Rapid Rise to Prime Ministership

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 209, 3 September 1941, Page 2

Rapid Rise to Prime Ministership

AUSTRALIA’S LEADER Few Australian politicians have had such a meteoric rise as the new Prime Minister, Mr Arthur William Fadden, who attains that office at the age of 46, after only five years in the Federal Parliament and 17 months in the Ministry. Air Fadden was born at Ingham, a small sugar-growing centre in North Queensland, and went to school at Mackay, a coastal town about 600 miles north-west of Brisbane. As a youth h<3 worked in the office of a sugar mill and then became successively assistant town clerk and town clerk of the local municipality. In his spare time, he qualified as a chartered accountant and eventually resigned to practise at Townsville. Later he moved to Brisbane, where he won success in his profession and became an active member of the Country Party. In 1936 he was elected to the Federal House of Representatives for Darling Downs at a by-election made necessary by the death of Sir Littleton Groom. He was soon regarded as a man of promise, especially in the field of public finance. First Ministerial Post. When Mr Menzies formed a coalition Cabinet in March 1940, renewing the partnership between the United Australia and Country Parties which had broken up on the death of Mr Lyons in April 1939, Mr Fadden was appointed a Minister without portfolio as assistant to the Treasurer, Air P. C. Spender. In the following September, after the disastrous aeroplane crash in wKich three Ministers, Sir Henry Gullet, Mr J V. Fairbairn, and Brigadier G. A. Street, lost their lives, Mr Fadden was

chosen to fill Mr Fairbairn’s place as Minister for Air. He held this post only about a month, for Mr Spender was socn made Minister for the Army and Mr Fadden took his place as Treasurer, with the immediate task of presenting Australia's second war Budget. At this stage, a dispute was in progress in the Country Party regarding the leadership, for which there were three contenders, Mr A. G. Cameron. | Air J. A. McEwan, and Sir Earle Page, j In the hope that time would show a way out of the deadlock, Air Fadden was asked to. become acting-leader, and consented. Choice as Mr Menzies’ Deputy. On the eve of his departure last Janu-i ary on a visit to Britain. Air Menzies chose Mr Fadden as his locum tenens. The arrangement proved very satisfactory, for the acting-Prime Minister soon established better relations with the Labour Opposition and its leader, Mr J. Curtin, than his chief had ever been able to attain. He ..also attracted favourable notice overseas by his forthright utterances on Australia’s attitude to Japanese threats of aggression in Indo-China and toward Singapore and the Netherlands Indies. In AJarch, the Country Party unanimously confirmed his position as its leader. In various editorial references to Mr Fadden. the Sydney Morning Herald has expressed its view that his rise has not. been more rapid than his personal and political gifts deserve. He is regarded as shrewd, yet a man to be trusted, and a good team worker with a knack of winning popularity without seeking it. One writer lately declared him to be “as Australian and as unostentatious as a stringy bark.” These qualities appeared in his firm resistance to “pressure groups” which tried to make him give ground to sectional interests while his Budget was under debate. His staunchness was taken as a guarantee that, while he temporarily occupied Air. Menzies’ place, there would be no yielding on - matters where yielding would endangor the war effort. Air. Fadden married in North Queensland at the age of 21 and lias two sons and two daughters.