Artful Artie for Honest Bob

This week a natural-born politician tackles one of the toughest political jobs in the British Empire--the Prime Ministry of Australia. He is 46-year-old Arthur William ("Artie the Artful") Fadden, two years ago a modest backbencher in the Canberra Parliament, last year Australia's Treasurer, this spring Acting Prime Minister. Last week when, to no one's surprise, big, glib Robert Gordon ("Honest Bob") Menzies bowed himself out of the Prime Ministry, Artie the Artful bowed right in.

Thankless indeed is the job that Fadden inherited. Menzies, who came to power in 1939 as head of the United Australia Party, was forced early in 1940 to form a coalition with the United Country Party to save his Government. Last autumn the coalition's slight majority was cut almost to nothing. Emerging from a set of by-elections in September, the Labor parties, headed by Menzies' personal friend and political enemy, mild, gold-spectacled John Curtin, held as many seats in Parliament as the coalition.

When Menzies asked Friend Curtin to help him form a national Government for the war's duration, Curtin refused, said that Labor's duty was to form a critical opposition. But many observers believed that Curtin had another, more urgent reason to decline. Powerful as the Labor forces were, they were split, and Curtin did not want the embarrassment of governmental responsibility.

But as far as criticism goes, the Labor opposition had been as good as Curtin's word. Chief target recently was Menzies' action in permitting Australian troops to be sent into the disastrous Greek and Cretan campaigns without consulting his own all-party Advisory War Council (TIME, May 5). To many Australians, and particularly to the somewhat isolation-minded Laborites, Menzies has been fighting Britain's war, not Australia's, has skimped Australia's defenses against the growing Japanese threat while Australian men and supplies were poured into the Near and Middle East.

Visiting London this spring, Bob Menzies found himself the most popular of Empire statesmen. Though in Australia he is regarded as a brilliant representative of Big Business, the British found him the perfect type of forthright, homespun Colonial. He became a favorite of Winston Churchill, was talked up in the press as War Cabinet timber.

When Menzies returned to the opening session of the Australian Parliament in May he raised not a ripple of applause, went to his seat under the silent stares of the House. As Japan moved into Indo-China, the Cabinet decided that it was imperative that some member of the Cabinet serve as a liaison man with London, declared that Menzies was the obvious man for the job. He thought so too. Firmly John Curtin replied for the opposition that in time of crisis the Prime Minister was urgently needed at home.

When the old question of a national Government arose again, Curtin suggested that the thing for his friend Menzies to do was to resign. Last week, against the advice of his Cabinet, Menzies did just that. There were no other Cabinet shifts. Menzies kept his post as Minister of Defense Coordination, Treasurer Fadden became Prime Minister.

For Prime Minister Fadden his new job is perfect evidence of his prime political ability to be at the right place at the right time. Last September, after only four years in Parliament, he was the handiest man around when the Country Party leadership split. Put in as Party Leader as a compromise, he did such a good job politically and as Australia's Treasurer that he is now solidly in command of the Party.

By report, he was made Acting Prime Minister in much the same way. Menzies wanted the job held by someone who was able but not overly ambitious to take over permanently. But with Menzies away, Australian political leaders found that the machinery of government seemed to run smoother. Unlike Menzies, Fadden never attempted to dazzle an audience, relied instead on his ability to work out favorable compromises. By the time the Prime Minister returned from Britain, Fadden had earned a useful reputation for getting things done.

A political ace in the hole is the fact that Fadden can with some exactness call himself a self-made man, which is particularly useful with the Australian electorate. He started as a messenger boy in a sugar mill in Queensland, had only a common school education. Later he taught himself accountancy, made a comfortable living at that. Now he lives unostentatiously near Brisbane, with his wife and four children, makes a point of the simplicity of his home life, his family games of Chinese checkers.

Facing Artful Artie as Prime Minister are problems that would grey the hair of many a more experienced politician. Biggest difficulty is that he must, at least for the moment, carry on with Menzies' old Cabinet. Best guess seems to be that he will make no Cabinet changes until he is over his first big legislative hurdle, the passage (due this month) of the big budget which he drew up as Treasurer. But once over this Artie Fadden should be fairly in the saddle.

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