Mr. E. G. Theodore.

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 11, 12 July 1930, Page 28

Mr. E. G. Theodore.

The Australian cable service during tho past few weeks has' been full _ of information dealing with tho. inquiry into the transactions of Messrs. "W. M' Cormack and E. G. Theodore in connection with what are known as the I Mungana and

Chillagoe leases. This week the fateful ,news was received that as a result of the Commission finding him guilty of wrongful conduct in connection with the Mungana leases, Mr. Theodore had resigned the office of Fed-

eral Treasurer in

the Labour Cabinet. When doing so he declared that the findings were quite unjust, and were based on, ex parte statements by his political enemies, who had pursued him relentlessly with the object of driving him out of politics. Mr. Moore, who is Premier of Queensland, however, declares that there was no intention to assassinate Mr. Theodore politically, but that the inquiry had been held because the Government considered that it was necessary under the circumstances. Mr. Theodore, who was himself at one time Premier of Queensland, is one of the big figures in the Australian Labour move'nient. Now in his forty-fifth year, he has dominated Australian politics for some years because of his general bigness—bigness of stature, of brain, of forcefulness. He was born in South Australia and went to school there, after which he worked for some years as a miner in. that State and in Western Australia, and later still in the silver-lead mines of Broken Hill. After this he went to Queensland, finally settling down there, and graduating from miner to trade union organiser, first of the Australian Workers' Association and later of the Australian Workers' Union. Ho first entered the Queensland Parliament in 1909, representing Chillagoe, a mining centre. Within threo years of his election his powers of speech, his ability at debate, and his gift'for leadership brought him to the office of de-puty-leader of his party, which was then in Opposition. When Labour came into office, under the leadership of the late Mr. Byan, Mr. Theodore became the Premior's chief Minister, and when Mr. Ityan le£t State for Federal politics in 1916, Mr. Theodore stepped into the Premiership. While occupying this of&ee he visited England for the purpose.of arranging for a loan, but finding the London market unsympathetic .mainly because English financiers were opposed to the Queensland Labour Government's land policy—ho transferred his application to the United States and became the pioneer Premier of the overseas Dominions to seek the help of American finance on Wall street. This, of course, did not endear him to the big moneyed interests of England and Queensland, and he has ever since been'the centre of political storms in Australia. When Mr. Theodore^ managed to enter Federal politics, which he <li<| lg 1927, he was pontent tq remain

a back bencher in the Labour Tarty whiis he lo(ied round, but the following year lie consented to assist in framing thO'Federal Labour Party's general policy, and joined the Executive for that purpose. Up till the present trouble he was considered to be in the direct line of succession to the leadership at present held by Mr. Scullin, and it was considered that the day was not far distant when ho would succeed to the purple. Mungana leases, however, seem to have changed the whole trend of Labour politics, and it may .be that Mr. Theodoro will be compelled to drop out of the political life of Australia altogether.