At the height of the war, in September 1943, Victoria went through one of those minor crises which punctuated its political history. An experienced government was defeated on the floor of the house, and the Cain Labor government replaced it for five days. The oddity of that crisis was that it highlighted the stability, being the only break in the most stable era in Victoria's history. Even more curious, the long-serving government, which, after five days, resumed office, was ruling primarily on behalf of the farmlands and the smaller country towns. Here was a paradox, that the most urbanised of states was governed for nearly four thousand days by a ministry of farmers. For eight successive years Melbourne and its suburbs were not even represented in the cabinet.

The soil for a Country Party was fertile in Victoria, where ploughable land was extensive and where the typical farmer struggled in many years. Since the 1890s the growth of dairying in Gippsland and the orchards of the Goulburn Valley, and the extension of wheat to the Mallee, had placed thousands more on the land. As smallish farmers tended to dominate these districts they might, with organising skill and determination, elect their own representatives to parliament. In addition the typical Victorian farmer, unlike his father, sold most of his wheat and butter on the world markets, and so he depended on prices which lay outside his control. Indeed by 1914, the political environment was turning against nearly all Australian farmers except the cane growers who sold their sugar on the home market and were protected against foreign sugar by import duties. Here was an incentive to enter politics.