The Travails of Robert Gordon Menzies in the 1940-41 Minority Government

In my last post I considered the relationship between Labor's John Curtin and the United Australia Party's )UAP) Robert Menzies during the Menzies' minority Government of 1940-41. In this post I am going to concentrate on Menzies; difficulties within the UAP over the period of his minority Government. My intention is to show how recent Liberal Party claims that Curtin refused Menzies a pair to travel to London in 1941 are disingenuous, at best, if not completely untruthful.

The election debacle of September 1940 had grave ramifications for the conservative Coalition. Within the Country Party there was a fight for the leadership between 'Black Jack" McEwen and Earle Page. Artie Fadden was elected to the leadership as a compromise candidate and the former United Country Party (UCP) leader, Archie Cameron, not even nominated for the leadership, left the party in high dudgeon and joined the UAP. Arthur Coles, elected as aVictorian Independent, also joined the UAP. In his reconstruction of the UAP Cabinet, Menzies gave the post of Treasurer to Fadden, much to the ire of the UAP's Percy Spender, who had been Treasurer in the former Menzies Government. He had gained the post because in April 1939 Earle Page had taken the UCP out of the Coalition because of his dislike of Menzies whom he had blamed for hounding the UAP's founding Leader, Joe Lyons, to his death. Spender, instead, was made Minister for the Army.

Negotiations with Labor and Lang Labor after the September election led to the formation of the Advisory War Council (AWC). Most significantly, for the argument I am currently advancing, John Curtin, the Labor Opposition leader guaranteed not to use Labor's numbers in the Parliament to embarrass the Government in its war effort. On 24 January, 1941, accompanied by Frederick Shedden, the Secretary for Defence, Menzies departed Australia for London via the Netherlands East Indies, Singapore and the Middle East. He was determined to induce Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, to be specific as to how he intended to reinforce Singapore and draw up a plan for the defence of the Far East. He wanted, too, an exact explanation from Churchill as to how he would make good his pledge of defending Australia from Japanese invasion.

Much of the detail of Menzies' discussions with the British Government and British defence authorities need not concern us. However, one detail is significant for its effect on politics back in Australia. In discussions with the British Foreign Office Menzies was shocked to discover the British had reservations about reinforcing Singapore with aircraft to guard against war in the Far East because the planes could be ill-spared from the European war. Nor would they engage in war with Japan unless American intervention was guaranteed. He warned the British that if the Japanese invaded the Netherlands East Indies , 'the whole Australian defence policy and plans would have to be recast.'

In an attempt to change Foreign Office thinking, Menzies gave a luncheon speech to the Foreign Press Association on 3 March. He reiterated publicly the views he had expressed to the Foreign Office and called for frankness with Japan and a 'proper blend of friendliness and plain statement'. Australia, he warned, he warned would nevertheless defend herself and her vital interests.

Back home, Curtin, Beasley and the press accused him of minimising the seriousness of the position in the Pacific and contradicting warnings the AWC had issued in February about the Japanese threat. This response disgusted Menzies and reinforced an unfortunate (and untrue) perception in the Australian electorate that he was, somehow, an appeaser of Fascism. By April Spender, concerned by Australian defeats in Northern Africa and Greece did not augur well for the Government's popularity or for Army morale, tried to persuade the War Cabinet to appoint a Commander-in-Chief  of the AMF (Australian Military Forces) to be designated "Commander-in-Chief Australia'. Because of opposition from the Military Board and Defence Committee, he was forced to compromise with the appointment 'of the GOC (General Officer Commanding) of the Field Army'. His suggestion was adopted to counter strong political pressure being applied in the Advisory War Council by Labor members about the need to give Australian defence priority over Imperial commitments. This strategem temporarily squelched Labor protests. The appointment was not made until 11 July, but did not clearly define the lines of authority and command within the military bureaucracy for the appointee, General Sir Iven Mackay.)
Menzies, now in Washington, was not impressed when Fadden cabled him about the decision. Perhaps he became suspicious that Spender had pretensions to the leadership of the UAP. On the trip home on 25 April the thought of political rivalries in Canberra gave him 'a sick feeling of repugnance and apprehension.' On 13 June, following a further Australian defeat in Crete earlier that month, Menzies decided to free himself from the pressure of administrative duties to 'better exercise a general supervision over the wart effort on the military and economic fronts.' This culminated in his public broadcast on 17 June, exhorting the Australian public to an 'all-in' effort. On 26 June he re-organised his Cabinet. But the Cabinet reconstruction brought into the open dissension within the UAP about Menzies' leadership, especially from those who had been passed over for a portfolio.
The political pressure for the Government to be seen doing something for the defence of the continent had intensified since April. On 28 July, a joint Franco-Japanese protectorate was declared over Indo-China. Australia, following the lead of Britain and the United States, froze Japanese assets. Forde and Makin in the Advisory War Council, on 29 July forced the Government on the defensive about its policy of concentrating Australia's defence in the Middle East and the Mediterranean in the face of Japanese bellicosity. Spender pointed out that the Government had despatched brigades of the 8th Division to Malaya and Darwin, had taken steps to call up 35,000 men in the home forces for full-time duty, including four detachments at Rabaul and Thursday Island, and had instituted a more efficient training programme for the militia less than a week before. Spender's argument ignored the chronic equipment deficiencies within the AMF about which the Labor men had recently been informed.
Menzies, meanwhile, was having serious problems within the UAP. At the end of July he had fended off a challenge to his leadership exacerbated by calls within the Labor Party for him to be deposed.and grew more and more preoccupied with attempts within his own party to topple him and was less able to give full attention to his Ministerial obligations. In a desperate attempt to salvage his leadership he suggested that he might go once more to London where, through the British War Cabinet he might be able to better influence decisions that would affect Australia's defence. The former World War I Prime Minister, the ancient Billy Hughes,  who once more had visions of himself as Australia's war-time leader, strongly urged this idea on his threatened leader. Labor would have none of it. Convinced that the Menzies Government was close to derelict in its responsibility for the nation's home defence, and confident that they alone could save Australia from the looming Japanese threat, Curtin refused to give Menzies a pair for what he believed was a second useless trip to London. They knew Menzies would fall if he remained in Australia.
On 28 August Menzies resigned as Prime Minister, leaving the way open for Fadden, a candidate thought more acceptable to the electorate. Fadden had no illusions about the task before him. He made no changes to the Menzies Cabinet, and determined to use Meanzies' expertise, allowed him to retain the portfolio of Defence Co-ordination.
It is clear from the above that Curtin refused to pair Menzies' second trip to London because he believed the Coalition was unfit to manage the war, a view that was shared by Arthur Coles, again an Independent, who in October crossed the floor of the House and put the Labor Party into Government. When the current shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, claimed Curtin had refused Menzies a pair to go to London, he can only have been referring to this latter occasion. That he neglected to explain the circumstances behind the refusal of a pair, namely that in time of great peril, Australia was being governed by a disunited party incapable of dealing with the threat of Japanese invasion in the near future, and which had left the country in a state on unpreparedness to meet such an invasion, at the very least puts his assertion in the realm of a half-truth, to say the least.