Alfred Deakin: former PM a wily statesman, but now almost forgotten

Alfred Deakin is one of Australia’s most important and consequential political figures, but is sorely misunderstood.

Alfred Deakin, our second prime minister and one of the fathers of the nation.

A few weeks ago I climbed a creaking staircase and walked along the corridor­ to the old banquet hall at the majestic 19th-century Shamrock Hotel in Bendigo, outside Melbourne. Today, it is a popular spot for wedding­ receptions. But it was here in 1898 that Alfred Deakin delivered a mesmerising speech that galvanised national politics.

The Federation cause was flagging. There was considerable opposition to the approaching referendum to be held in four of the colonies, especially Victoria and NSW. In NSW the jelly-stomached premier George Reid was so confused­ on the proposed constitution that he was dubbed “Yes/No Reid”.

Deakin, then a Victorian MP, was invited to address the annual conference of the Australian Natives Association. Prominent political figures­ cautioned delay on uniting the colonies. But Deakin pledged his full-throated support for federation with a speech that appealed to the heart and head. “A federal constitution is the last and final product of political intellect and constructive ingenuity,” he said.

The classes may resist us; the masses may be inert; politicians may falter; our leaders may sound the retreat. But now is not a time to surrender. Let us nail our standard to the mast. Let us stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of the enlightened­ liberalism of the Constitution.

This was “the supreme oratorical feat of Deakin’s life’’, argues his latest biographer, Judith­ Brett, in The Enigmatic Mr Deakin. ­Delivered without notes to rapturous applause as men jumped to their feet, the speech helped “create a new nation”. Much of Deakin’s reput­ation is wrapped up in this speech. It cemented his standing as an apostle for Federation.

The Enigmatic Mr Deakin by Judith Brett

Deakin is one of Australia’s most important and consequential political figures. From 1879 to 1900 he was a colonial MP, and minister for much of that time. He was one of the fathers of Federation, plying the cause at home and abroad. And he served as prime minister three separate times between 1903 and 1910.

He was a lawyer and journalist who also dabbled­ in business, not all that successfully. He was a master of parliamentary procedure. He was a superb orator but rarely went for the jug­ular: his nickname was “Affable Alfred”. Brett writes that his “two great political gifts” were his oratory and charm. A number of times she describes­ how handsome he was: six feet “tall and strong” with “thick dark hair” and “mesmeric brown eyes”, and always well groomed.

Brett displays an acute understanding of the intricacies of parliament and the political and policy issues of Deakin’s time. She is equally discerning­ in describing Deakin’s complex relationship with Pattie Browne, whom he married in 1882 when he was 25 and she was 19, and their three children. Deakin’s sister Catherine was also a constant presence that Brett captures well. The Deakin family has been explored in John Rickard’s A Family Romance (1996).

Deakin was born in 1856. His dreamy and restless childhood until finishing school in 1871 is regrettably dealt with in just 19 pages. Yet there are few sources other than Deakin’s own later-life unhappy memories to give readers a close account of his early life.

Deakin’s future opened up in 1878 when he met David Syme, publisher and editor of The Age newspaper in Melbourne. This was a transformative time for Victoria and for Deakin, who became politically energised. It was Syme who shaped Deakin’s thinking and encouraged his entry into politics in 1879.

The third strand to Brett’s life of Deakin, after politics and family, is his participation in the occult. Deakin believed he could communicate with spirits. He participated in seances, mesmerised people and wrote extensively about spiritualism. This interest in the paranormal was not uncommon but Deakin was spellbound by it more than most.

This has been the subject of Al Gabay’s The Mystic Life of Alfred Deakin (1992). Brett has again waded through the often tedious Deakin papers to pull together various elements of this strange fixation. She argues it was an inexorable part of his quest for meaning in life and it re­inforced his liberalism. The introspective Deakin, often gripped by self-doubt, also dabbled in ­various religions and sometimes thought about giving up politics for the pulpit.

Brett has previously argued that psychoanalysis should be part of the biographer’s toolkit. Thankfully, she does not fall into the trap of psychobabble. But she does argue there was method in Deakin’s madness that is somehow reasoned. I was not entirely convinced. The ­“intense inner world” of Deakin is truly bizarre.

As prime minister (1903-04, 1905-08 and 1909-10), Deakin helped usher in “the Australian Settlement” that established the new nation­’s political foundations, shattered by the 1980s. Popularised by Paul Kelly in The End of Certainty (1992), they are: imperial benevolence, industry protection, state paternalism, wage arbitrati­on and White Australia.

Deakin deserves credit as one of the pioneers of the Australian nation. He helped to write laws on defence, social services and workplace relations into the statute books. This was often exceedingly difficult, given no party had a parliamentary majority and governments rose and fell in quick succession between 1901 and 1910.

Brett asked Paul Keating to launch her book but he declined. “I overturned all of Deakin’s policies,” he said. It helps explain why there are few who reach for the Deakin legacy. Many of the ideas he championed, though mostly centrist at the time, have been discredited. Their propon­ents are now on the fringes of politics.

A theme of this impressive book is that Deakin has been forgotten and misunderstood. Few liberals or conservatives look to him as a standard bearer. However, some in Labor have sought to appropriate Deakin, identifying with his social liberalism.

Deakin said there was little policy difference between his Liberal­s and Labor. Between 1905 and 1908, he governed with Labor’s support. It was Labor’s “machine”, caucus and pledge that he could not abide. What’s more, Deakin struggled to identify with Labor men, given his comfortable middle­-class existence.

In the end, Deakin decided to join his liberal Protectionist Party with the conservative Anti-Socialist Party (formerly the Free Trade Party) led by Joseph Cook (Reid’s former deputy) and the Anti-Socialist Protectionists led by John Forrest. The fusion of these parties into an anti-Labor grouping in 1909 had a profound impact on Australian politics.

Brett argues that politicians can learn from Deakin’s “statecraft”. He was a visionary who advocated “practical measures” in the national interest. He could marshal words to furnish an argument. He understood that compromise is the currency of politics and that timing is often the key. It may be a stretch, however, to argue that, like Robert Menzies, he eschewed ideology and embraced pragmatism.

This book is sympathetic to Deakin. He was an impressive politician in his day — a celebrity with national stature — and he left a substantial policy legacy. Yet Deakin’s third minority governmen­t was defeated in a landslide by Labor led by Andrew Fisher in 1910.

Brett does not place enough weight on Deakin­’s emphatic rejection by the voters. Labor was the first party to secure a parliament­ary majority, not Deakin’s Commonwealth ­Liberal Party. Following Deakin’s retirement in 1913 and slide into senility, his party lasted only a few more years until its merger with the Nationali­st Party and Billy Hughes’s breakaway Labor grouping.

Questions linger over Deakin’s integrity. It is extraordinary that he was paid to write anonymous articles for London’s The Morning Post (1901-14) and National Review (1904-06) that analysed the politics of the day and speculated on his own actions and motives.

Deakin also wrote several books, including The Federal Story, whichis mostly only kind to Edmund Barton.

Deakin was, in truth, a wily politician. He effectively­ ended Chris Watson’s Labor government in 1904 and torpedoed Reid’s free-trade government in 1905. When Deakin succumbed to Reid’s urgings and fused the non-Labor parties in 1909 — Brett says he did so “reluctan­tly” — it brought down the Fisher Labor government.

This series of betrayals led to extraordinary scenes in parliament as speakers lined up to trash Deakin for torching his liberal principles and destroying yet another government. William Lyne branded Deakin a “Judas” and Hughes likened him to Machiavelli.

Deakin, who died in 1919, is the subject of several biographies. His friend Walter Murdoch­ was commissioned to write the first. Alfred Deakin: A Sketch was published in 1923. Murdoch drew on Deakin’s papers and conduct­ed new interviews but insisted it was not “official”.

Murdoch’s student John La Nauze wrote the dry two-volume Alfred Deakin (1965) that has served, until now, as the authoritative biographical text.

Brett has written the first full biography of Deakin published in half a century. It is more rounded than the others with a lively prose style that shows a deep understanding of its perplexing subject. It is a fine book, and especially timely given the depressing state of modern politics.

Troy Bramston is a senior writer and columnist with The Australian. His latest book is Paul Keating: The Big-Picture Leader.

The Enigmatic Mr Deakin

By Judith Brett
Text, 490pp, $49.99 (HB)