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BOOK REVIEW
| Michael Roe, Albert Ogilvie and Stymie Gaha: World-Wise Tasmanians, Parliament of Tasmania, Hobart, 2008. pp. x + 274. $40.00 cloth.
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| As the title suggests, Michael Roe's book concerns itself with the careers of two Tasmanian identities, both state Labor politicians in the 1930s, but in an international context. Its chief focus is the 1935 trip to Europe made by Albert Ogilvie, as Tasmanian Premier, and John Gaha, as the Minister for Health. It reproduces verbatim the subsequent Record of Official Visit published in 1936 by the Parliament of Tasmania and rarely seen since. There is much of local interest contained in this account of two strange bedfellows – Ogilvie, a locally-born and educated lawyer, conscious of his Irish Catholic heritage; Gaha, a cosmopolitan and well-travelled medical practitioner, born in New South Wales of Lebanese parents, educated in Ireland, a Tasmanian by adoption from his mid-twenties. The latter remained self-confident, even insouciant, throughout his long political life in Hobart and Canberra (Gaha remained a parliamentarian until 1963 at the age of nearly seventy). The former, the more predominant of the pair both personally and politically, seemed perpetually unsettled and accompanied by controversy; driven by a compulsion to demonstrate his superiority, which he appeared to do with relative ease within his small community (Ogilvie became the Empire's youngest King's Council, in his mid-thirties). Premier Ogilvie often spoke in the late-1930s of Tasmania having cast off its 'inferiority complex'. Perhaps the comment denotes a personal transformation, in part brought about by the 1935 odyssey, which Roe recounts and analyses with his characteristic perception. This account of the strange partnership of Gaha and Ogilvie is of greater significance than one of two provincials loose on their European Grand Tour. The vitality of the 'devil's decade' ensured that, but so too did the quality of their observations following visits to Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Ogilvie's ambitions and prospects were also well beyond those of the island-state and this lends national, even international, significance to the unveiling of the neglected 1936 Record. |
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One of Albert Ogilvie's overt ambitions was to enter federal politics, perhaps in imitation of his better-known and more successful rival, Joseph Lyons. This ambition, targeted on The Lodge, was publicly aired before, during and after the 1935 trip. Roe demonstrates that he was something of a gadfly to federal Labor at the time, especially to Curtin, owing to what Ogilvie perceived as Labor's isolationism and its unwillingness to prepare the nation for more dangerous times. The 1935 odyssey had not only broadened the outlook of a putative future prime minister, but had also alerted the Premier to the dangers of a Europe increasingly belligerent and prickling with weaponry. Roe demonstrates the process of Ogilvie's awakening through the Record, but also through the judicious selection of other sources. As so often in such affairs, the 'official' account of their journeying was benign when compared with many private, more acerbic, observations made by the authors at the time. Ogilvie in particular was more severe in his assessments of European and British affairs before, and after, the publication of the 1936 Record. That detailed account is too broad to be discussed here, other than some of the highlights which focus on the contentious dictatorships of the period. Whilst Ogilvie and Gaha were prepared to acknowledge the considerable social achievements of the new regimes in Italy and Germany, there was also recognition of the danger to the democracies that their militancy represented. Soviet Russia, however, was examined with a less critical eye and this 'greatest social experiment of all times' impressed the visitors mightily, perhaps understandably given that they were restricted to the relative delights of Moscow. Both men, however, admitted their preference for the creature comforts and material assets of Germany, where they had travelled more extensively. Without drawing any political conclusions, they trusted Soviet assurances of future prosperity equal to, and even beyond that, of the West. However, if the left eye was purblind, the right at least had seen enough to allow Ogilvie to seek greater vigilance by Australians, particularly in the area of defence service, to the chagrin of many of his federal ALP colleagues. He was also stimulated to play an important, if unacknowledged, part in securing a more sympathetic treatment of Jewish refugees in the years immediately before the outbreak of war. |
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Albert Ogilvie died unexpectedly in June 1939, still in his forties and before he had realised his potential, allowing Roe a small, judicious 'what-if' digression. The loss was one that diminished party, state and nation, as any reader of Record may conclude. Ogilvie was an innovator – he was interested in decimal coinage, daylight saving, universal superannuation and (as the son of a publican) legislated for more liberal liquor laws. At times, Tasmania seemed too small for him, although he may have preferred, like Caesar, to be the first man in a barbarian village than the second man in Rome. Nevertheless, Ogilvie remains an outstanding example of a successful, charismatic, radical Australian Labor politician in the age before economic rationalism. 'The test of good government', he stated in his policy speech of June 1934, 'was not the condition of Treasury finances but the happiness and prosperity of the people'. Gaha, although less ideological, could only have agreed, for his over-riding passion was the pursuit of improvement in the quality of public health. |
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This is a stimulating, informative book that illuminates the Australian outlook in the 1930s, the more so because it goes beyond the more common examination of perspectives of Empire and the difficulties of that perplexing relationship. It also serves as a reminder that those on the fringes of a nation are often the most conscious of questions of identity. There is only one thing to be regretted about World-Wise Tasmanians: Roe states that 'beyond reasonable doubt' this will be his last substantial work. We hope not. |
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