Stanley Argyle

Argyle in 1927

Argyle was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly for the seat of Toorak in 1920, as an independent Nationalist. He was Chief Secretary and Minister for Health in the ministries of Harry Lawson, John Allan, Alexander Peacock and William McPherson between 1923 and 1928. When McPherson resigned as leader of the Nationalist Party, Argyle was chosen to succeed him, and in 1931 the party was renamed the United Australia Party (UAP). He led the opposition to Ned Hogan's minority Labor Party government, which was unable to cope with the effects of the Great Depression and was heavily defeated at the May 1932 elections.

Argyle formed a coalition government with the Country Party, led by Allan and later by Albert Dunstan. The government had a huge majority – 45 seats to Labor's 16. Ministers included the rising star of the UAP, Robert Menzies, who became Deputy Premier, Attorney-General and Minister for Railways. Argyle, a firm fiscal conservative, held to the orthodox view that in a time of depression government spending must be cut so that the budget remained in balance. This soon brought him into conflict with both the trade unions and the farmers, but at the time there seemed to be no alternative policy. Argyle was lucky in that the economy began to improve from 1932, and the unemployment rate fell from 27 percent in 1932 to 20 percent in 1934 and 14 percent in 1935. That led a reduction in unemployment relief payments and an increase in taxation revenue, easing the state's financial crisis.

Argyle fought the March 1935 election with an improving economy and a record of sound, if unimaginative, management. With the Labor Party opposition still divided and demoralised, he was rewarded with another very comfortable majority for his coalition government. But at that point he was unexpectedly betrayed by his Country Party allies. The Country Party leader, Albert Dunstan, was a close friend of the gambling boss John Wren, who was also very close to the Labor leader Tom Tunnecliffe (in the view of most historians, Tunnecliffe was, in fact, under Wren's control). Wren, aided by the Victorian Labor Party President, Arthur Calwell, persuaded Dunstan to break off the coalition with Argyle and form a minority Country Party government, which Labor would support in return for some policy concessions. Dunstan agreed to this deal, and in April 1935 he moved a successful no confidence vote in the government from which he had just resigned.

The UAP (and later its successor the Liberal Party) never forgave the Country Party for that treachery. Henry Bolte, later Victoria's longest-serving Premier, was 27 in 1935, and Dunstan's betrayal of Argyle lay behind his lifelong and intense dislike of the Country Party, whom he called "political prostitutes". Argyle remained in politics as Leader of the Opposition until his death in 1940.