fourth attempt, becoming mayor in 1896. He was elected to the seat of East Bourke Boroughs in the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1894, winning East Bourke Boroughs with strong support from Trades Hall voters. In parliament he worked alongside Labor members without ever joining the party, supporting electoral, educational and land reform, and state intervention into wage-fixing and working conditions. He supported to federation of Australia 1897, but came only 19th in the vote for the Victorian delegates to the 1897 Australasian Federal Convention. He supported liberal causes, such as protection and state intervention into wage-fixing and working conditions, but lost his seat in 1900. Hume Cook won the Australian House of Representatives seat of Bourke at the first federal election in 1901 as a Protectionist and a supporter of Alfred Deakin,. He joined the fusion in 1909 in an attempt to hold on to his seat, although its creation ran against his political principles. ‘Between 1905 and 1908 he was party whip, cabinet secretary and honorary minister ... experiences he thought much less interesting than his rescue by the police from an armed lunatic who had invaded his parliamentary office’. From January 1908 to the defeat of the government in 1908, he was a minister without portfolios in the Deakin ministry. He chaired a Royal Commission on postal services from June to December 1908. The Labor Party campaigned actively against him at the 1910 election and he was defeated by Frank Anstey. He ran unsuccessfully for Maribyrnong at the 1913 election. Later life Hume Cook was involved with Billy Hughes in the establishment of the Nationalist Party in 1916 and the Australian Party in 1929 and 1930. He was also secretary of the Australian Industries Protection League from 1922 until his death and represented Australian industry at the British Empire Economic Conference in Ottawa in 1932. He was also involved in orchard-growing, mining and insurance companies and charitable organisations. He published a book of Australian fairytales and wrote hundreds of political pamphlets, patriotic poetry, and several versions of reminiscences.In 1941, he was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG). He died in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton, Victoria in 1942, survived by his wife, a daughter and two sons. Books James Hume Cook published the following books: Australian Fairy Tales, (1925) A Win to Wireless (1941) Australian Natives' Association: Its genesis and history