AUSTRALIA 689 



Fisher took his place. Born in Scotland in 1862, Mr. Fisher was brought up as a coal- 

 miner. He went to Queensland in 1885, entered the state Parliament and later the 

 Federal Parliament. He had been included in Mr. Watson's Cabinet. 



Third Now. assuming the leadership, he very quickly gave Mr. Deakin notice to 



Parliament, . ' , . t j u- j j * *. i- i 



1907-10. quit, and in 1908 formed his own administration. It lasted however little 



more than six months. Mr. Deakin then formed a coalition with the 

 remnants of the Free Trade opposition, no longer now led by Mr. George Reid, but by 

 Mr. Joseph Cook, his lieutenant, and the Deakin-Cook administration came into 

 office; one of its first acts was to send Sir George Reid to London as High Commis- 

 sioner for the Commonwealth. Mr. Cook, like Mr. Fisher, had been a miner. He 

 entered New South Wales Parliament as a Labour member, drifted away from his 

 party and entered the Federal Parliament as a Free Trader, was the chief supporter 

 of Mr. Reid in an Anti-socialist party, and now joined with Mr. Deakin to ous.t the 

 Labour party from office, one ground of attack being their lack of proper sympathy 

 with the cause of Imperial defence. 



This was at the time of the European crisis over Austria's annexation of Bosnia- 

 Herzegovina, when public interest throughout the British Empire was being stirred 

 over the question of maintaining British supremacy at sea and strengthening the 

 hands of the Imperial Government in view of increasing international complications. 

 New Zealand had promptly offered to provide a " Dreadnought " for the British 

 navy. It was objected that Mr. Fisher had not done likewise. He claimed that 

 his Imperial patriotism was not wanting, but that in his judgment more useful action 

 could be taken by hurrying on with the creation of an Australian navy. This navy, 

 he stated in a despatch to the British Government, would be organised and controlled 

 by Australia in times of peace, but on the outbreak of war would pass automatically to 

 the control of the British Admiralty. Mr. Fisher's direct following, though he was 

 helped by Sir William Lyne, who now left Mr. Deakin's party, could not maintain 

 him in office, and in June 1909 the Deakin-Cook administration came into power. 

 Amid bitter party wrangles the third Australian Parliament closed its life, expiring 

 by effluxion of time in January 1910. 



The General Election of 1910 resulted in a sensational victory for the Labour 

 party under Mr. Fisher. The party captured a working majority in both the Senate 

 and the House of Representatives. The position of parties was: Deakin- 

 FourtA Cook followers, Representatives 31, Senators 13; Labour party, 



1910-13. Representatives 42, Senators 23. In the House of Representatives there 



were two independents. On April 29, 1910 Mr. Fisher formed his second 

 administration under circumstances unique in Australian Federal history. In the Sen- 

 ate and the House of Representatives the opposition was powerless, the more com- 

 pletely so because the Labour party majority was bound solemnly to party fidelity. 

 No opposition criticism on any issue could hope to detach a single Labour member 

 from his allegiance to the Government, which in regard to all its measures consulted 

 a caucus of its supporters beforehand as to both principles and details. 



The decision which gave Australia's destinies completely into the hands of the 

 Labour party (and that not the Labour party of Mr. Watson, but of Mr. Fisher 

 much mere of a " party " man) was influenced very largely by negative considerations. 

 The people disliked deeply the coalition of Mr. Deakin with Mr. Cook, who had before 

 seemed to represent absolutely irreconcilable ideas in politics; and 'a vote for the 

 Labour party was in many cases a vote of no-confidence in the coalition rather than 

 actually an endorsement of Labour policy. An indication of this fact was given a little 

 later, when the Labour Government (May 1911) submitted to a direct poll of the 

 people amendments of the Federal Constitution, without which it could not carry 

 out its Labour policy. These amendments sought: (a) to give the Commonwealth 

 Parliament full power to legislate with respect to trade and commerce instead of the 

 limited power it had under the Constitution (the limitation stood in the way of Federal 

 legislation dealing with the conditions of labour); (b) to give the Commonwealth 



