He left no personal papers and very little is known about his youth (so little, indeed, that reference works published during his lifetime, and shortly after his death, continued to give the year of his birth as 1887).

He sent his son to Northcote High School and later Scotch College, Melbourne, an unusual choice for a Labor politician at that time.

On 15 September, barely 24 hours after Governor of Victoria Sir Winston Dugan had sworn-in the cabinet, the government was defeated in the Legislative Assembly.

Cain's motion to adjourn the parliament for over a week was defeated by the Country Party and the United Australia Party (UAP), and Dunstan moved that Parliament resume the next day, giving notice that he would move a motion of no confidence against Cain's government, confident it would be carried by the CP–UAP alliance.

Although this issue had nothing to do with state politics, Cain was forced to resign and call an election for 8 November 1947, at which Labor was heavily defeated.

Cain's government was hampered by the hostility of the Legislative Council (which until 1950 had been elected on a restricted property-based franchise and so always had a conservative majority), and also by tensions within his own party.

Major reforms were carried out in the areas of workers' compensation, tenancy law, long service leave, hospitals, public transport, housing, charities and the Crimes Act.

Changes included the provision on long-service leave to railway workers, increased eligibility to workers' compensation, alterations to the Shops and Factories Act and the Landlord and Tenant Act, and the introduction of legislation "to penalise rogues who resorted to fraudulent misrepresentation in soliciting corporate investment from the public."

The government had also reformed wage determination procedures and public service administration, while constructive initiatives were carried out in adult education and soil conservation.

[7] Even some reforms to the electoral system were carried through the Council, where Labor and Liberal members united to reduce the malapportionment which had given the Country Party disproportionate representation since the 1920s.

In its first two years the Cain government won the approval of the Melbourne daily papers The Age, The Herald and The Argus.

[1] The Australian Labor Party split of 1955 started in October 1954 after the federal leader, Dr H. V. Evatt, blamed B.

Santamaria exercised strong influence in the Cain government through "Movement" linked ministers such as Bill Barry and Frank Scully.

In December 1953 the Lands Minister, Robert Holt, resigned rather than introduce a Santamaria-influenced bill which would have promoted the settlement of Italian immigrants as small farmers in Gippsland (a favourite Santamaria scheme which was seen as a plot to create a Catholic peasantry).