Deputy Prime Minister of Australia accepted the view put to him by McEwen that to commission a Liberal temporarily as Prime Minister would give that person an unfair advantage in the forthcoming party room ballot for the permanent leader. McEwen's appointment was in keeping with the previous occasion when the main non-Labor party was without a leader; Earle Page of the Country Party was interim Prime Minister between 7 and 26 April 1939—the period between Joseph Lyons' sudden death and the United Australia Party naming Robert Menzies his successor. Since 1968 only two Deputy Prime Ministers have gone on to become Prime Minister: Paul Keating
British and French declaration of war on Germany propaganda to justify German expansionism). Two Western powers, the United Kingdom and France, gave guarantees to Poland that they would declare war if Polish independence came under threat, as presented in a statement to the House of Commons by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain 31 March 1939 (formalized by the British 6 April 1939; not ratified until 4 September 1939 by the French): Although they honoured these guarantees by declaring war soon after Germany's Invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, and although the dominions of the British Empire quickly followed suit, so little practical assistance was given to Poland,