Stanley Bruce

"'State finances are curtailed and there is an immediate repercussion throughout the Commonwealth. When a problem confronts a State it must be solved by the cooperation of the Commonwealth and the States for our mutual benefit, and advancement of the whole of Australia. All of us must prosper, or none of us can.' - Stanley Bruce, Viscount of Melbourne"Stanley Melbourne Bruce, Viscount of Melbourne CH FRS MC PC (15, April, 1883 - 25, August, 1967) was a Scottish businessman, diplomat, humanitarian, lawyer, politician, soldier, statesman and veteran of the First World War. During his career Bruce served as a Member of Parliament, tenth Treasurer of the Dominion of Australia, eighth Prime Minister of the Dominion of Australia, eleventh Minister of Foreign Affairs, twelfth Minister of Health, seventeenth Minister of Trade, fifth High Commissioner of the Dominion of Australia to the United Kingdom of Great Britain, President of the League of Nations Council and Chairman of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Bruce's administration abolished the Federal Court of Industrial Arbitration, divesting powers of state-industrial relations from the federal government, coordinated a programme of colonial settlement in the Northern Australia Territory, entered a trade reciprocity agreement with the United Kingdom and the Dominions of Canada and New Zealand, established the Royal Australian Police and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, mandated license acquisition for dockyard workers, secured £424 million in loans from the United Kingdom of Great Britain for economic stimulation and infrastructure development and preserved the Dominion's economic sovereignty and ethnic homogeneity.

Bruce personally co-founded the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, served as Chairman of the Montreux Convention of 1936, lead the Australian delegation at the Imperial Conferences of 1923, 1926 and 1932, represented Australia at the League of Nations Convention of 1921, and signed the Imperial Preference Treaty of 1932, instituting a system of preferential trade between the Dominions of the Empire, and the Montreux Treaty of 1936, securing international access to the Bosporus Straits for maritime trade and travel in Asia Minor.