RISE AND FALL OF BRUCE-PAGE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18900, 26 October 1929, Page 10

RISE AND FALL OF BRUCE-PAGE.

REMARKABLE CHAPTER IN FEDERAL HISTORY.

(Special to the “Star”) SYDNEY, October 12. How the Bruce-Page Ministry came into being; by what forces it sustained itself so long; and by what errors it fell—all these things make its life a remarkable chapter in Australian history. In the year 1920, the names of Stanley Melbourne Bruce and of Earle Christmas Grafton Page were scarcely known. Each had been in Parliament a year or two, and as politicians go they were young men—Bruce thirty-seven and Page forty. Highly Promising. Bruce was accepted as a highly promising man, with a double-barrelled reputation as a business director and as a cultured person from Cambridge; a type which seemed unlikely to advance swiftly in the intrigue and finesse of politics (writes Adam M’Coy in the “Daily Guardian”). Page, however, was a tireless political worker. He was a kind of uncrowned king on the North Coast, where for years he had been busy in public affairs of all sorts.

All his pertinacity was devoted to the task of upsetting Prime Minister Billy Hughes—but nobody thought he could do it.

Threatened by the unrelenting hostility of Page and the Country Party, Hughes, in a mood of patronage, and with an effort of foresight, “adopted” Mr Bruce, hailing him as a future paragon.

Hughes put Bruce into the limelight by sending him to League of Nations, and in 1921 took this “brilliant beginner” into the Federal Cabinet as Treasurer.

An Emperor's Abdication. Suddenly, in 1923, after fresh elections, in which the Country Party had scored against the Nationalists, Page found himself strong enough to insist on the abdication of Emperor Hughes. That potentate was astonished and dismayed. But Page would give no quarter, and “Billy” had to scramble down from his throne.

Only one concession was forced by Hughes from the followers who had grown weary of him. Page must not be Prime Minister. The choice fell on Bruce, whom Hughes himself had promoted, and was glad to acknowledge as successor. “Merely Chairwarmer.” “Bruce will be merely a chairwarmer for Hughes, until Hughes his way back again,” was the political • prophecy which nearly everybody believed. Probably Hughes believed it, also. But behold! Thanks to the tenacity of Page, and the practical “savoir faire” of Bruce, the Bruce-Page Ministry grew stronger instead of weaker . Hughes receded into the background, with diminished reputation; and Bruce carried on his Ministry with a nonchalant confidence which baulked every attempt to upset him. Bruce conducted politics without much flair for political engineering. His policies were never sharply defined; but he took his problems as they came and followed principles of practical expediency. He Shrugged. Practical mistakes were made, but Bruce shrugged his shoulders and passed to the next thing. He failed to deport Walsh and Johnson, but easily survived the political discredit of that fiasco.

Like a managing director settling the problems of the minute at a board meeting, Bruce’s idea of politics was one of sheer practicality. “Give it a try-out.” If not much good, then try something else.

His Commissions of Inquiry, his Big Four, his Standardisation and Science—some seemed valuable, some of less value—they were experiments in economic research, not political, but practical in intention.

Because he took political risks in the hope of practical results, Bruce made his blunders, and by them his Cabinet met inglorious defeat. The Brown Gesture. To prosecute John Brown in the coal lock-out was a political gesture, and a wise one, seeing that a trades union had been fined £IOOO, and other unionists pursued by the law.

Bruce cancelled the prosecution on the expedient rule that the coal trouble might end. It did not end; so the political mistake became a practical blunder also.

Earle Page and Bruce never learned to look ahead. Having big surpluses, they flung them into navy grants and debt-redemptions. Then, when the pinch came, they attacked special industries—the amusements—with a monstrous overhead tax. Such lack of political acumen! Finally, Bruce suddenly conceived it a “practical” idea to demolish Federal arbitration, merely to dismiss the trouble of dual awards. This may have been practical; but politically it was an immeasurable blunder. On the accumulation of errors, Bruce and Page were destroyed. As Prime Minister, Bruce has been completely honest, and thoroughly sincere. But politics is built on deeper popular emotions tfcian the practicality and expediency qf a business chief; and never cultivated the sense of politics. In the end, therefore, he came to political calamity.