Massy-Greene accomplished something very rare. He achieved outstanding distinction in two widely separate fields of life -- politics and, then, business.
Such an achievement demands an unusually comprehensive array of talents. Massy-Greene possessed such an array. He was an all-round man; he belonged to a breed that seems to be almost non-existent in the specialised, affluent society of today. Whatever he had chosen to do in life he would have done well. Barring the accidents of chance, success to a man of his nature was inevitable.
He had the necessary foundation of character. Time and hard experience served to strengthen further something initially strong.
He had stupendous industry; as with Gepp, his work was his life. He took infinite pains to master the complexities of whatever tasks he undertook. Moreover, he had a strong sense of duty and responsibility. There was no trace of superficiality in his make-up; among his associates in business, politics and the public service, he inspired unqualified confidence and respect.
But Massy-Greene was more than strong, industrious, responsible. Intellectually considered, he was in the top grade. A man without formal scholarship, he was yet a scholar. Despite the relentless demands on his time and energies of the high positions in business and politics he held throughout the great part of his life, he was an avid reader. Although he never attended a university, he had the best of all educations: one that had its sources in an experience that encompassed an unusually wide variety of practical pursuits -- both manual and mental -- on the one hand, and in self-imposed book learning on the other. In addition to absorbing knowledge, he had thought much for himself and had pondered deeply on life and its meaning, on man and his place in the scheme of things. He was a philosopher as well as man of affairs.
Gepp was also a man with a multiplicity of talents. But there was a difference. Although the years of their lives were almost identical, Massy-Greene was much more the child of his times. Gepp had somehow wrenched himself free of the restrictions imposed by his own era -- a singular feat. In many respects he was more modern than the modems. Unlike Massy-Greene, he could jump the huge gap between the pre-war and the post-war worlds without difficulty. He could sail happily on the new, rushing torrents of thought of the early post-war years because he understood them and was in sympathy with them. But Massy-Greene tended to pull against the currents. Only his abundant wisdom and realism saved him from becoming out-dated. He adjusted, but with difficulty. He had an evident nostalgia for the past. Gepp was more intrigued by the future.
Of the two, Massy-Greene had the more orthodox, more orderly, more mature mind; Gepp the more unconventional, more flexible, more creative. The latter nature has elements of disturbance because human beings, by and large, are, when it comes to the point, conservative; they cling tenaciously to the things with which they are familiar. This helps to account for the fact that while Gepp had his detractors, Massy-Greene, the man, had virtually none. There can be few instances of a person so prominent in the public and business life of his country, and therefore so exposed to the blasts of criticism, commanding such general esteem.
EARLY YEARS
Massy-Greene was not Australian-born. His childhood was spent in the London suburb of Wimbledon. He was 16 when he arrived in Australia in 1889. He had a dual patriotism which embraced both the country of his birth and the country of his adoption. He soon acquired a great love for Australia but throughout his life he was inclined to view coldly any suggestion of criticism of the Motherland.
It is possible to trace Massy-Greene's family back for hundreds of years. The line is remarkably distinguished. In the 17th century a Captain Godfrey Greene was granted lands near Clonmel in County Waterford in Ireland in recognition for his services against Cromwell. Sir Walter's great grandfather -- William Greene -- was M.P. for Dungarvon and later High Sheriff for County Waterford. He married Jane, a daughter of a Lord Massy, and since then the name "Massy" has been handed down. The Greenes of County Waterford had the same arms crest and motto as some Greenes who came from Northamptonshire, so the connection seems indisputable. The Northamptonshire Greenes can be traced back to the 13th century. For some 300 years this family exerted considerable power and influence. They contributed four High Sheriffs of Northamptonshire, two members of parliament for the county and a Lord Chief Justice of England.
On Massy-Greene's mother's side there was also unusual distinction. His father, John Greene, married a Julia Sandeman. Julia was the daughter of General Robert Groves Sandeman. Robert Groves Sandeman's son (and Sir Walter's uncle) was Sir Robert Sandeman, K.C.S.I., renowned for his administration of the North-West Provinces in India. Sir Robert was revered by certain Indian princes who built a fine memorial to him in the city of Quetta. Here Sandeman established a British residency in 1876, after which Quetta rapidly developed into a strong British fortress and one of the most popular stations of the Indian army.
Massy-Greene's father, who brought the family to Australia in 1889, was a likeable man of great personal charm, but he is reputed to have gone rapidly through two fortunes. His mother, Julia Sandeman, was a woman of exceptional personality and character and exerted a big influence on the shaping of Walter's character and attitude to life.
In his early years Massy-Greene's physical constitution was less than robust. After the family settled in Tasmania, the lad obtained a job sawing great logs of timber in a forestry enterprise. The work was hard and poorly paid but his health and physique benefited from the combination of exercise and fresh air.
Later the family acquired a farm in Kyneton, Victoria, and Massy-Greene worked for long hours as a farm labourer on a neighbouring property for five shillings a week. After a year or two he decided to apply for an appointment to the staff of the Bank of New South Wales in Melbourne; his salary was £80 a year. This was in 1895 and he was just on 21.
Not so long after he joined the bank he offered himself for an unusual assignment at Kalgoorlie and one that appealed to his instinct for adventure. The bank had acquired interests in the newly discovered gold fields in Western Australia but conditions on the fields were so primitive and unhealthy -- people who went there soon fell victim to chronic dysentery and other illnesses -- that the bank had resorted to the practice of calling for volunteers.
The bank apparently expected its agents to fend for themselves and did not consider it necessary to book their accommodation. Young, keen, adventurous, Massy-Greene arrived in Kalgoorlie expecting to obtain a room in one of the numerous hotels or lodging houses. But the gold rush was on in earnest. Kalgoorlie was full to overflowing and there was not a room or a bed to be had anywhere. Even tents were at a premium because of the flood of prospectors seeking their fortunes on the fields. It looked as if the representative of Australia's oldest and one of her most dignified financial institutions would be sleeping under the stars.
Massy-Greene wandered around the town mentioning his plight to various people. They could offer no solution. Eventually a local tradesman told him that an aged gold-miner had died the previous night and that, if he were quick enough, he might be able to secure the miner's hut. The prospect was grisly but better than nothing. The hut was of galvanised iron, with a window, also of iron, kept open by using a stick as a prop. It was two miles from the town. Massy-Greene, speculating on the possibility that the body might not yet have been removed, took possession of his new home. The dead miner's unmade bed, clothing and effects were strewn about, but the miner himself was fortunately absent. The problem was solved temporarily; later Massy-Greene secured more palatial quarters. But they were of a type which was a far cry from what is expected in these days, when officials of big institutions operate on ample expense accounts and travel in circumstances which would have appeared to the Massy-Greene of those days as the height of unbelievable luxury.
When not very much older than Gepp was when he nearly lost his life in the explosion at Deer Park, Massy-Greene barely escaped with his own at Kalgoorlie.
When returning to his hut one night he was shot at by a gunman apparently under the impression that, as a bank employee, he might be carrying large sums of money. The bullet passed through Massy-Greene's hat without touching him. The hat remained a prized possession of the family for many years.
At Kalgoorlie there was little for young men to do with their spare time. One week-end Massy-Greene was wandering around the town with some companions when they saw a half-dozen or so camels in charge of some Afghans. The Afghans agreed to hire each of them a camel for a ride to the outskirts of the town. The young men were instructed what to say and what to do to bring the camels to a halt and make them kneel in order to dismount. Massy-Greene was unfortunate. His camel, apparently younger and more fractious than the others, refused to stop at its rider's command and it kept going at high speed into the desert. Massy-Greene could not dismount and he rapidly became "camel-sick". The camel did not stop until it reached what it regarded as its "home", a distance of some 28 miles from Kalgoorlie.
Massy-Greene spent two years at Kalgoorlie and then, weakened by illness, was recalled to "civilisation". The bank later transferred him to headquarters in Sydney and then he was sent to its Lismore branch. But he began to grow restive with his life as a bank official and one day, on a sudden whim, he made a decision to return to farming. It happened in this way.
A property in the northern-rivers district of New South Wales, on which the bank had a mortgage, had been abandoned by its bankrupt owner. Reading a report on the property by one of the bank's inspectors, Massy-Greene pricked up his ears when he noticed a statement that there was a large number of red cedar trees in the area. He knew something about trees and was aware that red cedars would grow only on fertile soil; also that their timber commanded a good price in the market. He decided to put a proposition to the manager of the bank. He offered to pay off the debt due to the bank on the farm in return for receiving the title to it. The manager saw no objection and Massy-Greene took over the farm, which he worked in partnership with his two brothers. He was able to defray the expensive costs of clearing some of the land by selling the cedars at good prices.
Massy-Greene farmed successfully in the Lismore district for some years. Then an opportunity occurred for him to indulge his tastes for the wider interests of public affairs. A new local government movement was gaining ground and a shire council -- known as the Terani Shire Council -- was set up to administer the affairs of the district in which he lived. He stood for election and became the first President of the Council.
The decision was to prove to be the stepping stone to his entry into the arena of national politics. In 1910, a successor to Sir Thomas Ewing, who had represented the division since Federation, was needed for the Richmond seat in the Federal House of Representatives. Massy-Greene had won widespread acclaim for his work on the shire council. He was also a member of the committee of the local branch of the "Fusionist" Liberal Party. Apparently he had not yet entertained serious thoughts of entering Federal politics and he attended a meeting of the party committee knowing that it had settled on a certain person as its candidate for election. When the members took their places around the table, it was noticed that their "candidate" had failed to put in an appearance. Moreover, he had not bothered to send an apology for his absence. Deeply affronted, the chairman looked around the table and his eye lighted on Massy-Greene. Here was a young man of obvious talents, with a keen interest in politics and an outstanding record in affairs of local government -- an answer to a committee's prayer. He put forward the obvious proposition and Massy-Greene, always quick to grasp his opportunities, agreed to stand.
His subsequent election started him on a career in Federal politics which, in the short space of twelve years, was to carry him to the very brink of the highest office in the land -- the Prime Ministership of the young Commonwealth.
POLITICS
Massy-Greene did not become a businessman till comparatively late in life. He was nearly 50 when his association with the Collins House group of industries began. Yet it is as a businessman rather than as a politician that most people think of him. He became such an eminent figure in the world of industry and finance that people tended to overlook the fact that he had had a career in politics of equal distinction. My grandfather worked with him for years only dimly aware of his political background and without realising that he had held, at one time or another, some of the senior Cabinet posts in the Commonwealth Government and had missed being Prime Minister by no more than a whisker.
He had not been long in Parliament when he was made Government Whip -- a post usually reserved for the specially hard-working and conscientious politician.
In the closing months of the 1914-18 war, he was appointed an Honorary Minister. Among his duties was the unenviable responsibility of price fixing. (Many years later, in the Second World War, he was to be on the other side of the desk; he was to be concerned in many negotiations with the Commonwealth Prices Commissioner, Sir Douglas Copland, for price adjustments in industries with which he was concerned.) In April, 1918, he was appointed a member of the Board of Trade, and from 1919 to 1921 held the important post of Minister for Trade and Customs.
From December, 1921, until February, 1923, Massy-Greene held two portfolios, Defence and Health. At this time it seems that he had been marked out for the Treasury. But Prime Minister Hughes wanted the rising young politician, S.M. Bruce, in his Ministry and Bruce had refused to join unless he were offered the Treasury portfolio. Bruce apparently disliked and distrusted Hughes and was not disposed to serve under him except in a capacity where he could exercise some restraint over the Government's financial policies. Hughes eventually offered Bruce the Treasury. In his autobiography, "Truant Surgeon", Sir Earle Page relates that Bruce countered by saying that it was commonly known that Massy-Greene had already been selected for the Treasury, and that if he (Bruce) were now to accept, it could cause disruption in the Nationalist Party. But Hughes was able to bring about arrangements which seemed to satisfy those directly concerned. Massy-Greene was given the Defence and Health portfolios and was made Hughes' deputy in the House of Representatives. Bruce went to the Treasury.
In 1922, Massy-Greene lost his seat in the Richmond electorate. This setback was a major turning-point in his career; there can be little doubt that the whole future course of his life was altered. Had he been returned in the 1922 elections, it seems certain that he would have become Prime Minister in 1923 when Hughes was deposed because of the refusal of the Country Party to support a Government of which Hughes was a member. Before the 1922 elections, Massy-Greene was generally regarded as next in line of succession to Hughes and he was held in the highest respect. Had he become Prime Minister in 1923, Australian history might well have followed a different pattern, since, in 1929, Massy-Greene (then a Senator) was a bitter opponent of the policies that led to the downfall of the Bruce-Page Government in the elections of that year. On the other hand, a great industrial statesman and company director might have been lost to Australian business. Speculations of this kind are not without significance since they serve to illustrate how the currents of history can be deflected by comparatively small things.
It is worth inquiring how Massy-Greene, next in line of succession for the Prime Ministership and apparently in a safe seat, came to be defeated. The popularly accepted explanation is that it was a strange, one might say unique, case of sheer mischance. His main opponent was a Mr. Roland Green, a returned soldier who had lost a leg in the war. Mr. Green was an engaging character but his political qualifications were inconsiderable, weighed against those of the powerful, able and experienced Massy-Greene. He ran for election on the slogan: "Vote for the Green without a knee (an 'E')". It is popularly supposed that the electors of Richmond became confused by the appearance of two "Green(e)s" on the ballot paper and that many voted for the Green without an "e" (whose name appeared first on the paper) under the impression that they were voting for the Greene with an "e". (1)
This explanation is hardly tenable. At the previous election, Massy-Greene had won the seat with the impressive majority of some 10,000 votes. In 1922 he lost it by 2,000 votes. A swing of such proportions can hardly be explained away as the unhappy result of an electoral misunderstanding.
In truth, Massy-Greene's defeat was brought about by a combination of reasons, admittedly not unaffected by sympathy for a limbless returned soldier. One was over-confidence. Believing his seat was secure, he failed to visit his constituency during the course of the election and devoted his energies to campaigning for colleagues apparently less happily placed. He spent, for instance, a great deal of time on behalf of E.B.C. Corser in the Wide Bay electorate. Moreover, his constituents had seen little of him between the elections. Communications were slow -- there were no fast aeroplanes to carry politicians to and fro -- and Massy-Greene was a very busy man, a senior Minister and deputy in the House of Representatives to the Prime Minister. In addition, over a period he seems to have made himself progressively more unpopular with country interests. As Minister in charge of price-fixing he had been responsible for a "standstill" on meat prices that lasted for some twelve months and was bitterly opposed by beef farmers and pastoralists, some of whom suffered severe losses. As Minister for Trade and Customs he had raised the tariff on wire for fencing and on other farming materials and equipment, for which he was strongly reproached by Country Party members.
Massy-Greene had reacted by vehemently attacking the Country Party. In a debate in the House in 1922, he said that statements made by Country Party members were "criminal", "scandalous", "libellous" and that for months past the Country Party had "drawn its political life-blood by defaming the country". This display of invective drew strong reproofs in leading articles in the press and was hardly calculated to assist him in his rural electorate. Just before the election, "The Bulletin" boldly suggested that Massy-Greene would be "hard put to it to hold his seat". There was still another circumstance working against him. His Richmond constituency, then as now, was in the heart of the New States Movement and on this matter Massy-Greene was less than warm.
Finally, to top it all, at the eleventh hour the Assistant Minister for Defence, General Granville Ryrie, decided to go to Richmond to assist his colleague. With what must rank as an unequalled exhibition of political tactlessness, he genially stigmatised Massy-Greene's constituents as "sweating cow-cockies". After Massy-Greene's defeat, "The Bulletin" published an ode entitled "The Candid Friend".
Who queered the pitch of Massy Greene
By butting in upon the scene
Surcharged with martial gall and spleen?
Why, Ryrie.Who came to give his pal a boost,
But no effect like that produced
Where dairy-farmers rule the roost?
The Gen'ral.Who Balaam's process did reverse
And came to bless but stayed to curse?
Who brought a coffin and a hearse
For Massy?Who round his cobber draped a shroud
When Richmond yeomen he avowed
A grasping, nigger-driving crowd?
Our Granville.Who called his mate's constituents names
And charged them with improper games
And roundly damned their eyes and frames?
Old Fireworks.Whose most congenial forte, or "lurk",
It was to biff the Hun and Turk,
But who's not meant for hustling work?
The Whistler.And upon this occasion who
Made Massy whistle Phe-e-e-e-ew?
I'll put him down in one -- can you? --
Why, Ryrie!
Massy-Greene's defeat was probably the one big reverse that he suffered in a career otherwise marked by uninterrupted success. He had taken his election so much for granted, and with it the probability of the eventual Prime Ministership, that the loss of his seat must have been a stunning blow. Commenting on some of the unexpected electoral reverses of 1922, the political correspondent of "The Bulletin" wrote:
It is pathetic to see the rejected wandering about Federal Parliament House unable to tear themselves away from the scenes of their triumphs. ...
Here is Massy Greene, a silent spectre that invites commiseration. He never whines. But the grey face and the subdued eye tell their own tale; he is suffering keenly. The blow is the heavier because (1) he was building a home in a Melbourne suburb in evident expectation of a long term in Parliament and (2) he was, as events have turned out, the next in succession for the job of Prime Minister. Few politicians have had worse luck. It affords a painful contrast to the unprecedented good fortune of Bruce.
When the prospect of achieving the Prime Ministership had virtually disappeared, it appears that Massy-Greene decided to turn his energies to business. He had tasted most of the political plums and the juiciest one of all now appeared to be beyond his reach. Very well, he would test his aptitudes in some other sphere of life! He also needed money; his income as a politician was falling short of his financial commitments, which were growing alarmingly. Some years later, one of his old colleagues, a member of his constituency committee, met him in Melbourne and suggested that he should have another go at the Richmond electorate. Massy-Greene replied, "No, you did me a great turn and I am staying in Melbourne". He was clearly satisfied with the new course his life had taken.
Nevertheless, he could not sever himself entirely from his first love.
In 1923 a vacancy had occurred in the New South Wales representation in the Senate through the death of Senator E.D. Millen, a member of the Nationalist Party. Massy-Greene was nominated by the Party to fill the vacancy. There was strong opposition to his election by Labour and also by country interests largely on the grounds of the high protectionist policy for which he had been responsible as Minister for Trade and Customs. The "Sydney Morning Herald", although not in sympathy with Massy-Greene's protectionist leanings, strongly supported his candidature. In a leader which throws interesting light on his repute as a politician it stated: "On the point of eligibility, Mr. Massy Greene has superior claims for preferment. The temporary loss of his services in the public life of the Commonwealth was one of the most unfortunate results of the last election. We have no sympathy for his fiscal views, but we recognise his outstanding capacity for public affairs, and the high reputation for honesty and integrity that he built up during the time he was in the House of Representatives. The representation of the mother State in the Senate calls for the services of such a man in succession to Senator Millen, and we hope it will be brought up to something like its former strength by his appointment."
At a joint sitting of both Houses of the New South Wales legislature, Massy-Greene was chosen by an absolute majority to fill the Senate vacancy.
However, something of the all-absorbing interest and enthusiasm he had displayed for politics in his earlier years was beginning to wane. He was acquiring business interests which were taking up more and more of his time and energies. He spoke in the Senate rather infrequently. In his last years in the Senate there is a story that Sir Philip McBride, meeting him in the corridors of the House soon after lunch one Wednesday while Parliament was in session, was provoked to comment, "What, Massy, surely not still in Canberra so late in the week!"
Massy-Greene was, however, to have one more brief period as a member of the Government. The downfall of the Scullin administration early in the Great Depression led to a new Government composed of members of the former Opposition and of Labor members who had crossed the floor in protest against the Scullin policies. This was the genesis of the United Australia Party. Massy-Greene was invited to join the Ministry as Assistant Treasurer by the new Prime Minister and Treasurer, Mr. J.A. Lyons. Lyons clearly had in mind that Massy-Greene's ability and experience would be invaluable to the Government in the design of the far-reaching financial measures necessary to cope with the depression and in the handling of these measures in the Upper House. In addition to the pressure of his business interests, Massy-Greene was in poor health at the time but he agreed to join the Ministry in June, 1932, upon the understanding that his stay would be temporary. He resigned in October, 1933.
Lyons, for whose plain honesty and directness Massy-Greene had a high regard, leaned very heavily on his Assistant Treasurer during these crucial months of the Depression. Massy-Greene had a great natural gift for finance and his understanding of financial problems had been enlarged by his association with big business interests. In drafting statements and speeches dealing with the intricate financial issues of those times, the Prime Minister relied greatly on the help and advice of his colleague.
Massy-Greene's reputation in the field of national finance was considerable. A decade or so later a Labor Prime Minister, John Curtin, used frequently to call on him in his office in Melbourne to seek his advice on financial problems.
Massy-Greene played a significant part in the Federal elections of 1929 which brought about the downfall of the Bruce-Page Government and led to the demise of the Nationalist Party and to the end of Stanley Bruce's participation in Australian politics. Bruce, as Prime Minister, had decided to fight the election on the industrial arbitration issue. In the years preceding the election there had been a great deal of industrial unrest and some confusion had been caused by the division of the arbitral power between the Commonwealth and the States. Referenda to transfer full powers to the Commonwealth had failed and Bruce decided that the Commonwealth should withdraw from the field of arbitration and leave the whole, unhappy mess entirely to the States. The proposal was highly unpopular with both employers and trade unionists and was interpreted by the latter as an attack on the workers' standards. The Federal arbitration system had been established by Deakin in the early part of the century and the Australian people had become firmly wedded to it.
Massy-Greene, in many respects a disciple of Deakin, vehemently opposed the Bruce policy. In a document he prepared at the time, he predicted the certain defeat of the Government at the elections if arbitration were made the central issue. He proved to be right. The Labor Party was returned with a large majority and Bruce himself lost his seat.
The eclipse of Bruce meant that the Nationalist Party had to elect a new leader. The choice fell on John Latham (2) who had been Attorney-General in the Bruce-Page Government. This did not meet with the approval of Massy-Greene. He protested that Latham possessed the qualities neither of a parliamentarian nor of the leader of a political party. He said that he wanted to dissociate himself from what had been done and he asked that he should no longer be sent notices of party meetings. For some time he had nothing to do with the party. On this incident, Sir John Latham writes: "This was an encouraging start for me. But after about a year I received a letter from him in which he said his misgivings with respect to me had been removed, and it even paid me some compliments. He asked to be restored as a member of the party and thereafter he took an active part in party affairs. The incident impressed me with his honesty and his generosity. I had a high regard for his ability and character".
Massy-Greene finally severed his connections with politics when he retired in 1938 in order to devote his full attention to his company interests. He was then 63 years of age.
What was Massy-Greene like as a politician? How was he regarded?
In one respect he seems to have been almost unique in Australian political history. If one examines the evidence available -- in newspaper articles and comments, political biographies and histories, the views of his political contemporaries in Parliament and of people still alive who knew him in his days as a politician, and the opinions of senior members of the Commonwealth public service who worked with him in his various ministerial posts -- in all this it is virtually impossible to find a serious note of criticism. He commanded almost universal admiration and respect. This does not mean, of course, that the policies he pursued were not at times the subject of severe criticism. But throughout, there is a singular, almost total lack of disparagement of Massy-Greene as a parliamentarian, as a minister and as a man. This provides a striking contrast with his greatest contemporary and leader, William Morris Hughes, who aroused the most furious contentions on all counts.
Yet Massy-Greene was not of the breed of men who take special pains to avoid giving offence or who go out of their way to court popularity. Although by nature courteous, there was Irish blood in his veins and his hair was tinged with red. He had a taste for controversy and a fiery disposition which sometimes led him to state his views with a hurtful bluntness.
The absence of criticism is all the more surprising in view of the nature of the ministerial tasks he was called upon to perform. It would almost appear that when there was a particularly unpopular or highly controversial job to be done, Massy-Greene was regarded as the man to do it. As an Honorary Minister toward the end of the 1914-18 war and in the immediate post-war period, he was given the politically unpopular task of price-fixing. As Minister for Trade and Customs he was responsible for introducing the high revenue and protectionist tariff schedule of 1920-21. Although this subsequently brought down on his head a torrent of abuse from country interests (and was indeed partly responsible for the loss of his seat in the 1922 elections) his adroit and able handling of a difficult task in Parliament elicited unstinted praise from all parties in the House. As Minister for Defence in 1922 he had the distasteful assignment of drastically reducing the defence establishment after World War I, which meant the loss of jobs for thousands of officers and men.
For a man to command the unqualified respect of political foes as well as friends he must have at least two attributes -- exceptional ability and unquestioned integrity. It is clear that Massy-Greene had both. He was regarded on all sides as an outstanding parliamentarian and minister. On his resignation from the Government (as Assistant-Treasurer) in October, 1933, the Leader of the Labor Opposition in the Senate, Senator Hoare, said, "We all recognised his outstanding ability. What he said he said well, leaving no doubt as to its meaning". And another Labor member, Senator Dunn of New South Wales, paid him a subtle, if indirect, compliment. "Unfortunately in this country, as in other parts of the civilized world, the influence of vested interests extends into the legislative halls and those interests are always seeking men of high calibre, integrity and ability. Senator Massy-Greene is as astute a politician and tactician as he is shrewd as a businessman." A Country Party representative, Senator Carrol, added to the eulogistic stream: "This Parliament is not so full of first-class men that the Government of the day can afford to lose a man of the calibre of Senator Massy-Greene without feeling a serious deprivation". In his autobiography, "Truant Surgeon", Sir Earle Page, not one of Massy-Greene's best political friends, refers to him as "an outstanding parliamentarian and a man of great capacity".
A man can, of course, be a great figure in Parliament and yet lack much as a minister and administrator. But it was in this latter role that Massy-Greene seemed to excel. The salient test of a minister's capacity as an administrator is what senior departmental officials think of him. Often they don't think very much. But Massy-Greene was one of the exceptions. Mr. Herbert Brookes, who was a member of the first Commonwealth Tariff Board, has said that he was the greatest Minister for Trade and Customs Australia has had. A prominent Defence Department official, Sir John Jensen, believes he was the second-best Minister for Defence in Australian history. (He regards Sir George Pearce as the best.) As a minister, Massy-Greene became renowned for his ability to answer, without notice, difficult questions in Parliament without reference to his department. He achieved a reputation for knowing almost as much about the details of the problems of the department as the permanent officials. This is typical of the exceptional, conscientious industry which marked his entire career.
In Parliament the thrust and counter-thrust of political debate appealed to the combative streak in his nature. "I am half Scotch, half Irish, a good mixture," he once claimed. When he resigned from the Government in 1933, he said, "The spice of politics is its conflict. So long as no personal ill-feeling is imported into our differences we can enjoy the battle".
Mr. Hugh Brain, who was closely associated with him when he was a company director, tells an amusing story which illustrates this combative tendency in his character.
I remember having to see Sir Walter on urgent company business at Canberra while Parliament was sitting. He was brought out of the Senate Chamber to see me and, when the business had been done, he asked me if I would like to see the Senate in action. He took me into the gallery; when we got there, we found that the debate had livened up and some hard things were being said. Sir Walter momentarily forgot where he was and followed a remark by an Opposition member with a loud shout of "Rubbish". The next thing I knew was that I was dragged bodily out of the gallery. When we got outside, Sir Walter said, "That was a narrow squeak for me; I don't know what they would have done to me for that".
My grandfather heard him speak on only one or two occasions. This was long after he had left the political arena. At the first annual meeting of the Australian Institute for Public Policy in 1944 he made a deep impression on about a hundred prominent businessmen in a speech he gave without notes of any kind. It left no doubt that he must have been a polished and highly accomplished parliamentary debater. He had something of the grand, oratorical manner in his delivery -- but not so mannered that his mode of speech could not have been fitted quite easily into the more informal approach which present-day audiences expect from those who address them.
He had the essential attributes of a good speaker -- a knowledge of his subject based on comprehensive preparation, a clear, logical mind, a talent for colourful phrase-making, and the confidence and authority which came from a long experience of addressing audiences under differing conditions.
He had, too, a sense of humour and a dry, caustic, sceptical kind of wit. As Minister for Trade and Customs in 1921 he was responsible for introducing the Bill which created the Commonwealth Tariff Board. During his speech on this historic occasion he was interrupted by a prominent member of the House, Mr. Austin Chapman, who queried whether the proposed board would not clash in some way with the Interstate Commission. Massy-Greene responded: "The honourable gentleman is not very often in that condition in which Rip Van Winkle is supposed to have been, but is generally wide awake, and I thought he knew that the Interstate Commission had ceased to exist for quite a long time". The reply suggests that Massy-Greene was not exactly a sluggard in the art of repartee.
On another occasion, in 1922, he indulged his talent for humorous invective at the expense of the Honourable Member for Swan, Mr. Prowse:
I never listen to the lamentations of this modem Jeremiah but I am reminded of a story that was told about an old farmer friend of mine whom I knew very well. He was noted throughout the countryside for the characteristic that no matter what happened he always grumbled. If it rained it rained too soon or too late, or there was a little too much or a little too little. Another friend of mine went to see him one day when there was a wonderful season. His farm, from end to end, was an absolute picture of prosperity, the crops were showing all over the fences and nothing could be better than the prospect from the verandah. My friend said to him, "Well, what are you grumbling about today?" He was, of course, grumbling as usual and when asked whether anything could be better for the crops he replied, "But just look at what they are taking out of the ground".
In political philosophy, Massy-Greene was a curious mixture. It is difficult to fit him comfortably into any of the conventional political pigeon-holes. When my grandfather knew him later in life he thought of Massy-Greene as a conservative but, if this were true, his conservatism was to some extent the conservatism of age -- this seems to be almost a law of nature which very few of us escape.
During his earlier years in politics his political position could not be properly described as "conservative". When he was first elected for the Richmond seat in 1910, the Liberal Party (of those days) was a result of what historians call "The Fusion" -- it was an amalgam of the Deakin Liberals, who were protectionist, and of their earlier free trade opponents under Joseph Cook. In the infant years of Federation, Alfred Deakin's Liberal Party, from 1905 to 1908, with the corner-bench support of the young Australian Labor Party, had largely established the pattern of Australian development. But by 1908 the Labor Party was growing ambitious for office on its own behalf. Deakin was defeated and Labor formed a Government under Andrew Fisher with W.M. Hughes as Attorney-General. Deakin then combined with Joseph Cook and again became Prime Minister in 1909. But in the 1910 elections, the voters, apparently antagonised by what they regarded as the opportunism of "The Fusion", decisively returned the Labor Party which for the first time obtained a clear-cut majority in both Houses of Parliament. "The Fusion" fought the election under Joseph Cook as leader.
Although not perhaps completely out of step with the more conservative, free trade views of Cook, in his younger days Massy-Greene's political views must have been greatly influenced by Deakin. He was a strong protectionist and remained so throughout his life. He remained, too, an unwavering supporter of the principle of compulsory arbitration; when I knew him he viewed with suspicion any suggestion even of modification in the machinery and practice of the established system of wage fixation. In an early speech in Parliament, he said: "The principles underlying Conciliation and Arbitration are just and right. In every industry throughout the length and breadth of the Commonwealth there should be such rates of payment and such conditions of labour as will enable workmen to live in accordance with the economic principles which are accepted as right and just". He was also an ardent adherent of Federalism. "I trust the people of Australia will adhere to the Federal principle -- because it is only possible for Australia to advance unchecked along the pathway of national development and national growth in accordance with that principle."
He was, too, completely in accord with Deakin's insistence on conscious measures to promote the rapid development and peopling of the Australian continent. He regarded protection as one of these measures, but he also believed in heavy government spending to promote the opening up and population of the land. Even in his maiden speech in the House of Representatives he had advocated increased spending on telephones and railways to encourage people to settle on the land. On the latter he said: "I believe it is essential we should link up the whole of Australia by railways. The first preliminary step should be to try to come to a general understanding as to a standard gauge". He also spoke of the essential need to populate the Northern Territory. This was not merely the fervour of the youthful politician. In 1922, when Minister of Defence, he had lost none of his enthusiasm for national development. He argued that the best way Australia could provide for its future security was not by spending huge sums of money on defence, but by spending it in bringing people to its shores to relieve taxation and provide against possible invasion. Australia, he said, needed immigration. "There were enormous tracts of land and great resources undeveloped. Australians could not legitimately for all time lay claim to continue in occupation of this land unless they were prepared to defend it. It would be impossible to do that unless the population was increased considerably."
But while he supported government spending to open up the land and provide the basis for a larger population, he stopped there. He was firmly opposed to any suggestion of nationalisation. As Minister for Defence, he was hotly attacked by the Labor Party for selling to private enterprise the Commonwealth Woollen Mills which were set up during the war to manufacture uniforms for the armed services. In a spirited reply, he declared, "The Ministry will not stand for the socialisation of industry".
However, it is difficult to find in his speeches during his years as a member of the House of Representatives any references to the positive virtues of free enterprise. This was no doubt partly because socialism, while gaining ground, was not yet regarded as a serious menace to the established system. Later in life, when a leading businessman, he was much more prone to talk about the virtues of private enterprise. But he always upheld the rights of the small businessman and small capitalist. When in Parliament he opposed a land tax on these grounds. "It would render absolutely unproductive a great deal of country which is capable of sustaining only a small population in larger areas." The small man, he said, could not go into the back-blocks and build up the value of land because he could not pass on the land tax, whereas the big city businessman could. This was the liberal ingredient in his philosophy.
On the other hand he was an immovable conservative in matters of currency and banking and remained so throughout his life. He strongly opposed the Bill of 1911 leading to the creation of the Commonwealth Bank.
It (banking) is the one subject above all others in regard to which we should hasten slowly and be sure of our ground in every possible way before we take any definite step. It may be needful to create a great central banking institution. I do not know ... I believe the bank should rest purely on private credit and not on the credit of the State.
He had spoken in similar vein on the Australian Notes Bill of 1910. He argued that a private bank note issue was infinitely preferable to a state bank issue. A state issue, he said, didn't meet the tests of the economic trinity -- stability, elasticity and convertibility.
These, of course, were very early views. Later in life he was to modify them substantially. He certainly came to see the ultimate worth and importance of a central bank to a sound system of currency management. Not that he ever liked the word "management" in this context, for to the end of his life he remained an unwavering supporter of the gold standard. He did not trust men to "manage" currencies; he thought there must be some entirely impersonal arbiter of the value of a currency and that the gold standard provided it. In a letter in 1950 he wrote:
I still maintain that the only way in which you can really control inflation is to anchor your currencies to gold. So long as politicians can, operating through small groups of men wielding dictatorial powers, control currencies, we will go on having inflation and nothing in my judgment can stop it. The whole gambit of these new controls only becomes necessary and only possible after gold had ceased to exercise its automatic functions. It was because the authors of the Keynesian school repudiated gold that the whole doctrine of controls became necessary. I don't of course mean that we must restore gold to its old price or even its old rigidity. The proper prices must be fixed -- not unalterable -- but only alterable in the full light of day and not by bureaucrats sitting around a table.
Along with many others he had little faith in the new prescriptions taking shape at Bretton Woods that ultimately led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund. He wrote to my grandfather at the time.
Of course I have always been a heretic on Bretton Woods, for the simple reason that I never could see how it was possible for the post-war inflationary position to be stabilized. The stresses in the basic foundation, in my opinion, must eventually lead to the edifice erected upon it collapsing.
I think it was Bretton Woods more than anything else that prejudiced him against the ideas of the great John Maynard Keynes which played such a transcendent part in the new order of things taking shape in the years around the end of World War II.
Undoubtedly the most important piece of legislation that Massy-Greene piloted through Parliament was the Tariff Board Act of 1921 which gave birth to the Commonwealth Tariff Board. By the early 1920's the furious controversies over protection which had marked the early days of Federation had died down. It is not widely known that Massy-Greene's home State of New South Wales, the most important and populous colony, joined the Federation with some reluctance, largely because of its strong free trade leanings. But by 1918 protection had become well entrenched and was accepted, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, by all political parties. Well before 1921 the need for an independent body to advise both Parliament and the Minister for Trade and Customs on tariff matters was beginning to be felt. The scope of the tariff was getting wider and more complicated and the provision of adequate information on which to base duties was beginning to over-tax the resources of the Department of Trade and Customs. The economic effects of duties also called for careful study. As early as 1910 Sir Robert Best, as Minister for Trade and Customs, had recommended the appointment of a board to advise the Minister, but a turn of the political wheel had prevented anything from coming of this suggestion. Joseph Cook in his policy speech for the 1913 elections had made a similar proposal. During the 1917 elections, leaders of the then Liberal Party had suggested the need for a permanent body of "disinterested experts" to study production and trade and to advise Parliament on tariff adjustments. The Tariff Board Bill itself arose directly out of a promise made in the elections of 1919 by "Billy" Hughes to increase protection and at the same time to preserve the interests of the Australian i consumer.
For these reasons it would probably be going too far to call Massy-Greene the father of the Commonwealth Tariff Board. Like most institutions it had a number of parents. Nevertheless, it was Massy-Greene who, as the relevant Minister, presided at its birth and launched it on its career.
The most significant feature of the speech in which he introduced the Bill to Parliament was the pains he took to emphasise that the final responsibility for tariff-making should rest with Parliament itself as the representatives of the people and that the Tariff Board's function would be restricted to "investigation, information and recommendation". The Minister even seemed to harbour some reservations whether the conception of the Board would work out satisfactorily in practice. He said, "It is inevitable therefore that many of the benefits which are popularly expected to flow from the appointment of a Tariff Board are likely to prove illusory; and, though I think there are substantial benefits to be derived from the creation of such a board, it is, so far as we are concerned, largely an experiment".
Less than two decades later, Massy-Greene, now in the position of an applicant before the Board, almost gave the impression that he thought "the experiment" had failed and would have liked to put an end to the instrument which he himself had created. The episode, an amusing one, throws some light on his personality.
Associated Pulp and Paper Mills, of which he was Chairman, had made its first application to the Tariff Board for protective duties to cover its products. The Chairman of the Board, at the time was Hugh McConaghy, an exceptionally able, strong-willed and highly respected public servant. McConaghy had been a notable Comptroller-General of Customs and a former Secretary of the Interstate Commission. Sir Walter decided that he would go into the witness box personally on behalf of the company. Once in the box, he decided to indulge his oratorical talents by launching into a full-scale disquisition on the place of the exchange rate in the protective structure. Possibly his attitude was akin to that of a school-master lecturing his pupils. In any case it did not please the redoubtable McConaghy, who interrupted him when in full flight by saying, "I hesitate to break in on your argument, Sir Walter, but I think you should know that as recently as three months ago the Board gave full consideration to the matter of the place of the exchange in the protection of industries and reached a conclusion entirely opposite to that which you are advocating". Sir Walter brushed the interruption aside by ignoring it and continued with his "lecture". McConaghy listened, but not for long. He then said sharply, "I must ask you to discontinue, Sir Walter; the Board is not prepared to hear you on this subject on which, as I have told you, it has already ruled".
Sir Walter, thereupon, to the delight of the reporters and indeed everyone present, including his own colleagues from the paper company, "did his block". He asked the Chairman whether he (McConaghy) recognised that, as Minister for Trade and Customs, he (Sir Walter) had created the Tariff Board, and further whether he (McConaghy) realised that he (Sir Walter) had become more and more dissatisfied with its performance ever since. Had he realised, asked Sir Walter, that it had never been intended that the Tariff Board should adjudicate upon new or altered tariffs -- which were the sole prerogative of the Minister -- and that the Board's only function was to inquire into the effect and incidence of decisions which the Minister had made. By this time McConaghy's Irish blood was properly up and he firmly ordered Sir Walter to stand down from the witness box.
The net result of the inquiry was that the Board decided to recommend only the barest modicum of additional protection for the company. But the company's representatives present were led to reflect that even this small blessing should be gratefully received in light of the vigorous assault that their leader had launched on the Chairman and members of the Tariff Board.
BUSINESS
Massy-Greene was close to 50 years of age when he began to take a direct interest in business. This makes his achievement all the more remarkable. I don't think many businessmen of his time would contest the assertion that he became the leading company director in Australia.
It needs to be stressed that his functional association with business was as a company director; he was never a full-time executive of any large enterprise -- never, nominally at any rate, a Chief Manager or a Managing Director. However, his role, of which I shall have more to say later, as Chairman of Directors of Associated Pulp and Paper Mills Ltd. from the formation of the Company in 1936 until his death in 1952, was in many ways almost indistinguishable at times from that of a Managing Director.
Massy-Greene stood out among company directors for several reasons. In the first place he held a staggering number of directorship. A well-known industrialist, Sir Robert Webster, thinks they must have amounted to close to forty. Soon after my grandfather became associated with him -- my grandfather was then, like most economists, interested in monopolistic tendencies in industry -- he wrote to my grandfather, "I am sure I hold many more directorships than you would personally approve of".
Moreover, many of these directorships were in some of the largest and most important industrial enterprises in Australia. Of several of these companies he was the Chairman of the Board -- notably Associated Pulp and Paper Mills, the Electrolytic Zinc Company of Australasia, Metal Manufacturers, the Dunlop Rubber Company, Felt and Textiles of Australia, the Bradford Cotton Mills, and Western Mining Corporation. The last-mentioned company embraced the subsidiary companies of Central Norseman Gold Mines, Gold Mines of Australia, Victoria Gold Dredging and Central Victoria Dredging. Among other well-known companies, he was a member of the boards of North Broken Hill, New Broken Hill Consolidated and Yarra Falls.
It can be seen that his directorships embraced an exceptionally wide area of Australian industry -- non-ferrous metals, paper, rubber, textiles, gold-mining. He had also retained his connections with the land -- he was a director of several pastoral companies.
He did not hold these numerous directorships by virtue of the fact that he was a "big capitalist" with large and extensive shareholdings. One does not usually acquire wealth through politics. He held them because of great abilities, immense industry and notable qualities of character. There was hardly a board in Australia that would not have welcomed him as a member. Despite his many directorships, he had an almost uncanny knowledge of the details of the business of every company with which he was associated. His high sense of responsibility would never have permitted him to accept a seat on any board just for the sake of drawing fees. He was the very opposite of a "guinea-pig" director; he wanted to feel he could make some positive contribution to every enterprise with which he was connected.
One colleague, Mr. Wilfred Brookes (3) writes of him, "He had an immense capacity for grasping the essential problems of all the industries with which he was associated. One of his outstanding qualities was that he was able to concentrate his mind on practicalities and the things that were possible and not waste time or energies in following paths that led nowhere. But he set his sights high and he was always convinced that there were few problems that did not yield before determination and application. Despite his determination he was generally a most genial man, interesting always to talk to and anxious to see his associates succeed, particularly if they were younger men trying to achieve a useful objective".
Sir Robert Webster, who was Managing Director of Bradford Cotton Mills when Sir Walter was Chairman, says of him: "I have had experience of many directors in my time, but have never been associated with anyone so wise and helpful as Sir Walter Massy-Greene. He was then a director of many companies, but he had a complete grasp of the business of Bradford Cotton Mills and I understand he had the same knowledge of the other companies of which he was a director".
Possibly the man who had the closest day-by-day association with Massy-Greene during his later years as a company director was Mr. Hugh Brain. Mr. Brain writes: "Few men could claim an equally impressive row of directorships; it is doubtful whether any of them could be credited with the tremendous contribution of effort and skilled judgment which Sir Walter made to all these. Indeed, in practically every one of them he contributed more than is achieved by lesser men who might have a seat on only one of the same group of industries".
It seems fairly certain that Massy-Greene, even during his years in politics, must have harboured a desire to test his aptitudes in business. This desire was no doubt strongly reinforced by financial considerations. It may also have been reinforced during the two years he spent as Minister for Trade and Customs. Here he would have accumulated an extensive knowledge, both financial and technical, of the problems of Australian manufacturing. He also knew quite a bit about the primary industries, of which he had had first-hand experience as a young farmer. He did not, therefore, enter the business arena as a raw novice.
The loss of his seat in the House of Representatives clearly decided him to sail his vessel in the new fascinating waters which had long beckoned him and for the navigation of which he was not without equipment. He was invited to join the boards of three pastoral companies in which the Baillieu family had interests -- the Strathdarr Pastoral Company, the Coolullah Pastoral Company, and the Coreena Pastoral Company. Thus began his association with the "Collins House" industrial empire which eventually led to his appointment to the boards of some of Australia's largest and most important enterprises.
About this time, around 1923, he also became a director of the British-Australian Cotton Association which had been formed by British interests to encourage and develop the growing of cotton in Australia. The Association installed oil mills and ginneries and did the ginning of the cotton for the growers; it also bought the seed which it processed and then sold the by-products. The Association ran into serious trouble with the growers who felt that it was charging excessive prices for ginning cotton and paying too low a price for the seed. Even so it was losing money.
Massy-Greene was asked to go to Queensland to try to pacify the cotton growers. His political experience apparently stood him in good stead; he addressed public meetings of the growers and was able to placate them, for the time being at least. As a result of his efforts some of them agreed to accept seats on the Board of the B.A.C.A. with the idea in mind that eventually they would take over the Association's plant. However, this did not work out according to plan and differences of opinion caused them to resign from the Board. Further negotiations were held between the growers and the Association, the upshot of which was that the assets of the B.A.C.A. were sold to the Queensland Cotton Board for the sum of £155,000. This represented a very substantial loss on the original cost of the equipment, which was in the neighbourhood of £500,000.
At these negotiations the Association was represented by Massy-Greene and the growers by Robert (now Sir Robert) Webster. This was the beginning of a long and fruitful business association. Some years later the Austral Silk and Cotton Mills, of which Massy-Greene was a director, was encountering serious financial difficulties. Sir Robert Webster was then the Chairman and Managing Director of the Bradford Cotton Mills. He was approached by Massy-Greene with a proposition that Bradford Cotton should purchase the assets of Austral Silk and Cotton. At first Bradford Cotton viewed the proposition without enthusiasm, but Massy-Greene was eventually able to convince the company that the purchase would have advantages for it. This proved to be so. The deal turned out to be a very satisfactory one for Bradford, which has made profits ever since, and at the same time Austral Silk and Cotton Mills was extricated from a sticky position.
After the take-over Massy-Greene was invited to join the board of Bradford Cotton. On his acceptance, Sir Robert Webster, who did not desire to continue as both Chairman and Managing Director, suggested that Massy-Greene should become Chairman. He held this position until his death in 1952.
As Chairman of Bradford Cotton, he was concerned in some highly satisfactory negotiations with the Dunlop Rubber Company, of which he was also a Director. The Dunlop Company had absorbed the Perdriau Rubber Company, but had no use for certain buildings possessed by the latter. Massy-Greene brought the matter to the attention of the Bradford Board with the suggestion that Bradford should acquire the Perdriau buildings. The proposal was accepted; Bradford paid the purchase price in 60,000 £l ordinary shares of the company. It did well out of the deal and so did Dunlop Rubber; through its holding of Bradford shares, the latter company participated in a number of new issues at par or at small premiums. Subsequently Dunlop Rubber sold a big block of the Bradford shares to an insurance company for somewhere around 55s. a share.
The success of this transaction and of the one between Bradford and the Austral Silk and Cotton Mills suggests that Massy-Greene had a particular genius for financial dealings of this kind.
Sir Robert Webster was also to be closely associated with him in another large textile enterprise -- Felt and Textiles. Massy-Greene had joined the board of this organisation in its early stages before it became a public company. It was not doing particularly well, but his advice and persistence eventually launched it on a highly successful career. The late Mr. Van de Velde, who was Managing Director, attributed the success of the company largely to the early reorganisation undertaken under the guidance and direction of Massy-Greene. After Van de Velde's death, however, Felt and Textiles ran into serious trouble and incurred heavy losses. Massy-Greene apparently decided that Sir Robert Webster could help to get the company out of its difficulties. Sir Robert was not so sure, but after much persuasion and with some reluctance agreed to join the board. Massy-Greene and Sir Robert Webster were co-operating towards straightening out the problems of the company at the time of Massy-Greene's death. Sir Robert was asked to succeed Sir Walter as Chairman and agreed to do so only in order to pilot the company through the first meeting of shareholders after the financial debacle. He insisted that after the meeting somebody else should assume the Chair. But he is still there, over ten years later.
The company to which Massy-Greene gave more detailed attention than any other was the Associated Pulp and Paper Mills of Burnie, Tasmania, which is now one of the largest manufacturers of fine writing and printing papers in the British Commonwealth. He was in this enterprise from its birth -- he was its first Chairman -- and he felt a special responsibility to it. No doubt he also felt that it offered a personal challenge; he wanted the satisfaction of seeing a major industrial project grow and develop from small beginnings under his own guidance and direction.
His work with the Associated Pulp and Paper Mills bears a striking parallel with Gepp's work with Australian Paper Manufacturers. Just as A.P.M. was the first company in the world to manufacture successfully the whole range of wrapping papers using short-fibred eucalypt pulpwood as a major raw material, so was A.P.P.M. the first company to apply eucalypt pulps to the commercial manufacture of fine printing and writing papers. (At about the same time the Australian Newsprint Mills, backed by large newspaper interests in Victoria and New South Wales, was formed to produce newsprint from eucalypt pulps at Boyer in Tasmania.) It was thus a venture of faith for A.P.P.M. to commence the manufacture of short-fibred pulp from Australian hardwoods as raw material for the local production of writing and printing papers. A paper machine designed to produce 15,000 tons of paper a year -- this was very large by world standards -- was installed at a plant erected at Burnie in Tasmania. It is interesting to note that at this time no paper mill in the United Kingdom owned and controlled its own forests and also processed its own pulpwood. A.P.P.M., however (in addition to handling "custom" wood -- standing timber felled on private properties by arrangement with the owners) held cutting and re-afforestation rights for large areas of Crown land in northern Tasmania, and, in its first years, acquired freehold forest lands which in themselves were probably initially sufficient to feed its mill.
A.P.P.M. is now a vast complex of mills at Burnie, comprising ten paper machines. In addition to producing over 80,000 tons of paper a year, it also manufactures building hardboards and flakeboards and produces building and furniture timbers. It also controls processing plants for the production of art paper in other States of the Commonwealth.
Of Massy-Greene's part in the development of this major national enterprise, the former Secretary of the company, Mr. Hugh Brain, writes:
Sir Walter is rightly to be regarded as its "father". Certainly no individual did more to inspire its formation and guide and energise its operation and development -- particularly in the company's first years. This involved Sir Walter in long hours of arduous and anxious work; indeed until practically the week of his death, it was his custom to observe working hours beyond those of the staff or employees. Sir Walter devoted to the development of A.P.P.M. more time and effort than are normally given by the leaders of individual industries. As the writer recalls only too well, Sir Walter maintained a Saturday watch in his office for years after the company offices closed on Saturday mornings; and there developed almost a ritual in this connection. At about 11.30 a.m. it was my custom to call on Sir Walter to ask him if he had any further instructions. Sir Walter would look up from what he was doing and generally reply in the negative, adding, "Of course, you'll be going off at mid-day; I'll be here this afternoon and probably tomorrow". It was strictly true. I developed an inbuilt sense of slacking about taking the Saturday off, as eventually happened.
Mr. Brain need not have been too disturbed. Massy-Greene came to the office in week-ends, largely because he could find a few quiet hours, free from the administrative demands of the week, in which he could reflect and do his "thinking work". He regarded this reflective work to be of the utmost importance. My grandfather remembered Herbert Gepp saying frequently that the great problem of modern business was how the men at the top were to find time "to think". The week-ends at the office were Massy-Greene's solution.
The launching of a large-scale, highly competitive undertaking is always a difficult task, fraught with unknown perils. These difficulties are intensified when, as in the case of A.P.P.M., the enterprise has embarked on new and relatively untested (on a commercial scale) scientific and technical processes. But the worries of A.P.P.M. did not end there. The early years of the development of the company were complicated by the outbreak of World War II and its activities were subject to official government controls over manpower, transport, materials and prices. On the other side the Commonwealth Government was demanding the maximum output of local products in order to reserve overseas exchange for the purchase of essential goods that could not be supplied in Australia. Confronted with all these problems, it is not surprising that the morale of the Board of the new company -- composed of men carrying heavy responsibilities in other industries also affected by war-time restrictions and demands -- at times sagged to a low level. Mr. Brain comments: "It was always Sir Walter whose practical grasp of the situation provided the example of inflexible purpose and unflagging energy; and restored his colleagues' faith in the venture".
Massy-Greene's experience as a senior Cabinet Minister proved to be an asset of great value to A.P.P.M. in the war years when so many of the activities of the company involved negotiations with government departments. Irrespective of the political colour of the Administration, he was held in high repute in both political and official circles.
Shortage of suitable manpower was a constantly recurring problem. On the one hand the Commonwealth Government was pressing for more and more tonnage of paper products from the Burnie Mill, and, on the other, by "call-ups" for the armed forces it was seriously depleting the forest labour cutting timber for pulpwood. After persistent persuasion from Massy-Greene, the Government agreed to release a substantial number of men from military camps in Southern Tasmania to supplement the pulpwood cutting force. Naturally enough the camp authorities in selecting the men they would release were inclined to choose the least promising members of the material at their disposal. The company's forests were in the north of Tasmania and the expected reinforcements, which had to come from the south, were very slow in arriving to take up their new duties. Massy-Greene, never the most patient of men, in a fit of frustration, telegraphed the company's General Manager in Burnie to ascertain the situation. The reply came back: "The men are making their way up from Hobart pub by pub".
The company was concerned, too, in numerous negotiations with the Commonwealth price-fixing authorities for adjustments of the prices of its products. Massy-Greene took a close personal interest in these negotiations. On one occasion he decided to accompany the Secretary, Mr. Brain, in a deputation to the Commonwealth Prices Commissioner, Sir Douglas Copland, at Canberra. Sir Walter and Mr. Brain faced an imposing array consisting of Sir Douglas in the Chair and Sir Marcus Clark, assisted by a union secretary, Mr. Riley, and a wool man from Sydney, Mr. Lasry. Mr. Brain had the responsibility of presenting the A.P.P.M. case, with Sir Walter on the side-lines ready to pounce on any weaknesses in his submission. On the bare facts the company did not have an over-strong case for a price increase, but Mr. Brain managed to reinforce his case with an appeal to the Commissioner for special consideration because of the difficulties of operation in war-time, the natural hazards of the industry, such as bush-fires and floods, and all the problems of pioneering new techniques in an industry so recently established. Perhaps Mr. Brain, with Sir Walter sitting beside him, was inspired to lay it on pretty heavily. When at last he ran out of appeals to the charity of the Commissioner, Sir Douglas, looking left and right along the ranks of his advisers, said, "Would any of my colleagues like to ask any questions or comment on the evidence which Mr. Brain has presented on behalf of the company?" There was a prolonged silence which was broken by Mr. Lasry saying, "Mr. Commissioner, there is not a dry eye in the house". The increase was granted.
Massy-Greene was not the kind of chairman who was satisfied with a board-room perspective of the company's operations. He liked to get the feel of things at first-hand and he spent a great deal of time in the company's mills at Burnie and he even made frequent visits to the forest areas. As a youth he had worked in the Tasmanian forests and he knew quite a bit about the practical details of forestry operations. Indeed, on a number of occasions, he offered solutions on the spot to certain perplexing problems and his ideas commended themselves to the experts in the industry.
He was a company director who was just as much at home with the mill operatives as he was with his colleagues in the board-room. When he was in the mood, few people could be more jovial and his personality was such as to inspire confidence and respect of people in all grades of the company's service. He had a great interest in human nature and a deep understanding of its foibles and strengths. At the Burnie Mill he was responsible for innovations in the field of employee welfare which were among the most original and advanced of their kind in Australia. He established at Burnie a building -- which became known as "The Servo" -- comprising a medical and dental clinic, a library, a canteen, a dance floor, employee committee rooms and other amenities. These facilities were available not only to the employees of the company but also, for the most part, to their families as well.
Like Herbert Gepp, Massy-Greene was a firm believer in home ownership by industrial workers and he established a scheme at Burnie of a most generous character to encourage employees to acquire their own houses. In the early years of the company, building labour was short and one feature of the scheme was that it encouraged and recognised construction work carried out by the employees themselves. Indeed, the company engaged a builder to advise employees in this work.
Under Massy-Greene, another scheme designed for the benefit of employees was based on a "community" bonus dependent upon the number of tons of paper produced annually by each machine above a reasonable target figure. The funds (amounting usually to several thousands of pounds a year) resulting from the bonus are administered by a Council consisting of elected representatives of employees and of representatives of management. The latter are in a minority. The Council can apply the money from the bonus in any way it sees fit for the welfare of the employees as a whole. From the fund, scholarships at secondary and technical schools for the children of employees have been established, beach amenities have been provided, a maternity ward added to the local hospital and the company's insurance benefits supplemented.
From the personal contribution he made to the inception and establishment, under most difficult and unusual conditions, of this large, new industrial enterprise in Tasmania, Massy-Greene is entitled to rank among Australia's great industrial leaders. The all-round qualities which he displayed with A.P.P.M. -- his talent for leadership, his natural authority, his refusal to be daunted by difficulties, his capacity to grasp complex technical details, his knowledge of finance, his flair for industrial relations and interest in employee welfare, and his skill in top-level negotiations -- all could have been applied with success to any major industrial enterprise. The fact that he was just over 60 years of age when he began his work with the paper industry makes his achievement quite extraordinary. How many men could do likewise?
His methods were different from those of Herbert Gepp. Although not without novel features, they were more orthodox, more orderly, and relied less on the driving force of personality. Both men gave their lives to the task in hand, but Massy-Greene applied his time and energies to more immediate practical purpose. Gepp allowed his attentions to be diverted by the thousand and one things whose fascination he could not resist. Also he had one eye always focused on the dim distance of the future.
Given free rein Gepp, as a sheer creative force, would have been difficult to match. But as an industrial leader pure and simple, Massy-Greene had talents which would have held greater appeal for some businessmen, who, though not lacking in the spirit of adventure, would have found Gepp a more disturbing and less comfortable bed-fellow.
One of Massy-Greene's qualities as a businessman was his resoluteness. He refused to be daunted by difficulties. He had superb confidence not only in himself but in the view that all problems could be overcome by intelligent thought and persistent application. He approached the difficulties that arose, no matter how great, with assurance in the ultimate outcome.
As might be expected, he was not the easiest of men to work for. He gave himself heart and soul to the task in hand and he expected similar standards of devotion in his associates. He had been used to exercising authority throughout a good part of his life and he could be brusque and sharp in his orders and impatient of lack of understanding or of immediate performance. In some quarters he acquired a reputation for being irritable, even over-bearing. But there was nothing personal in all this. With him the job came first and human feelings sometimes second, but he was far too big a person to harbour petty likes and dislikes.
He was a man of strong loyalties. Given a trust, he would expend himself, and those around him, to see that it was honoured to the full. He was perhaps inclined to carry this loyalty to the job to unnecessary lengths. Mr. Hugh Brain tells the following story:
On VJ day, when the whole city had abandoned itself to "mafficking", Sir Walter summoned me to his office. Registering every symptom of a blitz, Sir Walter demanded "Where is everybody? No one is answering my bells". I endeavoured to suggest tactfully to Sir Walter that on such an occasion -- which was unlikely to recur in the lifetime of any of us -- some latitude might be extended; that I had found it impossible to hold more than one or two people in the office; and that my presence in several other quarters was being demanded in order to join in family and other celebrations at the end of the greatest war in history.
Sir Walter heard this with rising impatience and exploded into a violent demand to know what it all had to do with the fact that work had to be done and that the company's business had to be carried on. Did nobody have any loyalty to their employers these days? To these, perhaps rhetorical, questions, I could only offer replies intended to be pacificatory, but without result. I did my best to fill in for some of my missing colleagues, on the telephone and the typewriter, but was eventually told by Sir Walter that I might as well give it away as it was impossible for him to do what he should be doing. I was dismissed with the reminder that he intended to carry on no matter who else didn't.
In the middle of the afternoon I was telephoned by Lady Massy-Greene to ask if I knew where Sir Walter was. His family had expected him home but could not raise him by telephone in his office. I promised to investigate and eventually raised a friendly individual who went up to Sir Walter's suite. He returned, reporting that Sir Walter was not there. I then tried Sir Walter's clubs and various addresses in town where I thought he might be, without result. It was then decided to make a closer search of Sir Walter's office, when it was found that he was unconscious under his table. The morning's frustrations had led to a seizure of some kind and he had slipped out of his chair and was invisible when the office was first visited in search of him.
Sir Walter was himself again in a couple of days; the incident is recorded to show that it took more than a World War to disturb his single-minded business programme.
Massy-Greene's strong sense of loyalty made him, in my view, over-prone to identify the interests of the companies of which he was a director with the national interest. He seemed to convince himself that any economic policy on the national plane which might adversely affect these organisations -- even though perhaps only in the short run -- would in fact be opposed to the welfare of the Australian economy.
This is, of course, the classic dilemma which faces all businessmen from time to time. It is to ask a great deal of human nature to expect a businessman to take an entirely dispassionate view of an economic policy measure that might have serious, perhaps even fatal, repercussions on his particular business. After all, what is he to do? His responsibility is to his employees and shareholders. If he fails to defend their interests to the maximum of his powers he will be held accountable. Fortunately these dilemmas do not arise frequently, at least in an agonising form, but in times of economic crisis they can become acute.
I don't think that there can be much doubt that Massy-Greene's rather old-fashioned rigidity on the gold standard which he adhered to, in the first instance, as a matter of sincere personal conviction, was greatly reinforced by his business responsibilities to major gold-mining companies. The arguments, too, which he was accustomed to advance fairly frequently for a rise in the price of gold did not always carry conviction to those who had their eyes fixed on broader national and inter-national financial considerations.
He was absolutely immovable, too, on any suggestion for up-valuing the Australian £ by an appreciation of the exchange rate. It did not matter that export prices were soaring to stratospheric heights or that an inflationary boom was under way; the rate must not be touched. Even the mildest appreciation would lead to dire catastrophe.
There was no question of personal gain for himself in any of this. He was not interested in making money; for one thing he had no need of it, because he would never have given himself time to spend and enjoy it. It was simply that, as a company director, he had accepted a trust and that trust must be honoured to the limit of his powers.
Massy-Greene's numerous business responsibilities did not prevent him from taking a prominent part in the administration of the University of Melbourne. He was a member of the University Council from 1935 to 1949 and was Deputy Chancellor for several years. He was Chairman of the University Finance Committee from 1941 to 1949 and succeeded Sir James Barrett as Chairman of the University Appointments Board in 1935. He remained Chairman until 1949.
The development of the University Appointments Board "from relative insignificance into an important and effective department of University activity" (to use the words of the Vice Chancellor at that time, Sir John Medley) was attributed to Sir Walter.
Right up to the time he died in November, 1952, at the age of 78, Massy-Greene, without any detectable diminution of his intellectual faculties, continued in occupancy of his considerable business responsibilities. Some may have felt that the ageing company director should have relinquished some of his directorships to make way for younger men. But they could hardly have done so on the grounds that the occupant of these directorships was failing to give value. His unrivalled experience in so many fields was itself an asset (to the companies with which he was connected) that would have been impossible to replace.
Massy-Greene had reached the age of 71 when the Cohen Report on Company Law in England caused a stir by recommending that directors should retire at 70. Sir Walter was interested and called for a copy of the report. On the copy handed to him, some bright spark had had the temerity to write "whacko" against the recommendation regarding the age of retirement. Massy-Greene viewed the matter with arctic frigidity and for some days after peered suspiciously at his office colleagues.
SERVICES IN WORLD WAR II
In World War II, notwithstanding the unusual extent of his business responsibilities, Massy-Greene was a member of a number of special boards and committees set up to assist the Commonwealth Government in the administration of the war-effort and in the achievement of maximum results from the huge expenditures on defence. Prominent businessmen were invited by the Government to serve on these boards and Massy-Greene, with his unique political and ministerial background, was naturally in great demand.
In the early years of the war he was Chairman of the Treasury Finance Committee which was responsible directly to the Federal Treasurer for review of and recommendation in connection with defence expenditure. As Chairman of this Committee, and as a member of the Defence Board of Business Administration, he provided a connecting link between these two important bodies. In addition, he was Deputy Chairman of the National Security Capital Issues Advisory Board.
The Defence Board of Business Administration, which was comprised of several top Australian business leaders, had an outstanding record in reviewing defence expenditure and in the business organisation and administration of government departments concerned. It effected notable economies.
The Capital Issues Board had the task of considering applications from businesses, particularly the larger companies, for permission to raise fresh capital. The purpose was to ensure that the resources of the nation would not be diverted into fields not essential to an all-out war-effort.
In the opinion of a leading Treasury official who acted as Secretary to the Board, Mr. Walter C. Balmford, Massy-Greene was the dominant member of the Board, contributing more than anyone else to the solution of the many difficult and often delicate problems which confronted it. Massy-Greene's vast company experience was, of course, invaluable in this work. It was not easy to convince businessmen that it was necessary to impose limitations on the activities of their particular company -- everyone was disposed to think that the work of his own company was highly essential to the war effort. Massy-Greene seemed to know almost instinctively the real reasons prompting an application for additional capital, and its value in terms of the war needs of the nation. His dominance in the work of the Board arose from his unrivalled knowledge and not from any disposition to personal assertion. Indeed, in Board discussions on important matters, he usually remained silent until other members had expressed their views. He then expounded his own ideas with admirable lucidity and cogency. Invariably he was able to propose a solution that found general acceptance. On matters of minor importance he never wasted his own or anybody else's time.
Of his general approach, his colleague, Mr. Balmford, told my grandfather:
During business meetings Sir Walter was always punctilious and courteous. Behind the scenes he was helpful and kindly. On numerous occasions, where I found myself dragged into fields in which my experience was extremely limited, it was necessary to discuss matters with Sir Walter privately in order to secure the appropriate background knowledge. Nothing was ever too much trouble for him. If necessary, he would prepare memoranda which remained a manual of guidance.
Another prominent Treasury official, Mr. William (now Sir William) Dunk had a great deal to do with Massy-Greene in his war-time work with the Treasury Finance Committee and the Defence Board of Business Administration. In a letter to my grandfather, Sir William has written interestingly of Sir Walter:
My impressions are of a big man with prominent sandy eyebrows but rather sparse hair (also sandy), who arrived in my office promptly at 8.45 most mornings and who voiced immediate complaints if the car which was sent to pick him up was a minute or two late, or when he had failed to receive his papers the night before. His papers usually reached him quite literally on the night before, and often as late as eight or nine p.m., but whenever they arrived he always brought them in the next morning with copious notes in his very precise handwriting accompanying each item of agenda for the Board of Business Administration or other meetings scheduled for that day. He would also chew the submissions over in his mind while walking his dog before breakfast.
He was a man who exhibited to the utmost degree what I feel to be the greatest quality of a top-line administrator, and that is one who can appreciate the value of detail, who is prepared to study it as an essential background to sound conclusion, but then able to discard it and confine following discussions to essential principles. With this, he also possessed another great administrative attribute in an ability to instinctively seize on points of strength or weakness in the presentation of any case put to him. He had a concise and telling way of putting his own point of view in committee.
With it all he retained a very sound political instinct, and in his company one always felt oneself to be in the presence of a dynamic personality. I would not think of him as a patient man but I have seen him exhibit extraordinary tolerance in listening to the often immature and poorly expressed views and opinions of others. He was no doubt seething inwardly and I recall him returning to my office after a meeting to leave his papers and to say, "Dunk, why is it that 'X' is such a damn fool?"
As Sir William Dunk's remarks suggest, Massy-Greene was a man who believed in split-second punctuality. On occasions he chaired A.I.P.P. Council meetings and he started proceedings precisely on the time scheduled in the notices of meeting. Mr. Frank Downes, the Secretary of the Melbourne University Appointments Board, relates that Massy-Greene, when Chairman of the Board, had the same fetish for strict punctuality. Massy-Greene himself attributed it to some early experience he had had as a member of a board of directors of a certain company. A pile of golden sovereigns was placed, as a fee, on the blotting pad in front of each director. When the clock marked the hour for the commencement of business the sovereigns belonging to any tardy members were passed to the chairman, who shared them with those who had arrived on time -- a good example of an "incentive system" applied to a board of directors.
In October, 1940, Massy-Greene was invited to lead the Australian delegation to a meeting of the Eastern Group Supply Council in India. Some 16 countries were represented. Within a week his Australian colleagues were emphatic that he had not only won a high reputation with the delegations of other countries, but had established himself as the outstanding personality at the conference.
Mr. A.V. Smith, one of the Australian delegates, writes:
I remember the speech he made at the Chamber of Princes and it was remarkable, although my memory is not sufficiently good to enable me to recall the details. Sufficient to say, however, that all the European element were greatly affected. Although, in essence, a political speech, it somehow managed to transcend politics in the narrower sense.
Massy-Greene apparently achieved a reputation at the conference for his humour and wit. A loquacious leader of one of the delegations became renowned for stating facts incorrectly. Massy-Greene remarked: "Mr. ------ is the finest example I know of an encyclopaedia of incorrect information!"
MASSY-GREENE -- AS MY GRANDFATHER SAW HIM!
Sir Walter Massy-Greene was a foundation member of the Council of the Australian Institute for Public Policy. It was in this capacity that my grandfather first met him. From 1944 until his death they exchanged a voluminous correspondence about A.I.P.P. and other matters. Hardly a week went by without a letter or two from him -- usually long, always well-weighed, wise, knowledgeable, a delight to read because of the richness of his understanding and his genius for arresting phrases. Although my grandfather met him fairly frequently, it was mainly through his letters that my grandfather got to know something of his mind and his view of the world.
In view of the terrifying number of his business and other commitments, my grandfather was always puzzled how he found time to write these long, and often learned, letters. Years later my grandfather was given an explanation. He was a very poor sleeper. He would wake up, usually about four or five o'clock in the morning, reach for his business papers and start to work on them in bed. It was at this unholy hour that he wrote most of the letters in very small, neat handwriting. Later he would take them to his office for his secretary to type.
In his letters he expressed himself in a manner that was wholly and unmistakably Massy-Greene; you could never imagine anyone else writing in the same way. The language was that of the orator -- rounded, forceful, highly coloured, provoking, richly decorated with imagery and allusion. He was able to draw on the fruits of an unparalleled experience to buttress his argument. It made one feel woefully immature and, in some ways, sadly lacking. How could you hope to compete with one who knew so much of the world and of men, who had thought so deeply and who could clothe his thoughts in the language of a prophet? It seemed almost indecent to try. He was like one of the sages of antiquity; the proper thing to do was to sit humbly at his feet and drink of the cup of wisdom.
Massy-Greene's knowledge was encyclopaedic. My grandfather doubted if any man of his time -- or since -- knew more about so much of Australian life and industry. He could speak with authority on almost any subject you cared to mention. This wide-stretching knowledge was partly the product of an exceptionally varied experience; but also of a strong, capacious, thoughtful mind. He knew the land; he knew industry; he knew mining; he knew politics; he knew labour; he knew Australian history; he knew Australia, for there were few parts of it that he had not visited in connection with his work; he knew the peculiarly Australian character. In addition to all that, he had a surprising grasp of the technicalities of economics and he was something of a philosopher.
He played the part of "elder statesman" in the Institute's affairs. That is how they all came to regard him and no man could have been better equipped for the role. There was hardly a document produced, hardly an article for publication, that he did not comment upon at length. They waited for the inevitable letters with eagerness but not without some trepidation. What would the old man say? Would he go along with their ideas? His criticisms were severe and often blunt. He pulled no punches. He said exactly what he thought. He was far too honest to compromise his own integrity. Sometimes they disagreed with his opinions; they never failed to respect them. But no matter how wide the gap between his views and theirs, and despite the exceptional status he had earned through his career in politics and business, he never desired to put himself in the position of exercising a veto.
In a general sense he was of a much more conservative cast of mind than Gepp; he was more of a realist, less of a visionary. He harboured no illusions about basic human nature. He did not believe, for a moment, that it could be changed, at least in fundamentals; nor really could it be greatly improved -- the old Adam would keep coming to the surface. He was more inclined, therefore, to take the world and life as he found them.
Whereas, in political and social concerns, Massy-Greene believed in the inevitability of gradualness, Gepp wanted to wreak miraculous transformations.
To Massy-Greene the world was a sea, full of dangerous currents and threatening reefs, periodically beset by terrible storms. The wise navigator accepted this and did his best to keep the ship afloat and to safeguard the passengers. Gepp wanted to tame the sea, to dynamite the submerged rocks out of existence, to bring the passengers at top speed into the wonderful harbour he had constructed out of his fertile imagination.
I think Massy-Greene would have subscribed to the definition of conservatism which says, "Where it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change". This did not mean that he was insensitive to the great movements in public feeling and political sentiment that take place from time to time. He knew that the end of the Second World War would write "finis" to "the old order", the world with which he was familiar, in which he had grown up, and which, I think, he accepted. He did not see this as early as Gepp -- in fact he was years behind him. But eventually he came to realise the need for adjustment of old methods and old ways of thought in the business and political spheres. He accepted the necessity for change, particularly the new concepts of the Welfare State, with some reluctance and with some nostalgia for the past. But he also accepted the inevitable. He saw that the movements which were occurring were much more than ripples on the surface of things. Here was a tidal wave in human affairs. It was useless to fight it. One had to make the best of it; to salvage what one could, to retain what was good in the past, and to try to guide the currents which one was powerless to prevent into the most fruitful channels.
Around the end of the war, the Editorial Committee of the Institute, after six months of work, had produced an 80-page statement of policy for the post-war years, covering a wide range of matters in which the Australian people were vitally interested -- full employment, wage fixation, industrial relations, government controls and social security, the responsibilities of business leaders and a host of other things. The ideas advanced in this statement (called "Looking Forward") represented a rather radical departure from deeply entrenched business notions and .a great change in business thinking on major national issues. Before publication it was necessary to obtain the approval of every member of the A.I.P.P. Council, which was constituted of some of the best-known and biggest names in Australian industry and finance. The draft document was sent to each member for comment and criticism.
Massy-Greene's comments in volume and penetration surpassed those of any other member of the Council. He did not spare the feelings of the authors and his criticisms were, at some points, rather harsh. They might have been forgiven for thinking at first that he was rather dubious about .the whole project. But this was not so. In fact the further he got into the matter, the more enthusiastic became his participation, and his comments on the drafts were of great, indeed indispensable, value. His unequalled knowledge of Australia, his wisdom, his mature, ripe experience, his realism were all invaluable. He helped to keep their feet on the ground. And once the policy -- representing the views of business leaders on the shape of the post-war world -- had been completed and published, it could have had no more loyal advocate. The fact that Massy-Greene threw his weight so unstintedly behind it helped greatly to enhance its acceptance by other businessmen and by his colleagues in board rooms and high places.
I doubt if the Institute could have done without him in those times when so much was in the melting pot. They began to depend on him. He made them think out their own ideas more thoroughly. The vast reservoir of his experience was a source of inspiration, intellectual pleasure and instruction. Moreover, his authority in high business circles was unchallenged and to have his support was half the battle.
If his role was more that of a brake than an accelerator, the former is as indispensable as the latter to safe and sound progress. The product, as he was, of another era, he provided an essential link with the past. He had great charm of manner. Whatever their position in life, whether old or young, he treated all people exactly the same, with respect and with a rare courtesy. He was a gentleman in the real sense, an old-fashioned gentleman, but his manners were never obvious or overdone.
He had a particular penchant for apt Biblical allusions and quotations, and he obviously had his roots in an age when the Bible was the main book of the household and was read and, more, studied. But he had lived far too fully and had seen too much of too many aspects of life to have a narrowly suburban view of religion.
His personal attraction was considerable. In appearance he was tall and commanding but in no way over-bearing. He had sandy hair which was more than half-way to silvering. He had a habit of scrutinising you, but there was no sense of embarrassment because the eyes were kindly and humorous. He had a kind of endearing, musical chuckle. He always listened carefully to what you had to say. However much you might disagree with him on some things, you could never fail to respect or to like him.
Massy-Greene loved the country to which he had come as a youth and he believed in its future. But he had no illusions about it and he knew its limitations. In those days my grandfather was inclined to be of the "Australia unlimited" school of thought. My grandfather was young, optimistic, and did not always pay sufficient regard to the practical obstacles and the pitfalls which lie in waiting for those inclined "to leap before they look". He was old, infinitely experienced, successful, with strong traces of scepticism in his make-up. He had seen the terrible tragedies of the land, the heart-breaking setbacks, the periodical droughts, the bush fires and the floods, the destruction of people's hopes and of not thousands, but of millions of sheep and cattle, which in earlier days constituted Australia's chief source of wealth. He knew, from first-hand experience, the limitations of the physical resources of the Continent and the inadequate rainfall and lack of water over great parts of it. He was scathing and severe on those people -- and there were, and still are, many -- who judge the Continent by its vast area and turn their backs on the immense expanses of unproductive desert. He had no time for wishful thinking in any shape or form. My grandfather remembered Massy-Greene saying to him once: "Australia is a great country, but not as great as you think it is". Massy-Greene was constantly taking him by the hand and drawing him closer to reality.
Perhaps he took too restricted a view of Australia's potentialities for growth. He had witnessed catastrophic disasters and had been dismayed and humbled by them. Then, of course, he did not know that in the decade after his death, rich mineral resources, some of immense extent, would be discovered -- iron ore, bauxite, copper, oil. Not that he would have ruled out the possibility, because he knew very well that we had virtually only scratched the surface of things and that money, persistence and modern scientific methods were sure to reveal new resources and bring into view new horizons of development. But his outlook was conditioned by his own experience.
I think he under-estimated the spectacular economic and social advances which were to be achieved in the years after the war. He had lived too long with the ups and downs of the trade cycle, with the alternations of prosperity and depression and with chronic unemployment, and his mind was inevitably moulded by what he knew. He was impatient with the "starry-eyed" idealists and he poured scorn on those who thought the end of the war would bring about a "new Jerusalem". He certainly never liked the phrase "the new order" which was then on everybody's lips. He could not get away from what he believed to be basic truth, that man's progress would be limited by his own frailties. In December, 1944, he said in a letter: "We are not going into the millennium, even if this war is apparently to end in a veritable Armageddon. We have got the same frail, finite, human elements to deal with; the same basic human nature, and we will go on making mistakes, for to 'err is human', but we may, as intelligent human beings, be able to avoid some of those we have made before."
Early in 1945 he wrote to my grandfather: "You cannot convert a world full of congenital sinners into saints and there is not going to be any 'new society' in which to live. And that does not mean that there can be no progress towards a better deal for the underdog, provided he is willing to work". The last phrase was typical. He had grown up in an age when a man, without the advantage of inherited wealth or position, lived by the sweat of his brow. He reserved his greatest contempt for the slacker and I think he was suspicious of the modern trend towards more and more leisure.
There was, in those days, a lot of talk about a more dignified status for labour in industry and in the social order generally. My grandfather mentioned the idea in a letter to him: it drew what amounted to a stern rebuke:
I was taught by my mother to believe that human dignity came from honest toil and the rewards that flowed from it, and not from whether you stretched your feet before the fire at night on a Persian rug or common drugget, and I believe that still. The dignity is the dignity of labour well done and with all the vim and vigour of which you are capable, using to the best of your ability the gifts of strength and brain with which God has endowed you. There is no other dignity that's worth a damn. I've done every sort of menial toil, but I've got the hell of a lot of kick out of it, and I don't think at any time I ever lost faith in the doctrine my mother instilled into me -- that labour could always be glorified by its own inherent dignity.
I have been both servant and master -- but any servant of mine is my friend. Even the Scriptures lay down the several relationships between master and man, but the first injunction, if my memory serves me aright, is to servants who are bidden to obey their masters. Let us preach the true dignity of labour, not its indignity.
In the years around the end of the war when so much criticism was being poured on "the old order", on the pre-war world, and when there were so many who wanted to make a complete break with the past and were urging the adoption of new, untested methods of economic and industrial organisation, Massy-Greene's loyalty to the world he had known was always coming to the surface. In a letter to my grandfather in 1945, he said: "I do not admit that the present industrial system has been responsible for any catastrophe. When you compare the general standard of living which exists today in those countries where the 'present industrial system' has had its most pronounced development, with the standard existing before the advent of the system, all one can say is that the standard of living is incomparably better. That there have been abuses, shortcomings, and failures, and that there is ample room for improvement, is only typical of all human effort. But because all is not perfect is not sufficient reason -- at least in a democracy -- to scrap the whole system and write down the substantial human progress that has been attained under it as catastrophic".
Massy-Greene was a man who looked life fairly and squarely in the eye. He did not shrink from the unpleasant side or pretend that it did not exist. He took the bad along with the good. He believed in progress, but was convinced that progress would be achieved only by regard for the facts and lessons of experience.
On many things my grandfather found himself to be in disagreement with him. This was the inevitable conflict between Age and Youth and he understood that perfectly. I am sure he would have been disappointed if my grandfather had always seen eye to eye with him. He loved the controversy which his letters provoked and he delighted in the rubbing of one mind against another. Sometimes the sparks came dangerously near to flying, but there was never any real danger of a complete break or serious injury to the relationship which my grandfather, along with other members of the Institute, enjoyed with him. Except perhaps once! It was early in 1952. Inflation was rampant. Enormous, record proceeds from exports were pouring in. Wool prices, boosted by stock-pile purchases because of the Korean outbreak, had risen to fantastic, absurd levels. The situation had all the elements of dangerous instability. The A.I.P.P. gave intense thought to the various problems that it posed and produced a comprehensive programme to arrest the boom and to slow down the galloping inflation. One proposal was for a 10 per cent appreciation of the exchange rate. Sir Walter would not have a bar of it. He predicted dire calamities for the economy if such a proposal were adopted. They threw everything they knew into the argument but he was immovable. (He even went on the air at this time to try to swing the balance against any suggestion -- an idea many were playing with -- of appreciating the exchange.) Finally he threatened resignation from the A.I.P.P. controlling body. He felt he could not conscientiously remain with the A.I.P.P. if a proposal which he believed to be so gravely opposed to the best interests of Australia were published. But the A.I.P.P. went ahead. In the event Sir Walter was persuaded, not without difficulty, to continue as a member of the Institute's Council.
He was an unrelenting opponent of many of the new ideas of government planning. He was intensely distrustful of bureaucracy and officialdom. I don't think, either, that he held, on the whole, a high opinion of the great run of economists. He had no time for the neo-Keynesians. He believed -- I think with justice on his side -- that you couldn't learn economics solely from books or in the classroom or study. You had to see the whole, vast, inter-related and infinitely complex mechanism operating at first hand and, more, participate in its operation. Moreover, you had to know men and the nature of men because, after all, they constituted the real raw material of the subject. The fact that he hated controls and the bureaucratic mentality did not mean that he failed to recognise the need for a wide field of activity by the state. He did not agree, for instance, with the strictures that Sir Frederick Eggleston poured on State enterprise in his book "State Socialism in Victoria". Massy-Greene argued that many of these essential developments were beyond the resources of private enterprise at that time and would not have been undertaken by private capital. Australia's progress, he contended, would never have been as rapid as it had but for the failures of State Socialism.
But he had no patience at all with detailed national economic planning. "A planned economy", he wrote, "means neither more nor less than democracy in chains". And in another letter to the A.I.P.P. he said: "I suppose few men possess a wider working knowledge of industry in this country than I do, and yet I know that all that I know is but a drop in the ocean of the information that would be required to set a limit to the appropriate share of the national income that should be allocated to private investment. It is a task beyond weight of finite intelligence. Who then is he that is bold enough to arrogate to himself the qualities of omnipotence? Moreover, this itch to manage the affairs of men feeds upon itself, and the final result is the antithesis of freedom without which there is no half-way house between fascism and socialism".
Massy-Greene hated the socialist philosophy, not because it threatened the "man in possession", but because he believed it was based on a false view of man and his purpose. It had its roots in arid soil, and its fruits would be withered and juiceless. "... this accursed doctrine of equality which denies to youth its chance to fly the Excelsior banner, tends to act like a canker eating into the heart of the nation".
But his hatred of socialism was based primarily on fear of its political consequences. At the final destination of the socialist route he saw the ultimate horror of the totalitarian state. In 1948, when Labour Governments were in power in both England and Australia, he wrote to my grandfather:
From my point of view I think the doctrines of socialism are most dangerous when they are uttered in the siren voices of the Attlees and these other dear muddle-headed ideologists. When you come to get down to fundamentals, the real differences between socialism and communism do not consist of aims, but of methods whereby the aims are attained. Both, in my opinion, are equally destructive of what I understand as democracy, and the truly socialistic state can never remain a democratic state.
I know full well that a wide difference exists between the limits to which Attlee would go in the creation of the socialistic state, and Professor Laski, and, possibly, an even wider gap between Laski's views and Strachey's. But once the toboggan starts on the downward slope, you cannot stop it gathering momentum. It is only a matter of time how soon you crash at the bottom, if there be a bottom other than the abyss, and that depends in great measure on the grade of the slope.
As I said in a previous letter, 1 think socialism and democracy are two different things. Democratic socialism is a contradiction in terms. Every advance in socialism is a step towards totalitarianism, because every step is in itself totalitarian. It is all a matter of degree and not of principle, and it is on principle that I desire to stand. In its final analysis I do not think socialism is any more human, or civilized, or Christian as complete totalitarianism would be if its exponents were Christians, or civilized or had regard for humanism in the system of government. There is really nothing new in the way the Soviet treats its people. The Russians have never been free or civilized or humanised and their mass Christianity was barely once removed from the ignorant superstition of the witch doctor.
Attlee is one of these dear deluded people who think because their intentions are good that principles don't matter. Well I think they do, and do not forget that if Attlee were to recognize the goal to which he was slowly being dragged and were he to do other than express an abhorrence of communism his Government would promptly be sent about its business. We have exactly the same thing going on here, but both here and in England, while these Governments last, socialism will still grow, and slowly and surely we will be carried nearer the totalitarian goal, not perhaps because the authors of the socialistic advances even recognize the goal to which they are travelling, but because one thing leads to another, here a little, there a little, but every move in the one direction, one step further.
He thought socialism to be a far greater menace than communism. "Of the two I believe socialism to be the more dangerous. Communism frightens the timid soul. The brutality of its methods appal. The pace is too hot. The goal becomes obscured in mists of blood, misery and death. On the other hand, socialism acts as a narcotic. Like opium it clouds the mind and roseate dreams of full and plenty, in which all appear to share and share alike, blot out the sordid realisms of life".
Whereas Gepp was an industrial non-conformist, at the very head of the advance guard of progressive business thought, Massy-Greene was by comparison conventional and cautious, not nearly so intrigued by new ideas. He had to be absolutely convinced beyond doubt that the "new idea" was better than the old before he would shift an inch. But he was much more politically minded than Gepp, and he also knew that on occasions politics compelled one to compromise, even though it might be against one's better judgment. In the early 1940's he wrote:
I wish we could get away from this phrase, "full employment". In a free democracy it is not practicable, if it really means full employment all the time. But it is in the fashion and, I suppose, we have to pay it some lip service.
But Massy-Greene was not conservative in any restrictive sense, or out of any desire to protect his own interests. His conservatism had its roots in a deep inner personal conviction, a conviction he had arrived at out of his thought and his observation of the world and of men. In other words, if he was a conservative, he was a conservative in the best sense of the term. He wanted progress but did not think you could get it by "rushing your fences". "There must be idealism in our outlook", he wrote, "or we shall get nowhere. The main thing seems to me to be able to see that our idealism does not run counter to our knowledge of affairs and commonsense".
But progress, in the real sense, he was convinced, would be slow.
"I have long been satisfied that ignorance and the prejudice born of ignorance has more to do with the political outlook of the people than any other single factor. You have only to look at the rantings of the demagogue and the way in which he flourishes in the land to realise how little the people know and the amazing follies which they are prepared to swallow.
For that there is only one cure and that is education. The world's history provides abundant evidence how slow that process must be. Still we no longer burn witches. So there is hope".
Some of the newer, rash thinkers, without Massy-Greene's vast experience of men and things, might be tempted to dismiss many of his political and social views with such terms as die-hard, reactionary, ultra-conservative. This would be a serious error. For one thing you cannot separate a man from his era. To climb from the bottom to the top -- or anywhere in sight of the top -- of the ladder of life, a man, in Massy-Greene's days, had to be prepared to spend the last ounce of his resources of mind and body. Those who tripped fell on hard, stony ground and not on the cushion of the modern Welfare State. Massy-Greene's view of life and man's place in the scheme of things was shaped by the times in which he lived and by the fact that he had rubbed shoulders with the rough edges of reality. He was the very opposite of an "ivory tower" thinker. I think he may have found difficulty in comprehending, and would have been out of sympathy with, the "new frontiersmen" of the space age.
Nevertheless, as my grandfather had grown older, he had become aware how right Massy-Greene was about many things on which my grandfather thought, at the time, Massy-Greene was wrong. Perhaps his rather sober estimate of the human species was not too sadly astray. But he may have undervalued the improvements which could be accomplished with the same raw material through the use of better methods and better machinery of social and economic organization. If he had lived ten years longer, he might have been surprised by the great advances achieved in the control (he would have hated the word!) of our economic environment.
In human affairs he was, toward the end of his life, over-distrustful of new ideas, too firmly attached to what he knew, not inclined to experimentation -- in a word he erred on the side of cautiousness.
There is no doubt, too, that he lacked that kind of rare and sweeping prophetic vision which seems to be possessed by a very few -- Herbert Gepp, for instance. Although Massy-Greene was wise to a degree far beyond the ordinary run of people, it is not given to one man to have all the wisdoms. No one knew that better than he. In a letter to my grandfather, not long before his death, Massy-Greene's wrote: "I am reminded of that great unanswered question which was propounded by Pontius Pilate -- 'What is Truth?' To the end of time that note of interrogation will remain. To the omniscient God there may exist that abstract thing which is Truth. To us finite beings, we may seek it, we may find what we earnestly believe to be the Truth and yet we may be pinning our faith to what is false".
Sir Walter Massy-Greene was a good man, a man of the highest standards of integrity, urbanely mature yet simple in his personal tastes, a philosopher in living yet absorbed in practical business and financial affairs, politically aware yet straight as a die, wise, down-to-earth, a rock-like character. Certainly one of Australia's élite, one of her great men, yet a man of whom most Australians know little! He had not the slightest desire for self-advertisement -- the modern phrase, "public image", would have been entirely abhorrent to him. He was essentially the product of a world now gone, in some ways a world of stricter personal standards, where graciousness and courtesy in everyday conduct were highly regarded and where the word "gentleman" had not yet assumed an old-fashioned flavour.
ENDNOTES
1. It was not until he was knighted in 1933 that Sir Waiter incorporated his second Christian name in his surname. He did this in order to avoid confusion, as many people were accustomed to calling him "Massy". Indeed he was often referred to in the press and elsewhere as "Massy Greene" (without the hyphen).
2. Now Sir John Latham and former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.
3. Now Chairman of Directors of Associated Pulp and Paper Mills.
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