Sir Joseph Cook (1860-1947), prime minister, was born on 7 December
1860 at Silverdale, Staffordshire, England, son of William Cooke,
coalminer, and his wife Margaret, née Fletcher. He grew up in poverty.
In 1873 his father was killed in a pit accident and he became the family
wage-earner, a responsibility which developed in him a high degree of
self-confidence and a strong sense of obligation. During his teens he
joined the Primitive Methodists, and marked his conversion by dropping
the 'e' from his surname. He eschewed alcohol, gambling, sport and other
forms of entertainment, and sought self-improvement through study at
home. Solemn and humourless, he nevertheless enjoyed the company of
other people, among whom he was invariably quiet and modest. He became a
lay preacher and a successful public speaker. He also became involved
in trade union affairs: before he was 25 he had been elected
successively to all the executive positions in his union lodge, and had
also become interested in political issues; he supported tariff
protection as a method of improving working conditions in the coalmining
industry. By the early 1880s Cook had fulfilled his obligations to his
family and, after being several times unemployed, he decided to migrate.
On 8 August 1885 at the Wolstanton Primitive Methodist Chapel he
married Mary Turner, a Chesterton schoolteacher whose brother was one of
a number of Silverdale miners already settled at Lithgow, New South
Wales. Cook left for Lithgow shortly after his marriage and by January
1887 had established a home there and was employed at the Vale of Clwydd
colliery. In his spare time, having abandoned earlier studies for the
Methodist ministry, he learned shorthand and book-keeping, and helped
manage the Lithgow Enterprise and Australian Land Nationaliser; he also audited the books of the Lithgow Mercury
and, in 1890, those of the municipal council. He served in the
important position of check-weighman in his mine, and as secretary and
president of the miners' lodge. He also took part in the 1888 public
demonstrations against Chinese immigration. Politically, he was then a
republican and a supporter of the Land Nationalisation League which,
under the influence of the single-taxer Henry George,
strongly supported free trade. In August 1890, during the maritime
strike, he served on the Labor Defence Committee while the Lithgow mines
were worked by non-unionists under the protection of a contingent of
the permanent artillery.
In May 1891 Cook was elected president of the Lithgow branch of the
Labor Electoral League, and was subsequently endorsed as its
parliamentary candidate. In June he won the seat of Hartley in the
Legislative Assembly. He was elected leader of the Parliamentary Labor
Party in October 1893. Party members were divided on the tariff issue,
and many were also unwilling to accept the directions of those
organizations which had made their election possible. He became
spokesman for those who wished to retain their independence in
parliament. At a conference in March 1894, however, it was resolved that
members had to bind themselves to accept caucus direction. Cook was the
leader of those who refused to sign the 'solidarity' pledge and it was
as an independent Labor member that he was again returned to the
assembly in July. His immediate acceptance of the position of
postmaster-general in the Reid
government at £1500 a year was seen by members of the official Labor
Party as an act of opportunism never to be forgotten or forgiven. It was
the beginning of Cook's long drift from Labor to Conservatism, and from
Free Trade to Protection.
However, he was convinced that the Reid government's programme was
close to his own, and that he could serve the cause of Labor better as a
minister than as a back-bencher. Conversely, his inclusion in the
government assured Reid of reasonable support from the independent Labor
members. Cook's Hartley electors again returned him with a huge
majority at the ministerial by-election. He then built a large house in
the centre of Lithgow, and came to be highly respected in the town
because of his new role as head of the postal department, one of the
most important of the colony's public services.
Although Cook had ceased to represent only the working classes he held
Hartley easily at the snap election of July 1895. Thereafter, he was
associated with the Reid government's social reforms. He had always
thought it the moral duty of government to elevate the working classes,
as 'some sort of parent to the people'. As postmaster-general until
August 1898, then secretary for mines and agriculture until September
1899, he took pride in his departments, and got on well with Reid, to
whom he was steadfastly loyal.
An administrator who gave close attention to detail, Cook carefully
implemented the government's policy of retrenchment in the public
service; he also expanded the telephone network, completed the line
between Sydney and Newcastle, issued charity postal stamps, and
introduced postmen to bicycles. As minister for mines he failed to get
reforming legislation through parliament because of opposition in the
Legislative Council, but he supervised an executive order which
compelled all skips of coal to be weighed according to the provisions of
the Coal Mines Regulation Act (1896). As minister for agriculture he
appointed William Farrer
to the position of government wheat experimentalist. However, as a
private member, Cook was unable to persuade parliament to adopt local
option for the control of public house licences, and his administrative
action in preventing lottery tickets passing through the mails was
revoked after he had left office.
He gradually came to admire the institution of the monarchy, and to
value the ties which bound the Australian colonies to the mother
country, and he gave strong support to Britain at the outbreak of the
South African War. He was slower to see the practical value of
Australian Federation, mainly because Reid's 'Yes-No' label did not give
him the guidance he had come to expect of his leader. Cook opposed the
constitution bill at the first referendum because it would give equal,
and therefore undemocratic, representation to each State in the Senate,
and because, more significantly, he believed it would disadvantage New
South Wales. However, after Reid had obtained concessions, both he and
Cook supported the bill at the second referendum.
The Reid government lost control of the assembly early in 1899 and the Labor Party gave its support to (Sir) William Lyne's
Protectionist group. As a private member of the Opposition, Cook
successfully persuaded parliament to pass a Truck Act (1901) to prevent
wages being paid other than in money. At that time his political
ambition was probably limited to succeeding Reid as leader of the New
South Wales Free Trade Party. However, early in 1901 he was persuaded to
contest the new Federal seat of Parramatta, which included Lithgow and
most of the Hartley State electorate. Unopposed by Labor, he easily won.
He then moved to a new home at Marrickville, and joined Reid on the
Opposition bench in the newly assembled House of Representatives. Tom Roberts,
who recorded the occasion on canvas, noted that Cook was 5 ft 9 ins
(175 cm) in height, weighed 12 stone (76 kg) and his hat size was 7.
In the new parliament, he excelled as a doggedly pugnacious Oppositionist and unsparing critic of the Barton and Deakin
Protectionist governments, especially during the debates on the first
Federal tariff. Re-elected in December 1903 Cook was not invited to take
office during the brief period of the Reid-McLean
coalition in August 1904–July 1905, but he did help Reid to establish a
Liberal League and an anti-socialist campaign. In July 1905 he was
elected deputy leader of the Free Trade Party, his first official party
position, and thereafter developed the pronounced conservative views
which characterized the rest of his political career.
Cook had been fourteen years out of the mines and now believed that no
one class in society ought to benefit at the expense of any other and
that there should be no unnecessary restrictions on personal freedom. He
saw social reform as a slow and laborious achievement. He declared that
all Labor Party policies were sectional and socialist, while his own
were liberal and in the national interest. He attacked the Labor pledge
and its organization and, during the long absences of Reid from
parliament, was strongly critical of its policies and sometimes rude to
its members. He unsuccessfully led the fight against increased tariff
protection and New Protection, but otherwise had much in common with
Deakin's Protectionist government. He supported the encouragement of
immigration, electoral reform, old-age pensions, the appointment of a
high commissioner in London, and an Australian flotilla of the Royal
Navy. Hard-working, physically tireless and shrewd, he was incisive and
combative in debate, with a thorough grasp of parliamentary manoeuvring,
but he could be irascible and was always humourless.
Cook was prominent in New South Wales during Reid's anti-socialist
election campaign of late 1906, and was returned unopposed. He then
moved house to the most exclusive part of his electorate, Baulkham
Hills. But the election had not improved his party's strength; at the
end of 1908, Cook had spent almost eight years on the Opposition bench
and had held no ministerial office. Deakin's biographer wrote of him
that 'if there had been roots of geniality in his nature their growth
had been inhibited by years in opposition'. The adoption of the new
protective tariff in May 1908 meant that the Free Traders had no future
in national politics; it became imperative that they should join forces
with the Protectionists so as to provide an effective counterforce to
Labor's growing electoral strength.
Cook became leader of the Free Trade Party after Reid's retirement in
November 1908 and next year accepted a position as deputy leader and
minister for defence in a fusion ministry led by Deakin. The government
had the support of a majority in both Houses and enacted a substantial
programme during its brief period in office. Cook did his most lasting
work as minister at this time. His Defence Act laid down the principles
of compulsory military training and the establishment of a military
college; he also took charge of the visit of Lord Kitchener to report on
Australian defence and concluded with Britain the agreement which
established the Royal Australian Navy.
However, in April 1910 the electors passed a strongly adverse judgement
on the opportunism of the new fusion by giving the Labor Party a
landslide victory in both Houses. For the fourth successive election
Cook was a member of the defeated party, and for the next three years
again sat on the Opposition bench. The surviving fusionists formed
themselves into the newly titled Liberal Party, and Cook took part in
developing an effective extra-parliamentary organization. By January
1913, the Fisher
Labor government had implemented many radical proposals to which Cook's
vociferous opposition had been unavailing, in particular the
introduction of a Federal land tax and the establishment of a Federal
government bank.
By then Deakin had realized that his mental powers were failing and he
resigned, suddenly, from parliament. At a party meeting held on 20
January, Cook defeated Sir John Forrest
for the leadership of the Liberal Party by 20 votes to 19, a division
which seemed to reflect the party split on the tariff question. Thus, at
the age of 52, the former Labor leader and free trader had become the
national leader of a political party which since the fusion had become
both protectionist and conservative. In his public manner, his speech
and his social activities there was no longer any trace of his
working-class origins. In private he was still deeply religious, and a
devoted husband and father to his wife and nine children. He continued
as a lay-preacher.
At the Federal elections of May 1913 the Labor Party lost its majority
in the House of Representatives, though it kept control of the Senate.
In June Cook became Liberal prime minister of Australia, twenty-two
years after his first election to represent Labor in the New South Wales
parliament. As he could control the House of Representative only by the
casting vote of the Speaker or the chairman of committees, his
government had little chance to sponsor new legislation; his only
practical achievement was to provoke the Opposition in the Senate into
creating the constitutional situation for a double dissolution: this was
done by proposing to abolish preference to trade unionists in
government employment, and to reintroduce postal voting at Federal
elections. In the ensuing poll of September 1914 the Labor Party easily
regained control of both Houses. Cook went into Opposition once again,
though now as a member of His Majesty's Privy Council, his first public
honour.
Meanwhile, war had broken out in Europe; one of Cook's last public acts
as prime minister had been to pledge his government's full support for
Britain, including the transfer of the Royal Australian Navy to the
British Admiralty, and to offer to send a contingent of 20,000 volunteer
troops overseas. After the election Cook and his colleagues endorsed
the Labor government's war policy, as well as the recruiting drives to
raise troops, though they were annoyed that the Labor Party had rejected
their proposal to form an all-party national government, and Cook was
displeased at the increased land tax and the introduction of a Federal
income tax.
By May 1916 Cook and his Liberal Party colleagues were convinced that
compulsory military conscription for overseas service was the only way
in which Australia could meet its commitment to Britain. Although this
view was entirely unacceptable to the majority of Labor members it was
supported by the new prime minister, W. M. Hughes,
who organized a national plebiscite on the question in October 1916.
After the proposal was narrowly defeated, Hughes left the Labor Party
with a small following to form a minority government, hoping for support
from Cook's Opposition. This was an unworkable situation, and a
coalition was negotiated early in 1917 which kept Hughes as prime
minister and made Cook his deputy. Cook chose to be minister for the
navy in the new government, although the senior portfolio, defence, had
been accepted by (Sir) George Pearce. Cook then moved house once more—to the inner Sydney suburb of Summer Hill.
In the election of May 1917 the Nationalist coalition government won a
majority in both Houses. Soon afterwards the parties fused. Cook, who
had often been the recipient in parliament of Hughes's most barbed
phrases, loyally accepted him as leader, and became his efficient
deputy, as he had been to both Reid and Deakin. Hughes thought Cook
plodding and unimaginative, but valued the way in which he was
scrupulously loyal to the government in public. Cook recognized Hughes's
success as a wartime prime minister and approved of strong leadership.
Despite the defeat of the proposal to introduce overseas military
conscription at a second plebiscite in December, the Hughes government
remained in office during the closing stages of the war.
In June 1918 Hughes and Cook represented Australia at the Imperial War
Conference and in the Imperial war cabinet; next year they were
delegates to the Peace Conference where Cook sat on the commission which
gave the Sudeten Germans to the new Czechoslovakia. Appointed G.C.M.G.,
in 1918 he had a hero's welcome at his birthplace. However, Hughes
delegated no real responsibility to Cook during the discussions in
London on the war and the peace treaty, and Hughes's biographer has
suggested that Cook was 'solaced for any neglect' by the knighthood.
The Nationalists won the election of December 1919. From July 1920
until November 1921 Cook served as treasurer during a particularly
difficult economic period. He was opposed to wage increases and did
nothing to control unemployment, though at the time the government did
not have the constitutional power to deal with Australia's finances
effectively on a national scale. Cook was acting prime minister from
April to September 1921, while Hughes was at the Imperial Conference in
London, and in November he resigned from parliament in order to become
high commissioner in London. He represented Australia well, and
immensely enjoyed London's social round; his wife was appointed D.B.E.
in 1925 for her services to the Red Cross Society. Cook returned to
Australia in 1927, and in 1928-29 was chairman of a Federal royal
commission which inquired into the finances of South Australia. He
retired from public life and built a large block of flats at Bellevue
Hill, Sydney, where he died on 30 July 1947, survived by his wife, five
sons and three daughters, and leaving an estate valued for probate at
£23,269. He was cremated after a state funeral.
He had refused to compile his memoirs, but he told relatives and
friends that he viewed his career with every satisfaction. He felt that
he had always done his duty and had never avoided his responsibilities.
Joe Cook was an eminently successful politician and an able
parliamentarian during an eventful period of Australian political
history, because he was able to adapt to changing circumstances and
because his sense of duty, as he understood it, triumphed clearly over
adherence to early principles. Unfortunately for his career, he was most
frequently in opposition and represented minority interests; his only
notable achievements were the Defence Act of 1909 and the double
dissolution of 1914. A harsh critic might say that when in office Cook
saved the taxpayers' money at the expense of the class from which he had
risen, and when in opposition he was an unprincipled opportunist. A
sympathetic admirer would stress that he was a self-made man who rose to
the top with those very virtues of hard work, perseverance,
self-improvement and a sense of duty which formed the central and
uplifting message of the Primitive Methodists. A portrait of Cook by Norman Carter hangs in Parliament House, Canberra, and another by Sir James Guthrie is held by the National Gallery in Edinburgh.
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