The Big Fella, page 23
he must resign, that if he would do so, I would reappoint him as Premier on one condition … that he would form a new Cabinet and dissolve Parliament at the earliest possible date. This he agreed to do, and I made him sign two papers to that effect.473
No election date was fixed, as it depended on the completion of new electoral rolls to cover the new ninety single-member seats.474
Caucus had not been consulted about the dissolution. And cabinet had opposed the decision. Lang at once selected his new cabinet and it was sworn in on 27 May. All the members of the original ministry were dismissed, except Willis, Baddeley and McKell. For several weeks the latter two had been peppered with cables from friends and opponents, telling them about events in the Party. Both were confused. Lang retained them, pending their reply to a cable he sent on 27 May. The new men were Langites, of mediocre ability, apart from Gosling, chief secretary, Davies, education, and A. A. Lysaght, attorney-general.
Twenty-three MLAs met in caucus on 27 May. Three apologies were received, and it was claimed that Baddeley and McKell ‘were still members of the Constitutional A.L.P.’. This meant that the anti-Lang members consisted of twenty-six, or twenty-eight, out of the original number of forty-six: they included all the caucus officers. Charlton, leader, and Blakeley, secretary of the Federal MPs, were present. Charlton stressed the need for solidarity in terms ‘of the Canberra conference’. McTiernan’s motion was carried unanimously that the caucus ‘recognises the authority of the Federal conference of the Australian Labour Party … and accepts its decision’.475
This resolution formally posed the problem for the Labor Party in New South Wales: which was the official or constitutional group—(a) the Seale conference and executive, to which Lang, and obviously most of the rank and file and a significant number of voters adhered to, or (b) the Federal conference and Conroy executive, which the majority of caucus, but a minority of the rank and file and voters supported? At first sight the constitutional primacy of the Federal conference seemed decisive. But there was doubt about the validity of the coup in which Conroy had replaced Seale on the State executive; and sufficient evidence of AWU–Tammany influence on the Canberra proceedings to give at least some moral justification to question their decisions. In any case, Lang soon made it clear that he would intensify his campaign for the widest possible popular support for his side and so force the Federal branch to accept it.
At the anti-Lang caucus on 30 May Davidson announced he was rejoining Lang. The rest (twenty-four were present) deposed Lang and elected Mutch as leader and Dunn as his deputy.476 The new cabinet ratified Treble’s appointment on 31 May. Next day the Labor Daily reported that ninety-five unions, 155 branches and thirty-one electoral councils supported Lang while, respectively, three, twenty-two and four opposed him.477 Alldis defected from the Mutch group on 1 June. Baddeley cabled caucus that ‘From this distance the position appears to be complicated’, and that he had conditionally accepted Lang’s offer of a portfolio. McKell was also perplexed, but a little less discreet than Baddeley, and Lang dropped him on 7 June.478
The Federal Labor Party authorities became very busy trying to restore unity in New South Wales. The executive proposed a conference for 16 July. Charlton, Scullin and Blakeley conferred with Lang and later with Mutch and several of his group on 3 June, but without result. Some of the Federal executive, headed by D. L. McNamara, arranged a meeting the same day with representatives of the Conroy and Seale executives, but it provoked recriminations and broke up in disorder.479 The degree of bitterness generated among the majority of the MLAs opposing Lang was exposed by Evatt at a meeting of the Conroy executive when he described Lang as ‘the biggest crook in the Labour movement’.480 Evatt was also upset by Lang’s attempts ‘to take the credit for legislation for which other members of the late Ministry were responsible’.481
The pressure for unity from the Federal executive indicated its appreciation of the importance of the New South Wales branch to the ALP. It is also likely that Scullin’s activity reflected his determination to ensure that he would replace Charlton as Federal leader and to organize a strong campaign for the Federal elections due in 1928. He had already shown that he had the measure of Theodore when he defeated him for the deputy leadership. Theodore had lost more ground because of the failure of Conway in the Warringah by-election; and his influence was weakened further by his continued support for the AWU-Conroy group. On the other hand, Scullin and the Federal executive correctly interpreted the rapidly growing mass support for Lang as a sign that he would eventually win: so they adopted a policy of seeking unity rather than confrontation.
On 7 June the Federal executive submitted to the Mutch caucus a seventeen-point programme for peace. It included a conference on 9 July under the chairmanship of E. J. Holloway, secretary of the Melbourne Trades Hall Council, which would be organized by the Federal executive. The Mutch group was not enthusiastic about the plan, but the Seale executive, now confident of success, supported it.482 A split appeared in the anti-Lang front when the Conroy executive ‘expelled’ Lang, his cabinet and members of the Seale executive. Members of the Mutch caucus disapproved of that decision, and it helped them to see the futility of holding out against the Federal executive: on 9 June they agreed to the unity conference.483 There were still some difficulties about the details of organizing the conference; and a small extremist group on the Seale executive, headed by Rees, president of the Miners’ Federation, was opposed to it. But Lang displayed his domination by calling a meeting in his office of Charlton and Blakeley and nine representatives of the Seale executive, including Seale, Bird and Rees, and counselled them all to agree to the conference being held on 23 July in terms of new Federal executive proposals. They accepted the advice. Evatt addressed the Conroy executive and subtly argued that, by their attendance at the unity conference, the Lang-Seale group would acknowledge that they had been behaving unconstitutionally and that ‘the Federal authority is supreme’. The Conroy executive also agreed to attend.484
Lang might not have agreed entirely with Evatt’s analysis. But he knew he was going to win and that, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the dispute, the Federal unity conference would make his position in the New South Wales Labor Party constitutional. He had masterfully manipulated individuals and events in order to obtain the imprimatur of the ALP’s highest body. The day before the conference began he said it would ‘make Labour history, and be fully representative of the movement, and its decision will be accepted by the whole of the party in New South Wales’.485
The prophecy was impeccable. About four hundred delegates were admitted and they overwhelmingly supported Lang and Seale (who was sick and did not attend). Holloway presided and Charlton headed a large number of MPs. Lang delayed his entry to ensure maximum enthusiasm, which he achieved with ‘many delegates [standing] on their seats and [cheering] wildly’.486 There were a few brave dissentients present. Buckland at least got a hearing. At first Mutch was barred from speaking by 247 votes to 111. But on the second day, amid mixed hoots and cheers, he valiantly defended himself and shouted, ‘I have been in the Labour movement 25 years and I am too old to rat’. Evatt prudently chose to listen. Ex-Senator Gardiner did not want the Canberra conference decisions upset, but the president ruled that they ‘had no relation to what they might do that day’.
Beasley’s motion was the consummation of Lang’s triumph: ‘That this conference re-affirms the whole of the Easter conference decisions, and that conference adjourns until Easter 1928’. It was ‘adopted amidst applause’, with the addition of: ‘That the officers appointed by the Easter conference and the provisional executive and rules adopted … be endorsed by this conference’.487 Inter alia, the ‘Red Rules’ and the ‘Lang dictatorship’ were made legal.
Important determinations were made regarding pre-selections for the impending State elections. The original ‘recommendation’ was for choices to be made by the rank and file; it was modified to allow all nominations already received by the Federal secretary to be submitted to the State executive ‘for the purpose of referring them to the … rank and file’ at ballots which were to be held on 6 August; and further significantly amended by Willis to include: ‘Where it is found impracticable to carry them out on these lines selection ballots be conducted by the [State] executive at the request of the local leagues’.488 This was approved. The Lang-dominated executive now had great power to influence the composition of Party candidates. Almost certainly without being aware of it, the Herald presciently referred to the ‘Lang Labour party’.489
For once, at least, Willis and Loughlin were in partial agreement. Willis could not restrain his jubilation as the conference ended, crying out: ‘We were in the minority in 1919. It has been an eight or nine years’ fight, but we have won’.490 Loughlin lamented that under the ‘Red Rules’ ‘absolute control of the movement [has passed] to the Trades Hall industrialists and miners’; the leagues, he said, would now be ‘only one-third of the conference’; the Labor Party was no longer Australian; McGowen, Macdonell and Storey were ‘associated with its robust days’, ‘But now it is watched over by Willis and Kilburn, by Garden and Voigt, all newcomers from overseas. These men made a puppet of Premier Lang’.491
Both Willis and Loughlin, so different in origin, education and outlook—though sharing a common Christian commitment—were wrong. The Labor Party had been founded by the trade unions; they had always been its main component, but had always had to share the Party’s control with a complex political section: that intricate division of power remained, though apparently tilted a little more towards the unions. Willis and others had failed in 1919 to change the Party fundamentally, and perhaps destroy it. Loughlin and others likewise failed in 1926-27. Lang was nobody’s puppet. Indeed, many Laborites were now prepared to canonize him, though the bust-icon of ‘The People’s Champion’ would not materialize until 1932.
The ‘Red Rules’ were not ‘Red’ in any sense apart from anti-Lang propaganda: Lang had defended them unremittingly: he told conference that he had gone through them ‘word by word’ with McTiernan and Lazzarini and defied them to ‘show [him] where they were red’.492 As mentioned, demands for revision had been widespread for several years: they were by no means limited to Willis and Voigt. The popular appeal of uproarious conferences, which spent over a fortnight achieving virtually nothing except the election of an executive that was faction ridden and hence hamstrung, had been eroded in the country as well as the city. Only the AWU and obsessive anti-Communists had resisted the need to modernize the rules.
The Labor Party was a legalistic organization. Its rules and statement of policy were long and involved. The main point of contention in the new rules had been the allegation that they would allow Communists into the Party ‘through the back door’. After Lang had disposed of that furphy, his opponents concentrated on the group system of representation on the executive and at conferences, still arguing that Communists could sneak in as representatives of unions. The president and two vice-presidents were to be elected by conference, the rest of the executive separately by plebiscites of eleven groups of trade unions, of which the AWU (on its own) was one, and by one metropolitan electoral council (four representatives) and three country councils (two representatives each): the union groups’ representatives were to be elected on the basis of one for every seven thousand members, with a maximum of three for any one group. This arrangement made it impossible for any one union to dominate the executive, as the AWU had done more or less since 1919: hence its strong campaign against the changes.
Objection was also taken to the new basis of selection of annual conference delegates, now to be limited to about 140. The country electorates were to be arranged in three divisions, North, West-Central and South, each with eight delegates. There was to be one metropolitan division with a minimum of fifteen delegates. Provision was made for women to be among the delegates. Each union group was entitled to one delegate for each fifteen hundred members. There were to be three ‘provincial’ conferences (country, metropolitan and union) as well as the annual conference. The system increased the formal strength of the unions in the Party, and it seemed possible that the Miners’ Federation might have a preponderance of power. Some argued that the leagues would disappear. But these were alarmist criticisms. The Labor Party remained a mass political party, with the leagues as necessary and vital as ever, overlapping significantly with the unions at all levels. The only certain result of the rules was that the AWU’s influence, which had always been resisted and had been waning for several years, was now negligible. The Willis-Bailey contest had been decided in Willis’s favour: but that result was irrelevant in 1927.
Lang’s great powers were based on conference backing. They were affected only indirectly by the rules. He was still parliamentary leader independent of caucus; he could still choose his own cabinet, if he wanted to; and could still select candidates for the Legislative Council. And through his vast personal following he could virtually control the pre-selection of candidates for the Legislative Assembly. His heroic stature seemed invulnerable. He had stunted the natural growth of the Federal authority of the ALP. He nursed the beginnings of contempt for Scullin and nourished his hatred of Theodore, who, as a New South Wales Federal MP, was now dangerously caught up in the rapidly emerging Lang machine.
Lang was the Party boss in a way that neither Bailey nor Willis could ever have hoped to be. His prestige derived substantially from his political success. He had led the Party into office. He had been premier for two years, and, despite his controversial political career, he had and still has a high reputation as a reformer in 1925-27. But what had he done for the Party and for the State?
The first point to be made in considering these questions is to restate that by nature Lang was cautious, even niggardly, in his personal financial dealings. This quirk carried over to his public role as treasurer in 1920-22, and as premier and treasurer in 1925-27. He was also firmly attached to orthodox methods of public finance—as he had reiterated to Party members as late as April 1927 at the Seale conference. Up to 1927 the demagogic and populist wiles that he had developed since becoming leader in 1923 had not obscured his view of the need for careful accounting and a balanced budget. He was also part of, and accepted, the parliamentary system. He did not believe in the abolition of the Legislative Council up to the 1926 fiasco; after that, he saw Party advantages in giving the impression, at least, that he had changed his mind—the impassioned demand for abolition and criticism of ‘imported governors’ could always be relied upon to rouse a meeting, especially a conference.
Moreover, Lang was a natural loner and spoiler: ‘he will die without a friend’, Mutch predicted in 1927. With Loughlin’s help Lang had outlined a comprehensive policy for the 1925 elections. It was soundly based on the Party platform hammered out since 1891 by many conferences and already given some legislative form by the McGowen, Holman and Storey governments. But, having obtained power, Lang could not properly organize his team to implement the programme. However, the Labor ministry of 1925-27 did achieve some industrial and social reforms. The most important of these were Acts covering the forty-four-hour week (Baddeley); fair rents (McKell); industrial arbitration (Baddeley); workers’ compensation (Baddeley); widows’ pension (Lang); rural workers’ accommodation (Baddeley); and family endowment (Baddeley-Lang). It is noteworthy that all of this legislation, except family endowment, was introduced between September and December 1925—before the crisis with the governor over the Legislative Council.
Baddeley as minister for labour and industry, as well as mines, carried the main load of the early and effective legislation. He had help from Willis—and also Magrath and Tyrrell—all industrial experts. But the most effective reformer in an active cabinet was McTiernan, whose social conscience and great knowledge of the law were indispensable to all ministers. McKell was also useful. And Dunn and Loughlin were especially beneficial in rural matters, although not much was achieved legislatively in that area. Backing up the cabinet was an enthusiastic caucus, particularly some of the country members, as Goodin and Gillies showed. Evatt’s great legal skills were also valuable to the ministry. The government got through a lot of legislation (125 bills), but most of it was routine.493 The reconstructed cabinet never met parliament.
The 1925 industrial legislation is a main explanation of Lang’s popularity with trade unionists. He gave the bills essential support, but had virtually nothing else to do with them. And it is ironic that their passage gave him an advantage in 1925 over Willis and other union leaders, which he increased. He constantly claimed credit for the government’s programme, and he had concentrated on widows’ pensions and frequently forecast a family (child) endowment bill, but Evatt and others were right in pointing out that his actual contribution was small, even in the overseeing of the work.
The Legislative Council provided at once grave hindrance and timely assistance to Lang. It is misleading to describe the chamber’s actions as ‘class’ opposition. It was purely party political, best analysed in terms of the political and constitutional history of New South Wales. The Council had been consistently more or less difficult for all governments, amending, rejecting or putting aside Assembly bills as it thought fit.494 It objected more to the legislation of Labor than that of other governments because its majority, despite the emphasis that it put on the ‘non-partyness’ of the Council, was politically opposed to Labor and related its actions to its belief that it had popular support. There is little doubt that the Council majority was correct in assuming that the Lang government was losing electoral backing after the November 1925 Federal elections, and that the process of erosion continued because of Labor’s ‘red problem’, Lang’s clash with the governor over the Council, and the persistence of Party and political turmoil. Of the 125 bills sent to the Council in 1925-27, 16 per cent were not passed and 31.2 per cent were amended (4.8 per cent of which were not accepted by the government).495
