Earle Page

Sir Earle Christmas Grafton Page (8 August 188020 December 1961) was an Australian surgeon and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Australia, holding office for 19 days after the death of Joseph Lyons in 1939. He was the leader of the Country Party from 1921 to 1939, and was the most influential figure in its early years.

Page was born in Grafton, New South Wales. He entered the University of Sydney at the age of 15, and completed a degree in medicine at the age of 21. After completing his medical residency at Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, he moved back to Grafton and opened a private hospital. He soon became involved in local politics, and in 1915 purchased a part-share in ''The Daily Examiner'', a local newspaper. He also briefly served as a military surgeon during World War I. Page gained prominence as an advocate of various development schemes for the Northern Rivers region, especially those involving hydroelectricity. He also helped found a movement for New England statehood.

In 1919, Page was elected to Federal Parliament representing the Division of Cowper. He joined the new Country Party the following year as its inaugural whip, and then replaced William McWilliams as party leader in 1921. Page opposed the economic policies of Prime Minister Billy Hughes, and when the Country Party gained the balance of power at the 1922 election, he demanded Hughes' resignation as the price for a coalition with the Nationalist Party. He was subsequently made Treasurer of Australia under the new prime minister, Stanley Bruce, serving in that role from 1923 to 1929. He had a significant degree of influence on domestic policy, with Bruce concentrating on international issues.

Page returned to cabinet after the 1934 election, when the Country Party entered a new coalition with Joseph Lyons' United Australia Party (UAP). He was appointed Minister for Commerce, and concentrated on agricultural issues. When Lyons died in office in April 1939, Page was commissioned as his successor in a caretaker capacity while the UAP elected a new leader, Robert Menzies. Page subsequently denounced Menzies and refused to serve in his cabinet, withdrawing the Country Party from the coalition, but this proved unpopular and he resigned the party leadership after a few months. The coalition was eventually reconstituted, and Page served again as Minister for Commerce under Menzies and Arthur Fadden until the government's defeat in October 1941.

Page's last major role was as Minister for Health (1949–1956) in the post-war Menzies Government. He retired from cabinet at the age of 76, and died a short time after losing his seat at the 1961 election. Page served in parliament for almost 42 years, the third longest-serving Australian parliamentarian of all time; only Menzies lasted longer as the leader of a major Australian political party. He secured his party's independence by refusing overtures to merge with the Nationalists and the UAP, and the policies that he favoured – decentralisation, agrarianism, and government support of primary industry – have remained the basis of its platform up to the present day. The coalitions that he established and maintained with Bruce and Lyons have served as a model for all subsequent coalition governments.

Early life

Birth and family background

Earle Christmas Grafton Page was born in Grafton, New South Wales, on 8 August 1880. His first middle name, which he disliked, was given to him to carry on the surname of a childless relative, while his second middle name was in honour of his birthplace. Page was the fifth of eleven children born to Charles Page and Mary Johanna Haddon (Annie) Cox.Australia's PMs > Earle Page > Before office
, National Archives of Australia. Retrieved 29 January 2017. His younger brother Harold was the deputy administrator of the Territory of New Guinea and a Japanese prisoner of war. Page's parents had both lived in Grafton since they were children. His mother was born in Tasmania to an English father and a Scottish mother. His father, born in London, was a successful businessman and a member of the Grafton City Council, serving a single term as mayor in 1908. The family business was a hardware manufacturing firm, which had its origins in a coachbuilding firm established in 1858 by Page's maternal grandfather, Edwin Cox. His other grandfather, James Page, arrived in Grafton in 1855, serving as the town's first schoolmaster and first town clerk.

Education

Page began his schooling at Grafton Public School, where he excelled academically. His family could not afford to send him to boarding school, as a result of financial difficulties caused by the banking crisis of 1893. Page consequently had to rely on scholarships to advance his education. He won a bursary to attend Sydney Boys High School in 1895, where he passed the university entrance exams, and the following year – aged 15 – began studying a liberal arts course at the University of Sydney. He was equal top in mathematics in his first year, and was also awarded the lucrative Struth Exhibition for "general proficiency in the arts", which allowed him to switch to medicine and covered his first four years of medical school. His role model was Grafton Smith, who had followed a similar path from Grafton Public School to university. At Sydney Medical School, Page's lecturers included William Haswell (biology), James Hill (biology), Charles Martin (physiology), Anderson Stuart (physiology), and James Wilson (anatomy). He graduated at the top of his class in 1901, with the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine (M.B.) and Master of Surgery (Ch.M.).

Medical career

Page's first professional posting came before he had even been registered as a medical practitioner. Due to a shortage of doctors, he was acting superintendent of the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children for one month. In 1902, he took up a position as a resident at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, serving in a variety of roles including as house surgeon under Robert Scot Skirving. During that time he contracted a near-fatal infection from a postmortem examination. He also met his future wife, nurse Ethel Blunt." target="_blank" class="mw-redirect" title="Earle Page > Ethel Page">Earle Page > Ethel Page
, National Archives of Australia. Retrieved 29 January 2017. Page returned to his home town in 1903, taking over a practice in South Grafton. He and two partners subsequently established a new private hospital, Clarence House Hospital, which opened in 1904 and served both Grafton and the surrounding region.

Page was a keen adopter of new technologies. In 1904, he bought what he claimed was "the first Rover car in Australia", which was powered by kerosene. He upgraded to an Itala in 1908, and had the chassis enlarged so it could be used as an ambulance. He also had an x-ray machine installed in his hospital, one of the first in Australia outside a major city. Page developed a reputation for surgical innovation, taking a number of patients from Sydney and even some from interstate. One operation that brought him particular fame was the removal of a patient's diseased lung, a procedure that had only been invented a few years previously. Page became an inaugural Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (FRACS) in 1927, and in 1942 was made an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (FRCS).

In February 1916, Page enlisted in the Australian Army Medical Corps. He served as chief medical officer aboard the troopship ''Ballarat'', and was then stationed at an army hospital in Cairo for several months. He was transferred to a hospital in England in July 1916, and concluded his service as a surgical specialist at a casualty clearing station in France. Page returned to Australia in March 1917 and was discharged from the military in July 1917. Although his active involvement in medicine declined as his political career progressed, he was frequently called upon to treat his fellow MPs or parliamentary staff. This was particularly true after the federal government moved to Canberra, as the new capital had only a handful of qualified surgeons. In 1928, for instance, he performed an emergency appendectomy on Parker Moloney.

Early political involvement

Page's medical career brought him considerable wealth, and he began investing in land. He bought several large farming properties in South-East Queensland, including in Nerang, Kandanga, and the Numinbah Valley; Pages Pinnacle in the Numinbah State Forest is named after him. His entry into public life came about as a result of his passion for hydroelectricity, which he first observed in New Zealand while attending a medical convention in 1910. He believed that it could be applied to the Northern Rivers region, which was still mostly unelectrified outside of the major towns. Page was elected to the South Grafton Municipal Council in 1913, believing his position as an alderman would be useful in his lobbying efforts. However, his overtures to the state government were rebuffed. In 1915, Page was one of the founders of the Northern New South Wales Separation League, which advocated the creation of a new state in the New England region. He toured a number of towns to raise awareness of the new movement, but interest waned as a result of the ongoing war. Later that year, he was part of a syndicate that bought ''The Daily Examiner'', the local newspaper in Grafton.

Page visited a number of hydroelectric sites in North America in 1917, on his way back from military service in France. He was elected mayor of South Grafton in 1918, serving until 1920, and also became the inaugural president of the North Coast Development League. He developed more concrete plans for a hydroelectric project on the Clarence River, and put forward various other development schemes relating to roads, railways, and ports, all of which served to raise his profile in the local district. Page was elected to the Australian House of Representatives at the 1919 federal election, defeating the sitting Nationalist MP, John Thomson in the Division of Cowper. He stood as an independent with the endorsement of the Farmers' and Settlers' Association, and after the election joined the new Country Party, along with 10 other MPs from rural seats. Page continued to advocate for hydroelectricity throughout his political career, and many such projects were built in New South Wales. However, the specific scheme he favoured for the Clarence River was never put in place, only the smaller Nymboida Power Station. Decentralisation also remained a pet project, with Page frequently arguing for New South Wales and Queensland to be divided into smaller states to aid regional development. The movement for New England statehood waned in the 1920s, but re-emerged in the 1950s; a legally binding referendum on the subject was finally held in 1967, after Page's death, but was narrowly defeated in controversial circumstances.

Bruce–Page Government

Government formation

Page was elected leader of the Country Party in 1921, replacing William McWilliams. At the 1922 federal election the party campaigned on a platform which included the establishment of a national sinking fund, national insurance scheme covering "sickness, unemployment, poverty and age", and conversion of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia into a full central bank. The party emerged from the election with the balance of power in the House; the Nationalist government of Billy Hughes lost its majority and could not govern without Country Party support. It soon became apparent that the price for that support would be a full coalition with the Nationalists. However, the Country Party had been formed partly due to discontent with Hughes' rural policy, and Page's animosity toward Hughes was such that he would not even consider supporting him. Indeed, he would not even begin talks with the Nationalists as long as Hughes remained leader. Bowing to the inevitable, Hughes resigned.

Page then began negotiations with Hughes' successor as leader of the Nationalists, Stanley Bruce. His terms were stiff; he wanted his Country Party to have five seats in an 11-man cabinet, including the post of Treasurer and the second rank in the ministry for himself. These demands were unprecedented for a prospective junior coalition partner in a Westminster system, and especially so for such a new party. Nonetheless, Bruce agreed rather than force another election. For all intents and purposes, Page was the first Deputy Prime Minister of Australia (a title that did not officially exist until 1968). Since then, the leader of the Country/National Party has been the second-ranking member in nearly every non-Labor government. Page served as acting prime minister on several occasions, and in January 1924 chaired the first meeting of Federal Cabinet ever held in Canberra, at Yarralumla. Parliament did not move to Canberra until 1927.

Treasurer

As Treasurer, Page formed a close working relationship with Bruce. Due to favourable economic conditions the government was able to abolish land tax, cut income tax, and establishment the national sinking fund that Page had campaigned on. The government also established an investment fund for the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and sponsored the first national housing program. The final years of Page's treasurership were marked by the beginnings of an economic downturn. The budget went into deficit in 1927 and his 1929 budget speech referred to a "temporary financial depression". He was a strong believer in orthodox finance and conservative policies, as well as a "high protectionist" supporting tariff barriers to protect Australian rural industries.

Page introduced a series of reforms to the Commonwealth Bank to enhance its central banking functions. In 1924, he announced that the government would place the Commonwealth Bank under an independent board, comprising a governor, the Treasury secretary, and representatives of industry. The same bill placed banknotes under the direct control of the bank, whereas previously it had been under a nominally independent Note Issue Board. Later reforms saw the establishment of a Rural Credits Department within the bank, the profits of which were partly hypothecated to agricultural research. In March 1925, cabinet decided to return Australia to the gold standard, which it had left during World War I. It delayed its announcement until the United Kingdom had decided it would do the same, which "disguised what was arguably Australia’s first explicit macroeconomic policy decision".

In 1924, Bruce and Page established the Loan Council to coordinate public-sector borrowings between the state and federal governments. It was given constitutional force with an amendment passed in 1928. The government abolished the previous system of per-capita grants to states that had been implemented in 1911 and began introducing tied grants, initially for road building. It also announced a royal commission into a national insurance scheme chaired by Senator John Millen. Page was one of the chief supporters of the ''National Insurance Bill 1928'', which would have provided "sickness, old age, disability and maternity benefits", as well as payments to orphans and a limited form of child endowment. It was to be paid for by compulsory contributions from workers and co-contributions from employers. The government took the policy to the 1928 Australian federal election but failed to pass the bill by the time of its defeat in 1929.

As Treasurer, Page continued his professional medical practice. On 22 October 1924, he had to tell his best friend, Thomas Shorten Cole (1870–1957), the news that his wife Mary Ann Crane had just died on the operating table from complications of intestinal or stomach cancer, reputed by their daughter Dorothy May Cole to be "the worst day of his life". Due to a shortage of surgeons in Canberra, in 1928 Page performed an appendectomy on fellow MP Parker Moloney.

Opposition and Lyons Government

The Bruce-Page government was heavily defeated by Labor in 1929 (with Bruce losing his own seat), and Page went into opposition. In 1931, a group of dissident Labor MPs led by Joseph Lyons merged with the Nationalists to form the United Australia Party under Lyons' leadership. Lyons and the UAP won majority government at the 1931 election. Although Lyons was keen to form a coalition with the Country Party, talks broke down, and Lyons opted to govern alone—to date, the last time that the Country/National Party has not had any posts in a non-Labor government. In 1934, however, the UAP suffered an eight-seat swing, forcing Lyons to take the Country Party back into his government in a full-fledged Coalition. Page became Minister for Commerce. He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in the New Year's Day Honours of 1938. While nine Australian Prime Ministers were knighted (and Bruce was elevated to the peerage), Page is the only one who was knighted before becoming Prime Minister.

Prime Minister and aftermath

When Lyons died suddenly in 1939, the Governor-General of Australia

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