The Enigmatic Mr Deakin by Judith Brett

Author:Judith Brett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2017-06-22T04:00:00+00:00

Labor’s tighter, more cohesive national organisation was to remain a challenge for Liberals until Robert Menzies formed the Liberal Party of Australia in 1944–45. In 1900 the challenge was just becoming apparent and Deakin was keen to prevent the Liberal vote dissipating over rival candidates. The young men of the ANA were with him, and he would need to cultivate the protectionist organisations, which ‘will mean the maintenance of existing tariffs with the Victorian as the chief model subject to Australian interests and considerations’.9

Barton was alarmed. ‘Don’t inscribe on our flag “the maintenance of existing tariffs with the Victorian as the chief model”…That would go far to wreck us over here…you must not scare the other colonies with the idea that this or that colony is to rule the roost.’ Barton also felt that aspects of Deakin’s suggested programme were too socialist for some New South Wales Liberals.10 Deakin might have been well placed to construct a Liberal consensus in Victoria, but he still had much to learn about politics in New South Wales, where free-traders considered themselves truer Liberals than the protectionists.

In his first letter for the Morning Post, written on 29 November 1900, Deakin worked hard to establish his new identity. Here is how it started:

Sydney has been simmering rather angrily for the past month, despite what may fairly be termed a temperate season, and is now fast approaching boiling point. Our preparations for the inauguration of the Commonwealth are the immediate cause, though the high pressure at which the local Parliament has been kept working…has contributed to the general friction. Not that the Lyne Ministry is in present peril.

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