Turning the Page of Labor appeasement

However much he may be judged to have later redeemed himself as a wartime leader - and I think very substantially he did - Curtin's leadership of his party in the crises that preceded it was characteristic of the Left's approach to international politics.

Labor's policy in response to the Italian invasion was that it would not support sanctions and "the control of Abyssinia by any country is not worth the loss of a single Australian life".

Defending that policy, he began the long Labor tradition of wringing his hands over a Little Australia incapable of playing anything more than a minor role internationally: “Australia is but a minor power; it is a small nation, remote from the great centres of international civilization … we must have regard to our position, to our circumstances, to the place we hold in the geography of the world and to what we are capable of doing towards the maintenance of the peace of the world … Australia should not resort to warlike acts against any other nation.”

Even as late as the Munich crisis of September 1938, Curtin persisted with a policy of isolationism and failed to acknowledge the threat posed by Nazism. "The wars of Europe are a quagmire, in which we should not allow our resources, our strength, our vitality, to be sunk … Our first duty is to Australia. Our position is such that the total of our resources must be available for our own defence.

“This means, clearly and unequivocally, that whatever else we may do as a dominion of the British Commonwealth of Nations, no men must be sent out of Australia to participate in another war overseas."

According to Curtin, even Hitler's escalating demands for Czechoslovak territory: "do not justify resort to force in Europe; nor do they warrant war in Europe". Curtin used three lines of argument to justify it, which again have a strange resonance with Labor's current rhetoric.

First he said that "the Labor party in Australia is opposed in principle and in practice to Australians being recruited as soldiers in the battle fields of Europe". Next he redefined the notion of Commonwealth solidarity. "We believe that the best service which Australia can render to the British Empire is to attend to its own business, to make certain that we manage Australia effectively, so that we shall have the necessary population and be able to rely upon ourselves in the event of an emergency."

Finally he reverted to what I've called the Little Australia policy. He said: "I put it to Australia that we are not big enough to act as a police force in Europe keeping order there".

These old arguments have never really gone away, and linger in current debate.

Earle Page saw with great clarity, 90 years ago, that tyrannical regimes can threaten the peace and freedom not just of their immediate neighbours but the whole world. For politicians of his generation, the challenge of leadership was above all the task of patient explanation of why it was necessary that our troops should be engaged, yet again, in battles for liberty and democracy half a world away.

Australian conservatives have long shared a broad understanding of the world's interconnectedness. They are pragmatic men and women. Not for them the isolationist fantasy that distance offered any lasting protection from tyranny.

Some of our political opponents are inclined to sneer at what seems to them too neat a fit between pragmatism and principle, between self-interest and duty.