3 August: Boreham on Alfred Deakin

Statesman and Seer
It was Alfred Deakin, whose birthday we honour today, who first convinced the world that an entirely new phenomenon had appeared on the Australian horizon. Lord Morley declares that Mr. Gladstone never really caught the political temper, and, in some senses, never became a politician. Much the same may be said of Deakin. He himself realised it. He himself used to tell how, on his way to a meeting at Bacchus Marsh, in the course of his first campaign, he witnessed a gorgeous sunset and prepared a vivid description of it for incorporation in his speech. And it was only when he looked down from the platform upon the stolid and matter-of-fact faces of the assembled voters that he realised that he could not reasonably expect to win the seat with even the most bewitching sunsets.

Win the seat he did, however, and then followed the denouement that astonished everybody. It transpired that, at some outback polling booth, some technical irregularity had taken place, with the result that a few electors had been unable to vote. Deakin refused to hold the seat under such conditions. On his first appearance in the House he announced his resignation; the poll was taken again; and the young idealist was defeated. The incident, which made his party furious, his opponents hilarious, and the public garrulous, reveals the character of the man.

People Recognise The Gold Beneath The Surface
His entire character was marked by a certain aloofness from the coarser and cruder aspects of political life; a delicate sense of honour impelled him to say and do things that seemed to others undiplomatic, quixotic, and even absurd. He displayed a disposition to live his inner life in some charmed domain of thought and feeling from which he emerged upon this rough-and-tumble world like a bewildered visitor, who scarcely knows what to make of his environment. To the end of his days he would have been more happy in describing a rainbow, an avalanche, or a garden of roses, than in unleashing the vocabulary that a political crisis invariably demands. Speaking generally, however, the public has its eyes in the front of its head, and its heart in the right place. Notwithstanding his penchant for storms and sunsets, roses and rainbows, the people of Australia saluted in Deakin a leader worth following. He exhibited a grasp of national affairs that convinced his most hard-headed and prosaic hearers of his ability to handle practical affairs; and he unfolded a dream of the grandeur of Australian destinies that appealed to the finer instincts of all his listeners.

No man did more than he to bring about the federation of the Australian States, and to weld them into one united whole. He was not always the dominating figure, and was not always in exalted office, but his influence was always felt and was extraordinarily powerful. When, for example, the first Australian Cabinet met, a situation arose that was without precedent. As a rule, the first meeting of a Cabinet follows upon a fierce campaign, and the men who surround the council table are united by their common espousal of certain well defined principles as well as by their comradeship in the fight that has just been fought. No such factors united the men who formed the first Commonwealth Cabinet. They were a rope of sand: units rather than a unity. And, at that critical stage in our national affairs, no single factor did more to bind these incongruous forces into one than did the magnetic personality of Alfred Deakin. Having, as a young fellow, taken his legal course, he was made Attorney-General in the first Australian Cabinet; he became Prime Minister two years later on the retirement of Sir Edmund Barton. Having led three Governments, he was forced by ill health into seclusion in 1912, and died seven years later, at the age of 63.

The Vision Of Fruitfulness And Prosperity
There was in Deakin a prophetic streak. He cherished a vision. Sleeping and waking, he saw Australia a land well watered. In his inspired fancy the entire continent sparked with an intricate network of irrigation canals. He scarcely made a speech of any length without insisting on the necessity and feasibility of some such scheme. His dream may yet come true; and, if it does, justice will demand that his name shall be linked with the monumental and transforming project. Even those who differed from him, or thought his ideas Utopian, were always compelled to recognise in him a statesman of transparent sincerity, absolute integrity, purest motives, dauntless courage, and invincible charm. The soul of honour, utterly incorruptible, he sought nothing for himself. His unselfishness was of a piece with his idealism. He declined a knighthood with a good-natured laugh. Voted £1,000 for attending the Imperial Conference, he accepted the £550 that the trip had actually cost him; and allowing nothing for loss of professional earnings, returned the balance to the Treasury.

In his fine biography of Deakin, Professor Walter Murdoch pays eloquent tribute to the part that he played in smoothing away antagonisms among his colleagues. Masterful men of diverse types, accustomed to domination in their various States, found themselves at loggerheads with one another; and disruption was repeatedly averted only by their common affection for Deakin. "It meant much to Australia," the professor adds, "that, in those plastic and formative years, the most eminent Australian politician was a man who brought into the dust and grime of politics such a clear-shining ideal of knightly conduct." There is a sense in which he lives among us still; for, as Professor Murdoch points out, he stamped his lofty ideals so indelibly on the impressionable life of this young nation that, whatever party may come to power, it will feel every day the impact and the authority of his fine personality. Amidst all our tumults and confusions, his soothing and healing influence will exert something of its old-time spell.

F W Boreham

Image: Alfred Deakin