect theories like the two-party system theory. This is the underlying argument put by H. Mayer. 1956.

‘Some Conceptions of the Australian Two-party System 1910-56’. 83 Underlying any presupposition about the hegemony of the two-party system in Australian politics in the 1940s is a further and even less often critically examined presupposition that chance has played relatively little role in determining the key outcomes in

Australian political history. Serendipity, or good luck is as a consequence an undervalued factor in assessing political outcomes in Australia even in those outcomes centred on political history in time of war.

Hasluck emphasises the over-arching importance of structural plans and absolute realities which reduced the principal political actors capacity to have reacted otherwise than they did. Hasluck’s views, which are more or less the definitive ones in Australian historiography on this period, are critiqued passim in this thesis . 84

82 R. G. Collingwood. (T. M. Knox ed.) (1946) 1961. The Idea of History …:201. 83 H. Mayer. 1956. ‘Some Conceptions of the Australian Two-party System 1910-56’ Historical Studies 7:27: November: 252-270. 84 P. Hasluck, 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 Australia in the War of 1939-45. Series 4 (Civil), Vol. 1…; P. Hasluck. 1970. The Government and the People 1942-1945 . Australia in the War of 1939-45 . Series 4 (Civil), Vol. 2. Canberra, Australian War Memorial.

Political philosophers like Machiavelli, von Clausewitz, Hobbes, and even

Hume (despite his views about cause and effect and miracles) have given prominent place to the role of chance in politics, particularly when tied to outcomes deriving from war. 85 Historical and social approaches, particularly after the rise of modern science, tended to look for a ‘linearity’ within which seemingly random interventions tended to be linked to wider underlying forces and factors. 86 I. Gürol points out that explanations focusing on the actions of chance interventions, especially by (or upon) individuals, also declined due to

Hume’s ‘demolition’ of the precise links between particular causes and particular effects. 87

Developments in contemporary theory, like that quoted above, even if focused, as in this case, on the metaphysical significance of ‘cause’ have tended to revive agendas and trajectories of social and historical explanation which in the immediate past were dismissed as unscientific ‘historicism.’ 88 Chaos theory, post-Wittgenstein mainstream Anglo-American philosophy, postmodernism and even von Hayek’s neo-conservatism have all assisted in a refocus on chance in politics. 89 There has been a revival of the idea that chance rather than necessity

85 N. Machiavelli. (1532) 1958. (Translated by W.K. Marriott with introduction by H. Butterfield) Prince. London, J.M. Dent; C. von Clausewitz (c 1831) 1976 (edited and translated by M. Howard and P. Parol) On War . Princeton, Princeton University Press; T. Hobbes, (1651) 1968 (edited with an introduction by C. B. Macpherson) Leviathan. Harmondsworth, Penguin; D. Hume. (1739-1740) 1999. (edited by T. Beauchamp) Treatise of Human Nature . Oxford, Oxford University Press. 86 A. Beyerchen. 1997. ‘Clausewitz, Non-linearity and the Importance of Imagery’ in D. Alberts and T.J. Czerwinski (eds.) Complexity, Global Politics and National Security , Washington, National Defence University: 161-162, 167-168. Also A. Beyerchen. 1992. ‘Clausewitz, Non-Linearity and the Unpredictability of War’ International Security 17:3: Winter: 59-90. 87 I. Gürol. 2001. ‘Three Dogmas of Humean Causation’ in M.C. Galavotti, P. Suppes and D. Constantini (eds.) Stochastic Dependence and Causality . Stanford, C.S.H. Publications: 85-101. 88 G. Ricci. 1997. ‘Metaphysics and History: The Individual and the General Reconciled’ Humanitas 10: 1: 4-25. 89 See R. B. Day. 2002. ‘History, Reason and Hope: A Comparative Study of Kant. Hayek and Habermas’ Humanitas XV: 2:4-24.

may play a greater role in history than the Late Enlightenment and modernism beyond it were prepared to admit. 90

The approach to history advocated by conservative liberals like Otto Hintze now becomes re-invigorated and can be taken up from its dusty place in the archives and becomes particularly relevant for post-modernity. 91 The same applies to R.G. Collingwood’s approach and that of writers like Oakeshott. Oakeshott, at least with some of his less neo-conservatively inclined interpreters, is capable of being understood as pointing to the need to return to certain pre-modern (Judeo-

Christianised) Platonic or at least Aristotelian categories in social explanation. 92

Ronald Beiner also follows this post-modern return to liberal conservative approaches to understanding and explaining politics and history. 93 The point is, as Gilbert, an editor of Hintze’s work says:

Hintze does not intend to present new historical discoveries but to examine or re-examine the validity of modern sociological propositions on the basis of the historical facts known to him. 94

Gilbert goes on to add that this programme focuses on:

the question of the extent to which the assumptions of historical individuality and singularity is compatible with the pursuit of historical studies.’95

It is a curious fact about Australian politics in the late 1930s and early

1940s that quite key actors became unexpectedly absent and/or that pieces of

90 A. Beyerchen. 1992. ‘Clausewitz, Non-Linearity and the Unpredictability of War’ International Security 17: 3: Winter: 59-90. 91 F. Gilbert. 1975. ‘Introduction’ O. Hintze. (edited with Introduction by F. Gilbert) The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze . New York, Oxford University Press. 92 P. Riley. 1992. ‘Michael Oakeshott, Philosopher of Individuality’ The Review of Politics 54:4: 651-4. 93 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement . London, Methuen. 94 F. Gilbert. 1975. ‘Introduction’ O. Hintze. (edited with Introduction by F. Gilbert) The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze . New York, Oxford University Press: 305. 95 F. Gilbert, 1975. ‘Introduction’ O. Hintze. 1975 (edited with Introduction by F. Gilbert) The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze . New York, Oxford University Press: 304.

good luck for some key actors might not have occurred. 96 Any post-modern era re-evaluation of Australian Federal politics during 1940-1941 should at least consider this serendipitous aspect of events and come to a judgement about whether it should play an important part in the way we come to assess and analyse historical outcomes.

Serendipity is not, however, to be thought of as mutually exclusive or somehow able to nullify the due weight that we must always continue to give to pre-determining, contextually framing factors like demography, geography, class/structural and financial realities. Curtin was quite happy to wait out the electoral cycle and keep the field open to Menzies or Artie Fadden or whoever non-Labor threw up as leader even Hughes. We already know that Curtin would have respected Page’s right to govern as war time Prime Minister and that quite probably Labor would not have won any more seats in 1940 if the conservatives had not deliberately undermined each other in New South Wales. 97

Coles’s and Wilson’s holding of the balance of power after late 1940 was the one factor, which just happened to be almost entirely serendipitous, which allowed Curtin to change his game-plan about waiting until the electoral cycle shifted. 98 Curtin was sworn in as Prime Minister two full years before he thought

(i.e. rationally calculated) he might otherwise.99 Despite some latter-day revisionism, it is not merely Labor-history that argues that it was sheer good

96 See F. Green. 1969. Servant of the House . Melbourne, Heinemann. : 98-128. 97 A. Martin. 1994. Robert Menzies A Life . Vol 1. 1894-1943. Carlton, Melbourne University Press. : 295-315. 98 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin a life , Pymble, Harper Collins. :401-407. 99 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin a life , Pymble, Harper Collins. :401-407.

luck for Australia, rather than just for Curtin, that Coles and Wilson held the balance of power after September 1940. 100

A more or less consensus view sees the Australian two-party system as an adaptive and/or maladaptive but otherwise hegemonic development within

Australian politics after about 1909. 101 W.K. Hancock’s assessment of the inter- war Labor Party under this system was as follows:

The very efficiency of the machine tends to kill enthusiasm. The whole system is designed to enforce orthodoxy at the expense of leadership. It tends to produce the ‘invisible government’ of commonplace cliques competing with each other for the privilege of manipulating the machine. In this way the most characteristic movement of Australian democracy may in the end produce a system of government, which is, in the strict sense of the word, unpopular. 102

Hancock is describing the inter-war Labor Party but there is an implication that the wider system is what really causes this party to develop in this way as is revealed in a further comment:

The opposing political armies must contend on a field, which has been levelled by the busy spade of government and watered by the gentle rain of humanitarianism. The field exhales an atmosphere which is mild and misty and which corrodes the weapons sharpened by the zealots of opposing classes for the arming of their political champions. The champions seem very angry but they do not fight to the death 103

Mayer in 1956 argued that the time was ripe to entertain the counter- intuitive idea that the two-party system was not the sole means by which all meaningful and coherent developments in politics had taken place since 1909. 104

100 See D. Day, 2003. The Politics of War Australia in the War of 1939-45: From Churchill to Macarthur . Pymble, Harper Collins: 179-181 also D. Day. 1999. John Curtin a life , Pymble, Harper Collins. :401-407. 101 See D. Jaensch. 1989. Power Politics : The Australian Party System. St Leonards, Allen and Unwin, - especially: 1-74., particularly 26-42. 102 W.K. Hancock. (1930) 1966. Australia. Brisbane, The Jacaranda Press: 180 103 W.K. Hancock. 1966. Australia …: 190. 104 H. Mayer .1956. ‘Some Conceptions of the Australian Party System 1910-1950’ Historical Studies 7:27:253-270.

Prior to 1956 views like Hancock’s or Hasluck’s in the official war history saw Australian politics as a sort of by-product of the interaction of interest- groups, elites, opposing worker’s organizations and wider socio-economic forces understood in a pluralistic way. 105 Other approaches were mainly centred on partly Marxist, Gramscian and later on related critical-structural critiques which like the liberal-pluralist approaches, as Emy says, assumed that ‘the distinctive style of Australian politics has been pragmatic literal and unreflective’.106 All approaches assumed that a cornerstone of this Benthamite hegemony was the two-party system. Mayer recounts:

The real complaint is that the analysis of Australian parties in terms of the interests behind them breaks off when it comes to the crucial question of the context of party policy. Once more we are fobbed off with what is little more than a cliché. 107

Mayer (and this study) is not questioning the need to study interest group politics and wider underlying structural forces. 108 Since Mayer’s article in 1956, much work has been done on the relation of Australian politics to business, the farm-lobby, trade unionism and beyond. 109 Feminist, post-structuralist, local-studies and social history approaches have also added depth and complexity to the range of studies Mayer summarised and critiqued in 1956. 110 The fact remains that little was being done after Mayer’s article in 1956 until the later 1980s to

105 H. Emy 1995. ‘Stokes on Australian Political Thought’ Australian Journal of Political Science 30:335-341; H. Métin. 1910. Socialisme sans doctrine: Australie et Novelle Zealande. Paris, Felix Alcan . 106 H. Emy. 1995. ‘Stokes on Australian’…:339. 107 H. Mayer 1956. ‘ Some Conceptions’…: 270 108 See H. Mayer 1980. ‘Big Party Chauvinism and Minor Party Romanticism’, in H. Mayer and H. Nelson (eds.). Australian Politics, A Fifth Reader. Melbourne, Longman Cheshire. 109 See K. Richmond. 1978. ‘Minor Parties in Australia’ in G. Starr, K Richmond and G Maddox (eds.). 1978. Political Parties in Australia. Richmond, Heinemann. 110 E.g., M. Lake. 1986.‘The Politics of Respectability’ Historical Studies 22.86 : April: 116-131 .

analyse the context of major party policy in terms of any fundamental critique of the idea of two-party system hegemony. 111

There was extensive study of the political activity of the non-Labor Party political left. 112 The political activity of the minor parties on the right, with the possible exception of the D.L.P., was analysed more often in terms of social, economic and cultural history. 113 Conservative political activity, outside formal major party politics, was often thought best studied through a more complex and multi-layered approach, which gave attention to wider class, cultural, religious and social dynamics. 114 There has been, as mentioned above, a relatively recent revival of interest in the role of deliberation in politics. 115

The renewed focus on deliberation has reawakened interest in analysing the discourse of political actors as political discourse and not just as the expression of the opinion of a wider group. 116

Beiner’s approach represents an enthusiastic embrace of this renewed focus on deliberation:

111 See literature critique in D. Jaensch and D. Mathieson .1998. A Plague on Both Your Houses Minor Parties in Australia. St. .Leonards, Allen and Unwin .: 1-9. 112 See H. Mayer and H. Nelson (eds.). 1976. Australian Politics: A Fourth Reader. St. Kilda, Cheshire: 591-592. and in A. Davidson. 1973. ‘Australia’ in W.S. Sworakowski (ed.) World Communism: A Handbook, 1918-1965. Stanford, Hoover Institution Press: 18-21. 113 See H. Mayer and H. Nelson (eds.) 1976. Australian Politics . 557-594 . 114 E.g. G Duncan (ed.) 1978. Critical Essays in Australian Politics. London, Edward Arnold ; H. Mayer and M. Bettison with J. Keene. 1976. A Research Guide to Australian Politics and Cognate Subjects. Melbourne, Cheshire. 115 See M.Lodge and K.M. McGraw (eds.). 1995. Political Judgement: Structure and Process. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press; J. Elster (ed.) 1998 Deliberative Democracy . Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; P. Selznick.1992. The Moral Commonwealth, Social Theory and the Promise of Community. Berkeley, Los Angeles, University of California Press; J. Bohman and W. Rehg (eds.). 1997. Deliberative Democracy Essays on Reason and Politics. Cambridge, M.I.T. Press. 116 See G Mackie. 1998 ‘All Men are Liars: Is Democracy Meaningless ?’ In J. Elster (ed.). 1998. Deliberative Democracy …: 69-86 and A. Przeworski. 1998. ‘Deliberation and Ideological Domination’ in J. Elster (ed.). 1998. Deliberative Democracy …: 140-160.

Why this preoccupation with the concept of judging? Why does one make the effort to clarify our understanding of this concept? To be sure, there is merit in conceptual clarification that is in need of no further justification, whatever the concept singled out for attention. But is analysis of this concept privileged in some way? I am convinced that it is, for judging is in important respects the mark of our humanity, it contributes to the humanising of our world as no other human faculty does. To attempt to reflect on this human capacity is thus to meditate on what is distinctive of our humanity on what it is to be human or to constitute a human world. 117

Beiner continues:

There is another perhaps more historically specific reason for exploring the concept of judging. Judgement we have argued is a quintessential faculty of political beings. The contemporary political world, however, allows very little outlet for genuinely political activity and offers ever diminishing scope for the political dimension of our existence. But judgement because it is an act of mental reflection can operate more or less independently of the actual political conditions within which men (sic) happen to find themselves situated. It has the inherent capacity to free itself from whatever contingent circumstances encumber and constrain human possibilities. 118

Beiner’s search is the search for the sort of politics that is ultimately atypical if not aberrant within what has been understood as the standard practice of ‘politics’ under regimes like the Australian two-party system.

The judging actor deliberates from within his (sic) very reflection upon it liberates him (sic) from the constraints of the moment. Therefore attending to the faculty of judgement may be a way of recouping one’s status as a citizen, in a world that systematically frustrates any real sense of citizenship. (Judging then becomes a kind of vicarious political action!). Judgement, as well as being the condition of actual political engagement, when that is possible also provides some compensation for the eclipse of the political. 119

Beiner concludes with a definition of the dilemma and the glory of being a sincerely independent and/or free spirited MP in a mass party dominated parliament:

117 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement …: 166. (Italics in original). 118 R. Beiner. 1983 Political Judgement …: 166-167.( Italics in original). 119 R Beiner. 1983 Political Judgement …: 166-167

When deprived of the possibility of meaningfully affecting and therefore meaningfully deliberating about the basic conditions governing the shape of the world we share with others (and those conditions are increasingly being placed out of our control) so they confront us as merely external givens) we can at least continue to judge and in this hope finds a refuge. 120

Marsh also focuses on the search for breakouts of deliberativeness defined more or less along the same lines as Beiner. 121 Marsh, however, also wishes to stress the role played by extra-parliamentary institutions in nurturing breakouts of deliberativeness. Marsh, much more than Burke or Beiner, emphasises that breakouts of deliberation in parliament require implementation through a variety of overlapping institutional contexts:

… The normative plane opens up the formal possibility and desirability of a new arrangement. The comparative plane points to collaborative capacities of particular states and to the key issues which collaboration is sought. The descriptive plane points to particular contingent features of what might be termed Westminster politics that need to be woven into the proposed new process. 122

Marsh’s approach also differs from Beiner’s in that it argues that it is possible to institutionalise the political learning needed to sustain out-breaks of deliberative politics:

This approach needs to be plausibly based on established institutional arrangements in order for it to reflect a plausible development of the political and policy making culture, Finally, the analytical or theoretical plane suggests requirements for mobilising and integrating multiple, and more or less rational actors. 123

Beiner rests content in observing that the exercise in real life politics of what he calls political judgement is ephemeral, elusive and at best occasional:

120 R Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement …: 167 121 I. Marsh. 1995 Beyond the Two Party System…:223-224; 234-235; 339-340; 350f; 389n. 122 I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System…:211- 212., also see 47; 131; 303-331; 335-355. 123 I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond The Two Party System… :212.

Adolph Eichmann lacks the faculty of judging; you and I do not lack it, we possess and exercise it regularly (or at the very least, our failings, where they arise, are nowhere near as glaringly obvious as his). This seems both the commonest of truisms and among the more far reaching of philosophical insights into the condition of being a political being. Yet is it the case that philosophical problems of utmost interest very often have this character, and, by attending to what is most familiar carry us further in illuminating the situation of man (sic)? 124

Fenna, remains focused, on class and structural factors and even more than

Marsh seeks to quantify qualities like Beiner’s notion of political judgement :

cross-country comparison suggests that Australia was missing some of the prerequisites for a more radical response to the Great Depression. Application of coalitional perspectives to the Australian case also sheds new light on long standing questions about the nature and role of the working class in Australian politics. In particular they lead us to question prevailing views about the aberrantly ‘labourist’ path taken by the Australian labour movement. 125

Fenna shares with Marsh a belief that quantifiable sociological factors can be identified that are required before MPs can facilitate genuinely deliberative politics. Fenna calls this ‘an effective theoretical framework.’126 Beiner talks about the reality of a deliberative politics arrived at by a nascent revival of the traditional mode or practice of rhetoric ( i.e., the Aristotelian idea of phronesis) 127

Marsh or Fenna would see deliberative politics as a wide spectrum of sociologically measurable and supposedly democratically pluralist activity such as might be found in ‘new social movements’.128 Burke, Beiner, Marsh and Fenna would all find some common ground in the dialogue between Rawls and Habermas

124 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement .. .: 167. 125 A. Fenna. 1996. ‘Political Alignments, Political Economy and Political Change’…: 68 126 A. Fenna 1996. ‘ Political Alignments Political Economy and Political Change…’: 70 127 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement …: 84-91; 95-97; 97-101. 128 I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond The Two Party System… :305-316; A. Fenna. 1998. Introduction to Australian Public Policy. South Melbourne.

about modern, rationally grounded, pluralist discursiveness. 129 Beiner, however, says that deliberativeness is not just an analogous and ghost like (Kantian) intimation of what Burke liked to call deliberation:

In situations where the many are bent upon an unwise course of action, the wise statesman (sic) must have recourse to a form of persuasion that is closer to compulsion than to reason. A philosophical rhetoric supplies the principles of this form of persuasion, to ensure that wisdom is capable of making its voice heard. In short, politics is only partially discursive, and the philosophical (as opposed to sophistic) study of rhetoric makes allowance for this fact. 130

Beiner, following on from this, argues that a key objective determinant of whether genuine deliberation has occurred is if the decisions entered into are designed to further the common-good. Beiner also argues that the decision to focus on the common good is a necessary (but not always sufficient) indication that the actors involved are exercising political judgement. Beiner’s idea of political judgement more or less dovetails with Burke’s idea of deliberation or deliberativeness. Burke’s understanding of the exercise of political judgement through deliberativeness is as follows:

The science of construction a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science: because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate; but that which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation; and its excellence may arise even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning. The reverse also happens: and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable conclusions. 131

129 J. Habermas. 1995. ‘Reconciliation Through The Public Use of Reason: Remarks on John Rawl’s Political Liberalism’ The Journal of Philosophy XCII: 3 :109-131; J. Rawls. 1995. ‘Reply to Habermas’ The Journal of Philosophy XCII: 3: March: 132-180; R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement…: 84-91; 95- 97; 97-101. 130 R Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement …: 178. fn.25. 131 E. Burke. (originally published 1790) ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ in E. Burke, (C.C. Eliot ed.). 1937. Edmund Burke. On Taste; On the Sublime and the Beautiful, Reflections on the French Revolution; Letter to a Noble Lord. New York, P.F. Collier and Son: 198-199.

Burke, like Beiner, is also indicating that deliberativeness only takes place when whatever is being deliberated upon is also considered within a context of caution about change that has been previously agreed upon in common. Burke believed that the French National Assembly was not a deliberative body because it had ruled-out, a priori, the option of deciding that it might deliberate to jettison many of its revolutionary enthusiasms. 132 Burke continues:

In states there are often some obscure and almost latent causes, things which appear at first of little moment, on which a very great part of its prosperity or adversity may most essentially depend. The science of government being therefore so practical in itself, and intended for such practical purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any person can gain in his whole life, however sagacious and observing he may be, it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice, which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or on building it up again, without having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes. 133

Deliberation, according to Burke and Beiner, should also be tied to a feeling on the part of all MPs that they have a constitutional duty to deliberate to maintain and further the common-good. A good example of the difference between the liberal-conservative approach to this issue as opposed to the liberal and radical modernist approaches can be found in the difference between

Montesquieu and Condorcet. 134 Kingsley Martin mentions that Montesquieu was criticised by Condorcet for singing a ‘eulogy’ to the ‘moderation’ of the British monarchy. 135 The British monarchy, and the related Westminster system was designed to prevent the interests of the majority from over-riding the various other interests also represented in the parliament.

132 E. Burke. 1938. ‘On the Revolution…’ 299-303. 133 E. Burke. 1938. ‘On the Revolution…’: 199 134 See C. P. Courtenay. 1963. Montesquieu and Burke. Oxford, Blackwell. 135 See K. Martin. 1929. French Liberal Thought in the Eighteenth Century A Study of Political Ideas from Bayle to Condorcet. Boston, Little Brown and Company.:166-176.

Burke believed the common-good was not whatever gained the greatest possible leverage for the greatest achievable majority or combination of interests:

If you were to contemplate society in but one point of view, all these simple modes of polity are infinitely captivating. In effect each would answer its single end much more perfectly than the more complex is able to attain all its complex purposes. But it is better that the whole should be imperfectly and anomalously answered, than that, while some parts are provided for with great exactness, others might be totally neglected, or perhaps materially injured, by the overcare of a favourite member. 136

The common good being talked about here is as this would have been understood by Aquinas or Leo Strauss (and not say as by Bentham, Mill, the classical economists, Rawls or Habermas). 137 This study will argue (further below) that Coles and Wilson took Burke’s idea of deliberation and common good seriously enough to at least employ it as a rhetorical self-justification.

The key historical issue is whether Coles and Wilson, who espoused Burke like paradigms of the common good, could find common cause with Labor? Labor

MPs in the early 1940’s tended to employ rhetoric of a post-Burke type centred on discourse about common rights, class needs and moral claims based on redistributive justice. 138 Key interpreters of Labor Party ideology during the inter- war period like V. G. Childe described Labor’s claims within a framework of class and sectional interest representation. 139

Labor MPs like Curtin, Evatt, Chifley and Ward might stress their class representational role but they also placed great stress on what could be called

136 E. Burke. 1938. ‘On the Revolution…’ 199. 137 See A. P. D’Entreves (ed.) (Translated by J.G. Dawson). 1959. Aquinas Selected Political Writings. Oxford, Basil Blackwell especially translation of Summa Theologica Prima Secundae, Qu.97. ‘The Mutability of Human Law’:72-74. 138 See G. Duncan. 1978. ‘The ALP: Socialism in a Bourgeois Society?’ in G. Duncan (ed.), Critical Essays in Australian Politics. London, Edward Arnold: 77-96. 139 V. G. Childe. 1923. How Labour Governs: a study of workers’ representation in Australia . London, Labour Publishing Company Limited.

‘constitutionalism in Australian politics’.140 Constitutionalism extended beyond faith in the Federal Constitution. Evatt and other Labor MPs would point to the use made of Arbitration as evidence of the capacity of British institutions to evolve so as to better serve the needs of the majority. 141

This study will argue (further below) that genuine deliberative coalescence was possible between Coles, Wilson and the Labor Party. Coles, Wilson and

Labor could deliberate together because they found common ground in things like

Labor’s constitutionalism and the on-going belief of Catholic Labor MPs in the traditional idea of the common-good. Beiner comments on the point of difference between common-good and more modern notions of the collective good:

In fact, Strauss argues in Chapter 3 of The Political Philosophy of Hobbes that Aristotle’s Rhetoric was one of the main sources of inspiration for Hobbes’s philosophical anthropology. With the affirmation of deliberation and rhetoric, on the other hand, one tends to portray politics as fully discursive which in turn assumes that all men (sic) are amenable to reason- a post Enlightenment assumption. 142

Beiner in referring to Strauss is joining with Burke (and Oakeshott) in arguing against the late Enlightenment drift towards ‘rationalism in politics’.143

The idea being opposed here is that the best politics is always, inevitably, the politics that is based on ideas that are seemingly, self-evidently, plausible - due to such ideas being plausible in terms of a priori technical, moral and/or scientific principles. 144 Beiner wishes to invoke Strauss’s critique of Hobbes to

140 A. Patience. 1978. ‘By-Passing Liberalism: Constitutionalism in Australian Politics’ in G Duncan (ed.), Critical Essays in Australian Politics. London, Edward Arnold: 97-113. 141 See H.V. Evatt. (1940) 1979. William Holman Australian Labour Leader…; 1924. ‘Certain Aspects of the Royal Prerogative’ LLD Thesis, University of Sydney; N. Stephen. 1968. ‘Foreword’ in H. V. Evatt (L. Zines commentary). 1968. Royal Prerogative. North Ryde, Law Book Company. 142 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement …: 178 fn.25. Referring to L. Strauss. 1977. The City and the Man. Chicago, University of Chicago Press: 22-23.; 123, 127; 233. 143 See M. Oakeshott. 1960. ‘Introduction’ in Thomas Hobbes (M. Oakeshott ed.). Leviathan. Oxford, Basil Blackwell; 1962. Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays . Oxford, Clarendon Press. 144 See. E. Burke (1796) 1961. (T.H.D. Mahoney ed.). Reflections on the Revolution in France. New York, The Bobbs –Merrill Company.

show that modern ideological politics had its precursors in the seemingly self- stated ‘realist’ politics of such early moderns as Machiavelli and Hobbes. 145

Beiner’s point is that most (or all) successful political projects are not indubitably those that are based on appeals to reason, enlightened self-interest

(or self-interest otherwise understood). Beiner joins with Burke to oppose those clever politicians who deliberately and surgically excise from their deliberation-in- common considerations based on patrimonial antecedents, custom, tradition and emotive intuition. Oakeshott summarises this approach as one that believes that political rhetoric and political judgement is often best when it ‘seeks to persuade without being able to prove’. 146 Marsh, on the other hand, argues:

Normative perspectives concern public opinion both as a democratic ideal and, in a variation, as a coercive force. In the latter case, the development of opinion is associated with an enlarging deal of citizenship. In this perspective, political learning offers itself as a significant contribution to moral development and to enhancing the quality of citizenship. This ideal has its modern roots in Rousseau, de Tocqueville and Mill and its classic foundation, in a more sober form, in Aristotle. 147

Marsh is arguing, in a post late Enlightenment way, that political disaster is ahead unless our highest political aims are couched in language which both seeks to persuade but also prove.

Beiner would rejoin:

a serious challenge (is posed) to the concerns of modern hermeneuticists, to which challenge we may reply as follows: The forgoing line of argument assumes an access to wisdom that is antecedent to the effort of joint deliberation. But the judging of particulars with a view to policy affecting all is a matter of which deliberation is a constitutive rather than external relation. Here wisdom cannot be removed from participation with others in deliberating about common ends. Furthermore, Aristotle

145 See. M. Oakeshott. 1991. ‘Political Discourse’ in M. Oakeshott (T.Fuller ed.). Rationalism in Politics. Indianapolis, Liberty Press: 77-80f. 146 M. Oakeshott. 1991. ‘Political Discourse’ as cited in P. Riley. 1992. ‘Michael Oakeshott, Philosopher of Individuality’ The Review of Politics 54:4: 651.fn.6. 147 I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond The Two Party System …: 213.

himself in at least on place (Politics, III.11 ) seems to admit the primacy of deliberation-in-common. But this different focus on the problem of rhetoric does not exclude classical insights into the limits of rational persuasion. 148

Marsh and Fenna do not go so far in privileging what Beiner calls ‘this primacy of deliberation-in-common’. Deliberation-in-common (Beiner says) is, in fact, what takes place when politicians (whether they know it or not) decide on a policy for common-good reasons even though this may go against the grain for them or some of their followers. Beiner argues that quite often, such common-good decisions are made when emotion is entertained as part of a genuinely rhetorical interchange. 149 Marsh understands the value of deliberation-in-common but still seeks to argue that rational decision making remains dependent on the truth-association of deliberation. Marsh, however, like

Beiner and Burke still understands that a key to a successful political outcome must always remain how powerfully persuasive the proposed policy appears to be to those judging it.

Marsh’s politics is one that understands that an Aristotelian mode or process of persuasion must underpin but not be the sole determinative or deciding factor. Marsh and Fenna, unlike Beiner, still privilege the quantifiable

(i.e., often demonstrably measurable ) in politics- things like the cross-class policy coalition approach described by Fenna. Beiner summarises the difference between an approach based on linking political judgement to a proposal’s correspondence to scientific/technical truth with an approach derived from a viewpoint originating in a conservative and communal approach:

148 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement... : 178 fn.:25. 149 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement …:178f.

What we are presented with here is an opposition between what may be called ‘representational’ and ‘constitutive’ understanding of rhetoric. Kant concentrates on how rhetorical persuasion deviates from correct correspondence, or adequation, to reality. In this respect, he remains with the Platonic tradition, as opposed to the Aristotelian tradition (to which Gadamer appeals). The latter is much more concerned with how rhetoric is a way of expressing one’s sense of community. 150

Beiner affirms an approach which verges on what Habermas calls the romantic nostalgia of Strauss and Oakeshott and the contextualism of Rorty 151

Beiner argues for not just supposedly self-evidential, a-historical sorts of arguments but also whether the proposed policy accords with an inherited and empirically acquired sense of judgement or intuition. Beiner explains:

One affirms once membership in a given community confirming one’s commitment to it by adjusting one’s speech to the opinions and sensitivities of one’s fellows. Rhetoric expresses this sense of community by accommodating itself to the particular, substantive, beliefs and desires of the listeners it addresses, rather than holding to abstract of formal principles of judgement. In taking cognizance of the particular needs and aspirations of his (sic) audience the orator expresses his (sic) community with them. This is a purpose embodied in rhetoric that cannot be captured merely by tracing the extent to which persuasive utterances correspond adequately to reality. 152

Fenna seeks to go beyond a ‘grand-theoretical explanation’ about cross-class coalitional politics by grounding his critique in the historical particularity of the

Australian case between 1890 and 1940. Fenna also says:

In general, the evidence suggests that while the class coalitional approach is an important component of a viable explanatory framework, it is not adequate on its own. 153

150 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement... : 101. 151 J. Habermas (Translated by S. Weber Nicholsen) 1989. The New Conservatism Cultural Criticism and the Historians Debate. London, Polity Press: 134. See R. Rorty. 1986. ‘The Contingency of Community’ London Review of Books 24/7:10-14. 152 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgemen t…: 101. 153 A. Fenna. 1996. ‘Political Alignments, Political Economy and Political Change…’ 68.

Fenna is arguing that between 1890 and 1950 some explanation, like deliberative one outlined above, is needed to flesh-out how such cross-class policy coalitions could be negotiated. Fenna particularises this historical sociological explanation to the period between 1890 and 1950. Fenna’s model also requires the working out of a joint policy position by representatives of blue collar workers, farmers and those capitalists whose main interest lay in a self- actualising local economy. 154

Fenna’s insight is at least superficially applicable to Coles as he was a major locally focused capitalist with an interest in the further evolution of the demand-driven side of the Australian economy. Wilson also qualifies as he was a key member of a farmer lobby group. The senior members of the Federal Labor

Party of 1941 also qualify. The Labor Party of the time saw itself as focusing its efforts mostly on behalf of wage earners and those among the petit- bourgeoisie who would never acquire significant amounts of capital and/or live off interest.

Later chapters of this study will attempt to show some growing together in mutual trust and respect between Coles, Wilson and the Labor party. The case for upgrading Coles’s and Wilson’s historical importance will be strengthened if the state of mutual trust between Labor and themselves can be shown to have some historical significance. Coles’s and Wilson’s relationship with Labor was either historically significant or it was not. Coles and Wilson in terms of conservative historiography, as outlined above, already have historical status as providers of a modern example of serendipity in politics.

154 A. Fenna. 1996. ‘Political Alignments, Political Economy and Political Change…’ 67-71; 79-80.

Coles and Wilson in term of mainstream historical sociological imagination remain one minute political wonders, historical fleas playing among historical giants. Coles’s, Wilson’s and Labor’s interaction if it is to be seen as historically significant needs to be convincingly shown to have been as something akin to deliberation-in-common as Burke and/or Beiner and/or Marsh portray it. Coles and Wilson need to be shown to be bringing something to the table to Labor that goes a little bit beyond the promise to cross the floor and vote one way on a particular day.

Chance gave Coles and Wilson’s vote an immense historical significance on one particular day. Chance of the kind just described falls short of the political contribution that falls into the category of Coles, Wilson and Labor participating in an historically significant outbreak of deliberative politics. The purpose of this study is to see if any of the discussion about deliberative political decision -making analysed above bears any relation to what happened between the two independents and Labor and/or others in Canberra in late

1941. R Blaug has said:

While the utopian and realistic elements of the new theorists of discursive democracy begin to coalesce into a viable political alternative there is an important sense in which they continue to abstract from reality. This abstraction is often revealed in a quite specific institutional location, that of the public house, for it is here that political theorists of all persuasions are asked, ‘What use are your theories? 155

The utopian and realistic elements Blaug is referring to, just above, is the hope, as expressed by Marsh and Beiner that some consensual core national policies can be achieved through a revival of deliberative politics. Fenna’s

155 R. Blaug. 1996. ‘New Theories of discursive democracy: A user’s guide’ Philosophy and Social Criticism. 22.1.58.

approach is itself a critical synthesis of Gourevitch’s production profile approach with Ragowski’s factor-endowment model, as Fenna explains:

While Ragowski’s model points away from land-labour alliances from Gourevitch’s perspective the two interests may well find sufficient common cause to sink their differences. Such a temporary convergence may also be facilitated by means of trade-offs, or ‘side-payments’ as they are termed in game theory. Not only does Gourevitch argue that land and labour can ally he indeed concludes that, in complete contrast to Ragowski that, that only when they do ally is labour in a position to make advances. 156

The significance of the quotation, above, from Fenna, is that it shows that

Fenna’s key methodological concern (in this article) is to plot out the limits to which Labor and non-Labor politicians could go in deliberating-in-common about consensus and cross-class concessions. One factor about Australian politics from the period after 1919 was the constant struggle the Country Party experienced in order to maintain its role as a loyal but also relevant partner for the main conservative party. 157 Wilson was a representative of a rural lobby group and break-away section of the Country Party that had already negotiated a policy-coalition with Labor at a State level. 158 Wilson, even before entering

Federal parliament in 1937, therefore, was already part of a Fenna like cross- class policy coalition between Labor and representatives of farmers. 159 Jaensch and Mathieson point out that the revival of interest in deliberativeness includes

156 A. Fenna 1995. ‘Political Alignments, Political Economy and Political Change…’ 71; R. Ragowski. 1989. Commerce and Coalitions. How Trade Affects Domestic Political Alignments. Princeton, Princeton University Press and P .Gourevitch. 1986. Politics in Hard Times Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises, Ithaca, Cornell University Press. 157 See B. D. Graham. 1966. The Formation of the Australian Country Parties. Canberra, Australian National University Press; K. Tsokhas. 1990. Markets, money and empire: the political economy of the Australian wool industry. Carlton, Melbourne University Press; C. B. Schedvin. 1989 ‘The Australian Economy on the Hinge of History’ Australian Economic Review 20:3:2-12. 158 J. B. Paul. 1979. ‘Albert Dunstan and the Victorian Government’ in A. Ray. (ed.) Australian Conservatism . Canberra, Australian National University Press: 169-191. 159 See G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action Official History of the Victorian Wheat and Woolgrowers’ Association, 1927-1968 . Melbourne, The Hawthorn Press.

the need to call into question long held assumptions about the political irrelevance of significant areas of deliberative activity in Australian politics:

Australia’s two-party system is more problematic, in the period since 1910 the year of the formation of the modern party system, 387 minor parties have contested one or more elections, and 140 other minor parties were formed, announced their existence, even registered with the Electoral Commission, but did not nominate candidates. Merely in terms of numbers, these minor parties obviously merit serious examination. Yet few analysts of Australian politics have bothered to do so. 160

One such neglected area must be the decades long Victorian Labor/Country

Party coalescence that Wilson was a part of. The reason for Coles and

Wilson meriting further attention is also bolstered by the fact, already noted above, that 1940-1943 was the only sustained period since 1909 when neither party-bloc held a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives.

The key criterion for developing any counterfactual hypothesis in relation to the generally prevailing view will be that it helps explain why the two minor political players of 1941 did count. In fairness to the prevailing view, most contemporaries also agreed with Hasluck and most later assessments which have said Coles and Wilson really didn’t count!

Historiography is, of course, littered with re-evaluations which have successfully brought back in particular actors, movements, minorities and previously marginalised considerations. 161 Historical re-consideration has often revealed that factors and players that many contemporaries probably quite honestly considered as insignificant should have had more cognisance taken of them. 162 Many contemporaries often wanted various facts and possible alternative

160 D. Jaensch and D. Mathieson. 1998. A Plague on Both Your Houses…:3-4. 161 See. H. Butterfield. (1955) 1969. Man on His Past…: 143-170. 162 See R.G. Collingwood (T.M. Knox ed.) (1948) 1970. The Idea of History. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 190-204.

interpretations to be forgotten or left out of the general reckoning. History is not just written by the winners and sometimes re-evaluating long held historical generalisations will assist in changing the present intellectual climate. History thus, in itself, influences the future course of events. 163

It is an irony that in the age of the Anglophone culture wars that the almost quintessentially humanistic role of history as a mode for revising and re-evaluating long held viewpoints about the past is being attacked by so-called defenders of traditional liberal individualistic humanism. 164

Beiner argues that deliberative bodies, like parliaments, can experience heightened contexts within which takes place unusually fruitful deliberation over policy. 165 MPs caught up in such dynamics tend to abandon ideological positions and partisan mutual distrust and seem to re-focus their thoughts and words on the attaining of consensus. 166 Some MPs, particularly those conservative independents or free-spirited party members who claim they are not beholden to any particular partisan ideology, often claim that such heightened periods of deliberation allow them to abandon ideological politics altogether.167

Beiner has argued that during such heightened episodes of political learning some MPs feel emboldened to revive (and not just invoke) Edmund

Burke’s idea that all the great interests of the country should be harmonised

163 E. H. Carr. 1961. What is History? Harmondsworth, Penguin: 109-156. –sections entitled ‘Progress’ and ‘The Widening Horizon.’ 164 S. Brawley. 2003. ‘A Comfortable and Relaxed Past: John Howard and the 'Battle of History’ The Electronic Journal of Australian and New Zealand History originally published 27/4/97 http//www.icu.edu.au/aff/history/articles/brawley htm. 165 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement …: 90-95. 166 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement …: 143; R. Beiner 1992. Whats Wrong with Liberalism? Berkeley, University of California Press: 90-95. 167 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement…: 143.

through the collective exercise of political judgement. 168 Beiner also argues that political judgement is best exercised when modern ideological goals are subordinated to the attainment of the pre-modern originating idea of the common-good. 169 Marsh has argued that independent, minor-party and otherwise

‘free-spirited’ MPs in Australian parliaments can be understood as potentially, at least, something other than marginal players in the setting of policy, even in the post 1909 Australian policy environment. 170 Marsh argues that:

In envisaging a political structure to mediate enhanced political learning, the key phases in the policy making process need to be differentiated… (These are)…agenda entry, clarification of options, selection of preferred remedy; implementation; review and revision. The distinction between the political (or interest-mobilisation and bipartisan) and the technical (or problem solving) phases of the policy making process should first be noted…Values that are deemed relevant will influence perspectives on the stakes and shape the interpretative paradigms perceived to be relevant. The political dimension concerns the progressive unfolding of ad hoc coalition building. 171

Marsh, in an earlier quotation, given in the text further above, identifies this sort of politics with Aristotle’s ‘sober’ form of argument about political learning. 172 A problem with Marsh is that conservatives are left out as key facilitators of this ‘sober’ (i.e. rationally arrived at ) policy millennium. Gay activism, environmentalism, pro-euthenasiasts and republicans are all in. 173

Marsh’s theory, perhaps read only in those parts dealing with the sources of the new policy break-outs, focuses, not unnaturally, on those groups that many late-

168 R. Beiner. 1982. Political Judgement ..: 1-8, ‘What is Political Judgement?’ also: 129-152 and as a background see: 11-25 where Beiner compares Gadamer, Habermas and Arendt. 169 See J.A.W. Gunn. 1989. ‘Public Interest’ in T. Ball, J. Farr and R.H. Hanson. (eds.). Political Innovation and Conceptual Change. Cambridge, New York, Cambridge University Press: 194-210. 170 I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System …: 352-355. 171 I. Marsh. 1995 Beyond the Two Party System ...: 225-226. 172 I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System …: 182-184. 173 I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System …: 350.

twentieth century people, ‘post-1968’, assumed would be the well springs of whatever massive shifts in policy ever took place. 174

Post-1968 has not turned out as the many hopeful successors of Rousseau,

Mill and even Nietzsche thought it would. 175 Brian Harradine, as much as Bob

Brown, exemplified the politics of the revival of minor party and independent influenced policy making that has taken place in Australia since the late 1970s.

Marsh, however, in an Oakeshottian and/or Beiner like concession to the primacy of practice over theory, also says:

In practice, structural change of the pattern of politics and policy making is unlikely without some fracturing of the two-party dominance of parliament. After all ministers are the principal beneficiaries of the present formal concentration of power and thus have the most to lose. There are four ways that this fracturing might come about. First, one or other or both of the major parties might corrode from within and perhaps reform. Second minor parties with vision and purpose might emerge as permanent actors. Third, independents might emerge to play a pivotal role. Fourth, MPs themselves might take a more independent line with party discipline. 176

Marsh’s thesis, therefore, stands teasing-out in terms of what happened after

1909 as much as it does in terms of what produced earlier period (or periods) of pro-active nation building, common -good oriented political learning. 177

Fenna’s methodology about cross-class coalition making does provide a useful methodological link here. Fenna developed this approach to explicate the role that underlying structural forces played within Australian politics between the

174 I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System…: 350. 175 I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System…:336.n3 and: 397. 176 I. Marsh. 1995 Beyond the Two Party System ...: 353 177 See I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System ...: 336-350.

1890s and the 1940s. 178 Marsh has largely focused his attention on the revival of 1901-1909 style politics in the post Keynesian era:

Here is it sufficient to point to the emphasis among recent democratic theorists on the positive possibilities of political participation, specifically, to the enlargement of attitudes to which is might contribute. David Marquand has written of a future in which politics is an arena for mutual education. Drawing in the idea of the public good Robert Reich has written of ‘politics as a civic discovery.’ For his part, Paul Hirst argues that a representative democracy in a system of hierarchical parties requires extensive bureaucratic management and a centralised state can undercut ‘genuine democracy, in the sense of power constrained by public accountability and political experience’.179

Marsh’s ultimate judgement on the Deakinite settlement is:

The two-party regime provided the ideological, administrative, organisational and procedural framework. Through this regime, the liberal egalitarian idea of Australia was preserved, projected across and elaborated over intervening decades. 180

There is a problem in Marsh’s and the wider majoritarian approach typified, classically, by W.K. Hancock and more recently by P. J. Kelly about this

‘two-party system, ’ whether described as the Deakinite or the Australian settlement policy regime. Horne’s impactful insight about the ‘lucky country’ and

Thompson’s deliberatively focused but also more widely sociologically grounded critique of egalitarianism point to a far more attenuated reality about this seventy-five year long supposed liberal egalitarian policy regime. 181 J. Pemberton has also pointed to a certain tendency to deliberately expunge from the

178 A. Fenna. 1995. ‘Political Alignments…’ For more globally focused work see T. Iversen and D. Soskice. 2002. ‘Electoral Systems and the politics of coalitions. Why some democracies redistribute more than others’. Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Proceedings : August 29- September 2. 179 I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System : 213; D. Marquand. 1988. The Unprincipled Society. London, Jonathan Cape; P. Hirst. 1990. Representative Democracy and Its Limits . London, Polity Press. 180 I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System …: 18. 181 D. Horne. 1971 (3rd.ed.) The Lucky Country. Penguin, Ringwood; 1985. ‘Who Rules Australia’ Daedalus 114: Winter: 171-196 and E. Thompson. 1994. Fair Enough: egalitarianism in Australia Kensington, University of New South Wales Press.

corporate memory of working politicians a more attenuated view of Australian political history. 182

Twentieth century/twenty-first century fin de siècle Australian politics and wider discourse, pace Kelly, now rests too easy in a triumphalist neo-liberal interpretation of the supposed political learning disabilities of the so-called

Deakinite settlement. Singular and original policy-makers like Curtin and

McEwen have been relegated to roles as modernising ciphers or as irrationalists who held up other modernising ciphers. Kelly’s judgement of McEwen is typical:

However for Bert Kelly and John Hyde the fight against protection was the pre-eminent struggle. 183

Kelly then goes on to say that the end of McEwenism is related to the fact that the political influence of farmers had been fading for years. 184 The pre

1941-1942 Country Party was dominated by a policy imagination far more rigorously supply-side than that supposedly displayed by its post 1980 post-

Keynesian rhetorical shift back towards neo-classical economic goals. 185 The post

McEwenist Country Party, post Doug Anthony, has returned to the old Page

Country Party role of assisting to strangle at birth anyone or anything that even looked like being a new big-ticket break-out of demand-side spending. 186

Fenna provides a theoretically coherent link between Beiner’s post-modern but also Aristotelian and Burkean common -good approach and Marsh’s

182 J. Pemberton. 1995 ‘Rationalism and the Rhetoric of Repudiation in Australian Life’ Australian Journal of Political Science 30:485-499. 183 P. Kelly. 1994. The End of Certainty …: 43. 184 P. Kelly. 1994. The End of Certainty…: 42-43. 185 P. Kelly. 1994. The End of Certainty …:436-10f .Cf. J. R. Thomas. 1953. ‘Country Party and the Tariff’ BA (Hons) Thesis, University of Sydney. 186 See M Pusey. 1991. Economic Rationalism in Canberra. A Nation Building State Changes its Mind. Melbourne, Cambridge University Press.

approach. 187 Marsh, unlike P. J. Kelly, who has been referred to just above, ultimately remains within the ‘pluralist tradition’ - pointing to the positive possibilities arising from ubiquitous organised interests constituting an active society and in fulfilling social tasks. 188 As indicated above consideration of counterfactual by-ways can still prove a useful methodological exercise, even if majority realism ultimately prevails. 189 Kelly’s views, already outlined above, tend to influence present-day Australian policy makers and some writers of history. 190 Early twenty-first century attempts to ‘reform’ the Senate are based on an ideologically driven, public choice theory informed view that big party oligarchs will be the leading figures in politics in the future just as they were in the past . 191

A re-telling of the events of 1941 from Coles’s and Wilson’s points of view might eventually leak into some area of Australian public discourse. It might prompt one or two bored lower level staffers with nothing to do on a slow afternoon to ruminate about the fact that a repeat of the 1940 election result is a statistically verifiable probability. 192 It might make even those feeling safe if they achieve a ‘reformed’ (i.e., a two-party dominated ) Senate that they could still easily face the need (in the lower house) to negotiate meaningfully with views they feel are beyond-ken. A counter-factual thesis, along the lines

187 A. Fenna. 1995. ‘Political Alignments…’ Cf., with G. Soros. 1998. The Crisis of Global Capitalism (Open Society Endangered). London, Little, Brown and Company. 188 I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond The Two Party System …: 213-214. Cf., with P. Hirst . 1990 . Representative Democracy and Its Limits . London, Polity Press. 189 K. Popper. 1945. The Open Society and Its Enemies. London Routledge and Kegan Paul; 1957. The Poverty of Historicism . London Routledge and Kegan Paul; 1969 ‘A Pluralist Approach to the Philosophy of History’ in E. Streissler (ed.), Roads to Freedom: Essays in Honour of F.A. Von Hayek. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul ; G Soros . 1998 . The Crisis of Global Capitalism…: 2-97., esp., :59- 83,‘ Reflexivity in History’ ; 125-134,‘The Future of the Global Capitalist System’ ; 126: Boom/Bust’ 126-128,‘ Market Fundamentalism’. 190 E.g., P. Costello. 1995 . ‘No Time for Complacency’. The Sydney Papers 7:1 Summer: 23-30. 191 J. Kennett. 1995. ‘Making Victoria Work’ The Sydney Papers 7:1: Winter: 1-9. 192 S. Bennett. 1999. ‘The Decline in Support of Australian Major Parties and the Prospect of Minority Government’ Parliament of Australia, Parliamentary Library, Research Paper 10. 1998-1999.

outlined above, may at least give hope to those whose serendipity may one day allow them to have the opportunity Coles and Wilson had in 1941.

The following negative alternative hypotheses will also be kept in mind and referred to throughout the thesis along with the counter-factual thesis that has been outlined above. In the conclusion either the counter-factual thesis outlined above (possibly modified) or some or all of the arguments enumerated just below will have proven more plausible. The hypotheses to be outlined below are effectively a statement of aspects of what has already been called the

‘majority view’. Most authors, methodologies and most theoretical constructions of

Australian politics hold to variants of what will be outlined below. A. Patience has called this sort of approach the sociological focus most often thought necessary to deal with Australia’s supposed ‘hard culture’.193

It may turn out that the majority view holds and that the search will prove illusory for a haven of hope in Burkean, discursive and/or new institutionalist terms. The first aspect of any negative conclusion about the meta- hypothesis outlined above will run more or less as follows:-

The sharp focus of war-time conditions and the serendipity of two independent MPs holding the balance of power might be understood as a recurrence of the practice of suspending partisan judgements but only quite briefly and almost momentarily on October 3 1941. Also, rationally speaking,

Coles’s and Wilson’s only politically significant exercise of their serendipity, was

193 A. Patience. 1990. ‘Australia’s hard culture; notes for an historical sociology’ Australian Studies 14: October: 44-53.

the thirty-five seconds or so it took for it to become apparent that they were going to cross the floor and defeat Fadden’s government. 194

Coles’s and Wilson’s personal trajectories, reconsidered, only add a bit of weight, in a few insignificant ways, to Burke’s, Beiner’s, Marsh’s, Fenna’s and the other writers quoted (and cited) arguments about deliberation and politics. It really seems a tall order to argue that Australian politics in the early 1940s was anything other than the Benthamite anti-deliberative wasteland it so often has proved to be at most other times. If the serendipity of a three year long hung parliament during a war cannot produce a few Burkean national consensus episodes then this would also dampen the hopes some still hold out for communitarian turn in post post-Keynesian politics.

The failure to find historical examples which tend to indicate the plausibility of the hypothesis about deliberativeness would also necessarily lead to the conclusion that some other Federal MPs might be understood as better candidates for the role of being under-rated key strategic players in the sixteenth parliament. Eddie Ward and Sir Earle Page and not Wilson or Coles are good alternative candidates. Ward and Page were key strategic players, who have tended to have been under-considered.

A second and final such probable conclusion, if the counter-factual hypothesis ends up being relatively weak, is that its weakness might have something to do with all attempts to inform historical judgements with insights drawn from the social sciences. Marsh’s ideas, as cited, (as an example) could be trying to extrapolate too much from a few historical instances as there have

194 See J. R. Gusfield. 2000‘Manufacturing Meaning in the Social Sciences’ in P.N. Mukherji (ed.) Methodology in Social Research: Dilemmas and Perspectives: Essays in Honour of Ramakrishna Mukherjee , New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications:38-43.

only been a few odd occasions, since the 1910’s when Westminster parliaments have operated with non-two-party system dynamics.

It may, in fact, be entirely due to chance or other sociologically analysable reasons that these non –two party dominated parliaments had episodes of heightened and beneficial political learning. Political learning disabilities are not confined to two-party system politics. Fenna’s point about cross-class policy coalitions, while cogent for the 1890s, might find itself increasingly running out into the sand for the post 1909 period. The very ‘labourist’ thesis that

Fenna seeks to go beyond may still end up better explaining Labor’s behaviour between 1909 and 1941.

Thirty thousand or so units of public housing with Mrs Clive Evatt’s name on the foundation stone do not really add up to a cross-class negotiated demand-side break out of Scandinavian proportions. The same could apply to the other social-service and demand-side measures implemented by State Labor governments after 1941 in Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia and

Tasmania and/or the similar measures of the Playford government in South

Australia. 195 Nor do the various war time innovations of Federal Labor amount to a sixth of what Attlee was able to do in half the time. By extension both

Fenna and Marsh might be criticised for trying in turn to claim too much both for Labor and the social liberals during the Deakinite Lib/Lab policy coalition period of 1901-1909. 196

195 See R. Watts. 1982. ‘The Origins of the Australian Welfare State’ in R. Kennedy (ed.) Australian Welfare History , South Melbourne, Macmillan: 225-255. 196 See B.F. Fitzpatrick. 1944. A Short History of the Australian Labor Movement. (New Enlarged Edition). Rawson’s Bookshop, Melbourne; I. Turner. 1968. ‘Introduction’ in B. Fitzpatrick. A Short History of the Australian Labor Movement. South Melbourne, Macmillan.

There are very few professional politicians today who seek to follow

Beiner’s injunction to wait for the providentially provided right ‘chance’ to enter into deliberation over furthering the common-good! On the other hand, if

Burke, Beiner and the other writers cited above are right, there will only be a few occasions when serendipity allows for politicians to be deliberative anyway. Unless those deliberating genuinely deliberate-in-common about furthering the common-good policy remains centred on something else, on power-politics, interest-group convergence, globalisation etc.,

The majority view eloquently and persuasively argues that the normal and generally operative modes of politics is really what politics is all about and that there are no real exceptions. The purpose of the study that follows is to provide some reason to attest to the counter-factual case put further above. The re-statement (just above), at some length, of the majority view hopefully indicates a healthy awareness of the difficulties of arguing the counter-factual case. The counter-factual case being that deliberativeness (as defined further above) does occur, now and then, such as in Canberra in late 1941.

Chapter Two: Literature Review

Introduction.

The literature about the two independents of the parliament of 1940-1943 tends to fall into one of three types. The first type is a one page reference, sometimes slightly more, which forms that part of a book of memoirs which is

devoted to the war-time part of the career of a member of the Federal parliamentary press gallery, public servants or others connected with Federal parliamentarians in the early 1940s. 197 Coles and Wilson also find their way, via brief mentions, asides or footnotes, into shorter articles, diary entries and other personal papers left behind by this same group of sources. 198

The second type of reference to both independents in the existing literature is in a few scattered phrases which sometimes extend to a few sentences in the text of biographies and autobiographies of key political actors whose days of chief prominence were between the mid 1930s and the late 1940s. Spender’s memoirs devotes more than the average mentioned above to the independents with six pages in total spread over four direct references and a few other oblique references. 199 Sometimes additional empirical material and narrative is included in footnotes and sometimes even in the text but most of the writers of this material still assume that Coles’s and/or Wilson’s activities were, in effect, historical sideshows. 200 Aimer stands out in this group as in his history of the

Victorian Liberal Party there is a paragraph long footnote emphasising Coles’s early and high-level links with the Victorian U.A.P. 201

197 E.g., D. Whitington. (1954) 1969. The House Will Divide A Review of Australian Federal Politics . Melbourne, Lansdowne Press; D. Whitington. 1977. Strive to be Fair: An Unfinished Autobiography . Acton, Australian National University Press. Also see R. B. Walker. 1980. Yesterday’s News A History of the Newspaper Press in New South Wales from 1920 to 1945 . Sydney, University of Sydney; C. Lloyd. 1988. Parliament and the Press: The Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery . Carlton, University of Melbourne Press; F. C. Green. 1969. Servant of the House . Melbourne, Heinemann. 198 See C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed . Sydney, George Allen and Unwin: 390-392 ‘Sources and Acknowledgements’; A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies A Life 1983-1943 . Carlton, Melbourne University Press: 432-434., ‘Sources’. 199 P. Spender. 1972. Politics and a Man . Sydney, William Collins:72;162;168;170-172;192;196;198;202. 200 E.g. C. Kerr. 1983. Archie, the Biography of Sir Archibald Grenfell Price . South Melbourne, Macmillan: 171-172; E. Holt. 1969. Politics is People The Men of the Menzies Era. Sydney, Angus and Robertson. See B. Griffen-Foley. 2003. 'A civilised amateur' Edgar Holt and his life in letters and politics’ Australian Journal of Politics and History 49:1:31-47. 201 P. Aimer. 1974. Politics, Power and Persuasion: The Liberals in Victoria . Collaroy, James Bennett: text of footnote 216 facing :210.

The third and final type of reference to Coles and Wilson is where a passing reference is made to the fact that two conservative independents crossed the floor on October 3, 1941 to support Curtin’s accession to power. Coles’s and

Wilson’s actual names are often actually left out in such cases or confined to footnotes although their names often, but not always rate inclusion in the index. 202 Coles’s and Wilson’s treatment in this last group is understandable.

They are usually mentioned in the context of general political history textbooks which might only be devoting between half a dozen and a dozen pages to

Australia between the early 1930s and the late 1940s.

------

Coles and Wilson are only afforded passing references in even more extended treatments of politics and events in Australia between the 1930s and

1940s. Various supposedly symbolic war-time episodes and tangents such as the

Mrs. Blamey controversy and/or pre-war situations like that of Egon Kisch, Mrs.

Freer and Menzies’s struggles with modern art often receive a whole page or

202 E.g., A. G. L. Shaw. 1955. The Story of Australia . London, Faber and Faber: 255; C. M. H. Clark. 1964. A Short History of Australia . London, Heinemann: 228f; R. Lacour-Gayet. 1976. (Translated by J. Grieve) A Concise History of Australia : 343: Chapter 22 ‘The Second World War’:336-356.; R. M. Younger. 1974. Australia and the Australians . Sydney, Rigby: 601.

more in such texts. 203 Day’s Politics and War devotes several lines (but only several lines) to the independents likely role, in late to mid 1941 as catalysts for

Curtin’s accession to power. Day at least implies that Curtin’s position was strengthened due to Coles’s and Wilson’s decision to wait and see if Menzies worked out as a half-way decent war leader. Curtin was thus strengthened by

Menzies being given more than enough rope to hang himself. 204

There are a few examples provided in the literature of Federal political manifestations of mass-political populist dissatisfaction with farm policy despite a vigorous literature on State based right-wing moral-panic and right-wing conspiratorial dynamics. 205 The writers in sectarian studies have generally failed to see a link between rural ultra-rightist dynamics and Coles’s or Wilson’s presences in parliament in 1940. Hogan describes the All for Australia League as a sort of extension of paramilitary right-wing activism. The All for Australia

League was probably more like a politically concerned version of the Rotary

Movement. G. J. Coles and Company was a sponsor of the movement along with Sir Sidney Myer. 206

J. B. Paul’s pioneering work on Albert Dunstan’s populism has not, except in the work of K. White, been correlated in any coherent way with State but also Federal Victorian Labor’s desire in the 1930s to resonate with a wider

203 E.g., J. R. Robertson. 1976. ‘1930-39’ in F. K. Crowley. (ed.). A New History of Australia . Melbourne, William Heinemann: 415-457; T. Griffiths. 1977. Contemporary Australia. New York, St. Martins Press: 25-43, Chapter 1 ‘A Revolution in the lives of the People’ and: 21-39 ‘Coming Through with Dug-Out Doug’. 204 D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War . Pymble, Harper Collins: 136. 205 E.g., M. Cathcart. 1988. Defending the National Tuckshop: Australia’s Secret Army Intrigue of 1931 . Fitzroy, McPhee Gribble/Penguin; A. Moore. 1989. The secret army and the Premier: conservative paramilitary organizations in New South Wales 1930-32 . Kensington, University of New South Wales Press. 206 E.g. M. Hogan. 1987. The Sectarian Strand Religion in Australia . Ringwood, Penguin: 209.

electorate. 207 The existing literature has found even less reason than this small sub-group of the literature on Depression-era Victoria to search for any Federal manifestations of this Victorian Labor-conservative policy-coalescence. 208 E. M.

Andrews’s seminal assessments of Australian appeasement mentality also misses out on mentioning Coles’s quite substantial anti-appeasement and pro-armament crusade in Melbourne between 1938 and 1940. 209

Wilson does not receive significant coverage, except in the official history of a major Victorian primary producer organization.210 Growers in Action does see Wilson as an historically significant Federal political manifestation of Albert

Dunstan’s relatively under-documented Victorian rural populist-Labor Party policy coalition. 211 Coles is also largely excluded from extended treatment or even being mentioned at all in the literature that concerns itself with the key business supremo figures who began to assist Labor from 1941. 212 Coles, in fact, played as important a role, in his way, as any other elite and business figure – as H.

C. Coombs acknowledged in his much quoted, but perhaps little often read John

Curtin Memorial Lecture .213

207 J. B. Paul. 1961. ‘The Premiership of Sir Albert Dunstan’ MA Thesis, University of Melbourne; 1958. ‘The Victorian Country Party: Its Origins and Leadership’ BA (Hons) Thesis, University of Melbourne; 1979. ‘Albert Dunstan and the Victorian Government’ in A. Ray. (ed.) Australian Conservatism . Canberra, Australian National University Press: 169-191; K. White. 1982. John Cain and Victorian Labor 1917-1957 . Sydney, Hale and Iremonger; 2000. Joseph Lyons. Melbourne, Bookman Press; 1978. ‘Hollway: an atypical Liberal leader?’ Politics 13: November: 320-323. 208 E.g., P. R. Hay (ed.) 1985. Essays on Victorian Politics. Warnambool, Warnambool Institute Press; B. Costar and D. Woodward. (eds.) 1985. Country to National: Australian Rural Politics and Beyond . Sydney, George Allen and& Unwin and G. Blainey. 1984. Our Side of the Country The Story of Victoria . North Ryde, Metheun Haynes. 209 E. M. Andrews. 1970. Isolationism and Appeasement in Australia: reactions to the European crises, 1935-1939 . Canberra, Australian National University Press; 1987. The writing on the wall: the British Commonwealth and aggression in the east 1931-1935 . Sydney, Allen and Unwin. 210 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action Official History of the Victorian Wheat and Woolgrowers’ Association, 1927-1968 . Melbourne, The Hawthorn Press. 211 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action : 1-185. 212 M. Dunn. 1984. Australia and the Empire From 1788 to the present . Sydney, Fontana Collins. 213 H. C. Coombs. 1984. ‘John Curtin: A Consensus Prime Minister?’ Fourteenth Annual John Curtin Memorial Lecture Canberra, The Research Schools of Social Studies and Pacific Studies, Australian National University.

A. Arnold has said that the Second World War is seen as a ‘symbolic watershed in Australian historiography’.214 Arnold citing Macintyre adds:

Some time around the middle of the century Australian history, as we now understand it, is deemed to begin. War in the Pacific dispels the last illusions of Pax Britannia; the balance of global power tilts irreversibly away from the British Empire… New Australians create a new Australia, once consciously formulated to accommodate and contain diversity within a vigorous national culture. And the nation demands a past that is no longer derivative and dependent, no longer a leaving to make good with what was brought but coming to start afresh with what is found. 215

Non-party conservative independent MPs and indeed most conservative minor parties and social movements have not found much place in this chronicling of the

‘new’ direction Australian history was supposed to have taken after 1941. 216 Emy makes the point that despite this supposed mid-century shift, the historiography remained tied to certain presuppositions about Australian political culture:

Stokes argues persuasively that the Australian political tradition contains more indigenous resources than previously thought. However he also reproves those who think that, without a classic thinker or a classic text, Australia is ‘politically disabled’ (Emy and Hughes said ‘politically handicapped’...Our view was that this particular ‘mental universe’ had prevented other doctrines from taking hold. 217 One new doctrine being tested out in this thesis is the idea that independent MPs can possibly provide a Burkean style deliberative contribution to the political process. Coles’s and Wilson’s records should be gone over again to see if they possibly might have acted as circuit breakers of the normal decision-making processes operating in the major political parties.

214 A. Arnold. 2000. ‘Australian History in Print; a bibliographical survey of influential twentieth century texts’ National Inquiry into School History, Appendix D., http.//www.dest.gov.au/schools/publications/2000/future/appendixD 215 A. Arnold. 2000. Australian History…’ Citation from S. Macintyre. 1994. A History for a Nation: Ernest Scott and the making of Australian History . Carlton, Melbourne University Press. 216 See H. Emy. 1995. ‘Stokes on Australian Political Thought: A Critical Appreciation’ Australian Journal of Political Science 30:335-341. 217 H. Emy. 1995. ‘Stokes…:339’; G. Stokes. 1994. ‘Conceptions of Australian Political Thought: A Methodological Critique’ Australian Journal of Political Science 29:2:240-258; H. V. Emy and O.E. Hughes. 1988. Australian Politics: Realities in Conflict . South Melbourne, Macmillan.

A key example of an often unexamined presupposition associated with

Australian writing on politics is the observation made by inter-war Australian political-science literature about parties of resistance and parties of initiative.

Hancock and Portus, among others (as noted above in Chapter 1) wrote that

Australian conservative politics, if it was to be coherent politics, was in its very praxis confined to the politics of ‘resistance’ to Labor. 218 Conservatives, when they were not actually resisting provided creative moderation to otherwise leftist/collectivist policies initiated by the Labor bloc of politics. 219 There is little room in this outlook for conservative independent MPs to be seen as sources of shifts in the policy imagination of the polity!

There are two positive and therefore also apparently idiosyncratic exceptions to this generalised theory driven marginalisation of the historical role of the two independents, mostly in relation to Coles. The first exception is Sir Arthur

Fadden’s memoirs They Called Me Artie and the second Kevin Perkins’ Menzies

Last of the Queen’s Men .220 Fadden, of course, was writing a personal record and was not troubled by any need to address or cross-refer to theories of collective forces versus the individuals contribution to politics. 221

Perkins, however, was seeking to put Coles and Wilson more into the centre of at least those aspects of the political history of the time that can be plausibly and rationally attributed to individual actions. 222 Fadden and Perkins both assign central roles to Coles while indicating that Wilson played a

218 See J. Walter and T.Moore. 2002. ‘The New Social Order? Australia’s contribution to 'new liberal' thinking in the interwar period’… 219 W. K. Hancock. [1930] 1960. Australia . Brisbane, Jacaranda Press. See H. Emy. 1995. ‘Stokes…’ 220 A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie The Memoirs of Sir Arthur Fadden . Brisbane, The Jacaranda Press. K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies Last of the Queen’s Men . Adelaide, Rigby. 221 See B. Costa and P. Vlahos. 2001. ‘Sir Arthur William Fadden’ in M. Grattan. (ed.) Australia’s Prime Minsters . Sydney, New Holland Press. 222 See K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies… : 158-167; 175; 254-255.

subsidiary but important role in terms of making up the numbers and in forging a key-link with the ambitious H. V. Evatt. 223 Volume 1 of Sir Paul

Hasluck’s seminal and widely influential official political war history devotes about eight pages of text, out of six hundred, to the independents. 224 Hasluck’s editorial decision to de-emphasise Coles’s and Wilson’s role is played out in

Volume 2 of the history, which covers the period 1942-1945, even though

Curtin could only govern with their consent from October 1941 to September

1943. 225

Hasluck’s approach to the independents will be critiqued throughout this thesis but space will be devoted, just below, to assessing its seminal directing and guiding role for most of the subsequent writing on Australian political history during the sixteenth (1940-1943) parliament. Hasluck has a good reputation with professional historians (of the left and right), and with non- conservative commentators, politicians and partisans who have written about the

Second World War. Hasluck’s account, while very influential, was itself shaped by wider functionalist presuppositions about the social-scientific irrelevance of individual independent MPs in modern politics.

Hasluck shared with most Australian writers on history and politics the view, which was dominant until very recently, that individual political actors are flotsam and jetsam borne upon the tide of wider forces despite his adherence

223 K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies… : 145f. Also see Chapter 7 (below). 224 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941Australia in the War of 1939-1945 . Series 4 (Civil), Vol.1.Canberra, Australian War Memorial: 258-259; 269; 279; 281; 372-374; 393; 504; 506-7; 510; 516-518; 522. 225 P. Hasluck. 1970. The Government and the People 1942-1945 Australia in the War of 1939-1945 . Series 4 (Civil) Vol. 1.Canberra, Australian War Memorial.

to a liberal conservative, ‘individualist’ value-system. 226 The wider forces Hasluck deemed centrally important are meta-explanations like modernisation theory and interest-group ideas of representation. 227 Sir Paul Hasluck’s The

Government and the People , Volume 1, 1939-1941 justifiably, remains the definitive account of the political history of Australia during the first part of the

Second World War. 228 Coles’s and Wilson’s role in the official war history is something this study is seeking to critique and revise.

There are general allusions to local politics during the Second World War in autobiographical accounts by ex-diplomats and histories of Australian policy making . Coles and Wilson’s actions during 1941 play no part in these memoirs

(or they are mentioned in passing) 229 There are also accounts that chart

Australia’s supposedly inevitable subservience to the United States since late

1941. Coles and Wilson, as two private members of parliament, do not rank mention, except, perhaps in the index to indicate the formal cause of the

Americanising Curtin’s coming to power. 230

Horner and Day have produced works after 1952 which approach Hasluck in focus, authority and breadth. 231 Horner and Day, so far, however, have

226 See P.C. Hasluck. 1975. What is the use of History? 9 th Patricia Chomley Oration. Perth, College of Nursing Australia; T. Stannage, K. Saunders, and R. Nile (eds.) 1998. Paul Hasluck in Australian History: Civic Personality and Public Life . St. Lucia. University of Queensland Press. 227 E.g. P. C. Hasluck. 1976. A Bad Case of symptoms: the ailments of society; 43rd Sir Richard Stawell Oration. Melbourne, Australian Medical Association, Victorian Division; 1976 The Social Scientist in a Democracy; Annual lecture of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Canberra, the Academy. 228 E.g., see G. Bolton. 1976. ‘1939-1951’ in F. Crowley (ed.). A New History of Australia . Melbourne. William Heinemann: 458-503, especially: 463. 229 E.g. P.G. Edwards. 1983. Prime Ministers and Diplomats: The Making of Australian Foreign Policy, 1901-49. South Melbourne, Oxford University Press; Sir Alan Watt. 1972. Australian Diplomat: memoirs of Sir Alan Watt. South Melbourne, Macmillan in conjunction with the Australian Institute of International Affairs: 317-318. 230 E.g. R. Bell. 1977. Unequal Allies: Australian-American Relations in the Pacific War. Carlton, Melbourne University Press. 231 D. Day. 2003. Politics of War… ; D. Horner. 1978. Crisis of Command: Australian Generalship and the Japanese Threat, 1941-1943. Canberra, Australian National University Press; 1982. High Command:

published works focusing only on particular key aspects of military, strategic, bureaucratic and political affairs in Australia during the Second World War. 232

Day’s assimilation of two earlier works into The Politics of War comes closest to an alternative overall account but remains focused on considerations of the relationship between Curtin and MacArthur - and on arguing a conventional

Australian view about Churchill as bete-noire.233

The earlier post-war generation of leading historians, tended to leave unchallenged the task of providing a detailed history of the war to the team assembled to produce the official war histories. Another earlier viewpoint comes from the Imperial history perspective, Hancock contributed to during the post- war period. 234 Relatively little, except in non –Australian comparative studies of all of the Dominions has been produced in later Imperial history writing about

Australia’s role as contributor to its own fate through its advocacy of appeasement at all costs. 235 E. M. Andrews’s work, has long stood out as a beacon in regard to local appeasement. Andrews, however, as noted above, did not know about or possibly judged as marginal Coles’s mass-political crusade against appeasement mentality in Melbourne during 1938-1941. 236

Australia and Allied Strategy 1939-1945. St. Leonards, Allen and Unwin; 1996. Inside the War Cabinet: Directing Australia’s War Effort, 1939-1945. 232 D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War…:706-722 ‘Select Bibliography.’ St. Leonards, Allen and Unwin. D. Horner. 2000. Defence supreme: Sir Frederick Shedden and the making of Australian defence policy. St. Leonards, Allen and Unwin. 233 D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War Australia At War…; 1988. The Great Betrayal Britain, Australia and the Onset of the Pacific War, 1939-1942. Sydney, Angus and Robertson; 1992. Reluctant Nation: Australia and the Allied Defeat of Japan, 1942-45. South Melbourne, Oxford University Press; Cf., A.J. Ramsden. 2003. Man of the Century Winston Churchill and His Legend Since 1945. Hammersmith, Harper Collins. 234 W. K. Hancock (ed.) The Official History of the War (The Civil Series), London, H.M.S.O.; W. K. Hancock (ed.) 1939. The Survey of Commonwealth Affairs 1918-1939. (Vol.1) London, H.M.S.O.; 1940. The Survey of Commonwealth Affairs 1918-1939. ( Vol. 2) London, H.M.S.O. 235 E.g. R. Ovendale. 1989. ‘Why the British Dominions declared War’ in R. Boyce and E. Robertson (eds.) Paths to War New Essays on the Origins of the Second World War , Basingstoke, Macmillan Education ; 269-298. 236 E. M. Andrews. 1970. Isolation and Appeasement…; 1987. The Writing on the Wall…

Horner’s work, towers above the rest of the defence-establishment genre. 237

James, another defence writer proposes a case about the failure of politicians to take charge within the wider policy making and implementing process. 238

Cottle’s work, exemplifies an extreme version of the continuing emphasis (also found in Day) on the incapacity of the local Australian elite to work out a confident approach to high policy making after the Fall of France. 239

Hasluck - and the other writers of other parts of the official war history did link the role and contribution of those military, bureaucratic, business-elite, media and other figures who were dissatisfied with how things were being done up to late 1941. 240 Coles and Wilson, appear only in these volumes, if at all, in their classic pose, in the index and/or as footnotes or marginal references, in the other military histories when they are discussing the milieu back-home. A good example would the long introductory essay by Wigmore in The Japanese Thrust - the most relevant of the military history volumes for the political and military crisis of 1941-1942. 241

Coles and Wilson, are perhaps somewhat neglected too in the volumes of the official history dealing with economic aspects of the war. 242 However, the writers of these volumes, even more than Hasluck, had to limit themselves to listing of key official actions, and the actions of fifty to a hundred or so key

237 See D. Horner. 2001. Command and Strategy’ Conference Paper, 2001 History Conference, Australian War Memorial, ‘Remembering 1942’ Australian War Memorial, Canberra. 238 N. James. 2000. ‘Reform of the Defence Management Paradigm: A Fresh View’ Australian Defence Force Academy Working Papers Working Paper No: 59: May. 239 D. Cottle. 2002. The Brisbane Line: A Reappraisal. Leicester, Upfront Publishing. 240 Also see N. Gow. 1974. ‘The Australian War Cabinet, 1939’ Australasian Association of Political Studies Conference Papers : 16th Conference: 16 pages. 241 L. Wigmore. 1952. The Japanese Thrust. Australia in the War of 1939-1945 . Vol. 4, Series 1 (Army). Canberra, Australian War Memorial. E.g.:38; 50-51; 96-97 Also see: 391 and: 674. 242 S.J. Butlin. 1952. War Economy, 1939-1942. Australia in the War of 1939-1945. Vol. 3, Series 4 (Civil). Canberra, Australian War Memorial; S.J.. Butlin and C. B. Schedvin. 1977. War Economy, 1939- 1942 Australia in the War of 1939-1945 . Vol. 4. Series 4 (Civil). Canberra, Australian War Memorial.

bureaucratic, political, banking and business figures. The rest were left largely unexamined, except for ego-satisfying references and mentions, once or twice, in official black-ink, of their various committee, official and other contributions. 243

Coles’s actual, behind-the-scenes role, at least from late 1941 (it will be argued) however, appears to have been one of those left-out from extended treatment in, say, the official history dealing with economics. References will be made and citations given (in chapters below) to Coombs’s comments and

Australian archives material that indicate that Coles, was by any standard, in this collection of the top civilian-bureaucratic-elite business figures suborned into administrative roles during the war. 244

There are perhaps several hundred others who understandably figure quite a lot, across most of the war-histories - senior Cabinet members, military commanders, key senior bankers, major media owners and managers and public service officials. The point is that none of these other senior figures held the balance of power in parliament for three years!

Hasluck divides his Australian official history of political and civil events into the neat dichotomy of Volume 1, which deals mostly with the period 1939-

1941, when the conservatives were in power, and Volume 2 which deals with

1942-1945 when Labor was in power. 245 Hasluck’s division reflects the view held at the time and since then that Curtin’s accession to the Prime Ministership reflected a historic sea change in Australian history.246

243 See. S. J. Butlin. 1955. ‘Sources for the Australian War Economy’ Historical Studies 7:25:44-55. 244 H. C. Coombs. 1984. ‘John Curtin: A Consensus Prime Minister?’… 245 P. Hasluck. 1970 The Government and the People 1939-1941 . Australia in the War of 1939-1945 . Series 4 (Civil), Vol.1. Canberra, Australian War Memorial. 246 E.g. see the judgement of Curtin in A. Fadden. 1972. They Called Me Artie. The Memoirs of Sir Arthur Fadden . Brisbane, The Jacaranda Press: 79-81.; also see R.G. Menzies. Afternoon Light. Some Memories of Men and Events . Melbourne, Cassell Australia. :125-128., especially 128.

Hasluck was a senior Minister in the Menzies-Fadden Federal government by the time Volume 1 was published in 1952. 247 Volume 2, dealing with post

1941, was not published until the later 1970s, by which time Volume 1 had found its way into the historical sub-consciousness of all Australian and wider readers interested in political aspects of Australia in the Second World War. 248

Day’s 1999 biography of John Curtin, for instance, only includes Volume 1 in its bibliography, despite the fact that Volume 2 deals with all but the first few months of Curtin’s period as Prime Minister. 249

Day’s later published biography of Chifley and his even more recent political history of Australia in the Second World War does refer to both volumes. 250 Day’s reference to Volume 1 alone (without Volume 2), in the biography of Curtin, reflects the deep level of penetration into the historiographical consciousness achieved by Volume 1. 251 Volume 1 also deals with the key events surrounding Curtin’s accession to power and the subsequent national crisis of November-December 1941 which flowed from Pearl Harbour, the fall of Singapore and the bombing of Darwin. 252

Hasluck, aware that Volume 2 might take some time to emerge, also added several appendices dealing with early 1942 and other issues that continued on

247 See T. Stannage, K. Saunders, and R. Nile (eds.) 1998. Paul Hasluck in Australian History… 248 See E.G. Whitlam. 1995. ‘Keynote Address’ Sir Paul Hasluck in Australian History Conference, University of Western Australia, 18/9/., http://www.whitlam.org/collection/ 1995/19950918 _uniw_paul_hasluck/ 249 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin A Life . Pymble, Harper Collins: 591. 250 D. Day. 2001. Chifley A Life . Pymble, Harper Collins: 781; D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War . Pymble, Harper Collins: 716. 251 See K. Darian-Smith. 2001. ‘Homefront Historiography’ in J. Beaumont. (ed.) The Australian centenary history of defence. Vol. 6. Australian Defence: sources and statistics. Melbourne, Oxford University Press. Also see R. Nile, B. Bennett, J. Brett, H. Nelson, G. Woodward, A. Haebrich and G. Bolton. ‘Hindsight’, Radio National 9/7/00 Discussion on Paul Hasluck. 252 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …: 519-570.

after 1941 until 1945. 253 Serle sums up the majority view about Hasluck’s place in Australian war historiography.

When I was writing my ABD entry on Curtin about seven years ago, I found the late Sir Paul Hasluck to be far and away the best living witness on Curtin. We had a great correspondence. (Recently Gough Whitlam tagged Hasluck as the most ‘the most Liberal of the literati and the most literate of the Liberals’). The young Hasluck had been a member of the district council of the AJA which Curtin chaired. Early in 1941 Curtin, still leader of the Opposition, ran into him in St. Georges Terrace and there and then recruited him for the infant Department of External Affairs. Hasluck may not have been a close friend but he revered Curtin who always talked to him ‘with the frankness of a friend’, though his scrupulousness as an historian made him tilt over backwards to make some mild criticisms of Curtin as Prime Minister in the official war history. He eventually wrote that whether or not Curtin was a great Prime Minister, he was certainly a great man. 254

Serle’s eulogy has taken on a prescient turn since 1997 due to the beginnings of a certain amount of revisionism in the wider historiography about

Menzies’s historical place vis a vis Curtin. 255 G. Henderson, a neo-conservative historian of the Liberal Party (for instance) has argued that any attempt to attribute gauche, unfortunate, and/or historically reprehensible motives to the war-time Menzies is another partisan Labor history version of history. 256

Hasluck in 1952, in contrast to Menzies’s more recent defenders, openly conceded that the view that Menzies’s performance during 1939-1941 was somehow lacking, was basically a commonly held if not the majority view,

253 P. Hasluck. The Government and the People 1939-1941… : 520-624., eg.,: 593-598 ‘Appendix 4: The Wartime Treatment of Aliens’. 254 G. Serle. 1997. ‘Glimpses of John Curtin’ Inaugural John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library Lecture., 14 August,. John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library, Curtin University of Technology. http://john.curtin.edu.aui/events/speeches/serlelecture.html:3. 255 See S. Brawley. 2003. ‘A Comfortable and Relaxed Past’: John Howard and the ‘Battle of History’ The Electronic Journal of Australian History 12/5: ttp://www.jcu.edu.au/aff/history/articles/brawley.htm. 256 G. Henderson. In discussion with T. Jones and J. Edwards Radio National ‘Lateline’ 19/4/01: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/s280085.htm. Also see G. Henderson 1994. Menzies Child: The Liberal Party of Australia, 1944-1994 . Sydney, Allen and& Unwin.

between the years 1941 and 1952. 257 Hasluck had the essential integrity and sense of self-confidence to deal with this controversial issue within Volume I.

Hasluck dealt with the issue (seemingly) head on:

A large part of any criticism of the so-called failure of Menzies as a war leader should be criticism of him to win the 1940 elections more decisively… His so called failure after that date was a failure in political management.258

Hasluck added:

Democracy has seldom produced a worse means of obtaining strong government in a crisis than when, in Australia in 1940, it produced a coalition depending on the votes of two Independents. This fact in itself suggests a state of irresolution in the nation and the criticism of the political leaders on both sides really amounts to a criticism that they failed to cut through that irresolution and by what they did or said to inspire confidence in their leadership or policies.259

Hasluck then said:

One of the customary criticisms of Menzies has been that he did not always convert his high purposes promptly into practical administrative action. 260

Volume 1 of Hasluck’s official war history was published before Menzies had fully established himself as a virtual irremovable and dominant feature on the

Australian political landscape. 261 Hasluck’s second volume was published in 1970, four years after Menzies’s retirement from his long second term as Prime

Minister. Menzies, by 1970, had attained a local and international gravitas

257 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …: 562; 564-566; 567-570. 258 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:564. 259 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941… : 564. 260 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People..1939-1941 .. .: 565. 261 See A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… : 408-432.

equivalent to other post- war, long boom political leaders like Diefenbaker,

Eisenhower and Adenauer. 262

Menzies’s disastrous but also remarkable first term had all but been lost from popular imagination by 1970 and the Prime Minister from 1941 to 1945

John Curtin had also become generally synonymous with whatever was heroic in

Australian politics during the Second World War. 263 Menzies, or rather Menzies of the second-term 1949-1966, had also become the classic figure personifying conservative resistance to earlier Labor policy initiatives.264 Menzies, also has been interpreted as the author of some creative adaptation of the possibly overly ambitious leftist/collectivist policy ideas that Labor put onto the agenda during

1941-1949. 265

Hasluck was merely following the major under-girding presuppositions, long held by 1950, and essentially unchallenged since, about Labor initiating policy and non-Labor essentially sensibly carrying it through and sensibly modifying it. 266 Menzies’s ego and reputation was somewhat salved by

Hasluck’s approach in the war-history as the quotations included in the text just above indicate. Hasluck, despite this, and despite his willing defence of

Menzies (after 1952) in the pages of such journals as Quadrant was not entirely forgiven by Menzies for what he wrote in the war history. 267

262 P. Hasluck. 1970. The Government and the People 1942-1945 . Australia in the War of 1939-1945 . Series 4 (Civil), Vol. 2. Canberra, Australian War Memorial. Also see P. Hasluck. 1970. Sir Robert Menzies. Carlton, Melbourne University Press. 263 S. Anson. 1986. ‘The Rhetorical Uses of John Curtin’ Journal of Australian Studies 19:65-83. 264 H. McQueen. 1984. Gallipoli to Petrov Arguing with Australian History. Sydney, George Allen and Unwin. 265 J. Brett. 1992. Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People . Sydney, Sun Books. Also see S. Brawley. 2003. ‘A Comfortable and Relaxed Past…’ 266 See P. Hasluck. 1951. ‘The Problems of research on Contemporary Official Records’ Historical Studies 5:17: 1-13. 267 See C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed …: 197-253; 386-387 and P. Hasluck. 1980 Sir Robert Menzies . Carlton, Melbourne University Press.

Hasluck had not gone the extra mile in stressing Menzies’s own self-perceived heroic battle against the odds, as Menzies really, deep down still saw himself, in terms of his war-time Prime Ministership. 268 Hasluck, however, also quite deliberately refrained from eulogising Curtin and adopted as dry and Benthamite an approach as he could. Hasluck says of his approach:

For the purposes of this research the term ‘political history’ was defined as the history of the shaping of government policy. I therefore looked chiefly at those events which had their final outcome in a decision by Cabinet, by Parliament or by the electorate. My method was to examine in the first instance, what Cabinet and Parliament did in fact decide and what appeals were in fact made to the electorate and to trace backwards from those points through the various circumstances and considerations that made the decision what it was. 269

Hasluck sought to somehow deal with the reality, known to any fair-minded insiders in and around Canberra at the time (as Hasluck was) that Labor and non-Labor were equally ill-equipped to make decisive and original decisions. 270

Hasluck, therefore, sought to down-play both Menzies’s and Fadden’s inadequacies and Labor’s own peccadilloes before about March 1942. 271

Hasluck also sought to down-play the role a few key individuals played in keeping things from falling apart before the realisation set in among the leonine

Canberra legislators of just how much a relief Pearl Harbour really was.

Hasluck’s best account of this lies in his somewhat uncharacteristically emotional account of his time with H.V. Evatt. 272 Diplomatic Witness , which contains this account, reads like a deeply personal account in contrast to a much earlier

268 R. G. Menzies. 1967. Afternoon Light Some Memories of Men and Events . Melbourne, Cassell Australia: 1-4; 13-62 and to a lesser extent 62-95. 269 P. Hasluck. 1951. ‘Problems of Research…: 2. 270 See T. Stephens. 2001. ‘It’s helpless, let’s surrender: plea to Cabinet’ Sydney Morning Herald . 271 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941… : 559-570 ‘Retrospect’. 272 P. Hasluck. 1980. Diplomatic Witness, Australian Foreign Affairs 1941-1947 . Carlton, Melbourne University Press.

produced survey covering similar material. 273 Volumes 1 and 2 of the official war history, in contrast, read very much like a well-written but still very deliberately inanimate public service file. Hasluck, in contrast, in Diplomatic

Witness lets himself go. Hasluck describes how most of the policy initiatives he was involved in were determined by human venom, slow, dry, pent-up anger, frustration, self-destructive procrastination and blind chance.

Hasluck, in a posthumous work, The Chance of Politics , while superficially endorsing a liberal-conservative and Burkean view of history, actually does not do so. 274 Hasluck, instead, re-affirms his faith in the same ratiocinative liberal positivistic, Benthamite paradigm which Emy argues still underlies much Australian writing on Australian political culture, political history and political sociology. 275

Hasluck adopted an attitude to what the official files ‘told him’ that tended to back-up what the sensible Benthamite public service mandarins also told him and what the politicians themselves told him. 276 Australia’s political elite’s view of how it handled the war seemed fairly plausible and anyway it fitted in with what most people (including left-wingers) held to be the underlying structural limits.

The ‘conservatives weren’t that bad’ view and the ‘Labor was just waiting to step-in’ view both assume these inherent structural limits rendered practically impossible any alternative policies to those actually undertaken by befuddled but well-meaning and naively loyal Australia. Hasluck’s war-history’s longevity and

273 P. Hasluck. 1948. Workshop of security. Melbourne, F. W. Cheshire. 274 P. Hasluck (N. Hasluck ed.). 1997. The Chance of Politics . Melbourne, Text Publishing. 275 H.V. Emy. 1995. ‘Stokes on Australian Political Thought…’ Compare with the historiographical vision outlined in P. Hasluck 1951. ‘Problems of Research on Contemporary Records’… Also see J. Brett. 1997. ‘Paul Hasluck’s Impersonal Politics’ in J. Brett. (ed.). Political Lives . St. Leonards, Allen and Unwin: 104-127. 276 P. Hasluck. 1968. ‘The Public Servant and Politics: Garran Oration to the Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration’ Canberra Journal of Public Administration 78: August: 91-99.

influence has been because it makes the case out for dispassionately putting both these views and for putting an alternate, sensible, and typically Hasluckian view

– that it was a case of a bit of both of these views. The simple truth is that grumpy, idiosyncratic independent MPs driving policy change, just because they hold the balance of power, doesn’t fit into a grand ‘national history’ view of things. Colin Smith has already drawn attention to underlying complexity and to the deeply assimilative ‘national history’ approach undertaken by Hasluck. Smith stresses the historiographically ambitious and complex aims which underlie

Hasluck’s self-stated and supposedly ‘narrow and rigid view of archives’.277

Hasluck’s view was also that the Labor government after 1941 essentially followed the plans for prosecuting the war that had been put into hundreds of neat, well-written files by pre war Cabinets dominated by ‘Doc Page.’ 278

Hasluck is accurately reflecting the ex post facto rationalisations of those in power (in politics, the military and bureaucracy) in Australia during the appeasement era. The era of self-limiting, shallow and self-defeating policy formulation that operated up to late 1941 required some sort of sociological justification. The official war- historians realised that, anyway, few would want them to put a too negative spin on facts that could be interpreted in a more positive light? Australia was one of the few countries in the late 1940’s and 1950’s where those among the political elites who had favoured an appeasement mentality had largely survived the war, so why rock the boat in an official history anyway? 279

277 C. Smith. 1983. ‘Some Reflections on Sir Paul Hasluck’s ‘narrow and rigid view of archives’’ Archives and Manuscripts May: 47-52. 278 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:130-149. 279 S.J.Butlin. 1955. ‘Sources for the Story of the Australian War Economy’ Historical Studies 7: 25: 44- 54.

Hasluck, the Labor-history view and the conservative-revisionist view all assume that Coles’s and Wilson’s presence in the parliament after October

1941 and before late 1943 did not mean that all normal bets were off regarding Labor and non-Labor approaches to formulating high-strategic policy.

There has not been, until this study, the view put that Coles and Wilson acted, in the antipodean context during 1940-1941, rather as the Churchillians acted in the British parliament during 1939-1940. Churchill, in late 1939 and early 1940, acted as a circuit-breaker facilitating those who might want to fight on and ignore the pessimism of the left and the so called realism of the right. It is a curious fact about most historians self-views of Australia that they deny Australia the capacity to produce a Churchill-like, last- minute, serendipitous intervention. Australian historiography has tended to confine

Australia’s options in 1940-1942 to the Gradgrindian nightmare of a little- country which always, merely, has to face the facts.

Curtin, thanks to the independents, no longer had to follow an approach acceptable to London/the conservatives or an approach that was limited to what was do-able within the arcane realms of Labor’s internal policy-making processes. The normal explanation about all this (which Hasluck himself endorses) is the sort of functionalist-structuralist one that the threat from Japan concentrated the politician’s attention. 280

There is little need, within this Hasluckian explanation, for the positing of the special or even contributory historical agency of the two independents. Nor is there much need to bother that much to acknowledge the presence of a vital and usually absent third-force or reality in parliament. Hasluck’s underlying reading

280 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …: 500f.

is that the existing Australian two-party system self-corrected, despite political, bureaucratic, military and other hindrances and problems.

The independents, in this view, were very definitely just one more on a long list of such hindrances to the otherwise underlying healthy-system, the two party system, within the wider reality of the Australian societal ‘system’.

Hasluck makes plain this view about Coles and Wilson in the quotations from his

‘Retrospect’ provided (somewhat further) above.

Coles and Wilson, at any rate, are not to be looked at as partial reasons as to why Curtin felt more confident than he might have otherwise to undertake a national strategic approach which was violently opposed by the Opposition,

London, the civilian defence chiefs, some of the military chiefs and most power- holders in the Labor Party. 281

The literature since Hasluck’s period of writing Volume 1 of the war history has taken a long time to fully weigh up and to begin to reconsider previous judgements about what Simms called the paradoxical durability but also at times the inadaptability of the major parties. 282 Political parties and the two-party system justifiably retain their centrality in accounts of formal politics.

Yet at the same time, as Thompson points out, it has become increasingly understood, contra Hasluck, that mass parties have played a role in frustrating many of the hopes held for the Australian polity in the early 1900’s, at the advent of federal Australian parliamentary democracy. 283 Coles’s and Wilson’s careers in Federal parliament, at best, presently plays a very minor part in the

281 See G. Pemberton. 1997. ‘An Imperial imagination: explaining the post -1945 foreign policy of Robert Gordon Menzies’ in Menzies in War and Peace , F. Cain (ed.). Sydney, Allen and Unwin:154-175. 282 M. Simms. 1996. ‘The Australian party system: durable but how adaptable?’ in M.Simms (ed.). The Paradox of Parties. St. Leonards, Allen and Unwin. 283 E. Thompson. 2000. ‘Australian Parliamentary Democracy After a Century: What gains, what losses?’ Research Paper: 23: Department of the Parliamentary Library, Commonwealth of Australia.

historical background informing a vast array of works about the 1940’s ranging across many genres of historical, sociological, political and theoretical writing.

Churchill, for instance, mentions the fact of the hung-parliament in his war history but assumes it is a negative factor. 284

Coles’s wife’s female colleagues in the Melbourne elite appear in discussions about the Australian party-system, gender relations in politics and the conservative contribution to policy formulation. 285 Coles and Wilson, however, are yet to be discussed in a way that allows them to take a more prominent place in the history of the shift into Keynesianism and more pro-active national policy-making after late 1941. Coles’s and Wilson’s contributions need to be better integrated into the existing discussion about the role in 1940’s Australia of religiosity, voluntarism, populism, liberalism and conservatism . 286

Conclusion

Ironically present day culture-war warriors of the new-right remain just as wedded to over-arching social-force determinist paradigms despite their occasional employment of Oakeshottian and even neo-Burkean notions of the importance of the role of individuals as political actors. Hasluck shared the view that saw anything other than bifurcated two-party system politics as a temporary, unhealthy and dysfunctional blight upon the inevitable two-party system. Hasluck stated in

284 W.S. Churchill. 1952. The Hinge of Fate. London, The Reprint Society: 20. 285 E.g. M. Fitzherbert. 2004. Liberal women: Federation to 1949. Sydney, Federation Press. 286 E.g. T. Rowse. 1978. Australian Liberalism and National Character. Malmsbury, Kibble Books; M.Oppenheimer. 2002. All Work. No Pay. Australian Civilian Volunteers in War. Walcha, Ohio Productions, distributed by Tower Books.

Volume 1 of his war history that he assumed that Australian politics was a healthy functional response to the needs and demands of contemporary society.

Until recently most writers have assumed that the main-game of Australian politics lay in studying two-party system political phenomena, particularly in relation to key crisis-points like the war-policy crisis after 1915, the post-war milieu of 1918 and into the early 1920s, the Great Depression and the Second

World War. Hasluck, in terms of his treating the two independents as footnotes to history was being unexceptional, and indeed deeply socially scientifically conventional.

Hasluck’s influential account is representative rather than creatively original in its treating the two balance of power independents of 1940-1943 as footnotes to history rather than as actor’s representative of under-represented great interests of the country.

Chapter Three: Coles in the run-up to the September 1940 general election and the immediate aftermath:

Introduction.

This chapter is the first of five chapters that will analyse the political actions and discourse of Arthur Coles and Alex Wilson between late 1940 and October

1941. The first two chapters will focus on events prior to the general election of

1940, the election and a few months after that. This chapter will focus on

Coles, the subsequent Chapter on Wilson. The key issues raised in previous chapters will be examined in the light of Coles’s background, the election of

1940 and the new parliament of 1940. All chapters that follow, including this one while focusing on Coles and/or Wilson (or both) will also cross-refer to the following four key historical issues:-

The first key issue was the continued infighting taking place within the coalition parties. 287 The infighting revolved around but was not confined to growing dissatisfaction with Menzies, as a party leader, Prime Minister, leader of the coalition and as someone who could rally the nation in time of war. 288

The Menzies government ruled as a United Australia Party only minority government from April 1939 until March 1940. Many Country Party MPs were upset about that the feud between Page and Menzies that had precipitated the break up of the coalition. Four Country Party MPs were so upset that they defied their party, ceased to attend the party room and announced their support of the government.

287 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:242-280. 288 See C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed …: 197-253; 386-387.

Three of the Country Party rebels, which included Fadden, received Cabinet posts. 289

Page remained a key player despite stepping aside from the leadership of the

Country Party in September 1939, ostensibly to open the way for a renewal of the coalition now that war had been declared. Page’s influence was such that the majority of the party remained out of the coalition until the disastrous Corio by-election in the autumn of 1940. Labor, at the Corio by-election won the seat vacated by Menzies’s most widely admired (but now exited) potential successor R.G. Casey. 290 Page, ominously, remained on the back bench and approached the coming Federal election with studied ambivalence. 291 Page, after the election, rejoined the government after secretly and personally negotiating his re-entry with

Menzies over the heads of all their colleagues. 292

A second key historical issue was Labor’s incapacity to join a national all party wartime government. Labor was deeply divided into factions with many in its leadership group fearing that a right-wing opportunist group split might split off and join the conservatives -as had taken place in 1916 - even if it entered into a national war government 293 There were also well founded fears of splits or oppositional adventurism by pacifist left-wingers, Langites and others such as

Mannix inspired Irish neutralists. 294

289 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:200-210; A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :39-43. 290 See A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :293-295. 291 See P. Spender. 1972. Politics and a Man… :69-71. 292 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-19411 …:264-266. 293 See D. Day. 1999. John Curtin …:386-389; 400; 391; 394-405. 294 See L. Ross. 1941. ‘Industrial Unrest’: a talk given to the Economic Society of Victoria 24/5/40’ in Lloyd Ross Papers MS: 3939 ANL: Series 6, Folder 1; B. McKinlay. 1979. A Documentary History of the Australian Labor Movement 1860-1975. Richmond, Drummond Heinemann: 730-780; A. Gietzelt. 2005. ‘In Defence of Dr. Herbert Vere Evatt: the story behind the outing of 'The Movement'’ Evatt Society Papers : February.

The third key historical issue was the continuing dissatisfaction among many conservatives with all professional politicians’ inability to maximise the war effort. Coles’s campaign against the half-hearted running of the war was part of a much wider discourse being engaged in by people like Murdoch and even some members of the Cabinet itself (such as Spender) 295 Spender had stood (in

1937) as an independent candidate defeating the defence minister on the issue of lack of preparation for war. Government MPs who were dissatisfied (or said they were anyway) tended to sheet all blame onto Menzies, the Labor Party and anyone else (such as Coles and Wilson) – anyone but themselves. 296

Fourthly and finally there is the historical issue of Coles’s and Wilson’s and other people’s belief in neo-Deakinite style trade-offs of demand-side measures to achieve wider national goals (like winning wars). Labor, at least in part, shared this neo-Deakinite enthusiasm for using war-time conditions to run major post- war focused infrastructure projects. 297 Labor also shared Coles’s and Wilson’s faith in the efficacy of cross-subsidising the middle classes while also redistributing to those reliant on wages and/or more insecure sources of employment, nourishment, shelter and health services. 298

There was a growing proto-Keynesian movement and a growing dissatisfaction with the relative meanness of the Federal fiscal regime since the fall of the

Hughes government. 299 As stated above these four issues will be kept in mind while undertaking the key focus of this study. The key focus being assessing

295 See C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed …:181-204. 296 See C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed …: 197-253; 386-387; P. Spender. 1972. Politics and a Man… : 3-33; 58- 68; 69-71. 297 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:259; 267. 298 See H.C. Coombs. 1983. Trial Balance . : 3-11, which he entitles ‘The Keynesian crusade’. 299 See B. Pinkstone. 1992. Global Connections A History of Exports and the Australian Economy. Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service: 134-149.

whether Coles’s and Wilson’s words and actions can be judged to have made a significant contribution to deliberativeness.

------

The House of Representatives was tied between Labor and non-Labor with each party bloc holding thirty-six seats. The parliament nominally had seventy-five seats but one

MP from the Northern Territory could only vote on matters relating to the Territory thus requiring any government to have thirty seven supporters. 300 The government felt it could count on Coles’s vote due to his impeccable conservative credentials and due to the semi-official deal the UAP thought it had entered into with him during the election campaign. 301 –

Coles was a member of the Australian elite and able to negotiate his own role within wider conservative politics due to his sheer wealth as major shareholder and General Manager of G.J. Coles and Company one of Australia’s largest retail companies. Coles’s wealth and status bolstered his undoubted personal capacity to politically organise and to resonate with ‘legitimacy’ as a tycoon,

Melbourne’s Lord Mayor and as an ex-Digger/Anzac figure. 302

Coles (using an image suggested by Pemberton) was often portrayed in the press as a combination of business ‘knight’/leader, Anzac/Digger and sober, civic minded

Presbyterian family man. Coles lay siege to ‘do nothing’ politicians with his practical and hard working activism, whereas Menzies continued to be regarded by many as a political dissembler. Coles’s election to Henty in September 1941 partly fed off wider

300 See G. Sawer. 1963. Australian Federal Politics and Law 1929-1949 . Melbourne, Melbourne University Press: 123f. See D. Jaensch and D. Mathieson. 1998. A Plague on Both Your Houses Minor Parties in Australia . St. Leonards, Allen & Unwin: 1-10. 301 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:518-519; P. Aimer. 1974. Politics, Power and Persuasion The Liberals in Victoria . James Bennett, Collaroy for Liberal Party of Victoria (Victorian Division):10. 302 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:259 and (below) in text of this chapter.

dissatisfaction with Menzies on such issues as National Insurance, mothers and babies, repatriation, war preparations, manpower policy, support for primary producers and wider national strategic decision making. 303 Coles was to continue showing interest in all these areas once he entered parliament, as will be demonstrated further below.

A final element in Coles’s background is the mass-cultural and then mass- political persona he developed in Victoria after becoming Lord Mayor of Melbourne.

The office of Lord Mayor was not in itself an instant ticket to mass-cultural status. Lord Mayors of Melbourne normally attracted a certain degree of notoriety

– but less than that gained by the State Premier, one or two of the other senior State politicians and any locally based senior Federal Cabinet Ministers. 304 Coles first attained some degree of notoriety slightly above the normally expected level during the major Bushfire crisis in Victoria in early 1939. 305

The Age reported under the headline, ‘Bush Fire Distress Organisations Co-Operate in Sending Goods Government to Appoint Committee to Co-ordinate Work’:

The Premier Mr. Dunstan announced that as reports were received from the Forests Commission concerning the various fires and of damage, the Government would appoint a Committee to co-operate with the Lord Mayor (Cr. Coles) in the relief of the distress. Meanwhile the existing Lord Mayor’s Distress Relief Fund has been put into operation…and yesterday thousands of pounds of material has been sent through the State Relief Committee to the distressed centres. 306

Coles’s actions during the Bush Fires launched him into the role of action- man galvaniser of any showing by the State or Federal governments of relative

303 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:111-112; 242-244. 304 See N. Brennan. 1971. John Wren Gambler. Melbourne, Hill of Content: 121-124. 305 See the 40 cuttings from the Melbourne Press regarding the Bushfire crisis and Coles’s part in this found in ANL: 7296. Papers of Sir Arthur Coles. Box 1 Folder 3 Series 2b(i). 306 Age 9/1/39.

lassitude over whatever crisis happened to be perceived to be around. The key here is that Arthur Coles was already a political actor having acquired this role as a conservative City Councillor who was prepared to cooperate with Labor over assisting the poor and unemployed. This role is something that was pointed to by a fellow City Councillor, from the 1938-1940 period, when he later wrote to Coles and said:

Occasionally I have seen you blush. You must have done so when you read that article on your public service to Victoria and Australia which the ‘Argus’portrayed.I would have added your record at the time of time of the Bush Fires and your feelings for the children of the people on the dole…the article was as I read it –more than a knighthood-in which your were robbed, not in a friendly but in a spiteful way. I know ‘Chinny’that you can take spiteful knocks. 307

‘Chinney’ to some of his friends, Coles also became ‘Our Digger Number One’ to a wider public – at least according to ‘Jonathan Swift’ - the society pages writer for the Sun News Pictorial:

After bring wounded three times while serving with the AIF an officer of the 8 th Battalion who actually belonged to the 6 th ,went to Horseferry Road London in 1917 for appearance before the Medical Board, consisting of Lt.Col. Ryan and Lt.Gen Maudsley. As he stood before these two officers, Lt.Col Ryan perused the papers before him, and looking the officer over, remarked,’ Original Anzac, eh? I thought you looked like one!’ Yesterday that officer was elected Lord Mayor of Melbourne, and it was my privilege to spend the last half hour that he was a mere private citizen with him. He joined the AIF while he was an assistant at the first Coles’s shop in Collingwood and in the original numerical roll of the 6 th Battalion, Private Arthur W. Coles was called No. 75.His hobbies are very contrasting. They are his home and golf. He also has an artistic side, which finds its outlet in a morsel of singing now and again. As a member of the Malvern Branch of the Returned Soldiers’ League, he admits he has never attended a meeting. 308

307 Councillor Bob Foley to Arthur Coles 15/5/50 on Melbourne City Council notepaper. In ANL: MS: 7296. Papers of Sir Arthur Coles. Box 1 Folder 1 Series 1 General Correspondence 1939-1977. 308 Sun News Pictorial 11 /10/38 Headline- ‘Our Digger No. 1.’

‘Bob’ Menzies, in late 1938 could never hope for such a press, even though he could (now and then) find ‘diggers’ ready to get up at meetings and dismiss talk of his non-digger status precluding him from being fit to be involved in politics. Wilfrid Kent-Hughes was bringing up Menzies’s non-combattant status during the Great War up as late as the mid 1940’s. 309 - Page’s attack on

Menzies’s moral bona fides because of his failure to serve overseas after 1914 did back fire but it was not a completely dead issue in 1939 and 1940.

310 The Age added :

On the steps of Parliament House, enjoying himself thoroughly in an unofficial capacity…was the Lord Mayor elect…who is under no illusion regarding his new civic duties. Like his immediate predecessors in office, he is making it a full-time job, from breakfast to midnight. There was a time 24 years ago when Coles marched in khaki past a saluting base at the top of Bourke Street as a member of the 6 th Battalion. ‘How the Air Force has grown since then’ he observed as he watched the royal blue squadron swinging sturdily in the sunshine.’ Only a handful in those days and there were light horsemen with plumes and pennants instead of motor cycle outriders for vice-royalty, and the Army wasn’t mechanised’ Did you know that the Lord Mayor elect was landing on Gallipoli with the 6 th Battalion, and that after being invalided home, he went to France and was on active duty there at the Armistice? 311

Coles in late 1938 was at least fitting into the pre-formed media mould of the lean, chiselled, active, no-nonsense Anzac.

Coles also began tackling the issue of the refugees from strife-torn central Europe.

The Federal government and many others (on the left and right) regarded the refugees as an unwelcome reminder that isolationism might not make everything turn out right. 312 Coles’s role in terms of refugees reinforces his anti-appeasement mentality credentials. Other political and community leaders at the time held to a far

309 See F. Howard. 1972. Kent-Hughes: A Biography. South Melbourne, Macmillan: 123f. 310 See C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies… :28-29. 311 Age 4/11/38. 312 See E. M. Andrews. 1970. Isolationism and appeasement in Australia: reactions to the European crises, 1931-1935. Sydney, Allen and Unwin. 35-70f.

more active ambivalence about refugees. 313 - Coles was identifying himself with the issue despite the ambivalence felt by many others 314

Coles’s anti-appeasement and pro-rearmament credentials are soon demonstrated beyond doubt by exploring comments Coles made on the same day as his confirmation as Lord Mayor - 10/11/38 - as reported in the Argus under the headline of ‘To Maintain Freedom, Lord Mayor on Defence Need ’:

‘If Australia is to continue to enjoy the privileges of a democracy she must realise that she has to shoulder her responsibility in order to maintain a state of freedom to which she has been accustomed.’ The remarks of Cr. Coles were made at the end of the dinner when he was responding to the toast to his health.Cr.Coles said that he felt deeply concerned about the state of Australia’s defence forces. One of the most important branches of defence that of mechanised units was so small it was ludicrous. If Australia had these mechanised units, she would not have the roads to carry them in time of emergency. Another necessity for modern defence was the ability of a country to transport troops quickly from one end of the country to another. With her broken railway gauges, Australia was not in that situation. If the problem had been tackled years ago; however the amount spent in unemployment relief would have more than paid for railway gauge uniformity.’ More than anything at the present time Australia needs a national defence programme in which all the States co-operate’315

Coles’s after-dinner words, quoted just above, do not fit the normally painted picture of the Australian conservative milieu in late 1938 and early 1939 - a stupefied, deliberately head-in-the-sand world of faith in the local and Imperial government policy of appeasement.316 The Argus the day after Coles’s inaugural dinner speech continued with an editorial with the headline: ‘Let Us Be

Up and Doing’ and continued:

313 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941… : 593-594; M. Blakeney. 1985. Australia and the Jewish Refugees 1937-1948. Sydney, Croom –Helm Australia. 314 See Argus 10/1/39. ‘Lord Mayor appealed for funds for European refugees for overseas and on their arrival, so far £1,299 had been raised.’ 315 Argus 10/11/38. 316 See A.L. Hefren. 1952. ‘A Survey of Australian Opinion on the Subject of Japan as Revealed by a Study of the Chief Newspapers of all Australian States, During the Period 1 st January 1936 to 31 December 1939.’ MA Thesis, University of Western Australia.

It is heartening to find that there are influential men outside the Federal Ministry and outside the Federal parliament prepared to advocate in public courageous and constructive policies. At the Lord Mayor’s dinner on Wednesday, the new Lord Mayor expressed the opinion of the community…the seeming inability of Federal Ministers to see the relation of developmental works to defence preparedness is very disconcerting. 317

Coles’s newspaper comments do not read like those of a typical Lord Mayor of a great Australian city in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. Coles, right from the very start, uses his position to publicise a pro-active neo-Deakinite agenda of infrastructure spending, redistributive welfare measures and military build-up within a context of pro-activity in relation to the Asia Pacific area. Spenceley points out that pro-active reformers like Coles or Wilfred Kent-Hughes saw social policy as an agent of social-control as well as facilitative of building up national strength and efficiency. 318 Coles’s views were outlined in a newspaper article published just after he became Lord Mayor in late 1938:

Cr. Coles speaking at the opening of a new recruiting bureau building erected outside the Melbourne Town Hall. Cr. Coles said that he hoped that the activities of the Federal Government would not stop at recruiting and ordering armaments. There was a real need for organised services on the part of the whole community if the defence of the whole community was to brought to a practical stage.’ 319

Coles’s social progressivism is revealed in The Argus and Age of mid

November 1938 when both papers discussed Premier Dunstan’s proposals for

National Fitness measures. An Argus headline read ‘Lord Mayor Approves’ of plans to boost ‘slum dwellers’ fitness and linked this to the possible additional

317 Argus 11/11/38. 318 G. Spenceley. 1986‘Social Control, The Charity Organisation Society and the Evolution of Unemployment Relief Policies in Melbourne During the Depression of the 1930’s’ Historical Studies 22:116-131. 319 Argus 9/12/38 ‘Recruiting Bureau Opened, Australia’s Weakness Emphasised by Lord Mayor.’

recruits this would raise for the military. 320 Bourke points out that there was a long developed belief in Australia about greater discipline being a key to a more cost-effective labour force. 321 The Argus of 19/11/38 had a headline ‘Plan to Aid Refugees, Migration to be discussed, meeting in Town Hall December 5 to discuss this’ 322 Coles’s neo-Deakinite outlook saw the refugees as part of a wider pro-active national development immigration strategy that would take advantage of this ready-made supply of Europeans. 323

Coles during 1939 frequently linked his support for City Council and State government measures for free kindergartens, playgrounds and the subsidised distribution of healthy food with the building up of defence capacity. 324 Coles on

21/11/38 was strongly encouraging employees of the Vacuum Oil Company to enlist in the militia – as 1939 progresses, scores of similar articles could be cited.

325 Coles and/or Mrs. Coles also appear in the press undertaking the round of tame civic duties normally associated with the Lord Mayor or Lady Mayoress. 326

Coles, however, also appears in the press in a ratio of about three to one in articles linked to defence preparedness. A typical example is the Melbourne

Herald of 12/2/39 which under a photograph showing Coles with the visiting

Empire Chief Scout who proclaims ‘Australia will find her scouts ready if an emergency arises – Lord Hampton’. 327

Coles’s role as Anzac/Digger figure is exemplified by his speech at the 1939

Anzac Day ceremony, which as the Melbourne Herald reported it was decidedly

320 Argus 22/11/38 321 Argus 18/11/38 and Age 19/11/38. Also see H. Bourke. 1982. ‘Industrial Unrest as Social Pathology: The Australian Writings of Elton Mayo’ Historical Studies 20:217-233. 322 Argus 19/11/38. 323 Argus 19/11/38. 324 E.g. Sun News Pictorial 21/11/38; Argus 23/11/38; 4/11/39; 6/2/39; Bendigo Advertiser 20/12/38. 325 See collection of scrapbooks at ANL: MS: 7296. Papers of Sir Arthur Coles: Box 2 Folders 7, 8, 9. 326 E.g. Argus 4/11/38; 11/10/39. 327 Herald 12 /2/39; and same story in Argus 14/2/39.

political and aimed directly at the Federal government: ‘Lord Mayor’s Warning!

Impressive and Dignified Ceremony. Lord Mayor Urges Universal Training’. 328 The article went on to mention Coles’s call for ‘sacrifices for safety,’ that ‘it was no time for politics’ and that there was ‘a feeling of unity’ in the country. 329 The

Age while devoting only a captioned photograph to the ceremony set aside another article headed ‘Unity of Action, Lord Mayor’s Appeal at Shrine Service

No time for politics’.330

Coles as Lord Mayor demonstrated the same acumen with publicity and networking that he had shown in relation to G. J. Coles and Company. A good example is Coles’s decision to create a populist Art-Deco look (as in the latest

Cinemas) in a key Coles building in central Melbourne. 331 A trip to the Coles’s cafeteria in the city centre of the capital cities became a major event for cash- strapped working class and petit-bourgeois. 332 A ‘streamlined’ look also was used in as many G.J Coles stores as possible –if not in their exterior design -at least in their shop fittings. 333 Coles, via the rapidly growing sunshine industry of chain-store merchandising was just as accustomed to encountering the mass- public as any other major industrialist, party machine official or newspaper magnate. 334

328 Herald 25 /4/39 329 Herald 25 /4/39. 330 Age 26/4/39. 331 See RMIT 2003. ‘Modern in Melbourne, Melbourne Architecture 1930-1950. Three Ways of Being Modern -Coles Cafeteria’. http://uswers.tce.rmit.edu.au/EO3159/mODmELB/MM2/lect/30’s% 20&%2040’s/hn/ html/coles.html; P.van Daele and R. Lumby. 1997. A spirit of progress: art deco architecture in Australia. North Ryde, Craftsman House. 332 See B. Kingston. 1994. Basket, bag and trolley: a history of shopping in Australia. Melbourne, Oxford University Press. 333 See J. McLaughlin. 1991. Nothing Over Half a Crown: a personal history of the founder of G.J. Coles stores. Main Ridge, Loch Haven Books. 334 See H. Irwin. 2000‘Comunication, technology management and innovation: Holdens’ and General Motors Holdens’ to 1948’ Australian Journal of Communication 27:2:2-14.

An Argus editorial of late 1938 was devoted to the topic of ‘The Child’ and how Lord Mayor Coles’s monster picnic for the children of the destitute at

Wattle Park symbolised the wider need to boost aid for children of the poor so Australia (as well as the children) would have a happy and healthy future. 335

Coles was shown in a Sun News Pictorial photograph of early 1939 meeting

‘a slum girl from the Hessian humpies at Dudley Flats West Melbourne ’ under a headline: ‘Joanna and the Lord Mayor’.336

Coles also attracted regular publicity during 1939 for his cooperation with

Arthur Calwell on the City Council. 337 Coles’s cooperation was understood as playing its part in sustaining the wider policy coalition and parliamentary arrangement between State Labor and the minority Country Party government of Albert Dunstan. 338 The populist and sometimes Labor (but not since 1915

Wren favouring) Truth announced in late 1938 that: ‘Ratepayers to Pay Again!

Civic Building Muddle Costs £26,750’. The paper had then gone on to speak about ‘the old gang’ at the City Council as opposed to the Labor candidate for Lord Mayor. 339

By late 1939 Coles’s association with the Dunstan –Labor policy coalition, which was facilitated by Wren did not stop Norton’s minions writing in a

335 Argus 21/11/38 ‘For 5000 City Children, 17 Kindergartens is City Councils’ Aim’; 336 Sun News Pictorial 25/2/39; Argus 18/5/39 ‘11 City Wards Town Hall Proposal…Labor favours 11 wards…and supports compulsory voting…Lord Mayor doesn’t think compulsory voting will effect the results one way or another’; Sun News Pictorial 6/6/39; Age 15/6/39‘Lord Mayor denies existence of party tickets’. Also Sun News Pictorial 29/8/3 ‘Cr. Coles will be unopposed for Lord Mayoralty’ (as Labor will support him and will not support the candidate that the UAP had decided to support). 337 E.g. Argus 24/1/39 ‘Controversy City Council Coles supporting Sir George Wales in fight over Committee position with Cr.Morton and Cr. Kerr’; Age 10/12/38 ‘Opening New Bridge Gesture to Lord Mayor/it is understood that the Government gave the honour of the opening of the Punt Road bridge to the Lord Mayor, even though the Country Roads Board built and paid for it’; Sun News Pictorial 16/6/39’ ‘Lord Mayor in long conference with Premier on road safety.’ 338 See Sun News Pictorial 10/11/38 ‘Alderman’s Biting Attack’; Sun News Pictorial 30/8/39 ‘Aims if re-elected-Slum Clearance, Assisting the Housing Commission.’ 339 Truth 19/8/39.This was a reference to muddled plans to build additional office building for the City Council employees and associated plans for a modern as opposed to an old-fashioned Town Hall.

series of bold and descending headlines: ‘Put on the Black, Real Leadership,

A man without swank and pretence, Master of Strategy, Shaken up the

Administration.’ 340 Norton was associating Coles with his search for figures able to provide manly national and cross-class leadership. 341 Coles, by late

1939, just before war broke out, was also being depicted in the same way by the mainstream Melbourne press. 342

Coles, on the pages of the Melbourne press, had joined that less than immediately obvious semiotic personification of the Anzac spirit - the ‘Little

Digger’ as a major anti war-slacking figure. Coles, at least in Melbourne, was another name that was immediately thought of by newspaper editors when they wanted to get across quickly the idea of pro-military build-up and anti-appeasement. Menzies and Lyons were increasingly finding themselves being used as convenient metaphors for the exact opposite policy stance. 343

The respective public images of Lyons and Coles were contrasted together in the appropriately Deakinite setting of Shepparton as reported by the Age : ‘Lord

Mayor at 47, Councillor Coles’s Record’ The article accompanied a photograph of Lyons and Coles sitting together at a dinner Shepparton. This article in its sub- editorial cut-down sparseness starkly illustrates the contrasting media images Lyons and Coles were to enjoy in Victoria throughout the rest of 1938 and 1939. A very short item, included more as an extended caption under the photograph read: ‘I

340 Truth 20/9/39. 341 See A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies …:374. 342 E.g. Sun News Pictorial 24/1/39 ‘Son of Lord Mayor Joins Militia’; Age 4/3/39 ‘Air Raid Plans-Lord Mayor Calls Meeting’. 343 A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… : 248

am not a political corpse yet, said Mr. Lyons and added ‘Mr. Coles was present as

Lord Mayor elect.’344

Once war began in September it is not an exaggeration to say that more was heard in the Melbourne press about Coles than Menzies about taking pro-active measures involving changes to every day life! 345 The Melbourne press, from September 1939 was damning Menzies with very feint praise while exulting the plans and actions of Coles. 346 The Melbourne press was not so subtly putting the pressure on well before the Fairfax press in Sydney had launched its relentless campaign against Menzies as war-slacker.

Martin dates the beginning of the Fairfax press’s campaign of sowing doubts about Menzies to the SMH ’s editorial on the Canberra Air Disaster. 347 Menzies had already begun to lose the only very shaky support he had garnered from Murdoch at this time. 348 There was a very close relationship between Coles and Sir Errol Knox of the

Argus . – The Coles/ Argus relationship was to reach one of its greatest heights in mid 1941 with a series of daily feature articles written by Coles. Coles unfavourably compared the Australian spirit with the British. 349

Hardly a day went by when one of the Melbourne newspapers carried at least some indirect or oblique criticism of the war programme of the Federal government, though usually not as direct as the criticism in the Sydney

344 Age 10/10/38. 345 A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… : 248-250f. 346 Age 12/9/39‘Council Contingency Plans’; Sun News Pictorial 5/9/39 ‘Women to be taught Council Jobs’; Argus 22/9/39 ‘Lord Mayor endorses Argus’s call for day of National Prayer-Lord Mayor emphatic!’; Age 22/9/39‘ARP Work Committees Formed’; Bulletin 4/10/39‘Now that Melbourne is at war the Mayor and Lady Mayoress are in it up to their eyebrows’; Argus 7/10/39 ‘Children from Britain- Fine Idea Says Lord Mayor’; 14/10/39‘Second AIF Paramount in Australia’s War Effort Cr. Coles’s Views’; 23/10/39 ‘Camp Comforts 1915-39 Comparison by Lord Mayor.’; A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies…:287-294; 301-303 f. 347 A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies…:301-303. 348 For Murdoch’s path from powerful helpmeet to ‘armchair general’ willing to jettison Menzies see R. B. Walker. 1980. Yesterday’s News… :204-205.; C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed… :264-265. 349 See Chapter 4 of this study.

papers. 350 Coles, on the other hand was given a dream-run with whatever carefully orchestrated publicity stunt and/or genuinely thought-out plan he could come up with.

Well before the Christmas holidays of 1938, Coles had already associated the Town Hall, his office and his persona with a recruitment drive for the militia. 351 Once war was declared, Coles went into publicity overdrive and became increasingly annoying to Menzies who eventually (by mid 1940) had prevailed on the professional head of the army to try to calm him down. 352 By mid 1940 it was far too late for Menzies to treat Coles as if he was just another muddling self-seeking amateur from the elite - like Sir Warwick Fairfax or the young W.C. Wentworth. Menzies’s inopportune getting of Fairfax offside almost cost him the 1940 general election. -

Menzies’s failure to take Coles seriously led to his ultimate exclusion from the very counsels of the Empire where he saw himself emerging as the Smuts of this war. 353 Menzies just did not understand that Coles was serious when he felt he had a chance of actually forcing a major shift in government policy over how to carry on the war.

It is naïve to assume as those do who argue that ‘the conservatives were all appeasers’ that the local elite was oblivious to the need to develop alternative policy stances. 354 Coles was not the isolated publicity seeking crank that Hasluck,

350 E.g., Age and Argus on 2/9/39 Sydney Morning Herald 1/6/40; Letters section and :13 ;and 3:‘Grave News From Flanders…one might have expected the night-long debate to be devoted to anxious considerations of measures to be taken to meet this anxious consideration,’ Also see 3/6/40; 4/6/40 ; 1/6/40: 1, 10, 12; 4/6/40:1 Also see R. B. Walker. 1980. Yesterday’s News… :193-194f. 351 See Age 9/12/38 ‘Recruiting Bureau Opened, Australian Weakness Emphasised’. 352 See further below in text of this chapter. 353 See D. Day. 1986. Menzies and Churchill at War. North Ryde, Angus and Robertson. 354 E.g. D. Cottle. 2002. The Brisbane Line: A Reappraisal. Leicester, Upfront Publishing.

more or less paints him as during the period 1938-1940. 355 Coles quite self- consciously sought to keep the pressure up on the Federal government as long as it persisted in its lassitude. Coles’s publicity activities were beginning to bite and Coles could more or less name his terms about entry into parliament. 356

Coles was prescient enough to know that the real objective of the warm offers he was receiving from the Victorian UAP was to bury and sideline him.

Coles used publicity well and was assisted in this with the willing cooperation of the Melbourne press, a classic example was on the 22nd of November 1939 when Coles gained publicity for donating his personal car to the AIF! 357 On

Armistice Day 1939 Coles was photographed standing alongside key national dignitaries at the Melbourne Shrine of Rembrance. Menzies, in contrast, never seemed to be particularly keen to exploit photo-opportunities at these sorts of events. 358

The most significant example of Coles’s mass-cultural/ political activism during

1939 and 1940 before he entered parliament was his win the War rallies.

The Win the War rallies became a key feature of Victorian life in the early part of the war. 359 A. W. Martin devotes most of a whole page to the uneasy relationship Coles generated with Menzies due to these rallies. 360 Coles’s status as a figure personifying some of the widespread opposition to war slacking was confirmed beyond doubt by these rallies. Martin mentions

Coles’s using one such rally at the Melbourne Town Hall to call for

355 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941… :259; 281; 393; 517-518. 356 The reference in P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People… :517-518 and P. Aimer. 1974. Power Politics and Persuasion: The Liberals in Victoria. Collaroy. James Bennett: 10. 357 Argus 22/11/39 ‘Car presented to AIF. Lord Mayor’s Gift of his six seater tourer formerly used for picnics.’ 358 Argus 25/10/39 ‘Digger Coles Visits the Camp, Sick Bed Reunion.’ Cf. with Sydney Morning Herald 3/6/40: 10: ‘Enthusiastic Scenes at Ex-Serviceman’s’ Rally’; A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :319f. 359 See K. Darian-Smith . 1990. On the Home Front: Melbourne in Wartime 1939-1945. Melbourne, Oxford University Press. 360 A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… : 295-296.

‘virtual nationalisation of resources and the elimination of party rivalries by the creation of a truly national government.’361

Coles’s flair for publicity saw one such rally culminate in a display that Martin cites as a deeply felt manipulation of the Anzac/Digger ideology as this had developed over the previous twenty-five years. 362

Diggers dressed in First AIF uniforms paraded through the hall and in an extended ceremony handed batons and flags over to others dressed in the

Second AIF uniform. The ceremony was a culmination of three hours of music, fireworks, and speeches. Menzies felt politically unable not to attend most of these rallies but he did not appreciate the experience. Coles often used these occasions to criticise war slacking in general. Coles also lambasted the failure of the nation to organise itself so as to be able to do a halfway decent task of running the war. 363

The last word on Coles’s role as a Lord Mayor who was also a publicity seeking mass political actor should go to the text of a leaflet prepared for a rally organised in Colac in rural Victoria. Colac, incidentally, had been the scene of some of the worst carnage associated with the Black Friday fires. A dummy-leaflet had been prepared to advertise the rally, which was to be held on

12th June 1940. In the copy of the leaflet in the Coles papers there are one or two small pencilled changes, in Coles’s handwriting. Coombs comments that Coles

361 A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… : 296. Martin cites the Argus 18/5/40; 23/5/40; 6/6/40 ; 17/6/40. Martin also possibly, somewhat ironically, given Coles’s later coalition with Wilson, cites Coles as saying at one rally that he opposed ‘farmers who wanted guaranteed wheat prices’ as well as business people complaining about war imposed difficulties. 362 A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… : 296. Martin cites the Argus 6/6/40. 363 See Argus 6/6/40.

always slipped in a last minute change to plans or documents to check if those he was working with were on their toes. 364 The leaflet reads as follows:

Citizens! Extract from Mr.Churchill’s speech to the House of Commons: ‘I have full confidence that if all do their duty and if nothing is neglected, and the best arrangements are made…’ This applies to every Australian as well as every Englishman-therefore attend the WIN-THE-WAR- RALLY. Convened by the Mayor and Council of the Borough of Colac to assist in Australia’s campaign for men and money. Wednesday 12 th of June, 1940. Victoria Hall, Colac, at 8.00pm. Speaker: The Lord Mayor of Melbourne (Cr. A.W. Coles). Come and hear one of our Leaders who has done much to stimulate our War Effort, Resolutions to be submitted will include:-‘That this meeting of citizens…earnestly supports the widespread desire for a National Government of the Commonwealth, to which it pledges full support, and urges every citizen to combine in the endeavour to attain this end so that Australia’s maximum effort of every kind may be put forth speedily in support of the Allies, by a united people’…365

The leaflet continues with the second resolution (placed in quote marks in the original)

That this meeting strongly recommends that immediate steps be taken to nationalise all wealth, man-power, and the resources of Commonwealth.

Coles, then adds in his own (pencilled) handwriting: ‘To bring about a guaranteed War

Effort.’ The leaflet then adds a third resolution about people attending supporting the

Commonwealth War Fund and adds that ‘Amplifiers Will Be Installed,’ ‘Your Loyalty

Demands Your Attendance’ and is signed ‘Walter Selwood, Mayor, A.N. Woods,

Town Clerk.’ 366

Was Arthur Coles primarily a populist figure fully exploiting, as say Hitler had done his ordinary soldier status to further an essentially radical agenda?

The answer to this, from this survey of the newspapers is a firm no! Coles can however, be seen to have exploited or at least not got in the way of allowing his background as an original non-officer Anzac to bolster his mass political

364 See H. C. Coombs. 1981. Trial Balance Issues of My Working Life. South Melbourne, Sun Books:22. 365 Win the War Rally leaflet in ANL: MS: 7296. Papers of Sir Arthur Coles: Box 1 Folder 6. 366 Win the War Rally leaflet in ANL: MS: 7296. Papers of Sir Arthur Coles: Box 1 Folder 6. There are more mementos from the rallies in a newspaper cuttings included in both Series 10 (Box 1) and Box 4, Series 10, Miscellaneous Papers, 1938-1964.

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appeal. Coles, as is plain from the newspapers, derived considerable legitimacy from his wealth and elite status. Coles, however was ultimately pursuing an

Australian Civic Protestant moral crusade. 367 Coles’s crusade, as the media reports indicate, was also informed by Anzac ideology, business progressivism and

Burkeanism.

Wilson while merely petit-bourgeois was connected to Sir Albert Dunstan’s rural populist mass political project and derived key additional capacity to act politically through this connection. 368 Wilson’s prime means of association with Dunstan was his senior status within the Victorian Wool and Wheat Growers Association. 369

Further reference to Coles’s and Wilson’s election campaigns will be made

(below) in this chapter in order to set the scene for the reception they received from the members of the two major party blocs.

Hasluck, in his reference to Coles’s relationship with the UAP in late 1940, reflects the self-serving internal UAP and the later Victorian branch of the Liberal Party version of events about Coles’s behaviour.

Coles had been returned as an Independent from a Melbourne suburban electorate, which had customarily been a UAP seat and which again became a UAP seat after he left it, and his background and ideas were customarily found in that party. It was reported that he had previously been disappointed in not receiving a UAP nomination on another occasion. 370

Aimer in a later researched official history of the Victorian branch of the

Liberal Party makes no reference to Coles’s earlier failing to gain UAP

367 See R. Ely 1987‘The Forgotten Nationalism: Australian Civic Protestantism in the Second World War’ Journal of Australian Studies 20: May: 59-67. 368 See G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action… :20-58. 369 See R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development of Wheatgrowers’ Organisations, 1927-1948’ Australasian Political Studies Association 10 th Annual Conference , University of Tasmania, August: 36 pages: 16-18. 370 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941.. . :517-518.

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endorsement. Aimer points to the opposite state of affairs – a diffident

Coles being courted by the UAP: 371

Coles had been widely canvassed as a possible government candidate for the Corio by-election in early 1940: (Coles’s)… position in the party was as ambiguous as the manner in which he was recruited to parliament. In January 1940 it was reported that Coles, after being approached by Menzies, had expressed willingness to contest the Corio by-election if endorsed by the UAP ( Argus , 22 January, 1940). On this occasion, however, he neither sought pre-selection nor contested the seat. 372

Menzies wrote to Coles during this pre-Corio by-election period. 373 Menzies, in this letter, more or less implies that private cooperation was the only way Coles would be able to continue to have the open channel of access to government that

Menzies implies Coles wanted. Menzies said, in part ‘You will understand, of course, that we do not propose to give the measures any publicity’. 374 Coles was in full- flight as the crusading Lord Mayor during this period. Menzies’s words echo the later harsher interpretations placed upon Coles’s actions and intentions once Coles began to give measures he believed in the sort of ‘publicity’ that Menzies (and the wider UAP and coalition) found politically discomforting.

Coles was still being placated well past the time of the Corio by- election as evident by a fascinating document in which Brudnell-White

Australia’s chief soldier writes to Coles in July 1940. Brudnell-White pleads the case for the suspension of further recruiting for the AIF.

Brudnell-White writes to Coles in such a way as to indicate how

371 P. Aimer. 1974. Politics, Power…:10 and fn. 216 below: 10:216. 372 P. Aimer. 1974. Politics, Power… : fn 54, text: 216. 373 ‘Prime Minister to Lord Mayor’ ‘Personal and Unofficial’ 22/11/39, date stamped 24/11/39. Typed except for Menzies’s handwritten ‘My Dear Arthur’. Sir Arthur Coles Papers ANL: MS: 7296, Series 1 General Correspondence 1939-1977. Box 1 Folder 1. . 374 Prime Minister to Lord Mayor…22/11/39…

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important Coles’s advocacy of recruitment had been in the past and would be again, if and when recruitment begins again. 375

Coles, well before his election to parliament had gained a capacity to have political clout. Coles’s particular political meta-message was centred on the fight against war slacking and this in turn had grown out of an eighteen month long media campaign against war preparation slacking. Coles, by late 1939, had perfected and developed his campaign to the point that it cannot be understood as anything less than a self- consciously generated but also highly successful mass-political project.

A good example of Coles’s mass-political/cultural status, at least in Victoria, is a prominently placed Argus article of October 1939. The article was headlined ‘Digger Coles Visits Camp: Sick Bed Reunion’. 376 A lean and purposeful Coles is shown in a large photograph talking to a recent but also middle aged volunteer who was in the hospital section of the Royal Park Army recruiting camp. Coles had recognised this man as a fellow ‘Digger’ from Gallipoli and/or the Western Front where Coles had served during the Great War. Coles had been generating two or three articles like this every week since the war began! 377 Coles had also generated almost as many articles between late 1938 and September 1939 in his capacity as a public advocate for stepping-up war preparations.

375 Chief of Imperial General Staff, Australian Division, to Lord Mayor’ 27/7/40. Sir Arthur Coles Papers ANL: MS: 7296, Series 1 General Correspondence 1939-1977. Box 1 Folder 1. 376 Argus 22/9/39; Also see 23/10/39‘Camp Comforts 1915-39, Comparison by Lord Mayor.’ 377 E.g., Age 12/9/39 ‘Council Contingency Plans’; Sun News Pictorial 5/9/39 ‘Women to be taught Council Jobs’; Age 25/10/39 Lord Mayor endorses Argus’s call for a day of National Prayer-Lord Mayor Emphatic!’

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Coles at a public rally at Sandringham opening his campaign for

Henty said on 29/10/40:

I am offering myself as a candidate to fill the vacancy… caused by the tragic death of Sir Henry Gullett. I do so with a desire to be of service to Australia. I am standing independent of party promises to emphasise that I believe that we must really sink our sectional differences in this hour of crisis, and unite as never before in a combined effort to make Australia strong as quickly as possible… I am an advocate of a National Government, representing all sections of the people… If agreement between party interests proves impossible, I will support the present Government and urge a rapid expansion of its war plan to bring about a maximum war effort by the use of the whole of the Nation’s resources of manpower, wealth and industry. 378

Coles was not slavishly praising the existing government:

We must act as quickly as possible to build up a strong defensive position, whilst at the same time giving the fullest assistance overseas with food, material, munitions and such trained forces as can be safely spared… As Prime Minister Mr Menzies has made an attempt to implement a war effort, with at best, an unruly Cabinet. The Opposition, whilst granting the wide powers necessary to produce a war effort, sat on the side lines waiting for the errors with the threat of an election ahead. 379

Hasluck’s characterisations of Coles (quoted further above) as a self-seeking opportunist need to be offset against the context of Victorian conservative politics at the time. 380 Coles’s chief conservative opponent was Captain E.M. Young M.C, who had been Mayor of Brighton in 1939-1940. Ian Macfarlane, the local

Nationalist/UAP State MP spoke at Young’s campaign launch. Young, despite this obvious link of his own with the UAP claimed the holy grail of true independent status.

378 Sandringham News 30/8/40: Front Page. 379 Sandringham News 30/8/40:Front Page. 380 P. Aimer. 1974. Politics, Power… ; R. Wright. 1993. A People’s Counsel: a history of the parliament of Victoria, 1956 – 1990 . South Melbourne, Oxford University Press: 123f.

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Coles was somewhat jealously berated by Young for having garnered support from UAP branches and supporters:

I was relieved to read in this morning’s paper that … Cr. Coles had been taken under the wing of the UAP. This has saved me a great deal of trouble, for I expected to have to spend a lot of time in showing that the nebulous label which he has given himself was the merest camouflage. His attitude towards Mr Menzies seems, at last, to have been settled in the Prime Minister’s favour. In my opinion, Mr Menzies, as a leader, has been a lamentable failure. Never has this country stood in greater need of real leadership, of drive, of inspiration, of firmness and of courage. Never has it been so let down. 381

Coles’s major opponent for Henty was Labor’s Dr A.R. Haywood who resonated with neo-Deakinite as well as inter-war Laborite sentiments as evidenced by his active executive role within the classically Deakinite Australian Natives Association

(ANA). 382 Haywood was particularly keen during the campaign to stress Coles’s reputation as a supporter of both child endowment and National Insurance to deflect criticism of Labor’s failure to join a national government.383 Nationalist/UAP MPs like

Macfarlan and independents like Young were genuinely invoking Burkean notions of independency in politics but they were self-seeking in their depiction of Coles’s deal with the UAP as fake-independency. 384

Coles said on the declaration of the poll at Henty:

I had the policy of a truly national government as the cornerstone of my addresses and I feel it is my duty to pursue that course, for it is only by having a government that represents all the people, are we going to get the driving force behind effort necessary for the security of the people. Only in that way will the confidence of the people be won, and confidence in government is necessary if we are to come through the task

381 Young -speaking at his opening rally at the Sandringham Memorial Hall on 30/8/40. 382 See Sandringham News 20/9/40, also 6/1/39, headline ‘National Insurance, Organising position Public Meeting at Sandringham.’ 383 See a letter along these lines from T.J. Young, from the Henty Labor Propaganda Committee in the Sandringham News 24/1/41 written at a period of intense Labor frustration with Coles after the Swan by- election (which Labor lost). 384 See Chapter 1.

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ahead. Greater hardships will be imposed on us as time goes on – we have already petrol rationing and there will be more discomfort of that sort. I can foresee more taxation, but if we are to have the war effort that is necessary, we will have to bear more burdens. 385

Coles’s remarks and strategy prior to election day had been directed towards using his seat in the House of Representatives as a free-spirited extension of his 1938-1940 role as an independent conservative mass-cultural and mass-political advocate of neo-

Deakinite socio-economic policies and a more vigorous war policy.

If it had not been for the unfortunate aeroplane crash at Canberra, I would not have been standing for Parliament at this election. I do not say that because of any lack of interest in Australia’s war effort but I had not considered submitting my name for parliament. I have not had any practical experience, and as you know, I am doing some national service as Lord Mayor of Melbourne, but many people in this electorate wrote and asked me if I would submit myself, and that is the reason that I have done so. That and the fact that I am vitally interested, as you all are, in seeing Australia play its part in helping the Empire against the enemy she is facing. 386

Chapter 1 outlined the close relationship between liberal-conservative ideas about political behaviour (which Coles subscribed to) and the pre-modern notion of chance and randomness as an active determinant of quite fundamental socio-economic and military-strategic outcomes. 387 Coles, despite this liberal-conservative deference to the force of circumstances did not really spell out to this public meeting the underlying reason why Gullett’s death was so serendipitous for him. Coles was an active and committed ideological warrior of a ‘Win-the-War’ effort and quite probably was as

385 Coles at declaration of poll of electorate of Henty at Returning Officers rooms at Glenhuntly on Wednesday 2/10/41. 386 Coles speaking at an election meeting at Glenhuntly the week of 2-6/9/40 as quoted in Sandringham News 13/9/40. 387 See Chapter 2 but in particular M. Oakeshott. 1962. Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays . Oxford, Clarendon Press.

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significant a mass—cultural and mass-political figure against appeasement mentality as anyone else had been. 388

Coles in his campaign opening speech in late August 1940 called for Australia to consider first its capacity to defend itself and then send troops overseas to assist in

Australia’s role within the Empire. Coles did not, of course, see these two options as mutually exclusive as did Labor and non-Labor who both assumed, due to lingering appeasement mentality, that the war could somehow be contained by wishful thinking.

The idea never occurred to them, at least it never appeared in either blocs public and official discourse that the war would require an unparalleled level of total mobilisation.

Coles, therefore, went into the election assuming that (at worst) he would gain another (but not his only) platform (a backbench seat) which would be just one more way to put pressure on a tardy and recalcitrant government. This assessment would still tally with the consistent rumours in the press gallery that Coles was more or less on the prowl for a Cabinet post – rumours which (to be sustained) must have had Coles at their origin. 389 Coles saw Gullett’s death and the wider

Canberra Air Disaster as a psychic shock which he wished to take advantage of in his ongoing campaign to get the government to listen. 390

Despite Coles’s endorsement of Menzies’s efforts in relations to munitions

(which for instance Hasluck also lauds Menzies for in his official history) the reality was that it was still largely following the pre-war plans laid down in files by Shedden,

388 E.M. Andrews. 1970. Isolationism and Appeasement in Australia, Reactions to the European Crises, 1935-1939 . : 146: provides a very short list of such key local anti-appeasement mass-cultural/political actors ‘W.M. Hughes, the Sydney Morning Herald , the RSL magazines and the Watchman.’ (the latter was a public affairs commentator who appeared (until removed by government pressure on the ABC). 389 See D. Whitington. 1977. Strive to be Fair An Unfinished Autobiography . Canberra, Australian National University Press: 72-74. 390 On the Canberra Air Disaster See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939- 1941 …:244 and more particularly R.G. Menzies. 1967. Afternoon Light ...:18.

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Page and Treasury. I.e., the favourable developments in munitions expansion from mid 1940 onward still had their origins in a plan which at its best was still the sort of production schedule that the Australian government had hoped it would have had by 1919-1920 had that war continued on that long. 391

Menzies’s appointment on 6 th June 1940 of Essington Lewis as Director-

General of Munitions effectively ensured that the pre-war plans and even newer requirements thought necessary after the experience of supplying requirements in the Middle East could be easily met - and a capacity for a genuine take-off was now possible. Menzies (as Hasluck describes it) was mostly motivated to act so that the publicity surrounding reported shortages of munitions (and fortunately for the country the actuality) of shortages of munitions (up till then) would be overcome.

Coles was apparently impressed with what had taken place during

June/July/August on this matter. Coles had the power, legitimacy (and thanks to the

Melbourne dailies) the mass-cultural/political resonance to make Menzies listen (so he thought). It beat grumbling over cocktails about Menzies and at worse Coles might be able to do for National Insurance and/or say the Army Department what he said

Menzies he had achieved for the Department of Munitions.

Coles called for social services expansion after the war in his early election speeches

(eg. 30/8/40) but once in parliament shifted to advocating immediate reforms to so position the nation to allow it to better fight the war. Coles, while candidate

Coles, was savvy enough to not frighten the horses in Henty and emphasised, in a way acceptable to respectable suburban sensibilities, the need to win the war first, and then (maybe) talk about more social service measures.

391 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 ...:229-231.

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Coles, as reported in the Sandringham News , said on 30/8/40:

There is a lot of talk about the position after the war which he then went on to explain would include ‘a widening of our social services, the establishing of National Insurance, to take care of unemployment, child endowment to replace the anomaly in our wage plan, and a Government housing scheme to abolish slum conditions. 392

Coles also hoped to have some access to Labor if they happened to win – and had they won one more seat they would have formed the government anyway but the consensus in September 1940 was that Labor would just miss out. 393 Coles although careful to hedge his bets did suggest that ‘social services regarding health, education and child welfare must be maintained widened if necessary, but all non-productive public works should be postponed until after the war. 394

Coles also set out his specific relationship with the UAP during the election campaign:

Australia has to shoulder her burden and as our Prime Minister, Mr Menzies, on Monday night told us what the burden was… He made the finest speech on Monday night in the history of Australian politics… he told Australia without any doubt whatever exactly what was in store for her – a period of work, a period of preparation for war in which everyone would have to give of their utmost, and that accords entirely with my views on the subject… I do not think that anyone can possibly add to that speech… Mr Menzies told us that the job was twofold. Our first duty was to make Australia strong. Mr Menzies does not get many bouquets thrown at him, and I stood as an independent last week because I was not satisfied that the Government had declared themselves on the policy of National Government. When the UAP had their convention and decided they would support me, it was without any request from me – in fact it was after refusal from me to submit my name, and when I was told they had agreed to support me, I said that it did not affect me. I am standing before the electors of Henty determined to stand between the parties. 395

392 Sandringham News 30/8/40. 393 E.G. see C. Lloyd. 1988. Parliament and the Press: The Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery, 1901-1988 . : 235f. 394 Coles’s campaign opening speech as reported in Sandringham News 30/8/40. 395 Coles’s campaign opening speech as reported in Sandringham News 30/8/40.

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Coles then went on to outline how he would judge and treat Menzies in the future:

If we analyse our war effort to date, we will realise that the one part in which we are getting real forward activity is the Department of Munitions, and it is only after Mr Menzies took over that Department, and I hand them that bouquet, because you have got to give credit where it is due. Now, I am taking that stand for National Government because I believe that Australia will only get a satisfactory war effort under way if she is governed by a united government. 396

Coles, then, enters parliament with a declared policy of supporting the government because it supports a national government and because it says it supports a stepped up war effort. Coles was reported by the Sandringham News on election night:

He would sit with the Government supporters. He stated that he conducted his campaign as a supporter of the Government, advocating a National Government as the best means of implementing Australia’s war effort. He still desired to bring about unity of effort in Australia by the formation of an all-party Cabinet. If this proved impracticable, he would give his full support to the Government. He considered that the election was definite evidence that the people desired a national effort. ‘I went to the people as a Government candidate, and I used the UAP voting card bearing the imprint of the secretary of the party,’ said Cr. Coles. ‘I remained Independent so that I could advocate the formation of a national Government.’ 397

Conclusion.

396 Coles quoted in Sandringham News 13/9/40. . 397 Sandringham News 13/9/40.

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Coles was a significant political player when he entered parliament in late

1940. Coles looks very much like the sort of person Edmund Burke would nominate as being capable of providing representation for the key views of one of the great national interests of the country. 398 Coles represented those in the elite who owned and operated a firm with a large share of the major sunshine industries of the day - mass consumption centred retailing. Coles represented

Henty which was a solid middle class electorate with a high percentage of fellow returned men from the Great War (he thus also resonated/represented the Anzac spirit).

Coles had every reason to believe in late 1940 that he could claim to be or perhaps actually be a Burkean independent MP. 399 Coles is someone, who on the basis of his past history, could be expected to remain a loose canon until he had assured himself that he could see someone in power starting to undertake the things that he felt needed to be done.

398 See F. Canavan. 1989. Edmund Burke: prescription and providence... ; R. Beiner. 1983 Political Judgement …: 166-167. 399 See T. Huhn. 2004. Imitation and Society:the Persistence of Mimesis…

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Chapter Four: Wilson in the run-up to the September 1940 general election and the immediate aftermath.

Introduction.

This chapter is the second of five chapters that will analyse the political actions and discourse of Arthur Coles and Alex Wilson with a focus on the period between late 1940 and August 1941. The key contextual issues being addressed have been set out in the Introduction to the previous chapter. This chapter will focus on Wilson and argue that Wilson’s political activity in late

1941 was the logical culmination of a political trajectory that was well underway before that date.

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Alex Wilson rose to the status as a significant political actor in rural politics in

Victoria through his high level association with the Victorian Wheatgrowers

Association (VWGA). 400 Wilson was elected President in 1937 and followed the example of most other senior VWGA officeholders in standing for parliament or accepting public appointments.401 R.F.I. Smith points out that ‘of the seven presidents between 1929 and 1937 five engaged in party politics during (or just before or just after) their term of office.’402 Wilson’s decision to run for Wimmera in the 1937 Federal election, was therefore not unusual. Wilson’s choice of political ideology, as shall be explained below, was unrepresentative of the approach taken by his fellow office-bearers. All other ex –VWGA officials by the late 1930’s, ended up by following the line of Page, if they entered politics at a Federal level.

Wilson’s fellow ex-office bearers, if they focused on State politics followed the extremely pragmatic dictates of Premier Albert Dunstan.

P.G. Stewart had founded the VWGA with Albert Dunstan in 1927 as part of their wider move to oppose the dominance of Page’s fiscal conservatism within the Country

Party. 403 VWGA official historian Mitchell stresses the VWGA’s ‘grower controlled’ status but also indicates that until the later 1930s its membership base was centred in north-west Victoria mostly in the dry-land marginal farming areas of the Mallee. 404

Until 1929 the VWGA had been the grower representative arm of the Stewart-Dunstan

Country Progressive Party. 405 The VWGA even after its formal separation from the

400 A key source is G. Mitchell. (ed., and complier) Growers in Action, Official History of the Victorian Wheat and Woolgrowers’ Association, 1927-1968 Victorian Wheatgrower . Hawthorn, The Hawthorn Press. For Mitchell’s later work see G. Mitchell. 1982. ‘Orchards Face the Axe’ Weekly Times 27/1/:5. 401 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action . :22. 402 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development of Australian Wheatgrowers…’…: 17; 1970. ‘'Organise or be damned!'Australian Wheatgrowers’ Organisations and Wheat Marketing 1927-1948’ PhD Thesis, Australian National University. 403 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …:1-20. 404 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …:1-10. 405 R.F.I Smith. 1968. ‘The Development of Australian Wheatgrowers’ Associations…’15-17.

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Progressive Country Party continued to be among those whose support had helped two minority Labor Governments form in Victoria in the late 1920s and early 1930s. 406

Dunstan and Stewart officially reconciled with Page in 1930 but many anti-Dunstan

Country Party members continued to oppose Dunstan’s control of the State branch. B.

D. Graham points out that the conservative Victorian Farmers Union (VFU) and Federal party loyalists were mostly concentrated in the grazing and wheat-sheep farm areas and the irrigated districts. The VWGA and Dunstanite strongholds were in the small farm areas where not enough sheep could be run to produce a large income. 407

‘Cockies’ with small wheat farms or small mixed wheat-sheep properties who produced profits equivalent to about as much as a tram driver was paid did not fully fall in line with Page’s attempts to salve their discontent during 1935-

1940. 408 Page’s well-known litany about the ‘tragic’ necessities of ‘sound finance’ and the restraints placed on him by the Federal system were not sufficient to end grower populism and flirting with the idea of cross-class policy deals with

Labor. R.F.I. Smith points to Playford’s rise to power in South Australia in the late 1930’s as a key example of conservatives deciding to outbid Labor’s appeal to radical farmers. 409 Playford negotiated rather than sought to out manoeuvre the radical farmer groups and started talking about nation-building infrastructure creation, decentralisation and expanding welfare activities. 410

406 U. Ellis. 1963. A History of the Australian Country Party… :337. 407 B.D. Graham. 1966. The Formation of the Australian Country Parties . Canberra. Australian National University Press; 138. 408 B. Malcolm. 2001. ‘Farm Management, Economic Analysis: A Few Disciplines, a Few Perspectives, a Few Figurings, and a Few Futures.’ Agribusiness Perspectives : Paper 42: Department of Fisheries and Forestry Australia. 409 R.F.I Smith 1968. ‘The Development of Wheatgrowers…’ :10-22 410 R.F.I Smith 1968. ‘The Development of Wheatgrowers…’21-23.

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Wilson’s election to Wimmera in 1937, Labor’s gain of Wannon-(just south of

Wimmera) and its holding and/or gaining half a dozen other rural and/or wheat-belt seats is evidence enough of ongoing dissatisfaction with Pageite farm policy and also the farm policy of the urban-based main conservative party. 411

Stewart’s death in 1931 had not only deprived Billy Hughes of a constant tea drinking companion at the Hotel Kurrajong but also another possible collaborator in Hughes’s centrist Australian Party project. Stewart, once dead, also generated in the Mallee and the Wimmera a slightly rose-coloured memory and a hope that somehow, someone else might revive a more genuinely radical farm policy than that represented by the mainstream Federal Country Party. 412 Stewart’s memory provided hope to those in the VWGA’s left-wing who still wanted to develop a populist alternative to the farm policy of mainstream politics . 413

The reconciliation between Page and the Stewart/Dunstan forces in 1930 was more like a truce and not a complete reunion. 414 Dunstan, unlike Stewart, had a genius for back-room dealing, branch stacking, and shining in the milieu of cross- linking local politics, local influence and public sector largesse. 415 J.B. Paul documents

Dunstan’s trajectory from pragmatic pork-barreller to more or less a rural focused conservative version of John Wren during the early 1930s. 416 Melbourne based conservatives at first disliked but also tolerated Dunstan’s teaming up with Wren while

Dunstan remained content to remain part of Sir Stanley Argyle’s UAP – Country Party

411 See Page’s discussion of this situation in E. Page. 1962. Truant Surgeon. :235-269. 412 See L.F. Fitzhardinge. 1978. The Little Digger Vol 2…: E. Page. 1963. Truant Surgeon . :133. 413 R. Kirkpatrick. 2000. ‘How newspaper editors helped the country become politically articulate’ Australian Journalism Review . 22:1: 99-114. 414 See Chapter 5 and further below in this chapter. 415 J.B. Paul. 1962. The Premiership of Sir Albert Dunstan. MA Thesis,University of Melbourne. 416 J. B. Paul. 1961. ‘The Premiership of Sir Albert Dunstan’ MA Thesis, University of Melbourne. Also see J. B. Paul. 1958. ‘The Victorian Country Party: Its Origins and Leadership’. BA (Hons) Thesis, University of Melbourne and J. B. Paul. 1979. ‘Albert Dunstan and the Victorian Government’ in A. Ray. (ed.) Australian Conservatism . Canberra, Australian National University Press: 169-191.

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Government. Bruxner, in New South Wales showed how cosy the relationship could be between urban conservatives and a Country Party ready, willing and able to neutralise rural right-wing populism. 417

Dunstan from 1935 decided to do the opposite to Bruxner and govern by himself and was prepared to negotiate with Labor. Victoria, at the time was also subject to the influence of the ex-marginalised figure, Wren, who while mostly associated with the Labor Party also sought out, whenever he could, contacts with the legitimate elite. Dunstan’s decision to do deals with Labor was characterised by some at the time (and later) as an extension of the relationship Dunstan had already built up with Wren. Dunstan had acted as intermediary between Wren and the local elite while serving as Deputy Premier in the urban conservative dominated governments of the earlier 1930’s. 418 Clearly, despite the finger- pointing of contemporary urban-conservatives many other contemporaries in Victoria not only tolerated but saw something positive in Dunstan’s activities. 419

In rural Victoria at least, and particularly in the Wimmera and the Mallee, many disgruntled, dissatisfied, disenchanted petit-bourgeois developed an ideology that often applauded Dunstan’s defiance of a political agenda tightly controlled by sophisticated urban elites. 420 Wilson after his election to the House of Representatives in 1937, like Stewart between 1924 and 1931, was also largely insulated from the pressure to obtain or deliver petty jobbery - as State MPs were not. 421 The Pageites saw to it that rebels like Stewart or Wilson (or a succession of free-spirited MPs in New

417 See K. Richmond. 1978. ‘Rural producer Groups and Policy making: a study in State politics’ Politics 13: November: 262-272. 418 G. Blainey. 1984. Our Side of the Country . Sydney, Methuen Haynes. 419 G. Blainey. 1984. Our Side of the Country . Sydney, Methuen Haynes: 11f. 420 E.g. A.J. MacIntyre and J.J. MacIntyre.1940. Country Towns of Victoria . Melbourne, University Press. 421 See S. Moske. 1985. ‘Wives, housewives and mothers? Wimmera women in the 1930s’ Oral History Association of Australia Journal 7:101-107.

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England) 422 gained only minimal access to Federal level pay-offs. 423 Wilson could really only use his Federal seat as a platform for generalised campaigning of lobbying for policy change. 424

A key point to remember about Dunstanism and the wider Victorian Country

Party was that whatever factional and Tammany problematics it had Victorian Labor also possessed its own fair share. 425 Labor had its Damon Runyon style group of Wren

‘operatives’, the Tunnecliffe faction, and an equal and opposite group of intellectual left wingers. 426 Victorian Labor also had other sections grouped around Cain the Party leader, various Trade Union run agendas and the Social Studies Movement.427 Labor, also had ungrouped branches whose members wistfully hoped for an end to Tammany like factionalism and personality driven agendas. 428 Dunstan in many ways was just the sort of person capable of delivering some order out of this ultra factionalised landscape. 429 Dunstan, in addition, was also capable of cocking a snoot at the elite and the sheer audacity of his project gave him a considerable momentum which lasted until well into the war years. 430

The Country Progressive/official Country Party split although officially reconciled in 1930 did not stop Dunstan eventually gaining control over the State branch of the party by about 1933. 431 Page was content to leave State matters to

Dunstan in return for keeping control of most but not all of the preselections for

422 J.J. Farrell. 1997. ‘The Country Party Troubles in the Federal Electorate of New England in the 1930s’ Journal and Proceedings of the Armidale Historical Society 40:April:139-148. 423 D. Aitkin. 1972. The Colonel… 424 Wilson is mentioned favourably in J. Hallam.1983. The Untold Story Labor in Rural New South Wales. North Sydney, George Allen and Unwin: 72. 425 K. White. 1984. John Cain and Victorian Labor 1917-1957 …:e.g., 120-150. 426 K. White. 1984. John Cain and Victorian Labor 1917-1957 …: 120-150. 427 For coverage of this segmentation see C. Kiernan. 1978. Calwell A Personal and Political Biography. West Melbourne, Nelson. :34-59. 428 K. White. 1984. John Cain and Victorian Labor 1917-1957 …passim. 429 See C. Kiernan. 1978. Calwell …:47-50. 430 G. Blainey. 1984. G Blainey. 1984. Our Side of the Country The Story of Victoria . North Ryde. Methuen Haynes: 187-196 ‘The Rise and fall of Albert the Great.’ 431 G. Blainey. 1984. Our Side of the Country…: 187-196.

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winnable Federal seats and to set Federal policy. 432 The occasional foray into Federal politics of a candidate who at State level would perforce be a Dunstanite normally saw such souls settle in as loyal Pageites on the backbench. 433

Page tolerated and accommodated Dunstan and thereby avoided making a bad situation worse. Victoria was not a natural Page style Country Party state. 434 Victorian demography meant that rural areas were mostly enmeshed within provincial cities and large country towns with substantial pluralities of Laborite, neo-Deakinite and straight- forward urban minded conservative voters. 435 Dunstan (as far as Page was concerned) also helped keep a check on McEwen’s project of trying to steer the Federal Party towards a neo-Deakinite tinged city-country policy coalition. 436

Page’s tactics while they possibly assisted several more UAP rather than Country

Party MHRs to be elected ultimately helped Page keep control of the ideological agenda of his party. 437 Fiscal conservatives among the Melbourne UAP elite, like Menzies, though they affected to despise Dunstan also realised he had his positive side.

Dunstan’s presence divided and side-tracked neo-Deakinite, corporatist, nation-building sentiment among conservative voters. 438

432 This is more than implied in G. Blainey. Our Side of the Country…: 187-196. 433 G. Blainey. 1984. Our Side of the Country …: 191-194. 434 J.B. Paul. 1979. ‘Albert Dunstan and Victorian Government’ in C. Hazlehurst (ed.) Australian Conservatism: essays in political history . Canberra, Australian National University Press:161-191. 435 See B. Costar. 1985. ‘National/Liberal relations in Victoria’ in B. Galligan (ed.) 1985. Essays in Victorian Politics . South Melbourne, Macmillan: 157-165; I. Ward. 1985. ‘Electoral reform within Victoria’ in B. Galligan (ed.) Essays… :11-25; 1985. ‘The Country Press and rural conservatism in Victoria’ in B. Galligan (ed.) Essays… :199-210; P. Hay. 1985. ‘The Structure of Conservatism in south/west Victoria’ in B. Galligan (ed.):167-197. 436 See J.B. Paul. ‘Albert Dunstan’…More on this in the text below. 437 See C. Lloyd. 2000. ‘The Rise and Fall of the United Australia Party’ in J. Nethercote (ed.). Liberalism and the Australian Federation . St. Leonards, Allen & Unwin:134-162; G. Duncan. 1978. ‘From Liberal to Liberal: the Emergence of the Liberal Party and Australian Capitalism, 1900-45’; K. Tsokhas. 1986. ‘Shifting the burden: social relations of production in the Australian pastoral industry, 1929-36’ Working Papers in Economic History :77: Canberra, Australian National University; 1988 ‘Conflicts, compromises and interests: grazier organisations and the political economy of the United Australia Party’ Working Papers in Economic History :107: Australian National University. 438 K. Tsokhas. 1989. ‘Business, empire and Australian conservative politics, 1923-1936’ Working Papers in Economic History :127: Canberra, Australian National University.

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Federal politics stayed in the hands of advocates of ‘sound finance’ or just stasis – while wild, populist and discredited faction-ridden State politics remained the main forum for the discussion of demand-side alternatives. 439 The VWGA generally lived happily enough with Dunstan’s often problematic manipulation of the strict fiscal rationing of Depression era State rural local government public-works budgets. 440

Middle class pluralities especially in the vastly expanded but electorally under represented suburbs of Melbourne missed out on much of this rationed largesse. 441

Urban based conservatives like Argyle (Premier until 1935) and Menzies began to participate in a moral panic directed at Dunstan’s distribution of State money to projects like wheat silos, country cottage hospitals, roads, drains, bridges and irrigation canals. 442 Dunstan’s conservative critics also accused him of giving-in to at least some of Labor’s attempts to re-direct the policy agenda towards wild and irresponsible demand-side ideas like ‘public housing’ and hints of State and Catholic (state funded)

‘American style’ or perhaps just British style ‘comprehensive’ secondary education.443

Blainey points out that these wild rumours contrasted with the reality of Dunstan’s

1840s style fiscal parsimony. 444 Dunstan reduced overall expenditure and sanctioned only the slightest actual increase in one-off item spending only when absolute political necessity required it. 445 Dunstan now and then threw a sop to Cain the Labor leader, e.g., the Legislative Assembly enquiry into Maternal and Child Welfare - in which

439 G. Hawker. 1971. The Parliament of New South Wales 1856-1965. Ultimo, V.N.C. Blight, Government Printer: 201-222. 440 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …:16-42. 441 G Blainey. 1984. Our Side of the Country The Story of Victoria . North Ryde. Methuen Haynes. especially:187-196 ‘The Rise and Fall of Albert the Great’. 442 C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed …:109-136. Also A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies A Life Vol 1. 1894-1943 . Melbourne, Melbourne University Press: 117-118; 200. 443 Also see M. Bowman and J. Halligan. 1985. ‘Local Government: continuity and change’ in B. Galligan (ed.) Essays in Victorian Politics …:91-103. 444 G Blainey. 1984. Our Side of the Country The Story of Victoria . North Ryde. Methuen Haynes. Esp:187-196 ‘The Rise and Fall of Albert the Great’. 445 See J. Monie. 1982. Victorian History and Politics European Settlement to 1939; A survey of the Literature . (2 Volumes). Bundoora, The Borchardt Library, La Trobe University. Also S. Priestley. 1984. The Victorians Making Their Mark . McMahons Point, Fairfax Syme Weldon.

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Calwell was quite directly involved and Coles more tangentially so. 446 Dunstan also threw quite a few sops to any sufficiently grateful rural constituency such as when the Geelong Grain Silos were expanded and linked to two-thirds of the state via an enhanced rail network which by-passed Melbourne. 447

Dunstan’s minority government did however cooperate with State Labor to undertake more landmark public works activity on Labor electorates than might have been undertaken by a UAP-Country Party government.448 Labor and non-Labor

Victorian State politics were not necessarily less representative or pathological merely because they became the forum for competing sub-cultural and factional agendas. 449

Significant pluralities were at least able to express themselves in Victoria who in other

States and federally had their voices muted or often deliberately left off the agenda. 450

Petit-bourgeois disaffected farmers willing to deal with Labor across ideologically

(and pathologically) over emphasised lines of class were one of these pluralities who found a voice in Victorian inter-war politics. This is a key methodological approach this study – searching for actors willing to negotiate (deliberate) and then follow through on such cross-class (or common-good) policy deals. 451 R.F.I. Smith points out that Wilson was part of that section of the supposedly reconciled Victorian

Country Party which decided to back Dunstan’s idiosyncratic move in 1935 to abandon coalition with the Victorian Nationalists and UAP. 452

446 See C. Kiernan. 1978. Calwell… :48-50. 447 See G. Blainey. 1984. Our Side of the Country … 448 See J.B. Paul. 1961. The Premiership of Sir Albert Dunstan. MA Thesis, University of Melbourne. 449 J.B. Paul. 1961. The Premiership of Sir Albert Dunstan…; G. Blainey. 1984. Our Side of the Country; N. Brennan. 1971. John Wren Gambler: his life and times . Melbourne, Hill of Content. ; K. White. 1982. John Cain and Victorian Labor 1917-1957 . Sydney, Hale & Iremonger. ; 1978. ‘Hollway: an atypical Liberal leader?’ Politics 13:November:320-323. 450 Also see J. Rydon. 1968. ‘Victoria 1910-1966: Political Peculiarities’, and D.W. Rawson. 1968. ‘Victoria, 1910-1966: Out of Step or Merely Shuffling?’ Historical Studies 13:49:October:60-75. 451 See A. Fenna. 1995. ‘Political Alignments…’ also I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System… and R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement… 452 See A.A. Calwell. 1972. Be Just and Fear Not …

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Wilson also was typical of those senior VWGA officeholders who backed

Dunstan’s decision to start doing formal policy deals with Labor. 453 Smith indicates that the VWGA had become largely moribund during the early thirties due to the policy stasis caused by the worst period of the Great Depression. 454 Most farmers accepted the general conservative line that fighting the Depression meant ‘pulling in of belts’ and rejecting the supposedly dangerously inflationary ideas of further regulation and subsidisation. Despite this in Wimmera, in the 1931 election, the candidate of absolute legitimacy Hugh McClelland, who was also Wilson’s cousin, gained the seat only after the distribution of preferences for the 4 th time! 455

Stewart and Dunstan failed to excite the interest of the majority of farmers in regulatory schemes designed to create artificially high crop prices even during the height of the Great Depression. The key schemes were developed with

Victorian Progressive Country Party support and put to growers in plebiscites organised by the Hogan State and Scullin Federal Labor Governments. The

Depression era plebiscites, like previous plebiscites held in the later 1920’s, failed to attract the majority support of growers 456 It is at this point in 1931 that

Wilson and Cullen (another grower activist) start appearing in the VWGA’s records as advocates of further refined and honed programmes of activism. 457 Wilson and

Cullen were among those wishing to design new campaigns along lines that might finally capture the imagination of those higher income farmers who mostly had not been attracted to the idea of supporting the VWGA. 458

453 R.F.I. Smith, 1968. ‘The Development of Wheatgrowers Organisations…’…: 13-21. 454 R.F.I. Smith, 1968. ‘The Development of Wheatgrowers Organisations…’…:17-18. 455 See B. Galligan. 1978. ‘Economic Crisis and Political Legitimacy: the 1931 Federal election’ Journal of Australian Studies 3: June: 14-29. 456 See G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action . …:1-23. 457 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …:20. 458 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action … 20-40.

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By 1933 the VWGA was developing discourse to counter simplistic criticism of it by Pageites and conservative farm organisations that it was pushing economically self-destructive ideas. The VWGA, for instance, became an agent for a major insurance company and was thus able to provide a small discount for its members who signed up via itself. 459 Wilson was deputed in 1934 to be part of a three-person delegation to see the Argyle-Dunstan governments Agriculture Minister. 460

Wilson also later assisted in Dunstan’s lobbying of the new Lyons-Page coalition government to do something more about orderly marketing and price stabilisation during 1934-1937. 461

Wilson and Cullen had both been Vice Presidents several years running when at the Annual Conference in 1935 Cullen unsuccessfully tried to push policy too far too quickly from its ‘cocky’ and marginal farmer resonating Dunstanite origins. 462 Cullen contested the Presidency but lost out to D.S. Anderson who like Cullen had the aura of bourgeois respectability and relative financial security. 463

Anderson was however unequivocally Dunstanite unlike the Scotch College educated and commissioned officer ex-serviceman Cullen. 464 Wilson was also re- elected as a Vice President. The President for several years before, H.L. Simpson was voted as grower-representative onto the State Debt Adjustment Board. The board’s

Chairman J.E. Don also spoke to the 1936 Annual Conference. Smith describes this appointment (and the fact that it paid a very good retainer) as a typical political sinecure

459 E.g. G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …:23. 460 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …:24. 461 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …:28-30f. 462 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development of Australian Wheatgrowers…’…:18-19. The VWGA Executive Committee was made up of several Vice Presidents, several other members plus the President. 463 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …:20-30. 464 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …:21-23; 30-34.

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of Dunstan’s. 465 Dunstan, however, ensured that there was the show (at least) of the conference making the decision- but this also reflects how enmeshed the VWGA was with Dunstan and Dunstan with the VWGA.

Wilson’s record in the VWGA to 1937 has a direct bearing on why he had a better than fair chance of winning Wimmera when he contested it in the 1937 Federal general election. 466 Wilson firstly had rejected the ultra rural populist path and maintained as far as he could his role as a unity candidate within the VWGA. 467 Wilson was more or less the consensus candidate for the Presidency of the VWGA in 1937. The VWGA had an element that was to the left of Wilson but regional affiliation and the type and size of farm appear to have been the main key grouping factors. 468

Wilson stood for pushing Page to try to maximise rather than minimise the regulation of rural industry. 469 Cullen by this time was Wilson’s rival within the

VWGA and was showing signs of being prepared to re-establish the emotive ideological taboo (which sustained Page’s project) of never really being prepared to deals with the devil of Labor. 470 The VWGA remained neutral in the 1937 Federal general elections. 471

Cullen, but not everyone in the VWGA were enthusiastic about signs that Page and other senior coalition figures were beginning to make overtures to the Australian

465 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:17-18. Also see J.B. Paul. 1958. ‘The Victorian Country Party: Its origins and Leadership’. BA (Hons) Thesis, University of Melbourne. 466 See C.A. Hughes and B.D. Graham. 1969. Voting for the Australian House of Representatives 1901- 64 . Canberra, Australian National University Press. Also see C. Lethner. 1994. ‘Rational behaviour, economic conditions and the Australian Country Party, 1922-1937’. Australian Journal of Political Science 29:3: November: 460-483; 1997. ‘Electoral nationalisation, dealignment and realignment: Australia and the US, 1900-88’ Australian Journal of Political Science 32:2: July: 205-222. 467 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:7-22. 468 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action . ..:30-40. 469 Also see Wilson’s maiden speech in CPD Vol.154:10 March 1938:234. 470 Also see D. Godden. 1997. Agricultural and Resource Policy: principles and practice . Melbourne, Oxford University Press; T. Connors. 1972. The Australian Wheat Industry: its economics and politics . Armidale, Gill Publications; and the volume edited by Godden, D Godden (ed.). 1999. A Century of Agricultural Progress in Australia , 43 rd Annual Conference , Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, Christchurch, New Zealand. The Society, Christchurch. 471 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action ...:30-35.

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Wheatgrowers Federation (AWF). 472 Stewart had been behind the moves to create this loose Federal organisation in 1930. 473 The Federation was a pale reflection of the passing moods and fluctuating fortunes of the new radical farmer groups set up in the

1920s in all States. 474 The AWF none the less was a shadow federative executive which at least had the potential to bring together the radical groups and some of the conservative farm groups. Some but not all of conservative farm organisations more closely aligned to the Page Country Party did join the AWF. 475 The AWF really only came fully into the picture after the September 1940 election when the radicals began to see the value of coming back into a wider conservative political fold despite the compromises this might require. 476

Page and other rural fiscal conservatives, as noted above, did not have it all their way after the end of the moral panic about ‘sound finance’ generated by the Great

Depression. 477 Conservative farm association leaderships had used their decision to affiliate with the AWF as sops to satisfy those minorities within their ranks who were calling for VWGA like approaches. There was a growing constituency within the ranks of more ‘respectable’ farmers calling for greater regulation, subsidy and price control 478 Page began wooing Cullen – who serendipitously happened to be serving at the time in the round-robin post of AWF President. 479

472 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action ….See whole of Chapter Two ‘Pre-War Period 1933-1939’: 23- 41 and compare with Chapter 3 ‘The War Years 1940-1945’:42-91. See R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:25. 473 See Noel Butlin Archives Centre Australian National University. Australian Wheatgrowers Federation (1930-1979) N18; N143; Z551; E. Page. 1963. Truant Surgeon …:207. 474 See R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:25f. 475 They all came on board during the war or immediately after the war. 476 R.F.I Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:19f. 477 R. F.I Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:14-15:30-33. 478 See B. D. Graham. 1963. ‘Pools and Politics: the issue of cooperative marketing in the Wheat and Wool industries’ Australasian Political Studies Association Annual Conference Papers :5. 479 R.F.I Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:19.

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Wilson and Cullen were already three years into a bitter struggle for the heart and soul of the VWGA at this time. Cullen was partly behind (a long contemplated) name change to Victorian Wool and Wheatgrower’s Association (VWWGA) - which took place in the later 1930s. 480 The name change also partly reflected Cullen and the wider VWWGA seeing itself as activist leaders of a wider (beyond wheat) pan-industry farmer’s movement. Wilson became increasingly identified within the organisation as its key Federal parliamentary political activist. 481

Cullen although in a sense representing a new alternative non-Dunstanite and

‘right-wing’ approach to VWWGA activism was not so naïve as to deal with Page without having a fall-back position. 482 Many others, of course, had been so naïve in the past such as Hardy of the Riverina movement and W.J. McWilliams (and even Hughes during 1919-1923 in his own naïve faith in his powers of ego-projection). 483 Hardy, had led a separatist and populist revolt movement based in Albury and Wagga in the Depression, by the mid 1930’s Hardy was sitting in the Senate and attending the Federal party room. 484 McWilliams, a Tasmanian, had been the first parliamentary leader of the federal Country Party. McWilliams advocated

Deakinism (including negotiation with Labor). 485

McWilliams was replaced by Page as party leader in 1920 mostly because he saw no need to depose Hughes as Prime Minister. 486 W. M. Hughes, had

480 .R. F.I Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:19-20. 481 See G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action… :40-45. E.g., see Victorian Wheatgrower 10/11/39: ‘Wheatgrowers decide on militant action… ‘Monster meeting at Bendigo Showgrounds of 1.500 growers’.. ‘Cullen, Wilson, Brigadier Rankin, Senator Sheehan (Labor) the Mayor of Bendigo and A.C. Everett (VWWGA President) ‘- all on the speakers platform. 482 R.F.I Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:22. 483 See. L. G. Crisp. 1961. ‘New Light on the Trials and Tribulations of W.M. Hughes, 1920-1922’ Historical Studies. 37. 484 See B.D. Graham. 1966. The Formation of the Australian Country Parties . Canberra. Australian National University Press: 138f. 485 See B.D. Graham. 1966. The Formation of the Australian Country Parties …:1-78f. 486 See B.D. Graham. 1966. The Formation of the Australian Country Parties …:1-100f.

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effectively projected his ego onto Australian politics during the Great War and become a formidable populist hero 487 Hughes, was removed from the Prime

Ministership due to a combination of activity by Page and some key urban based conservatives who used the excuse of the need to dispense with Hughes due to his overweening emotional faults (which were legion). 488 Page and his allies also disliked Hughes’s tendency to support expansion of social security, redistributive use of taxation, setting up of state controlled enterprises and willingness to introduce additional regulation. 489

The VWWGA supported Labor in the 1940 Federal election and Cullen decided to focus on AWF activity, a Dunstan appointment and his Menzies (and Page confirmed) Federal Wheat Board appointment and did not serve as VWWGA President from 1940 to 1944. 490 Cullen, however, had upped the ante in his search for a quick and grand conclusion to the inchoate and disparate hopes of wheat growers. 491 Cullen made the egotistical but perhaps accurate assessment that properly dealt with (i.e., with himself as negotiator) non-Labor as much as Labor could deliver on a different but still popular enough package of policies designed to placate small, medium and large growers. 492 It is at this point that Wilson can be seen to begin casting around for an even more elevated and deliberately Burkean sort of ideology. 493

Wilson perforce of the circumstance of losing control of the VWWGA agenda starts to transform himself (as will be argued just below). Wilson the Dunstanite and

487 See C.M.H. Clark. 1987. A History of Australia ‘The Old Dead Tree and the Young Tree Green’ 1916- 1935 with an epilogue. Carlton, Melbourne University Press: 126-195 especially: 162-195‘A Hayseed Topples the Little Digger’. 488 See C.M.H. Clark. 1987. A History of Australia ‘The Old Dead… : 100-130f. 489 See L.F. Fitzhardinge. 1978. A Political Biography of W.M. Hughes. The Little Digger 1915. Sydney, Angus and Robertson, passim. 490 See C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed …:184-196. For Cullen see G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …:50-52. 491 See Cullen’s statement in G. Mitchell 1969. Growers in Action… : 53-54: 492 Cullen was (as stated further above) President of the AWF in the early 1940s. 493 E.g. CPD Vol. 163:439-445.

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potentially completely controllable petit-bourgeois begins to self-consciously assume the mantle of a Burkean independent. 494 Wilson begins searching for a package that will assist wheat growers but also make people like the Cullenites and the Pageites seem grubby, sectional and gratuitously self-limiting by comparison!

Alex Wilson’s Presidency of the VWGA immediately preceded Cullen’s and thus bridges the era between the organisation being a Mallee based and Dunstan focused support group and a major player in national rural interest group politics. 495 Wilson always had a wider ideological focus than the ‘all politics is local’ focus of Dunstan as is evidenced by his not contesting State seats or becoming entangled in local government or other State focused activism during the period 1932-1937. 496

Smith, Dunsdorfs and Tsokhas also point out that ideological tension had begun to open in wider rural politics and industry as Page and the wider economic elite sought to find ways to deal with growing producer discontent.497 Cullen (as mentioned above) had tried and failed to gain the VWGA Presidency in 1935 when his opponent was D.S.

Anderson. 498

Anderson although the first President from outside the marginal Mallee wheat area – he came from the gentler more mid-bourgeois Wimmera – had also been ‘one of the few growers outside of the Mallee area to take an early interest in the

Association’.499 Anderson was representative (like Wilson) of those inclined to support

494 For Wilson’s Burkeanism see CPD Vol. 165:10/12/40:714-721. 495 R.F.I Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:13-14; 18. 496 Fadden (in contrast) gloried in his ultra-localist origins and outlooks. See A. Fadden. 1969. They Call Me Artie ...:43-47, 68-71 and 96. 497 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’….; E. Dunsdorfs. 1956. The Development of the Australian Wheat-Growing Industry . Melbourne, University of Melbourne Press; C. Tsokhas. 1989. ‘Australia and the Ottawa Conference’ Working papers in Economic History : 122: Australian National University. Canberra, Australian National University. 498 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action ...:25-30. 499 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development of Australian Wheatgrowers…’…:17, fn13.

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Stewart’s and Dunstan’s original aim of making the Country Party and grower groups genuinely capable of negotiating equally with either of the two major party blocs. 500

R.F.I. Smith argues for the need to revise some often held views about rural interest-groups (like those of Lipset) and other pluralist assumptions underlying analysis of rural activism in econometric writing. 501 Smith points out that the non-elite- connected ideology of the left-wing of the VWGA/VWWGA did retain its own momentum and did recruit bourgeois and elite-connected support after the early to mid

1930s. 502 Obviously forces were also operating (as they always do) in the opposite direction – Page was pursuing with typical energy a subtly focused programme of winning over and locking in the new post war generation of key rural activist leaders. 503

Smith’s later published work readily acknowledges the elite-connected conservative convergence ideology underlying much of Australian farm organisation activity and the making of farm policy. 504 However other ‘funny-money’ and Social

Credit inspired variously petit-bourgeois or mid-bourgeois farmers were being attracted to Labor as well as the VWGA/VWWGA as the UAP was to find to its cost in the 1940

Corio by-election with the election of J.J. Dedman.505 ‘Country-Labor’ was a phrase and an idea that motivated a large number of eminently respectable enough local

500 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action ...:1-17. Anderson was a founder-member of the VWGA. 501 S.M. Lipset. 1950. Agrarian Socialism , Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press. Also see R.K. Hefford. 1985. Farm Policy in Australia … 502 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:4f. 503 D. Verrall, I. Wood and P. Hay. 1985. ‘Community, country , party: roots of conservatism’ in D. Verrall, I. Wood and P. Hay (eds.). Country to National: Australian Rural Politics and Beyond . St. Leonards, Allen & Unwin:8-22. 504 R.F.I. Smith and G. Harman. 1981. ‘Australian Farm Organisations and the making of farm policy’ in P. Drysdale and H. Kitaoji (eds.). Japan and Australia: Two Societies and their interaction . Canberra, Australian National University Press:215-235. 505 See J.J. Dedman cited in C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed . Sydney, George, Allen & Unwin:187-188.

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identities and farmers to stand for Labor in dozens of rural seat by-elections and general elections at State and Federal level throughout the period 1934-1941. 506

Wilson and Cullen by the later 1930s had come to stand for two different approaches whose origins lay in earlier tensions about breaking away from the

Mainstream Country Party or merely seeking to influence the Party. 507 P.G.

Stewart’s own predicament was another (earlier examined) example of this. – Stewart’s failure was sealed between 1928 and 1931 by Hughes’s failure to revive mass-political centrism – which Stewart had hoped to be able to associate himself with. 508 Stewart (as mentioned above) was reduced to discussing his frustrations with Hughes over tea in the

Members dining room and at the Hotel Kurrajong – this was a far cry from influencing the meta-policy agenda!

Centrifugal (i.e. hegemonic) forces are always pulling in opposite direction to those who were willing to pursue cross-class policy deals with Labor. 509 Cullen (as argued above) represented those who in the name of being more pragmatic believed as much could be achieved with non-Labor as Labor. 510 Wilson’s record in the VWGA to

1937 has a direct bearing on why he had a better than fair chance of winning Wimmera when he contested it in the 1937 Federal general election. Wilson, firstly, had rejected the ultra rural populist path and maintained as far as he could his unity candidate role within the VWGA. Wilson’s philosophy is characterised by R.F.I. Smith as being

‘drawn on by his advocacy of banking reforms and a new wheat scheme’; Smith adds

506 See D. Clune. ‘Parliamentary and non-parliamentary Labor: NSW 1941 to 1965’. Labour History 62: May: 106-115. 507 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action… 1-20f. 508 B.D. Graham. 1963. ‘Politics and Pools…’1-7. 509 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…: 33-35. 510 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…: 20.

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this dichotomy pushed him to ‘increasingly’ favour ‘trying to install a new government’. 511

Wilson in 1940 before the general election, when speaking in parliament, explicitly mentions Social Credit and other petit-bourgeois favouring credit expanding ideas which are more or less derivable from Henry George. Wilson equates real property with real wealth and interest-earned income as anti-social and so on. Wilson, however, like the wider VWWGA crystallised all these disparate populist ideas into the more coherent path of advocating a vote for Labor in the forthcoming general election (except in Wimmera). 512

Wilson had been, more or less, the consensus candidate for the Presidency of the

VWGA in 1937 not in the sense of being conciliatory towards the ‘Federals’ as

Cullen was, but as being more ‘Stewart-like’ than the more pragmatic followers of

Dunstan. 513 Wilson’s election to Wimmera in 1937 was however still largely due to the particular strength of Dunstan and his support base, which went beyond

Wilson and the other Stewart purists in North Western Victoria. 514 Mitchell records that the Victorian Wheatgrower , the official periodical of the VWGA, declared:

With the approach of the Federal elections all candidates will soon be busy appealing [sic] to the electors to for support. The Executive of the VWGA urges all members of wheatgrowing constituencies to question the candidate to as to whether he is prepared to support the Wheat Stabilisation Plan. If he is not, then do NOT place him in No.1 position of your ballot paper on 23 October. 515

Wilson due to his Dunstanite and VWGA credentials already had dozens of booth-workers, hundreds of already won-over votes in a tight election. Labor if it had

511 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:20. 512 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:20. Smith cites CPD. Vol. 165. 10/12/40:74, part of Wilson’s speech in the end of year new Fadden Budget debate of 1940. 513 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development of Australian Wheatgrowers…’…:19. 514 J.B. Paul. 1962. ‘The Premiership of Sir Albert Dunstan’. MA Thesis, University of Melbourne. 515 Victorian Wheatgrower 15/10/37 cited in G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …:30.

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stood a candidate in 1937 would expect that its preferences would maximise the flow away from McClelland the ‘Australian Country Party’ candidate and sitting member.

Labor ran no candidates in Wimmera between 1913, when it gained 38.991% and

1940 when it gained 24.8%. The term Australian Country Party (ACP) was used

(at least in Victoria) to distinguish candidates who were not selected by

Dunstan. In the rest of Australia United Country Party (UCP) was used by Pageites.

Wilson’s half-way status between being a full-on Dunstanite and not being one saw him choose the neutral tag of ‘Independent Country’.

Wilson therefore might have still won in 1937 even if he had only attracted around 25% of the first preference vote – the sort of figure that had been achieved by previous Dunstanite and/or VWGA identified candidates in 1931 and 1934. 516

Wilson only really needed to try to come in ahead of his cousin, the sitting member (who had only gained less than 40% of the first preference vote last time). 517 Preference flows away from McClelland had to be maintained – that was all.

As it turned out Wilson gained a small plurality of the votes (51.9%). 518

North Western Victoria was not a stronghold for McEwen’s and Wilfrid Kent-

Hughes’s ‘Country Liberal Party’ which advocated a city-country focused conservative anti-Labor (and anti-Dunstan) electoral alliance. Howard charts Kent-Hughes’s and

McEwen’s move to thwart Dunstan’s bid to control Country Party members of the

Federal and State Parliaments. Kent-Hughes approached George Nicholas, the Aspro millionaire, who agreed to back an anti-Dunstan movement. The result was the Liberal

Country Party 519 The party won only a few State seats but did at times attract

516 Simpson the UCP candidate gained 33.24% of the primary vote in 1934, McClelland (ACP) 33.28%. 517 This plurality over the other candidate could be as few as twenty odd votes - as it was in 1934. 518 See Australian Electoral Office. 1976. A Summary of Commonwealth election and referendum statistics, 1901-1975. Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service. 519 F. Howard. 1972. Kent-Hughes A Biography . South Melbourne, Macmillan: 77-78.

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the support of other sitting conservative State MPs. These State MPs often used the tag ‘Liberal-Country’ for themselves until the formation of the Liberal Party in the later 1940’s.

The Kent-Hughes/McEwen Liberal –Country Party is further evidence that many Victorian voters were becoming dissatisfied with the turn towards fiscal conservatism that had taken place since the early 1920’s. 520 Wilson’s election in

1937, Dunstan’s continuing influence and Labor’s winning of an increasing number of rural Federal seats was further evidence of this shift toward demand-side over supply-side approaches.

Four or five Victorian federal seats had proven more or less Country Party seats in the 1920s Wimmera, Wannon, Indi, Corangamite and at times Bendigo.

The rest of the State was in the shadow of Melbourne or had significant Labor voting minorities (as in the brown coal fields of Gippsland). Three cornered contests saw

Wannon, Bendigo and elsewhere often stay out of Country party hands. Victoria was a natural starting place for a mixed urban and rural approach to conservative politics 521

Wimmera and Wannon-in Victoria’s north-west had since the mid 1920s regularly seen four candidates stand for election that were aligned along various points of the conservative spectrum. A Labor candidate often also stood and sometimes one or two other factionally unaligned minor independent candidates. E.g., in 1934 in

Wimmera McClelland, although a Pageite, stood against H.L. Simpson who was a leading VWGA member and a Dunstanite. Simpson was actually the official Country

Party candidate though Page would have preferred McClelland to win. Simpson gained 22 votes less than the Pageite and lost the seat.

520 F. Howard. 1972. Kent-Hughes A Biography . South Melbourne, Macmillan: 77-97f. 521 F. Howard. 1972. Kent-Hughes A Biography. South Melbourne, Macmillan: 77-85f.

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McClelland won after the distribution of the preferences of a slightly less

Dunstan beholding and more Stewart like VWGA activist candidate - G. Anderson.

Anderson’s preferences (which flowing from a sizeable vote) leaked slightly more to the incumbent Pageite. The coup de grace was the overwhelming flow of preferences from a UAP candidate who also stood! In 1937, but not 1940 or 1943 Wilson gained a majority of votes. In 1931 as well as 1934 no candidate had a gained a majority in their own right.

Similar dynamics operated in wheat belt electorates in New South Wales and

South Australia. 522 It is no surprise with such a split conservative ticket that a candidate like Wilson, with a strong support base, could expect to ‘chance’ a win after the distribution of preferences. Smith relates that a key turning point for Wilson in the 1937 election was the half-hearted nature of Page’s proposals to run a

Constitutional referendum to give the Commonwealth co-ordinating powers over commerce and marketing. 523

Page, typically and conveniently foreshadowed, even before any referendum was called (in 1936 as well as 1937), that such a referendum might easily fail. 524 Page looked ahead and talked about Labor’s cynical opposition and the nit-picking of rural radicals like the VWGA, the South Australian Wheatgrowers Association and the

Wheatgrowers Association of New South Wales. 525 The VWGA records show

Wilson, after being elected to Wimmera and having served as VWGA President (in

1937) supporting Premier Dunstan’s pledge to push matters further than Page

522 See C.A. Hughes. 1974. Voting for the Australian House of Representatives1901-64. Canberra, Australian National University Press. 523 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:7-30.; R. Hicks. 1981. ‘Formulae for confusion – the Development of a national health health scheme’ in R Hicks (ed.) Rum, regulation and riches. Sydney, Australian Hospital Association. Also J. Gillespie. 1991. The Price of Health: Australian Governments and Medical Politics 1910 to1972 Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 524 E.g., CPD.Vol.155:13/5/36:345. 525 E.g., CPD.Vol.155 13/5/36:345. Also see E. Page. 1963. Truant Surgeon …:230-240.

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wanted at the next Premiers Conference. The VWGA records show Premier

Dunstan speaking to a public meeting of 200 growers at Charlton, Victoria on

17/8/38 thus:

He had criticised Federal Members of Parliament for not submitting a concrete policy for Wheat Stabilisation.Wheatgrowers’schemes for orderly marketing had been over-ridden by Federal Members and if they were not backed by Government it should be (put) out of office as it was the only language it understood. 526

The referenda had been held on 6/3/37 and only Victoria and Queensland had voted yes for the largely aviation power question with a no majority for extending the

Commonwealth’s marketing power. The referenda like the Wheat Bill of 1935 were all part of Page’s regular approach of lamenting that too many practical barriers existed to allow him to do much more about producer calls for more intervention. 527 The year previously when Wilson was VWGA President the minutes of the VWGA executive meeting of 7/7/37 record:

It was also decided to have Association lapel badges printed made and from a number of designs a simple black and white badge showing a map of Victoria upon which was superimposed the letters VWGA, was selected. An order of 5,000 was placed, to sell for 1/- each. All candidates and party leaders who were to participate in the 1937 Federal elections were written to asking them to declare whether they supported the Wilson-Upill Plan for stabilising wheat prices in Australia…’ 528

Mention was made, in Chapter 3, of Coles being the focus of a mass- cultural and mass-political crusade which, of course, required considerable planning and organisation to carry out. The section of the minutes, quoted above, dealing with the distinctive black badges, indicates that Wilson and

526 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …33. 527 See R. K Hefford. 1985. Farm Policy in Australia. St.Lucia, University of Queensland Press. 528 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action ...:26.

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his supporters were not completely without consciousness of the needs of widespread marketing and ‘image’ creating.

In the intervening year between these VWGA executive minutes and Dunstan’s statement at Charlton in Victoria, Page’s ‘Wheat Industry Assistance Bill’ was being canvassed around the country. 529 Page now felt confident enough to resist VWGA and other renewed commitments to end his regime of fiscally conservative and deliberately self-limiting politics aimed (as always) at agenda-excluding the neo-Deakinite elements within his own party and the majority non-Labor party. 530

Wilson’s vote although less sure normally favoured the government when any issues were linked to defence between 1937-1940. Wilson had given undertakings while campaigning in 1940 to encourage whichever party bloc gained power to vigorously prosecute the war. 531 Wilson despite his growing convergence with Labor during 1937-

1940 in terms of rural regulation and rural subsidisation was still constrained from openly supporting Labor due to its not having ruled in conscription, if this became necessary.

Wilson’s views on the war effort and how this made him draw back from supporting Labor until it shifted its attitude towards a more positive commitment to prosecuting the war will be the first piece of parliamentary discourse to be cited and analysed just below. Wilson’s cooperation with Labor during 1937-1940 was similar in spirit to Dunstan’s in Victoria but nothing could flow back directly to his electorate because of cooperation with Labor. Dunstan via the medium of the Loans Council was making headway with getting the Country Party (and the UAP) at Federal level to add to his ability to pork barrel. The States, for instance, managed to get the

529 See G. Sawer. 1963. Australian Federal Politics and Law 1929-1949 …:97-122 -Sawer at this point cites several CPD passages, eg. CPD.Vol.156:2378. 530 See R.K. Hefford. 1985. Farm Policy in Australia …:20-40. 531 See further below this chapter.

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Commonwealth’s permission for a further extension of the regime of price support and debt adjustment (subsidy of debt payments, etc) for smaller farmers. 532

Wilson was being assiduously duchessed by key Labor figures like Scully and

Ward before the September 1940 election and they were joined in this duchessing by

Evatt after the election. Ward despite his later (1943) running foul of Wilson and Coles over the Brisbane Line farrago was a key player in the sometimes overly aggressive parliamentary tactics which all oppositions often feel are needed to be employed in the

‘continuing election campaign’ of everyday party politics.

Ward was one of those MPs savvy in the use of whatever crumbs of opportunity are available for point scoring in the debased and two-party gladiatorial style milieu of a two-party system Westminster parliament. 533 The earliest example of

Labor’s decision to work with Wilson (and this includes its key head kickers like Ward) was on 21/6/38 when Caucus resolved to ‘support Mr Wilson rising when his intimation for the Adjournment motion was announced.’534

Ward, while later on often understood in Labor history as an exemplar of left-wing ideology is better understood as a Labor populist in the mould of Jack

Lang. 535 Scully was the ‘Country Labor’ golden boy of the Gwydir by-election of

1937. 536 Despite the very significant role that the Evatt-Wilson relationship had for both men in later 1941 (which is analysed in later chapters) it was the Wilson-Scully relationship that was the most significant for Wilson’s key farm policy goals.

532 See F. Eggleston. 1953. Reflections of an Australian Liberal . Melbourne, Cheshire: 105-106. 533 See D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… : 318; 400f; 412-420. 534 Citation from P. Weller (ed.) (assisted by B. Lloyd) 1978. Caucus Minutes 1901-1949 , Vol.3, 1932- 1942. Carlton University of Melbourne Press: 183. 535 See E. Spratt. 1978. Eddie Ward, firebrand of East Sydney. Adelaide, Rigby. 536 See J. Hallam. 1983. The Untold Story Rural Labor in New South Wales. North Sydney, George Allen and Unwin: 18-79.

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The Wilson-Scully relationship reached its acme during 1941 – 1943. The period before Labor’s re-election saw Cullen, Wilson’s successor as the key leader figure of the VWWGA, prey to Dunstan’s desire to have one key satellite remain close to non-Labor. Wilson performed the role of being the satellite that was closer to

Federal Labor. 537 Wilson during 1941-1943 gained much by being able to act as the chief conduit between the VWWGA and the Federal government over wheat policy. 538 That is until Cullen cut himself off from the role of being Dunstan’s envoy with Federal non-Labor.

Dunstan’s and the VWWGA’s use for Wilson as a go-between largely ended once Cullen stepped in and became the main facilitator of negotiations with Federal Labor. Wilson after 1944 increasingly contemplated his own personal political end-game and fortunately for him, unlike minor operatives on the non-

Labor side, Labor tended then, as it tends now, to provide side-payments even for those who had only been useful in the past – Wilson became Administrator of

Norfolk Island. Wilson, in 1940, well before his later era of successful negotiation with Labor, mostly thought in terms of the war situation forcing all the parties to come together to form a national government. Jack Lang, whose chief hobby was collecting stories about elitist conspiracy and cabal is able to assert (quite plausibly) - thirty years later:

Wilson was a member of the Victorian Country Party… and he had some very decided ideas on monetary reform. Evatt then enlisted the support of the Melbourne millionaire and political fixer, John Wren, who had some influence with the Federal Secretary of the RSL Sir Gilbert Dyett, and directly or indirectly used these intermediaries. 539

537 See R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development of Wheatgrowers’ Organisations…:15-16. 538 See R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development of Wheatgrowers’ Organisations…:18. 539 J. Lang. 1970. The Turbulent Years. Sydney, Alpha Books: 194.

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Lang asserts that Evatt, Dyett, Wren, Sir Albert Dunstan and Wilson were part of a matrix of contacts throughout 1940 and most of 1941 in which Evatt’s undoubted interest in the formation of a national wartime government was discussed. 540 Lang’s views need to be juxtaposed with the observation that all sorts of people in Victorian politics had contacts with Dunstan, including

Calwell when he was the key go-between Dunstan and the Victorian Labor

Party. 541 Calwell, of course, was no friend of the pro-active mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of militia in the ABDA area, New Guinea or Northern Australia - let alone of wholesale unrestricted conscription! 542

Calwell, however, remained in close and regular contact with Dunstan right up to the formation of the Curtin government. 543 Calwell despite his contemporary

(and later) protestations of Labor pureness on the conscription issue exemplifies the complexity of the matrix of inter-connections involving Labor, Wilson and Coles.

Wilson (and therefore Wilson/Dunstan/Evatt/Dyett) liaised well before late 1941 over supporting a Federal Labor government. The hypothetical government being discussed would need to declare itself in favour of some sort of conscription and/or more pro-active use of the militia, along with a more vigorous approach to the war effort which incorporated nation-building activities. 544

Many farmers looked back with nostalgia to the Great War when the

Federal government secured artificially high prices for some primary products.

540 J. Lang. 1970. The Turbulent Years. Sydney, Alpha Books: 190-194. 541 See C. Kiernan. 1978. Calwell… :46-51. 542 See discussion of this in Chapters 4 and 6 and A. Calwell. 1972. Be Just and Fear Not… :78-87. 543 See C. Kiernan. 1978. Calwell… :50 -especially text of and fn. 55. 544 E.g., D. Whitington. 1977. Strive to be Fair An Unfinished Autobiography . Canberra, Australian National University Press: 72-74; G. Souter. 1981. Company of Heralds a Century and a half of Australia publishing by John Fairfax Limited and its predecessors 1831-1981 . Carlton, Melbourne University Press: 190; Argus 7/3/41.

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545 Key elite-connected farm lobbies like that involving wool were already fairly certain that the war-induced good-times would return to them. 546

Wilson’s VWWGA was predominantly made up of petit-bourgeois farmers who not unreasonably felt that they might not get as much out of war-time pricing and support arrangements as the more elite elite-connected wool growers and larger wheat-growers. 547 Wilson shared with Labor a belief that the war presented a legitimate opportunity to promote a revival of nation building that included a large element of redistributive social and industry policy:

I say to the people of this demo cracy, that it is up to them to take a more active interest in these matters than they have taken in the past if they wish to obtain the results that should accrue from true democracy. I have studied the accomplishments of dictatorship countries, and have envied them. The spectre of unemployment has been practically abolished in them and primary industry has been stabilised. That is something that we have not yet accomplished. When we have achieved that much under our democratic system, we shall have reached the democratic millennium… We should set about the task of abolishing those injustices which prevent every member of the community from having an equal opportunity to earn a living and to share in the general bounty which this country is capable of providing.548

Wilson, just prior to making these statements had opened his Address in Reply speech with a more usual conservative backbench MP type survey of the war situation and peppered it with the normal platitudes like ‘Let it suffice for me to say that we are still engaged in a grievous and tragic struggle which, at the moment, according to the information in our possession, appears to be expanding’.549 Wilson added a caveat which allowed Hasluck, who searched the CPD to illustrate Wilson’s Social

545 B. Pinkstone. 1993. Global Connections… :73-133. 546 See C. Tsokhas. 1990. Markets, Money and empire… ;C. Fyfe.1996. Gentlemens Agreements. Dalkeith, Luna Press. 547 See R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development of Wheatgrowers’ Organisations…’…18-36. 548 A. Wilson’s speech in Address in Reply to Governor-General’s Speech CPD Vol.165:1/5/40:440- 441. 549 Wilson’s speech in Address in Reply to Governor-General’s Speech CPD Vol.165:1/5/40: 440.

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Credit/populist idiosyncrasies, to attribute to him a ‘guilty man’/appeaser sort of mentality. 550 Hasluck in summing up about Wilson says:

Wilson’s voice was that of the farmers and other who remembered the depression, who distrusted financial institutions, who were concerned over ‘equality of sacrifices’, who were counting the cost of the war step by step and tracing its effects on their own districts and on their own industry, who were concerned about the probable effects of the war as well as waging it.551

Hasluck hints at Wilson having a sort of ‘guilty man’ approach to the war – which he depicts as standing in self-evident contrast to the professional conservative politicians with their wider, good-hearted and functionally healthy interest group influenced approach to the war! 552 Hasluck’s judgement about Wilson is part of his least successful reading of the politics of 1939-1941 – it is an assessment that assumes

Menzies’s essential political competence and that Menzies was undermined by less competent political enemies. 553 Wilson in this reading unfairly becomes singled out as more of a ‘guilty man’ than most local, other Dominion and Westminster Labor and conservative MPs. 554

Wilson did say this about the war in this same Address in Reply speech:

I have come to realise that this is perhaps the final struggle between the democracies of the world – exemplified by Great Britain, the United States of America and France – and the dictatorships of the world exemplified by Russia, Germany in particular, and possibly other countries which may yet become involved. In a time such as the present, it is necessary that we should all pull together and make a united effort to

550 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 ..:506-507 and: 278-279. 551 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 ...:518. 552 See S. Aster. 1989. ‘Guilty Men: The Case of Neville Chamberlain’ in R Boyce and E Robertson (eds.) Paths to War…: 233-269. 553 See P. Hasluck. 1958. Telling the Truth in a Democracy . The Twenty First George Adlington Syme Oration by P.C. Hasluck, MA, MP. University of Western Australia, Tuesday 19 August 1958. Sydney, Australasian Medical Publishing Company. 554 See R. Ovendale. 1989. ‘Why the British Dominions declared war’ in R. Boyce and E. Robertson (Eds.) Paths to War… :269f.

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bring this ghastly struggle to an end. I would not say that, even at this juncture, we should close the door against rapprochement, by means of which peace might be negotiated, because when all is said and done, if the struggle should continue – as many persons think it will – for many years, with the loss of millions of lives, nothing will have been resolved; therefore, the sooner the representatives of nations get around a table and negotiate suitable terms of peace, the better it will be for the world. 555

Wilson can be rightfully classified as a typical conservative MP approaching the perplexing issue of the war’s new Western Front using the standard discourse used in discussing international affairs that had become customary since the end of the Great

War. 556 D. Day in Menzies and Churchill at War says that Bruce’s ultra-appeasement views had percolated down so as to become received wisdom to most Federal

MPs. 557

Most MPs views on foreign and Empire affairs were at best informed by wider snatches of memory of vague platitudes uttered by Page, Lyons, Bruce,

Casey or Menzies. Wilson would not have been alone in having had rammed home to him at a dinner or reception by some minion attached to these great authorities not so subtle intimations that any war would not last long. 558 Most

MPs of any length of service had often been told that war, if it came, (and the war once it did come) might soon end in some sort of internationally arbitrated negotiated peace.

Wilson’s views typified much wider opinion than those looking back (like

Hasluck) could perhaps believe. In Wilson’s case, his views about not abandoning the processes of international arbitration were of course still the normal discourse of most

555 A. Wilson. Speech in Address-in-Reply CPD.Vol.165.1/5/40, :440. 556 See E.M. Andrews. 1970. Isolationism and Appeasement in Australia: reactions to the European crises 1935-1939 . Canberra, Australian National University Press. Also see D. Day. ‘An Undiplomatic Incident: S.M. Bruce and the moves to curb Churchill, February 1942’ Journal of Australian Studies 19: November: 31-39. 557 D. Day. 1986. Menzies and Churchill at War… :10-18; 23-24. 558 See. D. Langmore. 1997. Glittering Surfaces A Life of Maie Casey . St. Leonards, Allen and Unwin.

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Labor MPs in Canberra, as even a cursory look at Hansard for 1940 will show. In May

1940 such talk as cited above was Wilson’s attempt to show how sophisticated he was in analysing the war situation. Hasluck’s unfair attempt to label Wilson as selfishly calling for an armistice places too much weight on the suburban patriotism, re-cycled from the Great War, then finding its way into the discourse of UAP and Country Party politicians.

Blain, the speaker who followed Wilson, spent some time worrying about what he called ‘pink’ colonial liberals among the wider white settler population of the

Netherlands East Indies. 559 Blain said that ‘the pinks may at any time sneak upon us in the dark and stab us in the back’. 560 Blain was also worried about reports that Nazis had been masquerading as missionaries in Papua-New Guinea. 561 Wilson, no doubt as tired as anyone by all this, but still present in the House interjected while Blain said:

I now propose to deal with the disposal of our primary products… the arrangement made with Great Britain has proved perfectly satisfactory. The prices agreed upon have been reasonable. The producers of none of the commodities affected could reasonably take exception to what has been done. Mr Wilson : But we do. 562

In this same Address-in-Reply debate several Labor MPs spoke about the phoney war and about the very real war on what most people at that time called ‘the Western

Front’. Martens the Labor MP for Herbert (in Queensland) said:

We are expected to believe that something frightful is happening, and that the Allies are up against it. Are these things true? Are the people of this country not entitled to know as much as is told to the people of Great Britain? 563

559 CPD.Vol.165.1/5/40:445. 560 CPD.Vol.165.1/5/40:445. 561 CPD.Vol.165.1/5/40:445. 562 CPD.Vol.165.1/5/40:448. 563 CPD.Vol.165.1/5/40:436.

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Martens then went on, after this attack on the government, to say:

I do not want it thought that I would be prepared to support any person whose activities are not in the best interests of the British Empire and of Australia. Nothing is further from my mind. Whether such persons are Communists or any other such dangerous individuals they should be dealt with. 564

Other Labor speakers in this same Address-in-Reply made relatively extreme statements about capitalist war mongering and fighting the unnecessary fights of the

British Empire while at least giving lip-service to official Labor Party policy on supporting the war effort and seeing it through. Key examples of those who followed this approach in the Fifteenth (1937-1940) parliament once war was declared were

Maurice Blackburn, Eddie Ward, Frank Brennan and Dr Parker Maloney. 565

The majority of Labor MPs continued to hammer away on issues like child endowment, job creation, housing, inadequacy of old age pensions and bringing war- time industry into line with broad goals of nation building, fairness and equity, etc. 566

Labor (Day argues) felt that despite ongoing factionalism its message of using war conditions to facilitate socio-economic change was beginning to resonate with key pluralities like swinging voters, wheat-farmers and even sections of industry. 567

Wilson’s discourse (and presence) in parliament since 1937 was seen as further confirmation of this. Labor, however, had to keep up its side of the bargain and not just pay lip-service to Coles’s calls (and beyond Coles) to Wilson’s calls for a vastly increased war effort:

The only guiding principle that should govern this Parliament in considering these or any other proposals at present is the stark, naked

564 CPD.Vol.165.1/5/40:436. 565 See B. Penton. 1941. Think or be damned: a subversive note on national pride, patriotism, and other forms of respectable ostrichism . Sydney, Angus & Robertson. 566 Wilson’s speech is at (at CPD.Vol.165:440-444) Also see L.L. Robson (ed.) 1975. Australian Commentaries Select Articles from the Round Table 1911-1942 . Carlton, Melbourne University Press: 181-188; P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 ...: 193-280; G. Sawer. 1963. Australian Federal Politics and Law… :123-127. 567 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :380f.

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fact that we are at war and that the life and property of every citizen in the community is at stake. We have been at war for fifteen months, and any person who with an unbiased mind analyses the position as it is to- day cannot come to any other conclusion other than Australia must do a very great deal more than it has done up to the present if we are to play our full part in the struggle. 568

Wilson had been the victim of a vicious and patently desperate campaign waged against him over war-slacking by Pageites and McEwenists during the general election.

The anti-Wilson smut campaign will be followed through the agency of the pages of the

Sunraysia Daily which in fact was the principal means used to mount the campaign anyway. The Sunraysia Daily had been part-owned by P. G. Stewart, the VWGA and Dunstanite Country Party dead saint-hero figure. Page was also a part-owner along with R. D. Elliott. Elliott and Page during the early 1930’s had prevailed upon Stewart to agree to allow the newspaper to mostly carry news and opinion favourable to the official Federal Country Party line. 569

Unfortunately for Wilson, since Stewart’s death in 1931, the terms of the agreement forced out of him by Page and R.D. Elliott (Australian representative of

Armstrong Whitworth – the farm machinery, automobile and munitions importers) had been vigorously followed! The Daily was not to support the Dunstanite Country

Party and its pages become part of Elliott’s wider use of his other Victorian country newspapers to wage a fairly vigorous crusade against Dunstanism.

Wilson the VWGA/VWWGA and Dunstan’s United Country Party gained much better press in smaller chains or sole proprietor newspapers like the Dickson families

Ouyen and North-West Express .570 In solely owned Elliott newspapers like the Swan

Hill Guardian Wilson was less severely beaten around the ears than in the Sunraysia

568 CPD.Vol.165:355. 569 See E. Page. 1963. Truant Surgeon… :179-180. 570 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …: vi.

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Daily. The Daily ’s editor no doubt was accustomed to the occasional telephone call from co-owner ‘Doc’ Page - whose party continued to receive sterling coverage in this major regional newspaper.

The Federal Country Party by taking the step of questioning Wilson’s patriotic bona fides drove Wilson into the Labor camp on the issue of the war. – The war, of course, was something that had the potential of seeing Wilson and the rest of the Dunstanites won away from policy-coalitions with Labor via its whipping-up of rural patriotic sentiment. The other Dunstanite MHR (for Bendigo) was Brigadier

Rankin, an officer war-hero, who remained true to the 1932 agreement made by

Stewart to hold ranks with the Federal Party.

Stewart’s agreement over the Sunraysia Daily dates to the Stewart-Dunstan-

Page rapprochement of 1930. Page and Dunstan had more or less agreed to keep out of each others key area of influence. Page was to stay out of State politics and Dunstan out of Federal. One example of how this bargaining worked out in practice over the 1930’s was the status and role of Rankin, the previously mentioned MHR for Bendigo. 571 Dunstan stuck to parts of the bargain struck in

1930 but not to other parts thus giving Page the excuse to do the same. By late 1935 it was obvious that Page had gained as much control over the

Federal coalition as he had in the Bruce –Page days. 572 A more confident

Federal Country Party emerged and it was backed by its key state ally in the

New South Wales branch led by Colonel Bruxner. 573

571 See G. G. Blainey. 1984. Our Side of the Country The Story of Victoria . North Ryde, Methuen Haynes: 187-196. 572 See A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies…:122-125f; 220-222. 573 See D. Aitkin. 1969. The Colonel: A Political Biography of Sir Michael Bruxner. Canberra, Australian National University Press.

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Other groups within the Country Party fold like those coalescing around

McEwen in Victoria or Fadden in Queensland began to push for their own versions of rural politics. 574 McEwen and Fadden wished to provide a somewhat more fiscally generous approach than Page to counter the radical populism represented by the VWWGA Dunstan and the other radical farmer groups operating in every State. 575

Page, by 1940, had serious rivals who sought to offer alternatives to his tried and true approach of brokering deals with elite interests and then just in the nick of time handing out favours, subsidies and assistance. 576 Rankin although definitely a Dunstanite also sat in the Federal Country Party room and loyally adhered to the directions of the party leader and whip. Rankin represented one side of Dunstan’s keeping his bargain with Page. Dunstan also kept his bargain with Page by keeping up pressure on McEwen and others in Victoria who favoured a moderate amount of new demand-side measures. 577

McEwen was actually expelled from the Country Party in the mid 1930’s and had to shift eastwards in the State to contest a safer Federal seat. McEwen had earlier been locked out of both Federal and State pre-selections for seats situated further to the west of Victoria. 578 Although many supporters of the

Federal Party and opponents of Dunstan’s Tammany Hall style approach nominally belonged to ‘Country Party’ branches they were cut-out from involvement with

574 T. H. Thelander. 1974. ‘The Nature and Development of Country Party Organisation in Queensland, 1936-1944’ BA (Hons) Thesis, University of Queensland. 575 See A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie …:38-43; J. McEwen. 1984 ‘John McEwen Tells His Story: The End of an Era’ Royal Historical Society of Victoria Journal 55: March: 3-13. 576 See R.K. Hefford. 1985. Farm Policy in Australia …111f. 577 J. B. Paul. 1979. ‘Albert Dunstan and the Victorian Government’… 578 See J. B. Paul. 1961. ‘The Premiership of Sir Albert Dunstan’…:1958. ‘The Victorian Country Party: Its Origins and Leadership’…

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State political affairs unless they agreed to attend branch meetings dominated by pro-Dunstan people. 579

The net-effect of the Dunstan-Page-McEwen-Federal-State matrix of differing agendas was to provide a space for left-wing Dunstanite like Wilson to act. Dunstan might not wish to act to advance a radical demand-side agenda but some of his flowers remained free to do so. Wilson’s political project was a key part of left-wing Dunstanism’s attempt to keep comprehensive price subsidisation on the political agenda. 580 Smith points out that Wilson and other Victorian radicals were afraid that they would be outmanoeuvred by the more favourable language Page was beginning to use about permanent price subsidy schemes. 581

Dunstan was prepared to tolerate Wilson’s adventure but not to the extent of underwriting a wholesale assault on all the Federal seats the Federal Party held in Victoria. 582

Wilson’s success in 1937 and his re-election in 1940 was a message to

Page and McEwen that Dunstan could do more harm to the Federal party if he wasn’t left alone. Dunstan signalled to his left-wing that he still had some of the old fire by his tolerance of Wilson. Dunstan also signalled that if he was allowed to continue dominating the State level the worst that could happen would be more MPs like Rankin or Gibson. Gibson, the Victorian Senator, attended the Federal party meetings like Rankin and owed his seat to preference flows and related support from the UAP as well as the Federal Country Party.

The sting in the tail for the conservatives of Dunstan’s support for Wilson was that it was already clear from Wilson’s term between 1937 and 1940 that

579 See F. Howard. 1972. Kent-Hughes: A Biography. South Melbourne, Macmillan: 87f. 580 Victorian Wheatgrower 15/10/37 cited in G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action … :30. 581 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …:30-60. 582 J. B. Paul. 1979. ‘Albert Dunstan and the Victorian Government’…

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Wilson was closer to Labor than he was to non Labor. Wilson believed that only Labor was talking about the sort of direct redistributional subsidies that he

(Wilson) was also talking about. The election of 1940 was always going to be close so many people thought Wilson’s vote might prove crucial and could tip

Labor into power. Dunstan was becoming more closely reconciled to Federal and

State non-Labor by mid 1940 and most realised he was as capable of brokering a deal with non –Labor as Labor to stay in power. 583

Dunstan, however, still enraged many Victorian conservatives by tolerating the support given by most local Dunstanite and much of the VWWGA towards

Wilson’s re-election campaign. 584 Dunstan was also signalling his possible reconciliation with the Federal and even State conservatives by supporting Cullen,

Wilson’s ideological rival within the VWWGA for control of the VWWGA. 585

Cullen remained resolutely anti-Labor until after it became obvious that

Labor was going to be re-elected in 1943. 586 Dunstan did eventually move away from the parliamentary arrangement and policy coalition he had worked out with

State Labor since the mid 1930’s. Dunstan’s moves in 1940-1941 towards fuller reconciliation with the State conservatives coincided with a wider working out of compromises between radical farm organisations and a growing relative radicalism within the older and more conservative farmer organisations. 587

Wilson, during the election campaign of 1940, and after it, remained far more genuinely non-aligned than was the wider Dunstan milieu out of which he had originally arisen. Wilson’s Hansard record was trawled over by supporters of

583 G. Blainey. 1984. Our Side of the Country . Sydney, Methuen Haynes: 11f. 584 See Sunraysia Daily 5/9/40 (quoted in text below). 585 See B. D. Graham. 1963. ‘Pools and Politics’ Australasian Political Studies Association Annual Conference Papers ; R.F.I Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:22. 586 R.F.I Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:22. 587 R.F.I Smith. 1968. ‘The Development…’…:22-36.

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Hugh McClelland, the Pageite holder of Wimmera between 1931 and 1937. McClelland in the 1940 election styled himself as an independent candidate under the Country Party banner. 588 McClelland according to the Sunraysia Daily :

Has no party ties as far as Victoria is concerned. He is of the opinion that this is no time to tolerate any narrowing of the political outlook. If he is elected he will represent all sections of the vast Wimmera electorate and will endeavour to co-operate and assist the Government of the day in a more vigorous prosecution of the war. That, after all, must be his first consideration.589

The same editorial also said:

The Wimmera has not been well represented in the past by three years; that is the Wimmera electorate as a whole. Mr Alex Wilson was elected at the last poll as a United Country Party candidate. He was nominated as the champion of the wheatgrowers and he went to Canberra with one thought uppermost – that of achieving better prices for the industry. There can be no doubt that he attempted on every occasion to carry out his promise to the farmers, but the farmers are to-day no better off than when Mr Wilson was elected as their representative, they are perhaps in a more embarrassing position financially. 590

As if written by Page himself (and certainly from a distinctly Pageite point of view) the

Sunraysia Daily editorial then added:

Mr Wilson disbelieved in the makeup of the Australian Country Party as distinct from the United Country Part of Victoria, and every time he raised his voice he found he was alone. Perhaps there may be personal satisfaction in remaining true to the dictates of the State body, but it is of little use in the constituency. Mr McEwen, of Indi, was called many names when he lost caste with the Victorian United Country Party, but to-day he is Minister for External Affairs and Shepparton has an AIF camp. Mildura, despite the best efforts of the City Council, has been unable to achieve any such result.591

588 As described in a very friendly estimate of McClelland’s abilities run as an editorial in the Sunraysia Daily 5/9/40 headlined ‘Mr McClelland’s Prospects for Wimmera’. 589 Sunraysia Daily 5/9/40. 590 Sunraysia Daily 5/9/40. 591 Sunraysia Daily 5/9/40.

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Ad Hominem arguments being in the best Pageite tradition Wilson was attacked when it became apparent that his association with the VWWGA and wider Dunstanism was helping and not hurting him. E.g. there was an increasing number of news articles like the one tucked away on page 9 of Sunraysia Daily

12/9/41 relating to a statement made by Everett, a VWWGA official. Everett, a

Vice President of the VWWGA, and a Wilson supporter, criticised McClelland’s support for a government drought relief plan, describing it as ‘spitting in the bucket’ 592

The attacks on Wilson as an appeaser can also be understood as conservative code for saying Wilson more or less held to Labor views on the war. Wilson’s rural bona fides could not be realistically questioned, at least in terms of various messages of support from local VWWGA branches, State Country Party branches, various Mayors and support from the non-Elliott controlled rural press.

McClelland’s supporters turned to the patriot card and ran many advertisements during the election with this text:

Here’s the man who is backing Churchill. Vote 1 McClelland for Wimmera. Three thousand men have left Wimmera to fight for liberty, Your liberty, your security. They stand with Churchill. Don’t let them down. No Peace without Victory – says McClelland. Compare these policies…593

A box caption enclosed Churchill’s views which included ‘will fight until victory is won’.594 A second box contained Wilson’s purported views:

Your retiring member, who seeks re-election, is out of step with Churchill and Australian opinion. He says ‘the sooner the representatives of nations get round a table and negotiate suitable terms of peace the

592 Sunraysia Daily 17/9/40:9. 593 E.g., the Sunraysia Daily 5/9/40 (and at least several times a week in election week). 594 Sunraysia Daily 5/9/40:1.

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better it will be for the world… if the struggle should continue – nothing would have been resolved.’595

This advertisement – which itself took up about a third of the front page- was juxtaposed to a large article which took up about 45% of the rest of the page with a huge banner headlined thus:

Mr Hugh McClelland Outlines His Policy/Support for a National Government/Aid for Dried Fruits and Wheat Growers.596

On the next page in that day’s issue was an article headlined: ‘Attacks on Mr

Wilson Are Claimed as Unwarranted/Actions are Defended’. The attacks in this case was a leaflet emanating from McClelland’s campaign office that argued that Wilson was soft on Communists and was based on a wilful misreading of a badly worded question

Wilson had asked Menzies in the old parliament. 597 This same issue ran an editorial headline: ‘Not Convincing:’

The United Country Party candidate for Wimmera (Mr Alex Wilson) relegated his policy to second place when he addressed a poorly attended meeting of citizens at Mildura last night, while he endeavoured to explain various sections of an address which he is reported in Hansard as having made in the House of Representatives in April of this year.Mr Wilson was apparently perturbed that he would be branded as a pacifist or a Communist. The portion of his address to the House, which he said has been freely used by political opponents, was as follows…598

The editorial then quoted that portion of Wilson’s April 1940 address quoted above.

The Sunraysia Daily editorial concluded: ‘Surprisingly the candidate did little to reconcile those extraordinary views’.599

In Chapter 3 (above) some of Coles’s actions and views on social policy measures were described as being consciously made as part of the State Labor-

595 Sunraysia Daily 5/9/40: 1. 596 Sunraysia Daily 5/9/40: 1 597 Second page in. The Sunraysia Daily was a daily newspaper for Mildura but it circulated in adjacent border areas in South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria. 598 Sunraysia Daily 5/9/40: 7. 599 Sunraysia Daily 5/9/40: 7.

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Dunstanite cross-class policy coalition. Wilson (as argued here) was involved in some of the first-fruits of this Dunstan-Cain ‘welfare-state’ – which while always being very modest were still designed to be effective enough to cement Dunstanite influence and counter resurgences of Pageite influence or the welling up of McEwenist sentiment in places like Mildura.

The Sunraysia Daily despite its obvious bias could not resist giving Country Party pork-barrel credit where credit was due when during the Federal election campaign on

6/9/40 a huge banner headline emblazoned: ‘Housing Commission Going

Ahead/Prospect of Activity in Mildura Sure/ Drome Helps Possibility of Air Training

Centre.’600 Wilson could claim credit for the Housing Commission via Dunstan even if the Sunraysia Daily criticised him for not being able to get an Air Force facility like McEwen had been able to get for his electorate. Rural electorates, as McEwen was later to observe, while responsive to general conservative ideology are also highly susceptible to side-payments that carefully address the wider felt-needs of key local pluralities. 601

Wilson had etched into his political consciousness by both the State and Federal election campaigns of 1940 that his first task was always to appear to be in a better position than any opponent to facilitate side-payments required by key local pluralities like builders, primary producers, etc. Canberra press gallery member Whitington indicates that Wilson with his ‘dour determination’ realised that his survival into a second parliament required him to be much more that just an idealistic lobbyist for a general cause. 602 Wilson’s revenge on rural fiscal conservatism was really only redressed with the return of the old-time inter-war type Pageite style fiscal conservative

600 Sunraysia Daily 6/9/40. 601 Sir John McEwen Transcript of interview of 10/74, ANL: ORAL TRC/311/102. 602 D. Whitington. 1969. The House Will Divide…:74; 84.

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Country Party in the late twentieth century! 603 Wilson was being duchessed by Labor but he was also being negotiated with as a representative of Dunstanism and wheatgrower activism. Labor felt it was in its best interest to negotiate with Wilson – non-

Labor felt its interests lay in frustrating him.

Conclusion.

This chapter has argued that Alex Wilson sought to represent at least four key interests that he felt the mainstream conservatives were not adequately representing.

The first interest was small farmers, particularly those operating in marginal dry-land areas like the Wimmera but throughout the wheat belt generally. The second interest was those Victorian, eastern South Australian and southern New South Wales farmers and town dwellers who since 1901 had sought the tangible extension of the Deakinite regime of industry subsidy to the rural economy of their regions and towns. Wilson’s role as a political advocate for the policy of the Victorian Wheatgrowers and

Woolgrowers Association and his association with Albert Dunstan was an integral part of his role as seeking to represent these first two rural and regional interests.

Wilson also articulated the interests of the wider ‘hidden party’ of centrist voters who since the Fusion had become disenchanted with the partisan way in which the two party blocs had approached the issue of cross-class compromise measures aimed at

‘nation-building’. The final interest Wilson sought to represent was a synthesis of his own personal intimations with those other particular interests which had a concrete manifestation in extra-parliamentary organisations, wider political party machines, newspaper and widely expressed opinion.

603 See S. Bennett. 1999. ‘The Decline in Support for Australian Major Parties and the Prospect of Minority Government’ Research Paper 10 1998-99. Canberra, Parliament of Australia Parliamentary Library Service.

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Wilson’s own parliamentary discourse points beyond concrete interest group representational discourse to a wider Burkean conservative feeling for the need to continually adjust and redistribute some of the power which inevitably becomes over concentrated in the capitalist system over time. Wilson was, however, no antipodean

Leo Amery or even Hillaire Belloc. – Wilson formulated many of his Burkean intimations about the need to regularly intervene and cut and prune capitalism by using nostrums derived from Douglas Credit ideology.

Serendipity transformed Wilson from a marginal policy actor to someone who was able to deliberate his concerns with people like John Curtin and Arthur Coles. It was the chance result of the 1940 general election that gave Wilson his historic window of opportunity. Wilson was to act as he did after 1940 because of what he was and where he came from. Wilson, however, was not a mere cipher whose strategy developed out of the good tactical fortune of his sharing of the balance of power. Wilson had a driving passion for rural regulation and state intervention and he sought to share this passion those who would take him seriously.

Chapter Five: Coles and Wilson between late 1940 and July 1941.

Introduction.

This chapter will focus on the settling-in period after the election results were known and it became apparent that Coles and Wilson were not going to cross the floor. The independents continued to signal that they would continue to support the conservative government . Wilson or Coles alone could have precipitated a general election had either decided to vote with Labor but first Labor had to

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decide to do this. Wilson, right from the beginning, was understood to be more pro-Labor and even willing to cross the floor but if he did there would be no guarantee that a Labor government would be viable as it would need to rely on the casting vote of the Speaker. Coles’s vote would be necessary in order to make Labor government stable enough to avoid being merely a caretaker administration that took the country to the polls again.

Coles was initially dealt with by Labor MPs from Curtin downwards with a friendly and eager to please approach as indicated by this exchange with Curtin:

The amendment of the Leader of the Opposition made reference to soldiers’ pay. That point has been covered to some degree by the provision of an additional 6d. a day for children, making the total amount 1s.6d. That will prove to be a very great relief to the families to which it will apply; but that concession does not cure the complaint. A married soldier with children leaves his wife 3s. a day out of the 5s. a day which he may draw, but that is sufficient to provide his family only with the bare necessaries of life. The class of people to whom I am now referring are in a cleft stick in which all persons with fixed incomes find

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themselves, and it is proposed to place upon them new and high indirect taxation by means of the sales tax and customs imposts, as well as the additional income tax. I should like the government to look at this question in the light of practical needs of the situation, in order to see whether a satisfactory remedy may be applied to this trouble.

Mr Curtin : Hear! Hear!

Mr Coles : Although the Government may feel that it cannot accept the amendment of the Leader of the Opposition in globo, it could, I think, hold out a hand in the direction I have indicated. Surely some means can be devised to grant relief to these people. (This is one) of the many social problems the Government will find on its hands as the result of the taking of the plenary powers under the national security legislation in order to ensure the making of a maximum war effort. An axiom that should be borne in mind is that power brings responsibility. Now that the Commonwealth… has decided, through its newly established Ministry for Labour and National Service, to encroach upon the fields which, hitherto, have been the close preserve of the States, such as the fixing of wages in certain respects and the providing of certain social services, it will find itself being held more and more responsible for the well-being of the people. I cannot see anything but good coming out of this development. 604

Coles’s presence in the chamber saying such things seriously embarrassed the

Government as is obvious from scanning the CPD for late 1940 and by some public agitation by the Young Nationalists against Coles – which intensified after late 1941 in a rather ironic (rather than naïve) campaign against Coles ‘buying’ influence in the

UAP!! 605 Coles cultivated an image of muscular free-spiritedness in relation to the

Government during late 1940 and early 1941 as indicated in an editorial piece

Sandringham News :

During the last Federal elections, there were many who thought your battle flag, with ‘independent’ emblazoned across thereon, was all so much hooey. But we are beginning to come to the conclusion – we think slowly – that after all, you are going to be a darned-side more independent than first imagined. Might we belatedly thank you for your maiden parliamentary speech, in which, among other things, you stressed the need for a greater war effort, and the urgent necessity for social reform – mentioning in particular the need for child endowment.

604 CPD.Vol.165.3/12/40:357. 605 P. Aimer. 1974. Politics, Power… : 10.

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Probably there are many who don’t know that you demanded this reform in no uncertain language. Well we’re telling them.606

Spender provides a unique insight into UAP attitudes to Coles at this time.

Spender by late 1940 had moved from being a concertised and outmanoeuvred former anti war-slacking independent UAP MP to the major NSW rival to Menzies for party leadership. 607 Spender, therefore, despite his various types of special pleading, was recording judgements about Coles – who like him (and unlike most other conservatives) had taken seriously the Eden-Churchill type message about the inevitability of war in the late 1930s. Spender and Coles had both gone into parliament championing an anti- appeasement agenda, Spender in 1937 and Coles in 1940. 608 Spender had long abandoned any independence from Menzies or from what was achievable within the increasingly Country Party (Page-Fadden) dominated approach of how the war was going to be fought. 609 Spender saw Coles thus:

Menzies proposed to the Labor Party that it should consider whether it was willing to join in the formation of an all-party government, and, if so, upon what terms. Doubtless he thought, mistakenly, that this threw the onus upon Labor. In fact the terms in which Menzies put the question were so wide as to hand the initiative to Labor, which promptly seized it. It would have been better to have first sought private discussion to deal with the political situation, without formulating any specific question. As it transpired, the Parliamentary Labor Party met and passed a resolution, which Evatt was generally considered to have master-minded. This is not improbable, it was characteristic of him. The resolution did not reject in terms the proposal for a national all-party government; rather it turned the issue to the party’s advantage. It declared Labor’s determination to strengthen the war effort, invited cooperation of all parties to that end and welcomed the independent members of the Parliament, Coles and Wilson. 610

606 Sandringham News 7/2/41. 607 G. Souter. 1981. Company of Heralds… :192. 608 See P Spender. 1972. Politics and a Man …:72; 162; 168; 170-172; 192, 196, 198, 202. 609 See P. Spender. 1972. Politics and a Man …:60. 610 P. Spender. 1972. Politics and a Man …:72.

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Spender then argues this was the first move in an end game designed to bring about a Labor Government.611 A key insight drawn from Spender is the boost Labor achieved through Coles’s role in the negotiations over the Advisory War Council. 612

Coles’s role in being invited to discuss this issue of the proposed high policy deliberative body helped legitimise Labor’s decision to refuse to fully share what Coles himself had so pompously called attention to in his maiden speech – ‘an axiom should be borne in mind that power brings responsibility’.613 Spender, despite his special pleading (which centred on his justifying his giving up of independence) does make a valid point here.

‘Stabber’ Beasley still actually represented a separate party whose candidates had decided to call themselves the Non-communist Labor Party. 614 Fadden still represented a separate party which had several times before not chosen to participate in a conservative government.615 Coles and Wilson had even less reason than Beasley or the

Country Party to help Curtin get off the hook of doing what British and New Zealand

Labour and the equivalent grouping in South Africa had already done – join a national war time government. 616 Spender, then, is one key contemporary who judged that the conservative government was on borrowed time after the formation of the Advisory

War Council.

Spender’s memoir comments, it has to be reiterated, were written thirty-two years after by an experienced and polished international judge forensically looking back at a

611 P. Spender. 1972. Politics and a Man …: 72-73. 612 See P. Weller (ed.) assisted by B. Lloyd. 1975. Caucus Minutes 1901-1949 Vol.3, 1932-1949. Carlton, Melbourne University Pres: 226-231. 613 CPD.Vol.165.3/12/40:357. 614 See J. Lang. 1970. The Turbulent Years… :193 where Lang says the Sydney based Fairfax organisation had ‘captured Beasley’ (persuaded him to support a wholehearted war effort). 615 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:261. For British Labour’s approach see M. A. Hamilton. 1945. British Democracy in War-Time . London, Ministry of Information. 616 For rest of Empire see Journal of the Parliaments of the Empire 22:4: October 1941 and earlier numbers 22:1-3 for 1939-1940.

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time of confused loyalties and frenetic and skewed war-time political activity.

Spender’s point remains valid insofar as Coles and Wilson were deliberately assisting

Labor to acquire valuable experience at deliberating over matters of high war policy while not having to share the opprobrium generated by the wider day to day decisions of the government.

Wilson, as he has been presented just above is revealed as being inclined towards

Labor even before 1940 but like Coles (who was less inclined) was at this point still more inclined to an all-party national government. McKernan has made the valid point that no serious analysis of an MP can rely just on what the MP said in parliament! 617

That is why Spender’s memoir insights into the events of late 1940 are an important adjunct to the parliamentary discourse of the time. Spender was a participant in the secret discussions (involving Coles) which agreed on the formation of the Advisory

War Council. Coles is, for once, given the status of an equal participant in the initial talks regarding the formation of the Advisory War Council:

Menzies and I represented the UAP; Fadden, McEwen and Page the Country Party; Curtin, Forde and Evatt the Labor Party; Beasley, Rosevear and Mulcahy the non-Communist Labor Party and Coles as an independent. 618

Spender’s judgement, although assisted by thirty-two years of hindsight, was that the advantage, including some heretofore lacking capacity to set part of the agenda then shifted to Labor. Going beyond Spender and while still taking his observation seriously, it is possible to argue that war policy, at least as it related to wider social policy, although nominally still in the conservatives’ hands, began to shift to several intermediate zones of policy deliberation and formulation.

617 M McKernan. 5/12/2002. ABC Radio 702, Sydney. Interview and discussion. 2.55pm. 618 P. Spender. 1972. Politics and a Man …:72.

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Labor, however, had not merely moved in and supplanted the non-Labor bloc – it had gained a foothold and was getting many of its points across – but it was not dominating policy discourse. 619 It is possible to argue that both party blocs now faced what Marsh calls a shift into an accelerated period of ‘political learning’:

Political learning can be seen in such day-to day occurrences as the individuals who dominate media comment on major political issues… it can also be seen in who has the institutional capacity to demand media attention… it can be seen in who has the capacity, based on his/her institutional role, to get public attention for a new issue and to introduce such an issue to the public agenda. It can be seen in the cast who initiate, or play leading roles in, the daily rituals of parliament and gain attention through them. … This accords with the reality of a most potent political power – that of commanding public awareness. 620

Spender, if his actual contemporary discourse in parliament or press is viewed alone shows no such acknowledgement that he acted as if he realised that this political learning shift was underway. Spenders’ private views, of course, were well known and revolved around his capacity to lead where Menzies could only divide - as

Whitington recounts. 621 Spender, despite his later stated belief in the need for parliament to force a change for better leadership did not decide to join the exiles on the backbench like Marr or open rebels like McCall. Marr’s and

McCall’s main aim was to force Menzies from office, while invoking Burkean reasons for dissenting from the tyranny of the ministry 622 Spender, instead, maintained his commitment to the self-limiting and fiscally prudent approach to fighting the war advocated by Menzies and the Country Party. Spender had a fine Burkean cause to resign over in the Cabinet’s rejection of the Owen Gun proposal,

619 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin …:387f. 620 I. Marsh. 1995. ‘Political Learning Disabilities of the Two-Party Regime’ Australian Journal of Political Science 30: Special Issue: 40. 621 See D. Whitington. 1969. The House Will Divide…:77. 622 See D. Whitington. 1969. The House will Divide …:68-95; also F. Green. 1969. Servant of the House …:117-123.

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which (as it turned out) would have been of great assistance in the fighting in

New Guinea. 623 Spender, like McEwen, mostly grumbled in corners about how much better and more decisive leadership would be shown if the right person (them) had the numbers. 624

Murdoch is a good example of a key conservative political player who had begun to realise that the agenda was slipping away from the sort of agenda that people like himself and Page had helped to set in place in the early 1920s. 625 Once the agenda has opened up its trajectory it is no longer subject to the old rules and those who fail to adapt – fail politically. 626 Coles and Wilson found themselves with the balance of power in late 1940 and this added to their roles as educators within this new regime of political learning. It also possibly acted as a sort of necessary (though not sufficient) cause of the ushering in of a neo-Deakinite national strategic and proto-Keynesian socio-economic group-think. 627

Coles and Wilson both had track records of pushing their respective ideological barrows well before September 1940. Both men had already gained ‘public attention for a new issue and introduced this to the public agenda’.628 Labor, in a sense, in the pre-September 1940 balance of power parliament had any centrist or neo-Deakinite conservative MP over a barrel. Labor was really the only means by which any neo-

Deakinite policy would have any reasonable chance of being implemented. 629 Wilson, the only one of the two independents of 1940-1941 in parliament prior to September

1940 had to choose sides in order to play politics according to the dominant binary

623 See P. Spender. 1972. Politics and a Man …:117-119: ‘The Owen Gun.’ 624 See D.Aitkin. 1980. ‘The Archetypical Tough Politician – Obituary’ Canberra Times 22/11:2. 625 See M Dunn. 1984. Australia and the Empire… :100-158. 626 I. Marsh. 1995. ‘The Political Learning Disabilities…’ passim. 627 See I. Marsh. 1986. Policy making in a three party system: committees, coalitions, and parliament . London, New York, Methuen. 628 I. Marsh. 1995. ‘The Political Learning Disabilities…’… 629 See I. Marsh. 1995. ‘Political Learning Disabilities of the Two-party Regime’ Australian Journal of Political Science 30 (Special Issue):40-60, particularly: 46.

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game then still in full flight. 630 Coles and Wilson, however, also had experience of playing the game of cross-class policy coalitions prior to 1940 outside Federal parliament with their two different interconnections with the Labor Party via Dunstan’s

Country Party government in Victoria.

Post-September 1940 Wilson and Coles suddenly found themselves partly released from the ‘iron cage’ of the ‘institutional logic’ of the two-party system. 631 A weak but partly viable government had just been elected which had no choice but to listen to what they said – to some extent – and the Opposition also had to listen as well.

Coles (on behalf of Wilson as well as himself) soon played a key part in facilitating both major party blocs to at least institutionalise a genuinely Burkean deliberative approach to discussing high strategic policy – in the Advisory War Council. 632

The two independents’ roles in the formation of the Advisory War Council has been partly occluded by the ongoing emphasis in the literature on those uses of the

Council by its members that often saw it become a sort of two-party bloc fudge – a rhetorical flourish – and at best a creator of temporary compromises. 633 Horner’s published work on the war cabinet and the High Command has upgraded the historical importance of the Council’s deliberations and emphasised its role as a circuit breaker and accelerator within the wider process of strategic policy formulation, decision- making and implementation. 634

Labor’s key leadership team was committed to fighting the war but both Coles and Wilson knew from first hand experience of, for instance, Arthur Calwell, that this

630 The terminology is derived from W. Powell and P. di Maggio (eds.) 1991. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis . Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press: 1-7f. 631 W. Powell and P. di Maggio (eds.) 1991. The New Institutionalism …:1-7f. 632 See I. Marsh. 1995. ‘The Political Learning Disabilities…’… 633 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …: 274n; 382-385; 532. 634 D. Horner. 1977. Crisis of Command, Australian Generalship and the Japanese Threat, 1941-1943 ; 1983. High Command Australian and Allied Strategy 1939-1945 . Canberra, Australian War Memorial, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin; 1984. The Commanders. Australian Military Leadership in the Twentieth Century . St. Leonards, Allen & Unwin.

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did not apply to Labor as a whole as much as it did to non-Labor. 635 Wilson did need to represent the VWWGA viewpoint and use his links with Labor to out-perform his coalition connected internal VWWGA rival Cullen. Wilson, however, also needed to keep in mind the deeply conservative and pro-war sentiments that he knew most

VWWGA members shared. 636 Fenna’s concept of cross-class policy coalitions in

Australian political life between the 1890s and the 1940s helps to explicate why Wilson,

Coles and Labor might reasonably hope to achieve deals in Canberra like the deals both had negotiated in the more limited confines of Dunstanite Victoria. A key conclusion of

Fenna’s is ‘the misleading nature of analyses arguing that early Australian labour was the beneficiary of middle-class reformism’. 637

Fenna theoretically underpins Eggleston’s (already cited) less theoretical point about ongoing neo-Deakinite residualism remaining an active force whenever it possesses any strategic advantage. Fenna, on top of this, is arguing that any deliberative compromise worked out between Labor and middle class reformists would have to include an agreement to expand the public sector at the expense of the private sector to the advantage of Labor’s supporters. 638 T.W. White’s and

Sir Henry Gullett’s careers (along with Hughes’s) typify why the neo-Deakinites never really got off the ground between 1922 and 1941. There was an ongoing tendency for advocates of centrist social-policy and industry policy to have their agendas subsumed within wider calls for solidarity in the face of moral panic about the nefariousness of

Irish/Australian neutralism and wider left-wing irredentism and associated radicalism. 639

635 See A. Calwell. 1972. Be Just and Fear Not …:78-88. 636 See R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development of Wheatgrowers…1-3; 35-37. 637 A. Fenna. 1996. ‘Political Alignments, Political Economy and Political Change…:77; F. Eggleston. 1953. Reflections of an Australian Liberal … 638 A. Fenna. 1996. ‘Political Alignments, Political Economy…: 66-68. 639 See J. Nethercote (ed.) Liberalism and the Australian Federation …:113-133.

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Coles, too, despite his capacity for cross-class policy coalitions, such as that brokered for the Melbourne City Council, would not compromise on stepping up the war effort – as his private papers and comments reported in newspapers at this time bear out. 640 Coles was still interested and motivated by the same sort of things as such supposedly ultra-conservative ‘Australian Civic Protestant’ groups as the Royal Empire

Society (RES) and the Citizens League of Victoria. G.J. Coles (Coles’s uncle) served on the organising committees of both of these groups. 641 The RES, later in the war, published several documents relating to the fall of Singapore – Britain Has Not Let

Australia Down and The Whispering Campaign .642

Coles by late 1941 began to attract his own whispering campaign directed against him, which as Norman Lee indicates included conservative figures as diverse as

Protestant pamphleteer R.G. Crittenden and Sir Keith Murdoch. 643 Coles during the first sitting of the new parliament had not attracted much of this conservative backlash yet as is evidenced by a letter written to him on 14 December 1940 and which was forwarded to him in London from Herbert Taylor, Captain of the Metropolitan Golf

Club in Oakleigh, near Melbourne:

Under article of Association No.24, the Committee is empowered to admit periodically to Full Membership of this Club a distinguished citizen of Melbourne…It may interest you to know that a similar privilege is at present enjoyed by Sir Colin Fraser, and Mr William Dunstan VC, while previously the honour was conveyed to Sir John Monash, and Mr Samuel McKay. 644

640 Sir Arthur Coles Papers ANL: MS: 7296. : eg, Box 4 Series 10 Folder 21. 641 See H. Rubinstein. 1999. ‘Empire Loyalism in Inter-War Victoria’ Victorian Historical Journal 70:1:67-83. 642 Melbourne University Archives: Sir James Barrett Papers. Cited by H. Rubinstein. 1999. ‘Empire Loyalism…’…:83:fn39. 643 N. Lee. 1983. John Curtin Saviour of Australia . Melbourne, Longman Cheshire: 142. 644 H. Taylor (Captain) and J.R. Kissing (Manager) to Mr A.W. Coles MHR, 14/12/40 in Sir Arthur Coles Papers ANL: MS: 7296 Series 1 General Correspondence 1939-1977 Box 1 Folder 1, A. Fenna. 1995.

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Coles by late 1940 was still being lionised by highly ‘respectable’ people like the burghers of the Metropolitan Golf Club not just because he was Arthur Coles – major tycoon but also because he was still ‘Digger Coles’ the hard-hitting, no nonsense ex

Lord Mayor and keen military recruiting figure. 645 Coles had not exhausted his considerable treasury of legitimacy by his ongoing campaign to give hell to Menzies and the other slackers, compromisers and ‘Governmuddle’ in Canberra. 646 The

Melbourne Age on 15 th October 1940 devoted an article to Coles’s last official speech as

Lord Mayor of Melbourne:

‘This is my last public address as Lord Mayor of Melbourne,’ Cr. Coles told the Baptist Assembly at luncheon yesterday, ‘I go now to join Federal Parliament rich in the experience of the last two years. As an opportunity for education I can recommend the job of Lord Mayor to anyone. It gave me the opportunity to meet the best people; by whom I mean not the headliners nor the socially prominent, but the workers – the people who are always doing something for others voluntarily. In this city there are thousands of people doing good for others merely for the joy of doing it. The Church community was always in the forefront of these movements.’ As the new member for Henty Cr. Coles left last night for Canberra, where important meetings of members are being held. 647

Menzies was included in the list of those that angry, assertive and well connected people regularly complained about when they criticised ‘the government’ for not doing enough about the war. 648 Chifley, in contrast, made a good impression with activist society women, like Beryl Beaurepaire or Coles’s wife Lillian, while sitting on the committee organising the Women’s National Register.

S. J. Butlin notes that the absence of mention in official files led to a lack of appreciation of the key role played during the war by informal networks of

645 The epithet ‘Our Digger No.1’ first appears in the Argus 11/10/38. 646 The term ‘Governmuddle’ is a cartoon character from the 1940 Federal general election. See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:257. 647 Age 15/10/40.; Argus 15/10/40‘Lord Mayor Defines 'Best People'’. 648 E.g. as in the Fairfax- Menzies relationship see- G. Souter. 1981. Company of Heralds …:183-190f.

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elite, and elite-connected people, their non-working partners, their retired relatives, co-opted politicians and civil servants. 649

Coles’s biographer mentions that ‘Chifley…was a strong supporter of the

(Womens National) Registry.’ 650 Chifley by his activity on the Register was not only building up political credit for himself but reassuring the elite people he worked with that if Labor came to power he would prove an effective, driving and focused Cabinet Minister. Hasluck, despite putting the best face on it, is led to puzzle somewhat on the proliferation of voluntary female semi-military and other uniformed bodies formed (mostly) by society women during 1939 and 1940. These various uniformed bodies filled what was a widely perceived vacuum in official mobilisation of women for the war effort. 651

Hasluck’s possibly dismissive treatment of these groups masks the greater truth that they were all symptoms of the same perfunctory, half-hearted and self-limiting approach to exploiting the vast untapped potential of female labour that had led

Brudnell-White (in the letter to Coles already cited) to say:

In order that an even balance may be maintained between the needs at home and abroad, it is necessary, temporarily, to suspend AIF recruiting. It is not intended however to abate in any way our whole military effort, and it is hoped that your enthusiastic co-operation in our military tasks, as they arise in turn, will in future be forthcoming without stint as they have been in the past. 652

Coles received letters from the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, concerned middle class women received patronising comments from their local MP and Wilson the

649 See S.J. Butlin. 1955. ‘Sources for the story of the Australian War Economy’ Historical Studies 7:25:44-54 and in particular: 45 ‘each case (of recording such informal activity) depended primarily on the attitude of the head of the department’; H.C. Coombs. 1981. Trial Balance . South Melbourne, Macmillan; 1984. John Curtin Consensus Prime Minister? Canberra, Australian National University. 650 W. Ives (ed.). 1974. With Zeal and Integrity… : 24 651 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:414-415(photographs); 569- 570(text). 652 General Brudnell-White, Chief of Imperial General Staff (Australian Section) to Lord Mayor 27/7/40.

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guffaws and studied incomprehension of fellow country MPs like ‘Larry’ Anthony or

Cameron. 653 A good example of government incredulity about all these calls for doing more is Anthony’s response to Wilson when Anthony was speaking just after Wilson in the budget debate in November 1940:

I listened with a great deal of interest to the speech made by the honourable member for Wimmera… Doubtless, honourable members would have listened with even more interest had the speech been delivered at a critical stage of the party negotiations that took place in Canberra last week. However, the effect of his speech upon me would have been no different; the honourable member is entitled to express his views, and if the Government’s tenure of office had to depend on one individual advancing sectional views, before the interests of a nation as a whole, I would prefer to see it go out of office.

Mr Wilson : I would never do that.

Mr Anthony : I do not make that charge against the honourable member, but there is a grave danger, at the present time, owing to the numerical equality of parties in this chamber, that sectional interests may be advanced in preference to the broader and more important interests of the nation. We all know the recent and tragic story of the defeat of one democracy. We can learn much from it. The people of France spent much time in debate; certain sections endeavoured to avoid the sacrifices that they knew were required of them…

Mr Falstein : The trade unions had to be smashed in France before the country could be defeated.

Mr Anthony :… Practically the whole of (Falstein’s)… speech was devoted to demands for new social benefits for the people, more money for some sections, and more taxes for other sections which he does not represent… After hearing the honourable member for Wimmera, I rose in order to be able to state the position in regard to the wheat industry, to which he referred particularly, and in which every honourable member is greatly interested. The honourable gentleman suggested that the Government should make a further advance to growers apart from the advance of 3d. a bushel to which it has already agreed. But in the compromise that was reached between the Government and the Opposition – a very just compromise in my opinion – the decision was made that it would be better to make available a sum of £1,000,000 for the relief of drought-stricken and distressed farmers than to make a further advance of 3d. a bushel on the wheat in the No.2 pool, which

653 On this issue see P. Spender. 1972. Politics and a Man …:58-68 a chapter entitled ‘Apathy and Indifference.’

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would have the effect of benefiting, not only the necessitous wheatgrowers, but also those not in need of assistance…654

Anthony, who was also Assistant Treasurer, was anxious to rub Wilson’s nose in the fact that Cullen (Wilson’s rival in the VWWGA) had persuaded the VWWGA to begin to warm to its latest plan for the wheat industry. 655

Coles and Wilson, then, both had core constituencies of support (not just in their electorates) who while dissatisfied with the Government were not (by late 1940) prepared to countenance the jump to Labor. Wilson, though the more experienced federal politician, was already taking second-place to Coles as was evidenced by

Coles, not Wilson representing the independent MPs at the initial meeting about the Advisory War Council. Coles’s status was better suited to educate both the non-

Labor and Labor bloc about the need to start taking seriously growing ‘Australian Civic

Protestant’ and other dissatisfaction about volunteerism bearing too much of a burden in a society supposedly at war. 656

Coles possessed far greater legitimacy in terms of this voluntaristic issue – whereas Wilson laboured under the need to remain ‘sectional’ (as Anthony had called him) if he were to remain in parliament. There were plenty of conservative candidates able to mouth platitudes about the war ready and able to stand against Wilson if patriotism was all that was to be called for from any member for Wimmera. Wilson’s views nonetheless (by late 1940) were as strong as Coles’s that the first priority was exponential expansion of the war effort. Wilson’s opening words in the budget were:

My attitude to the issues arising out of the budget is dictated solely by motives of grave concern for the welfare of Australia and the British

654 CPD.Vol.165 10/12/30:721 – Falstein was a NSW Labor MHR. 655 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action… :42-58. 656 See R. Ely. 1987. ‘The Forgotten Nationalism: Australian Civic Protestantism in the Second World War’…

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Empire. The tragic war in which we are now engaged can be brought to a successful conclusion only by the establishment of unity of purpose and action, which, hitherto, has been lacking. I am satisfied that it is not possible for the Government, as at present constituted to supply the elements of accord and driving force which is necessary to ensure that Australia will pull its fair weight in the tremendous effort that is demanded of all sections of the community. If the British Empire is to preserve the ideals of a democracy, without which civilisation would be a sham and a delusion, Australia must have a government which will conduct national affairs in such an equitable manner as to inspire the country to achieve its maximum war effort. In my attitude to these problems, I seek, not personal aggrandisement, but only the privilege, as a private member, of rendering service. In a time like the present, the responsibility devolves upon me to examine critically the policy and administration of the Government, and to cast my vote in a way which will best serve the interests of a nation. 657

Wilson continued:

I deplore the difficulties, indefiniteness, and lack of stability in government which are caused by the present composition of the House. Responsible citizens demand that Parliament shall at once resolve itself into a cohesive body in order to direct the affairs of the nation. If this should necessitate, at any time, a change of government, let us have the transition as quickly as possible. 658

Wilson then turned to how he saw things working out in the course of the parliament:

A great deal of misunderstanding exists in the public mind, because people believe that a change of government will lead to serious interference with the war effort and general administration. In my opinion, such a view is erroneous. Even an election is unnecessary to clarify the position. If an election had been precipitated as the result of the recent budget crisis, a grave responsibility would have rested upon those who advised His Excellency the Governor-General to dissolve this House. A good deal of criticism of members of the Opposition has emanated from supporters of the Government. They contended that he Opposition is hopelessly divided. I hasten to add that the Government parties are as hopelessly united as the Labour party is divided. Several possible courses have been proposed to ensure stability of government, including the formation of a national Ministry comprised of all parties.

657 CPD.Vol.165 10/12/40:714. 658 CPD.Vol.165 10/12/40:714.

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Although such a proposal has much to commend it, hope for the adoption of this solution seems to have failed. 659

Wilson went on to praise a suggestion by Abbott the Country Party MP (and high establishment figure) that parliament directly elect the Prime Minister and have ‘a

Cabinet composed of the outstanding personalities of all the parties’.660 Wilson then criticised Menzies for churlishly presenting his budget as a ‘take it or leave it’ thing which ‘if persisted in, could have been resolved in only one way’.661 Wilson then went on to talk about the problems of the wheat industry at considerable length in dispersing his comments with Social Credit inspired tangents about credit, the banks, etc., such as:

The declared policy of the Government appears to emphasise that only a limited amount of money is available for all purposes, including the prosecution of the war. That is what the bankers would have us believe. They desire to continue to regulate the amount in circulation as they have done in the past. I hope that, presently, Australia will have a government with sufficient courage to utilise the resources of the country for the purposes of both war and peace. That is possible without inflation. 662

Wilson was also an advocate of Keynesianism (of sorts):

It is doubtful whether (the Government) has even heard of the proposals of that eminent economist, J.M. Keynes, who advocated that where the raising of money from lower incomes is unavoidable for the prosecution of the war effort, the sums collected in that way from the salaries and wages should be loaned to the Government at low rates of interest for the period of war. The idea behind his suggestion is that the loans, which would be redeemed after the cessation of hostilities if necessary, would be some assurance for the workers against the rigours of unemployment. The spending power thus preserved would also assist in the rehabilitation of normal industry. 663

659 CPD.Vol.165 10/12/40:715. 660 CPD.Vol.165 10/12/40:715 661 CPD.Vol.165 10/12/40:715. 662 CPD.Vol.165 10/12/40:715. 663 CPD.Vol.165 10/12/40:717.

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Wilson’s influence (as opposed to Cullen’s influence) on the Government’s wheat policy was negligible but the changes made to the budget did owe something to the new political learning process that Wilson’s comments (cited above) are talking about. 664

Coles’s and Wilson’s influence was reflected in the compromises made to the budget and in the use of the Advisory War Council as a forum to deliberate upon and arrive at a compromise. 665 Fadden says:

Early in November the reaction of the Advisory War Council had been sought on my first Budget: despite the oath of secrecy which bound members of the Council this was probably not wise procedure. Opposition members of the Council were critical and rumours of the content began to circulate. In any case no agreement on its terms could be reached in the Council… Until the debate was properly under way the Government was not inclined to regard Curtin’s (opposing key budget measures) motion as one of censure. But we soon brought up with a sharp turn. One of the Independents, Alex Wilson, expressed sympathy towards Labor proposals on wheat and credit. The other, Coles, showed signs of wavering. Critical comments by United Australia Party backbenchers, notably Eric Spooner and W.J. McCall, showed that the Labor challenge could not be taken lightly. The sittings of the House were suspended to allow the issues to be discussed in the Advisory War Council. 666

Fadden then traces the trajectory of the proposed compromise worked out in the

Council commenting that:

Curtin subsequently justified his support of the compromise by saying he had kept in mind the obligations his party had accepted to make the Parliament workable. He was the prime influence in making the compromise possible. 667

Labor MPs often injected self-satisfied and barbed references to the ‘wheat industry’ and/or to Wilson’s or Coles’s views that the Government’s child endowment

664 For a reasonable (if necessarily slanted) survey see A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie …:45-47. 665 Also see D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :392-400. 666 A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :46. 667 Also see D. Day. 1999. John Curtin …:394-395.

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proposals and other demand-side measures were not adequate. 668 Non-Labor MPs also played the equal and opposite game of citing ‘patriotic’ statements made by either independent. 669 The first sitting of the new parliament lasted from 20/11/40 to 13/12/40

– only a few weeks – yet the basic positions were outlined that were to remain until

October 1941. Coles until October 3, 1941 generally voted with the government though showing signs of profound disagreement with the conservatives over socio-economic policy. Wilson although generally regarded as antipathetic to the conservatives also followed suit. 670 The Argus in an assessment of Federal parliament on 10/3/41 said:

For the first time in this Parliament the Labour Party will meet as a united party and non-Communist Labour will merge itself into the official Opposition. The merger will leave Labour with a majority in the Senate but in the House of Representatives it will number 36 members. Because one of its members is Speaker, and Cr. Coles, who is in London, is unpaired, the Government can command only thirty-five votes in the lower house, the 74 th member being Mr Wilson (UCP Vic), who is not a Government supporter. The Prime Minister is paired with Mr Curtin during his absence overseas, and Mr Alan McDonald (Vic) is in hospital but probably will be given a pair. 671

Three months of minority government (and a long Summer recess) had not yet emboldened the various other rebels, malcontents, free-spirits – and Coles the other independent – to yet reach the place Wilson was at on 10/12/40. Wilson declared then that he was ready at any time to hand over to Labor. A conservatives’ death (and loss of that seat to Labor) or Coles’s changing his mind was all that was necessary. 672

668 E.g., CPD.Vol.165 10/12/40:710-714; 27/11/40:206-207 (Calwell again); 27/11/40:998-999 (Beasley); 4/12/40:434-435 (in the Senate by Victorian Labor Senator Keane -this reference to Coles is not found in the CPD index. 669 E.g., see the occasional asides to this effect to be found at CPD.Vol.165:320-770f. 670 For a summary of the situation in parliament at the end of the first session of the new parliament see D. Whitington. 1972. Twelfth Man? Milton, Jacaranda Press: 76-84; 1978. Strive to be Fair an unfinished autobiography …:68-71; 1969. The House Will Divide …:68-85. Also P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:419-435 ‘Parliament and Cabinet’; 365-374 ‘Applying the Programme’; 264-280 ‘The Problems of a Workable Parliament.’ 671 Argus 10/3/41:5. 672 Wilson’s words at CPD.Vol.165 10/12/40:715 were quite plain ‘Even an election is unnecessary.’

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The early honeymoon period between Labor and Coles ended just before the end of the short first sitting and characteristically Ward provides good evidence for this.

Coles was speaking on the Sales Tax (Exemptions and Clarifications Bill):

I was a member of a deputation that waited upon the former Prime Minister (Mr Lyons) to discuss the matter (the introduction of the sales tax during the depression) and we succeeded in ironing out many problems arising from a number of annoying and expensive methods book-keeping, and the like, to which the commerce and industry were then subjected. Protests against the present tax have been lodged by combined meetings of wholesale and retail traders representing many industries, and their complaints have a genuine foundation. Big businesses, which have machine accounting books, take these matters in their stride and are caused little or no inconvenience; but the system imposes an added burden and expense upon small shopkeepers and country store-keepers. The Treasurer would be well advised to consult the trade generally about the incidence of triple taxation. A matter of this magnitude cannot be disassociated from our total war effort. At present, Australia is gradually changing over, as far as it can afford to do, from the manufacture of peace-time requirements to the manufacture of war materials. We must release from everyday industries as much manpower as possible for absorption by war industries. This tax will impose a heavy burden upon distributing trades, which do not need to be bolstered up, because they contribute nothing to the national wealth. Our war legislation should attempt to simplify the conduct of peace-time industries in order to reduce to a minimum the number of persons engaged upon the distribution of peace-time necessities.

Mr Ward : In the Commonwealth, 100,000 persons are still unemployed.

Mr Coles : They are not skilled clerks. There is practically no unemployment in the clerical grades, and employers experience difficulty in obtaining trained men. If bigger staffs are required as the result of this tax, the price of goods must be increased and the general community will be poorer for it. 673

Coles continued on and shortly Ward, whose interjection was a warm up, received the call. Ward spoke for a short time before the luncheon adjournment, and suitably

673 CPD.Vol.165 10/11/40:790.

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fortified, resumed his speech which centred on equality of sacrifice and how wealthy people evade all sorts of taxes and the unfairness of broad based consumption taxes. 674

Coles obviously continued to communicate with key business figures through the normal day to day living out of his role as a member of the Australian elite as Coles’s speech and the interchange with Ward suggests. 675 Ward wished to make it plain that he felt Coles was benefiting from the war (more or less war profiteering) as the following extract from Hansard shows:

Wealthy companies, of course, engage the best legal brains in the community in an effort to avoid the payment of their just dues…676

Ward then referred to proposals (then gaining legs) to exempt the boot trade from aspects of the new sales tax provisions and made the following observation:

In my electorate hundreds of unfortunate children are compelled to go without (shoes), because their parents receive such low wages that they cannot afford to purchase them. The honourable member for Henty (Mr Coles) suggested that the intention of the Government was to force workers from industries producing consumer goods to industries engaged in the war effort. That would be a foolish policy. If every member of the community were fully employed, and a greater supply for the defence of Australia were needed, such a proposal might be justified, but over 100,000 workers in Australia are still unemployed. It is said that they are mostly unskilled workers, yet various trade-unions report that many skilled men are now available for employment. The Carpenters Union in Sydney has established a new employment office on the waterfront, and it recently advised me that, at any time, at least 200 skilled carpenters could be supplied for marine work at a few hours notice. 677

674 CPD.Vol.165 10/11/40:791. The adjournment was also to allow for the official reception at Yarralumla relating to the new House. 675 For elite views in 1940-1941 see M. Dunn. 1984. Australia and the Empire …:128-135; Latham Papers ANL: MS: 6216 Series 1; Latham to Menzies 21/5/40 and 22/6/40 in Series 2; W. Ives (ed.) 1982. With Zeal and Integrity …:12-40. 676 CPD.Vol.165 10/11/40:791. 677 CPD.Vol.165 10/11/40:791.

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Ward was hinting at an ongoing difference between himself and Coles over civil and military conscription. 678 Coles also knew Calwell shared this belief despite the much closer relationship they shared from their cross-class policy coalition experience with the Melbourne City Council. 679

Ward’s comments (quoted above) reflect the fact that the Labor Party had begun to descend into factional, ideological and inter-personal conflict every bit as damaging as the conflict raging in the coalition parties. 680

Evatt might be speaking regularly to Wilson and priming him with hopes of a shift towards a national government but Evatt and Ward were also engaged in their dog-in- the-manger assault on the Advisory War Council. 681 Archie Cameron, embittered, but also bored with life as a ‘free-spirited’ MP made a telling observation about the

Advisory War Council in an interjection to Beasley 682 – whose status and stocks had risen due to his strong support of Curtin’s use of the Council:

Although the composition of the Parliament to-day presents it difficulties for the Government, some good may emerge from the fact that the parties are so evenly divided. Having failed to obtain a Labour government, I go so far as to say that when fate in the persons of the electors decided to elect a parliament in which the strength of the parties was evenly balanced it did Australia a good turn. Honourable members on both sides of the House must recognise that, with the Parliament constituted as it is to-day, their responsibilities have vastly increased. Individual members now have greater opportunities to exercise their influence on the legislation brought down by the Government than ever before. Party interests on the government side of House no longer predominate in our deliberations, and the power of the vested interests behind the Government is also curbed.

678 Ward’s views on conscription are discussed in A. Calwell. 1972. Be Just and Fear Not… :75-83. 679 See A. Calwell. 1972. Be Just and Fear Not… : 78-87. 680 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin …:392-394. 681 See A. Reid. 1988. ‘Prime Ministers I Have Known’ Bulletin 29/1/80:366-371; R. McMullin. 1991. The Light On The Hill: The Australian Labor Party 1891-1991 . Melbourne, Oxford University Press: 200f. 682 See F.G. Green. 1969. Servant of the House… :96.

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Mr Archie Cameron : On the contrary, we have lost any semblance of democracy. Parliament gives effect to decisions already arrived at by the Advisory War Council.

Mr Beasley : If the honourable member believes that, he has the means ready at hand to remedy the defect, if any, he is at complete liberty to do so. If the honourable member considers that he is not bound by party ties he is free to exercise his vote and his influence as he pleases. I remind him, however, that when I have attempted to dispose of the problems with which I have had to deal, I have very seldom been able to get all of my own way.

Mr Cameron : I have never been able to get my way.

Mr Beasley : If, in the course of my efforts, I am able to progress some distance along the path to my ideal of higher standards and better living conditions for the people, I am satisfied. If we are sincere in our attempts to achieve our ideals we have nothing to fear from those who sent us here. 683

Beasley, then, was implicitly confirming the point made further above (in this chapter) about the changed political learning environment already evident only four weeks into the new parliament. 684 The Advisory War Council was the first real institutional manifestation of this new environment even if Beasley’s motivations were not as genuinely Burkean as he was making out. Beasley, then, was a notable ‘win’ for the sort of agenda that Coles wished to see followed by the Labor MPs in the new parliament – the door was still wide open to put everything on the table. 685

Beasley, in the speech just cited, was outlining a way that lay within a Burkean deliberative but also a neo-Deakinite paradigm. This sort of talk from a party leader had not been on the agenda since Page’s triumph over Hughes in 1922-1923. Day charts the period (from late 1940 to early 1941) when there was instability and divisiveness in the

683 CPD.Vol.165 12/12/40:999. 684 Also see B. Nairn. 1986. The Big Fella: Jack Lang and the Australian Labor Party 1891-1949 . Carlton, Melbourne University Press: 173f. 685 See J. Lang. 1970. The Turbulent Years …:193.

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Federal Labor Party. Day also sees this as a period in which Curtin’s all too human foibles and insecurities manifested themselves. 686

Another explanation is that Curtin, like Beasley, was undergoing a period of genuine political learning. Curtin’s policy aims and ambitions, because of this, began to exponentially take off and leave behind many of the old factional habits, mindsets, agendas and outlooks of his parliamentary colleagues and the wider party. 687 Curtin was beginning to share a deliberative common language with people like Coles – Curtin was beginning to manifest what Beiner calls ‘political judgement’, a mode of praxis which was not at all like Ward’s or Calwell’s praxis in late 1940! 688

Old paradigm warhorses like Blackburn, Ward or Calwell were beginning to feel left behind or at the very least that events might get away from them. 689 Archie

Cameron (from the opposite extreme) had also come to vaguely realise that the war had opened the way for the sort of politics of civic values that made the Page Country Party vaguely dissonant with the sort of politics many conservative voters now hoped they would see operating.

Coles and Wilson tend to return to the footnotes or even disappear off the page in many accounts of the period after their initial appearance in late 1940 as the actual holders of the balance of power. 690 At the time the independents tended to be written- off as de facto conservative supporters – after an initial frisson generated about whether their presence might force a new general election. 691 Ironically both independents (if

Coles’s later interviews are to be believed) began to focus on the issue of which

686 See D. Day. 1999. John Curtin …:393-394. 687 See D. Day. 1999. John Curtin …:399; 413. 688 See E. Spratt {1965} 1978. Eddie Ward Firebrand of East Sydney . Rigby, Adelaide: 20-60 and C. Kiernan. 1978. Calwell a personal and political biography . West Melbourne, Nelson: 60-85. 689 See A. Calwell. 1972. Be Just and Fear Not . Adelaide, Lloyd O’Neil:78. 690 See Chapter 2 (Literature Review). 691 See D. Zwar. 1989. In Search of Keith Murdoch . South Melbourne, Macmillan; Daily Telegraph 12/1/41.

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leader rather than what party would end up providing half-way decent war leadership. Kevin Perkins points to the close physical proximity Coles and

Wilson experienced in the small independents room in Parliament House. Perkins agues that this proximity brought them together personally and focused their attention on judging and gauging the personal qualities of the key actors 692

The independents role in terms of the Advisory War Council (it has been argued just above) has also been overly discounted. Also undervalued was the Council’s role as a circuit-breaker of the stodgy major party group-think which otherwise prevailed. 693

The Council allowed key leadership actors like Beasley, Curtin, Spender, Hughes,

McEwen (and even eventually Menzies and Evatt) to deliberate upon, formulate and facilitate decisions that otherwise might not have been made at all. 694

Coles and Wilson were not ‘institutions’ or physical manifestations of alternative ideologies or paradigms in the way that mass parties and even small parliamentary and other elite leadership groups partly are. Wilson’s days as an interest-group representative were actually numbered due to his being frozen out of much of the affairs of the VWWGA by Cullen anyway. 695 Wilson like Coles (perhaps more so) began to be increasingly forced to hope that parliamentary processes in themselves might prove to be the fulcrum with which they might be able to negotiate the acceptance of at least part of their core agendas. 696

692 K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies Last of the Queen’s Men …:138-141. 693 See J. Robertson. 1977. ‘Australian War Policy 1939-1945’ Historical Studies 69:489-504. D. Day. 1988. The Great Betrayal… ; 1992. Reluctant Nation… . 694 See T. Fitzgerald. 1989. ‘The wartime boom that peace destroyed’ Sydney Morning Herald 2/9/89:31. 695 See Chapter 4. 696 M. Grattan. 2002. ‘The Prime Minister and the Press: A Study in Intimacy’ Paper based on a speech delivered at the opening of the exhibition ‘John Curtin: A Man of Peace, A Time of War’, John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library, Perth, 20/4/98. http://johncurtin.edu.au/events/speeches/grattanlecture.html (7 pages). See: 5 where H. Gardner. 1997. Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership . London, Harper Collins: 9, is cited.

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Coles might still hope to negotiate his way into the War Cabinet – as Fadden swears was Coles’s main agenda throughout 1940-1941 and which Whitington confirms. 697 Wilson, too, might once have hoped to integrate his project with Pageism.

Wilson had a model for this in Cullen protégé, fellow VWWGA activist and Victorian

Senator W.G. Gibson. Gibson was able to receive Pageite, McEwenist and Dunstanite backing to hold onto a winnable spot on the conservative Senate ticket. 698 Cullen’s increasing friendliness with the Country Party put pay to whatever hope Wilson might have had to negotiate a place for himself with that party. 699

The close of the first sitting of the new parliament saw Wilson still in Labor’s good books but Coles definitely somewhat out of them – particularly with left-wing

MPs. 700 Ward, as seen from the quotation above, had already begun to berate Coles for deciding to side with the conservatives. 701 Calwell’s post September 1940 CPD record does not show that he joined in the Coles bashing which took off with force once parliament resumed in the autumn of 1941. 702

Calwell by late 1940 had settled into the role of hectoring left-wing enfant-terrible of the parliamentary party. Calwell, despite this, remained sagaciously politic about

Coles’s and other anti-war-slacker’s increasing irritation with Catholic and left-wing attitudes to the war. 703 Calwell, despite his anti-intellectual pose, was in fact one of the most ideologically inclined MPs to enter parliament. Calwell had a University background and had sublimated his many years of exclusion from parliament with behind the scenes party activism. 704

697 A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie …:69; D. Whitington. 1969. The House Will Divide …:75. 698 G. Sawer. 1963. Australian Federal Politics and Law …:123. 699 See R.F.I Smith. 1968. ‘The Development of Australian Wheatgrowers’ Associations…’15-28. 700 See Age 15/10/40. 701 E.g., CPD.Vol.165 10/11/40:791. 702 E.g., CPD.Vol.166 27/3/41:379. 703 A. Calwell. 1972. Be Just and Fear Not …:78-79; CPD.Vol.165 10/12/40:707. 704 See C. Kiernan. 1978. Calwell …:60-84.

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Calwell has been referred to throughout due to his ongoing association with Coles from the Melbourne City Council and because this pre-parliamentary association (like the one Coles had with Chifley) continued after 1941. 705 Calwell spoke on the 27 th

March 1941 in reference to regulations under the National Security Act designed to limit rent increases caused by war conditions:

In November of last year I had the privilege of addressing the House on the grave shortage of houses, particularly in Melbourne, brought about mostly by the arrival in Melbourne of large numbers of people from country districts because of the great increase in employment in the munitions industry. The position was then grave. I told a story of one rapacious landlord who expended a few pounds on painting and decorating a terrace of houses, and immediately raised the rent… by no less than 25 percent. I asked that the regulations be altered to provide that the onus of applying for an increase of the rental value of any property be thrown on the landlord. Honourable members opposite, the Honourable members for Bendigo (Mr Rankin), Henty (Mr Coles) and the Northern Territory (Mr Blain) indicated support for my remarks. The Government did nothing. 706

Calwell is endeavouring to link Coles, now identified as an MP sitting ‘opposite’ with a few other government MPs in a cross-class policy coalition – albeit a weak and ephemeral one. In terms of political learning, however, a much stronger message is being conveyed by an MP who had already become notorious for his long-winded hogging of whatever parliamentary time was available to backbench opposition MPs. 707

Calwell, also wished to show the cross-class, practical political achievability of social reform, despite employing the discourse of class warfare and the message of the elite’s dastardly misuse of the war effort – on the many occasions he grandstanded in parliament between 1940 and 1943. 708

705 E.g., Coles served on the Commonwealth Immigration Planning Council from 1946. 706 CPD.Vol.166 27/3/41:379. 707 C. Kiernan. 1978. Calwell …: 76. 708 C. Kiernan. 1980. Calwell …: 62; 66-67; 72-73.

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Calwell, then, used Coles as an ongoing symbol who was invoked as part of his project of promoting political learning and agenda setting. Marsh argues it is always easier for a backbench MP to undertake political learning and agenda setting activity in a parliament where the major party blocs are destabilised. 709

Calwell’s aim was to position Labor in terms of the wider policy community so that

Labor would be able to successfully introduce extensive social policy legislation.

Calwell can be found on other occasions talking about consensus politics involving cooperation across class-interests 710

Calwell, despite his dog in the manger Labor purism which infuriated Curtin, and deprived of an official leadership role, arrogated to himself the role of policy enumerator, political educator and dreamer of practical dreams. 711

Coles, in a symbolic and political learning promoting gesture Calwell neither had the money or desire to match, decided to go to London in late 1940 on a trip. 712 Coles’s visit did not seem out of place for the General Manager of one of the nation’s largest retailers who was required to organise supply-issues in time of war. The writer of the small official biography of Coles incorrectly asserts that Coles had fully normalised his relationship with the UAP by this time and that Coles received a seriously meant commission to investigate some war related issues from

Menzies - before Menzies had began his trip. 713

Coles’s almost physical and psychological ‘stalking’ of Menzies (at least as far as

Menzies judged it) during (what also to Menzies) was his Cicero like triumph in

709 See I. Marsh. 1995. ‘The Political Learning Disabilities…’… 710 See CPD.Vol.165 27/11/40:207. Also see M. E. Calwell. 1998. ‘Arthur Calwell, the early years 1929- 1945’ M.Theology Thesis, Melbourne College of Divinity. 711 See C. Kiernan. 1978. Calwell …: 76. 712 W. Ives (ed.) 1982. With Zeal and Integrity …:25-26. 713 W. Ives (ed.) 1982. With Zeal and Integrity …:25.

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London was interpreted differently back home. 714 Coles, the Labor organs of record hinted, was somehow being duchessed and/or entering into capitalistic deal-making with ‘Pig-Iron Bob’.715 The general press (such as the Argus ) – despite retailing an anti-Menzian tone – referred to Coles as someone who was throwing his weight behind the common sense project of allowing the professional political conservative team to ‘get on’ with fighting the war. 716 Rumours started to circulate of Coles’s appointment as Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Man-Power and Resources. This new committee, a revamping of the earlier Manpower

Committee, was due to be formed in May 1941. Coles had already been slated to join it, well before the news of his trip to London came out.

Despite their either refusing or not being offered Cabinet posts most – if not all – backbench critics (like McCall and Spooner) and the two independents found their way into active roles on Joint Parliamentary Committees. 717 The joint committees, in fact, did a considerable amount of work. Joint committees are, however, no substitute for having a seat in War Cabinet, Cabinet or in the

Advisory War Council. 718

Coles always had a good relationship with the Argus – despite E.M. Andrews’s characterisation of it as remaining pro-appeasement much later than the Herald, Sun

News Pictorial or the Age .719 Coles decided to use his relationship with the Argus – to keep up pressure on the government. – Coles did this despite whatever understanding he had reached with Menzies in London and the promise he had given to the

714 See A.W. Martin and P. Hardy (eds.) 1993. Dark and Hurrying Days: Menzies’ 1941 Diary . Canberra, National Library of Australia: 69; 89. 715 E.g. Labor Call issues throughout the summer of 1940 and T.J. Young of the Labor Propaganda Committee in Henty, letter to Sandringham News 21/2/41. 716 E.g., Daily Telegraph 12/1/41. 717 See K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies... :143-152. 718 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941… : 415-439. 719 E. M. Andrews. 1970. Isolation and Appeasement in Australia …:6f; 147f.

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UAP to regularly attend party meetings. 720 The Argus in April 1941 published a series of interviews and five very long exclusive articles by Coles about Britain and about how he thought the war should be run. 721

The Argus although not specifically pushing an anti-Menzies line did really just add another criticism of Menzies to the accumulation of criticisms already made by choosing to handle Coles’s views as a major scoop. 722 Coles, after all was really only an errant backbencher and former Lord Mayor who had travelled privately to London at the same time as Menzies was making (what to him) was his triumphant Imperial progress. 723 Menzies, in fact, was not making the sort of progress he thought he was making either in terms of his partly although not entirely secret Halifaxian agenda or in bringing home promises of more troops, aircraft and extra naval tonnage for the

Far East. 724

Coles’s animus towards Fadden was exacerbated during the time of the publication of the Argus articles which, once again, reinforced how unlike a typical backbench rebel and/or exile from the frontbench Coles really was. Coles let it be known far and wide that he was annoyed at Fadden for not seeing him before Menzies got back. 725 Menzies, once he got back, made (in contrast to Coles and to say Hughes a generation before) a strangely ineffective attempt at turning his reports on his overseas tour into a mass-media triumph. 726 Coles had printed a multi-point plan called England at

720 See RMIT.2001. ‘The Argus: The Life and Death of great Melbourne Newspaper – a One day conference exploring aspects of The Argus newspaper 1846-1957’ Conference, RMIT, 24/9/2001. Transcripts available via The Fifth Estate at http://fifth.estate.rmit.edu.au/argus. 721 Argus 18/4/41; 19/4/41; 21/4/41; 22/4/41; 23/4/41; 24/4/41. 722 See A. Chester. 1944. John Curtin …:100f; also L. Crisp. 1963. Ben Chifley . : 124f; and D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :395-406. 723 E.g., see Lord Mayor London to Mr Coles. 17/3/41 (inviting Coles to Court of Common Council and a buffet luncheon). In ANL: MS: 7296 Box 1 Folder 1. 724 A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies A Life . Vol.1 1894-1943….:337-355. 725 The Sandringham News 23/3/41 ‘Coles MP Travels 38,000 Miles/Brings Back Valuable Information/Fadden May See Him Next Month!’ 726 See even the sober judgement of the pro-Menzies E. Holt. 1969. Politics is People …:27-28.

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War which called for Australia to adopt a British style total mobilisation of all economic and military resources. 727 Menzies’s own book To the People of Britain at

War provides an illustrative contrast with Coles’s England at War. 728 Holt will be quoted referring to Coles’s document (in the final chapter below) – which he refers to as Coles’s ‘twenty-three points.’ It would take Menzies until well into

1942 to openly advocate a Rooseveltian/Keynesian/ total mobilisation approach to the socio-economy. 729

Coles also (implicitly) called for at least four more divisions for the AIF to be raised along with an equal sized force of trained-up, battle-ready home defence troops - something Menzies might have wanted but appeared to be unable to know how to bring about. 730 A.W. Martin, Hazlehurst and Brett all comment on

Menzies’s capacity for winning over those once sceptical or alienated after he condescended to talk to them in private and draw them into his confidence. 731 Day’s highly original assessment Menzies and Churchill at War like Brett’s psycho-analysis goes beyond the quantifiable to point to underlying truths about how Menzies reacted during times of extreme stress. 732 Menzies faced one such extreme period during his stay in Britain which (it cannot be emphasised too much) was before the change of sides of the Soviet Union. 733

727 See Argus 18/4/41; 19/4/41; 21/4/41; 22/4/41; 23/4/41; 24/4/41 for the text – unfortunately a copy of the points as printed and distributed to MPs in Easter 1941 is not in the Coles papers in the ANL. 728 R. G. Menzies. 1941. To the People of Britain at war from the Prime Minister of Australia: speeches delivered by the Right Honourable Robert Gordon Menzies delivered in Great Britain in 1941, together with an introductory excursion. London, Longmans, Green and Company. 729 E.g. in such statements as R. G. Menzies. 1942. The Australian economy during war. Adelaide, Hassell Press; 1943. The forgotten people:and other studies in democracy. Sydney, Angus and Robertson. 730 For Menzies’s trajectory towards the self-serving suburban patriotic ideology of the ‘National Service Group’ see C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed… :249-251 especially his speech to the Automobile Club of 30/8/41at:246-248 (note ref to Coles:249). 731 A.W. Martin. 1993. Menzies… :371. C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed …:311-316; J. Brett. 1992. Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People… :225-233; also Brett’s assessment of his dealing with superiors: 233-239. 732 D. Day. 1986. Menzies and Churchill at War …; J. Brett. 1992. Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People … 733 See D. Day. 1986. Menzies and Churchill at War …:125-137.

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Wheeler-Bennett, in the biography of George VI, indicates that even the King knew that Australia would be possibly cut off and that this deeply worried the (by then in terms of Bennett’s official biography) ex-Halifaxite King. 734 Wheeler-Bennett

(tactfully) cites the royal diary only for early 1942 (and not say mid-1941) on the issue that Churchill called in his war memoirs – ‘Australasian anxieties’.735

Sterling cannot completely write-out from his account of Bruce the intrigue and back-biting that raged throughout 1940 and into 1941 – even after Halifax’s departure and Menzies’s arrival. 736 Coles was in London during the time Menzies maintained his morally brave approach of insisting he be allowed to be quizzical over Churchill’s grand strategy as it stood in early to mid 1941. 737

Coles, like John Storey (who was in Menzies official tour party) while both of the

(respectively) Sydney and Melbourne elites were not of the calibre likely to gain the confidence of those engaged in the largely secret war of resistance against Churchill. 738

Storey also represented those in the Australian manufacturing sector who were largely satisfied with Menzies’s approach to stirring up and intensifying the war effort. 739

Storey accompanied Menzies in his official party due to his role on the Commonwealth

Aircraft Production Commission. 740

Storey’s main role was much more than this as he got on well with Menzies and also represented that section of the Sydney elite not inclined to be influenced by

734 J.W. Wheeler-Bennett. 1965. King George VI His Life and Reign . London, Macmillan: 538. 735 W.S. Churchill. 1952. The Hinge of Fate …London, The Reprint Society: 19-31. 736 A. Sterling. Lord Bruce the London Years . Melbourne, Hawthorn Press; D. Day. 1986 Menzies and Churchill at War … 737 See CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:182-185. 738 Additional background gained from authors earlier conversations with R.J. Crockett (deceased) ,General Manager at National Motor Springs Ltd (Storey was Managing Director). 739 A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies a Life . Vol.1, 1894-1943. :318. 740 S. Wilson. 1991. Wirraway, Boomerang and CA-15 in Australian service. Weston Creek, Aerospace Publications.

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the Fairfax family. 741 Storey, too, was not in league with Menzies’s New South Wales rivals, ambitious colleagues and critics like Page, Spender and those less well connected elements like McCall - who still saw Hughes as a viable alternative. 742

Coles’s presence in London, does not find his way into either of Menzies’s affected, stilted and deliberately brief memoirs. Coles’s absence from Menzies’s published accounts about London cannot be seen as definitive proof of Menzies’s annoyance at Coles’s presence there. Menzies’s memoirs are obtuse in their conciseness and render such speculation doubtful. 743 Menzies, however, never meant the diary of his trip to London to be published and in this he expresses definite annoyance about Coles:

Breakfast with Arthur Coles and arrange for him to do some work for me, as he is here on ARP and shipping. I will be interested to see how he shapes; his faults may turn out to be superficial. 744

Coles had even less access than had Storey through Menzies and Menzies through

Bruce to the high-circles prepared to openly discuss other than Churchillian policy options. 745 Bruce, Sir W.S. Robinson and perhaps a half dozen other significant

Australian financial and business figures were part of those elite circles who discussed replacing Churchill and negotiating for some sort of peace. 746 Coles and

Menzies while not sharing their thoughts intimately did achieve a certain

741 G. Souter. 1981. A Company of Heralds… :190f. Also see B. Griffen-Foley. 2002. ‘The Fairfax, Murdoch and Packer dynasties in twentieth-century Australia’ Media History 8:1:89-102. 742 See R.G. Menzies. 1967. Afternoon Light… :20. ‘My chief lieutenants on the journey were F.G. Shedden (now Sir Frederick Shedden), Secretary of the Defence Department, and John Storey (later Sir John Storey), a noted industrial engineer, who had taken over the production of aircraft. They were a great pair, full of energy and enthusiasm, and were all close friends.’ 743 See Chapter 2 (literature review) where reference is made to Menzies’s deliberate terseness of style. 744 R.G. Menzies. 28/2/41 in A.W. Martin and P. Hardy (eds.) 1993. Dark and Harrying Days...Menzies’1941 diary. Canberra, National Library of Australia: 69. By the time of the second reference at: 89: (on 13/3/41) Coles is merely mentioned as having dined with him - along with some genuinely important people (of which Coles was not one). 745 See W.F. Kimball. 1996. ‘Roosevelt and the South-West Pacific: ‘Merely as Façade’?’ in D. Day (ed.) Brave New World: Dr H.V. Evatt and Australian Foreign Policy . St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press: 10-29. 746 M. Dunn. 1984. Australia and the Empire . : 40f.

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rapprochement in London. Coles was given some official information gathering tasks including relating to petrol rationing. 747 Coles’s task (in terms of petrol rationing) was deeply ironic given that Menzies’s failure to smoothly implement petrol rationing perhaps best typified how little impact Menzies had made on the national imagination a war leader. 748

Coles’s parliamentary statement on 19/6/41 has already been cited (in part) further above to illustrate Coles’s unbending belief in the need for total national mobilisation – which included total military conscription. 749 Coles was using his allotted time in the debate on the International Situation – several weeks after Menzies had made his long report on his overseas trip. Coles opened his speech with the same themes he had previously raised in his Argus articles:

We are discussing the speech made by the right honourable Prime Minister (Mr Menzies) about a fortnight ago, in which he gave notice of his intention to outline the steps he considered necessary in order to enable Australia to accept its full share in the defence of the Empire. I have been rather amazed that practically every speech on this subject has been detrimental to the views put forward by the Prime Minister, with the exception of the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Curtin). 750

Coles’s emphasis is on war-leadership and on taking the cue from a determined national leader whose first (of many) tasks is to so facilitate deliberation that politicians all unite and determine to totally mobilise the resources of the country. 751

Menzies, as the two London diary entries show, did not entirely trust or welcome

Coles’s ministrations on his part and considered Coles or anyone else won over once

747 Cf. CPD.Vol.167 17/6/41 (Menzies acknowledges those who officially assisted him in London) with Coles’s self-explanation of his official tasks in CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:182-184. 748 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 ... : 256-258; 260; 281; 315; 364; 411; 451. See Labor MP Conelan on this topic at CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:184. 749 CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:184. (Re: National Security Regulations) Also see D. Whitington. 1957. Ring the Bells . Melbourne, Georgian House: 87-89. 750 CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:182. 751 Argus 14/4/41:4.

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they explicitly acquiesced to his right to provide national leadership. 752 Coles, however, was not actually doing what Menzies though he was doing – it was not Menzies’s right to govern that interested Coles – but Menzies’s decision to re-model his war-policy on that of Britain. Coles hinted at the conditional nature of his support in the choice of the title for the private printing of this multi-point plan – England at War .753 Coles wanted

Menzies to be the Australian personification of Churchill, which was the way Menzies’s campaign posters had depicted him in the 1940 general election. 754 Curtin had depicted himself as standing for a ‘New Deal for Australia’ - a concept now quite familiar after seven years of newsreel footage about Roosevelt. 755

Coles wanted leadership in the mould of either the New Deal or Churchill

– either would do – as indicated by looking at the next part of Coles’s speech of 19/6/41, where after singling Menzies and Curtin out as focussed on the main-game of total mobilisation Coles continued:

(Curtin) was most generous. He (Menzies) made a statement which to- day seems to me to be rather important. He said that this is a time not for words but for action. The Prime Minister adopted an unusual course. He took his life in his hands, and went to the battle areas and to Britain in order to ascertain the conditions prevailing in the Empire. He came back with a message that for us, and he speaks as one with knowledge. He has put his case fearlessly and cleanly to the public of Australia. I also have some knowledge of what the Prime Minister found out, because I recently visited England. I did not stay there so long as did the right honourable gentleman and I did not undergo the risks which he took. He went into cities that were actually under bombing conditions, in order to find out the truth about what we are facing. To my mind, it seems rather important that we should take every opportunity we can to enlighten

752 A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies A Life… :425-431. See A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies …:341-5. 753 See K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies... :143. 754 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:262 ‘Candidates’. The Labor poster reproduced had Curtin’s visage and reads ‘A New Deal’ in very large letters. 755 See D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :398; 400; and 438-400 re the broadcast on 27/12/41 where he said: ‘without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom’.

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ourselves regarding the facts in the world to-day and should not argue and waste our time over side issues. 756

Coles is stressing that there are ‘the facts regarding the world today’ that Curtin and

Menzies are prepared to face and that in his judgement most of those speaking in the debate focused on ‘side-issues’. It is helpful here to reiterate part of Coles’s opening remarks – ‘I have been rather amazed that practically every speech on this subject has been detrimental to the views put forward by the Prime Minister’.757

Coles holds the balance of power, he had just been to London, and is not merely praising the courageous actions of Menzies in visiting areas under bombardment but also endorsing Menzies’s bona fides as national war-leader. 758 Coles, however, is also including rather than excluding Curtin within a special sub-set of two (Menzies and

Curtin). Coles claims Curtin is also showing leadership because unlike most MPs the

Leader of the Opposition is giving (in his deliberations) a proper focus on national strategic priorities over petty self-limiting understandings of the war situation.759

Fadden and others assumed that Coles’s throwing of his weight around in April,

May and June 1941 (and setting Menzies and Curtin apart as different to the common herd) had something to do with Coles’s petty and jealous dissatisfaction with the quality of alternative leaders on offer from among the conservatives. 760 Coles, in fact, was not merely dissatisfied but had already written-off any other conservative other than

Menzies. Coles was signalling in this speech of 19/6/41 that he would cross the floor

756 CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:182. 757 CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:182. 758 CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:182. 759 For Curtin’s reputation as a potential war leader see F.C. Green. 1969. Servant of the House… :126. 760 See A. Fadden. 1973. ‘Forty Days and Forty Nights: Memoir of a Wartime Prime Minister’. Australian Outlook 27 (April):3-11; A. Reid. 1961. ‘Sir Arthur Fadden: From Mr Da-Foo to Mr Omono’. Bulletin 26/8/:12-16.

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and give Curtin his change if Menzies somehow failed to deliver the goods – probably due to opposition from within the ranks of his own nominal supporters. 761

Coles’s speech on 19/6/41 stressed his view how unlikely it would be that Britain would send large numbers of additional troops and this had intensified his belief that

Australia needed to contribute more towards its own defence. 762 Coles’s focus (in his speech) is on the immediate need for a national leader who realises that things have long gone beyond the pre-existing (pre-war originating) plans for prosecuting the war. 763

Fadden and others lurking in the conservative wings were on notice from Coles that they would have to personally convince him that they understood this and that they could potentially deliver more than Menzies or Curtin could. 764

Politics (especially two-party system mass politics) tends to value hubris bordering on self-delusion and similar qualities as denoting the signs and perhaps even the presence of leadership. 765 War, or at least major war, at least provides one simple way to gauge leadership – either you win or you lose – or you work towards an armistice or avoiding further escalation in the hope someone’s good-nature or coinciding interest will rescue your country via a new mutually strengthening alliance.766 A key problem with the conservatives (Fadden included) is that they didn’t take Coles on his word – it was beyond their comprehension that a contemporary MP

761 See ANL: ORAL/TRC/121/7…: Coles interview with Mel Pratt. 762 E.g., CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:182. ‘To enable Australia to accept its full share in the defence of the Empire.’ 763 E.g. Coles as quoted by Sandringham News 30/8/40:Front Page ‘We must act as quickly as possible to build up a strong defensive position, whilst at the same time giving the fullest assistance overseas.’ 764 D. Whitington. 1969. The House Will Divide…:82-83. 765 See R Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement …:166. 766 See J. Robertson. 1977. ‘Australian War Policy 1939-1945’; also J. Robertson and J. McCarthy. 1985. Australian War Strategy 1939-45: documentary history . St Lucia, University of Queensland Press and also J. McCarthy. 1976. Australia and Imperial Defence, 1918-1939; a study in air and sea power . St.Lucia, University of Queensland Press. Queensland Press.

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could assert that he made political judgements rather than operated via politically expedient judgements.767

Coles or anyone in London in March 1941 didn’t need high level briefings to realise that Britain couldn’t spare the five let alone the ten to fifteen divisions necessary to be sent out to Asia to definitively protect Australia from any Japanese threat. 768

Coles, unlike the majority of the Australian Cabinet, most senior public servants and of course the great majority of the parliamentary Labor Party was convinced that a

‘total-war’ approach was not only essential but had been long held up:

Britain has been our protector throughout our country’s whole existence. It has borne the brunt of the expense associated with the major part of our defence. Hence we have grown up in an atmosphere of unreality, and have not previously met the world of greed and avarice that we are now up against. Our nation has never been challenged, and we have never had an enemy on our soil. I know what war is. I had experience in the last war, and, for the benefit of the member for Batman (Mr Brennan), I may mention that I served eighteen months as a private. I have seen something of what is happening to the civilian populations in this war. I have received a severe shock, and I should like other people in responsible public positions in Australia to be exposed to the same things I have experienced.

Mr Rosevear : Was the honourable member exposed to them for patriotic or for business reasons?

Mr Coles : I went overseas to have a look at war conditions, and I went at my own expense. I did no business. It is impossible to do business overseas to-day, and it is foolish to try. I admit having been guilty of a small deceit in order to obtain £75 worth of dollars so that I could travel from New Zealand to England. I had to give a reason for requiring the dollars, and the Commonwealth Bank told me that a reasonable excuse would be that I required them for business purposes.

Mr Rosevear : Then the honourable member ought to be prosecuted.

Mr Coles : Possibly, but I considered that the experience was worth while, and I should advise many others to have it. 769

767 See R Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement …166-167. 768 R.G. Menzies. 1967. Afternoon Light… :19-22 titled ‘I go abroad. The Far East’. 769 CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:183.

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Coles, as Rosevears’s interjection suggests, had been put on notice by Labor that it was capable of treating him as a target, as if he really was just like any other senior

Government MP. Calwell, however (as examined above in this chapter) continued to use Coles as an ideological exemplar of possible things to come in social policy. 770

Calwell’s confidence about this seems to have been confirmed by examining Coles’s views on economic planning:

It is absolutely essential that we must have a national plan, embracing everyone, and we have got to submit to it. In Australia we need vast increase in our factory production and we must realise that is the front line of our effort today. I asked my wife to call on a number of directors of concerns employing labour and put to them the question as to whether they could make available opportunities for women who desire to be trained in occupations today held by men. The reaction to that suggestion was most disheartening to me. They said they did not think the unions would ever agree to it. Well frankly I do not think the unions had been consulted, but it just registered in my mind that the Australian people, even those in charge of big companies, have not yet got to the right stage of thinking about this war. 771

Calwell had already been exposed to Coles’s business progressivist views during their earlier time together on Melbourne City Council and this association continued into late 1940 and throughout 1941 as both continued to sit on the Council after being elected to the House of Representatives. 772 Coles (in the public speech just quoted) also conceptualised total-planning in the classic business efficiency language which social democratic intellectuals like Calwell and Coombs 773 had also come to embrace:

And what I want to see the Government do is to bring in a plan to allow us to go through the community, starting with a plan, and getting out a straight organisation chart, that will gradually embrace everyone in the community, and tell them where they want to be training, and getting

770 Calwell’s use of Coles in this way earlier in the year (in March 1941) is at CPD.Vol.166 27/3/41:379. 771 Coles’s speech to electors at Glenhuntly during general election in the week of 6-9/9/40 as reported in Sandringham News 13/9/40. 772 Calwell continued on the Council until 1945. Coles remained on the Council until 1946. 773 See H.C. Coombs. 1983. Trial Balance …:14, ‘the appointment came as a complete surprise to me’. Also see W. Ives (ed.) 1982. With Zeal and Integrity… :27.

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them ready so that our war industry can be expanded. Now that is my idea of what Australia should be doing. 774

Senator Collings, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, several weeks after

Rosevear attacked Coles’s visit as business dressed up as patriotism - said:

I take this opportunity to correct myself in respect of a question which I asked, without notice , this afternoon. The question was – 1. Has Mr A.W. Coles, MHR, recently admitted that he was ‘guilty of a small deceit’ in order to obtain £750 worth of dollars to travel from New Zealand to England? – 2. Does the Government approve of the example set to Australia by a member of Parliament in obtaining dollar exchange by deceit? – 3. Would not the 3,000 odd dollars involved have better been spent on essential United States of America imports? – 4. Did the Commonwealth Government pay any part of the expenses incurred by Mr Coles during his investigations in England on behalf of the Government? I find that the figure of £750 on which I based my opinion is wrong in the first proof of Hansard .775

Collings finally came to his somewhat laboured and self-evidently sheepish end:

After I asked this question to-day my attention was called to the corrected copy of Hansard in which I find that the figure is £75 and not £750. In view of this fact I can only say that my question is wrongly founded. I have no more interest in the matter except to make this explanation. 776

Coles was being given a rather muted taste of what it would be like if he was really just another senior UAP figure for whom such smear and/or wearing down tactics were par for the course. Don Whitington and Alan Reid, however, both assert that few people assumed Menzies would remain Prime Minister long after his return from

London and also report that Coles was too much of a realist not to have a contingency plan worked out in case this happened. 777 Most people assumed Coles might force

Wilson to assist him to force a general election in which public pressure would finally

774 Coles’s speech to electors at Glenhuntly during general election in the week of 6-9/9/40 as reported in Sandringham News 13/9/40. 775 CPD.Vol.167 25/6/41:357. 776 CPD.Vol.167 25/6/41:357. 777 D. Whitington. 1974. Strive to be Fair… ; A. Reid. 1984. ‘Prime Ministers I have Known’. .

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see a national government formed or allow Menzies to weed out malcontents and organise pro-Menzies candidates. 778

Coles, although silent in parliament on his contingency plans actually outlined them in an interview with the Sandringham News published on 25/4/41:

Cr. Coles was extremely critical of the lack of drive in Australia’s war effort, referring to a dead hand which seemed to act as a break; we have referred to that same mortified limb before to-day and we are glad that Coles has found it out, but he is one jump ahead of us; he knows the narrow hungry brains that own the hand, although he did not describe them so severely. We know whom they are; our assumptions have been right, but Parliament is a privileged place, and further, Coles has more money than we have, so we challenge him to come out into the open and tell Australia his well-founded assumptions…We probably differ on many political points with friend Coles, but from our interview we came away convinced that the man was sincerely honest, that he was not seeking any post, that he did not want any limelight; all he wanted was this country to be adequately led – TO VICTORY, and that IS NOT HAPPENING… Cr. Coles said that Menzies was a god man but when his Cabinet was referred to, he had no comment to make. 779

The latter comments were under a sub-headline which read: ‘That Dead Hand

Again’. Under a further heading reading ‘That UAP Membership Again’ the article continued.

The round the world flyer said he would support a Coalition Government. He passed us the enlightening information that he did not attend meetings of the Canberra UAP team; he had attended meetings of the Government parties, but then waited to be asked – always. He left no doubt in our minds that big things are going to happen in Canberra very soon. Asked straight out if he would support a Labor Government, Coles said that he would not like to sabotage Menzies whilst he was away. He had supported this Government because of its war programme; he was dissatisfied; he would support a Coalition Government, and although he did not say it we think he would support the government which would put forward the maximum effort in this desperate fight for the Empire – even a Labor Government.780

The article continued referring to Coles’s impact on the policy process thus far:

778 See K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies… 138-140. 779 Sandringham News 25/4/41 Front Page interview article. (Capital Letters are in the original). 780 Sandringham News 25/4/41 Front Page interview article with Coles.

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We have learned that he played a big part in the creation of the War Advisory Council; he did not tell us that, but we heard, and some of those concessions, such as an alteration in the payment for pensioners to allow them to benefit by increases in the cost of living, and increases in soldiers’ allotments, were hatched in his brain, after considering the whole political outlook, this information comes from a reliable source. 781

Coles, after Menzies’s return, seemingly, slips into a role not unlike Percy

Spender, as someone whose support is actually quite vital and who unlike the rebels

(like McCall) could now be safely pigeon-holed as unlikely to threaten an election to force a leadership change. Menzies understood this to place Coles (like Spender) among those unlikely to make the government susceptible to ‘a fatal attack by Labor’.782 Coles, despite this appears to have remained suspect in Menzies’s mind despite receiving an important private letter from the saturnine tycoon saying: ‘(our private discussions had) revealed to me exactly those things which I desired to find; so that you may now rely on me to support you through thick and thin.’783

Menzies’s reply to this letter, dated 26/6/41 (which Martin did not cite in his biography of Menzies) is as follows:

My dear Arthur/ Thankyou/for your letter, which I appreciate. I am sure that from every point of view in the absence of a National Government, You would increase your effectiveness by joining a party which is one of the two parties composing the present government. Your personal assurance are most welcome/Yours Sincerely Robert Menzies. 784

781 Sandringham News 25/4/41 Front page interview article with Coles. 782 R.G. Menzies, 1 September 1941, cited by A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :380 in what Martin calls: 380 ‘a remarkable personal account of the events of those days which he dictated, sealed and labelled ‘most secret’, on 1 September, the day on which he did in the end resign.’ 783 A.W. Coles to Menzies, 25/6/41, Menzies Family Papers cited by A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :371. 784 Robert Menzies to Arthur Coles, on House of Representative notepaper, in Menzies’s own handwriting dated 26/6/41. In ANL: 7296.Box1, Folder 1 General Correspondence 1939-1977.

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Martin also cites from Menzies’s private contemporary document-memoir of

September 1, 1941 where Menzies describes Coles thus: ‘up to twenty-four hours before had been among my most acid critics, suddenly became so warm a supporter that he swept out of the room, announcing his resignation from the Party’785

Menzies’s document-memoire was written two months after Coles’s letter to

Menzies and Menzies’s somewhat lifeless and less than hearty reply to this letter.

Coles’s offer of support became widely known soon after he made it. Menzies does not appear to have fully believed or trusted Coles as is shown by Menzies’s later document-memoir and by reading between the lines of Menzies’s note to Coles of

26/6/41.

Martin’s account tends to reinforce the existing historiographical stereotype of the two independents as unstable and unpredictable factors in the events of late 1941. 786

Labor, in this post-visit period, after not winning the Boothby by-election (in April

1941) began to accustom itself to facing another Christmas in Opposition and further infighting over the National government issue. 787

Coles’s intervention on behalf of Menzies and Labor’s sometimes churlish reaction to Coles needs to be understood in this context. Coles, like Calwell, was self- consciously engaging in a political learning crusade. Coles deliberately engaged key ex-Langites like Rosevear and ultra advocates of Eire style neutralism like Brennan in parliament, not to hector them, but to persuade them. Coles’s tactics with the

Hibernian extremists in parliament had a precedent in his decision to personally call on Archbishop Mannix at the start of the war. Coles felt it was important

785 R.G. Menzies, 1 September 1941. Cited in A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies : 382. 786 A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :392, ‘The Independents had petty (and different) immediate reasons for voting as they did but he fall of the (Fadden) Government is best understood as the culmination of a number of longer-term trends.’ 787 A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :368-369.

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to encounter Mannix and gain a personal reassurance that he would not publicly speak out against Catholics who responded to calls to volunteer for military service. 788 Coles was playing a role within the UAP that made Calwell’s hectoring and intellectually bullying role in the Labor Party seem mild by comparison. Coles’s crusading approach succeeded in stimulating the distrust of Menzies but made

Fadden dislike him, in quite a visceral way and made most other conservative

MPs see him as a cranky nuisance. 789

Curtin was deeply alienated from Calwell partly because of Calwell’s attempts to tell him and the rest of the party what to think and what to do. 790 Calwell, however, would never have dreamed of violating the atavistic taboo of voting against a Labor government. 791 Coles, in contrast, made it plain from the first day (in late June 1941) when he announced he would be attending UAP party meetings that the party remained in power on his sufferance. Alan Reid puts this mid-1941 period in its proper context:

Menzies had some loyal followers notable among who was the formidable Eric Harrison, from NSW. But Menzies’ enemies on his own side of politics were legion, feelings ran deep, and the smallest incident sent shock waves through the government’s ranks. 792

Coles’s presence in the UAP party-room after late June 1941 reflected the deep undercurrents of Burkean ideology that sometimes allow some free-spirited conservatives to get away with being in the conservative fold while doing so on terms of their own making. 793 Coles’s presence and the occasional eruption caused by his leaking or being attributed with some anti-war-slacking statement in the Argus (or

788 See W. Ives (ed.). 1974. With Zeal and Integrity… : 24; F. Murphy. 1948. Daniel Mannix Archbishop of Melbourne . Melbourne, Advocate Press: 188-191. 789 See A. Reid. 1980. ‘Prime Ministers I Have Known’… Also see Fadden at CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:708; A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :68-70. 790 See A. Calwell. 1972. Be Just and Fear Not… :45-59. 791 See A. Calwell. 1963. Labor’s Role in Modern Society … passim . 792 A. Reid. 1980. ‘Prime Ministers I Have Known…’…:363. 793 See G. Sawer. 1962. Australian Politics and Law… :123

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elsewhere) merely confirmed Menzies’s weakness in the minds of his enemies. Coles also generated increased resentment against himself as an interfering and destabilising prima donna. 794 Coles’s appointment as Chairman of the Man-power and Resources

Committee during this period would not have endeared him to many coalition MPs themselves anxious for an extra-remunerative office and wishing to be seen to be doing something about the war-effort. 795

Wilson also suffered inevitable snipes from Country Party MPs, including Cabinet ministers like Fadden and Anthony despite his appointment to an agricultural joint committee. 796 Wilson, like Coles, could not be realistically left off at least one committee in a policy area of interest and concern to them. All the major backbench rebels, Hutchinson, Marr, McCall, Spooner and Foll, served on such Committees. – The

House was so small (seventy-four MPs not counting the Speaker) that there were few opportunities not to serve on at least one Committee of note. Apart from the fifteen to twenty Ministerial positions to fill, there were other key posts like Whip,

Chairman of Committees and Speaker. In addition there were the various procedural and ongoing Committees of parliament-whether Joint or limited to the House such as

House, Printing, Library, Standing Orders, etc.., All the various committees and other posts soaked up so many MPs that very few could actually avoid serving on one of the new Committees set up to oversee aspects of the war. 797

Hasluck records that most government MPs appear to have thought that both independents were holding guns at their heads by being ‘less certain than they

794 E.g., Argus 20/6/41:5. 795 The new Committee formed in early mid-1941. 796 Wilson was appointed to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Industries in June 1941. 797 See G. Sawer. 1962. Australian Politics and Law… :120-129f.

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had ever had been’ - about supporting the government. 798 Although it has to be observed that dozens of government MPs and Senators were destabilising things just as much as Coles or Wilson were. The fact remains that Coles was the one MP who throughout 1941 openly and consistently talked about core national strategic priorities, properly understood, as involving fused coordination of domestic and military policy and not just one thought as having precedence over the other.

Coles openly challenged other MPs over his frustration over this parliamentary political learning disability:

I suggest to the Government that, in considering the matter of war-time organisation, it should offer to transport overseas members of the Advisory War Council, and members of Parliament. This should be done, not by conscription, but as the result of voluntary offers on the part of those who are willing to go. It would enable them to obtain personal experience of the conditions overseas, and it should be done at the public expense. They would then view the world situation from a very different point of view – I would venture to say from a very different point of view – from which it is being discussed in this House to-day. 799

Coles then went on to assert that Australians lived in a strategic ‘atmosphere of unreality’ due to the ‘supine expectation’ that Britain would still come to their aid as had happened up till then. 800 Rosevear’s interjection at this point in Coles’s speech have (along with Coles’s responses) been quoted in full (at the same point further above). 801 Rosevear was still partly under obligation to Lang and not proving as disloyal to Langite populism as Beasley had become (in Lang’s eyes). The point is that Coles was well aware that much of what was driving Rosevear’s discourse

798 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:506; Also see A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :392. 799 CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:182. 800 CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:182. 801 In the text further above in this chapter where Coles’s return from his visit overseas is discussed.

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on the war were factional considerations related to the transition from Langite neutralism to the official Labor policy of active participation in the war. 802

Coles’s personal experience in parliament indicates what all contemporaries still knew – that there were still factional issues within Labor. Lang and Federal Labor MPs were largely re-united but Curtin was still facing significant challenges from MPs like

Evatt (in cahoots with several other Langites) plus from Rosevear and Calwell (not to mention Ward). 803

Rosevear, who had been nominal Deputy Leader of the Non-Communist Labor

Party, continued to pursue rhetoric of non-interventionism in European squabbles.

Rosevear’s approach was in contrast to Beasley, the former Party leader. Beasley, at the meeting of the Advisory War Council on 12/2/41, (while still a Party leader) issued a joint statement with Fadden and Curtin declaring that the war had entered ‘a new state of urgency.’ The three party leaders called for the ‘greatest effort of preparedness this country had ever made’. The statement provoked alarming headlines in the press and caused Fadden to be rebuked by his cabinet for issuing a joint statement without consultation with the joint parties. Curtin was criticised by some of his colleagues for joining (with) the government and… diverting attention away from domestic issues’. 804

The Federal Langites were well on their way to complete reunion by early to mid

1941 spurred on by the joys and opportunities engendered by the massive Labor victory at the May 1941 NSW elections. The Langites had already voted to regard Curtin as their leader in parliament at a conference of the New South Wales Non Communist

802 J. Lang. 1970. My Struggle … For more on Rosevear see D. Whitington. 1969. The House Will Divide…: 93. Rosevear became Speaker in 1943 after the Federal election. 803 See R. McMullin. 1991. Light on the Hill… :208f. McMullin is interpreted by D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :313 footnote 32. 804 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:80-87; 250-260; 266-272; 319; 366-367.

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Labor Party held on 28/2/41 805 Rosevear capped off his discourse (of this period) by throwing in the more widely held Labor rhetoric against conscription.

In mid 1941 (and until well into 1942) Lang, Calwell, Rosevear and other often astute manipulators of Labor voter’s sub-cultural moods appeared to believe Labor could never slough off anti-conscriptionism. 806 Curtin, in contrast, sometime before

Menzies returned from London, began to see there would be political pressure, probably irresistible, for a Labor government to exponentially raise and equip more troops. 807

Curtin’s discourse in the Advisory War Council explicitly starts to focus on this issue, particularly if Australia was involved in maintaining Imperial obligations and fighting closer to home. 808

Curtin, however, even in late June 1941, it is arguable, still hoped that it might be possible to avoid having to use conscripts for a genuine home based military force - which would need to become as well equipped, well-trained and be roughly equal in size to the existing AIF. Curtin, however, began not to rule out the possibility that thousands of conscripts might have to be sent to their death fighting either on Australian soil or somewhere near-by. 809

Labor MPs in general, outside the private discourse of the small leadership group, still only talked vaguely about compulsion only ever being used to force any conscript based army of one, two, three or more Divisions to defend ‘Australian soil’.810 Labor

MPs were not alone in just not seeing the necessity for a large home based non- voluntary military force whose members would need to be capable of being sent straight

805 See R. McMullin. 1991. Light on the Hill… :208f. 806 A. Calwell. 1972. Be Just and Fear Not… :54, ‘My relations with Curtin over the conscription issue were extremely bad.’ 807 See D. Day. 1988. The Great Betrayal… :1-120. 808 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :400: ‘after another anxious meeting of the… Council.’and L. Ross. (1977)1996. John Curtin, A Biography. Carlton South, University of Melbourne Press: 203-204. 809 See D. Blair. 2002. ‘Our conservative wartime leaders: the complex truth’. The Age 22/8:2 pages. 810 See D. Horner. 1996. Inside the War Cabinet… :17-38 (regarding Malaya).

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into battle. 811 Cross-party political learning disability on this point became even more apparent when it came to finding any MP (other than Coles) willing to talk about a context in which large numbers of conscripted home militia troops would ever need to be as well equipped and well-trained as volunteers earmarked for overseas service.

Labor history accounts (like Day’s) and conservative revisionists (like Blair) allow far too much credit to the two-party system for having provided for home defence, on paper, a 250,000 strong militia and Volunteer Defence Corps. The politicians had at least seen to it there was over a half and less than three quarters of a division of battle ready troops on Australian soil. – Half of the troops on local soil in late 1941 were slated for replacement of troops in the

Middle East anyway, so even this paltry achievement seems better than it was. 812

Blackburn clashed with Coles on this very issue – although the intellectually inclined left-winger was far too extreme to be representative of mainstream Labor opinion. Blackburn opened his adumbration with the high sounding words ‘The defence of Australia is as important to us as is the defence of Great Britain to the people of that country.’ 813 Blackburn continued:

The law has imposed an obligation upon certain men to give military service for the defence of the soil of Australia, or Australian territories. Nevertheless when they are in camp, pressure is brought to bear upon them in a variety of ways in an endeavour to induce them to enlist for overseas service. The honourable member for Henty (Mr Coles) has said that we are not getting enough recruits from the militia camps. We have no right to expect these men enlist for service overseas and we have no right to appeal to them to do so.

Mr Coles : When did I say that?

811 On the Shedden Report see D. Horner. 1996. Inside… :17-38 – also reference to Coles: 147. 812 See D. Lee. 1991. ‘From Fear of Depression to Fear of War’ PhD Thesis, Australian National University; D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… : 398-401. 813 CPD.Vol.167 30/5/41; 85.

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Mr Blackburn : The honourable member was reported in the press as having said that we were not getting enough recruits from the militia camps. The honourable member used that phrase. This sort of thing reminds me of the recommendation that was made late in 1915 or early in 1916 by the recruiting committee of that time in connexion with the calling up of men for military service. The committee recommended, by a majority vote, that in order to induce men to enlist for overseas service their home and business ties should first be broken by their being called into camp. The argument was that it would then be easier to induce them to enlist than when they were ordinary citizens moving among the ordinary people of the community. 814

A month later Ward, who had enough support to consistently defy Curtin and later to override the leadership and get into Cabinet tried to irritate Coles thus:

What has happened to the recommendations of the Man-power and Resources Survey Committee? Is the Government afraid to publish them? The personnel of the committee included representatives of the government parties, yet whenever members of this House endeavour to elicit information regarding their proposals submitted to the Government by the committee, they are met with a blank refusal to disclose the nature of any of its recommendations. It now transpires that the Government is beginning to train women to undertake certain work in which men are at present employed… The Government will not make known why women are being trained to drive postal wagons, but we can easily answer the question for ourselves. The only possible conclusion to be reached is that the Government is training an army of women to take the place of men. …I have no doubt that the object of the Government is not to find work for such (replaced by women) men in munitions factories or similar avenues of employment, but, when a large body of women is available, reports will be called for from the heads of government departments as to the names of men under 40 years of age whose services can be dispensed with. 815

It is possible to over-stress Labor’s left-wing, the Langites, the Hibernian and other anti-conscriptionists as causes of Australian strategic policy stasis during 1940 and 1941. There were very large policy stasis beams protruding from the eyes of the do- very-little conservatives. 816 MPs and key national leaders outside parliament from both party blocs shared a similar bemusement when Coles (or anyone else) raised the

814 CPD.Vol.167 30/5/41; 85. 815 CPD.Vol.167 26/6/41:486. 816 See P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941… :162-3; 173-4; 400.

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‘Australia alone’ prospect - and this included Shedden, Bruce, Menzies, Casey and most

Cabinet members, malcontents and rebels (including McCall, Fadden, Hughes,

Hutchinson, Spooner and Marr. 817

The majority of MPs views on the Japanese threat has been explicated in much of the literature with the argument that wider Australian society had little awareness or knowledge of a possible Japanese threat. 818 An alternate view would be that no coherent political learning had yet taken effect to suggest concrete, self-actualisable activity that Australia could take to ward off such a threat. 819 Horner points out it wasn’t just activist cranks like W. C. Wentworth or Coles who were urging pro- activity, a good section of the military elite knew that sensible and achievable measures could be taken - as evidenced by the Sturdee Report of 1940. 820

Eggleston, the major intellectual of Australian conservative politics of the time is a good example of this widespread politically disabled inability to think that Australia could do much more (if left to fend for itself) than wave a white flag. Andrews points out that Eggleston, emoting as a ‘genuine scholar’ saw

Hughes as ‘wicked’ and ‘too individualistic’ to properly handle Australian policy towards China during late 1940 and into 1941! –Eggleston feared that his fellow elder statesman might trick Australia (or the Empire) into promising support for

China and thus wreck hopes for the continuing appeasement of Japan. 821 Eggleston

817 D. Day. 1995. Menzies and Churchill at War… ; J. Brett. 1992. Robert Menzies’… , particularly: 244, ‘Churchill and the meaning of 1941’ and: 251-257 ‘Return and Resignation’. Also D. Day. 1988. The Great Betrayal… . 818 See Chapter 2 – the literature review and E.M. Andrews. 1981. ‘Australia and China During World War Two: A Case Study in the Development of Australian Foreign Policy and Interests’ Historical Studies 21:83: October: 245-257. 819 Authors conversations with W. C. Wentworth. 5/5/2000; 12/8/2001.Wentworth’s genetically programmed adversarial activism led him to wish me to realise he wanted to downplay Labor’s role in achieving a half-way decent war policy in the 1940s (He probably assumed most researchers being critical of non-Labor in the 1940s over war policy were biased towards a Labor history approach). 820 D. Horner (ed.) 2001. The Australian Centenary history of a defence… : 123-234f. 821 E.M. Andrews. 1981. ‘Australia and China…’…:247-248.

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shared Menzies’s and Curtin’s fear that raising, equipping and training additional troops able to be sent anywhere would ruin the economy, generate left-wing disaffection and see the troops recklessly deployed by adventurers like Churchill or Hughes. A great fear was that Australia would pay the price for the greater pro-activity in Asia that was being urged on the part of the Empire by

Roosevelt. 822

Eggleston was sixty-seven when appointed Australian minister to China, decidedly arthritic and once finally in Chungking sent ‘rambling eleven page foolscap despatches’.823 Menzies had originally intended Scullin to take up the post and Curtin was actually opposed to sending a minister there as it might make the work of Latham in Japan more difficult!824 All of this denotes a malaise too deep to be merely explained away as the result of Australia’s inevitable enmeshment within what Horner calls the

‘old British Empire’ strategic policy making matrix. 825 Curtin as late as August 1941 was adumbrating attitudes toward Japan in the privacy of the Advisory War Council which Menzies has often been unfairly singled out for holding. 826

Stories circulated about Casey’s (or Mrs Casey’s) supposed actions (in 1942) in decamping from Cairo, perhaps a bit too early before the German assault. Langmore observes that these (untrue) stories would never have gained currency had Casey already been seen a person of action of the sort Churchill would be likely to warm to. 827

Churchill’s distaste for Bruce was well known and dated back from well before the war.

Casey was understood to have been as much a protégé of Bruce as Bruce was of any of the high appeasers in the establishment that they both were both

822 E.M. Andrews. 1981. ‘Australia and China…’…:247-248. 823 E.M. Andrews. 1981. ‘Australia and …’…:249. Eggleston arrived in Chungking in October 1941. 824 E.M. Andrews. 1981. ‘Australia and China…’…:249. 825 D. Horner. 2001. ‘Strategy and Command in Australia’s Campaigns of 1941’… 826 E.M. Andrews. 1981. ‘Australia and China…’249. 827 See D. Langmore. 1997. Glittering Surfaces... :89-90.

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connected with. 828 Day’s Menzies and Churchill at War (despite some later critical correctives) has also brought back into historical consciousness the actual state of

London opinion about Menzies. 829

Menzies was widely regarded as a mentally lazy, self-opinionated publicity seeking arriviste and semi-appeaser, who, however, was seen as the best of a bad

Australian bunch. 830 Churchill’s supposed initial hopes for ‘Mr McFadden’ as revealed in his war history need to be put against eighteen months experience and ongoing intelligence from the Governor-General, the High Commissioner and assorted military personnel. 831 Fadden, although unknown outside of the circle of those whose job it was to read files and cables from ‘Australasia’ was still understood to have been as much part of the growing perception of an Australian malaise as any other senior Cabinet member. 832

Coles, then, while in the heart of Empire, took in as much as Menzies did the real context of the strategic situation facing Australia and Britain as they faced Japanese entry into the war. 833 Overly optimistic anachronism often distorts the view of the period December 1940 to June 1941 when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union by

(fortunately for civilisation) succumbing to his petit-bourgeois armchair strategist rightist instincts. 834 R. Divine rightly identifies United States dominance of the post-war world as a worry that almost outshone that (in Britain in mid-1941) of having to sign

828 See J. Lukacs. 1999. Five Days in London May 1940 . New Haven, Yale University Press; 40f; Cf. A. Stirling. 1974. Lord Bruce the London Years . Melbourne, Hawthorn Press; I. Cumpston. 1989. Lord Bruce of Melbourne . Melbourne, Longman Cheshire. 829 D. Day. 1986. Menzies and Churchill at War… :59-119. 830 D. Day. 1986. Menzies and Churchill at War… :120-156f. 831 W.S. Churchill. 1953. Their Finest Hour . London, The Reprint Society-where the McFadden for Fadden mistake is. Also see D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War… :158-168 for an alternative view. 832 J. McCarthy. 1974. ‘Australia: A View from Whitehall 1939-45’, Australian Outlook , December. 833 A.W. Martin (ed.) (assisted by P. Hardy), [R.G. Menzies 1940-1941] 1993. Dark and Hurrying Days… 1-20f. 834 K. Macksey (ed.) 1998. Hitler Options: the alternate decisions of World WarII. London, Greenhill Books, Mechanicsburg, Stackpole Books.

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some sort of 1870 type pact with Hitler or fight on. 835 Count Rene de Chambrin provides (for the wrong Petainist/Lavalist reasons) first-hand evidence that the United

States continued to negotiate with chunks of right-wing occupied Europe throughout

1941. 836 Roosevelt only began to modify his policy of wholesale destabilisation of the

British Empire after Japan’s irrational decision to enter into a wider war against the

USA in December (a decision partly at least driven by another and definitely not petit- bourgeois armchair theorist sitting behind his moat in Tokyo). 837

Australia faced the choice of remaining relevant to the Asian agenda of the

Empire or becoming party to the loss of any chance the Empire had of keeping its relative place in Asia. 838 Coles’s key reason for his increasing confidence in Menzies is that at least ‘Bob’ had a better grasp of this bigger international picture – than say

Fadden, a view Shedden also shared. 839 Coles emphasised this by concluding his speech on the International Situation thus: ‘The policy outlined by the Prime Minister will, if fully implemented, place this country in a position of security, but we all must co-operate to give effect to it.’840

Coles’s endorsement of Menzies has to be understood in the context of this very international situation the debate was (allegedly) about. It is quite wrong to attribute sagacity to those who in 1941 operated on the basis that things would turn out all right, that Britain would not face invasion in 1942 or 1943 and that Japan would draw itself

835 R. Divine. 1969. Roosevelt and World War II . Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press. 836 R. de Chambrin. 1992. Betrayal . New York, Harper; F. Murphy. 1972. Diplomat Among Warriors . New York, Scribners. 837 R. Bergamini. 1978. Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy . Routledge, London; L. Wigmore. 1952. The Japanese Thrust. Australia in the War of 1939-1945. Series 1 (Army) Vol.IV, Canberra, Australian War Memorial: 50-51. 838 B.C.J. McKercher. 1999. Transitions of Power: Britain’s Loss of Global Pre-eminence to the United States, 1930-1945 . Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 839 See D. Horner. 2000. Sir Frederick Shedden… :209f. 840 CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:185.

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into a war with the United States. 841 Australasia right up to Pearl Harbour was facing the prospect of having to reinforce the Malayan front largely or significantly from its own resources. 842 Labor history myth aside – there was no other always present

‘Australianist’ (i.e., American) option – at least not before early to mid-1942. 843

Australia, had it been facing basic strategic facts of life from the Fall of

France onward, should have more troops and aircraft (and trained-up air crew) armed, equipped, ready and on hand. 844 A key reason for doing this would be to allow Australia to have more of a say in whatever measures might need to be taken to keep the lines of communication open to the Americas or to the

Middle East. 845 Labor’s opposition to conscription for overseas service made sense of training-up, equipping and having on hand several battle ready divisions of home defence troops. A viable home defence force built up in 1940 and 1941 would have largely compensated for any failure to be able to effectively use any larger force of volunteers that probably would have been sent overseas (by then) anyway. 846

There was also a doleful lack of interest among most Federal politicians in what was happening on the ground in Malaya throughout 1939—1941. 847

Malaya/Singapore and the situation in the wider ABDA was left-over to vague and wishful thinking in contrast to the relatively sustained focus of attention on

841 See D. Horner. 2001. ‘Strategy and Command…’1 st page: ‘in some respects Australia’s campaigns of 1941 were the least conducted by the old British Empire’ Cf., with A. Gilchrist. 1992. Malaya 1941. The Fall of a Fighting Empire. London, Robert Hale. 842 See L. Wigmore. 1952. The Japanese Thrust… :23f. 843 D. Day. 1992. Reluctant Nation… :3-5. 844 J. McCarthy. 1988. A last call of empire: Australian aircrew, Britain and the Empire Air Training Scheme. Canberra, Australian War Memorial. – More on aircraft production below in text. 845 D. Forrest and E. K. Lindley. 1942. How War Came: An American White Paper from the Fall of France to Pearl Harbor. New York, Simon and Schuster. 846 Mook, H.J., van. 1944. The Netherlands Indies and Japan: Battle on Paper, 1940-1941. New York, Simon and Schuster; L. Wigmore. 1952. The Japanese Thrust ...:38; D. McCarthy. 1959. South-West Pacific Area- First Year; Kokoda to Wau. Vol. 5, Series 1 (Army) Canberra, Australian War Memorial. 847 See I. Hamill. 1977. ‘An Expeditionary Force Mentality?: The Despatch of Australian Troops to the Middle East, 1939-1940’ Australian Outlook. August; A. Pooley. 1974. ‘Fears, Real and Imagined: Australia and the Threat from Japan, August-November 1939’ BA(Hons) Thesis, La Trobe University.

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the Australian presence in the Middle East. 848 The Cabinet, press, Labor and the senior echelons of the military remained focused on whether the commanders of the AIF in the Middle East had enough say in the strategic and tactical decisions being made there. 849 In contrast there was much less relative focus on thinking about what could or would have been possible to do to maximise pro-activity in the ‘Far East.’850 – The very notion of the ABDA area being still being seen as ‘the Far East’ stands in contrast to the geopolitically realist attitude underlying the Canadian’s superficially equivalent quiescent (and Royal Navy reliant) response to their exposed Pacific flank. 851 - Or compared to Australia, the South Africans

(given their internal problems) managed much greater relative mobilisation during

1939-1941 and were relatively more pro-active before Pearl Harbour in terms of the vast continental area to their north and the sea- area to their east. 852

Australian political thinking was effectively disabled in terms of there being no effective response to the issue of whether any viable fight could be kept up in

848 D. Forrest and E. K. Lindley. 1942. How War Came… ; P. Elphick and M. Smith. 1993. Odd Man Out The Story of the Singapore Traitor . London, Hodder and Stoughton. (re: on the ground ennui); R. Callahan. 1977. The Worst Disaster-The Fall of Singapore. Newark, University of Delaware Press. 849 I. Hamill. 1977. ‘An Expeditionary Force Mentality?...’;J. Robertson. 1977. ‘Australian War Policy 1939-1945’ Historical Studies 69:489-504; J. Bulloch. 1966. Akin to Treason. London, Barker. 850 See D. Horner. 2002.‘The Evaluation of Australian Higher Command Arrangements’ Address to Sir Vernon Sturdee Seminar on Grand Strategy, 12/4. http://www.defence.gov . au/adc/Cdclms/ Command% 20evolution.doc. 851 See J. L. Granatstein. 1975. Canada’s war: the politics of the Mackenzie King government, 1939-1945. Toronto, Oxford University Press; P.W. Doerr. 1998. British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939. Manchester, New York, Manchester University Press; B.P. Farrell. 1998. The Basis and Making of British Grand Strategy, 1940-1943:Was There a Plan? Lewiston, Edwin Mellen Press. 852 N. Roos. 2003. ‘The Second World War, the Army Education Scheme and the 'Discipline' of the White Poor in South Africa.’ Paper for Workshop on South Africa in the 1940’s, Southern African Research Centre, Kingston,September. http://www.queenssu.ca/sarc/Conferences/1940s/Roos.htm ; S. Roskill. 1954. The War at Sea: the defensive. History of the Second World War United Kingdom. Military Series, Vol. 1. London, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.; S. Roskill. 1956. The War at Sea: the period of balance. History of the Second World War United Kingdom. Military Series, Vol. 1. London, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office; L.C.F. Turner, H.R. Gordon-Cumming and J.E. Betzler. 1961. War in the Southern Ocean, 1939-1945. South Africa, Prime Ministers Department, Union War Histories Section. Cape Town, New York, Oxford University Press.

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the ABDA area when (or if) war began. 853 The various successive Cabinets, the

War Council and the Labor leadership, in contrast, to their actions over the Far

East, basically wasted their more time in focusing on backing-up the Australian point of view on strategy and tactics in the Middle East. 854

Coles, primed by his experience in London, was apparently confirmed in his new found confidence in Menzies’s ability as a national strategic leader by being tossed a few crumbs of official recognition of Coles’s capacity and right to stick his nose in. 855

Menzies, in London, then, begins to bother to consult Arthur Coles who is also in

London and who holds his political future in his hands! Menzies’s condescension towards Coles was being commented upon when Mulcahy (Labor MP for Lang NSW) interjected during Coles’s speech on the ‘International Situation’ and asked: ‘It has been reported in the press that the honourable member was delegated by then Prime Minister to inquire into certain matters in England’856

Mulcahy’s interjection indicates that Coles’s tasks while exciting minor comment in the press was actually viewed more with idle bemusement by his fellow MPs (and largely appropriately so). Coles did not seek leave to make a special statement about these tasks – he decided to refer to them in passing – after being prompted by an interjection:

The Prime Minister asked me to make inquiries on his behalf with regard to petrol rationing and air-raid precautions. The rationing of goods, because of the control of imported materials such as non-ferrous metals, timber and paper has affected business to the amount of £440,000,000 worth of retail sales. Is that going to make a difference to the way of life

853 See M. Evans. 2000. ‘Developing Australia’s Maritime Concept of Strategy: Lessons from the Ambon Disaster of 1942.’ Land Warfare Studies Centre Study Paper No.303:July. http://www.army.gov.au/LWSC/Publications/sp%20303.pdf 854 See. D. Horner.1992. High Command…:23f; L. Wigmore. 1952. The Japanese Thrust ...:1-80; A. Gilchrist. 1992. Malaya 1941. The Fall of a Fighting Empire ; R. S. Falk. 1975. Seventy Days to Singapore: the Malayan Campaign, 1941-1942. London, Robert Hale. 855 W. Ives (ed.). 1974. With Zeal and Integrity… : 24-27. 856 CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:184.

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of the people of Great Britain? Add to that the effect of food rationing, and the fact that the cost of living had increased by 26 percent, and it is evident that the people of Britain are more or less stripped for the war effort. On the higher incomes taxation ranges from 10s in £1 to 19s. 6d. 857

Coles continued with the facts then decided at this point to add dramatic emphasis:

A system of compulsory saving is in operation. Nevertheless, because the people cannot buy goods, and cannot spend their money on amusements, their savings were nine times as high in 1940 as in 1938, which was the peak year up till then. I mention these matters so that honourable members may realise that the people of Britain, our own flesh and blood, our partners in this war, are willing to go without a great many things in order to achieve victory. It would be of no use for me to indulge in argument as to whether or not we should do the same as they are doing… The Prime Minister has told Australia what we must do if we are to win the war, and I understand he will place a detailed scheme before Parliament very shortly. I believe that the policy the Prime Minister outlined in his broadcast speech is a reasoned and enlightened one. 858

Evatt’s own attempts to get close to Menzies during mid-1941 mirror Coles’s own decision to do the same thing – regardless of whatever other previous (and ongoing) doubts both may have had about the Prime Minister. 859 Curtin’s reluctance to wrest power from the conservatives had become a by-word among more eager Labor supporters since the Swan by-election of December 1940. Curtin’s reasons for being reluctant were partly pragmatic. McMullan indicates that Curtin did not want to be seen as grabbing for power and thereby losing a sense of moral legitimacy. 860 Curtin had also promised to keep Menzies Prime Minister from

December 1940 to late May 1941 – and in war-time days can be a long time (not just

857 CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:184. 858 CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:184. 859 A.W. Martin. 1993. Menzies… :310-311. . 860 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :392-412. Day: 413, cites R. McMullin. 1991. Light on the Hill … :210

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weeks). 861 Curtin knew that having a Prime Minister that the British trusted was an argument for keeping Menzies in office – at least for a while yet. 862

Menzies, before he left for London, had sown in Curtin’s mind the idea that bi- partisanship was essential for the success of the high-level lobbying that the leadership of both party blocs had come to feel was essential for Australia’s national interest. 863

Curtin also judged that his own party still needed time to be somewhat prepared (or politically educated) to be weaned off a doctrinaire left-wing approach to running a war government.864 Curtin and the rest of the Advisory War Council had kept to themselves possible bi-partisan backed responses that might follow from Churchill possibly trying to re-open the Western Front or undertake some other typically Churchillian move like invading the Balkans. 865 Government MPs, in contrast, locked out of the secret discussions of War Cabinet or Advisory War Council were beginning to openly question Menzies’s grasp of high-strategy – which was one thing Curtin had grown to respect Menzies for having such a grasp on! 866

The chasm was opening between the self-interest, outlook, agendas and group- think of those who (from either party-bloc) who in war-time deliberate, consult and

‘know’ about the key issues and those who scrabble for the crumbs – or have to be massaged into following the general line. 867

Curtin did not want to have to run the war, if he ever came to do so, by fiat of the

Federal Executive, the Caucus, the Evans-Hughes group, Lang, Evatt, Ward, Calwell

861 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :382f. 862 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :389-390. 863 See A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :311-312. 864 See T.M. Fitzgerald. 1977. ‘An Education for Labor Leadership: the Case of Curtin’… 865 See D. Horner. 2000. Defence Supremo: Sir Frederick Shedden and the making of Australian defence policy . , and the recollections of Thomas Joseph Hawkins, Permanent Secretary of the Department of the Navy and P.A. Wharton respectively in ANL.ORAL.TRC 121/56 and ANL.TRC 121/57. 866 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :389-391. 867 See J. Grey. 1999. A Military History of Australia . Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

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and the rest. 868 Curtin watched and waited throughout late 1940 and early to mid-1941 even though decisive action on his part probably could have forced an election that most

(but not all) thought Labor would have won. 869 Curtin’s reasons for caution are only too obvious to those not naïve enough to think that the 1940s Labor Party would bless and magically transform all it touched merely by its association with it! 870

Labor, left to its own internal dynamics, showed few signs between late 1940 and October 1941 that it would formulate policy other than as Marsh – citing Bernard

Crick argues all party blocs normally operate in two-party systems – in a ‘continuing election campaign’.871 Menzies’s opponent and conservative Senator H.S. Foll had a

‘continuing election campaign’ interchange with R.V. Keane – an ambivalent Curtin supporter but ultimately not a boat-rocker. 872 Keane’s statement is also interesting because it was one of those times when Labor MPs referred to Coles’s belief in a cross- class trade off as somehow bolstering all their inherent positions on strategic and domestic policy. Foll asked:

How does the honourable senator reconcile his statement that a Labour government would have increased soldier’s rates of pay with the Labour party’s policy of opposition to sending soldiers overseas?

Senator Keane : The Minister is out of date. The Labour party stands for the adequate defence of Australia, and at its last convention it declared definitely that Australian troops should be utilised in the defence of those parts of the Empire nearest to this country.873

Keane, disingenuously, but in full ‘continuing election campaign mode’ continued:

868 On factionalism see A. Gietzelt. 2005. ‘In Defence of Dr. Herbert Vere Evatt…; R. Gollan. 1975. Revolutionaries and Reformists: Communism and the Australian Labour Movement 1920-1955. Canberra, Australian National University Press; R. McMullan. 1991. The Light on the Hill…. 869 See D. Whitington. 1969. The House Will Divide…: 90-92. 870 See B. Penton. 1941. Think or be damned: a subversive note on natural pride, patriotism and other forms of respectable ostrichism . Sydney, Angus & Robertson. 871 I. Marsh. 1995. ‘Political Learning Disabilities…’46. 872 Keane was a NSW Senator, and a veteran of the Labor Party but also one of the 16 MPs who voted against Scullin’s Premier’s Plan. See J. Lang. 1970. My Struggle… :67. 873 CPD.Vol.165 4/12/40:464.

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Whilst we all agree upon the necessity to make a full war effort, we must also have regard to the needs of the community as a whole. The Labour party is cognisant of the inherent needs of the people. It is a little refreshing to hear a man of such political courage and business experience as the honourable member for Henty (Mr Coles) stressing the importance of initiating a liberal child endowment scheme, as he did in the House of Representatives yesterday. He pointed out that while our social conditions are allowed to remain as they are at present our married women are justified in their fear of having children. The Labour party looks forward to the day when the mothers of the nation will be prepared to rear families in the knowledge that they will be able to take care of their little ones. 874

Keane’s speech although made during the first sitting during the initial honeymoon between Coles and the Labor Party is useful to quote at this point as it illustrates why

Coles gravitated towards Menzies. Coles was not convinced of the sincerity of the bulk of the Labor Party towards facing what he saw as necessities imposed by strategic realities. Coles’s judgement of most conservatives was not inclined to be much less harsh given the on-going point-scoring, carping and deliberate trivialisation of war decision making indulged by many conservatives. McCall, the chief backbench Menzies rebel asked on 27/11/40:

Will the Minister for the Army state whether members of the Government were consulted individually before it was decided to send a number of Australian soldiers to Greece?

Mr Spender : I am not aware that there is any truth in the report that Australian soldiers have been sent to Greece. Indeed, as the Prime Minister has said, the report is entirely without any foundation. 875

McCall then stayed seated, but also engaged in some parliamentary badinage, the nature of which is now only hinted at by the next entry in Hansard which reads ‘Later’:

Later : In view of the possible danger of information leaking into the press regarding movements, large or small, of Australian troops abroad, was the Minister of the Army correctly reported in a number of

874 CPD.Vol.165 4/12/40:434. 875 CPD.Vol.165 27/12/40:188.

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newspapers as having said that no major detachments of Australian troops had landed in Greece, although it was possible that a few Australian details may have landed?

Mr Spender : The report was not substantially correct. What I said was that there was no truth in the statement appearing in the press indicating that a substantial Australian force had landed in Greece. I said it was, however, possible that, without my knowledge, a few details may have landed in Greece for liaison work. 876

Coles did not feel that anything had changed since late 1940 – as he said in another part of his speech on the international situation:

It behoves us all to get behind the Prime Minister, and make his plan our national policy. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Curtin) has expressed himself in favour of it. He has no criticism to offer. It is not very edifying in this debate to hear the criticism offered by some honourable members. Australia has laid a solid foundation for its armament industries. We have men abroad who are bringing honour to our name throughout the world, and those men must be reinforced. The whole question before us is, where do we go from here? Within the next few months we shall probably need additional 10,000 or 20,000 men for our munition industries. It may be necessary to enlist the services of women to a greater degree, in spite of references by the honourable member for Barker (Mr Archie Cameron) to ‘pandering to ladies clubs’. The women of Great Britain have made a tremendous contribution to the war effort. They are matching themselves with men in numerous branches of industry. I saw hundreds of women being trained in aeroplane factories to take the place of men so that the munition industries could be expanded. Aeroplane engines are being manufactured in Great Britain with four per cent of skilled labour. Here, under peaceful conditions, it should be possible for us to make an enormously greater war effort than we have so far imagined. 877

Conclusion:

This chapter has been focusing on the mindset of the two independents, such as exemplified by Coles’s views as outlined just above. The picture that has been built up is one of a growing though perhaps not inevitable convergence with a Labor Party which is increasingly ready to take office – if office is offered to it by Coles. Coles’s

876 CPD.Vol.165 27/12/40:188. 877 CPD.Vol.167 19/6/41:185.

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later disappointment with Menzies (after late September 1941) was in fact the actual cause of Curtin’s taking power but it also bolstered Curtin’s chances of remaining in power.

Coles’s offer of support, which came gift-wrapped with Wilson, would give Curtin the option of continuing on in government in an atypical House of

Representatives. No House since Deakin’s last term as Prime Minister had been without a clear majority. Curtin from September 1940 had to make a personal and a political judgement about the capacity of Coles and Wilson to hold out and support a

Labor government during war, with all the attendant pressures being put upon them. Brawley points out that everyone in 1940- 1941 assumed that a House without a clear party majority was a one-off event. 878

Curtin, unlike Menzies, had twelve months or so to sit back and contemplate how such an atypical situation in the House could be turned to his benefit, if he ever came to power. Curtin, between September 1940 and

June/July 1941 underwent a lesson in political learning about the positives and negatives that flow from having a hung parliament. Menzies, on the other hand, viewed the hung parliament as one of the chief political misfortunes he had to live with. Menzies failed to grasp the opportunities that such a parliament held for himself as a Prime Minister and party leader whose supporters had already fractured into disparate and warring factions.

Menzies saw Coles and Wilson as nuisances whose presence in the House brought with it no redeeming political possibilities. It is at this point, in

June/July 1941 that Curtin really begins to see that that his first period in office

878 See S. Bennett. 1999. ‘The Decline in Support for Australian Major Parties and the Prospect of Minority Government’, Parliament of Australia, Parliamentary Library, Parliamentary Research Paper 10/99.

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might necessarily require him to play the role of a national leader - as much as play the role of a Labor leader. The independents could play a part in Curtin’s achieving the goal of becoming a national leader. This chapter has shown that far from being cranks, Coles and Wilson, between September 1940 and June/July

1941 built up an end-game bargaining potential by setting out on what grounds they would support any government. It may be asked why didn’t they change sides earlier? The key answer to this is that Labor wasn’t ready and Coles didn’t think they were ready either – with Wilson going along with Coles in order to maximise their bargaining potential.

Chapter Six: The Crucial End-Game of July-August 1941.

Introduction.

Chapter 5, the previous chapter, laid out and contextualised the arrival, the role and the impact of Coles and Wilson on the dynamics of the House of

Representatives of the Sixteenth parliament. A detailed analysis of Coles’s and

Wilson’s roles, from their point of view, has been a key factor that has been missing from previous historical accounts of the House of Representatives from September 1940 until the middle of 1941.

This chapter, the penultimate one will sample and survey what happened in July 1941 and in the vital month of August 1941. Menzies, while as opposed as ever by perhaps a near majority of the coalition, still seems to have had a clear majority of his own party supporting him. Menzies, too

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now had the private reassurances of Coles that he would continue to support him in office although Coles, like Menzies probably would have preferred a all- party national government, led by Menzies. Coles’s support was known about publicly very soon after both men had exchanged brief notes outlining the situation.

Coles and Wilson, however, were not prepared to fade into the background as would be indicated by a reading of their discourse, as quoted from in the previous chapters.

Coles’s judgement of 19/6/41 about Curtin being at least as nationally minded as

Menzies can also be interpreted as a rationalisation of the fact that there were few other choices in mid to late 1941. 879 Coles’s nagging doubt about Menzies was inevitable as after further time kept passing it became apparent to most contemporaries that Menzies was not pulling any new rabbits out of the hat after his return from Britain.

Menzies, in particular, could not or would not heed Labor’s, Coles’s and Wilson’s genuinely representative calls to start introducing sections of Labor’s social and industry policy as the price to pay for a total mobilisation. 880

Martin cites a supportive letter Menzies got from Herbert Brookes at the same time as he received Coles’s letter of support. 881 Brookes’s letter contains patriotic

879 See A. Reid. 1980. ‘Some Prime Ministers…’363f. 880 See D.Day. 1999. John Curtin… :414; 2003. The Politics of War… : 136-137f. 881 H. Brookes to R.G. Menzies 15/6/41. Cited by A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :375.

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platitudes and complains about this ‘stumbling democracy’ and how Menzies had

‘grown in stature’.882 Brookesan platitudes are what Scullin, who had been Menzies’s first choice to go to Chungking did not measure up to. Scullin’s advice to Curtin was to allow Menzies to dig deeper and deeper holes of rhetorical inaction for himself. 883

Brookes represented those in the Melbourne establishment who had come to re- interpret the legacy of his father-in-law Deakin along self-limiting neo-conservative lines. 884 Scullin represented those in the Labor Party who had come to realise they were the spiritual heirs of the progressive aspects of the Deakinite era of pro-active national strategic policy making. 885 Coles effectively projected onto Menzies a beyond-Brookes neo-Deakinite pro-activity which simply wasn’t there (not in the early 1940’s).

Menzies did play an unwitting part in a very effective move against Fadden (but after Menzies’s own resignation). Winkler, as Alan Reid puts it, was driven: ‘to give

Menzies opponents… a taste of what they had dished out to the former Prime

Minister’.886 Green and most other observers at the time (and since) have allowed

Menzies to escape much of the blame for his anomic bringing-on of the Fadden coup. 887

Menzies, had he stood up to the rebels in August and September 1941 would have merely institutionalised what the majority of the UAP and Country Party were too politically disabled to grasp – that despite their misgivings, there would be no lasting conservative government without Menzies as Prime Minister. 888

882 H. Brookes to R.G. Menzies 15/6/41. Cited by A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :375. 883 See D. Day. 1999. John Curtin …:407; 418. 884 See H. Anderson (ed.). 2000. Tocsin: contesting the constitution, 1897 – 1901 . Hotham Hill, Red Rooster Press; also see A. Deakin, J. L Nauze (ed.) 1963. The Federal Story: the inner history of the Federal cause, 1880-1900 . Carlton, Melbourne University Press. 885 See D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :343; 396; 407; 415-418; A. Reid. 1982. ‘Memoir’ in W. Denning, Caucus Crisis: The Rise and Fall of the Scullin Government . Sydney, Hale & Iremonger. 886 A. Reid. 1980. ‘Prime Ministers…’366. 887 See F.C. Green. 1969. Servant of the House . : 122-123; also P. Hasluck. 1952 The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:614-615, under the heading Appendix 9 ‘The Winkler Affair’. 888 A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :380-381.

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Menzies’s own dream scenario (which he dreamed about from early 1941) was that the UAP would come to its senses and anoint one of his loyalists as a successor perhaps even with a nominal title of Deputy Prime Minister. 889 Menzies’s help-meet would also (as the fantasy went) overshadow Fadden and Page while supporting

Menzies’s London role. 890 Edwards while rightly stressing Curtin’s essential pragmatism misses out on fully stressing that Curtin’s political paradigm was built on doing what Curtin believed Menzies (sans fantasies) could and should have done. 891

Curtin’s caution about snatching office too early was also based on the fact that he was realistic enough to know that theoretically (at least) Menzies might have found his feet. 892 Curtin also knew that another conservative might emerge who could snatch a political victory from the jaws of a Labor Party that had been too quick to begin life as a minority government.893

The Coles-Wilson-Curtin political nexus that began definitively on 3/10/41 has been theoretically explicated in earlier chapters of this thesis as a shared deliberative but also neo-Deakinite cross-class policy coalition. 894 The two independents and Labor rejected the conservative’s bemused dismissal of local pro-activity as an answer to external threat to the polity. Menzies, Page, Casey and even inheritors of belief in aspects of neo-Deakinite national strategic pro-activity like Gullett (between 1938 and

1940) had given up as fatuously naïve such pro-active ideas as those that had been advocated during this period by Lord Mayor Coles. Realist professional politicians

889 D. Day. 1986. Menzies and Churchill at War …:191-223. 890 E. Holt. 1969. Politics is People …:28-29 also discusses the second London visit plan in this context. 891 Holt is sure that Menzies could have survived had he addressed several basic political issues. See E. Holt. 1969. Politics is People… :27-28; 30-32. 892 That is at anytime up to about early to mid-July 1941 possibly not later– on this point C. Kerr. 1983. Archie, the biography of Sir Archibald Grenfell Price . South Melbourne, Macmillan: 169-171. 893 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin …:393-394; K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies... :135f. 894 See Chapter 1.

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apparently just ‘knew’ that there just couldn’t be something like a repeating of the frenzied performance of 1914-1916 on recruitment. 895

Hasluck points out that there ‘were 200,000 medically fit men who had been called up for home defence training in the militia who were not in reserved occupations and who were free to volunteer for the AIF but did not choose to do so. 896 Hasluck points out, in defence of charges made about the lethargy of the Menzies government over military build-up that the new Labor government in early 1942 wanted to stand down some of the 113,687 troops then on home duty to boost munitions production. 897

The point about pre-1942 military lethargy was that had the conservatives gone all-out to induce another 50,000 to 75,000 of the 200,000 mentioned above to volunteer then Australia would have adequate troops to at least hold-off a Japanese exploratory thrust of the sort that came to New Guinea in 1942. Australia would have been more than adequately (i.e. minimally) defended in, Sturdee’s terms, if another 50,000 or so of the home militia had been adequately trained and equipped. 898 The issue of adequate air-cover remained. Day points out there were 77 fighter aircraft available for home defence in early 1942. 899 A considerable amount of effort would have been required during 1940 and 1941 to raise, train and equip two or three divisions for home defence. The level of pro-activity that would have been generated would have made it highly likely that several hundred additional decent fighter air-craft could have been procured and/or made here. 900

895 L. Robson. 1970. The First AIF: A Study of Its Recruitment. Carlton, University of Melbourne Press. 896 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 ... :400. 897 P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941 …:401. 898 See S.F. Rowell. 1966. ‘General Sturdee and the Australian Army’, Australian Army Journal August; D. Horner. 1982. ‘Australian Estimates for the Japanese Threat, 1904-1941’ in P.A. Towle (ed.) Estimating Foreign Military Power . London, Croom Helm; 899 D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War… :331. 900 J. McCarthy. 1976. Australia and Imperial Defence 1919-1939: A Study in Air and Sea Power …

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Curtin by 1941 was politically educated enough to realise that the political situation was conducive to the gaining of real concessions and real shifts in the often thought irreconcilable aspirations of the representatives of both capital and labour. Labor no longer saw the war-effort as an obstacle but rather as an opportunity to help it fulfil some of its wider aims. 901

Curtin despite later (and at the time) equal and opposite criticism by left and right wing commentators gave the middle classes something they would approve (in terms of war policy – more or less). Curtin was beginning to talk up the need for adequate home defence 902 C. Johnson has explored this consensual aspect of Curtin’s politics focusing on the motif of ‘social harmony’.903 ‘Social harmony’ implies an emphasis on a communitarian rather than a strictly ideological paradigm. 904

Fenna’s argument can be used to identify Wilson’s practical farm-gate demands as the third crucial ingredient if any cross-class policy coalition as to be successfully negotiated. Fenna notes that ‘the key argument based on European experience makes agrarian interest the key arbiter of social conflict during the initial period of industrialisation’ 905 Fenna argues that the farm export sector’s willingness to trade possible income for demand-side security always formed a key part of Australian cross- class policy alliances negotiated between the 1890s and the 1940s. 906

901 T. Fitzgerald. 1977. ‘An Education for Labor Leadership: The Case of Curtin’; Cf., F.G. Castles. 1985. The Working Class and Welfare . Sydney, Allen & Unwin. 902 Despite Sir Keith Murdoch. 19/7/43 cited in N. Lee. 1983. John Curtin. Saviour of Australia… :142 and for left-wing see J. Scott and Kay Saunders. 1993. ‘Happy Days Are Here Again? A Reply to David Potts’ Journal of Australian Studies 36: March: 10-22 or South Australian Worker 23/1/42 latter cited by D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :443 footnote 45. 903 C. Johnson. 1986. ‘Social Harmony and Australian Labor’ PhD Thesis, University of Adelaide. 904 See M. Sandel. 1998. ‘Deliberation, Difference and Democratic Institutions’ Government and Opposition 33:4:519-527. 905 A. Fenna. 1996. ‘Political Alignments, Political Economy and Political Change in Australia 1980- 1940’:74. 906 A. Fenna. 1996. ‘Political Alignments’:70. ‘State-Centred and Society-Centred Approaches.’

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Curtin in return for working for social harmony effected some redistribution, higher taxes on wealth (not just incomes) and gains by the public sector over the private. 907 Coles represented – literally as an MP and far more importantly as a local elite member ready, someone willing and able to do a cross-class policy deal. 908

Curtin’s dealings with Coles, particularly the ephemeral, vague and contradictory dealings they had during 1940 and 1941 acted (it is argued here) as a key catalyst for

Curtin to try to aim far higher than he had though he could if and when he became

Prime Minister. 909

Wilson, although the less glamorous of the two independents in terms of the possible permutations of cross-class policy alliances stuck this telling phrase into an otherwise very VWWGA like policy statement on 30/5/41:‘The Government should be capable of handling the domestic problems as well as those touching upon events overseas. The people expect it, and some action must be taken.’910

Fenna’s argument, if it is for the moment allowed is (like Cass’s argument) corrosive of those critiques that argue that a conservative-bourgeois, elite favouring and self-limiting approach characterised the cross-class policy-coalitions of the late colonial Radical era, the Deakinite/Lib-Lab era and beyond to the Curtin/Chifley

1940s. 911 Menzies, had he been Premier of Newfoundland, Northern Ireland or

Southern Rhodesia possibly could have somehow rationally contrived to have fruitfully spent as much or more time in London as he had and still hoped to.

907 See B. Cass. 1987. ‘Family Policy and the Tax/Transfer System’ Canberra Journal of Public Administration 51: May; also B. Cass. 1984. ‘Women, Children and the State: A Study of Child Endowment and Family Allowances in Australia 1916-1981’… 908 See D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :303.K. Williamson. 1984. The Last Bastion. Lansdowne Press, Sydney cites L. Ross. (1977) 1984. John Curtin… :212 saying Coles was seriously engaging with Labor. 909 See K. Tennant. 1981 (Revised edition). Evatt: Politics and Justice . Sydney, Angus & Robertson; S. Holt. 1996. A Veritable Dynamo: Lloyd Ross and Australian Labour 1901-1987 . St Lucia, University of Queensland Press. 910 CPD.Vol.167 30/5/41. 911 A. Fenna. 1996. ‘Political Alignments…’ and B. Cass. 1984. ‘Women, Children and the State…’

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McCarthy points out that it was this sort of failure to think autonomously that had led to the decision to focus on producing hundreds of trainers rather than fighters under the Empire Air Training Scheme! 912 Page’s influence, also cannot be under estimated as a reinforcer in Cabinet of decisions that looked good to him, Shedden and Menzies in 1937 or 1938 and still looked d good to them in 1940 and 1941. 913

Menzies’s rhetoric and grandstanding in his cables to London and the very fact of his deeply, awkwardly and eccentrically over-long stay only confirmed to everyone in

London that the Bruce-defeatist and Page self-limiting, peace-time focused terms of trade obsessed policy regime had not yet been replaced by a war focused one. 914

Menzies’s narcissistic delusion that some great role awaited him in London was in fact as close as he ever came to stumbling upon the role he should have played as facilitator of a less Americanised national strategic outcome for Australia. 915 Menzies did not have his eye on the strategic ball during 1941 and one explanation is that he was beyond neurosis and suffered from something like a temporarily disabling personality disorder. 916 Menzies’s intra-psychic feed-back loop of ego and rationalisation, if it had led him otherwise than it did, might possibly have seen him achieve an outcome at least

912 J. McCarthy. 1974. ‘The Defence of Australia and the Empire Air Training Scheme 1939-42’ Australian Journal of Politics and History 20:3: December. 913 E. Page. 1963. Truant Surgeon… :279-299. 914 See P.G. Edwards. 1980. ‘The Rise and Fall of the High Commissioner: S.M. Bruce in London, 1933-1945’ in A.F. Maddern and W.H. Morris-Jones (eds) Australia and Britain, Essays in a Changing Relationship . Sydney, Sydney University Press; D. Day. 1986. ‘Anzacs on the Run: The View from Whitehall 1941-42’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History May; J. McCarthy. 1974. ‘Australia: A View from Whitehall 1939-45’, Australian Outlook , December. 915 See J. Robertson. 1977. ‘Australian War Policy 1939-1945’:504. 916 See J. Brett. 1992. Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People… : 239-241; 244-257. Also D. Langmore. 1997. Glittering Surfaces . : 121-2; 143-144; 172-173; 203-204.

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as much in Australia’s national interest as the outcome Curtin cobbled together in

1942. 917

Coles and Wilson were in two minds over whether to choose Curtin or Menzies in mid-1941 – as has been indicated in examining their words, actions and context (above).

Coles remained the lynch-pin of whether the two independents would cross the floor due to his possession of greater conservative legitimacy (as argued above). Coles, as

July turned into August during 1941 was also cognisant of Wilson’s greater predilection towards Labor and Wilson’s political dependency on Labor for electoral survival. 918

Coles always had to keep in mind what might preserve his maximum amount of bargaining power and acting in tandem with Wilson would certainly do this.

Coles could be much surer that Labor would hold to a neo-Deakinite industry policy agenda for wheat as part of the revolutionary total mobilisation of the socio-economy he envisaged. Coles had to calculate that Wilson might possibly be swayed by a reasonable deal offered to him by the Country Party – if it went some way to meeting his left-wing of the VWWGA type ambit claims. Wilson, too, could be surer that Labor would not renege on any wheat deal but if he couldn’t persuade Coles to be really prepared to use his vote as a bargaining chip then he might be forced to accept second best from non-Labor. Page actually did respond quite generously to Cullen’s and Wilson’s calls for additional assistance at this time 919 On 30/5/41, in more of a speech already cited Wilson said:

I feel compelled to draw the attention of the Government to the extremely difficult times being experienced in the wheat growing areas of Australia. I appreciate the fact that the Government has not been

917 D. Blair. 2002. ‘Our conservative wartime leaders: the complex truth’; Cf., J.J. Dedman. 1967. ‘Defence Policy Decisions Before Pearl Harbour’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 13:3: December. 918 K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies…:144-145. 919 See E. Page. 1963. Truant Surgeon . : 241f.

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unmindful of the difficulties of the growers, and has already rendered substantial assistance to them; but the extreme conditions prevailing to- day, due to drought, loss of payment in respect and other difficulties brought about by war conditions, have placed… them in a very serious plight… there is a shortage of man-power in the industry, and above all, there is a movement which threatens to deprive many of these people of their holdings… their means of livelihood… the savings of a lifetime. …An advance has been paid, but a further payment could be safely made. The wheat-growers’ organisations have been suggesting that the sum of £1,000,000, which was provided as a bounty for those who had crop failures last year, be supplemented by the granting of a further sum of money. 920

It is improbable that the Country Party would open the policy floodgates when it believed its longer-term survival would be threatened by such action, especially given the instability of the UAP backbench. 921 Page, Fadden and most of the

Country Party (but not Coles) seemed to honestly believe that it was patently incorrect to say that Australia (at any time from 1935 to 1942) would have been able to so equip itself to be able to see off a middle sized invasion by Japan - or even hold it off for several months. 922 In theory, Menzies, Page or Fadden or many another conservatives were as capable as Curtin was of producing the leadership necessary to produce a half-way decent national strategic outcome from the war.

Coles had to calculate that a Country Party dominated coalition was much more likely to give Wilson what he most wanted (a wheat deal) rather than what he (Coles) most wanted – massive mobilisation. Robertson cuts to the chase of what a half-way decent strategy had boiled down to by late 1941:

920 CPD.Vol.167 30/5/41:83. 921 G. Shipp. 1962. ‘The Bruce-Page Coalition, 1922-1925: An Analysis’ Australasian Political Studies Association Conference Papers: 4. 922 M. Evans. 2000. ‘Developing Australia’s Maritime Concept of Strategy: Lessons from the Ambon Disaster of 1942….’; D. Walker. 1999. Australia and the Rise of Asia 1850-1939 . St Lucia, University of Queensland Press.

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One of the aims of a war policy ought to be to retain control of the use made of the nation’s warriors, and to see that they are not sacrificed on forlorn hopes or unimportant sideshows 923

Coles and Wilson were ‘drifting’, as Day recounts, towards the view that Labor represented a better than half-way acceptable path to achieving a half-way acceptable national strategic outcome. 924 Coles’s positive statements about Curtin have already been cited and quoted as have some of Coles’s and Wilson’s positive statements about

Labor’s holistic approach to national policy making. Archibald Price, the Eggleston of his generation (of sorts) and immensely important symbol (as victor of the Boothby by- election) of Menzies’s supposed capacity to keep going said this of Coles in mid-1941:

Arthur Coles was an extraordinary fellow. He made a line for me soon after my arrival, and was bitterer against Menzies than I could have possibly imagined anyone could be. I formed the impression that he felt Menzies had not recognised his great worth, and he thought he would be a better Prime Minister. Later when Menzies appointed him chairman of a committee, he made a complete swing and could not praise Menzies sufficiently. 925

Fenna may be correct about Labor from the 1890s to the 1940s taking the initiative and using rather than being used by the centrists in terms of home socio-economic policy settings. – It was the centrists, however, (Deakin, Hughes etc.,) who took the initiative over a pro-active foreign policy that was do-able and realistic with

Australia acting within the wider matrix of British power and interests. 926 The survivors from the ranks of both the Deakinites and Hughesites, as well as their neo-Deakinite successors like Gullett and Coles had little influence from 1922

923 See J. Robertson. 1977. ‘Australian War Policy 1939-1945’:504. 924 See D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War…:136-143. 925 C.S Kerr. 1983. Archie: the biography of Sir Archibald Grenfell Price . South Melbourne. Macmillan: 171-172. 926 See C.M.H. Clark. 1987. A History of Australia ‘The Old Dead Tree… Press: 162-195 ‘A Hayseed Topples the Little Digger’.

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until 1941. The conservative parties policy on national security and regional strategy had been dominated by the politics of fiscal meanness with its attendant rhetoric about Britain being able to do all that would be necessary. 927

Coles provides no better example of this gulf between the neo-Deakinite approach and the approach of fiscal meanness/ relying on big brother than in an Anzac

Day address he gave in 1941:

The whole record of war shows that unless you are prepared in advance, you have no choice. You can’t scratch up materials and men at the last moment because mechanised armies will rollover you. The crying need for Australia is to push out of the road those people who are giving wrong advice – those who are saying, ‘We can’t be attacked’. I do say we can be. There is a wide plan that threatens us. Japan and Russia have a pact, and Stukas will be able to bomb Indo-China. We’ve got to be armed and fully prepared; the Japanese are a member of the Axis just as much as any. The test is very close now, but time is with us, if we take advantage of it immediately. Since I’ve returned I’ve been told we are making the maximum effort with the raw materials at our disposal. If we believe that, it is defeatism. We’ve unlimited raw materials if we like to use them. We’ve only got to transfer workers in luxury productions to war materials. In Britain they take that view. In Britain food and clothing are rationed as well as many other goods. Here we have petrol rationing and we object to it! Employers in England have to do as they’re told and make a living as best they can. After all, soldiers are only getting nominal pay; why should citizens get more? 928

By mid-1940 the key Australian centrists with direct roles to play in the national strategic policy making process were all outside parliament. The pro-activity of these centrists to some extent had already counteracted the lethargy and timidity of the professional conservative politicians. 929 The problem for those conservative MPs still treating war policy in this way by mid-1941 was that Coles was still among them.

927 J. McCarthy. 1976. Australia and Imperial Defence, 1918-1939; a study in air and sea power . St.Lucia, University of Queensland Press. 928 Coles speaking as guest of honour at the Anzac Day ceremony at Sandringham – reported in Sandringham News 2/5/41. 929 See H.C. Coombs. 1983. Trial Balance . : 3-11, which he entitles ‘The Keynesian crusade’.

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Pro-active centrist activity was to be found in some associates of business people like C.D. Kemp. 930 Centrist, pro-active national strategic sentiment was also to be found in local government as exemplified by Coles’s opponent Mayor Young of Brighton with his ‘Young Plan’.931 Sir Herbert Gepp as well as Coles exemplified many owners and elite managers of capital deeply committed to another round of nation-building private and public sector infrastructure development.932 Centrist intellectuals were also to be found in planning agencies like the Commonwealth Bank and private banks, the

Universities, the press and the ranks of the armed forces. 933 Wilson’s vision was

(however) only slightly less global:

The new year still finds the world in the grip of war, with our own Empire still striving for maintenance of our democratic ideals and, we believe, of our Christian civilisation. There can be no turning back not do we desire it with such principles at stake… We in Australia are fortunate in being far removed from the hub of conflict, thereby enabling us to carry on our daily tasks in safety. We are also fortunate (as) we live in a country richly endowed to meet every reasonable human requirement. Despite adverse seasonal and climatic conditions there is no need for hardship to be suffered by any of our people. To all who are finding the going difficult, because of economic or financial considerations, I would assure them not to give up the fight, but to take heart, for I am convinced that those working for reforms in Government and finance will meet with substantial measures of success in the coming year. 934

Labor offered the centrists use of a pro-active public sector which would not remain dependent on just the voluntary cooperation of the private sector and of

930 See D.A. Kemp. 1963. ‘The Institute of Public Affairs, 1942-47’, BA Honours Thesis, University of Melbourne; R.F Doner and B.R Schneider. 2000. ‘Business Associates and Economic Development: Why Some Associations Contribute More Than Others’, Business and Politics 2:3:261-285. 931 Young circularised 13,000 elected local councillors from around Australia. 932 See M. Robinson. 1987. ‘Labor and Market Forces: Labor Party Views on the Economic Role of Government from the 1940s to 1970s’…; R. Eccleston. 2000. ‘The Significance of Business Interest Associations in Economic Policy Reform: The Case of Australian Taxation Policy’ Journal of Business and Politics 2:3:309-325. 933 See D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :250-252. 934 Wilson, New Years Message printed in Mount Wycheproof Ensign 17/1/41.

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individuals to achieve key national goals. 935 All that Labor required was symbolic legitimation and the numbers in parliament. Coles was beginning to provide some of this legitimation as is revealed by his comments about a particular Labor cause normally thought ultra-illegitimate in the judgement of most bourgeois and petit-bourgeois:

Labour in Britain is willingly allowing itself to be regimented and many changes have taken place, humane changes, which have brought about a good feeling. As an example, dock workers, whose work is usually intermittent, now draw a weekly wage. If we had carried on in a humanitarian way we would not have experienced the labour troubles we have. In Britain people of all ranks are working together on a level. Until Australia can get objective thinking, and until we get rid of people seeking sectional benefits, we are simply not going to arrive! 936

Chapter 1 argues that it might be possible to apply Beiner’s deliberative theory to the situation Curtin found himself in 1940-1941. Beiner’s deliberative theory is informed by a liberal-conservative concept of the superior utility of those political judgements entered into via a process of consensual decision-making. 937

Curtin (it is argue here) took the opportunity of the hung-parliament (and the partial suspension of the two-party system) to enter into (play along with) the sensibilities of the two independents. 938 The two independents had their practical-real- politic agendas as well – and these have been detailed at great length above in this present chapter (and passim). Curtin obviously also had to deal with Coles and Wilson in terms of parliamentary pay-offs, side-payments and their wider ideological goals. 939

Curtin as Day and other biographers point out held to an almost phenomenological world-view and gained intimations from poetry as much as from

935 R. Eccleston. 2000. ‘The Significance of Business Associations…’…:321. 936 Coles’s speech at a ‘Men’s Meeting’ held at Old Moorabbin Town Hall under the auspices of the Progress Association in the week of 11-15/6/41. Reported in the Sandringham News 15/6/41. 937 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement… :129-152. 938 See D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War… :136; 177. 939 See P. Loveday. 1970. ‘Support in Return for Concessions…’…; H.K. Colebatch. 1992. ‘Theory and Analysis…’…

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socialist doctrine. 940 Curtin’s journalistic instincts and relatively frequent experience of electoral defeat and parliamentary frustration also allowed him to be attuned to conservative cultural sensibilities about deliberativeness particularly as experienced from the back bench. 941 Coles held off from fully trusting his political judgement about

Curtin’s sincerity of purpose about means because of the better ends mellifluously communicated to him when Menzies outlined his imaginative and pro-active Imperial strategy in South East Asia. 942

Menzies’s great historical failure was his failure of political imagination – his strategic vision while unquestionably more realistic and pro-active had no practical means of ever being carried out. 943 Menzies, even if had he not been smitten with hubris (and perhaps a worse intra-psychic affliction), also laboured with a massive political learning disability due to his remaining a captive of the economic vision of the inter-war two party system.

Curtin, Menzies’s chief opponent, did not share in the same intellectual outlook of the mostly younger generation of conservatives who adumbrated about how draining on the operation of the free-market had been tariffs, old age pensions and the Harvester

Judgement.944 Curtin was a crucial fifteen crucial years older than Menzies, who was

940 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin …:577-578; I. Dowsing. 1969. Curtin of Australia . Melbourne, Acacia Press: 1-20; J. Thompson. ‘John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister’. ABC Radio Tape as cited by D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :380:fn. 26. On a link between Curtin’s personal ethos and the wider sense of traditional solidarity and moral philosophy discussed in Chapter 1 see C. Day. 1968. Reason’s Double Agents. The Uses of Reason in Poetry Illustrated in the Works of Donne, Jonson, Pope, Tate, Winters, and Berryman. Chapel Hill, The University of Carolina Press. 941 See K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies… :115-122. 942 As evidenced by the letter A.W. Coles to Menzies 25/6/41 quoted from above, as found in A.W. Martin. 1993. Menzies… :370. 943 See A.W. Martin. 1993. Menzies… :372-374. 944 E.g., K. Hancock. (1929) 1963. Australia!

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the archetypical inter-war young-fogey. 945 CMH Clark, Horne and others have argued that Menzies operated as ‘a political dandy of the Edwardian kind’.946

Menzies was in fact very up to date – as most successful as opposed to most nationally beneficial politicians always are.947 Menzies was an opportunist and pleader of what he thought were plausible arguments whereas Curtin felt he had a definite agenda to attend to before the partisan electoral cycle turned once again to do- nothingness. 948 Menzies, ironically, has received considerable praise for his so-called historical prescience in gradually developing, over 1942-1945, his centrist-Keynesian

‘forgotten people’ crusade. 949 Menzies, in fact, may eventually be remembered in

Australian and British late-Imperial history for his failure to adopt such a stance early enough – between 1939 and 1941. 950

Menzies, had he made this mental revolution before most others would not only deserve the praise he (often) still receives but would have then had the political means to give effect to the bolder aspects of his war-policy. 951 As it was had Menzies survived as Prime Minister into 1942 it is possible to argue that he might have taken what Wigmore calls the ‘well-meaning advice of Churchill and

Roosevelt’ over diverting the returning elements of the AIF to Burma. 952 Menzies might then have faced the penetration of Japanese troops quicker into Papua (than actually happened) and possibly too some other exploratory landings along the Derby-

945 C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed…:1-11-103. 946 P. Keating. 2002. Sydney Morning Herald 5/7. Reproduced at http://www.smh.com.au/articles/ 2002/07/08/1025667113933.html. D. Horne. 1964. The Lucky Country… :158. 947 D. Horne. 1964. The Lucky Country …:155-158. 948 See E. Holt. 1969. Politics is People . : 132f. 949 Eg, G. Henderson. 1994. Menzies Child The Liberal Party of Australia . Sydney, Allen & Unwin: E. Holt. 1969. Politics is People . : P. Joske. 1978. Sir Robert Menzies 1894-1978, a new informal memoir. London, Angus & Robertson. 950 On this point see A. Watson. 1965. ‘Circumstances surrounding the resignation of R.G. Menzies from the Australian Prime Ministership in August 1941’. BA Honours Thesis, University of Sydney. 951 See D. Day. 1988. The Great Betrayal . , and D. Day. 1986. Menzies and Churchill at War ... Menzies might not have even taken out of the Middle East in the first place. 952 L. Wigmore. 1952. The Japanese Thrust ...:38.

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Cooktown quadrant. In war, initial exploratory success can often lead to decisions to turn a small tactical advantage into a bigger, strategic advantage. Despite both Labor history and conservative revisionist accounts, Australia could have faced several years of wholesale fighting of hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops on its own soil. 953

Menzies, had his real agenda been able to manifest itself, would have been free to go to London permanently, as he apparently planned to do at some stage. Menzies knew of rumours of a coup being hatched in July. 954 The coup would be so timed so as to deprive Menzies of the better than even chance he was thought to have of being able to survive in office at least until the end of the Summer parliamentary recess in April

1942. Coles left no record of how he would have reacted had Menzies still managed to go to London as Prime Minister in late 1941. There is some reason to believe (as argued just above) that Coles would have supported Menzies, as he said in his letter of late June – ‘through thick and thin’.955

Coles would somehow have to have restrained his dislike of Fadden and supported his remaining as Acting Prime Minister through what we know (in hindsight) would have been the Fall of Singapore and Pearl Harbour. 956 Menzies would have had to really perform well, however, and come home with the miracle of the (actually impossible to get) extra help from Britain. Menzies, at the very least, would have had to come home and perform like the war-leader he had persuaded Coles he always wanted to be.

953 This is spelled out in L. Wigmore. 1952. The Japanese Thrust …:50f. 954 See P. Spender. 1972. Politics and a Man …:158. 955 Coles to Menzies. 25/6/41 in Menzies Family Papers (not in ANL Menzies Papers) and cited by A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies... :371. 956 See K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies... :139-145 and Archibald Price as quoted above from C.S. Kerr. 1983. Archie… 171-172.

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Coles’s discourse, as we have record of it today, tends to reinforce the idea that

Menzies’s desire to go to London was always understood by Coles and Curtin (among others) to be a sort of hysterical face-saving rationalisation. 957 Curtin, Coles and many others who at various times had been sympathetic to Menzies’s argument that it might be best if he stayed on appear to have reached cut-off points of deep frustration with him. 958 In Curtin’s case Menzies’s obsession about London became too much and he put a sound end to further cooperation on this with his curt parliamentary statement of

21/8/41:

Yesterday the Prime Minister (Mr Menzies) made to the House a statement in which he indicated substantially the purposes governing the summoning of Parliament. Whilst the right honourable gentleman reviewed, very shortly and generally, the state of the war in its various theatres, he directed attention particularly to the Far East, and to the decision of the Government that it was desirable that the Prime Minister of Australia should immediately re-visit England. The reason for my making a short statement now is that he did not feel disposed to act upon that decision of the Cabinet, because of the balance of parties in Parliament. The words that he used were – Having regard to the balance of parties in Parliament, I have indicated that it would not be practicable for me to go abroad at present except with the approval of all parties – This morning, the Federal Parliamentary Labour party assembled, and adopted the following declaration: The Labour Party declares – (1) that, having regard to the gravity of the war as it affects the Commonwealth, it is essential for Australia to have its Prime Minister here to direct the administration in the organisation of a total war effort, and therefore we are opposed to the present proposal that the Prime Minister (Mr Menzies) should proceed to London as Prime Minister;…959

Menzies only went to London as Prime Minister in late 1940 with Curtin’s blessing and specific promise not to force a change of government. 960 Curtin’s refusal to give such a guarantee again in late mid-1941 indicates that there was a probable new

957 See K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies… :87-258. 958 Curtin reached one such point on the day of Menzies’s report in parliament on his overseas trip – as related by K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies ...:116. 959 CPD.Vol.168 12/8/41:77. Italics in original Hansard. 960 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin …:371-377.

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private understanding between himself and Coles (or at least Wilson) that this time

‘Merciless Ming’ would have to come up with the goods of genuine national leadership.

Conclusion:

The point is, as is shown by the discourse of both independents (examined above in this chapter) there was a point beyond which (like Curtin) they could no longer accept Menzies’s brilliantly put words as a substitute for action. Wilson needed little excuse due to the relatively brutal treatment he knew the Page Country Party meted out to dissidents. Wilson also knew that with the capacity to put Curtin into power he had at last the sort of quid pro quo dreamed of any single-issue independent. Wilson, however, was constrained by the fact that without Coles’s support Curtin would not sensibly ask for his vote as this would probably lead to a general election.

Until early to mid-1942 Labor could not be sure that it would win such an election especially as this would probably force the conservatives to promote to the fore talent like Coles who would be likely to convince enough people that they at last meant business. Coles’s attitude, therefore, was the key. Coles was even more the key if

Curtin who (unlike Menzies) knew what was required to lead an effective war-time government decided that is what he wanted to do. Coles’s and Wilson’s holding of the balance of power presented Curtin with the serendipitous opportunity to govern as a consensus Prime Minister. Curtin as a consensus Prime Minister would be relatively free of the deadening restraints of the various idiosyncratic factions, tendencies and approaches which had prevented Labor winning a decisive victory in 1940.

Chapter 6 has had as one of its main purposes to establish that Coles had an ideological commitment to the Australian war effort that completely overrode any personal guarantees he might have made to Menzies if circumstances indicated that

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Menzies could or would not facilitate such a war effort. – Coles’s views on this were tempered by his realisation that Menzies had a better grasp of the realities of Imperial and world power politics.

Coles also knew that Curtin would be even further hampered in setting policy so as to maximise Australia’s capacity to get more than it might out of the realities of

Anglo-American rivalry and out of the war situation. Coles often clashed in parliament with Labor MPs who displayed an irredentist and often completely impractical attitude when policy was being discussed. Coles never put it like this (in public) but he was realistic enough to know that even in an essentially defensive war some policy moves needed to be sold to the public so as to not make it obvious that their real purpose was naked national self-interest and not just some sentimental idea of defending the soil of the homeland.

Chapter 6 has also sought to explicitly interrelate the more personality driven and traditional political history themes mentioned in the Introduction to Chapter 3 with the fourth theme also mentioned there – Coles’s and Wilson’s neo-Deakinism.

Considerable evidence and argument was put in the text (and cited in notes) that Coles and Wilson need to be understood in their socio-economic context as representing underlying ideological and structural forces at work in Australian (and world) society at that time. Coles and Wilson’s policy alliance with Labor and not Menzies’s ‘forgotten people’ crusade needs to be understood as the key mid-century facilitative political accommodation between capital, labour and agriculture. The later ‘Albury miracle’ and consequent 1949 new-look neo-Deakinite Liberal-Country Party was politically parasitic upon the cross-class policy coalition beginning to be negotiated in mid-1940 by two independent MPs whom history still tends to write off as irrelevant cranks.

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Chapter Seven: The Political Crisis in Canberra from late August to early October 1941

Introduction.

This final chapter focuses on events during late August, September and early

October 1941 from the perspective of Coles and Wilson. This period saw the resignation of Menzies as Prime Minister, his replacement by Fadden and Curtin’s succession to Fadden. Coles’s and Wilson’s votes were necessary to secure the defeat of the non-Labor government. Curtin maintained Coles’s and Wilson’s support and did not go to an election until the expiration of the sixteenth parliament in late 1943.

A key issue to be examined in this chapter is Coles’s motive in deciding, once

Menzies resigned, to positively support only John Curtin over any conservative as

Prime Minister. Coles’s motives in making this judgement, according to Hasluck,

Fadden and the majority view, could more or less be put down to the nihilistic meddling and politically amateur place-seeking. Fadden’s view was typical of someone whose only access to power came via his role in the Country Party. Fadden, therefore, depended on a situation in which independent MPs could not upset the normal dynamics of the Australian two-party system.

Wilson’s motives have been addressed in Chapters 4 and 5 and can be seen to be an extension of the radical agrarian and Labor policy coalition which had operated in

Victoria since 1936. The Wilson-Coles relationship and its ideological dimension will be further analysed in the course of this chapter. A key issue is how far was Coles prepared to follow Wilson in violating the conservative taboo instituted by Deakin in 1909 against consorting with Labor ? Coles’s longstanding anti-appeasement and pro re-armament views have already been put forward as a key motivation as to why

Coles went into Federal parliament.

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Coles, as revealed in Chapter 4 exercised his political judgement and decided that

Menzies was shaping up as a pro-active and otherwise successful war leader. Coles’s thought-processes in making this judgement have already been conjectured upon in

Chapter 6. Coles, right up to Menzies’s forced resignation in late August 1941, believed that Menzies would soon initiate total mobilisation of civilian and military resources.

This chapter also traces how Coles reacted to Menzies’s resignation as Prime

Minister and how this related to his dealings with Wilson, Curtin and Fadden. Chapter

7 throws further light on whether the actions of Coles and Wilson will still prove to have been less important than the inexorable cyclical shift that occurs within the

Australian two-party system when the bloc in power falters and the party in opposition then takes its turn in government.

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Chapter 6 argued that Coles’s judgement in regard to Menzies’s competence as national war-leader was not as idiosyncratic as might at first appear. Menzies as late as

September 1941 and indeed later was still widely regarded as the most competent person to act as Australia’s representative in the international councils that were deciding the key issues relating to the war. 961 Menzies still commanded at least half the votes in the UAP as was shown by his subsequent role as leader of the National Service

Group.962

Coles knew through Wilson and Wilson’s contacts with Evatt and through his own contacts with Labor MPs that some in the Federal parliamentary Labor Party had already committed themselves to total mobilisation.963 Evatt throughout early and mid-

1941 had made it plain that he was in favour of a national government precisely because such a government would probably be the only way to achieve total civilian and military mobilisation along British lines. 964 Menzies was probably going to be the person most likely to lead such a government – as Evatt thought, at any rate, in

April/May 1941. Menzies’s subsequent nose-dive in popularity and the campaign to replace him with Fadden did not become inexorable until early July 1941. 965

Evatt did not abandon until 1943 the idea of a British style national government – albeit one led by himself. 966 Curtin by this time had finally succeeded in reining in

Evatt’s overweening and restless ambition. 967 Coles, like Evatt, Hughes and many other key probable members of such a national government continued to think until well past

October 1941 that a still quite likely eventual outcome would be a national government.

961 See D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War. Australia in the War of 1939-45: From Churchill to MacArthur . Pymble, Harper Collins: 120-143. 962 See A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies: A Life… :356-181. 963 See A. Calwell. 1972. Be Just and Fear Not… :78-87. 964 See P. Crockett. 1993. Evatt: A Life… :93f; J. Rickard. 1993. ‘The vanity of Dr Evatt’ Age 4/12/:9. 965 This is the argument of A.W. Martin. 1993. in Menzies… :381-385. 966 See D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War… :348-352; 388-410; 680-681. 967 See D. Day. 2003:680-681.

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Menzies was thought unlikely to lead such a government but most assumed he would still be a key member. 968 Menzies would then be free, either as Prime Minister or not, to undertake his cherished project of constant travelling between Britain and Australia in order to help bring about more pro-active British policy in the Far East. 969

The anti-Menzies activists in the conservative parties realised by late June 1941 that their chance had come when Murdoch joined the growing press campaign to oust

Menzies. 970 Fadden, Hughes, Page, Spender and even minor players like Spooner and

McEwen all realised that any grab for the top job with prospects for a long hold on it would be best timed to coincide with Menzies’s immediate successor holding office during the deterioration of the situation with Japan. 971

Whitington points out that the ultimate aim of all the press barons (save perhaps

Norton) was a British style national government. 972 The main problem for Menzies by the latter weeks of July 1941 was that Murdoch, Sir Sydney Snow and Sir Errol Knox

(among others) had also come to see Menzies as incapable of either bringing about or heading-up such a government. 973

Fadden and a few other Fadden-mates now in Cabinet or destined to Cabinet if

‘Artie’ got-up were really the only people in Cabinet or on the conservative backbench who were staking a lot on the prospect that Menzies might not effect some sort of political resurrection. 974 Curtin’s rejection on 20 th August 1941 of Menzies’s plan to go

968 See A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :378. See D. Zwar. 1982. In Search of Keith Murdoch… :34. 969 See A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :330-380. 970 See A.W. Martin. 1993:378. 971 A. Reid. 1980. ‘Some Prime Ministers…’ D. Whitington. 1979. An Unfinished Autobiography… :61f; 75-85f. 972 D. Whitington. 1979. Strive to be fair… :61; 85-87. 973 See A.W. Martin. 1993. Menzies A Life… :377-379. Also see C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed… :238. 974 ‘Jos’ (Josiah) Francis a UAP MHR from Queensland who effectively acted as Fadden’s parliamentary secretary. Hattil Foll, a Queensland Anti-Menzies UAP Senator and Fadden-mate was the only addition to the Fadden Cabinet (on 29/10/41).

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to London was partly Curtin’s decision to deny Menzies a chance at yet another Lazarus like resurrection. Menzies was anxious to affect a side-step to London even if he couldn’t arrange this before he was ousted. 975 The point was Curtin realised that if

Menzies went to London while still Prime Minister he could actually achieve something there that might prove popular back home.

Edgar Holt, though biased in Menzies’s favour, is right in saying that in early August most Press Gallery journalists thought that Curtin might well wait out the life of the parliament, especially if Menzies remained Prime Minister! Holt also justly points out that these are the same journalists who all claim they thought Menzies was finished in September 1941 -yet only a month before they had thought he would survive into the Summer Recess. 976

Menzies, had he gone again to London would have been in a slightly better position to pull some sort of a rabbit out of the hat, even if he didn’t survive a subsequent coup after returning. Hughes had more or less postponed his inevitable demise for well over two years by going on overseas trips 977 A key point about

Menzies was that his career between 1934 and 1941 – well before the so called ‘Albury miracle’ – had also seen him enjoy a succession of quite good political luck. Five or six times between 1938 and 1941 Menzies had already come back from the political dead.

Menzies had survived contests with highly credible and far more popular rivals, problematic election results, major party splits as well as fending off the manic and sustained opposition of ‘Doc’ Page. 978

The majority of the discontented UAP backbench (fifteen or so MPs and double this number of Senators), the even smaller Country Party backbench (five or so MPs

975 See E. Holt. 1969. Politics is People… :29. 976 See E. Holt. 1969. Politics is People… :27-30. 977 E. Holt. 1969:25-32 See C.M.H. Clark. 1987. A History of Australia ‘The Old Dead Tree… : 162-195. 978 G. Henderson. 1994. Menzies’ Child… ; P. Joske. 1978. Sir Robert Menzies…

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and as many Senators) and Menzies’s jealous Cabinet rivals had judged it more politic to stick with Menzies throughout these crises. The UAP and Country Party each time the opportunity had arisen to get rid of Menzies, still hadn’t disposed of him!

Coles, unlike Evatt, even after Menzies’s resignation as Prime Minister, continued to think Menzies would have been the best person to lead an all-party government.979

Coles’s views on this point had already been made clear to Spooner, one of those hoping to leap-frog by default to either the Prime Ministership or at least to Olympian- status as a senior member of some future all-party national government:

I think it’s fair to say, I was in a state of turmoil. I was very worried that we were not doing our part. I was certain that the war would expand, that it only required one little accident by America and that Japan would be in and we were so vulnerable and when Mr Menzies came back he made a speech in the Town Hall in Sydney promising more war effort. I pledged myself to him in writing. I said that if he carries out the programme which he said he would do in that speech…980

Coles continued:

I pledged myself to him through thick and thin to take away the danger of a hostile vote and to my amazement two months later his resignation had been forced. Now I was in a position to know what had been going on. I’m not going to give you the names of politicians or members of Cabinet. I don’t want to libel anybody or create that sort of feeling but I was especially asked what my reaction would be if the Prime Minister resigned and I said, ‘Has he indicated that he is going to resign?’ ‘Oh not yet’ ‘That means you are going to force him in Cabinet?’ ‘I wouldn’t put it that way.’ I said, ‘If you do this thing you lose my support.’ They did it. 981

Menzies’s own diary for his trip to London mentions Coles only twice. 982

Menzies’s further privately recorded recollections during late August 1941 indicate that

979 See Sir Arthur Coles interview with Mel Pratt. 19-24/5/71… ANL: ORAL TRC 121/17…1:1/17. 980 Sir Arthur Coles interview with Mel Pratt. 19-24/5/71… ANL: ORAL TRC 121/17…1:2/26. 981 Sir Arthur Coles interview with Mel Pratt. 19-24/5/71… ANL: ORAL TRC 121/17…1:2/26. Coles later in the Pratt interview reveals this interlocutor to have to be Spooner at ANL: ORAL TRC 121/17…:1:2/40. 982 These two diary entries were quoted in full in Chapter 5. The key entry records Menzies ambivalence about Coles.

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he regarded Coles with ambivalence – indeed he regarded Coles as among his ‘critics’

(as quoted above in Chapter 5). Coles, however, indicates that while in London he got to talk regularly with Menzies:

I stayed at the Dorchester Hotel. Mr Menzies was staying there and we used to have breakfast together quite often when he was about and he gave me three commissions to carry out for him personally which gave me a further insight into the war organisation in England. 983

Coles indicated in an interview with Kevin Perkins that it was not until September

1941 before he too lost patience with Menzies:

Why does a man, when faced with a great challenge in his life, resign? Is it because he believes another man can do a better job in the circumstances? Or is it because he himself feels inadequate to meet the crisis? In the opinion of Arthur Coles – today Sir Arthur Coles, retired, of Toorak, Melbourne – the resignation of the Prime Minister at that time was not an act of courage. ‘He threw the towel in,’ he says, ‘but what a time to throw it in!’984

Perkins’s paraphrase of Coles continues:

Sir Arthur thought then, and still does, that the Prime Minister should have stood up to his critics. He himself was solidly behind the Prime Minister at the time and believed he was the only man who could lead Australia. Menzies had the knowledge and the ability, and the Australian people were scared and looking for leadership. 985

Chapter 6 also argued that key conservatives like Page and Hughes had probably already reconciled themselves to a period of political instability after Menzies’s removal as Prime Minister. 986 Curtin was also initially sceptical of his chances of surviving by depending on Coles’s support. 987 Page and Hughes were not alone in judging that a

983 Sir Arthur Coles interview with Mel Pratt. 19-24/5/71… ANL: ORAL TRC 121/17…1:2/18. 984 Text of K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies, Last of the Queen’s Men… :138. 985 Text of K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies, Last of the Queen’s Men… :138. 986 A. Reid. 1980. ‘Some Prime Ministers…’365. 987 See L. Ross. 1996. John Curtin… :190-210.

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weak Labor government would be forced one way or another into following a highly activist war programme. 988

Curtin had gradually come to realise that a Labor government might need to wage a British style total-war. Curtin realised that the total-war’s ‘hard-edge’ could well be fought in the steamy jungles of South East Asia and not on the (by 1941 vacated) ‘Western –front’ - as Brennan in 1940 had called it. 989 Curtin appears to have waited to take power until such time as he judged it possible to bring forward this shift towards a total-war policy without splitting the party. 990 Curtin already would have had Wilson’s support if Labor had ever won a by-election and/or wanted a forced election or still needed his support after such an election. 991

Curtin gained Coles’s support between Menzies’s resignation and before Fadden was voted out of office but not for the petty reasons Fadden suggests. 992 Coles gave his support for the same reason Fadden attributed to Wilson’s giving his support to Labor, i.e. mutual policy deal-making. Fadden’s view was that backbenchers should not bother themselves with matters of high policy and that any who did so were meddling in affairs beyond their legitimate scope. Coles did not share Fadden’s views on this matter.

Wilson and then Coles came to believe Evatt, Curtin and other senior Labor MPs when they promised a genuinely greater war-effort than anything achieved to date.

Wilson had a growing and open political friendship with Evatt as evidenced by the

Wren-Evatt-Dyett-Wilson link mentioned in an earlier chapter. Stress needs to be placed on Wilson’s need to gain some hope that Evatt would provide even more pork-barrel pay-offs than non-Labor was now (mysteriously) prepared to

988 See P. Crockett. 1993. Evatt: A Life… :88-93f. 989 See L. Ross. (1977) 1996. John Curtin…:230f (See Brennan as quoted in Chapter 4). 990 See D. Day. 1999. John Curtin… :403-415. 991 D. Day. 1999. John Curtin A Life… :414. See A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :68. 992 A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :68-71.

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offer. Wilson was still under pressure from the more conservative oriented local press to deliver the local goods. 993 Wilson, particularly during the period of the

Fadden government began to receive glowing coverage in the Sunraysia Daily which no longer pilloried his irresponsibility and suddenly began praising him as a hard working honest-broker! The partly Page owned Sunraysia Daily announced in mega headline:

‘Important Announcement for Mildura by Minister for Air Today’.994 The Sunraysia

Daily article of 3/9/41 continued:

In a conversation with the Editor of the Sunraysia Daily last night Mr Alex Wilson MHR for Wimmera said that the Minister for Air (Mr McEwen) would make an announcement of special interest to Mildura today. Mr Wilson said that he knew the text of the statement and it would be splendid news for this city and district. He would possibly have further comment to make on his arrival here on Thursday with Dr Evatt, who is to address a meeting in Mildura. 995

Chapters 4 and 5 argued that Wilson was bargaining for much higher stakes than just pork-barrelling for Mildura. Fadden at the time and Hasluck later (in the official war-history) assume that Wilson was motivated more or less by the sort of model of bargaining backbenchers have operated by since their demotion to pawn status after by the two-party system after 1909. 996 Wilson’s main task, as far as Evatt was concerned, during the sitting of parliament between 20/8/41 and 8/10/41 would be to persuade

Coles that Curtin was now listening to voices like Evatt’s and was prepared to take on the left-wing, the irredentists and the Irish neutralists. 997 Coles would have to have some

993 E.g. Swan Hill Guardian 26/9/41: ‘Will Mr Wilson’s monetary reform policy be forever destroyed if he fails to support Mr Curtain’s (sic) attack on the budget.’ 994 Sunraysia Daily 3/9/41: Front Page. 995 Sunraysia Daily 3/9/41: Front Page. The news was the establishment of a base at Mildura as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme. 996 See D. Jaensch. 1994. Power Politics: Australia’s Party System . Sydney, Allen & Unwin. Also D. Lijphart. 1984. Democracies; Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-one Countries . New Haven, Yale University Press. Cf., P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941… :517-518. 997 See J. Griffen. 1992. ‘The Evatt-Wren Letters’ Eureka Street 2:September:26-27.

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reason to believe that key Labor people like Chifley would play the same role in

Australia that Bevin and Atlee were playing in Britain. 998

Coles already had a warm relationship with Calwell, who on the face of it should not have been the person (apart from Chifley) that he was personally closest to in the

Labor Party. Wilson’s association with Evatt was far more understandable in terms of shared or partially shared ideological outlook. Coles, as argued in earlier chapters, had already undergone the experience of a cross-class and cross tribal/denominational policy coalition with Calwell. 999 Coles, therefore, had already experienced firsthand how someone like Calwell could either be concertised and harnessed or neutralised and negotiated around. 1000

Coles’s understanding of the Labor movement was, therefore, not that of a complete political naïve. Coles already believed that he had helped rescue Calwell from the mire of inner city Labor Hibernian atavism:

We had only three months notice of this from the government (reforms that would abolish the position of appointed alderman) and during that time an alderman died. No councillor wanted to be appointed alderman and sort of commit suicide in his job. It was a Labor ward and the Councillor who died was Alderman Deveney. Under the act the council could appoint an alderman direct without going to the ratepayers so I got in touch with Albert Monk and asked if he could suggest someone that might make a good councillor… and he gave me two names, one of which was Arthur Calwell. So with the consent of the council I appointed Arthur Calwell… I think that was his first public office. He worked for the State, I think, in the Treasury Department. And so to an extent I’m possibly responsible for giving the public a very good public servant in many ways. 1001

Pratt then asked Coles a question in relation to the 1941 trip to London:

998 See A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies…:379. 999 See C. Kiernan. 1978. Calwell…:47-50. 1000 See NLA ORAL TRC 121/17…:1:1/12-14, A. Calwell. 1972. Be Just… :42-43. 1001 Sir Arthur Coles interview with Mel Pratt NLA; ORAL TRC 121/17…:1:1/11-12.

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Were you given permission to leave the House for any particular length of time?

Coles’s reply was:

No length of time but I had a pair with Mr Arthur Calwell at that time. He’d arranged for it privately. I rang him up and he agreed to it. I think the Party was a bit reluctant but he’d given me his word so it was alright. I wasn’t worried about that. I extended my tour in England to carry out (the research for Menzies) and of course this was something wonderful to happen to me for getting to the British Ministers… discussing these problems with them and get the facts which were confidentially reported to Menzies. 1002

Coles’s understanding of the Labor movement was through the eyes of an earnest

Presbyterian who like many Labor people saw social issues as moral issues. Coles, too, also had some sort of a belief in business progressivism and its increasingly Keynesian turn of mind. 1003 Coles’s views also included that pragmatic understanding of supply and demand side issues that is often present among those entrepreneurs (other than many planters and miners) who have engaged in large-scale economic practice (and not just professional theory jockeying). 1004 Coles, as noted in Chapter 5, in quotations from speeches in his electorate, newspaper interviews and articles was impressed with how the British Labour Party and Trades Unions had coalesced with wider national forces under Churchill’s national government.1005

Coles knew Calwell well and had already experienced (as indicated above) the fact of Calwell’s positive co-operation, even in a Federal parliament where Calwell’s views were no less extreme (at times) than those of ‘Eddie’ Ward, Blackburn and

1002 Sir Arthur Coles interview with Mel Pratt NLA; ORAL TRC 121/17…:1:1/19. 1003 See Coles’s social policy comments in Sandringham News 30/8/40 – quoted in the text of Chapter 3. 1004 See C. Denoon. 1983. Settler Capitalism: the dynamics of Development in the Southern Hemisphere. Oxford, Clarendon Press. 1005 Eg. Argus 24/5/41.

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Brennan. 1006 Coles seems to have seen left-wing Labor as a nuisance that decisive leadership by Curtin and others could either concertise or neutralise:

I supported that (Labor) Government through 22 months of a very, very difficult period where I was personally attacked. They brought up matters in the House to embarrass me but nothing could embarrass me. I knew what we wanted. Of course Japan attacked that year and we were all very eager to organise the country for war. The Curtin Government – I didn’t consider it a strong government at all – it had two or three very good figureheads and that was it. Mr Curtin himself was completely honest in his intention to do everything necessary to make Australia worthy of the support of the United States and England. 1007

Wilson had experienced the indifference, contempt and incessant undermining shown by the Page Country Party to those who dared challenge its bona fides on its own terms. 1008 Coles, on the other hand, had already more or less successfully defied the prescriptions laid down by the Melbourne establishment for dealing with the micro- polity of the Melbourne City Council during the years 1938-1940. 1009 Labor was given a real share of power there and Coles continued to work with Calwell on the Council until the mid-1940s. 1010

Coles’s attitude to Labor was one born of realism but also a consciousness that deals could be done with people like Mannix and Calwell and mutually acceptable outcomes achieved in the face of conservative scepticism.

Coles’s ideal scenario was a bellicose Curtin and an energised Menzies participating in a national government:

As you know when I was elected, the National Party didn’t field a candidate against me and so I got an easy walk-in. I was very inexperienced, and I was very, very, intensely worried about he fact that

1006 See A. Calwell. 1972. Be Just… :50-51; 78-87. 1007 Sir Arthur Coles interview with Mel Pratt NLA; ORAL TRC 121/17…:1:2/26. 1008 See D. Aitkin. 1977. Stability and Change in Australian Politics… . 1009 See P. Aimer. 1974. Politics, Power and Persuasion…:10f. 1010 Both men (as indicated above) continued to serve together on the Council until the mid 1940’s.

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Australia seemed to be going along on a policy of business as usual and were not organising for the war… I felt we were completely unprepared for what was going to happen and I could help if I went in on that basis that I wanted to test whether we could get a national government and Australia could be combined as one nation organising for war. As you know it didn’t come about that way… there were meetings to which I was invited between the government and the Labor Party to discuss a national cabinet but nothing came of it. 1011

Coles was under no illusions about Labor’s incapacity to join such a national government. Coles, despite this, appears to have made up his mind to put in a Labor government well before he actually did so and was only waiting so as to find the right psychological moment:

Only one hostile vote was needed, (Coles) looked around for support. The obvious choice was Alex Wilson… A more dissimilar political pair you could not imaging, though being both independents they shared a room. But they had in common their conviction that the Government should go. Coles knew quite well why Wilson was disgruntled and Wilson never understood Coles, who was very much a loner in politics. ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ Coles said to Wilson one day. ‘The walls have ears in Canberra’. So they went for a stroll in the Australian section of the gardens near Parliament House, walking slowly up and down among the gum trees. Coles said he was considering voting against the Government on the Budget. 1012

Perkins’s account continues:

They talked for a while and Wilson said his views were very much the same. Coles felt that his fellow conspirator was a strange character. He could not reason out Wilson’s theories, and he did not seem to want any particular advantage for his own district. But these things mattered not – they would merge anyway. Wilson agreed that Coles could speak first, and he was anxious that it should be known that they were acting in collusion. As they had both thought independently of voting against the Government it really didn’t seem like collusion to get together like this, but it was imperative that their move should come as a complete surprise. 1013

1011 Sir Arthur Coles interview with Mel Pratt NLA; ORAL TRC 121/17…:1:1/18. 1012 Sir Arthur Coles’s recollections with Kevin Perkins were recounted in narrative form in K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies Last of the Queen’s Men… :144. 1013 K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies Last of the Queen’s Men… :144.

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Coles, if these reminiscences are accurate, would not accept any combination other than a government led by Menzies and/or Curtin and/or a national government probably not led by Fadden. Coles, as quoted at length (in Chapter 3), had called for a national government from his first public statement in his campaign for Henty. Coles says that he felt ‘very inexperienced’ when he first entered parliament. 1014 Coles, by mid-1941 had acquired some experience of the practical realities of what was possible given the group-think and sub-culture of the major party parliamentary elites. 1015 Coles also had been able to form a political judgement about what sort of leader, in what sort of circumstances, stood a chance of initiating the sort of total mobilisation he believed essential.

Coles, understood in this way, was far from playing the role of Hasluck’s political naïf. Coles also has been shown not to be an impossible egotist hoping to project ideal outcomes onto Australian politics by sheer force of his tapping himself on the chest and demanding a Cabinet post. 1016 Fadden argued that Coles’s motives were petty and irrational as can be shown in their most notable parliamentary encounter:

Mr Coles : I told those Ministers who approached me when the ex- Prime Minister was being removed, that I would not stand for it, and that I would not support the Government. Yet the Prime Minister informed the Governor-General that he could form a government with a majority in this branch of the legislature! In the only other interview that I have had with the honourable gentleman since that date, I told him frankly that he could not regard me as a Government supporter.

Mr Fadden : Unless I put the honourable member in the Cabinet.

Mr Coles : I challenge the Prime Minister to say that on oath, because it is a deliberate untruth.

Mr Fadden : It is no such thing.

1014 NLA ORAL TRC 121/17 1:1/17. 1015 See Sandringham News 25/4/41 (a quote from the News to this effect was quoted in Chapter 6 above). 1016 See A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :69.

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Mr Coles : I told the Prime Minister that in his own office that he could not regard me as a supporter of the Government.

Mr Fadden : Unless I put the honourable gentleman in the Cabinet. 1017

Coles continued:

That is a lie. What I said was ‘Unless I am satisfied with the policy of your Government and the membership of your Cabinet. I am not seeking any preferment for myself.’ Those were my exact words. I want the committee to know that I have no heat in this matter. I take this step well knowing the gravity of it, in the hope that Australia will return a government that will be able to command a majority in this Parliament. The budget which has been brought down reveals a position which is inescapable. Regardless of what government is in power, the money to carry on Australia’s war effort must be raised. 1018

Earlier in his speech Coles had said about seeking preferment:

…this Government has proved that it has not the numbers necessary to enable it to exercise that strength of control in respect of the war effort which a government should exercise. I have stood loyally by this Government, and I have not sought preferment.

Mr Hutchinson : That is untrue.

Mr Coles : That can be checked up with the ex-Prime Minister (Mr Menzies) as well as with the present Prime Minister (Mr Fadden). 1019 Spender, later on, after Coles’s full intentions became obvious provided this interjection:

Therefore, the honourable member will hand over the administration to the opposition party.

Mr Coles : I am not handing over to the Labour Party; the people of Australia will decide which party is to govern. The budget is susceptible to criticism. It purports to be the only budget which could be brought down; but many people do not agree with that contention. The Prime Minister wishes it to be discussed in the light of the principles he has set down. These are that the financial policy shall bring into work the whole of the physical resources which are available; that it will promote the

1017 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:707-708. 1018 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:708. 1019 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:707.

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diversion of resources from civil to war purposes; and that it will distribute equitably the sacrifices made necessary by this diversion. 1020

Spender had already decided to throw in his lot with those who believed that

Australia could not double or triple its present fighting strength and otherwise introduce a total-war economy. 1021 Coles continued:

… This budget does not disclose that it will have any effect on Australia’s No.1 war problem, which is the transfer of men and women from civil to war occupations. That is a separate and physical problem, and one of management. In that regard I for one think that the effort in that direction could be improved.

Mr Spender : Along the lines of the Labour party’s policy?

Mr Coles : On the lines of the figures disclosed in the Estimates of Receipts and Expenditure… The vote in 1940-41 in respect of arms, armament, ammunition, mechanisation, equipment, and reserves was £63,400,660, but the actual expenditure amounted to only £30,971,766. That discloses a position that cannot be described as indicating efficient management… A similar position is seen with regard to the Department of Air. The division of aircraft, equipment and stores was estimated last year to require a vote of £17,653,537, and it is estimated that the expenditure this year will amount to £16,780,000.The people of Australia have learnt that equipment is of first importance.

Mr Blain : We must first get the men. 1022

Coles is dealing here with one of his key themes since he entered parliament – the issue of the practical achievability of Australian defence autarchy. Chapters 5 and 6 argued that Coles was one of the few (if not the only) Australian MP, Labor or non-

Labor, conservative, centrist, radical, left-wing or otherwise who genuinely ever considered this achievable. 1023 Coles, as the necessarily extended quotation provided

1020 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:708. 1021 See S. Spender. 1972. Politics and a Man…: 41-57; 100-116. 1022 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:708-709. 1023 See K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies Last of the Queen’s Men… :144-145

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just above indicates, honestly believed defence autarchy achievable unlike other MPs like Hutchinson, Spender, Blain or Fadden. 1024

Fadden shows his disbelief in Australia’s ability to equip itself to mount a defence of the homeland in an interjection made to Coles – just after Coles referred again to

Fadden after responding to Blain’s point about Labor’s failure to support conscription:

Mr Coles : The men are provided for, but it is of no use to put them into camps of training without equipment. 1025

Coles then mentioned the absence in Fadden’s programme of a belief that Australia could equip itself sufficiently to mount its own defence of the homeland:

Allowance is probably made for equipment supplied by the United State… under… Lend-Lease. All equipment from the United States… will go to Great Britain and Russia for some time to come. It is necessary for us to pool the whole of our resources, and that can be done.

Mr Fadden : Who told the honourable member that?

Mr Coles : At least we could make a similar effort to that put forward last year, however much it failed. Our cities are full of men who, under all sorts of pretexts, are regarded as in reserved occupations, but they could be at least trained. Our technical training scheme is so limited that it will not bring the wheels of production to full momentum for as long a period as is necessary. Why? Because the policy of the Government is to whittle down that scheme. It was not a long-range policy. It could have been extended to a very marked degree. 1026

At his point Hansard records ‘The honourable member for Wimmera interjecting’

The record continues:

The honourable member for Wimmera (Mr Wilson) asks me to refer to the point that I am charged with voting against he Government because it is said that he intends to vote against it. Up to the present moment I do not know which way the honourable member will vote on the amendment before the committee. I am aware, of course, he has been opposed to the Government in its decisions in regard to the wheat

1024 See J. McCarthy. 1974. ‘Australia: A View from Whitehall…’… 1025 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:709. 1026 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:709.

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industry. My decision has been made in the hope that Australia may have a change from the present unsatisfactory position, either by an appeal to the electorate or by the present Ministry inviting the Opposition to take over the reins of government.1027

Coles concluded his response to both Fadden and Blain thus:

Australia requires responsible government that will result in throwing the whole of the resources of this country into the war effort. 1028

Coles, in this reading, is best understood as among a small group of key conservative Federal MPs, senior bureaucrats and soldiers determined to push Curtin and the Labor leadership team towards taking a highly pro-active approach to war mobilisation. 1029 Coles, Curtin and a conservative critic (of Coles) also had this to say about the legitimacy of Coles’s decision to dump the Fadden Government:

I do not suggest that this Government has not done its best. I am aware of the difficulties with which it is confronted, and I realise that excellent work has been done.The Minister for Defence Co-ordination (Mr Menzies) was not eager to resign from the Prime Ministership, but he did so because he recognised that a deadlock had been reached.

Mr Rankin : It was partly because of the constant support he obtained from the honourable member.

Mr Coles : If the honourable member for Bendigo… wishes to know the support the ex-Prime Minister got from me he should ask him.

Mr Curtin : Honourable members opposite themselves prevented the right honourable member for Kooyong from continuing as Prime Minister. 1030

Hughes, Evatt, Page, Shedden, the Governor-General and/or the British High

Commissioner along with other senior bureaucrats and elite figures all assumed that any minority Labor government would not survive long into 1942. 1031

1027 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:709. 1028 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:709. 1029 See Mel Pratt and Thomas Joseph Hawkins 22-24/10/74 NLA ORAL TRC 121/56…; D. Horner. 2000. Defence supremo… 1030 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:709;

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Labor, it was felt, would sooner or later have to agree to bring in conscription whether or not this meant it would face a 1916 style split. Coles’s overriding focus was not a national government per se but with securing a government prepared to mobilise as totally as Britain has mobilised. 1032 Evatt or maybe another senior Labor figure not overly-identified with anti-conscriptionism and/or Menzies, Page, Spender or quite probably Hughes might well end up serving as head of such a national government. 1033

Menzies would have been more likely than Fadden to make a come-back as Prime

Minister or at least as a senior and influential figure if a national government had ever been formed. 1034

Hughes and Menzies alike stood the most to gain if the instability that had led to the failure of Fadden’s government had continued and led to the fall of the subsequent

Curtin led Labor government. 1035 A key issue is whether Fadden could have ever persuaded one or both of the independents of his bona-fides as a war leader. Wilson’s playing-off his new found connection with Evatt against new and significant pork- barrelling from McEwen indicates Fadden was not being completely unrealistic in this regard. 1036

Cullen and to some extent Albert Dunstan were negotiating their way back into the good-books of the Country Party and Wilson might have probably been able to do the same. Cullen, Wilson’s rival within the VWWGA although he had proven more amendable was never really trusted by the conservatives.1037 Sir Albert Dunstan was

1031 On this point see A.W. Martin. 1993. Menzies A Life… :388-399f. Also see Churchill’s comments in W.S. Churchill. 1953. The Hinge of Fate… :19-13. Also D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War… :155-168 1032 See A. Coles ‘Britain To-Day’ series -Argus 18/4/41; 19/4/41; 21/4/41; 22/4/41; 23/4/41. 1033 See A. W. Martin, 1993. Robert Menzies…:385-386. 1034 See D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War… 139; 350; 376-377. 1035 On this point see the conservative revisionist T. Stephens. 2001. ‘It’s hopeless, let’s surrender; plea to War Cabinet’… 1036 See Rankin praising Cullen of the VWWGA at CPD.Vol.168 3/10/47:716. 1037 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action… :42-48f; 129-135f.

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even less trusted and even more intensely resented by mainstream conservatives after

1941 despite his blackmail induced revival of the Victorian conservative coalition. 1038

Wilson remained correct in his assumption that his best long-term bet lay with

Labor and teaming-up with Labor’s recently arrived brace of wheat-belt farmer MPs. 1039

Brigadier Rankin, Wilson’s fellow Federal Dunstanite in the House, laid out the alternative approach he expected Wilson to follow. Rankin advocated a mix of fiscal conservatism and a deliberately vague and self-limiting understanding of what was possible with the war:

Our fighting men overseas will not be edified by the spectacle of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition shedding ‘crocodile’ tears in their behalf or to have as their champion one who would do everything in his power to prevent them from taking their rightful place in the defence of the Empire.

Mr Pollard : The majority of the votes from overseas were cast in favour of Labour candidates.

MrRankin : In their solicitude for the men in the fighting forces honourable members opposite remind me of the iguana …1040

Rankin continued with his colourful Bush-lore simile:

…commonly known as the goanna, which covers its prey with slime before devouring it. When Labour assumed office for a short period after the last war, it abandoned the policy of preference to returned soldiers; but there was such resentment throughout the length and breadth of the country that they had not the courage to stand up to their action and withdrew their threat…I can assure honourable members that our soldiers will not be delighted at the prospect of a Labour government… Some honourable members opposite are sincere in their efforts to help the members of the fighting forces…1041

Rankin concluded his speech with words all the more emotional because most conservative MPs realised that the end was now near:

1038 Age 18/4/41 said Wilson was ‘not a supporter of the government’ by Age on 18/4/41. 1039 See J. Hallam. 1983. The Untold Story…:72. 1040 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:716. 1041 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:716.

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What must all patriotic Australians think of the Leader of the Opposition who proposed that no Australian soldier should fight in the defence of the Empire?…If the honourable gentleman had his way he would prevent Australia from supporting the Mother Country which has guarded us for over 150 years. I shall not support any government which includes in its ministry a man of that type. 1042

Rankin’s real contribution to the debate had come earlier – before his patriotic tirade against Labor’s irredentism. Rankin had launched into a threnody in which

Cullen’s common-sense decision to fully co-operate with the Federal government’s wheat program was contrasted with Labor’s cynical toying with farmers’ livelihoods in time of war. 1043 Rankin had begun his speech with an attack on the supposed destabilising, selfish and wilfully impish behaviour of pro-Labor farmer malcontents

(including obviously Wilson). 1044 He flourished various documents which were supposed to show that Wilson and Labor’s wheat-belt MPs were too late and that farm sentiment had been re-enmeshed behind a solidly conservative front:

The State President of the Wool and Wheatgrowers Association of Victoria has forwarded me the following telegram: ‘In fairness Cullen you should advise Forde appointment Wheat Board on nomination of Victorian and bulk New South Wales organisations’. He was nominated by the Victorian Wheatgrowers Association.

Mr Forde : We contend that the wheat-growers representatives should be nominated annually by the wheat-growers.

Mr Rankin : The telegram continues:’ Appointment endorsed by all affiliated organisations of federation. Cullen also urged federation deal His appointment stabilisation board but no other nominated Forde should withdraw his remarks.’1045 The sender of the telegram was T.W. Lillie, who had been President of the

VWWGA during 1941. The official history of the VWGA recounts:

Even though Mr Wilson’s views were well-known on the need for orderly marketing of wheat, little if anything in the official Hansard

1042 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:716. 1043 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:715-716. Rankin’s speech actually takes from 715-717. 1044 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:715-716, eg. 715. 1045 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:716.

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record indicated an emphasis on this in the course of his Budget debate speech. Nevertheless, it was generally recognised that Mr Wilson had taken the opportunity to have the Fadden Government defeated and so enable a new Administration to bring about Wheat Stabilisation 1046

Rankin’s main aim on October 3 was to argue that right-wing Dunstanism was capable of uniting Victorian rural sentiment behind a policy that was coherent, workable and broad minded enough to take on and defeat Labor’s rising stocks in rural seats. 1047

Forde then interjected:

I cast no reflection on Mr Cullen and Mr Clarke, 1048 personally; but I did say that there should be a majority of representatives of growers on the board and that they should be elected by rank-and-file wheat-growers annually and not hand-picked for an indefinite period by the Minister.

Mr Rankin : If such an election were conducted by honourable members opposite, I have no doubt that, like certain other elections that have been held in New South Wales, the ballot-boxes would be fitted with sliding bottoms. Our fighting men overseas will not be edified by the spectacle of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition…1049

Rankin then added the reptilian references already quoted further above. Rankin’s words of October 3, 1941, therefore, represent the views of the safe, respectable, bourgeois, and conservative and Pageite-deal inclined face of Dunstanism. Labor had actually already captured Wilson’s support due to Labor’s new found stomach for middle-class style welfarism for farmers. 1050 Wilson’s focus in his relatively short speech on October 3 was setting out his overall worldview. 1051 Wilson while he spoke

1046 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action …: 58. 1047 Labor had picked up Wannon in the 1940 election and its votes sustained Wilson in Wimmera. 1048 Clarke was a South Australian wheat farmer appointed by the Government along with Cullen to sit on the Commonwealth Wheat Stabilisation Board the chairman of which was Sir Clive McPherson, who represented the interests of the millers and exporters. 1049 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:716. 1050 See G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action… :58. Mitchell confined his account to a strict editing for publication of the minutes of the VWWGA with a few comments here and there - as at: 58. 1051 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:713-715.

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about farm policy did not make farm policy his central concern. Wilson, also, didn’t spend too much time addressing the old saw of Labor’s (and his) lack of patriotism. 1052

Wilson’s first concern was to state that all along he had his doubts about he conservatives but had not been able to do much about it:

I have never had much enthusiasm for the Government. In my movements around the rural areas of this continent, I have seen too much of the effects of its lopsided policy, and to-day we see its fruits. The Government has now introduced a budget providing for the expenditure of £219,000,000 for war purposes and other amounts which make the total requirements of the Treasurer (Mr Fadden) about £322,000,000. I make no complaint about that. That is the amount which the Treasurer says is necessary to carry out the plans of the Government, as regards both the war effort, which I regard as paramount, and our internal economy. The amount has to be raised. But I do complain about the methods by which the Government proposes to raise it. I do not profess to be an expert in economics, but I do have a common-sense idea of financial questions, and I have always considered that the raising of money by taxation is a function of government. It is the method by which governments collect, shall we say, a percentage of the surplus funds of the people and redistribute them in accordance with its policy. 1053

Wilson, while professing not to be a financial expert, then launched into a ten minute adumbration about fiscal policy! Wilson argued that governments should raise money neither by increasing total indebtedness nor by increasing taxation beyond fairly small margins. 1054

Wilson’s utopian but also cranky vision involved the Commonwealth Bank:

…if additional funds are needed for war or for developmental purposes in peace-time, it is the duty of the Government to provide those funds through the Commonwealth Bank, which is the people’s bank. That bank is the only institution through which money or credit should be issued.

1052 Three or four lines. 1053 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:713. 1054 See F. B. Berzius. 1967. ‘The Social Credit Movement in Australia to 1940’ MA Thesis, University of New South Wales.

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Everywhere in this country and in other countries there has been an awakening of the people, a desire for more knowledge and a realisation that something is wrong with present financial methods. 1055

Wilson continued:

The people want to know why this debt structure has been built, why developmental works cannot be undertaken, why nothing can be done unless we borrow money or raise it in some way which makes it a debit on the community. In the march of progress I have looked to this Government for a change of policy in that respect, but there has been little movement in the desired direction, although the Government has admitted that money can be created. There has been an issue of new money. We do not know how much. The Government says that it is not good for us to know. But this is a democracy, and the people have a right to know how much new money has been issued by the Commonwealth Bank or by the trading banks and what are the terms and conditions upon which it has been issued. We know that it is admitted that money can be issued in this way. Some years ago, as well as stated by the Leader of the Opposition, this was denied vehemently from every platform by the then Opposition, and the people were inclined to believe it. Now that story will not ‘go over’. The Government will be very lucky if it still ‘goes over’.1056

Wilson then enunciated a funny-money conspiracy theory view:

That is why I look to the policy enunciated and those who have led the party before him. On the theories that they have enunciated rests the hope, not only for the successful termination of the war, but also for the reconstruction to follow. There should be no more depressions in a land such as we have, with abundance for everybody. 1057

Wilson then threw in an approbation of Labor’s proto-Keynesianism as well as reiterating his approval for Labor’s earlier ‘Red Ted’ Theodore approach of using inflation to fight deflation:

I was amazed when I heard the arguments adduced by Ministers who twitted the Leader of the Opposition about how he would find the extra money with which to increase the rate of invalid and old-age pensions,

1055 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:713. 1056 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:713-714. 1057 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:714.

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and raise the pay of soldiers immediately and not in the future when the payments would form part of the debt structure. Actually we have a superabundance of food and clothing. It is false economy and a false assumption to say that by cheese-paring and by taking money from the people in the lower income groups we shall assist the war effort in any way. Such a policy can result only in a reduction of the standard of living of the people. It will not help the war effort one iota. 1058

Wilson took about six minutes to range over his global views on finance and to throw in a few references about how Coles’s and his actions were motivated by concern for the war effort. Wilson did not ask for an extension of time and with the little time left felt the need to turn to rural policy:

In coming to the decision which I have reached I was influenced to a great degree by the assurances given by the Leader of the Opposition and his deputy (Mr Forde) with regard to rural policy. I have emphasised in this chamber on many occasions the serious difficulties of the primary producers and the depressed condition of the country towns. We have had very little relief. The present policy has continued, although we have had many promises that there would be a change. The Treasurer, in his budget speech, indicated that a mortgage bank would be established at some time in the future. The position of the primary producers is so acute that they want a mortgage bank established at once. It can be provided, and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition stated that it will be provided if the Labour party attains office. That assurance is very comforting to me and my constituents, and it will be good news to all those living in rural districts throughout Australia. 1059

Wilson then added:

To sum up, I do not like the Government’s financial policy. It envisages further debt, and in the natural course of events when the war is concluded, a contraction of finance is likely to occur as on a former occasion, and misery and suffering will follow. The people do not want those conditions. In order to avoid them, Australia must have a government that will take appropriate action. 1060

Wilson, like Coles, protested that he assumed an election would be called.

Wilson, like Coles, seems to have protested just a little too much about this:

1058 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:714. 1059 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:714. 1060 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:714.

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I shall support the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition. What the result will be, whether a general election will be held, or whether another government will take office without an appeal to the country, are matters upon which I cannot speak. 1061

Wilson did not profess outright that he assumed there wouldn’t be an election.

Wilson also did not indicate in his speech that if Curtin lived up to his promises this would be the last thing likely to happen:

The responsibility lies with the Governor-General. To me, it is immaterial because, in view of the issue, I consider that a change must be made in order to ensure stable and safe government for the prosecution of the war, the post-war reconstruction of the country and the repatriation of soldiers. In the circumstances, let us ask the people to decide which party will govern the country. I shall be satisfied with their verdict. 1062

Wilson realised that his time in parliament would only be ongoing if Labor’s electoral popularity remained on a major upswing. 1063 The socio-economic reality is that side-payments are as necessary to secure as actual policy-specific organisational goals for those whose status, wealth, income and power derives from their agrarian interest group activism. 1064

Wilson was already talking on October 3, 1941 like someone who knew he would only be around as long as Labor was on an electoral upswing:

My position in the House has been one of heavy responsibility, but that has not been of my seeking. It was an accident of the last general election that I should have been so placed as to hold the balance between the Government and Opposition parties in this chamber. My sympathies have always been to a considerable degree with the Labour party.The platform of the party to which I belong in Victoria is not far removed from many of the major points in the policy of the Labour party.If Labour should take office I am prepared to give it my fullest co-

1061 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:714. 1062 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:714. 1063 See J.B. Paul. 1961. ‘The Premiership of Sir Albert Dunstan’… 1064 R.K. Hefford. 1985. Farm Policy in Australia… :61-69.

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operation in order to implement the policy that its representatives have enunciated during this debate. 1065

Fadden should have realised that Coles would have no reason to attempt a later reconciliation with non-Labor if after siding with Wilson, Coles found he could exercise significant influence on a Labor government:

Having led the Government from January to the end of May, I had no illusions concerning the difficulties which lay before me either in the conduct of the war or in the handling of political relationships. I recognised that the survival of the Government rested on rotten reeds – the two unpredictable Independents. I knew, as I had known years before at the time of my fight with Dewar in the yard of the Pleystowe mill, that I was likely to get a hiding…1066

Fadden, apparently, had hoped that like Menzies before him he could somehow placate the idiosyncratic plutocrat. Fadden, of course, had as little intention as Menzies ever had of actually revolutionising government policy merely to do the pie-in-the-sky things Coles (or Wilson) wanted done. Fadden’s views on the conservatives making a comeback are clear:

The two Independents were the key to the position. At the time it looked as though a Labor Government, depending on the Independent’s support, would be no more stable than our own. 1067

Fadden’s behaviour towards Coles in private and in parliament indicates that

Fadden was prepared to call Coles’s bluff about Coles possibly losing his special place as holder of the balance of power. Fadden was laying the ground for the possible but unlikely re-gaining of power post a general election and/or Coles or Wilson changing sides yet again. Fadden was banking on Coles and/or Wilson calculating that rather than

1065 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:714-715. 1066 A Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :65. 1067 A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :65.

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force an election if Labor didn’t live-up to their expectations then maybe another dramatic crossing of the floor might occur. 1068

Fadden also hoped that Coles (or even Wilson) might decide that a forced election might somehow see non-Labor hold onto its existing seats, possibly pick up Henty and

Wimmera and a few more – probably rural. 1069 Fadden, it has to be remembered, was also acting in the best Page tradition of furthering the long-term strategic interest of the

Country Party and not the best interests of the larger conservative party. 1070

Fadden, despite his own misplaced self-confidence, was sagacious enough to realise that he might not return as Prime Minister, if a minority Labor government, forced to an election, was denied a majority. 1071 The conservatives might survive an election if somehow urban non-Labor could hold onto all its existing seats and both conservative parties perhaps did a bit better than in 1940 in wheat-belt and other rural seats. 1072

The Country Party would lose the relative power it had already gained should some semblance of strength and authority return to the major non-Labor party. Fadden, as with Page between 1929 and 1934, would only come to the aid of the major non-

Labor party when its leadership and/or its policies reflected the Country party line. The

Country Party line (as argued below) was fiscal meanness coupled with a highly targeted incremental approach to ameliorating the trade cycle. 1073

Coles’s support for a non-Menzies led non-Labor government could only have been achieved by a shift from fiscal conservatism to the sort of neo-Deakinism that had

1068 See A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :68. 1069 See A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :71. 1070 See G. Shipp. 1962. ‘The Bruce-Page Coalition, 1922-25: An Analysis’… 1071 A Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :65. ‘Looking back…although I did not see it at the time, the defeat of the Fadden Government …may be said to have had unforeseen advantages for Australia’ 1072 See N. Lee. 1983. John Curtin: Saviour of Australia… :143-147. 1073 See B. Pinkstone. 1992. Global Connections A History of Exports and the Australian Economy… :87-144.

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last been seen in the Federal conservative government led by Hughes. The whole reason the Country Party existed was to so manipulate the dynamics of the non-Labor coalition to prevent just such a leftward shift in the coalition’s policy stance.

Coles’s damning critique of the savings Fadden had gleaned out of money already voted for war purposes has already been quoted further above. 1074 Fadden, like Page before him, had assisted the fiscal conservative’s anti-centrists to achieve relative dominance within the major non-Labor party and they in their turn amply rewarded him. 1075

Spender, for instance, either felt too insecure or (more likely) judged that the numbers weren’t there to mount a campaign of neo-Deakinite ideological opposition to the Country Party. 1076 Menzies during late 1942 and into 1943 underwent a political learning process that allowed him to comprehend the merits of a demand-side policy dutch auction with Labor – albeit an auction skewed towards exponential increases in middle class welfare. 1077 Chapters 3, 4 and 5 introduced the idea that one reason why

Page (and the non McEwenist section of the Country Party) had wanted Menzies out of the way was that they had divined long before most, just how non-ideological (and therefore how potentially neo-Deakinite) Menzies really could be (if it suited him). 1078

Page and Fadden understood that Menzies or some other younger generation majority non-Labor figure might become confident enough to abandon majority non-

Labor’s commitment to preventing any further major policy break-outs of neo-

Deakinism. Fadden, understood in this way, ironically enough, owed his Prime

Ministership to the fact that Wilson and Coles held the balance of power. Fadden,

1074 E.g. as in CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:709. 1075 See Herald and Weekly Times. 1953. Keith Murdoch Journalist . Melbourne, Herald and Weekly Times. 1076 See P. Spender. 1972. Politics is People… :157 and: 165. 1077 See A.W. Martin. 1993. Menzies A Life… :408-425. 1078 See E. Lyons. 1972. So We Take Comfort… :76-77.

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therefore, reasoned that like himself Coles and/or Wilson would not want to throw away the serendipitously arrived at power all three clung onto by putting a Labor government in or if this were done keeping them in too long after that.

Coles and Wilson both acknowledged on October 3, 1941 that they assumed an election might now be held. 1079 Conservative reactions to both independents’ protestations that an election was likely to be held were understandably sceptical. 1080

Coles’s views about an election were mostly couched in terms indicating that rather than an election his prime commitment was to a massive shift in the meta-policy paradigm. Coles makes at least six references to an election while Wilson makes only one explicit mention – which has been quoted in full in this chapter.

Some of Coles’s references to a new election have also been quoted in the text of this chapter. Coles’s other election comments are as follows;

This country must have stability of government. I am not concerned about the method to be adopted to achieve that…There are several options open to the Government…The electors of my division will deal with me as they think fit…The Government might decide to take one of the other options open to it; that is either go to the country for an election, or invite the Opposition to take office. 1081

Eric Harrison, the chief New South Wales Menzies supporter, subtly acknowledged the existence of this ideological divide between the conservatives and the independents in the following exchange:

The honourable member is now only a pricked bubble.

Mr Wilson : I was about to say that the one thing that I have noticed more than anything else during this debate is the chagrin and spleen which has been displayed by members on the Government side of the committee. In a popular phrase, ‘They cannot take it.’ For instance, immediately I

1079 Wilson refers to a possible election at CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:714. 1080 A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :66-72. 1081 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:707.

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rose to speak, the Minister for Trades and Customs (Mr Harrison) made a rude interjection. 1082

Harrison’s chagrin like Harold Holt’s impassioned speech, made immediately before Wilson received the call, was not merely the matey response to Coles’s and

Wilson’s blackguardly behaviour that Fadden believed it to be. 1083 Harrison meant to imply that Wilson had used up the one arrow in the quiver that balance of power nuisances are always said to have used up whenever they force a change of government.1084

Fadden (and his ghost-writer Elgin Reid) looked back on the events of October 3,

1941 in the mid-1960s and said:

When he entered the debate Coles said that in deciding to vote against the Government he was not challenging the principles of the Budget but was supporting the Opposition to get stability of government. This gave Harold Holt the opportunity to make the most effective speech of the whole debate. He recalled that Coles had been elected with United Australia Party co-operation and entered Parliament as the advocate of a national government. He had even tried to form a new party designed to absorb other parties or impose its own policy on existing parties. 1085

Fadden’s comments about Coles even trying to ‘form another party’ in fact reflect

Coles’s contacts with those who were in the process of forming the Services and

Citizens Party in Melbourne.1086 Coles had also kept lines of communication open with some of those who organised Win the War! Rallies. 1087 Coles, as noted earlier,

1082 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:713. 1083 A Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :70 cites Holt’s words approvingly. 1084 See J.B. Mannheim. 1975. The Politics Within , New York, Prentice-Hall and also three theoretical texts on modern deliberativeness used in this thesis – A. Fenna. 1995. ‘Political Alignments, Political Economy and Political Change…’…; I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond the Two Party System… and R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement… 1085 A Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :70. 1086 See H. Rubinstein. 1999. ‘Empire Loyalism in Inter-War Victoria…’Also see P. Aimer. 1974. Politics, Power and Persuasion… 1-75f for the wider context of the disintegrating UAP in Victoria. 1087 The rallies are not discussed in K. Darian-Smith. 1990. On the Home Front: Melbourne in wartime, 1939-45 ….though they are discussed (as noted above) in A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… :296-7.

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was often a key-note speaker at these rallies - not just at the Melbourne Town Hall but also throughout suburban Melbourne and country Victoria. 1088

Politicians sometimes display impressive lateral thinking capacities and particularly when imputing Mephistophelian nihilism to opponents who have just bushwhacked them. Coles’s most daring piece of effrontery, as far as the conservatives were concerned, was to dare to have a national view rather than have a loyal backbencher view of his role in parliament. Fadden, writing years later, indicated that he still agreed with Holt’s heated views of 3/10/41 on this point:

‘I question,’ said Holt, ‘whether members on this side of the committee have ever come into contact with a more unbalanced or irresponsible political mind than that of the member for Henty.’1089

Holt, like Eric Harrison, had hoped that the exigencies of the war plus the ongoing fact of Coles’s and Wilson’s votes would have assisted those in the UAP prepared to stand up to the over-weening nature of Country Party influence. 1090 Fadden Cabinet

Ministers Harrison, Holt, Spender, McBride, McLeay, Collett and Menzies’s father-in- law Leckie could be put on the list of those who would have looked forward to doing to

Fadden what Fadden had done to Menzies. 1091

Holt’s speech on October 3, 1941 was as much a message to Coles that he had thrown away the chance to assist in the process of helping the conservatives to evolve war and domestic policy of a more pro-active and Deakinite type. McCall, in his interviews with Kevin Perkins, reveals that he assumed that post-Menzies the coalition

1088 For a bibliography see Australian War Memorial Research Centre. 2003. ‘Reading List World War 2/Home Front Reading List’ Canberra, Australian War Memorial. Also see Australian Institute of International Affairs 1941. Australian Home Front: a war – time record 1939-41. Melbourne, Australian Institute of International Affairs. Also A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies …:296. 1089 A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :70. Fadden is quoting CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:711. 1090 This is the generally considered opinion of E. Holt. 1969. Politics is People… :25-28. 1091 See K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies The Last of the Queen’s Men… :131-134.

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would eventually get into top-gear. McCall even believed it would then begin running the war in the way that he (as a child) remembered that Hughes had run the last war. 1092

There is from October 3, 1941 a subtle sub-text underlying the discourse of many conservatives when they talk about a national government. The sub-text is a feeler put out to Coles to come back in from the cold if he ever happened to tire of Labor. Any hope of a later back-track by Coles or Wilson would be less likely if Labor had been seriously talking to Coles before early October. Wilson, in fact, may well have intimated to Coles some of his dealings with Labor in the period before Menzies’s resignation. 1093

Coles and Curtin or Coles and others closer to Curtin than Evatt or Calwell might have discussed aspects of Labor’s intentions with the saturnine plutocrat. 1094 Coles’s papers leave no clues of extended contacts before October 3, 1941 with anyone other than Chifley and Calwell. 1095 Coles, in this regard, appears to have judged both Chifley and Calwell as representing key, opposing poles of opinion in the party on the question of what constituted a practical war policy. Coles made some further comments to

Perkins about how he viewed Labor’s line-up in late 1941:

(Curtin) had very good supporters, of course, in Chifley who was his right-hand man and confidant in everything and one other man that stands out in my mind as an unexpectedly virile and quick-thinking purposeful minister was Beasley. Beasley as you know has been called Stabber Jack prior to that but he turned out to be as Minister for Supply the king pin in the organisation of getting the munitions really cracking. Under J.J. Jensen in the Department and, of course, Essington Lewis, there was a team that really did put Australia into the munitions industry

1092 K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies Last of … :96-107; 124-132; 148-151. 1093 See Flinders University: Evatt Collection: List of Files, Correspondence Miscellaneous 1940; 1941; 1942-1943; Speeches and Statements 1940-1947; Speeches and Statements Undated 1940s; ALP Government, Formation of 1941; and Wheat. 1094 For a post October 3, 1941 contact see Prime Minister to A.W. Coles 9/12/41 (Telegram sent from Victoria Barracks Melbourne marked ‘Phoned’) ‘Many Thanks Your Telegram Greatly Appreciate Offer of Service – John Curtin’. This is found in NLA’MS 7296 Series 1, Box 1, Folder 1, General Correspondence 1939-1977. 1095 See ANL: MS 7296 Sir Arthur Coles Papers. Folders 1-4.

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on a sound footing. Apart from that there was Evatt, a clever man but he wasn’t very helpful. I never looked upon him as a builder. He was more building for himself. Apart from that though they were just the ordinary run of the mill members of Parliament with no particular abilities in administration, but we had a very good civil service and of course they’re the back stop that you rest on. 1096

What would happen if Coles became disappointed in his opting for Labor and/or

Wilson could be lured back by a further compromise on wheat policy? Holt’s speech about Coles on the 3 rd of October contains the seeds of what many hoped would happen:

By his action in walking out and by the statements which he issued to the public immediately afterwards, he weakened the edifice which had been built up by so much personal sacrifice. He now claims that his purpose in voting with the Opposition is to secure stability of government. He admits he is not challenging the principles of the budget. Indeed he is reported as having said that he supports the broad principles of the budget. He has openly advocated those very principles in the celebrated 23 points which he presented to the acting Prime Minister upon his return from abroad… Therefore his attack is not on the budget, but on the alleged failure of the Government to secure stability. Against whom should that attack have been launched? Should it not have been against members on this side of the House who have made every effort to within reason bring about stability? Should it rather have been directed against the Opposition, who have not been prepared at any stage to sink their personal political interest for the welfare of Australia?... 1097

Holt having completed his direct frontal assault then starts sounding ever so faintly like he is making a plea for the sort of government he feels should come in after the one Coles intends to put in:

However, I do not propose to press the point any further. Neither shall I dwell further upon the fact that honourable member for Henty proposes to sweep out of office experienced executives, and replace them by men who, in this generation, have no executive experience… Either he – and

1096 Coles interview with Mel Pratt NLA: ORAL TRC 121/17:1:2/27. 1097 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:711.The twenty-three points were contained in England at War which (as discussed at length in earlier Chapters) was distributed to all members of parliament just after Coles’s return. The same content had form part of a serialisation by Sir Errol Knox of Coles’s thoughts on England at war in the Argus in early-mid 1941 (as also discussed above).

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perhaps some other members from this side of the House – must give assurances of support to the Opposition or there will be a general election. Let us assume for the moment that he is prepared to give assurances of support to Labour in the implementing of its policy. He has already announced the 23 points which embody his own conception of what should be a proper war effort for Australia. Here are some of them – Conscription of man-power for service overseas; Conscription of labour; Taxation to be unified and equalised in all States; Compulsory savings; Hours of labour to be extended to capacity subject to fatigue; Compulsory enlistment and training of men and women for defence and civilian protection; The Government to control the transfer and employment of workers as empowered by under the National Security Act. 1098

Holt continued:

After the honourable member had made a few speeches, special meetings were called at the Melbourne Trades Hall in order to castigate the policy that he was advocating. Is that the policy which he expects the Labour party to adopt when he puts it in office? I indicated earlier that I would not base my remarks on a personal attack on the honourable member…1099

Holt, of course, immediately made the very personal comments which Fadden approvingly quoted in his memoirs published in 1969 and which were quoted further above. Fadden’s quotation from Holt is necessarily selective for Holt’s angry words were tempered by the fact that in quoting from Coles’s twenty-three points he was more or less admitting that more could be done but that he didn’t think Labor could do it.

Holt’s words on October 3, 1941 should be read alongside the proto-Keynesian hopes he had expressed a few months before when steering the child endowment legislation through parliament. Holt had expressed the hope that this would be the first of ‘many’ similar pieces of legislation. 1100 Holt made this comment in another part of his speech:

1098 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:711. 1099 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:711. 1100 CPD.Vol.166 2/10/41:526-528.

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So, we must assume that, as a result of the honourable member’s action, the country, within twelve months of the last general election, must resolve another election in order to return a stable administration. I ask honourable members to examine the implications of that position. It will mean a complete hold-up, possibly for weeks, of the war-time administration of this country… If there is one thing on which opinion in this country is complete united it is that an election at this time and under existing conditions would be disastrous… All I desire to say is that if he (Coles) believes that his action will bring about any greater stability of administration within the present Parliament, then he is gravely mistaken…1101

Holt’s speech was widely recognised at the time as the most impressive of those conservatives who managed to speak at any length. 1102 Holt’s speech is worth detailed examination due to its relative length and its attempt to deal with Coles with passion and ad hominem but also with a reasoned, if not plaintively appealing tone. 1103 A key issue was whether Coles really believed an election was a possibility or he had made the political judgement that now that Menzies wasn’t available Curtin would prove an effective war-time leader.

Spender spoke before Coles dropped his bombshell but provided interjections while Coles spoke and later in the debate. Sir George Bell became quite apoplectic and had to be called to order to withdraw his ad hominem extended series of interjections against Coles. 1104 It is evident from the Hansard and from contemporary observers in the press gallery that Menzies did not seem to share in the same level of discomfiture as the rest of his side of the House The parallels with Churchill’s accession are at their closest in considering this point. There was an element of political judgement underlying the decision to take a bet on Churchill. 1105 There was an element of political judgement, Beiner style, in Coles opting for Curtin.

1101 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:712. 1102 See Sydney Morning Herald 5/10/41; Herald 5/10/41. 1103 See F.C. Green. 1969. Servant of the House… :123. 1104 Sir George Bell (a former Speaker) –For Bell’s comments see CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:717-719. 1105 J. Lukacs. 1999. Five Days in London . Melbourne, Scribe Publications.

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Curtin, in deciding to rely on Coles, was also operating with the sort of visceral trust Beiner defines as the privileging of political judgement over ratiocinative political calculation. 1106 Perkins, in a paraphrase of his interview with Coles, says

Coles saw things thus:

Menzies was a lonely man after his downfall. So much so that apparently he saw an only friend in Arthur Coles when Coles walked out of the UAP meeting at which Menzies indicated he would resign. Although Coles told the hotel switch operator not to put any telephone calls through to his room, the operator that night connected the retiring Prime Minister. Menzies asked Coles if he would not say anything else until he had a talk with him. Next morning he called around but had nothing particular to say, except perhaps to call the Government parties a rabble, and he gave the impression that he only wanted someone to talk to. Everyone thought Menzies was finished. But he was a far-seeing political fellow. When he stepped down he made no attempt to see that his successor should come from his own Party, knowing that the Country Party and a few in his own party were building up Fadden’s popularity – as though popularity were the best quality for leadership – and he felt Fadden might not last. When he resigned he threw his weight behind Billy Hughes, which some people regarded as a move to play for a card for re-entry. 1107

Alan Reid, a relatively junior press gallery member at the time said that in late

1941 he judged Menzies’s future as follows:

When Menzies fell and was replaced briefly…by Artie Fadden, I happened to be standing at the foot of the stairs leading to the Press Gallery. Menzies came out of his office and walked, slowly and alone, along the government lobby towards King’s Hall. The lights were out and I watched Menzies vanish into darkness. In an article I wrote ‘And so Menzies disappeared into the shadows for all time. For there is no way back in Australian politics’. Historically I had some justification for that assertion.No previously deposed Australian PM had ever made a comeback. But Menzies did and about once a year, from 1949 to 1966 while he was establishing his record as the longest serving PM, Menzies would gently but with relish remind me of what I had written in that 1941 article. 1108

1106 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement…: 166-167. 1107 K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies…: 141. 1108 A. Reid. 1980. ‘Some Prime Ministers I Have Known’…:366.

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The authority attached to Allan Reid’s prognostication needs to be tempered with the realisation that like most contemporaries Reid had still not adjusted his thinking to comprehend the very different dynamics of a non-two-party system dominated parliament. Reid, also, had not factored in the by then very real chance of a Prime

Ministerial comeback for Hughes. 1109 Hughes was a living fossil from what was virtually another political age but ancient Australian mammals can still bite. Hughes, from the pre-Pearl Harbour perspective of early October 1941, stood at least as much chance as

Curtin did of being Prime Minister sometime in late 1941 or early 1942. Hughes, too, unlike Curtin, would have been happy to facilitate his return to the Prime Ministership even if it was only in a caretaker mode until elections could be called. Hughes still had some things going for him - he was (for instance) a more arresting radio speaker and speaker in general - than most senior Labor Party figures. 1110

The major newspaper proprietors during the 1943 Federal general election cajoled, if not instructed Hughes, Fadden (and Menzies) to run a campaign of a combination of flag-waving and (by this stage) the keeping of some of the already granted concessions for farmers. 1111 The approach taken by the conservatives in the

1943 election might have worked had it been used in an election called during late

1941, particularly with the active support of the press, which they would have received. 1112 Whitington summarised contemporary opinion in the pre-Pearl Harbour period about Curtin’s prospects:

1109 Cf. F.C. Green. 1969. Servant of the House…:123-124, compare with A. Reid. 1980. ‘Some Prime Ministers I Have Known’:368-369. 1110 See, for instance, W.M. Hughes. 1943. ‘Tragedy of Party Strife’ Sydney, W.M. Hughes, Associated Business Services, originally broadcast on station 2GB, 13/7/43. 1111 See S. Storrier. 1968. The Crisis of World War Two . Melbourne, Cheshire; J. Barrett. 1977. ‘Living in Australia, 1939-1945’ Journal of Australian Studies 2: November: 107-118; P Hasluck. 1970. The Government and the People Australia in the War of 1939-1945. Series 4 (Civil) Vol. 2, Canberra, Australia War Memorial. 1112 On this point see D. Whitington. 1977. An Unfinished Autobiography… :72-77.

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The Curtin Government came to power largely as a result of the insistence of the forces controlling and directing it from outside Parliament. The unions wanted a Labor Government; so did the average private Labor Member of Parliament. But there was no great enthusiasm among the leaders, with the exception of Evatt. Curtin certainly did not want office, and would have been prepared to remain in Opposition until the next election…Very few Australians, certainly very few of the defeated Government, expected Labor to remain in office for more than three months. Curtin’s health was expected to prove unequal to his new responsibilities. The Labor Party was not expected to hold together… The new Government’s ability to satisfy the demands of Coles, a traditional conservative in most things political, was also doubted. 1113

Whitington adds ‘Curtin, obviously sensing there was a plan for Casey to re-enter politics, instructed him to remain in the United States’. 1114 The problem over Casey’s going behind Curtin’s back to accept the Cairo appointment from Churchill in March

1942 was made worse by ongoing political instability among the conservatives. Casey might conceivably be drafted to return home. Curtin possibly also saw Casey’s promotion as a possible prelude to British interference in trying to force the creation of a national government. 1115

Wilson, as his being left out of Whitington’s assessment indicates, was already counted as being firmly in Labor’s pocket and this is an important factor. Wilson’s firm pro-Labor alignment meant that even if Coles caused a further crisis it was a probability that Curtin would go into any subsequent election as the Prime Minister. The speaker

W.M. Nairn, a conservative, decided to stay on, as did J.H. Prowse, the conservative

Chairman of Committees. Nairn and Prowse stayed on till 21/6/43. These two presiding officers amplified Coles’s and Wilson’s influence and tended to make the House, until mid to late 1943, more like the pre-Fusion House than any before or after it.

Nairn’s decision to stay on gave Labor one more vote (in effect).

1113 D. Whitington. 1968. The House Will Divide… :90. 1114 D. Whitington. 1968. The House Will Divide… :90. 1115 See D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War… :293-297.

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Calwell, Menzies and other free-spirited private MPs also benefited from this situation being freer to act-out the role of free-spirited paragons of individual conscience. The new government, and through it a clear majority of parliament (of four counting Coles, Wilson, Nairn and Prowse) had decided, in effect, to alter itself to accommodate the Burkean sentiments already expressed by Coles and

Wilson. - The Speaker’s and Chairman of Committee’s self-justifications for staying on were perhaps the most visible fruit of this new situation. 1116 Curtin also appears to have begun to understand the additional benefit he was gaining from the Menzies group cutting itself off from full reconciliation with the rest of the conservatives.

Menzies decided to bide his time, once Hughes became ensconced as party leader. 1117 Coles, in order to go along with say ‘The Little Digger’ acting as caretaker

Prime Minister would have to become very disenchanted very quickly with Labor.

During late 1941 and into 1942 the Victorian Young Nationalists mounted a campaign against Coles’s capricious and supposedly self-interested ‘deal-making’ with Labor. Coles was not being wooed by the conservatives with any deal of assiduousness! 1118

The conservatives, if they had really wanted an election would have needed to have positively won over and convince Coles of the need for one. Coles’s CPD record for the session that began on 29/10/41 and ended on 17/12/41 therefore becomes quite important in this regard. If all bets were off after 7/11/41 (and we have

Coles’s and Curtin’s telegrams as evidence against this) then the attitude of the conservatives and more precisely Coles’s attitude to them between 29/10/41 and about

1116 See D. Whitington. 1969. The House Will Divide… :85. 1117 See A. W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies… : 398-400. 1118 See P. Aimer. 1974. Politics, Power and Persuasion…:10f.

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5/12/41 becomes central. The only sustained piece of discourse from Coles during this sitting was his speech on the new budget on 13/11/41.

Coles shows no signs of disenchantment with Labor or growing regard for non-

Labor in this speech on Labor’s revised budget for 1941-1942. 1119 Coles was only ever won over in late 1940 and into 1941 because Menzies had persuaded Coles that he was going to start cranking up the war-effort. Did Menzies crank up the war-effort between late May 1941 and late August 1941 – a period of about one hundred days? This thesis has argued that he did not- not that much anyway.- So at the very least, in Coles’s mind, a war-time Prime Minister might need at least 100 days to show some signs of coming good on his promises. Therefore Curtin could probably expect a few months grace before Coles began to show any sign of inconstancy.

It must be stressed Coles would have been happy to persist with Menzies if

Menzies hadn’t thrown the towel in - so this might also then apply to Curtin as well. 1120 Menzies during the earlier part of 1941 had persuaded Coles of his bona fides by a combination of private discussion over breakfasts at the

Dorchester Hotel and by such measures as his major public speech at the

Sydney Town Hall on his return from overseas :

Now when Mr Menzies returned he made a broadcast from the Sydney Town Hall in which he pledged Australia to make a full war effort, because that’s on record so I don’t have to say anything about it. The result of that to me was that I pledged myself to Mr Menzies if he would carry out this programme. 1121

1119 CPD.Vol.168 13/11/41:392-395. 1120 See K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies…:141-143. 1121 NLA ORAL TRC 121/17:1:2/40.

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Hughes’s manoeuvres, either directly via his satellites like McCall or via his dupes like Winkler were not likely to have impressed Coles any more than had

Fadden’s activities before or after October 3, 1941. The Opposition’s relations with

Coles wouldn’t have been helped by Fadden continuing a campaign of personal abuse in relation to Coles (and not much better in terms of Menzies either ). 1122

The Winkler Royal Commission handed down its report on 21/11/41 but its main hearings were held in mid-October 1941. Mid October would have been a key time for the Opposition to start negotiating again to regain Coles’s confidence after the October 3 crossing of the floor.

Hughes’s idiosyncratic approach intensified (rather than got better) and the

Opposition split into two factions – those co-operating with Hughes and Fadden and those who did not. 1123 Coles believed in leaders of causes who could show an effective public front and present themselves well. – Coles was to show this later with his active participation (as Chairman) in Rationing Commission publicity activity. 1124

Hughes, despite his theoretical understanding of the need for a massively stepped up effort to boost local defences failed to show any sign of leading the

UAP into a different position on home defence to that held by the former

Government. Coles and other advocates of local pro-activity like Sturdee realised that at least there was now a Labor government that was at least half-way committed to doing something about taking on the Labor left-wing and raising more troops for home defence. Coles, like Sturdee, probably judged this as

1122 See A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies A Life… :391; 392-398; P. Hasluck. 1952. The Government and the People 1939-1941… :614-615. 1123 See A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies A Life… : 398-399; D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War… : 177-180f. 1124 See CA264, Series B4459 Gramophone records of broadcasts made by the Rationing Commission.

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marginally better than the Opposition which was increasingly relying on waving the Union Jack to solve all local strategic problems.1125

Menzies in the weeks and months after Curtin came to power had become anything but dynamic with his adoption of the airs and graces of a pseudo-Burkean private member who now and then felt wont to express his views on the great interests of the nation. Menzies’s affectation in late 1941 of using the parliament to somehow ventilate matters in a way that was nominally Burkean (as Churchill actually had in the

1930s) and as Hughes more or less had done between 1923 and 1934 impressed few people. Menzies had a track record of similar Burkean resignations stretching back to his time in the Victorian Legislative Council and Assembly in the later

1920s and early 1930s. 1126 Menzies, of course, had also resigned on principle while in the House of Representatives during 1938-1939. 1127

Menzies’s tactics only annoyed those like Coles who had wanted Menzies to fight back. Coles would have supported Menzies had he refused to serve in Fadden’s

Cabinet and had he began in September 1941 the fight back he did begin in

February 1942. Menzies actually had far less resonance and support in the summer of 1942 than he still had in pre-Pearl Harbour late 1941. Coles might well have formed part of at least some sort of temporary administration led by Menzies, which might have taken the country to the polls sometime in late 1941. If the election date fell sometime after Pearl Harbour Menzies would have been the most likely of all

1125 See R. McMullan. 1991. Light On the Hill… :215-217; L. Ross. 1996. John Curtin… :225-230; P. Hasluck. 1980. Diplomatic Witness …:12-14; P.G. Edwards. 1983. Prime Ministers and Diplomats… :132. 1126 See C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed… :51-52; 60-66. 1127 See C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed… : 156-158.

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senior Canberra politicians to have the front and gall to successfully get the poll delayed indefinitely pending resolution of the national crisis. 1128

Menzies on 29 October, 1941 made ‘his last major speech for some months (and then) lapsed into comparative silence’.1129 Menzies only began fighting back in

February and March 1942 with his opposition to Labor’s conscription measures. 1130

Fadden, however, was adamant that Coles was serious in whatever negotiations they had during his six week long government. 1131

Coles did initiate the meeting with Fadden on October 3 by approaching ‘Jos’

(Josiah) Francis. 1132 Coles probably did ask for an immediate change of portfolios, maybe, with himself included in a new ministry knowing that this would almost certainly not happen. 1133 Fadden’s decision not to recognise that many conservative voters saw him as much a part of the problem as Menzies was another reason why he lost the Prime Ministership. A reconstruction of the Fadden Cabinet with Fadden at least feigning an offer to stand aside might well have saved the non-Labor government.

Menzies, as noted above, would have gained Coles’s support, had he approached Coles before or after the party meeting of 28 th August 1941. 1134

Menzies armed with Coles’s support for him and Coles’s threat of an election or crossing the floor, may well have been able to survive, at least for a while. 1135

Pearl Harbour may well have saved Menzies’s Prime Ministership just as it shored

1128 See C. Hazlehurst. 1979. Menzies Observed… : 242-245. 1129 A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies A Life… :398. 1130 A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies A Life… :408-423. 1131 A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :68-69. 1132 Coles agrees – in the interviews quoted above – with the account in A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :68-69. 1133 For the Fadden- Coles ‘dialogue’ during 1941 see A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :46; 58; 64. 1134 K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies The Last of the Queen’s Men . :140-143. 1135 A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies …:385-386.

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up Curtin’s premiership. 1136 A political rubicon or irreversible train of events can be crossed merely when a key actor is wont to think one way and not another.

Menzies was disappointed about not getting his way about a trip to England and more or less ‘throw the towel in’ as Coles indicates. 1137

Fadden’s situation after Menzies’s resignation was the opposite of a serendipitous one. Fadden was involved in a chain of events in which his change of approach might have proved a factor but was not the only factor required to have seen things turn out differently. Menzies or Fadden, if they had been in another mood or happier, etc., on one or two crucial days, might well have seen a key historical outcome turn out differently.

Fadden, despite the criticism made of him above, was no fool – except insofar as he had become somewhat intoxicated with the idea of becoming the great war leader whose name would end up appearing in the official war history. 1138 Fadden had key political priorities and political considerations which have been canvassed extensively above. 1139 Fadden’s rational motivation for acting as he did to hang onto access to power was to so position himself to the maximise the leverage of the

Country Party within the dynamics of the non-Labor coalition side of the two- party system. 1140 Country Party Leaders alone of all major Party leaders were (and are) the only major political figures in Australian politics after 1919 who have been able to think ahead to the next electoral cycle – a significant and often forgotten fact. 1141

1136 See D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War…:201-217. 1137 A.W. Martin. 1993. Robert Menzies …:377-385. 1138 See A. Reid. 1980. ‘Some Prime Ministers I Have Known’…:366f. 1139 Eg, in Chapters 3, 4, 5 & 6 above. 1140 As outlined in G. Shipp. 1962. ‘The Bruce-Page Coalition, 1922-25: An Analysis’… 1141 See G. Shipp. 1962. ‘The Bruce-Page Coalition, 1922-25: An Analysis’…

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Fadden in order to hang onto power would have to cultivate the goodwill of Coles who was someone all non-Labor MPs (and not just Fadden) considered to be a contumacious interloper. 1142 Wilson, the brute fact of his vote also needing to be taken into account, probably accounts for the real reason why Fadden decided not to court

Coles. 1143 Coles’s bargaining power with either party bloc would be exponentially greater with Wilson’s vote attached to it. Labor might have only ended up with a shaky caretaker government role if it had only Wilson’s vote to rely on despite Labor and

Wilson’s power to frustrate the government’s ability to pass legislation.

Masses of new legislative measures were not needed for the conservatives to run the war given the raft of additional powers the war-time government had gained to govern by delegation and regulation. It might have been possible for

Fadden with Coles’s support (or Menzies with Coles and without Wilson) to frustrate Labor’s and Wilson’s attempt to force an election for an extended period.

Labor, however, offered Coles the prospect of a more positive alternative. Coles and

Labor, with Wilson’s support had developed what Fenna calls a ‘cross-class’ ‘policy coalition’. The policy coalition gained extra parliamentary stability with the extra boost of a co-operative conservative staying on as Speaker 1144

Labor with Coles’s vote on board gave Curtin and the senior Labor leadership something Menzies and Fadden could never have simply by keeping (or later on regaining) Coles’s vote – a backbench thereby relatively cowed into submission.

Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6 argued that the conservative backbench was resentful when their leadership gave any concessions to Coles or Wilson. The conservative backbench saw

1142 See Ross Gollan Papers - University of Sydney Rare Books and Special Collections 20471. 1143 See A. Fadden. 1969. They Called Me Artie… :68. 1144 See A. Fenna. 1995. ‘Political Alignments, Political Economy…’:69-70.

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concessions to Coles or Wilson as a reward for doing what they knew they would be politically destroyed for even daring to suggest they might do 1145

Labor’s rebels (like Calwell, Ward, etc.) realised they would have to tread carefully for fear of getting the blame for being the ones who drove the independents away! It was also pointed out, in earlier chapters, that Calwell got on very well with Coles anyway, retaining mutuality from the cross-class policy coalition they had on the Melbourne City Council. Ward, too, along with other actual Langites, ex-Langites (like himself) or former flirters with Lang (like Evatt) had been prominent among those who had been duchessing Wilson. 1146

Labor’s restless elements realised that a Federal caucus that would have to consider what the independents thought created a wildcard situation. It is true that the need to maintain Coles’s and Wilson’s support would help reinforce the agenda of the senior leadership. The uncertain majority, however, would also, now and then, provide opportunities for more debate than might occur in a Labor caucus with a huge and complacent majority.

The Calwell-Coles relationship takes on an even more important role at this point

(and one that it has not yet been explored in the literature). Coles’s support was absolutely contingent upon Labor finding a creative compromise with him over conscription. Calwell’s personal relationship with Coles was another link in the chain of causation that led to Calwell setting up the ideological dilemma in such a way as would allow him to rationalise acceptance of conscription once it came.

Ward’s trajectory had already shown that the Coles-Wilson factor could work for him as well as cause problems for him over conscription. Ward’s triumphant entry into the (outer) Cabinet meant that he was at least willing to

1145 E.g. Grenfell-Price MHR for Boothby – see C. Kerr. 1983. Archie, the Biography… :171-172. 1146 See D. Day 1999. John Curtin…:412; 418.

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trade power to allow the leadership to try to work out a compromise over conscription with Coles and Wilson. 1147

Post-October 3 Curtin also could point to the fact that Evatt and probably half a dozen (or more) others might follow Coles and Wilson into a government genuinely capable of governing for the nation. 1148 Fadden, after all, had already been forced to court individuals whose loyalty and political stability were probably even less certain than Coles’s would have been had a genuine national crisis occurred. McCall, for instance, readily accepted a post with Coles on the Rationing Commission in early 1942 in a fit of Burkean statespersonship.

Spender or Menzies would have proven far less reliable (to put it mildly) had Fadden survived past October 3. Fadden’s supposed closer supporters like

McEwen, Page and Hughes were hardly less likely to turn down the opportunity to lead or become heroes of the hour for assisting to form a cross-party government. Any one of these could have walked over the floor during one of the key national crises of late 1941 and early 1942 with up to a dozen other

MPs and formed a national government with some or all of Labor. Fadden, in turn, would have had to rally to such a government with the remaining conservatives. 1149

Senior conservative and Labor leaders were all aware of the deep national crisis that would follow if Japan undertook something more than an exploratory incursion into the ABDA (American, British, Dutch, and Australian) area. 1150 Fadden, possibly, presaged that a major political crisis akin to a sort of a military coup might be necessary to get the necessary forces deployed to meet Japan if intense and prolonged

1147 See A. Calwell. 1972. Be Just and Fear Not… :78-87. 1148 On this point see S. Holt. 2002. ‘Don Cameron From Socialist to Seer…’… 1149 See D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War…:348; 352; 388; 409. 1150 See L. Wigmore. 1952. The Japanese Thrust… 1-65f.

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campaigning ensued in the ABDA area. 1151 If all this was so why had Fadden gone through the motions during September? One reason might have been that Fadden judged that without Wilson’s vote Coles would not be able to induce Curtin to promise him to govern as a national leader rather than as a Labor leader.

The key is not Coles’s discussions with Wilson as Coles reported these to Mel

Pratt in 1971 or to Perkins in 1966. Coles’s and Wilson’s discussions in the native garden next to Parliament House related to the tactical issue of precisely when they would ambush Fadden and cross the floor. Coles was a reasonably expert natural psychologist and manipulator of people (despite the self-serving conservative legend to the contrary).

Coles had already effected the first crucial shift in any private company, the first intergenerational change from the founder and initial king-pin decision maker to the next person in the family who claims to be capable enough to take over (in this case

Coles claimed this of himself). The successor often drives the company into the ground within five to ten years. Coles had done the opposite and he had exponentially increased the firms’ worth. 1152 Coles, also played local politics well and this is always a crucible where dealing with the subtle personal drives and eccentricities of ones fellow participants is always more important than any ability to merely state issues objectively or argue one rational case against another.

Coles had become a paragon of the charity circuit and this requires a skill in dealing with the human nature of ones fellow board and committee members. Coles was involved with the South Richmond Mission, Geelong College Council, the Northcote

Trust (British Child Migrants scheme), some war-related funds and a few other causes

1151 See D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War…:1-231 but particularly: 118-143. 1152 J. McLaughlin. 1991. Nothing Over Half a Crown…

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held over from his activities on the Melbourne City Council. 1153 Coles showed the same sort of assimilative and consensus driving skills that were also on show among the exceptional group of women co-founders of the Liberal Party of Australia like Rachel Cleland or Mrs Claude Couchman. 1154

Coles’s participation in the deliberations of the Victorian General Assembly of the

Presbyterian Church also indicated a long term familiarity with assemblies that are only able to be swayed by a subtle combination of good timing and cajoling. The combination of good timing and cajoling actually underlies the route to success in the practice of the mode of traditional pre-modern rhetoric and deliberation. 1155

The issue of pre-modern modes (and skills) surviving into modernity has been discussed in Chapter 1 but at the very least Coles can be said to have been pursuing ‘ends (that were) not merely pursued rhetorically, (but were)

…themselves constituted rhetorically’. 1156 Coles’s prime objective, as argued at length further above (in Chapters 3 to 6), was to make the maximum possible amount of psychological impact on most non-Labor and Labor MPs. Coles wouldn’t have been familiar with the political science term ‘political learning’ but he was familiar with traditional rhetorical ideas of how to make one’s words have the maximum possible effect. 1157

This chapter (Chapter 7) has already argued that Coles had been deliberately lecturing and preparing the ground for getting those he wanted to hear to really hear. Menzies had been first on his list – and as argued in Chapter 6 Curtin was really the only other person on Coles’s list. Coles wanted all party leaders

1153 See W. Ives (ed. ) 1982. With Zeal… :20-24. 1154 See M. Fitzherbert. 2004. Liberal Women: federation to 1949. Annandale, Federation Press. 1155 See Chapter 1 and R. Whateley. 1873. Elements of Rhetoric. London, Longmans, Green and Dyer. 1156 R. Beiner. 1983. Political Judgement… :93. 1157 R. Whateley. 1873. Elements of Rhetoric… :113-166‘Of the Address to the Understanding, with a View to Produce Conviction (Including Instruction)’.

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to become persuaded about the need for total-war. Coles’s idea of persuasion is described by Samuel Beer who (when quoted by Marsh) is critiquing part of

Plato’s Symposium :

Thought and feeling are intimately united. Intellectual progress is impelled by emotion – Indeed the process of intellectual progress is as much the development of desire as of knowledge. Far from the appetites being taken as fixed, given and quite separate from reason as in Bacon’s scheme, they are seen as developing in unison with knowledge. To progress in the mind is also to grow in virtue. Dispassionate opinion would be a contradiction in terms. 1158

Coles makes it very plain that this intention to persuade had been his primary objective all along – but he stated this too plainly to be heard by most two-party system conditioned politicians:

I realise that there is nothing noble in what I am doing; But I am actuated by cold reasoning. The electors of my division will deal with me as they think fit. I take That risk, as will many other honourable members, Should there be an election. 1159

Coles’s words were also too direct in their unadorned rhetorical meaning to be taken seriously by most journalists and other supposed insider and/or expert observers at the time (including Hasluck). 1160 Coles, as a person also influenced by this underlying sub-stratum of political cultural thought, tried to put his essentially moral case in a way and in a context that even someone as utilitarian as Sir George Bell might understand:

Of course it does not matter to me personally how the honourable member for Henty casts his vote. That is his business. But he must remember that, when he casts his vote to put the Opposition as it is to- day constituted into power, he casts a vote with people who are anti- British in their sympathies.

1158 S. Beer. 1974. ‘Two models of public opinion’ Political Theory May, quoted in I. Marsh. 1995. Beyond The Two Party System : 340-341. Also see Marsh’s additional references at: 397 for footnote 12. 1159 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:707. 1160 P. Hasluck. 1978. Diplomatic Witness… : gives a good description of early war-time Canberra.

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Mr Barnard : Mr Chairman, I take exception to that remark, and I ask that it be withdrawn.

The Chairman : The objection has been noted.

Mr Barnard : I take the remark as a personal reflection on me…

The Chairman : I understand that the honourable member for Darwin made no direct reference to individuals.

Mr Barnard : He said that they were anti-British.

Sir George Bell : The honourable member for Henty intends to case his vote with people who have no sympathy with Australian soldiers fighting overseas.

Mr Coles : I rise to make a point of order (and after one more interruption)… I have a personal objection. The honourable member for Darwin has no right to impute that I have knowledge that any members of the Opposition are disloyal…

Sir George Bell : The honourable member will realise…

Mr Barnard : The remark should be withdrawn. I am not anti-British. I have two sons, both of who have enlisted and I can say that I am as good a Briton as is the honourable member…1161

Curtin then intervened and commented that even Sir George Bell (when he was

Speaker) would not have refused to ask for the withdrawal of such a remark! 1162 Sir

George, after withdrawing, continued:

I think I am entitled to make these few remarks concerning the honourable member for Henty. I should not have referred to this matter, had he not spoken about the change of leadership in the United Australia party. I consider that the Committee and the Country should be informed that no honourable member did as much as did (he) to belittle, undermine, and to ridicule the leadership of (Menzies). 1163

Sir George began to take flight at this point and generated several further interjections:

(Coles) took every opportunity to say that we could never have a united war effort whilst the right honourable member for Kooyong remained leader of the United Australia party. That statement was made over and

1161 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:719. 1162 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:719. 1163 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:719.

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over again by (Coles), right from the time of his return from his visit to England last year. In fact it is not too much to say that (Coles) took every opportunity to denounce the leadership of (Menzies).

Mr Rosevear : Where?

Sir George Bell : Everywhere except in the right place, which is in this House.

Mr McEwen : He toured Victoria.

Sir George Bell : Yet the honourable member for Henty is not blaming the United Australia party for having removed the right honourable member for Kooyong from leadership of the party, notwithstanding that he said on many occasions that we could never have a united war effort while (Menzies) remained leader of the party… I consider it quite proper to intimate that (Coles) was responsible for this little bit of disunity. The honourable gentleman has said to-day that he believes that we would get a better war effort it another government assumed office. I can only hope that with his support we shall be able to make a more successful war effort. 1164

Then the vote was taken and Fadden, as a consequence, asked for a special adjournment to allow the government ‘an opportunity to consider its position’.1165 The role of the Governor-General in not facilitating or even actively canvassing an election indicates several key points: first, Lord Gowrie and Sir Ronald Cross (the British High

Commissioner) judged, in line with Fadden’s official/formal advice that Coles’s and

Wilson’s votes would hold. 1166

A second key point flowing from Fadden’s decision to advise Gowrie to call for

Curtin was that Fadden realised he wouldn’t have the numbers to call an election. 1167 A third point, whose implications have already been discussed (further above) is that

Curtin must have been somewhat convinced that he had the support of Coles and

1164 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:719. 1165 CPD.Vol.168 3/10/41:719-720. 1166 See Parliaments of the British Empire 22:4: October 1941:608-610 reflects British opinion on the events. Also D. Day. 1986. Menzies and Churchill at War… :228-232 and W. S. Churchill. 1950. The Grand Alliance… :500f. ; 1952. The Hinge of Fate ...:20. 1167 On this point see D Whitington. 1977. An Unfinished Autobiography… :74-78.

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Wilson for at least the medium term. 1168 A fourth point (also discussed further above) was that despite their talk of the righteous anger of a patriotic electorate nobody on the conservative side wanted an immediate election. Later on, perhaps, there could be an election once ‘Artie’ had been replaced or sidelined by a real thoroughbred like ‘Dick’

Casey and/or ‘Doc’ Page had come back from London and told them what to do and how to do it. 1169

Coles’s views, although possibly tending towards assisting Menzies if Menzies had seriously planned a come-back also had to take into account Wilson’s situation.

Wilson was now carrion as far as the Country Party was concerned. Coles and Wilson faced the necessity of using-up their power – calling everyone’s bluff – and punting on

Curtin. 1170 Wilson’s role as the rural neo-Deakinite political conscience of rural conservatism was becoming superfluous now that McEwen was beginning to develop a working relationship with the wider Dunstan wing of the party. 1171 Wilson had never really been a truly ideologically bourgeois neo-Deakinite anyway. Wilson was much more a by-product of the growth in rural Australia, of aggressive hard-edged agrarian populism over the previous thirty years. 1172 The rural electorate was already, even by the later 1930s, just as likely to vote Labor as independent to express its dissatisfaction with the wider world. 1173

McEwen, once too right-wing of the Dunstanites and too left-wing for the

Pageites began to look just right for post-Dunstan rural politics in Victoria. Wilson

1168 D. Whitington. 1968. The House Will Divide… :79; K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies The Last of the Queen’s Men . :141 1169 D. Day. 2003. The Politics of War… :166-167. 1170 See G. Maddox. 1992. ‘Political Stability, Independents and the Two-Party System’ Current Affairs Bulletin 69:1. 1171 G. Mitchell. 1969. Growers in Action… :42-48f; 129-135f. 1172 See A. Patience. 1992. ‘Populist Authoritarianism in Australian Politics’ Australian Studies 7:April:30-38. 1173 See J. Hallam. 1983. The Untold Story…:43-74f.

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didn’t fit into this new re-packaged conservative Keynesian vision and he knew it. 1174

Dunstan’s power, anyway, was beginning to falter and to shore it up more and more deals would need to be done with the Pageites and McEwenists. Wilson’s agenda no longer fitted with the Dunstan machine’s increasing tendency to trade-off its non- interference with the Federal level in order to hold onto power at State level. 1175

Coles didn’t have to worry as Wilson did about scraping together several thousand pounds to try to either replace the pension or make life more bearable with the Old Age

Pension. Labor held out more prospects of assistance with any post-political appointment than the conservatives who Wilson had annoying for years. 1176 Coles was still in his vigorous young middle age and beginning to tire of not having something even bigger than G.J. Coles to occupy his time. Coles’s trip to London in early 1941 was an early sign that he would soon tire of a role that didn’t involve a lot of excitement and movement 1177

Coles very early along in the life of the new Labor government discussing his involvement in projects of the magnitude of the task he eventually took on with the

Commonwealth Rationing Commission. Coles was involved in discussions with Labor early enough to be able to ask for and receive the bright young economist

Coombs to run the Rationing Commission. 1178 Coles says Chifley asked him to be his replacement on the War Workers Housing Trust (which Chifley had been a member of until then). Chifley’s offer was made virtually within a few weeks of Labor taking office. 1179

1174 R.F.I. Smith. 1968. ‘The Development of Wheatgrowers Organisations…’:26 1175 G. Blainey. 1984. Our Side of the Country... :14-28 ‘The Rise and Fall of Albert the Great.’ 1176 Wilson was Administrator of Norfolk Island between 1946 and his death in the early 1950’s. 1177 See Sir Arthur Coles interview with Mel Pratt. 19-24/5/71. NLA ORAL TRC 121/17; 1/1/18. 1178 See NLA ORAL TRC 121/17…:2/33-34; H.C. Coombs. 1983. Trial Balance… :16. 1179 See NLA ORAL TRC 121/17…:1:2/27 W. Ives. (ed.) 1982. With Zeal and Integrity… :26-27.

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Coles was settling in for the long haul with Labor – at least in his own mind.

Coles’s increasing trust in Labor is evidenced by his taking over from Chifley on the

War Workers Housing Trust. Coles indicates that he had always understood this appointment would be merely the first of many tasks he would be given to do. 1180

Coles, during October 1941 and beyond also played the role of a regular friendly interlocutor with Scullin. Scullin was a key figure in the initial planning process that went into giving shape to Labor’s ambitious plans for both war and domestic policy. 1181

Arthur Coles was not a friendly backbencher type who would remain happy with being tossed the bone of something like the War Workers Housing Trust or the Joint

Parliamentary Committee on Man-Power and Resources.1182

The Chairpersonship of a joint-parliamentary committee had been all that Menzies had found for Coles to do. Coles’s forte was overseeing a bright group of executives who themselves oversaw multiple hundreds of other employees undertaking tasks others had avoided thinking about because it was all too hard. Coles’s ultimate desire, all along, had been something like the working chairperson role Menzies had created for

Essington Lewis. 1183 Coles still could go back to running G.J. Coles full time, something he went on to run as part time General Manager until 1944. 1184 Coles had sent a telegram to Curtin offering to serve ‘in any capacity’ after the Australian declaration of war on Japan on October 8, 1941. 1185

Coles’s telegram to Curtin really only confirmed in Curtin’s mind that he had already gained Coles’s ongoing support in parliament. The point is that by the time of

1180 NLA ORAL TRC 121/27…:1:2/27. 1181 NLA ORAL TRC 121/17…:1:2/33. 1182 Coles was still Chairman of this Joint Parliamentary Committee for the period of the Fadden government. 1183 See H.C. Coombs. 1984. John Curtin A Consensus Prime Minister.. :4-7. 1184 Coles remained General Manager until 1944. 1185 Prime Minister to Arthur Coles – Telegram 9/12/41…

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Pearl Harbour and the bombing of Darwin Coles and other senior Labor figures had developed a trusting, open and frank relationship. The Coles-Labor relationship was miles away from the relationship Coles had developed with the non-Labor leadership team when he had first entered parliament. Coles’s relationship with non-Labor’s leadership had always been a vague, hubris-ridden, and full of mutual recrimination and back-handed modus vivendi. Menzies, ironically, had finally developed a fairly close and genuinely reciprocal relationship with Coles only after Menzies’s downfall! The rest of the conservatives, however, were never going to benefit from Menzies’s new found empathy with Coles.

The new Labor government seemed to be living up to Coles’s fondest expectation while the events of late August 1941 had raised new doubts in Coles’s mind about

Menzies:

Armed with the knowledge that he had, and faced with the great challenge before him, it is beyond my comprehension why he resigned instead of standing firm. One can be quite wrong in trying to interpret it but to me it was almost a disaster. Why should he have had to resign at all? He was the Prime Minister at the critical stage, the only informed man. If I’d been in his position I’d have said, ‘All right boys, fight me in the party room’. At that stage he was no different to a soldier in the trenches – if a soldier walks home, who fights the war? I am uncompromising on this point, and to me that was the most vital blow I have ever received. I was very disappointed with him at that time. I had thought that here was a man who would stand up to his colours, but he didn’t – he resigned. It was disappointing and frustrating to see Bob go. Here I was making speech after speech and doing everything I could to get Australia conditioned for war, and I had pledged myself in writing to support this man. Suddenly he’s gone and I’m left with two feet off the ground. It’s an amazing feeling you get, the whole world is cut away from you. 1186

1186 Sir Arthur Coles’s interview in K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies Last of the Queen’s Men… :138-139.

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Coles shared this friendly exchange with Menzies sometime during the life of the

Fadden government before Coles’s final decision to cross the floor:

The only indication that Menzies gave of being hurt, that he might find revenge was to be sweet, was in the dining room of the Hotel Canberra one day. At breakfast he approached Arthur Coles, and placing his arms around his shoulder, said, ‘You know what would do these fellows a lot of good?’ ‘What’s that Bob?’ ‘A long period in Opposition.’ ‘Don’t worry, Bob, they’re going to get it.’1187

Coles’s disappointment with Menzies ran deeper than even so far indicated and went to the heart of Coles’s self-understanding as a duty focused Presbyterian moralist in politics and as a believer in Anzac ideology. 1188 Coles told Perkins in the mid-1960s:

My first reaction was: I will resign, I’m not going to support the rabble that has done this thing. I thought to a certain extent he had been forced out, but not entirely, and that is why I think he should have stayed and fought. I don’t think it was a case of disloyalty to him. Dissatisfaction or dislike is more like it. Members were against him on personal grounds and, I think, Sydney on political grounds. But if he’d stood up to them they could not have forced him out. It’s difficult to define what this portrayed of the man. I have no doubt the Prime Minister was not doing enough at the beginning of the war. I can remember going to a UAP meeting and hearing the Prime Minister say that after the First World War Australia had enormous quantities of waste material, and this time the war effort must be organised in such a way that there was no waste, no beating of the air. To me this was anathema. If you have an enemy with a certain amount of equipment, men and materials and fire power and so on, you’ve got to build yours up so much you fall on him and overwhelm him. When that happens you’ve got an enormous amount of stuff left over. But if you don’t you’re the one who will go under. That got under my skin and I did not think we should approach a war that way with our whole life at stake. 1189

Coles adds, with Perkins providing further paraphrase and commentary:

I was fearful of what the results could be (of government policy) and information from reliable Government sources told us before the war broke out that Germany, Italy and Japan would all come in together. I believed Bob Menzies realised all this, but too late. At that point they

1187 K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies Last of the Queen’s Men : 142. 1188 See J.M. Brett. 2003. Australian Liberals and the moral middle class: from Alfred Deakin to John Howard. New York, Cambridge University Press. 1189 K. Perkins. 1968 Menzies ...:140.

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got him out. Sir Arthur Coles believes Menzies missed his great moment of history in his decision to resign as Prime Minister when Australia’s greatest crisis came. His view was that it was futile for the Prime Minister to talk of returning to Britain when Churchill obviously could do so little to defend Australia.1190

Perkins records Coles’s comments that his first genuinely effective moment of contact with Chifley came through Wilson. Coles, in fact, already knew Chifley fairly well. Perkins either got the context of Coles’s words wrong or more likely Coles wished to give Perkins the impression that there was no long standing conspiracy between himself and Labor:

Wilson said he knew Chifley well and would make contact with him. Next day Ben Chifley came to Coles and in the Parliamentary billiards room. ‘John would like to come and have a talk with you,’ he said without elaboration. Curtin came to Coles’ office and after a brief, hushed conversation said, ‘You know, our Party has not agreed to many of the things you are standing for?’ ‘John,’ said Coles, ‘all I want is a stable government that will face the realities of the situation and when a crisis comes, we will be in a position to meet it. I don’t know whether you’ll be called to Government or not, but all I want is a promise from you that have all your people in the House when the vote is taken. That’s the only promise I want.’1191

Perkins’s combination of commentary, elaboration and paraphrase hits a tone reminiscent of ‘the boy stood on the burning deck’ at this point:

It had often been said that Labor did not want to govern in the war, but even if that had been true in at one time, it certainly was not now. Curtin was so happy his eyes sparkled behind his glasses. He began to talk. Coles could have had almost anything he wanted in the way of political appointment. ‘John,’ said Coles, ‘don’t say it. Just have your fellows in the House.’1192

Coles confirms in his interview with Perkins that because he and Wilson jointly approached Labor they understood themselves to be undertaking a joint-negotiated

1190 K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies Last of the Queen’s men… :144. 1191 K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies Last of the Queen’s men… :145. 1192 K. Perkins. 1968. Menzies Last of the Queen’s men… :145.

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settlement (of sorts) with Labor. 1193 Coles’s and Wilson’s manoeuvre may seem cavalier if judged by the anodyne machinations of twenty-first century Australian politics. 1194 Coles’s and Wilson’s manoeuvre was seen by many at the time as the intrusion of political amateurs into an arena populated by professional political ciphers in thrall to outside forces and groups.1195 F.C. Green said:

In May 1939 (sic) the big boys in Melbourne decided Hawker was the man to succeed Lyons and they asked him to come to Melbourne… (there was)… thick fog… (and his)… plane hit Dandenong Mountain… I think he would have made a very good Prime Minister and a very good leader; he had the respect of everyone…dedicated…respected, wonderful man in every way… intelligent. 1196

Green then answered this question about who he thought the big-boys were-‘ In your book you talk about Kingmakers, the Temple Court for instance?’ Green replied:

Green : I don’t think there is any doubt about it… If you notice all the Prime Ministers except for Labor came from Victoria. This was the pattern right up to Billy McMahon… This was the way it was done… after all they had the money, funds for the Party. 1197

Conclusion.

This chapter sought to tie-up many of the threads and themes raised in earlier chapters but particularly in Chapter 6 which dealt with Coles’s and Wilson’s words and actions throughout 1941 up to late August. This chapter focused on Coles’s and

Wilson’s words on just one day – October 3, 1941. October 3, 1941 is a day, which

1193 And/or a cross class coalition per A. Fenna. 1995. ‘Political Alignments, Political Economy…’ 1194 See J. Pemberton. 1995. ‘Rationalism and the Rhetoric of Repudiation in Australian Political Life’ Australian Journal of Political Science 30:483-499. 1195 See H.K. Colebatch. 1992. ‘Theory and Analysis of Australian Politics’ Australian Journal of Political Science 27:1-11. 1196 F.C. Green former Clerk of the House of Representatives – interview with the ABC recorded in 1971 played on ABC 4/2/01 – verbatim. Also see F.C. Green. 1969. Servant of the House… :111-114 (Green meant 1938 not 1939). 1197 F.C. Green former Clerk of the House of Representatives – interview with the ABC recorded in 1971 played on ABC 4/2/01 – verbatim.

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should live much more in the memory of Australians than it does. October 3,

1941 points to the possible ongoing presence within Australian political life of an underlying, vigorous and typically Australian thread of practical scepticism about the absurd self-claims of both Australian major party blocs.

Vigorous independents, free-spirited MPs within party blocs and minor-parties revealed themselves to be as crucial as the major parties to the outcome of this day.

October 3, 1941 can be seen as the definitive termination of a long period of policy stasis induced partly by party strife. Loyal backbenchers in a rigid party system only ever experience people taking them seriously during a prolonged crisis of party leadership. Backbenchers know that, once things are resolved again they are destined for the relative boredom (but also safety) of the role of cowed hacks

(as the unkind might say) or as ‘good team players’ as late twentieth/ early twenty first century managerialist discourse puts it.

Fadden getting to play the role he did, was due to this internal malaise, this ongoing backbench revolt and he was never going to be a cure for it.

Coles and Wilson, then, at the very least, exercised their serendipitously arrived at balance of power to short-circuit the worsening of the policy-making and policy implementing malaise caused by the irresponsible raucousness of the galley-slaves of the conservative backbench. Coles and Wilson’s support for Curtin, actually helped cement the power of Labor’s senior leadership group in relation to any atomising tendencies Labor’s backbench might have had.

Coles and Wilson were representatives of wider great interest of the country such as vigorous business progressivism, the Anzacs, moral suasion of Protestant civic- mindedness, small marginal country towns and small farmers. Coles and Wilson, therefore, spoke for more people than just their electors and themselves when they

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challenged the arrogant place-seekers, disturbed egocentrics and blind ideology- followers among the leading members of both party blocs. It had been the fecklessness, narrowness of vision and self-destructive egotism of senior party

MPs, even more than out of control backbenchers, that had so disabled the

Australian policy making process during the previous two years of immense national crisis.

The actions and words of a few parliamentarians and how a few senior partisan leaders responded to these words proved crucial in Winston Churchill’s coming to power. The political judgement exercised about Coles by Curtin and about Curtin by

Coles more or less saw Curtin take power on October 3, 1941. 1198 The key theoretical and methodological issues under consideration in this thesis were also intertwined with the discussion on the effect of the discourse, deliberation, judgement and calculation displayed by the key-players on October 3, 1941.

Coles and Wilson, for once, cannot be seen as anything but key-players – at least in any extended analysis of the debate in Committee of the Fadden budget for 1941-

1942. This chapter has argued that it remains very useful historically to put this debate on October 3, 1941 into its widest possible historical context. However there also needs to be a re-focus on the micro and the individual’s role in history in terms of this debate and the wider role of the independents in the 1940-1943 House of Representatives.

This thesis, passim, has argued that the ongoing process of the historical investigation of Australia in the war of 1939-1945 has been better served by the decision in this thesis to focus on the impact of the climate of deliberativeness sparked off by Coles and Wilson’s serendipitous role in the House of Representatives - which

1198 Curtin did not actually become Prime Minister till the following week – on October 7, 1941.

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began in late 1940. Coles’s and Wilson’s actual words, their personalities and their moral suasion have been undervalued in historical investigation up till now.

Chapter 7 has proposed that enough evidence exists to at least consider Coles and

Wilson as being key-players in Australia’s political history during the Second World

War. Coles and Wilson can be judged to be more relatively significant than heretofore generally understood if they are understood as key facilitators of the rhetorical climate of consensus which was adapted and used by Prime Minister John Curtin between 1941 and 1945.

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Overall Conclusion of Study

The only question to address is did Coles and Wilson contribute to deliberativeness in any historically significantly way? The empirical focus was on Coles’s and Wilson’s use of the balance of power in the Australian House of Representatives in late 1941. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 read together, would appear, to the casual reader, to present a fairly strong case that there had been a breakout of deliberatively arrived, beyond two party politics which emanated from a cross-class policy coalition.

There remains, of course, a need to establish a solid basis for a set of counter-factuals. The best way to summarise the sceptical case is to say that it doesn’t really matter, one way or the other, if there was deliberativeness or not!

Nor does it matter much if there were also some of the things likely to go along with deliberativeness such as the exercise of political judgement , beyond two party politics and a cross-class policy coalition. It is a bit like making the judgement that St. Francis was a genuine Christian, while undertaking a study of the wider role and dynamics of Franciscanism in Medieval Western Europe.

The simple fact is that the two-party system was still dominant in 1940 and

1941. The two party blocs dominated policy formulation and implementation in these years just as they had done since 1910 - and continued on doing into the early twenty-first century.

The chief driver of the inter-war polity was the Page County Party, as mentioned in Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of this study. The Country Party acted as a effective counter-weight to the tendency of majority non-Labor to respond to pressures from ‘hidden party’ and/or neo-Deakinite constituencies over things like

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tariffs, increasing the power and role of the Commonwealth level of government, driving a new round of welfare state measures and nation-building infrastructure investment. A good example of the use of this power was the curious history of

National Insurance in the 1930s. The demise of Hughes and the exultation of

Bruce in the 1920s also rank high on this list of Page Country Party achievements.

Page’s achievements in these two instances are underrated and certainly not given the place they deserve in Australian political history.

All three of these negative, self-limiting, agenda setting achievements pale into insignificance in comparison to what ranks as the Country Party’s greatest achievement during the inter-war- the undermining of conservative Prime Minister

Robert Menzies. Menzies’s subsequent Lazarus like return is, of course, a leitmotif of post Second World War Australian politics. Menzies’s first Prime Ministership, however, is relatively under valued as a significant turning point in Australian political history. Menzies’s discrediting as an effective war-time leader owed as much to the playing out of his own idiosyncrasies as it did to he influence of the

Page’s and increasingly Fadden’s Country Party.

A consideration of Menzies’s first Prime Ministership, however, provides a way back to overcoming the apparently brutally irresistible force of facts.

There is an apparent self-evident homogenising reality to the domination of the Australian polity by two-party system dynamics since 1910. One counter to this is that Menzies’s idiosyncrasies seem to have counted almost as much as the wider prevailing forces and tendencies within Australian politics of the time.

On paper, and in the estimation of many contemporaries, including John Curtin and Coles, Menzies should have succeeded as Australia’s war time Prime

Minister. Menzies should have been the one inter-war political figure able to

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rise to new heights and take advantage of a war to boost his own leadership and control over the political scene.

Menzies, also, should have been as able as any other pragmatic politician to ride this new wave. Menzies, had more going for him personally, than say

Hughes whose Prime Ministership still took over a four years to disintegrate to the position Menzies found himself in by about mid 1940. Hughes suffered partly because the Country Party was able to facilitate a policy paradigm shift, within the wider non-Labor bloc, away from Deakinite centre- left approaches to a relative fiscal conservatism.

It remains a fact that serendipity saw to it that the fifteenth parliament of

1940-1943, is the only parliament since before the Fusion that has not seen one party bloc holding a majority of seats in the House of Representatives. Several times general elections came close to delivering such a result and once or twice in other parliaments, disgruntled members from one or other bloc have defected and/or forced a general election. Leadership changes have also been forced by disgruntled groups of MPs within party blocs. Between 1939 and

1944 one or all of these things happened, almost on a monthly basis although it was only between 1940 and 1943 that there was a hung parliament.

The randomness of the election result of 1940 provided an extraordinarily uncalled for and unmerited advantage for Coles and Wilson. A serendipitous turn of events for one or two individuals often allows outcomes to occur that otherwise would be impossible, given the normally prevailing run of ‘facts’ or at least normally occurring patterns of regularities. War-time often sees such randomness intruding into the more usually predictable world of politics.

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Australia was at war in 1941 but it wasn’t the war which had caused all the conjunctions of factors outlined above.

This study came to the broad conclusion that it would be wildly problematic to abandon a complex and multi--layered explanation about why key individual actors are still largely locked within key structural, class and political cultural determinants. There has been some testing-out or at least airing and cross-comparison of the counter-factual case with the key historical facts - as first outlined in Chapter 1. There has also been similar treatment given to the more usual, sceptical, majority view about the arguments put by Burke, Beiner, Marsh,

Fenna and the other methodologies about deliberativeness which were elaborated upon in Chapter 1. However it is also fair to say the counter-factual case (for independent’s driving deliberativeness) and the generally prevailing sceptical case both assume that individuals are intermeshed within systems which delimit what is normally possible.

A penultimate conclusion, then, is that the arguments about deliberative contexts or ‘break-outs’ made in Chapter 1 of this study provide some useful, additional, informing insights. However the most we can say is that these insights apply best to independents who serendipitously hold the balance of power.

Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 have provided enough evidence to substantiate the plausibility of at least part of the claim to explanatory usefulness of the idea that deliberativeness exists and can be significantly contributed to by independent MPs. Also that a significant contribution to deliberativeness can be made by conservative MPs who believe that true deliberativeness only takes place when it is focused around achieving the national or common good as Burke would have meant this.

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None of this means, however, perhaps unfortunately, that the arguments about deliberativeness as synthesised above, or any of them read alone, come close to providing a new global political sociological explanation.

Conservative deliberative theory mixed in with variants of new institutional analysis cannot be expected to act as the under girding for the explanatory power of some new grand theoretical political sociology. The methodological synthesis outlined above, however, has proved a useful insight into how a quick, decisive shift to the Keynesian paradigm took place in 1941-1942, even though

Australia was undergoing the extreme stress of a possible invasion.

The shift towards a modernised and exponentially updated form of the pre

Great War policymaking environment was all the more remarkable given the subservience of the Federal policy formulating environment since the early 1920’s, to fiscal conservatism, tempered only by the petty ambitions and peccadilloes of individual actors like Page, Bruce, Latham, Lyons, Menzies, Hughes, and Fadden.

The brief Scullin interregnum only emphasised the overall and annoying truth of an underlying stasis in the policy environment. The situation as outlined above is a distillation of a reading of all the concluding sections attached to the end of each of the seven chapters.

As already implied in the statement about randomness and serendipity

(further above) chance turns out to have been a key ingredient in effecting the policy paradigm shift of 1941-1942. The shift to centrist-consensus politics started taking place, almost, on the very day Coles and Wilson crossed the floor.

As implied in the brief comments already made about randomness above, a key ingredient in facilitating this shift, was the completely unintended and random circumstance of Coles and Wilson gaining the balance of power.

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This conclusion opened with what appeared to be a fairly easy surrender to the supposed brute force of already accumulated facts. Lying behind these facts are scores of layers of already well designed and well entrenched. pre-existing methodologies. The exploration of deliberativeness outlined above and explored at length in this study, can take its place among this pre-existing community of discourse. The synthesis of Burke, Beiner, Marsh and Fenna in particular, but also of other writers, more generally, does throw new light on the latent potential of ‘free-spirited’ and/or independent conservative MPs. This study has shown, of course, that free-spirited and independent MPs can achieve much if conditions are right.

The circumstances of 1940 can recur and will recur, at random intervals throughout the time that Australia continues to operate a Westminster system of government. Although it is the least theoretical of the methodological insights being tested (in one sense) the ultimate conclusion of this study is that serendipity was extremely important.

Serendipity was the prime, single, essential factor in the success Coles and Wilson enjoyed as facilitators of a major policy paradigm shift. Coles and

Wilson did not achieve this paradigm shift alone, a meteor did not come and wipe out every MP except them. Coles and Wilson acted in concert with the

Labor Party but also in very important way their serendipity allowed or rather forced other MPs to be more deliberative than they might have been otherwise.

Speaker Nairn, Chairman of Committees Prowse and even in their own ways Hughes, Menzies and Spender ended up being much more deliberative than they would have been in an ordinary, two-party system dominated chamber.

Calwell, Beasley and even Ward and Evatt were forced to consider other MPs as

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people and talk to them and listen to their wants and needs. If an MPs agenda is at all representative of a key wider cause, class or interest then that interest or cause probably gets more of a hearing in a deliberative chamber than in a less deliberative one.

It is not flippant to conclude this summation by suggesting that an unintended consequence of the two conservative independents of 1941 holding the balance of power was a return to the airing of a more representative selection of views from the wider community than had taken place since about 1909. Coles’s elite status and status as representative of the ‘sunrise’ sector of the economy of the day also helped. Wilson’s status as a genuinely representative spokesperson for farmers also helped too. Wilson and Coles together could, sort of act as a substitute for those among the conservatives who for too long had assumed they acted as representatives for these key

‘great interests of the country’.

Randomness is not the sole factor, and the focus on deliberation throughout this study also needs to be kept in mind. Who holds the balance of power appears to be as significant as the fact that it is held in the first place.

However in terms of the left/right ideological dichotomy and the ongoing issue of communal/ common good approaches versus liberal individualistic ones it appears strong minded and well-connected independent conservatives are more likely to achieve a leftward shift in policy making if they hold the balance of power. Left-wing MPs may be able to achieve similar outcomes, but chance gave two conservatives the ability to show what they could do.

Coles and Wilson did a lot better job than many of those supposedly , new social movement and other ‘change focused’ independents and small party groups

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did - who have held the balance of power at State level (or in the Senate) at various times since 1941. The broader theoretical underpinning outlined in this thesis, combined with an appreciation for the role of serendipity, then, at least, explains how proper or true conservatives, who happen to hold the balance of power, and who then favour a leftward leaning government are able to facilitate major shifts in policy towards communitarian outcomes.

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Davies, A., 1977. ‘Cabinet Government: A Comparison of Westminster and Australian Models and Practices’ Australasian Association of Political Studies Conference Papers : 19

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Reid, G. S., 1971. ‘The use of 'Swing' in the Analysis of Australian Politics.’ Australasian Association of Political Studies Conference Papers : 13.

Shipp, G., 1962. ‘The Bruce-Page Coalition, 1922-1925.’ Australasian Association of Political Studies Conference Papers : 4.

Smith, R. F. I., 1968. ‘The Development of Wheat Growers’ Organisations, 1927-1948.’ Australasian Association of Political Studies Conference Papers : 4.

Thompson, E., 1968. ‘Committees and Parliamentary Reform.’ Australasian Association of Political Studies Conference Papers : 10.

Tiver, P., 1971. ‘Menzies’ Political Thought.’ Australasian Association of Political Studies Conference Papers : 4.

Watson, A., 1968. ‘Party Finance and Politics: The UAP- A Case Study.’ Australasian Association of Political Studies Conference Papers : 10.

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