Inside Story

Of Pages

And Politic

The late Sir Earl Page Prime Minister of Australia only 19 days but as leader of

Federal Country Party he

quently had the power to n and break Prime Ministers.

A S a country doctor he en politics in 1919 and served tinuously until the election of in which the Liberal-Country F led by Prime Minister Menzies, all but defeated. Page on that ( sion lost what had been regarde< two generations as the “safe” Coi Party seat of Cowper, in the non Rivers District of New South W and he died within a few weeks, 82.

In 1956 he had retired Cabinet rank to complete the of his 40 years in politics and now appears posthumuously Truant Surgeon.

As well as relighting the pol battles of Australia back to Fe< tion, Page gives a lively and e taining account of his own boy: in the Clarence district of b when the world and particularly tralia, was a younger and, in r respects, a much better place th is today.

Disaster Years In those times families were given opportunities—they made t and the Page family perhaps moi than most. They were English si devoted to the principle of educ; and not above taking a page fron book of the Scots (for whom it traditional to see themselves thr university on a sack of oatmeal] attempting to get Earle into Sy University on three tons of pota The 1890’s were disaster year; the young Australian colonies. Ell followed droughts, land booms t and banks closed their doors. It at this stage that young Page ready for university. Most of secondary education had been t! in Grafton although he had beem to Sydney High School for the; year, with the intention of gettiii Exhibition. The Senior Examinn then took place concurrently Matriculation Honours, the entn fee being 30/- for the first £3/3/- for the second. It was that Page should matriculate ano

ly scraped up the three guineas offered the university potatoes, worth 10/- a ton, or maize at a bushel, for the other amount, le University let it be known it had all the potatoes and maize >uld handle so Earle sat only for iculation. the same year he won the Struth bition to the university and with and other prizes and scholarships by coaching other students, he red the faculty of medicine. He then only 15, years younger than r men of his class, and not yet ing long trousers, e graduated in 1901, top of his , at 21, and began his two years enticeship at Royal Prince Alfred pital, Sydney, before becoming a itry doctor in South Grafton. In years before election to Federal lament in 1919 he became a land

owner in Queensland and served in the Australian Army Medical Corps in the Middle East and France. After 1919, although his interest in medi cine did not become less, his interest in politics became greater and finally occupied most of his time.

His book deals with all the political crises and faction fights over this long period and as such becomes some thing of the history of Australia since Federation. But it is even more re markable as an example of the valuable human material that can come from one family.

Earle was one of six brothers, and of the others one became a teacher, one an engineer, one specialised in foreign languages; another, the Rev.

Rodger, became a Methodist mission ary and adviser to the Queen of Tonga; another, Will, also became a doctor, specialising in psychiatry; the last, Harold, after World War I ser vice, joined the Public Service in New Guinea and as Deputy Administrator of the Territory was captured by the Japanese in Rabaul in 1942 and lost his life in the sinking of the Monte video Mara, [Harold Page’s only son, Robert, also lost his life during the war. He was captured by the Japanese after blowing up 40,000 tons of shipping in Singapore harbour by attaching lim pet mines to them, and was executed just a month before the end of the war.] The Page family’s remarkable con tribution to Australian life still goes on and Earle Page’s autobiography is a valuable insight to this, apart from the resume it gives of Aus tralian politics. (TRUANT SURGEON. Published by Angus and Robertson Ltd. 63/-.)