Coates, Joseph Gordon (1878-1943), was a politician who served as prime minister of New Zealand from 1925 to 1928. During Coates’s time in office, New Zealand was a dominion (self-governing territory) within the British Empire. Coates also served in Parliament for more than 30 years and held a number of Cabinet posts before and after his time as prime minister.
Early life and family.
Joseph Gordon Coates was born on Feb. 3, 1878, in the Kaipara Harbour region of New Zealand’s North Island. He was known throughout his life as Gordon. His father, Edward, was a British-born farmer and justice of the peace who had arrived in New Zealand in 1866. His mother, Eleanor, was born in Ireland and came to New Zealand in 1859. Gordon was the oldest of the couple’s seven children.
Gordon Coates worked on his father’s farm in his teen years. In 1905, he was elected to the Otamatea County Council. He led the council from 1913 to 1916. On Aug. 4, 1914, Coates married Marjorie Grace Coles (1891-1973), a young woman who had grown up in England. From 1915 to 1924, the couple had five daughters: Sheila, Barbara, Patricia, Irirangi, and Josephine.
Entry into politics.
On Dec. 14, 1911, Coates was elected to represent Kaipara in the House of Representatives, which at that time was one of two houses of New Zealand’s Parliament. He held the seat for the rest of his life. He supported the Liberal government of Prime Minister Joseph Ward. However, Ward stepped down in March 1912 and was succeeded as prime minister by Thomas Mackenzie. Coates disagreed with Mackenzie’s policies on landownership, and he soon started supporting the Reform Party, led by William Massey. In July, the Reform Party defeated the Liberals in a vote of no confidence. In such a vote, Parliament decides whether to support a matter of importance to the prime minister’s program. Losing the vote usually forces the prime minister to resign. In this case, Mackenzie resigned and Massey became prime minister. By the 1914 parliamentary elections, Coates officially joined the Reform Party.
Military service.
As a young man, Coates had led a volunteer mounted rifle squad. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he was eager to serve in the military. However, Massey considered Coates too important to the Reform Party’s hold on Parliament and at first refused to let him go to war. Finally, in 1916, Coates was released to serve in France with reinforcements to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He was promoted to the rank of major in 1918.
Return to politics.
Coates returned to New Zealand as a war hero on May 5, 1919. In September of that year, Massey appointed him to the office of minister of justice, in which he served until 1920; and the offices of postmaster general and minister of telegraphs, in which he served until 1925. From 1920 to 1926, Coates served as minister of public works, and from 1923 to 1928, he served as minister of railways. While serving in these positions, Coates emphasized the need to modernize New Zealand’s infrastructure—that is, the basic services and facilities needed for the community to function smoothly. From 1921 to 1928, Coates also served as native minister. In this position, he demonstrated sensitivity to the land disputes of the native Māori << MOW ree or MAH ree >> people.
Massey died on May 10, 1925, without leaving a clear political successor. His close friend and political associate Francis Henry Dillon Bell was sworn in as prime minister on May 14. However, Bell made it clear that he intended to serve only until the Reform Party elected a leader to replace Massey. On May 30, the Reform Party elected Coates as its head. Bell stepped down, and Coates became prime minister later that same day. Coates kept Bell in the government as attorney general and minister of external affairs. That November, Coates led the Reform Party to victory in parliamentary elections.
Prices for New Zealand’s exports, especially produce, dropped throughout the 1920’s. The health of New Zealand’s economy depended heavily on the country’s exports to the United Kingdom. When the British economy slid into an extended slump, New Zealand’s economy quickly followed.
New Zealand’s Dairy-Produce Control Board attempted to fix the price of butter to the British market, but the government persuaded the board to postpone the price fixing. Frustrated farmers blamed Coates for their troubles, and he began to lose popularity. Several other unpopular political moves contributed to a poor performance for the Reform Party in the November 1928 parliamentary elections. On December 7, Coates lost a vote of no confidence. On December 10, Joseph Ward, who had led the government from 1906 to 1912, again took office as prime minister.
Later career.
Upon losing the prime ministership, Coates became leader of the opposition in Parliament. In this role, he set about reorganizing the Reform Party. In 1930, Ward resigned as prime minister and was replaced by United Party head George Forbes. The United Party had been created in 1927 by former Reform and Liberal party members.
In 1931, Forbes formed a coalition government with the Reform Party. Forbes remained prime minister, and Coates served as minister of public works and minister of transport. The coalition government attempted to guide the country through the severe hardship of the worldwide Great Depression. Coates’s background in farming led him to promote the interests of farmers, and in 1933, he became minister of finance. He also continued to serve as minister of transport and took over the ministries of customs and of stamp duties. In November 1935, the coalition lost to the Labour Party in parliamentary elections, and Michael Joseph Savage became prime minister. The Reform and United parties merged in May 1936 to form the National Party.
In 1940, during World War II (1939-1945), Prime Minister Peter Fraser invited Coates to join the war cabinet, which handled matters specifically related to the war. During 1942, Coates served as minister of armed forces and war coordination. He traveled to the United States, Canada, Fiji, and Australia to increase cooperation between the Allied nations. Coates was still a member of the war cabinet when he died in his office in Wellington on May 27, 1943.
