MR LANG AND THE DEPRESSION

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29803, 21 April 1962, Page 3

MR LANG AND THE DEPRESSION

The Great Bust. The Depression of the Thirties. By J. T. Lang. Angus and Robertson. 410 pp.

The name of Mr J. T. Lang is inescapably associated with depression politics in this part of the world. This volume (the middle one of an autobiogrqptncpl. trilogy) is Mr Lang's account of the beginning of the great economic depression of the 1930's and of his part in it, first as Leader of the Oopos.tion in New South Wales and later as Premier of the Slate.

Mr Lang is now in his mid-80’s and from his writing no-one would detect that the exceptional vigour that animated him in his prime has abated. But even 30 years cf hindsight does not move Mr Lang to retreat a scrap from belief amounting to obsession that the economic depression may be explained simply as a bankers' conspiracy, and. as far as Australia was concerned, a conspiracy by the Bank of England and British investment bankers to hold Australia in thrall. Consequently, Mr Lang's book is nowhere reflective, but holds to unchanged views that among Australian political leaders of the time Mr Lang w’as the sole challenger of the bankers headed by the Bank of England man (Sir Otto Niemeyer) and the Commonwealth Bank man 'Sir Robert Gibson).

Mr Lang puts Labour politicians in the dock as freely as he does politicians of opposite political colour. J. H. Scullin. Joseph Lyons (two Labour Federal Prime Ministers) and E. G. Theodore (a Labour Federal Treasurer) get no better treatment from Mr Lang than such adversaries in Stale politics as T. R. Bavin and B. S. B. Stevens and in Federal politics as S. M. Bruce. Earle Page and J

G. Latham. Perhaps a difference is that whereas Labour politicians meet the chill of Mr Lang's contempt, some politicians of other persuasions encounter his virulence and anger. The reader has reasons for being grateful to the strong feelings Mr Lang holds because they Age responsible for the sharpness and ( penetration of some ! ’of his pe® pic-tures--as witness this description of the appearance of J. H. Scullin. then just returned from England, at a by-election- in Parkes. New South Wales.

When he had finished, all the enthusiasm had died out of th.e meeting He told the chairman he would go outside for a few moments for a little fresh air. He didn’t return. Instead he left behind, on his chair, a brand new English hat. It was the silent symbol of the man who had worn it. He had delivered the speech that was destined to wreck Labour unity in Australia He had abdicated to the people with whom he had been mixing in London. The hat remained. The Labour, leader had vanished into the night—-back to his suite in the Hotel Australia.

The book contains many other pen pictures and notable political stories. There is the story of the chicanery in Queensland politics 10 years before that caught up with the Federal Treasurer. E. G. Theodore and forced his resignation. There is an account of J. H. Scullin’s tussle with King George V over the appointment of an Australian as Governor-Gen-eral. There is the background to the charge that Labour was packing the High Court of Australia— a move that resulted in the appointment of the 36-year-old Dr. H. V. Evatt to Australia’s senior court. There are sardonic stories about the professor' and lecturers (including Copland) who emerged from their classrooms as the depression deepened to be persons of consequence in the

public eye for the first time. In so much that he did and wanted to do, Mr Lang was. of course, right. His insistence that economic depression was a time for controlled inflation rather than sharp deflation has become accepted economic doctrine. (Lang was extolling Keynes who on the other side of the world Was preaching along these llhes.) No-one nowadays would label Mr Lang a repudiationist who w’as undermining the toots of economic system for ’contending that the recipients of interest from Government bonds should share to some extent the heavy sacrifices many in the community were suffering. But because his vision concentrates upon a conspiratorial view of ' economic history, Mr Lang fails to comprehend fundamentals that men with more open minds were able to perceive. Moreover, the book makes apparent the faults of personality that made it impossible for Mr Lang to work in a team and Mr Lang himself shows w’hy he could never be more than leader of a faction. The book is crammed with magnificent first-hand material and it should be an excellent source book for the political historian. But because of Mr Lang’s excessively narrow’ viewpoint the historian will always be cn his guard lest Mr Lang's obsessions have biassed h’s stories and coloured his judgments.

It remains to be added that the copy sent by the publishers for review is the worst proof-read job this reviewer has encountered for a very long time. Not only are there spelling errors and several instances of misplaced lines, on four pages the printer has failed to leave any mark at all—unfortunately at particularly interestms noints