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HOSKINS FAILY IEMORIAL SERVICE AT HOSKINS
MEMORIAL CHURCH, LITHGOW, NSW. 17TH OCTOBER, 1965
Speech by the Prime Minister. Sir Robert Menzies
It's a very great honour to be here and to be
asked to speak on such a notable family occasion. I'm a very
old friend, I'm happy to my, of several of the distinguished
members of the family. I was warned by one of them that on
this occasion I should not embarrass the family by talking
about it. Having met scores of members of the famil having
been across the road compassed about by a great clou of
witnesses all of whom appeared to be Hoskins, I dare not omit
to speak about them. Indeed, that is what I am here for.
And being a Presbyterian, Sir, I like a text,
and my text, though it hasn't Tound entrance to the Authorised
Version and still remains in the Apocrypha, it is a great one,
a suitable one " Let us now praise famous men and our fathers
which begat us." There can be no more splendid invocation
than that* because we are praising today, with our memories and
with our prayers, notable people, people who were creators
in this country, people who have not merely lived and passed
on but who have left this country in their debt. We are
celebrating an uncommon family and therefore uncommon
individuals. Now Sir, the. history of the Hoskins family in
Australia, running back now over 112 years if I mistake not
is a very remarkable ine. I was fascinated to discover when
I was informed of some of the details that at one stage the
founder of this shall I call it a dynasty in Australia
worked in Ballarat. This at least gives me some faint contact,
in terms of place, if not in terms of quality, because I was
at school in Ballarat and my parents were born in Ballarat, and
so the family lines have merged to that extent.
But the story of this family, Sir, is a matter
for pride for the family and it is a matter of gratitude for
the country. Having said that, I would like to add that it
gives all of us something to ponder.
, ie all know, don't we, that this has been described
as the age of the common man. I want to say something to you
about that. I remember during this last war making a speech
in London in which I used the phrase the common man. I
used it I thought in a very appropriate way on that occasion
because I was referring to the behaviour of the people in
Great Britain under the bombs, under attack, and I said it was
an age in which the common man had become a king. But I had
letters from people, 9uite a few, protesting against the use of
the word " common as if it involved some condescension. Perhaps
I" c hoamdm obne" t tiesr oneex polfa int hotsoe ywoour dast oinnc eo, u r ilta ndgoueasgne' t. w hicThh eh asw oardn
almost infinite variety of meanings. You may say, " That's a
very common fellow." You don't mean something pleasant. You
may say that the Elder Pitt was the great commoner. Not
offensive on the contrary. You may say that a Royal personage
has married a commoner. There are enormous varieties oJ meanings
to be found. But it has been said and said in some senses with / 2
2
profound truth that this is the age of the common man. It's a
Areat truth so long as we understand what it means. I want
o give you two reasons for saying it's true, before I make a
certain gloss upon it.
The first is that true democracy, that which we
all in our own ways try to practice in Australia, true democracy
seeks to achieve not justice to a few or something for the
talented but justice for all men, for all women, and regards
the good life of the individual as the ultimate aim of government.
This is worth remembering.
PolitiCs is not a matter of loaves and fishes
entirely. Loaves and fishes may come into our economic life,
but the essence of it is that in our ways whatever our party
beliefs may be, we must all the time be stru] ling for the good
life for the individual because that will be -he ultimate test
of the value of whatever contribution we make to our country.
And in the second place in all times of crisis ( we can say
this with pride), in all times of crisis for the nation it is
the spirit of the ordinary man and the ordinary woman tAat has
provided the foundation of survival and successi
I had the great honourt as you know, of enjoying
the close personal friendship of V.; inston Churchill, and like
you, I shall never forget how his w.' rds rang out and gave
encoaragement and hope and confidence to his people and to
people all round the world, and yet he was the first to know
and to concede that he wasn't creating something in the
individual; he was evoking from the individual something that
was there. This courage and determination came from ordinary
men and women and he made their deepest feelings vocal. It was
he who led out something which is part of the genius of the
common man the common individual, the ordinary person in a
community like ours.
Now Sir, having said that let me look at the
other side of tAe picture. I rather think it would be a calamity
if our applause of the age of the common man for the reasons
that I have just been stating induced us to yield to the
temptation to resent or reject the uncommon man. This is a
great danger. One sees occasionally a symptom of it the
little flashes of jealousy, of hatred, of malice. This is too
easy a strong temptation; it s easy enough to yield to it,
and therefore, to look at the uncommon man as if he ran counter
to the pattern of life that I have just been saying something
about. Mj reason for saying that we must not yield to that
temptation is that in all history it has been well established
that it is, after all, the uncommon man who initiates ideas,
who provides leadership, who has honourable and powerful
ambitions who supplies the driving force who has a capacity
for industr beyond the minimum of obligation, who has sufficient
courage to efy disaster and not to be misled by temporary
success. This is some bfinition, I think, of the uncommon
man and it is appropriate to refer to him because the founder
of this notable family was an uncommon man. He answered to all
of these things that I have been Ulking about.
And that adds up, Sir, to this, that the ordinary
man must have a proper pride, should never be over-anxious to
submerge himself or to be misled, but at the same time, he
must aIways have a belief a true belief, a true appreciation
in and of the quality of the uncommon man. low of course the
uncommon man, ir, the uncommon man may turn out to be a tyrant,
a dictator, and therefore a destroyer if he forgets that the
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spirit and happiness of the common man is his chief concern and
that his ambition must be for the people and not for himself.
Let me apply those ideas by one or two examples that
will readily come to your own mind. Hitler, of course, was the
latest in this century he was an uncommon man, who turned
out to be a destroyer so that he had to be destroyed.
Nlapoleon, who overshadowed Europe, who overshadowe dthe then
known world in the height of his military successes, his military
genius, he was an uncommon man. Nobody would doubt if for a
moment. But what did he achieve? Measur-e what he did against
its defect for the common man, its value for the common man, the
ordinary man. I remember standing once in Paris looking
through the irc de Carousel right up the Place A. e la Concorde
to the Arc de Triomphie at tUe o her end and this beautiful
arch is covered with the boastful record of Napoleon's victories,
his conquests of this piece of land or that piece of land.
Yothing remains except the marble the victories forgotten, the
victories fruitless, the conquered lands once more free. Here
is a boasting piece of marble* the uncommon man, who in all
those respects failed in his duty to the common man.
On the other hand, we may think of people I don't
need to name very many of them Shaftesbury, in England the
founder of factories lTegislation, the true beginner of all the
humane industrial legislation that has come to us since this
so-called remote aristocrat the uncommon man, a tremendous
benefactor of ordinary people. Lincoln, in America-the great
industrial creators in our own country, because don't forget
that there are two kinds of people who come to great wealth and
position in the country. There are those who make money because
they are good at making money. There are those who make money
or power or influence be cause they have created something and
maintained something for the benefit of other people. Anid the
fact that they have some benefit from it is no more to say than
to say that t~ ie labourer is worthy of his hire. The great
names I won t make invidious distinctions, but I could at the
slightest thought mention five or six great names in industrial,
manufacturing, mining history in Australia who are the names
who would be Ihe names of people who were uncommon men and wLi
have laid common men under heavy tribute.
I was looking the other day, once more Sir in the
Gospel according to Matthew at the parable of the talents.
There is one word in it which deserves emphasis because you
remember that when those who had five talents, two talents, went
away and put them to work, did some thing ith them, and came
back having doubled them the word that was spoken was, eli
done thou good and faith{ ul servant". True, true, they were
the servants of the master who had given them the talents, but
they were also servants because nobody could have done what they
did without serving some good public or private end. The
uncommon man. Wlhenever we are fortunate to encounter him he
is the servant of the country and the servant of his people, and
there is every reminder of that as wie stand or sit in this place
on this most notable occasion.
I wonder, Asir, if I might conclude my remarks by
saying that many years ago, I read for the first time and that
was a great event Robert Louis Stevenson's " Child's Garden
of Verses". There may be people here who have become so grown-up
that they think they have outgrown them. I hope not. I hope
not because Robert Louis Stevenson will himself never grow old
in the minds of people, and his " Child's Garden of Verses"
remains a joy forever. Remember the poem about the river and IA
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the children putting their little boats into the river and
floating them away, 0and exciting childish pleasure? And
then it goes on " Away down the river
A hundred miles or more
Other little children
Shall bring our boats ashore"
This verse has stuck in my mind. It has, in my own case,
continued to have a profound effect on my owvn mind....
" Other little children will bringr our boats to shore".....
Other little children will benefit or suffer, according to
our virtue or our vice; every time wie do something that is
at all significant, vie are launching a little boat on the
river of life, and other little children will bring it to
shore. Let us never forget about that.
No man could be a great nioneer and constructor as
the founder of this family was if he had thought only of
today. He must, from time to time, have looked forward and
have said, " Yes, if I can do this, then we can do so-and-so,
then we'll do something else," looking to the future,
conscious of the fact, as wie all must be, that wve are not
here today and cgone tomorrow but that we have our little
mark to make for good or evil, and the mark doesn't rub out
too quickly That's why I think that that is a geat poem,
a -i-onderful poem deserves to live with us, as I indeed I
hope I may say it has lived with me.
And so here today in the presence of so many members
of this family, this famous family, recalling the achievements
of this family, I would like to think that we, like themselves,
will look forward with thankfulness for what has been done
and with a profound hope that when our boats come to shore,
they wrill be found by happy children in a happy world all
the better because we launched our boat.