John Curtinfor Labor and for Australia

LLOYD ROSS

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY PRESS CANBERRA

This book was published by ANU Press between 1965–1991.

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THE INAUGURALJOHN CURTIN MEMORIAL LECTURE

1970

John Curtinfor Labor and for Australia

LLOYD ROSS

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY PRESS 1971

© Lloyd Ross 1971This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission.Inquiries should be made to the publisher.

Printed and manufactured in Australia.

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 71-151971

National Library of Australia Card no. and ISBN 0 7081 0163 2

FOREWORD

W. D. BORRIEDirector, Research School of Social Sciences

My first duty, on behalf of the Research School and indeed of the whole University, is to express our gratitude and appreciation to one of our founders, John Dedman, a Bachelor of Arts, a Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa), and a Councillor of the University, for his thoughtfulness and generosity in founding an annual John Curtin Memorial Lecture. John Curtin was Prime Minister during the period of the University‘s effective conception and he gave the event his cordial blessing. We are all in Dr Dedman’s debt for this generous endowment.

It was fitting that the invitation to deliver the first lecture in this annual series should be extended to Dr Lloyd Ross, who has been working for some years— for a time as our guest at the ANU—on his life of John Curtin. I understand that it is now completed. The propriety of his selection as the first lecturer is also related to a much wider set of circumstances. First, Lloyd Ross’s father, R. S. Ross, a socialist agitator in the old and best sense of the term and a labour journalist, was one of those who, along with Tom Mann, Frank Anstey, and others of that brigade, helped to mould and influence the young John Curtin as socialist, orator, agitator, trade unionist, and journalist. In a sense these were the men who prepared the ground for John Curtin’s long climb to the office of Prime Minister. By the same token, Lloyd Ross, though younger than John Curtin, shared the same human, social, and ideological background.

Secondly, Lloyd Ross himself has been a trade union leader, a labour journalist, a socialist agitator, and an orator of no mean ability. His own career has thus given him the insights essential to feel, appreciate, and convey so much of what John Curtin was at any stage on the way to the Prime Ministership which crowned his life work.

Thirdly, Lloyd Ross suspended his trade union career for some six years to serve as Director of Public Relations in Curtin’s

Ministry of Post-War Reconstruction. There he contributed his share, for instance, to the White Paper on Full Employment of 1945, which was a landmark of the time and which was prepared upon a direction to the then Minister for Post-War Reconstruc­tion, J. B. Chifley, issued by John Curtin when he came back from the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in London in 1944 with a copy of the British White Paper on the same subject. As it happened, a reshuffle of portfolios early in 1945 led to the Australian White Paper’s being completed under the direction of John Dedman as Minister for Post-War Reconstruction and pre­sented to Parliament by him in May 1945, just a few weeks before John Curtin’s untimely death. For the next four years Lloyd Ross worked under the Ministerial direction of John Dedman, whose benefaction is now the occasion of the John Curtin Memorial Lecture. Thus no inaugural lecturer for this series could be more fitted than Dr Lloyd Ross.

JOHN CURTIN FOR LABOR AND AUSTRALIA

Since this Memorial Lecture aims to tell the life of a man of moods and changing loyalties, I begin with the welcome to an audience that was Curtin’s for nearly half of his adult life—‘Mr Chairman, Comrades, and Friends . . .

The conventional starting point of a Memorial Lecture is the date of the first meeting between author and subject. I cannot give this, because John Curtin became the friend of my father, R. S. Ross, and my mother, when I was a baby and Curtin a teenager, in a society not permissive but acquisitive.

Early InfluencesCurtin was born in 1885 at Creswick, a small Victorian country town. The family moved to Brunswick a few years later. Their growing poverty can be traced by the different houses they moved to.

Politically, Curtin moved from the Irish Nationalism of his grandfather to a belief in socialist internationalism; from the position of a Catholic to that of a free-thinker; from the end of the Victorian period to the beginnings of a new Federation, and a new beginning for many people and institutions.

On the way to these changes John Curtin met my father, who was also moving—from the Bellamy Club in Brisbane to the editorship of the Barrier Truth in Broken Hill. From there he went to Melbourne to edit the Socialist, and met in the Victorian Social­ist Party a young man who was already making a name for him­self as a speaker, a Marxian student, and a sincere and very conscientious activist for Labor and socialism. That young man was John Curtin, turned twenty in the year 1905. For the militants of Melbourne, this was an important year in the path of socialism, with revolutions and revolts in the main capitals of the world. The leaders of the popular movements were known in Australia

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by their books and journals and some were to visit it during the early decades of the century.

Curtin obtained a job as an office boy for the Lindsays’ paper {The Rambler). ‘Norman paid me once in stamps,’ he said later. His next job was at the Titan Manufacturing Company, and from there he walked on many nights to the Public Library where he read the books that had been recommended by his teachers, especially Tom Mann, Frank Anstey, and R. S. Ross.

Anstey was the State Member for Brunswick, and later Federal Member for Bourke. Pamphleteer, brilliant orator, earthy, primi­tive, grossly effective in his use of similes, Anstey turned the grammatical mistakes of inadequate learning to symbols of his campaigns as leader of ‘Left’ Labor. He hated parsons, money­lenders, and anti-Labor leaders. He invited young enthusiasts to his Brunswick home on Sundays. The room was crowded with books and small boxes, which contained extracts from the speeches of his enemies. Were his enemy the local Blue Ribbon advocate or the Head of the Bank of England, he could find a quotation to overwhelm him. Anstey provided ammunition for such pupils as Frank Hyett, secretary of the Victorian Railway Union, and Curtin’s friend. Another pupil, Alf Wallis, became secretary of the Clothing Trade Union and later Conciliation Commissioner. Per­haps his most notable pupil was John Curtin.

Although the hatred of militarism was a permanent result of Curtin’s contacts with Anstey, Tom Mann, and R. S. Ross, he stored for later use within his thoughts the Anstey manner of reconciling anti-imperialism and nationalism. He repeated Anstey’s phrases and ideas, rewrote Anstey’s pamphlets, felt his own disappointments to be intensified by the neglect suffered by Anstey, yet gathered in the strength that came to those who had been Anstey’s close colleagues. Years later, as leader of the Federal Labor Opposition, John Curtin spoke to the conventional resolution of sympathy with the relatives of the Hon. Frank Anstey. T find it very difficult to speak about Frank Anstey. He was a remarkable figure. Very humbly I make the statement that of all the men who have influenced me, he influenced me most. He introduced me to the Labor Movement. He set my mind going in the direction in which he wished it to go, and in quite a humble way, I sought to play the role of a supporter, an aider and abetter of the cause in which he instructed me, believing it to be the greatest cause in the world. . . .’

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In Melbourne at this time was Tom Mann, a dominant British and world-wide militant. Mann had arrived in Melbourne early in the century. He was first an organiser for the Political Labor Leagues, and then founded a public questions society, which later became the Victorian Socialist Party. Other associates of the developing John Curtin were poets, writers, clergymen, union leaders, business men, and politicians, and of course there was William Morris of England, whose career and writings in Britain influenced Curtin’s ideas and methods, as well as his morale, for most of his life.

Such people built or inspired an organisation to give its com­rades not only strength, but fraternity; a Party which united the romanticism and brilliant pen of R. S. Ross, the organising capac­ity of Tom Mann, the reckless, untamed campaigning of Frank Anstey— an Academy of Agitators, a Community of Workers, a Fraternity of Socialists— a covey of individualists. One of the major figures of the movement was Curtin.

He easily accepted the training and toleration of the Victorian Socialist Party at this period of his career. The young man became a Labor leader, secretary of the Timber Workers’ Union, a Marx­ist, an arid, mechanical believer in such words as ‘revolution’, the ‘class struggle’, ‘surplus value’—words that came alive when they were translated into brilliant oratory in Australian agitations, in a free speech fight in Prahran, in a demonstration in a church by the unemployed of Melbourne, in a survey of poverty in Mel­bourne, in an attack on the visit of a British Dreadnought, on the platform as a Labor candidate for Balaclava in 1914, in the vocal opposition to World War I that led to his being imprisoned for a few days. He made speech after speech in agitation and organisa­tion, against the 1916 Conscription Referendum.

Curtin was driving himself too hard. He was drinking too much. It became necessary to spend some time in hospital to recover, to unwind. Around this time he received two significant letters. From the President of the Trades Hall Council he had a letter of cheery ‘keep up your pecker’ style, and a genuine appeal to Curtin to get well to fight on for Labor. From Frank Anstey he had a letter which is quoted at length here to indicate Anstey’s depth of feel­ing for and interest in Curtin.

Anstey began his letter with a reference to an edition of his pamphlet, The Kingdom of Shylock, and then continued T was pleased that the place down there satisfies you and I hope that

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you stick it to the limit. Don’t hurry. Never mind what others say. . . . There are few among the toilers of this State who would not grieve to see you go down at the Pit, and delighted to see the theory of Redemption is a living gospel, and the man who has carried his Crucifix and climbed his Calvary is a better man than he who has never touched the stony road of suffering; sometimes it comes to us in spite of all we do. Sometimes we are producers of our own sorrows. Well what of it? We would not be sinful, erring ones if it were not so. It helps us if we have sense to commiserate on the faults of others.

‘And John, one last word, don’t hate yourself, despise yourself or be ashamed to face others. There is no redemption that way.

‘John drunk was a damn nuisance, but he was even in that state a better man than thousands sober, and John sober is the Nestor of them all. Stand upright, proud of yourself, proud of the conquest that you are going to achieve and the good that you will yet do.

Yours, F.’A postcript ran: ‘. . . and when you come out be “John” to

the world—let “Jack” go with the booze. John will speak or write or lecture in the future.’

It was ‘John’ who was to become Prime Minister of Australia. Some of the reasons why he achieved this office are found in these early days. During his Victorian Socialist Party (V.S.P.) period, he accumulated the loyalties of friends who judged him by his potential leadership; he gathered ideas, learned to write political articles; absorbed a wide range of working-class pamphlets and books; turned the literature of Victor Hugo and William Morris into proletarian appeals; made the revolutionary socialism of Tom Mann a guide for the militants of the Labor Party in Australia.

A stage is reached in the career of every Labor ‘militant’ when he must choose whether to continue as a militant belonging to fading organisations, repeating the inspiring, explosive generali­ties of his youth in words that become more and more sterile and impotent; or whether to satisfy the demands of political futility with high-sounding weasel words that reject the challenge of application; or whether to face the problem of applying the words in industry or in politics. After vacillating, and being in turn a member of the V.S.P. or a member of the P.L.L. (Political Labor League) ,1 or both, Curtin selected the practical alternative, easily and naturally, partly because the V.S.P., almost from the begin-

1 Later the Australian Labor Party (A.L.P.).

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ning, had felt the need to link its ideals with the political actions of its members; and perhaps because all Labor Movements at this time reflected in some degree their founding fathers, who wanted change, though they differed in methods.

The centralising, co-ordinating idea, as Curtin rose to a senior position in the Labor Movement, was opposition to ‘conscription’, to ‘militarism’, and ‘imperialism’. These words are in inverted commas because they are too vague to define; but not so vague in the contemporary setting that important and effective organisa­tions were not built around them. Of these the V.S.P. was the most important, and the A.L.P. the most long lived.

As Curtin was involving himself more and more in Labor Party politics in Victoria, important and relevant events were unfolding —the return of a Commonwealth Government under Andrew Fisher in 1910 and 1914; the outbreak of war against Germany in 1914; the fight against ‘boy’ conscription before the war; the restlessness in the Labor Party due to its need to restate its views on defence and international affairs. Concerned at the gathering opposition inside the Labor Party to conscription for overseas service, W. M. Hughes, who had succeeded Fisher as leader of the Labor Party in October 1915, and as Prime Minister, decided to hold a referendum on the issue. Curtin became the national secretary of an organisation created by the unions to obtain a ‘No’ vote in the 1916 Conscription Referendum. The Referendum was defeated. A second attempt in 1917 by Hughes to obtain support for conscription was also defeated. Between the two Referenda Curtin moved to Western Australia, as editor of the West Australian Worker. When the ‘No’ vote won the second time, Curtin, free from the rallying but unreal words of the V.S.P. took his toleration, patience, and involvement with Labor to the West as if part of his luggage.

In the WestThe geographical change became a psychological change. There was a warmth in the West, physical and personal—Saturday after­noon and a game of Australian Rules to watch, the beach on Sun­day, where he could spend time surfing and talking with friends, the office, where he yarned to his growing list of comrades and colleagues, the friendliness of the West. How often did Curtin comment with feeling on that friendliness. Here it was he married Elsie Needham, here his two children were born, and here he

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opened another career—the full time editorship of a Labor paper.He remained an orator, perhaps a little more political and a

little less ‘Marxist’ than he had been in Victoria; a writer who developed rapidly in methods and expression, and in the scope of his political appeals; an organiser, but mainly with pen and words, not administration; a warm enthusiastic friend to many people. There was, however, a transformation—possibly a revolu­tion—in his political loyalties and social purposes. He joined the Labor Party, not for the first time, but permanently; not as a Marxist, but as a socialist. The goal was not a social revolution but a better Australia.

Curtin took an active part in local politics; in 1919 he stood for the Perth seat in Federal elections; he supported the socialisa­tion campaign of the State A.L.P.; he attended in Geneva an I.L.O. conference, as the employees’ representative; he was appointed a member of the Federal Royal Commission on Child Endowment; he won friends who built for him an unofficial and unwavering team that stood by him in fair or foul weather.

The acquisitive society persisted, but there were signs that the Marxist evils in society were being modified by the pioneers of the affluent society. Curtin and many others went to Canberra to hasten that process. There was little of the spectacular at this period, but the political and propagandist rhythm was changing and this was the medicine Curtin needed. In 1925 Curtin unsuc­cessfully contested the Fremantle constituency in the Federal Parliament; in 1928 he won it.

Curtin in Parliament: The DepressionThe result of the Commonwealth elections of 1929 was a victory for Labor— the first since the return of a Labor Government under Andrew Fisher in 1914. Scullin became Prime Minister.

As an ecomonic depression rapidly developed, however, the Labor Government tragically, inevitably, drifted to its doom of disunity and defeat. Events were overwhelming men who had too little belief in their own capability or ideals.

The Party—the Labor Party that had promised to protect the system of compulsory arbitration against the threats of over­seas financiers— discovered that the arbitration system could cut back wages extensively, rapidly, and effectively. The Party that had promised increased social services against the threats of the Liberals and the employers was forced by growing unemployment

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to implement the deflationary demands of financiers. The Party that had promised the striking miners to legislate their demands for higher standards of living, stood aloof, as the miners were compelled by hunger to return to work. Only one economist could be found to oppose the theory that the effects of the depression could be mitigated by all-round reductions of wages and social services—Professor Irvine, ex-professor of Economics at Sydney University. Instead, Professor Copland rallied the economists to assist J. P. Jones, Victorian M.L.C.— and Curtin’s comrade from the days of the V.S.P.—in reducing standards all round. Professor Keynes from Cambridge, wrote a short letter of doubts and alternatives. Professor Giblin went demagogic in a series of short and informative Letters to John Smith. Professor Brigden lifted the morale of the deflationists by reconstructing war car­toons. No one was to be blamed for the economic crisis; no one was to be praised.

When the Labor left broke away from the Party’s worship of the tariff, as a means of protecting Australian industry, they were fascinated by the phantasies of Major Douglas. E. G. Theodore, Treasurer in Scullin’s Government, had a better understanding of the situation than did his mystified and muddled-headed colleagues, but his adaptation of monetary reforms was regarded by some as that of a revolutionary-turned-inflationary.

The series of alternatives that faced almost all people in positions of responsibility were: either to risk the real dangers of inflation, or to enforce the obvious alternative of modified inflation; either, if a Labor politician, to stay in office with Scullin and implement a modified reduction of standards, or to provoke a dissolution, and fight an election on the simple, but potentially dangerous, inflation of Theodore; either to follow Copland or Major Douglas, Lang or Scullin, Anstey or Copland; either to be expelled in Victoria for implementing the Premiers’ Plan of all-round modified cuts in social standards, or to be expelled in Canberra for resisting the Plan; either, again, if Labor, to split in N.S.W. on the Lang Plan, or in Victoria on the Scullin Plan; either to leave the Labor Party with one or other of the small groups that were peeling off the Party and going ‘Left’, ‘Right’ or ‘centre’, ‘extreme Left’, ‘extreme Right’, ‘extreme centre’, or to work with Curtin for Labor Unity.

At this stage the environment was more important than the individual, even Curtin. Curtin opposed the Premiers’ Plan, opposed the Lang Plan, opposed the Major Douglas Plan. He sup-

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ported a dissolution and an election on the monetary policy of Theodore. He regarded the adoption of the Premiers’ Plan as fatal to Labor, foretelling the inevitable loss of confidence and bewilderment which it would cause throughout the whole of the Labor Movement. In the course of a significant warning to the Party, then on the brink of accepting the Plan, John Curtin exclaimed: ‘If we cannot implement our own programme, we should get out, and not function as dirty-bottle-washers for Lyons.. . . If the present plan is the only alternative to national collapse, then let the Plan be directed and administered by its authors and advocates. . . . I feel that Federal Labor has been led into the midst of an immoral coalition, involving retraction of all we have said, and entire agreement with all that Money Power has pro­claimed.’

Curtin believed that a united Party could develop a satisfactory alternative to deflation. He felt deeply his own powerlessness. He began drinking too much, becoming more tense and withdrawn from his colleagues.

Warren Denning in Caucus Crisis states the personal problem that faced many people during the crisis: ‘Mr Curtin had lost in Fremantle.2 Of all the men who had figured in the pages of those vanishing years, he alone, the back-bencher, disregarded by the undiscerning, was to be favoured by the fates. His return to private life restored him once again to the heart of that movement from whence so many had parted too far ever to return.’

Turning back to other subjects of study in search of parallels as aids to an appraisal of the Curtin in this period, I found an extract from a book by Ramsay MacDonald, socialist Prime Minister of Great Britain. He is analysing the character of Keir Hardie, one of the founders of the British Labour Party. I quote:

The inconsistencies which are essential attributes of human greatness are the cause of much trouble to the ordinary man, but these inconsistencies do not belong to the same order of things as the unreliabilities of the charlatan or the time-server. Hardie's apparent waywardness often gave his colleagues concern. A great man has so many sides to which the various voices of the day may appeal. He is not only one man, but several—not only man, but woman too. His greatness is consistent only in the things that do not matter very much, and in the grand conflict of great issues he stood up as reliable as a mighty boulder in a torrent.

2 Curtin lost Fremantle in the General Election of December 1931.

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Even more satisfying is a relevant chapter in a book on Churchill, Four Faces and a Man, edited by A. J. P. Taylor. The chapter entitled ‘Churchill, the Man’, written by Dr Anthony Storr (a psychologist) includes this analysis:

It is no disservice to a great man to draw attention to his humanity, nor to point out that, like other men, he had imperfec­tions and flaws. . . . Had he been a stable and equable man, he would never have inspired the nation. . . . In 1940, any political leader might have tried to rally Britain with brave words, although his heart was full of despair. But only a man who had known and faced despair within himself could carry conviction at such a moment. Only a man who knew what it was to discern a gleam of hope in a hopeless situation, whose courage was beyond reason, and whose aggressive spirit burned at its fiercest when he was hemmed in and surrounded by enemies, could have given emotional reality to the words of defiance, which rallied and sustained us in the menacing summer of 1940. Churchill was such a man; and it was because, all his life, he conducted a battle with his own despair that he could convey to others that despair can be overcome.

Written of Winston Churchill; true also of John Curtin.Curtin came down from Federal politics and was satisfied with

a small wage in a part-time job on the Worker. He did not com­plain. His mood when he had been beaten from politics was such a contrast with his disillusionment when in Canberra, that the significance is emphasised as important in his career; his irritations developed from a frustrated desire to serve Labor. Defeated, he adapted himself to the limitations and peace of a humble role— still serving Labor, still seeking Labor unity. He was ‘wrapped up in his family.’ He thought the world of his two kids. At Cottesloe he would go into retreat, lie on the beach, sit in the sun, put on his ‘planter’s suit’ and stroll around, work in the garden, rooting out the flowers his wife had planted, and read.

For eighteen months that was his life— a bit of work for the Trades Hall, a few special articles, no regular income, free-lancing, possibly earning £3 a week. He was offered his editorial position on the Worker back again; but, as this meant putting out the existing editor, he refused. Curtin was busy, life was happy. In a letter to Isobel Southwell of the Hotel Kurrajong in Canberra in May 1932, he was able to state that he had ‘the means of existence, as the economists say’. A reference was made to the conflict be­tween Lang and Lyons, but this was not affecting the ‘basic nature of the problems’.

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The books he was reading were Confessions and Impressions by Ethel Mannin, ‘a robust thinker, of rare strength’, he com­mented; and Frank Harris on Bernard Shaw. The latter reminded him with great glee that Dame Sybil Thorndike, who had been in Perth playing Saint Joan, had ‘shocked the upper strata of our local society by her strong opinions regarding the madness of the present social order’. He usually ended his letters to the Kurrajong staff with a verse.

More detailed was the correspondence between Curtin and Anstey, Theodore and Curtin—too lengthy to quote here, but important as documents for the students of this period—illustrating, however, the depths of Curtin’s involvement with Labor

Curtin did not ask Premier Collier for a job; but as soon as Collier came into office in Western Australia in 1933, he made Curtin Chairman of a Board of three to prepare the case for that state before the Grants Commission. The job was a full-time one, paying £12 a week. Curtin applied himself thoroughly to the task, to the surprise of his Labor associates, and the frequent amazement of the permanent officials. ‘What a marvellous man he is!’ the Assistant Under-Secretary of the Treasury, A. J. Reid, said to Premier Collier. T didn’t know he had any mathematical training. He’s a genius with figures.’ ‘There’s not a damn thing he could not master if he put his mind to it’, replied Collier. The prevailing idea, that Curtin was no good off the platform, was being dispelled by his thorough investigation, aided by weekly letters from Anstey.

To the Assistant Under-Secretary of the Treasury, Curtin was sober, austere, studious, determinedly restrained. In a corner of Reid’s room, head down for hours, Curtin concentrated for over a year compiling the statistics, reading professional journals, study­ing widely on constitutional and economic issues, taking his job very seriously. He had his more sombre moods, but his wise friends waited for these to change. He would be hurt if they took too much notice of him. Before the Grants Commission itself, Curtin handled the case with the mastery of a lawyer. No doubt Collier in making these comments was biased in favour of one whose qualities and weakness closely resembled his own, but the conclusions are supported by a wide range of authorities.

As an advocate to the Board he was expected to travel to the East on occasions. There was always trouble in getting him to make up his mind to depart from Perth. Only two trains a week

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ran at this time, but Curtin would keep putting off the decision. Between Perth and Kalgoorlie he was irritable, so that his friends learned to keep away from him. At Kalgoorlie he would always post a letter to his wife. Then as the train left Western Australia he would think with pleasure of the friendships to be renewed in Victoria, especially in Brunswick; but as soon as the business was drawing to a close, he could not get back to the West quickly enough. Curtin regained the Federal seat of Fremantle at the 1934 elections.

Leader of the Opposition, 1935-1941‘Jim’ Scullin resigned from the leadership of the Labor Party in 1935. He worked keenly for the election of Forde as leader; Queensland members were opposed to Forde, and E. J. Holloway of Victoria believed that only one who had opposed the Premiers’ Plan would be acceptable as a Labor Leader, especially to the trade unionists of New South Wales and Victoria. He supported Curtin—but could Curtin be trusted?

‘Do you have “it” conquered, Jack?’ Curtin was asked, probably by Holloway, certainly by someone on his behalf. ‘Yes,’ he replied. T have been asked by the Party to invite you to contest an important position.’ ‘What is it?’ ‘The chaps want me to guarantee that you will keep sober.’ ‘Of course I would. What is the position? What is it?’ he repeated. ‘Leader of the Party.’ ‘Me!’ At last Curtin was aroused. ‘Not me—I wouldn’t have a chance.’ ‘Oh, yes, you would. I ’ve a team prepared to vote for you, if I pass on your promise that you have given up the drink.’ ‘You tell them I promise, and I will keep my promise.’The election took place on 1 October 1935. Curtin won by a

single vote; it was a proxy vote given by Blackburn, who hadindicated he would not support Curtin, to a man who voted forCurtin! A few days later the career of another significant figure also obtained a chance of revival. Among the members of a Common­wealth Banking Commission, announced on 3 October, was that of J. B. Chifley.

The newspapers wondered whether Curtin’s electorate would accept the possibility of a reconciliation being reached between East and West. At the end of the session Curtin said he wouldreturn to Perth where, in the refuge of his own home, he wouldreflect upon the work that lay ahead. None of the Australian prob­lems could be tackled effectively, he said, unless there was a

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realisation on the part of everyone that the Federation was a concert of States; the best results for the people of Australia could not be secured unless the machinery which was part of the political structure worked smoothly; the Commonwealth must be a co-ordinating instrument for the States, which must regard the Commonwealth as an associate in the realisation of those things which were for the good of the nation.

The influence of the new Leader was exerted on the Labor unity negotiations between Lang of New South Wales and Federal Labor. Curtin opposed the unity plan which was being supported by Victoria, namely that New South Wales be re-admitted as a Party. Up to 1.30 a.m. a deadlock had continued. With the news that hostilities had commenced in Abyssinia, the delegates made a final and desperate attempt to reach a settlement. Curtin, feeling how disastrous it would be for Labor to face a war so disunited, and revealing in another situation how sensitive he was to war problems, changed his views, and West Australia voted for unity. ‘It takes a war to end a war,’ a delegate said. A Federal Confer­ence was called, and a recommendation made that the New South Wales (Lang) Party be invited to attend the Conference.

During the first weeks of his leadership, every mistake seemed to be made, every uncertainty and pettiness displayed, every hope compressed. It was a permissive party in which everyone seemed to have a right to say what he liked from Labor. Those conflicting elements of idealism and opportunism, of confidence and despair, of progress and stagnation added up to the Party that made Curtin its leader, and that was the instrument of his achievement, the creature of his moods and hope, and the problem of his idealism. That was the Party which was to exhaust him.

There can be no disloyalty in revealing the contradictions of the Party which intensified all his personal perplexities. A false picture would be given of Curtin and Labor if these weaknesses were not mentioned—just as to exaggerate the views into a com­plete picture would be a great falsehood.

‘How little we trust one another! . . . How little confidence we have in one another!’ Curtin said this to me in Canberra, when I was seeing him on a forlorn mission to seek aid for the Labor Daily in Sydney. He was never worried about the enthusiasms of youth. He knew the curious financial condition of the Labor Daily. He hated Lang; but was not prepared to provide money, even if he had any, for a paper being administered by a medley that

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included the Bank of New South Wales, communists, the inefficient, and the doubtful. He did not want to talk about the Labor Daily. ‘I’m under the weather,’ he said. ‘I became leader too late. Too late, Lloyd. It’s too late now. I could have done the job years ago, but now I’m tired— too exhausted to fight crooks inside our Party. You are in favour of sanctions, I know. You’ll only split the Party and do no good. It’s not worth another split. What about the racketeering element in New South Wales? Do you think the Labor Daily is worth saving? How little patience we have with one another. . . . How’s your Mother? . . . Good luck.’ Scullin entered and Curtin recovered his confidence. He gave me a book, Co-operation or Coercion? by L. P. Jacks. The inscription reads: ‘John Curtin, October 1938, to Lloyd Ross, in memory of years when youth was in the ascendant’.

Curtin’s conception of leadership was stated eloquently to a meeting of the Union Secretaries’ Association in Sydney. Obliquely, he attacked the Lang practices. Leadership did not mean dictation. ‘The leader should be like the captain of a team,’ he said, ‘the team should look after the captain and rally around him, when he is attacked; but the captain should help the members of the team and should never try to score off them.’

Only those who followed the daily details of events recognised how desperately the Labor Movement needed a call to idealism, including those who resisted that call when it came from Curtin. Only the demands of war made them listen to a new Curtin. The unions switched from opposition to Fascism to neutrality, again under the internal influence of a struggle against Communists. But later they changed to collective security, as the menace of war forced upon them the need for a positive policy, and as the struggle of the Spanish workers aroused their international working-class ideals. These conflicts were among the most important in Aus­tralian political history, but Curtin tried to avoid being involved, mainly because he had come to the conclusion that Labor unity was a main test of behaviour, and that this unity could be attained only by avoiding intra-party controversial issues wherever possible, and for as long as possible.

A very detailed account of the changing views of Curtin and Labor on the international situation is given by E. M. Andrews in his book, Isolation and Appeasement. Reaction to the European Crisis, 1935-1939? His conclusions were that Curtin was not only

3 Australian National University Press, 1970.

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moving to build a national party (not a National Government), but was carrying the Party with him.

War came in 1939. In 1940 another problem developed, an internal Party problem, with serious consequences for Nation and Party, if wrong decisions were made. The anti-Labor parties seemed to be disintegrating. Could Labor succeed? After the elections of 1940 the answer depended on two members—one was an Independent, the other a critic of the United Australia Party. Few, if any, were certain how either would vote, if faced with a Curtin motion of no confidence in the government.

Curtin was under great pressure from his ‘militant’ minority— Calwell, Ward, Evatt, Pollard. He waited. With Labor in a minority in both Houses, what was the danger of striking and hoping for the best? Curtin believed that Labor could win support from the Independents, but only if Labor were in a position to lead the nation to security and progress. The Fadden Government — rightly or wrongly—must be discredited. The Labor Party must be united in efficient and inspiring prosecution of the war. Curtin must be confident that he could lead the Party, a new Government and the nation to a combined victory. A premature strike against the Government could dissolve all three into national collapse. Reg Pollard expressed the views of many: ‘Jack was right,’ and added, ‘but if it had not been for our pressure he might not have acted in time.’

There is in my possession a photo which offers a striking pictorial symbol of the situation. Curtin is addressing the House; Fadden and Spender sit on the Front Bench, transfixed almost to stone, waiting; at the end of the bench, in isolation, is Menzies, admiring the eloquence of Curtin, torn between admiration and fear that Curtin, if he succeeded to the Prime Ministership, might fail. The vote against the Government was carried, and Curtin became Prime Minister on 7 October 1941—the first Labor Prime Minister since Scullin had been defeated ten years before.

Prime Minister, 1941-1945Labor seemed to Curtin to have two major political weaknesses: it was not regarded as ‘patriotic’ and it was too limited by the influence of trade unionists. Curtin, as Prime Minister, was deter­mined to be a national and responsible Prime Minister; he would do nothing to lower the prestige or dignity of the position; he would end the non-Labor parties’ monopoly of the Union Jack.

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He would dedicate himself to winning the war. But he would not make the same mistake that he believed W. M. Hughes had com­mitted in World War I—the recurring worry of most Labor leaders since 1917. Curtin believed that he must maintain the Labor Party unbroken. He must handle issues so that he would avoid being compelled to make the tragic choice between Party or Nation. He could not exaggerate his own worrying. But less dramatically than Hughes, very shrewdly and philosophically, and quietly, he would control his Party in support of the policies he believed to be important also for his country.

From the day Curtin became Prime Minister, his personality seemed to change. No longer neurotic nor lackadaisical, he grew determined and ruthless in enforcing his basic ideas. His health improved, his serenity and confidence infected those who came into close touch with him— as associates, observers, columnists, and political ‘spies’. For months after he became Prime Minister, he forgot his bodily ills, and faced squarely his political difficulties, as he fought his permanent battles to adapt the aims of the Labor Movement to the needs of the Nation.

A large gathering of Labor supporters greeted Curtin on his first visit to Melbourne as Prime Minister. There were no banners such as the old socialists and communists would have prepared for even a minor occasion, no bands, no police to keep back the enthusiasts, and, although Australia was at war, no body-guard. Labor supporters, long denied the thrill of their Party’s holding office, crowded around him and cheered, so that his message was only slightly heard. A speech was demanded—that, in the Labor tradition, was the only method of celebrating a success such as this—a speech and maybe a round of ‘for he’s a jolly good fellow’. Curtin was proud to be a member of the Labor Party and an Australian. Those two impulses were related, he said: Labor had the requisite dynamic force to organise the country for the prosecution of the war and only free men and women could use the opportunity to work for a free social order. ‘You are people who are not accustomed to being told what to do. You like to have a say in what shall be done. That is the real issue at stake in this war. Only by standing together with those who are with us and for us can victory be won.’

They cheered again. ‘And now let me go to work,’ he said. With another cheer, the crowd rolled back to make a pathway. No one started to sing ‘God Save the King’, although the habit had been

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quickly formed. ‘The Red Flag’ was not attempted— that habit had been lost. But Curtin sincerely and fraternally enjoyed the glimpse in the crowd of many who had been with him through strenuous battles in the days of Tom Mann and the V.S.P.

A recital of the events which followed would exceed the limits that have been accepted for this lecture. I will therefore pick out a few of the key events, mainly those which add to our knowledge or understanding of Curtin the man.

The first of such episodes is the development of a policy of defence. Special emphasis was placed by Curtin on the Air-arm of defence. In his V.S.P. period an article was written for the Tocsin (by either Ansley or Curtin) on the importance of the development of the plane in solving Australia’s problems of size and distance. Dr T. B. Millar, many years later, made the same point. ‘The development of the R.A.A.F. coincides with an extensive interest in civilian aviation made desirable by the long distances between parts of Australia and facilitated by the generally excellent conditions for flying.’4

The importance of these views on defence is not that Curtin was in conflict with the views of his Party—contradictory as those seemed to be or were—but that he sorted out priorities, including some that were not held by Labor, reconciled the Party views with the needs of ‘Australia’, and was much more successful than any other leader in matching his views and actions to the test of Aus­tralian security. Being Labor gave Curtin advantages over his opponents. Corelli Barnet wrote in The Desert Generals: ‘It is generally true that an army is an expansion of society; military disaster is often national decline exposed by the violence of a battle.’ I do not, however, wish to push further the judgment of Curtin by writers in other spheres.

In J. M. Twyer’s contribution to the British History of the Second World War—Grand Strategy (Vol. Ill, Part I ) , he dis­cusses Churchill’s plan for operations in 1943, and seems to me to illustrate a quality which Curtin also possessed. ‘There was, indeed, little that was novel or spectacular in the plan proposed, it was a simple application of familiar principles of warfare. . . . Where the Prime Minister’s strength lay was in his ability to discern those principles closely, and apply them correctly, on the vastly extended scale of modern operations. That was what General Ismay meant, when he said of Churchill that in his grasp of the

4 Australia’s Defence, Melbourne 1965.

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broad sweep of strategy— the “overall strategic concept”, as our American friends called it—he stood head and shoulders above his professional advisers.’ Curtin had that capacity, and a capacity that enabled him to appreciate General MacArthur the man, and the Pacific strategy. Moreover, when faced with union requests or demands, he overwhelmed the applicants with both his analysis of the war-strategy situation and his untiring conclusion that strikes were unjustified in the contemporary war situation. An A.C.T.U. deputation called on him to intervene in the man-power policies of the Allied Works Council. He took them to a large map hanging on the wall, pointing out the world situation and the necessity to continue with man-power regulations as they were. Curtin often used the map to reassure himself that he and his military advisers were right.

A crucial issue was Curtin’s proposal to introduce legislation to extend the area of operation of the conscripted Citizen Military Forces into the Pacific— the ‘Militia’ issue, so called. Whatever may have been the reason for this complete reversal of Labor policy, the decision was the most courageous that Curtin made. Curtin came under some fierce attacks. The issue went to Labor State Branches and Curtin won. When the decision was made it was significant of Labor feeling that the Party and the Nation turned again to the needs of the war situation. But the attack on Curtin left its mark.

The Labor Movement is tough on its leaders. The leader of the Party knew this. Curtin recognised that its members in responsible positions had their problems. He understood the demands that were imposed, not only on them, but on himself. He was weakened by both his and their problems. He was therefore by turns patient and tolerant, and irritable and angry. Anyone who had to make vital decisions for his nation and for his Movement, be he Labor or Liberal, in Government or in Opposition, would face the same set of contradictions. He might collapse under strain, he might run away; he might vacillate between the extremes of both con­testing demands—or at any moment place his emphasis on his top priority or on one set of decisions and at another time on another set, often a contradictory set of decisions. I believe that in periods when vital decisions for Party and Nation had to be made, John Curtin made the proper, wise, and necessary decisions. They may have been opportunist or muddled in their justifications, but they were the decisions that would prove to be the only ones

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that a leader of the Labor Party could make—the only ones to reconcile past and present, principles and politics, the defence of the Nation and the disciplines of the Party.

On a personal note— Curtin once rang me from Canberra, when I was a union secretary campaigning for the claim that the needs of the war required better conditions for the worker. I stated my arguments in a way that was correct theoretically and right industrially, but was it right in the situation that faced a Prime Minister, or a union secretary in war time? Curtin was angry. My reactions were disturbing. I had been a supporter of Curtin in the disputes which were still simmering in New South Wales. Perhaps, I thought later, my views on conditions for railwaymen in wartime were not as important as the decisions of a Prime Minister, who was the final co-ordinator of most views and priorities. Forgive me, if this sounds too personal and sentimental, but this man whom we were trying to understand and honour was often very personal and sentimental.

When Curtin became Prime Minister, Divisions of the Army were overseas. One Division returned; another was on the way home. Men at Cockatoo Dock were enforcing a ban on overtime. Curtin called the A.C.T.U. to meet him. The theme was threefold: the responsibility placed on him to decide whether the Divisions should be recalled, the sacrifices of the Australian Army in New Guinea, and the overtime ban at Cockatoo Dock. Churchill had resisted the return of the Divisions, Curtin had to take the respon­sibility. Australia had to supply the ships, but no air cover could be provided. Curtin had to choose whether he would take the risk of moving these Australian troops across the Indian Ocean, almost unprotected. He drew imaginary lines on the table. He pointed to the map on the wall. He made the A.C.T.U. suffer with him his sleepless nights. ‘He got under our skin,’ they said. ‘And then we were climbing the Kokoda Trail, with limited equip­ment and resources. All, it seemed, because the men at Cockatoo Dock had imposed a ban on overtime! . . .’

One night, when Chifley returned to his room at the Hotel Kurrajong he found a note from the Prime Minister on his dressing table, ‘Come to the Lodge at any hour you return from Bathurst. Am spiritually bankrupt to-night.’ It is no wonder he often needed some assistance, some assurance, for instance, that the Division would reach Australia—unharmed. Curtin did not have a relaxed moment for days. The movement of troops became an obsession

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with him. Tracey, his chauffeur, said to Frank Green, Clerk of the House: T don’t know what’s wrong. He’s wandering around the bloody place all night. I don’t know why.’

About 1 or 2 a.m., after a late sitting, Green went home by way of the Prime Minister’s Lodge, stopped outside, and there, sure enough, the Prime Minister was pacing up and down outside his study. ‘Jack, what’s the matter? Why don’t you go to sleep?’ ‘How can I sleep?’ Curtin replied. ‘And do you you know why?’ he added, in a mysterious voice. ‘Our transports are in the Indian Ocean.’

The key issues which are important are the changing views of Curtin to involvement in World War II; the search for methods or words that would harmonise with the changing demands of a period of very rapid change; the reconciliation of past, present, and future; the co-ordination of the War strategy with the views of the Generals, who themselves were very divided, and with the views of national leaders, who also were divided on details; decisions on war tactics and strategy and the almost constant argument with Churchill on the needs of Australia; the many-sided problem of Party membership, where many emphasised that all were equal in the Labor Party; the struggle within Curtin’s party to give con­tinuous attention to the views of the Nation, which was also divided; the differential between principles and the immediate needs of a nation at war; the vital battle for rationing, led by Curtin’s colleague and friend, J. J. Dedman; the devotion to Curtin of people like Scullin, and especially Chifley; the demand, expressed mainly in a mass of letters, that Curtin devote himself more to the post-war period, and the opportunist view of some newspapers, that this was what he was doing; and the adjustment demanded of Curtin and his Ministers as the Pacific War was being won.

Balancing Curtin’s problems, thus identified, are Curtin’s quali­ties, which enabled him to resolve the difficulties, but not without strains on his body and mind. These strains and consequences form a kaleidoscope— the lorry driver picking up the Prime Minister along the Perth-Fremantle road; the discussion on nationalisation of the mines at the Lodge between the Australian Prime Minister and the New Zealand Minister for Mines, Paddy Webb, which ended in a game of billiards; the snap of the Prime Minister and a U.S. sailor taken at Civic; the photo of two Labor Prime Ministers, Curtin and Fraser of New Zealand, in a street

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in Cambridge on their way to receive honorary doctorates; the Christmas meal at the Lodge for six West Australian airmen; the brilliant speech of ideals that Curtin made when receiving the Freedom of the City of London; the letters from Curtin to his wife when he was in hospital early in 1945.

A Melbourne journalist, very experienced in politics, has stated that Curtin’s Gowrie Scholarship Trust Fund Speech was the most moving he had ever heard. Curtin used no notes—this always mystified people—but spoke informally, almost conversationally. The surroundings of the Albert Hall, the presence of the Governor- General and Her Excellency, whose son, killed in the war, was being honoured, and who had themselves become absorbed in the Australian democracy, combined to create a mood of historical greatness and individual personality that is seldom achieved in political oratory. A speech enabled him to summarise or under­stand his problems, and from this speech emerged a revival of his early inspirations; a blending of the practical and the idealistic, a stoking of the fires of greatness; a personal link with the Governor-General, who admired Curtin intensely, and was, in turn, admired by Curtin deeply; and, through a book of poems, the work of the dead son of the Governor-General, a reunion with the Australian poets of his youth.

It is difficult to select quotations from Curtin’s speech; but the following extracts indicate the quality, sincerity, and moving emotional content:

I think Patrick Hore-Ruthven embodied that kind of nature which was not only a contribution to the fellowship of man and to the sharing of the sacrifices of his fellows, but towards their elevation and towards revealing to them noble aspects of life. That small book of poems which is in a sense a memorial to him, reveals the high thinking which marked him, of which he was capable—that indescribable influence of the beautiful which had impressed itself on his mind. These qualities are not shared by all human beings, unless they are presented to them by someone who has them richly and who pours them out for others, regardless of the cost of himself.It is not all sadness. . . . Most certainly the soil into which they have descended will give back in some way some part of the nature that has become dust . . . some child of a serviceman, benefiting by this fund, may restore the balance and give back to man that rich mind or great skill or other human quality of

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great value, of which the war has temporarily deprived us. For, I believe in the continuity of man. . . .

The life and achievements of Curtin were drawing to a close. He went on his last trip to the West. He paid a visit to Araluen, a park dedicated to the youth of Australia, and developed for the Young Australia League by his old friend, ‘Boss’ Simons. Fatigue overtook him, the slightest physical effort was a strain. ‘This is all so quiet and peaceful. It breathes a kind of consolation,’ he said. As the last Sunday in the State he loved was drawing to a close, he paused, and emotion intensified the release of his sadness. ‘News came this morning that Collins is wounded in action. How badly no one knows. It may mean the end of our dream of an Australian Navy under an Australian-born Admiral. Just how badly the Australia has been damaged we do not know yet; but this is sad news.’ After the war he had intended to have a holiday with General MacArthur in the Philippines.

He received a caller, Fred,5 at the Lodge. Mrs Curtin was in the room and he talked about the pleasures of roaming around Fred’s paddock. When, however, Mrs Curtin left the room, he said, ‘I’m not worth two bob!’ When she returned, he pretended to be cheer­ful. Later he said, ‘I’m too tired to live.’ The last entry in his diary is on 11 May and reads: ‘Joe Collings’ birthday— 80th birthday.’ He died on 5 July 1945. His Australian Journalists Association badge showed him to be financial until 30 June.

5 A brother of Miss Southwell, the manageress of the Kurrajong Hotel, where most Members of Parliament stayed in Canberra.

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Lloyd Ross, D. Litt.(N .Z.), M.A., LL.B.(Melb.), has been a prominent Labor writer and lecturer for many years. He has held positions in adult education organisations in New Zealand and Newcastle, Australia, and as Assistant Director, Tutorial Class Department of Sydney University. For twenty-five years he was Secretary of the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Rail­ways Union. With his deep knowledge of the Labor Movement he has often been called on as a delegate to international conferences, as a lecturer to clubs and universities, and as a consultant for those writing on Labor history and policies.

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