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George Forbes (New Zealand politician)
Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1930 to 1935 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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George William Forbes PC (/fɔːrbz/; 12 March 1869 – 17 May 1947) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of New Zealand from 28 May 1930 to 6 December 1935. He was the last leader of the remnant of the Liberal Party and having entered the House of Representatives in 1908 as a Radical in that Party, he went on to become a founder of the New Zealand National Party in 1936.
Forbes was born in Lyttelton near Christchurch and he later began farming at Cheviot, North Canterbury. He became active in local politics. Forbes was first elected as a Liberal Party member of parliament in 1908 for the North Canterbury electorate of Hurunui. From the mid-1920s the Liberal Party changed its name twice and Forbes was elected leader in 1925, shortly after it had adopted the name National Party. He was the leader in 1927 when the Party changed its name to the United Party,[2] he was again elected leader in May 1930, and he initially led the newly created National Party in 1936.[3] His rise to power as Prime Minister was unexpected and some believed him unsuited to the post; it was his misfortune to hold office during the very worst period of the Great Depression. He nevertheless remained in power for over five years. Forbes headed the United–Reform coalition Government that eventually became the modern National Party.
Often referred to as "Honest George",[4] Forbes had a reputation for probity, considerable debating skill, a good memory, and that most essential of skills in a party leader, an ability to assess the mood of the House.[5] A man of equable disposition, his courteous and friendly attitude earned him the liking and respect of parliamentarians from all sides of the House.[6] Throughout his time in national politics his Hurunui constituents held Forbes in high regard: during his tenure as Prime Minister he would roll up his sleeves and help load sheep on the railway wagons for market.[7]
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Early life
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Forbes was born in 1869 in Lyttelton, just outside the city of Christchurch. His father was Robert Forbes, a prosperous ships' chandler and merchant, and his mother was Annie Adamson.[1] He gained his education at Lyttelton Borough School and at Christchurch Boys' High School in Christchurch.[1] Forbes did not attend university. After finishing school he was apprenticed at the Christchurch merchant's business, Gardner and Pickering, and then worked in his father's business at Lyttelton.[1] He was known for his ability at sport, particularly in athletics,[8] as a rower with the Union Rowing Club,[9] and in rugby, as a young player with the Gloucester Street Football Club[10] and later the East Christchurch Football Club, where he captained the team when it won the Christchurch rugby championship.[11][12] Forbes became well known in Canterbury and the other provinces as captain of the acclaimed Canterbury representative rugby team in 1892.[13][14][15] He continued to play some rugby after later moving to Cheviot.[16]
New Zealand was experiencing the Long Depression of the late 1870s to the early 1890s as Forbes became a young man.[17] Difficulties in taking up new farming land in Canterbury had become a serious issue by 1885[18][19] and Forbes’ interest in politics was first stoked aged 16, after hearing Sir George Grey speak in Christchurch.[20] It was furthered considerably by George Laurenson, originally the bookkeeper and later a business partner with his father, after which he was an influential Liberal member of parliament.[1] Forbes was a founding member of the U.R.C. Debating Society, that would meet fortnightly in Christchurch[21][22] and he was versed in British political history despite not attending university.[23] After his death in 1947, it was noted by Sidney Holland in parliament that the Parliamentary Librarian of the era, Dr. Scholefield, had informed Holland that Forbes was "one of the most widely read men". Walter Nash was also recorded at the same time paying tribute to the fact that Forbes was a great reader, telling the House that Forbes had read more biographies and knew more about the political history of New Zealand and Britain than most.[24]
The work by John McKenzie, Minister of Lands, and the acquisition by John Ballance’s first Liberal government of the Cheviot Hills estate in 1892–93 is considered a major episode in the land settlement history of New Zealand.[25] The social and economic benefits of closer rural settlement[26] through the leasehold land model, in which Forbes as a farmer settler became a part, was a defining feature of his political convictions.
In 1893, at the age of 24, he drove his spring-cart from Christchurch to Cheviot, North Canterbury, after gaining two adjoining leasehold farming blocks in the Cheviot Hills estate land ballot and he went on to establish himself as a successful farmer on this land that he named Crystal Brook. Initially he lived in a tent on his new land until the first homestead was built.[27]
Forbes quickly became active in local politics and affairs in North Canterbury,[28] particularly as a founding member of the Cheviot County Council, president of the Cheviot Settlers' Association,[29][30] a founding member of the McKenzie Domain Board,[1][31] President of the McKenzie Football Club,[32] and a director of the Cheviot Co-operative Diary Company.[33] Forbes was also for several years a leading voice for the continuation of the railway from Christchurch to Cheviot.[34][35] He was appointed by Richard Seddon as a Commission member[36] on the 1905 Royal Commission on Crown Lands and with others on the Commission travelled extensively around the country.[37] Forbes led the minority Commissioners' view (6 to 5) in the published Royal Commission report in favour of the retention of leasehold land tenure as the better way to take up widespread rural land settlement.[38]
Notably, Cheviot Hills has had four Prime Minister farmers associated with this North Canterbury land, Sir Frederick Weld at Stonyhurst, Rt. Hon. Alfred Domett at Mendip Hills, Forbes at Crystal Brook and Sir Sidney Holland at Greta Paddock.
In 1898, Forbes married Emma Serena Gee, daughter of Thomas Gee, another Cheviot settlor, known to Forbes from his Christchurch days. Forbes’ father-in-law Thomas also played a prominent part in early local body politics in the region.[39] George and Emma Forbes had three children.
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Entry to parliament
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At the 1902 election, Forbes made his first attempt to enter national politics, standing for the Hurunui electorate.[40] He stood as an independent, having failed to gain the Liberal Party nomination.Richard Seddon had written to George Laurenson in May 1902 regretting the inability to give Forbes a chance in the 1902 election and later he sent a telegram to a supporter of the Liberal candidate and MP Andrew Rutherford stating that, both Rutherford and Forbes were acceptable, but Rutherford had a better chance of winning the seat. “Mr Forbes is an able man and a good Liberal, and his time will come later on” said Seddon.[41] Forbes campaigned on a vigorous land for settlement policy, but did not win the seat in the 1902 election.[42] At the 1908 election, however, he became the Liberal Party's official Hurunui candidate, and won the seat of Hurunui.[43] He would hold this seat continuously for thirty-five years.[1]
Although in his latter years as Prime Minister he was considered conservative and orthodox in financial policy, Forbes took a radical approach as a new member of parliament from his first moments in the House in 1909. As a champion of leasehold land settlement, he spoke first in June 1909 about the need to break-down the rural land monopolies and settle people on vacant lands to advance the cause of humanity.[44] In October 1909 he spoke again at length to defend the continuation of leasehold land policies and land settlement in the face of increasing favour for freehold policies, including in his own Liberal Party. Forbes also formed an immediate and friendly association with Āpirana Ngata and he spoke strongly in favour of the need for Maori to be untied from legislation, to be treated fairly and justly in the settlement of their lands. Forbes addressed the House in October 1909 telling members, "I say that the Maoris are citizens of this country just as much as the white men are, and when we effect Maori settlement credit should be given for it in the same way as it would be given for white settlement, and not treated as if it was nothing. I say that the settlement of the Maori race on the land is quite as necessary as the settlement of Europeans."[45] In his 17 November 1909 address to the House, Forbes then broke with some in his Party, including his leader Sir Joseph Ward, to express his disappointment at the land proposals contained in the Budget and he expressed concern that enthusiasm for the Liberal Party would be killed by the surrender of its centrepiece leasehold policy of the past.[46]
The Liberal Party had always been a coalition of factions and prided itself on so being.[47] Forbes belonged to the Radical section of the Liberals and was considered one of the Canterbury 'progressives' along with Ell, Laurenson, Russell, Davey and Witty.[48] He became the Liberal Party's Whip after four years in the House of Representatives, when party leader Thomas Mackenzie became Prime Minister in March 1912 and the Radical element of the Party gained a foothold in Cabinet. Forbes retained his position of Whip when his party went into opposition on 10 July 1912. However, he had considerably higher status within the Liberal Party than his official responsibilities indicated, although few thought of him as a potential leader.
After the defeat of the Liberals in 1912, Mackenzie resigned as leader to become High Commissioner in London and once again Ward assumed this position. WW1 resulted in a national government of Reform and Liberal. In the 1919 election, Liberal was defeated once more and Ward lost his own seat. William MacDonald was elected leader, but he died within the year, and Thomas Wilford was elected in his place. In 1920 Forbes became the deputy to Liberal leader Wilford, and did most of the work running the party administratively.[49]
By the mid-1920s, the Liberal Party faced a decision as to its political future, having become squeezed from the left by the relatively recently formed Labour Party and from the right by the Reform Party.[50] The Reform Party government of William Massey dominated the New Zealand political scene from 1912, having secured a number of former Liberal members and the conservative vote. Many members of the Liberal Party, including Forbes, came to appreciate that a merger with the Reform Party was inevitable, seeing such co-operation as necessary to counteract the socialist and then somewhat militant Labour Party. When Massey died in 1925, the Liberal leader Wilford used the opportunity to approach Massey's successor with a merger-proposal, suggesting that the new party could use the name "The National Party". The Liberal Party chose Forbes to represent them at the 1925 merger conference with Reform. However, the new Reform Party leader, Gordon Coates preferred that the Liberals simply join Reform, and he rejected the Liberal proposal to instead form an entirely new party. Wilford declared that the Liberals would take the name "The National Party" regardless.[51][52]
In a strong display in the House on 29 July 1925, Forbes challenged Coates and told the House that Coates had misled the public about the reasons for the merger failing. Forbes indicated that the Liberals had been prepared to give Coates sole charge of forming a new ministry with a new Party, and he said, "We trusted the Prime Minister in a way that, speaking for myself, I have never before trusted any member of the Reform party, and I did not expect to be let down in the way I was."[53] The missed opportunity for Coates to rearrange his ministry in 1925 and end the three-Party system has subsequently been seen by commentators as a serious tactical blunder that had consequences for the decade ahead.[54]
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Party leader, 1928 election and minister
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In August 1925, a month after the merger discussions with Reform had ended, Wilford resigned as leader. Forbes was then elected Leader of The National Party.[55][14]
After several North Island public meetings in September,[56][57] on 1 October 1925, Forbes issued the National Party’s election manifesto, including, as he had first done in 1902, making the appeal for a State Bank, free from political control.[58][59] Less than three months later, in the November 1925 election that took place, the Party did very badly, gaining only eleven seats compared with Reform's fifty-five. To compound the injury, Forbes no longer even held the post of Leader of the Opposition – the Labour Party had won twelve seats, enabling its leader Harry Holland to claim seniority in Opposition, although with two independents sitting in opposition as well the position of Leader of the Opposition remained vacant until Labour won the 1926 Eden by-election.[60]
The National Party's poor fortune did not last long. After an initial public signal of support from Forbes in August 1927,[61] in November 1927 Forbes secured an alliance with Albert Davy, the well-known former Reform Party organiser who, along with a growing number of people, had become dissatisfied with Reform's paternalism and intrusive state governance.[62][63] The National Party under Forbes now aligned with Davy's newly formed "United New Zealand Political Organisation" operating outside of parliament and the parliamentary party later adopted the name United Party.[64] The 1927 decision by Forbes to formally join his Party with the United New Zealand Political Organisation was to prove pivotal in arresting the long decline for the Liberals. After the 1928 election, Albert Davy credited Forbes with the existence of the United Party.[65] Forbes toured the country with Davy during 1928, giving speeches advocating less bureaucracy and state interference in society.[66] He continued as leader of the new United Party [67] until the Party's conference of September 1928,[68] when Forbes, Veitch and Ransom all vied as candidates for the parliamentary leadership, but the position eventually went to the elderly former Liberal Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Ward.[69] Forbes became one of two deputy leaders, having particular responsibility for the South Island.[70][71]
In the months leading up to the 1928 election the Liberals, now in their United colours, outlined their belief that Reform policy amounted to overt state interventionism and they expressed their faith in individualism, with the state’s job being to protect and not to compete with individuals. Under the United banner, bolstered by Reform Party dissidents, the remnants of the old Liberal Party once again gained traction. At the 1928 election, United unexpectedly won as many seats as Reform, and formed a government with backing from the Labour Party. The arrangement between United and Labour did not mean the sharing of philosophy, it was purely expedient for both Parties to keep Reform out. The uneasy alliance was to last two years.
The 1928 election saw Forbes secure his largest majority in his Hurunui electorate in many years.[72] Forbes became a Minister, with the portfolios of Lands; Agriculture; Lands for Settlements; Scenery Preservation; Discharged Soldiers’ Settlement; and Valuation.[1][73] Under previous administrations the weighty portfolios of Lands and Agriculture had been allocated to separate Ministers and Forbes became the first Minister to take on both.[74] Forbes also became deputy to Ward as Prime Minister.
Forbes had been a constant advocate all his political career for the closer settlement of rural land to increase the country's agricultural production and exports. By late 1928 there was already an increasing need to address unemployment caused in the months preceding the onset of the Great Depression worldwide. New farms were seen by Forbes as sources of new employment. Upon gaining the portfolio of Minister of Lands in December 1928, a one million pound land development fund was soon announced, he set about touring new areas for settlement[75] and drafting new legislation that eventually took the form of the Land Laws Amendment Act 1929 [76] to promote this settlement of undeveloped lands.[77][78]
Ward had been in poor health for most of the 1920s, and continued to decline throughout his second tenure as Prime Minister. By the spring of 1929, Ward could no longer carry out his duties, leaving Forbes as acting Prime Minister in all but name.[79][80] In May 1930 Ward finally resigned, but remained a member of the Executive Council. He died two months later.[81]
Forbes succeeded Ward as United Party leader and Prime Minister,[82][83] he also served as his own Minister of Finance leading financial policy.[84]
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Prime minister
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As Prime Minister, Forbes occupies a unique place in New Zealand political history as the only person to have served as Prime Minister when leader of the minority coalition party in government. His coalition government of 1931 to 1935 was New Zealand's first peacetime coalition government. Forbes also became New Zealand’s first Canterbury-born Prime Minister.[85][86]
Taking on the premiership, Forbes also served at the same time as Minister of Finance, Minister of External Affairs, Minister of Customs, Minister in charge of Scientific and Industrial Affairs, and Minister in charge of High Commissioners Department.[87]
Shortly after becoming Prime Minister, Lord Bledisloe, the Governor-General from 1930 until 1935, described Forbes to the King's then Private Secretary, Lord Stamfordham, as "universally respected by the N.Z. public and by politicians of all shades of opinion. He is a man of always polite speech and agreeable manner and without doubt the most popular member of the House of Representatives."[88]
Upon taking up the Finance portfolio in May 1930, Forbes immediately issued a blunt public statement concerning the receding state of the economy.[89] Commentators throughout the country, including newspapers aligned with the Opposition Reform Party quickly commended his courageous plain-speaking and plan to spend less.[90][91][92][93] Business leaders also congratulated Forbes on his deflationary plans and considered him, “at all events, a safe and practical man of equable temperament, sane and sincere.”[94]
In mid-1930 Forbes oversaw the decision that his government would proceed to construct the country's National War Memorial, with a campanile and carillon, to stand alongside a proposed new National Art Gallery and National Museum at Mount Cook, Wellington.[95] The construction of a national war memorial had been considered long-deferred by past governments and it was a brave decision to begin construction, together with plans for a national art gallery and museum, at a time of harsh economic recession.[96] Forbes was chairman of the Board of Trustees that decided upon the design for the structures [97] and later he laid the campanile's foundation stone on 16 May 1931.[98][99]
Later in the year Forbes represented New Zealand in London at the 1930 Imperial Conference and, along with fellow Dominion Prime Ministers, dealt with legislative and economic matters affecting Britain and its Dominion countries.[100][101] Forbes led a strong team[102] and reports of his performance in Britain were positive.[103] Stamfordham wrote to Bledisloe shortly after, telling him, "I should say that among all the Dominion Prime Ministers of the 1930 Imperial Conference, Forbes will be remembered with feelings of appreciation and respect."[104] Carl Berendsen, who had joined the Prime Minister's Department in 1926 as Imperial Affairs Officer and who later became head of that Department and an Ambassador, accompanied Forbes to the London conference and in Berendsen's view, "He never pretended to be anything but transparently honest and sincere and he got through the conference with credit. In the countryside and the provincial cities as well as the capital he was well liked."[105][106] On his final day in London in December 1930, Forbes called on Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, met with the Deputy-Governor of the Bank of England [107] and then left to visit WWI battlefields in France and Belgium[108] with Major General Sir Fabian Ware, noted founder of the Imperial War Graves Commission, laying wreaths at memorials for fallen New Zealand soldiers.[109][110]
Before departing London for New Zealand, on 18 November 1930 Forbes had made a record-distance first telephone call between the United Kingdom and New Zealand, and then made the second call to his children at Cheviot.[111][112] This call followed shortly after another pioneering communication, with Forbes participating a few months earlier in the first New Zealand produced film featuring people talking on screen.[113]
The Forbes government began to show signs of instability when the Labour Party indicated their impending withdrawal of confidence for United while Forbes was travelling home from the 1930 Imperial Conference.[114][115] Labour expressed dissatisfaction with a number of the government's intended economic measures. Forbes intended them to reduce the government deficit and to stimulate the economy, but Labour claimed that they unnecessarily harmed the interests of poorer citizens.
Within days of arriving home from the 1930 Imperial Conference, Forbes publicly stated, “As long as I am Prime Minister of this Dominion, no payment will be made unless work is given for it.”[116][117] Forbes became the last New Zealand Prime Minister to make a statement to this effect regarding unemployment payments. In Britain he had witnessed first-hand what he considered the dire effect of the “dole”. While the growing loss of jobs was a serious concern in New Zealand by 1931, despite the appearance of Forbes’ statement to those writing about the period and man in later years, he was not opposed at the time by the Labour or Reform parties, neither of whom supported “dole” payments to the unemployed without work.[118][119]
In early 1931 Forbes and the Chairman of the United Party, Robert Masters, wanted a fusion of the United and Reform Parties,[120] although it was to take several more months to bring Coates, his old mentor Sir Francis Bell and others in Reform into a hard-won coalition government. In March 1931, Labour made their stand, abandoning the confidence vote they had provided the United government since 1928.[121]
Despite a world climate of worsening economic conditions, confidence in Forbes continued in 1931.[122] His long-time friend and cabinet colleague, Sir Apirana Ngata noted that, "Since he returned from London we have all remarked [on] his confident handling of affairs and homeliness of his manner of stating problems. I suppose the great ones of the Earth have been and are men of a few simple great ideas, whose minds can wrap these round any accumulation of detail."[123] Many now saw Forbes as a strong leader, mid-way between socialist and conservative extremes and prepared to put national interest first.[124][125] For the months that followed, Forbes had perforce to continue with reluctant support from the Reform Party, which now feared Labour's growing popularity.[126][127]
Compounding the severe global and domestic economic decline taking hold, on 3 February 1931 the devasting Hawke's Bay earthquake struck, shattering the cities of Napier and Hastings, the surrounding towns and countryside.[128] The earthquake was to be the country's worst natural disaster. Forbes was immediately required to lead the government's earthquake relief planning and the special legislative programme that followed.[129][130] Parliament's next session was to start in June 1931, but in response to both the worsening economic conditions and the earthquake, Forbes announced that parliament was re-opening early, with an emergency session that commenced on 11 March 1931.[131][132] The public regard for Forbes in 1931 was illustrated by a February editorial in the Daily Telegraph of Napier, whose plant and building had been destroyed days earlier by the earthquake, but who placed focus on his sense of duty and courageous economic stance.[133]
In March 1931 Forbes took control of the business of the House of Representatives with a mechanism that past Premiers such as Seddon had been unable to obtain. The 1931 Finance Bill had endured debate of nearly 100 hours, 70 divisions, and 10 days, and, in order to pass this and other legislation in timely way, Forbes and his cabinet crafted parliament’s first “closure” mechanism under its standing orders. The new mechanism was to be used again several times by the Forbes government and later by the Labour government.[134]
Later in 1931, Forbes was described by his soon-to-be Finance Minister William Downie Stewart Jr as "apathetic and fatalistic", reacted to events but showed little vision or purpose. At the same time, Stewart acknowledged that Forbes had to do "a rotten job".[1] While Stewart was a senior member of the Reform Party, by 1931 he was an advocate of fusion between United and Reform and, despite his comments about Forbes, the two men were close. Opponents criticised Forbes for relying too much on the advice of his friends and in particular Robert Masters. However, the Great Depression proved a difficult time for many governments around the world, and his defenders claim that he did the best job possible in the circumstances of the economic crisis.
In April 1931, Forbes had called for a "grand coalition" of United, Reform, and Labour to resolve the country's economic problems.[135][136][137] Forbes told a joint conference that he would not implement the measures he deemed necessary without broad backing. Labour refused to join this coalition,[138] but ex-Prime Minister Coates (prompted by the Reform Party's finance spokesperson, William Downie Stewart Jr) eventually agreed.[139] Forbes announced to the House and the country on 18 September 1931 that New Zealand's first peacetime coalition government had been agreed between United and Reform. On 22 September 1931 Forbes then announced the new coalition's Ministers and their portfolios, with Forbes retaining the position of Prime Minister and also taking on the portfolios of Railways, External Affairs, Scientific and Industrial Research, Public Trust, Electoral, and High Commissioner's Departments.[140] Where Coates had failed in 1925 to take the opportunity to end the old three-Party system, Forbes had now taken the first step in what was the beginning of the end for United and Reform as rivals.
In the 1931 election, the United-Reform Coalition did well, winning a combined total of fifty-one seats.[141] Despite Forbes’ United Party having 19 seats and Coates’ Reform Party having 28 seats, Forbes remained the Prime Minister in the coalition government after the 1931 election. In the election Forbes had performed well and in his own seat of Hurunui he secured the second-largest majority in the country.[142]
By 1932 Forbes was the second-longest serving member of the House of Representatives after Sir Āpirana Ngata.[143] Early that year, Lord and Lady Bledisloe were on holiday in Paihia when, with the assistance of Vernon Reed, they explored a Waitangi farm property on the market, including the dilapidated Waitangi Treaty House. In secrecy the day after their tour, they commenced arrangements to acquire the property personally, with the intention of gifting it to the nation. In the three months that followed, Bledisloe and Forbes made confidential arrangements for ownership to vest not in the Crown but in a newly created Waitangi National Trust Board.[144] The gift to the nation of 1000 acres and the Treaty House was announced by exchange of public letters between Bledisloe and Forbes on 10 May 1932, with each man serving as a trustee on the first Board, along with representatives of the families of some Treaty signatories and others. Later in the same year, Bledisloe made a further gift of an adjoining 1,350 acres, with the intention of providing a revenue stream for the Trust Board.[145]
In conjunction with the Finance Bill of May 1932, Forbes demonstrated his recent election advantage, making the case in the House for a new four-year parliamentary term, including as a permanent change from parliament's traditional three-year terms.[146] The term of the then parliament was extended by a year in the Finance Act 1932 (section 35).[147] In 1934, Forbes again made the case in the House for permanent four-year parliamentary terms,[148][149] which then became constituted under the Electoral Amendment Act 1934.[150] The first Labour government was elected in late 1935 with Forbes’ four-year parliamentary term, but it repealed the 1934 legislation and returned to permanent three-year terms from 1937.[151]
Forbes took little interest in his ministers' work and had a very hands-off approach to leadership. He was either unable or unwilling to look beyond the economic orthodoxy of austerity. His policies were uninspiring with budget cuts, minimal wage relief work schemes and civil service pay cuts being implemented. During this time of fiscal restraint by his government, a story was leaked that Forbes indulged in the personal luxury of going to the movie theatre twice a week.[152] However, sources of disinformation about Forbes appear to have occasionally arisen from the office of Gordon Coates and, coincidentally, a story about going to the pictures twice a week was first reported in parliament on 27 September 1932, when Labour member Robert Semple questioned Forbes about an interview given by Gordon Coates to the San Francisco Chronicle. It was Coates who had reportedly told the newspaper that New Zealand city-bred folk were heading to the countryside, where they were provided with houses and taken to the pictures twice a week.[153]
Forbes had surrendered the finance role to Stewart in 1931. Slowly, however, many people came to believe that Coates held significantly more influence, and that Forbes showed himself over-willing to give in to Coates' demands. Change in the Forbes government came in early 1933 after a cabinet decision to devalue the New Zealand pound. This controversial change had been advocated by Coates and agreed to by cabinet after a series of meetings in January 1933. Coates and Stewart had argued over the decision and, much to his personal disappointment, Forbes lost his friend and Finance Minister, William Downie Stewart Jnr in the process, with Stewart resigning all of his portfolios.[154][1] Forbes passed the finance portfolio to Coates[155] who, on the day of the change, told his economic adviser Dick Campbell that he (Coates) didn’t know anything of public finance, but Campbell was supposed to.[156] Following the resignation of Stewart, Forbes also took on the role of Attorney-General for almost three years,[157] becoming the first person to hold this position as chief Law Officer of the Crown who was not himself a barrister or solicitor.
In correspondence written shortly before the 1935 election, William Downie Stewart Jr complained that, "the Prime Minister is too passive and the Minister of Finance is too active".[1] Both Forbes and Coates increasingly took the blame for the country's ongoing economic problems and could not avoid the growing public dissatisfaction. Coates' acquisition of the finance portfolio, coincided with more imaginative approaches taking place. These included a devaluation of the currency to improve export prices, giving mortgage relief for farmers and the creation of the Reserve Bank. Forbes never conceived any such initiatives of his own and was a passive bystander in decision making.[152] However, despite these and other later perceptions, in 1930, prior to the United coalition with Reform, Forbes had also been Minister of Finance and, in creating the Reserve Bank, it was Forbes who in July 1930 invited Otto Niemeyer of the Bank of England to New Zealand and commissioned him to report on establishing a central bank.[158][159] Later, in December 1932 and prior to Coates becoming Minister of Finance, Forbes introduced the Reserve Bank Bill to the House.[160][161] It was also Forbes who had first introduced the Mortgagor's Relief Bill to parliament in March 1931,[162][163] before the coalition with Reform or the involvement of Coates. Later, he boldly shouldered his government's justification of the significant exchange rate change of 20 January 1933, with Coates not taking up his new finance portfolio until some days later on 28 January 1933.[164][165][166]
Lord Bledisloe became familiar with both Forbes and Coates throughout this difficult period and his view of each man, recorded in his correspondence to the King's Private Secretary from 1931, Clive Wigram, was that Forbes, when not suffering from overwork, was patient and phlegmatic and difficult to provoke, whereas Coates was jumpy and indiscreet.[167] Despite Coates’ increased influence in government, Bledisloe’s view of him as contained in his continuing written reports to the King did not improve. In 1932 Bledisloe wrote that Coates was "thoroughly unstable, insensitive to criticism, imprudently outspoken in public and (I regret to say), disloyal to his colleagues".[168]
Forbes represented New Zealand at the World Economic Conference in London in June 1933. Leaving his finance minister Coates behind, Forbes took with him on his team Robert Masters, the Minister of Industries and Commerce.[169] The route included stops in Ottawa, Los Angeles, New York and Washington D.C., where Forbes met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House.[170][171]
On 22 October 1933 disaster struck for Forbes and his family. Their home near Cheviot, first built by Forbes after his arrival in the area in 1893, was destroyed by fire. Except for an old clock, all the contents, including Forbes' records, were lost.[172]
In mid-1934 talk of United and Reform permanently fusing intensified, with United members once more leading the effort.[173][174] However, Coates again resisted the calls for this new party,[175] despite the emergence of a new rival in the form of the Democrat Party in October 1934.[176] Funded by Auckland businessman William Goodfellow and led outside parliament by political organiser and "coat-changer" Albert Davy,[177] the Democrat Party went on to contest the 1935 general election, taking much needed votes from United and Reform.
In October 1934 Forbes reluctantly accepted the resignation of his friend and colleague Sir Āpirana Ngata as a minister, as a result of a Commission report into Ngata's Native Affairs department. Forbes took on the ministerial portfolios of Native Affairs and Cook Islands himself, and, from April 1935, he was also chairman of the Board of Native Affairs.[178][179]
In May 1935 Forbes and his team were again in London, this time for the King’s silver jubilee celebrations, ministerial discussions, and trade meetings.[180][181] During his trip he joined other Prime Ministers at various state functions, including making an appearance in front of crowds with the Royal Family on the balcony at Buckingham Palace.[182] Before leaving for London, Forbes had issued a public statement about the trip and the state of economic affairs,[183] and Forbes and Coates had also issued a joint statement regarding the continuation of their coalition.[184] With that lead, an amalgamation between the United and Reform parties in the form of the National Political Federation was announced in May 1935.[185]
In the election of 1935 the Labour Party defeated the coalition government, gaining fifty-five votes to the coalition's nineteen.[1] Forbes was noted for his gracious and sporting concession speech delivered to the country over the radio [186] on the night of the 1935 election.[187][188]
Forbes was a Privy Counsellor. He was granted the Honorary Freedom of the City of London[189] and the Honorary Freedom of the City of Edinburgh.[190] He had an honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) conferred on him by the University of Edinburgh[191] and the Queen's University of Belfast.[192] In 1935, Forbes was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal,[193] and in 1937, he was awarded the King George VI Coronation Medal.[194]
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Opposition, National Party, and retirement
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In private correspondence to his friend and former cabinet colleague William Downie Stewart Jr, sent a few days after parliament resumed in March 1936, Forbes wrote that, he had enjoyed the time since the election and also told Stewart that he agreed with his description of office as "slavery that is miscalled power".[195] Despite these personal feelings and the relief he told Stewart he felt after the pressures of Office, Forbes remained the only parliamentary party leader between 1925 and 1936 to have consistently called for the formation of the National Party and a formal party fusion between United and Reform was foremost in mind following the 1935 election.[196] Forbes had led the Liberal Party delegation in fusion discussions with Reform in 1925, he had pushed hard for a coalition government with Reform in 1931[197] and for the fusion of 1935, in the form of the National Political Federation. In February [198] and April 1936, Forbes and others on the Dominion Executive of the National Political Federation agreed to call a conference of members and supporters to form The New Zealand National Party. Of these Dominion executive members, only Coates stood in opposition once more.[199]
In comparing Forbes and Coates in 1936, Clyde Carr, a Labour MP and then Labour Party President, wrote of Forbes, "The mantle of Cincinnatus will, I think, fit him rather better than his colleague, Mr. Coates."[200] On 31 October 1936 Forbes issued a public statement telling the country that, after the defeat of the 1935 election, he had felt it was his duty to disregard his personal inclinations and to carry on as leader of his Party until matters had settled and a wise decision regarding his successor was made.[201] On 4 December 1935, Forbes had been elected Leader of the Parliamentary National Party,[202] he became Leader of the Opposition on 6 December 1935,[203] and from May 1936 led the new National Party (created out of United and Reform) until October 1936,[204][205][206] when Adam Hamilton became the party leader.[201] Forbes was also an initial member of the Dominion Council Executive of The New Zealand National Party. The Parliamentary National Party had formally resolved in late August 1936 to "reaffirm loyalty to Mr. Forbes" and had pledged to "support him as leader of the Party", but both Party and leader had at the same time also agreed on Forbes's tenure as leader of the new National Party until the end of the parliamentary session on 31 October 1936, as Forbes had indicated his desire to withdraw from the limelight and many people, including Forbes himself, saw his past tenure as a political liability for the new Party.[207]
Finding a successor to Forbes as leader of the National Party was to prove a contentious episode in the months following the formation of the new Party in May 1936. Forbes and many in the National Party wanted a person who was untarnished by the years of government previously.[208] In September 1936, Forbes invited the experienced independent member of parliament Charles Wilkinson to join the National Party [209] and Wilkinson contested the leadership election in caucus on 31 October 1936. Gordon Coates and other prominent former Reform members had different ideas about the Party’s next leader. Led by several former Reform Party members now serving on the National Party’s executive outside of parliament, in August 1936 there was an unsuccessful attempt to influence a change in leadership from Forbes to Adam Hamilton, a former Reform member and Postmaster-General in the coalition government.[207][210] However, The New Zealand National Party had been formed with a written constitution that carefully kept the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary sections of the new Party separate, with neither controlling the other.[211] In response to this extra-parliamentary activity in August 1936, the Parliamentary National Party swiftly passed and published a formal resolution, reaffirming Forbes as the leader of the Party, and making clear that selecting the Party’s leader was the exclusive right of those in parliament.[212][208] Following that, in October 1936, a small number in the Parliamentary National Party, led by Coates and including Hamilton, then threatened to break away from the newly formed National Party and restart the Reform Party if Hamilton was not elected leader in succession to Forbes.[213] Adam Hamilton was elected in caucus as leader on 31 October 1936 by a margin one vote. Despite his own preference for Wilkinson, upon the election of Hamilton, Forbes issued a public statement in his usual style, asking members and supporters to rally around Hamilton and give him their loyalty.[214] Days later the National Party’s first President, Sir George Wilson, a former Reform Party executive and a friend of Gordon Coates, abruptly resigned in connection with the controversial election.[215]
Forbes retained his parliamentary seat after 1936, he was on the Opposition front-bench and served periodically as deputy Leader of the Opposition.[216][217][218] In 1940 Sidney Holland replaced Adam Hamilton as Leader of the National Party and Leader of the Opposition. Forbes was seen as Holland's mentor in his early years, with Holland describing Forbes as "a tower of strength".[219]
In 1943 Forbes retired after 35 years as a Member of Parliament. His long number of years in the House of Representatives was a record for Canterbury[220] and, in combination with Sir Joseph Ward's return of 1928,[65] he had succeeded in leading the Liberals from their years of decline into the form of the long-living National Party. He declined the offer of a knighthood and four years after his retirement he died at Crystal Brook,[221] his farm near Cheviot.[1] Shortly after, his family declined the government's offer of a State Funeral in favour of a ceremony for him at Cheviot.[222]
Following his death, the Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, told the House that as a young member, he had "never met any one more kindly or more helpful, or who would give sounder or more friendly advice" than Forbes and, in ending his tribute, Fraser also stated his appreciation of Forbes, "most of all, as a man of sterling character and integrity and as a good friend."[188]
The national memorial to Forbes, the George Forbes Memorial Library,[223] forms part of Lincoln University near Christchurch.[224][225]
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