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During the war Latham became more involved in national politics. He was active in pro-conscription organizations,

through which he became a friend of Bavin. In 1917 he was appointed an Honorary Lieutenant Commander in the Navy (at a salary of his own choosing), assigned to intelligence work at the Navy Office in Melbourne, and in 1918 he was suddenly

ordered to leave for the Imperial War Conference as the adviser to the Minister for the Navy, Sir Joseph Cook. Latham's ex- periences at the Conference and at the 1919 Paris Peace Con- ference were among the highlights of his life. The work he did at both Conferences was of undoubted importance for the

future of Australian defence and foreign relations. He prepared many memoranda for Hughes on the German colonies and the Pacific

Islands, and he was co-author of the scheme for classifying

mandatory territories which was adopted by the Peace Conference. He was also the British Secretary of the Czechoslovakian

Commission. Life in London and Paris was extremely exciting, the days spent at meetings which were changing the course of history, the evenings spent at concerts, plays or in dining and arguing with Haldane, Conan Doyle, Lowes Dickinson, T,E. Lawrence and others, and free week-ends occupied in cycling round the countryside with Garran and Frederic Eggleston. Altogether, Latham was rather overwhelmed by his experiences, by being present at historic occasions and above all by working closely with famous statesmen such as Lloyd George, Balfour, Smuts and Clemenceau.

If Latham suffered from the colonial's inferiority complex in England, he returned to Australia with much greater self-confidence and increased determination to enter politics. He also returned with an intense dislike of Hughes, believing

that his autocratic methods and his lack of diplomatic finesse had dajnaged Australia's interests.^ Latham founded the

Victorian branch of the League of Nations Union and addressed many gatherings on both the League and the Peace Conference. Meanwhile, his legal practice was growing rapidly and he was soon appearing in the High Court and Victorian Supreme Court as frequently as Dixon, Menzies and Sir Edward Mitchell. He was not a jury advocate, but he was involved in a wide range of commercial, tax, patent, estate and arbitration cases and also such famous constitutional cases as the Engineers Case and MacArthur's Case. He was made a King's Counsel in 1922. The previous year he had declined a Supreme Court judgeship

2 on accoujit of his political ambitions.

Ever since 1907 Latham had considered standing for the Federal Parliament, but his election to the seat of

Kooyong at the 1922 elections came as a surprise, as he de- feated the sitting Nationalist member. He stood as a

Progressive Liberal, supported by the Liberal Union. The 1. Latham to E. Latham, 21 Feb. 1919. (A.N.L. MS 1009/21). 2. H. Lawson to Latham, 24 Dec. 1921, Latham to A. Robinson,

platforms of iDoth Latham and the Union were negative:

opposition to the Hughes Government on account of its reck- less extravagance, its expansion of the Public Service, its irregular handling of the War Service Homes schemes and of wireless contracts, its arbitration policy and its socialistic economic ventures. During the campaign Latham said that he disagreed with the principles of the Labour Party, while no Nationalist Party principles had yet been discovered. He readily accepted Page's invitation to attend Country Party meetings and he played an extremely important role in Page's negotiations with Bruce, with Page seeking his advice on almost every small point that arose.^ Thus Latham had a most auspicious beginning to his career as a backbencher. His record in the next three years was an impressive one: he was regarded as an expert on foreign affairs and the Leagu.e of Nations, while his knowledge of law was only

matched by the blind barrister, G.A. Max-well. This expertise was appreciated by the Government in the debates on the

Immigration Bill and the Peace Officers Bill, when Latham's speeches were quoted by several Nationalists and when Labour members acknowledged him as the Government's unofficial

spokesman on the law.^ Outside Parliament, Bruce sought

1. See E. Page, Truant suTgeon. Sydney, 1965. p.92., Graham. OTD.CIT! pp.ldb-YU.

Latham's advice about amending the Arbitration Act and incor- porated in his policy speech many suggestions made by Latham.^ V/ith the deposition of Hughes, Latham's antagonism to the

Nationalist Party melted away, but he did not join the Party until June, 1925, by which time predictions were being ffiade

that a place would soon be found for him in the Cabinet. Latham was the first practising -barrister to be Attorney-General since Sir William Irvine's brief tenure in 1913-14. Like Irvine, he conformed in appearance and manner with the popular image of the lawyer. He was 48, but he looked younger, and the press made many allusions to his youth. He was tall, thin, with a pale complexion, sombre grey eyes and a puritanical mouth. His voice was nasal and

monotonous and his speeches, both in Parliament and at election meetings, were invariably described as low-toned, academic

with no rhetoric but a pitiless logic as he unfolded his case step by step.^ He could occasionally be amusing but, like Bruce, his manner was generally formal and reserved; he detested back-slappers and was reluctant to use Christian names, even with his close friends.

1. Bruce to Latham, 3 Oct. 1925. (A.N.L. MS 1009/26). 2. S.M.H. 10 June, 1925. p.14.

3. See Edwards, op.cit. p.69, Herald, 7 Dec. 1922, Sun. 22 July, 1925, p.9.

In both character and experience Latham was well

fitted to be Attorney-General. Even his opponents acknowledged that he was a man of exceptional integrity, although at times he could be moralizing and self-righteous. Another legacy of his Fjritan background was his love of hard work, which dis- mayed some of his Cabinet colleagues. He liked lon^j Cabinet meetings, was irritated by superficial argument, and believed

that decisions should only be based on the most thorough study of all the possible consequences of the alternative proposals which were before the Government,^ His speeches and Cabinet

submissions were so thoroughly prepared that every question or criticism could be answered without a moment's delay. He alarmed his officers by reading files on very routine matters. The danger with a Minister who relishes work is that he will become lost in detail, fail to delegate work, and find that he is unable to make swift decisions on really important

matters. Yet there is no evidence that this ever happened to I^thsjn. At the Paris Peace Conference he had won the admira-

tion of Sir Maurice Han±ey and even Wilson and Lloyd George by his ability to summarize a complicated argument and to

set out clear proposals for action. He showed the sairie ab^Lli.xy as a Minister, together with a promptness in handling corres- pondence which shamed Garran. Moreover, he found time to read widely on the law (duTing elections he relaxed with

legal periodicals) and on many other subjects which had a bearing on politics. He also continued to practise privately at the Bar, so there could be no questioning of his legal expertise.

In a number of ways Latham was set apart from his Cabinet colleagues. Melbourne University men still referred to him sometimes as "radical Jack".^ In fact, he had never been a political radical, for he had always been a critic of socialism, was fervently anti-communist and believed in the essential worthiness of the British Empire, British political and legal institutions and the private enterprise system. But there was a common tendency to associate radicalism and rationalism, and before the War Latham had been supported by socialists in his attacks on the Churches. In the 1920s the

o

cry of "Atheist" was raised at elections, and conservatives in MelbouTne still felt doubtful about the Member for Kooyong. Moreover, Latham had retained his friendship with academics and vrriters with left-wing sympathies, a fact which worried his more orthodox colleagues. Latham probably had a weaker sense of party than the other Ministers: after all, he had only been a member of the iv'ationalist Party for a few months and he had little to do with the Nationalist organization. 1. A.C.D. Rivett to Latham, 19 Feb. 1922. (A.N.L. MS 1009/1) 2. In fact, at the 1922 elections Latham was branded both as

It was significant that in 1926 Bruce consulted Pearce rather than Latham about Party strategy and the future of the Co-

alition.^

T770 factors had great influence on Latham's relations with other Ministers and also with employers and unionists. One derived from his training in philosophy and logic. Latham was not a particularly creative or imaginative thinker. He had, however, a deep belief in the importance of precise

lang-aage and of following through an argument from clearly

stated first principles to its logical conclusion. His speeches often took the form of extended syllogisms, the premise being perhaps the ultimate p'orpose of government or the theoretical basis of arbitration, and the speech proceeding step by step ujitil finally it reached the details of the bill or proposal. Even when he privately did not agree with the proposal, he

still preferred to justify it by returning to a basic principle and to argue that the proposal was the only logical outcome» At the 1922 elections Latham complained that the Federal Parliament consisted largely of men determined to secure certain things rather than to put into action any definite

principles,^ This was true of almost all his Cabinet colleagues

1. Bruce to Pearce, 9 April, 1926. (A.N.L. MS 215/5).

2. The jo-jrnalist G.E. Morrison, who met Latham at^^the_^1919 Peace Conference, dismissed him as a "banal man". .See C. Pearl. Morrison of Peking. Sydney, 1967. p.581, 5. A ^ . 5 Dec. 1922, p.lO.

and also of employers and unions. The result was that Latham frequently became exasperated when men blithely ignored first principles or stubbornly refused to follow through their argu- ments to their logical conclusion. His relations with union

leaders were further aggravated by their inarticulateness and by their outright refusal to discuss certain matters, such as their opposition to piecework. Latham generally practised what he preached and did not hesitate to make radical proposals on the grounds of logic, or to accept suggestions from his opponents if they appeared to be reasonable. Related to this concern

for logic and exactitude was Latham's irritation with colleagues who persisted with laws that were not fulfilling their purpose or who cheerfully accepted inconsistencies in the administra- tion of the law. Altogether, Latham was an outstanding example of the rationalist in politics, the man who, in Oakeshott's

words, seeks after "the politics of perfection and uniformity."^

The other factor was that Latham had grown accustomed to achieving power and leadership in a number of fields through his own ability (and luck), without the help of family con-

nections, wealth, business firms or political parties. Self- assured and aloof, he was not conscious of the need for a power base and he did not regard himself as the representative of any class or interest group. He belonged to neither the working class nor to the world of industry and commerce, but

1. M. Oakeshott. Rationalism in politics and other essays. London, 1962. p.5.

to the intellectual elite, and he shared the intolerance of that elite for the mass of his fellow citizens. A few other Ministers had been to University, but their interests were mainly those of businessmen, doctors and farmers. Latham alone had been associated with a university for over 25 years and he alone mixed almost entirely with academics and pro- fessional men. Much of his leisure was occupied with the Melbourne University Council, with meetings of the Round

Table group and the mysterious Boobook Society,^ and with fishing holidays at Khancoban in the Snowy Mountains. The men he met and argued with on these occasions were always the

same: academics such as Harrison Moore, Ernest Scott, H.W. Allen, Walter Murdoch and David Rivett, professional men like E.L. Piesse, R.H. Gregory or H.S. Nicholas, and very occasion- ally a politician or public servant, such as Bavin, Eggleston or Garran. By the 1920s Latham was a wealthy man. In the Courts he had often appeared for large companies and as a

result knew something of their problems and difficulties. He

1. The Boobooks were a group of about thirty men, almost all of whom were graduates of Melbourne University, who dined together once a month. At the first meeting in 1902

O'Dowd read a paper entitled "Democracy and the Poet" and at subsequent meetings the subjects discussed ranged from eugenics to German reparations, from wheat to Japanese- Australian relations. Latham was a member of the Society from its inception until his death, and at one time was Archboobook.

had, however, only the slightest acquaintance with Melbourne's