Joseph Cook: the reluctant treasurer
John Hawkins 
Sir Joseph Cook, somewhat reluctantly, served for 16 months as Treasurer near the end of his political career, one of two former Prime Ministers to hold the position. By then he had left his radical origins well behind him and was a very conservative Treasurer. He transferred the note issue to the Commonwealth Bank. 

Source: National Library of Australia.

Introduction
Joseph Cook PC GCMG is one of only two Prime Ministers to serve as treasurer after he held the higher office. By some accounts he is one of the most obscure Prime Ministers.
Cook was physically robust and hard-working, tall and strongly-built. He did not drink or swear and had ‘no time for frivolity’. He was uninterested in sport, dancing or music. He opposed Sunday opening of Taronga Zoo lest it distracted people from church. But he was known outside the parliamentary chamber for his good manners, with a cheery smile for friends and ‘a tranquillity of soul’.
He was ‘devoted to self-improvement’. While from the humblest of origins, by the latter stages of his parliamentary career, ‘in manner and language, he comported himself as though born to a public school and Oxford’. Initially a poor speaker he trained himself to become a parliamentary dalek: it was said ‘when he started out to deal a blow to a minister … he will not desist until he has exterminated him utterly’. Spending most of his career in opposition, ‘the habit of a decade of criticism never left him and … he had not developed that constructive side which is so essential for both ministerial and cabinet life’ and possessed ‘few skills in negotiation.’   
Cook spent most of his federal parliamentary career as a loyal deputy, first to Reid, then Deakin and finally Hughes. He was ‘never anyone’s tool, though he was often somebody’s willing instrument’.

While he was ‘never troubled by personal doubt’, Cook had a reputation for changing his beliefs a lot. But despite the possibility he would later find himself holding them, ‘he had great difficulty in appreciating other points of view, and seldom made any real attempt to do so’.  
Cook’s life before politics
‘Joe’ Cook had probably the harshest upbringing of any Treasurer. He was born in the Staffordshire mining village of Silverdale on 7 December 1860, and when he was only nine, Joe started working in a coal mine. A new Education Act saw him back in the classroom not long after, but at twelve he was back in the mine after his father died in a mining accident. For him ‘Sunday’ had a very literal meaning for it was the only day he might see the sun. 
In 1885 he married Mary Turner, a teacher from a nearby village, already pregnant with his child. After Cook’s mother remarried, the couple decided to emigrate to Lithgow in New South Wales, following in the footsteps of Mary’s brother. Cook found a job in the Vale of Clwydd colliery in March 1886 and Mary and their son joined him in January 1887. They went on to have nine children.
Cook was long keen on improving his lot in life, studying shorthand and book-keeping during lunch-breaks and after his shift. Deeply religious, he passed some exams to enter the Methodist ministry, but was prevented from doing so by the need to support his family after the death of his brother and father. Nonetheless, he retained something of the pulpit about his speechmaking for the rest of his career. By 1890 he was a part‑time auditor with the local council. Cook was involved with many local charities. He also became secretary of the local Miners’ Association. In May 1891 he was president of the first Labor Electoral League in Lithgow. The next month, with some luck, he won Labor preselection and then the Lithgow-based seat of Hartley in the New South Wales parliament. He advocated the eight hour day, free trade (abandoning earlier beliefs in protectionism), better education, female suffrage and land reform. In the latter he was so influenced by Henry George’s advocacy of a single tax on land that he became the local secretary of the Land Nationalisation League.
From state to federal, from Labour to Liberal and from free trade to protection
With a group of like-thinking fellow members, Cook founded a Labour Party in the parliament and by October 1893 was leading it. In January 1894 he chaired the first Intercolonial Parliamentary Labour Party conference. However, he was not to stay with Labour for long. Two future Prime Ministers, Watson and Hughes, were pushing for Labour members to be bound by a pledge to support all caucus decisions, and Cook was too independently minded to accept this. In July 1894 he defeated an official Labor candidate for his seat of Hartley. 

The Free Trade premier, George Reid, offered Cook the portfolio of Postmaster‑General and he accepted, serving for four years of great activity. He then briefly served as Minister for Mines and Agriculture, where he appointed William Farrer to experiment with wheat strains to great success, before Reid’s government fell in 1899. By this time Cook had moved into the middle class. When Reid announced his move to the federal parliament, Cook saw himself as a future NSW premier. 
However, the Free Trade Party prevailed on Cook to contest the seat of Parramatta (which then extended west to Lithgow) at the federal election. Cook won and lined up behind Reid in opposition to the Barton-Deakin Protectionist government. He missed out on the deputy leadership when it became vacant in 1903 and was not offered a ministry in Reid’s cabinet in 1904. This was likely due to suspicions of residual radicalism and led him to adopt more conservative stances. The trade union movement which had provided his ladder up was now dismissed as ‘an organisation for developing class feeling and disseminating hatred in the community’. He now attacked Labor for ‘preaching the doctrine that men will necessarily become better if you improve their environment’. Trusts and monopolies were now regarded as part of the ‘natural law’ rather than a problem to be addressed.
This makeover succeeded and in 1905 he became the deputy leader of the Free Trade party (by then often called ‘anti-Socialist’). With Reid often attending to his legal practice in Sydney, Cook was frequently leading the party in the House. Cook was a hard-working and shrewd parliamentarian, with a reputation for dry speeches but witty interjections. He succeeded Reid as party leader unopposed.
Cook became Deakin’s Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister for Defence, after the ‘fusion’ of the non-Labour parties in 1909. But the sweeping Labor victory of April 1910 returned him to opposition. Deakin’s declining physical health and mental abilities left Cook the effective leader of the opposition for much of the time and, unlike Deakin, Cook was very experienced at being in opposition. When Deakin retired in January 1913, Cook beat John Forrest by one vote to become leader of what was by then termed the Liberal Party. Cook was soon thrown into an election where he ran a very negative campaign.
Prime Minister and after
The narrowest of victories at the May 1913 election saw Cook Prime Minister (and Minister for Home Affairs) but facing a hostile Senate. Cook appointed Forrest back to the Treasurer’s position. Cook stated in August 1913 that his government planned to take the Commonwealth Bank out of savings bank business, but the required legislation had not passed the House before it was dissolved. Campaigning in 1914 Cook described the Commonwealth Bank as ‘a wicked and costly and unnecessary proceeding … however it was there and they must make the best of it’. In the 1911 Budget debate, Cook had advocated a comprehensive scheme of national insurance and this formed part of the Liberal Party's platform in 1913. 
Frustrated by the block the Senate placed on his legislation, Cook elected not to play safe and serve out his term but instead set up the conditions for the first double dissolution in Australian history by passing legislation opposing union preference and restricting maternity allowances which he knew the Labor majority in the Senate would reject. Cook set out his credo as ‘liberalism stands in the first place for encouragement of individual effort. Then it stands for equality of opportunity all round.’
The ensuing election resolved the political impasse but not in Cook’s favour, with Andrew Fisher leading Labor to a clear majority in both houses. Cook led the ‘loyal opposition’ during World War I (which had broken out during the campaign). When Fisher retired, his successor Billy Hughes split the Labor government by his advocacy of conscription and led a band of rebels to form the National Labor Party. Well short of a majority, Hughes opened discussions with the Liberals, and they agreed to form a ‘win the war’ coalition which successfully contested an election. The two parties then merged to form the Nationalists. Cook served loyally as Hughes’ deputy prime minister for the next five years, initially also serving in the relatively junior post of Minister for the Navy. Cook accompanied Hughes to the UK for a war conference in June 1918 and the two remained there for the peace conference, signing the Treaty of Versailles and not returning to Australia until August 1919. On their return Hughes took all the credit and did not support Cook when it was proposed that Watt replace him as deputy prime minister.
Treasurer 
In March 1920 Cook became Acting Treasurer, when Watt left for a trip to London. Cook then reluctantly became Treasurer following Watt’s resignation in July 1920. It was a challenging period. This was the height of the post-war boom, and the government was concerned about inflation. At the same time, unemployment remained high. Global interest rates were high due to war debts and a shortage of ships impeded trade. 
Cook thought it was ‘the main financial duty of a government to keep its commitments as low as possible and to balance the budget’. He was focused on reducing inflation. In his first budget (16 September 1920) Cook aimed to reduce borrowing and set the country up for repaying war debt quickly, but was only willing to raise taxes modestly from fear of discouraging investment. This forced him to be very parsimonious with spending, and ruled out any expansion in public works to ease unemployment. The only large expenditure initiative was on ships to alleviate export problems. Labor and the Country Party criticised him for not making further cuts in spending. 
His second budget (29 September 1921) continued this deflationary policy, although by now the Australian and global economies were slowing, Australia was suffering from drought and inflation had fallen. His ‘stand-pat budget’ was closely debated but the critics proposed no clear alternative.
Also while treasurer, Cook transferred banknote issue to a department of the Commonwealth Bank. ‘His intention was for the note issue to contract and expand automatically according to business needs, so that no political activity could interfere adversely with the needs of private enterprise’. But as he did not want the note issue under the sole control of the Bank Governor, he constituted a board of four including the Governor and a representative from Treasury. 
Cook was an unimaginative treasurer, although admittedly, Hughes would probably not have encouraged him. Nor was he a very confident one, saying ‘the position of the Commonwealth Treasurer is more difficult today than it has ever been … I do not pretend to be an expert’. He also said ‘I am a bit tired of being ‘shot at’ both inside the House and outside by every one who thinks he can teach me how to do the job.’
From April to September 1921 Cook was also Acting Prime Minister, while Hughes attended an imperial conference, bringing a greater harmony to party and cabinet.
Elder statesman 
Once Bruce agreed to become Treasurer, Cook resigned from parliament in November 1921 to become High Commissioner in London, again following in the footsteps of Reid and Fisher. While there he also represented Australia at numerous conferences including the Genoa Economic Conference in 1922 and meetings of the International Labour Organisation. He did much to promote immigration to Australia and trade. The former free trade leader now defended protectionist sentiments. When his term ended in 1927 he returned to Australia, farewelled on the dock by Dame Nellie Melba. 
Aged 67 by the time he reached Australia, he was not interested in resuming a political career. However he did serve as chairman of a royal commission into South Australia’s share of federal funding in 1930. The former postmaster-general participated in the first telephone call between London and Sydney in 1930, during a long and pleasant retirement before his death on 30 July 1947. 

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