AUSTRALIAN TEXTILE EXPOSITION BANQUET
HOTEL REX-AT-CANBERRA, CANBERRA. 29TH SEPTEMBER, 1965
Speech by the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies
Sir Robert and Lady Webster and all the rest of you
I want to tell you in the first place that these pieces
of fabric, precariously woven are warmly received. That is the
huntin, tartan in what is called in Scotland the old vegetable dye,
( Laughter) which only goes to show that even Webster can be up to
date occasionally, Laughter) ( Applause)
And in the second place, I would like to tell you this.
I am about to open this Exposition and therefore all this is relevant,
you see. I said I must tell you that I was born a son of a father who
was even more violently protectionist than Bob Webster ( Laughter) and
I leave it to you to understand what that means. From my earliest
days, he used to look at me before I ever knew what protection and free
trade meant and say " Robert, understand" and, of course if I didn't
understand...... at any rate, as I have since demonstrated in
politics I pretended to understand. ( Laughter) But, really, when I
look back on the old man, I think he was a softie ( Laughter) compared
to you. And, therefore, here we are, my wife oh, well her
late father, whom s.-me of you knew, he was on the Council of the Chamber
of Manufactures. He was the kind of man who could talk to Anderson
( Laughter) on eoual terms ( Lau hter), and here am I, the son f my
old man. Therefore we perhaps" have, by derivation, Sir, the right
to be here. ( Applause) But I am bound to say, and I think honesty recuires
this, that although I have known and admired Sir Robert Webster for
many years and have sometimes been at the biting end of his tongue,
until toni-ht I had never understood the function of psychologists in
industry ( taughter). But toni-ht I have been sitting next to his
charming wife who has, for the first time in my life, explained what
psychologists do ( Laughter) and what their function is in irdustry,
because I learned a bit of psychology myself once.
I w! ant you to understand that although having gone
into other fields, I am no longer an intellectual, I was once.
( Lughter) I always remember the late Boyce Gibson, father of the
present Professor, beginning a series of lectures to us when I was an
undergraduate, by saying and he had a little tongue-tied way of
speaking a charming man, he was a marvellous man but he said, " MIan
is an anthropoid with welatively large cewebwal Aemispheres."
( Laughter) I have never forgotten that. ( Laughter) And every time
my highly literate opponents say to me somethin rude I say to myself,
" It's all right Menzies. You are an anthropoid, with relatively
large cerebral Aemispheres." ( Laughter) What it means, I wouldn't be
dogmatic about that. ( Laughter) But I like it.
Now, it is a very good thing that in this great
Exposition that the man in charge should be Sir Robert Webster because,
really, we have our bit of fun, we have arguments about this and that,
but iT ever there was a man in the commercial and industrial history
of Australia who stood for what we could do in Australia and how we
could do it, it's Bob Webster. ( Hear, hear) ( Applause) Now, it is
revealing no secret to you who never iead the newspapers that I am, on
my last birthday, 70, and therefore I am not only entitled to a pension
but I am, you know what the boys at Parliament House say, not a bad
old chap. ( Laughter) And so 1 am -n old chap, and in my lifetime
born in the bush, born in a little country town, going to school in / 2
2
Ballerat, going to school in Melbourne I have seen without
always being conscious of it, the history of the textile industry
of Australia never quite conscious, but when I was a small boy,
you might here and there encounter a woollen mill, that was it.
Then later on when I was a schoolboy and growing up a little,
there were clothing factories and a few woollen mills. In my
own time I want all of you who are younger, much younger than I
am, to think about this because this will give you an excitement
in your mind about this marvellous country of ours. Here am I,
the little boy at school, and there is a woollen mill somewhere
in Ballarat. Here am I the little boy at school who goes to
see the first moving picture show on the Ballarat East oval. Here
am I, a little boy, who in his little bush village in the country
sees the first motor vehicle ever to come into the country.
You know, you are all so kind to me that you don't realise how
venerable I am ( Laughter) Not worthy of veneration, but venerable,
because in my own lifetime I have seen the beginning and the
development and the growth of most of the great things that we now
take for granted, don't we, in our lives, from motor cars to
aircraft, television, before that broadcasting.
Broadcasting. Do you mind me telling you that when
by some strange chance I became Prime Minister of this country
only twentysix years ago ( Laughter) in 1939, I went to do a
little broadcast and I came back to the Lodge and there was my
wife, faithful as always. And the dear girl, she was sitting ' here
and wondering, you see, and then broadcasting was on, and I was
doing a broadcast and I turned to her and I said because I rather
approved of what this chap was say in, I said, " Wio is that?"
And she said, " That's you" ( Laughter' That was the first time I
had ever heard myself. I didn t believe it then and I still don't
believe it, when I hear it.
But this is a mere scrappy way of saying that we,
half of us here tonight, have lived in a period in which there
have been the most tremendous developments, and so I go back to
what I began by saying...... We began with a woollen mill or two,
and then we had cotton arnd then we had man-made fibres. We started
off with growing, with manufacturing, with prccessing, with weaving,
with fabric, with clothing, with dyeing, with printing. It's little
wonder that Sir Robert has tonight told us that here is a massive
industry in Australia which empoys 74,000. It's little wonder
this has become one of the very great industries in Australia.
And of course, this has involved all sorts of things primary
proauction. We are not to think about the woolgrower, the cottongrower
whoever-it-may-be grower in Australia as if he were quite
separate. He is part of the great textile industry. We are not
to think of manufacturing efficiency as if it related only to that
phase of the work that is to be done it is a very important phase
but is part of the phase. We are not to think of promotion that's
a blessed word " promotion". It's wonderful, you admire people
who do it. Anyhow, we are not to think of promotion, of encouraging
people to buy as if this were completely detached from everything
else, because in reality, the man who grcws the fibre, whether it
is wool or cotton, the man who manufactures the fibre, whether this
is nylon or whatever it may be, the man who assembles it into some
form, the man who designs it, puts it into form and sells it, these
are all people who are involved in the great textile industry.
( Hear, hear) This is really perhaps te most significant though
obvious thing that I want to say to you.
Now I know, Sir, that in modern times where people
are all engaged in politics where they all know why they are
right and why the other fellow is wrong, I am nld enough to belong / 3
to a generation in which I think on the whole I am right but
that perhaps I might be wrong. This argues a degree sf wisdom
that will come strangely to some of you. ( Laughter) But it's
true. It's true. There is nothing all black or all white. A
few years ago, I was a little wnrried because although I wear
wool rather more than the average human being ( Laughter), I
never was quite able to persuade myself that you had to wear a
woollen handkerchief or a woollen tie or a woollen shirt
otherwise you were a traitor to your country. I still don't
believe it. The truth is that as every married man here tonight
knows, the secret of happiness in life is a good marriage.
( Hear, hear) ( Applause) And therefore I have always believed
that in the long iun wool, man-made fibres, all these things
w ould be married tooether to the greater enjoyment of mankind.
( Applause) I think that any man who is engaged in the production
of man-made fibres to use this revolting expression ( Laughter)
any man who is engaged in that production who 3aid " I hate
wool" would be a fol. He would. And any man who is enaged
in the production and processin. of wool who said, " I can't bear
the thought of man-made fibres he would be a fcol, because in
the long run, it is marriage that will solve this problem.
This is so true. You l? ok back over the whole history of mankir,'
over the whole history of our race, do you suppose that witiout
some intermarriage we would have amounted to very much? Do
you suppose that if the Anglo-Saxons had said, " Anglo-Saxons we
are, and out with the rest of them," we would have been the
magnificent people that we are? ( Laughter) Do you think of what
would have happened if the Anglo-Saxons had ignred the demands
of the Scots ILaughter) ( Applause) The truth is and I say
this quite seriously that in the long run, the future of
fibres, the natural fibres of wool, the man-made fibres will
depend very largely on how far they both realise that if they
act together, there is a bigger'and brighter future for both of
them. THear, hear) And it is because I believe that I haven't
consulted the Department you know.... I haven't discussed
that ( Laughter) I know, I am always making some indiscreet
remarks. I believe this, partly because I believe that the future
of wool is vital to Australia and partly because I believe that
the future of wool is involved in this kind of marriage that I
have been talking about. Now, that is all I want to say on that
point. By the time I have been reported on this matter, I won't
now what it was I said. ( Laughter)
I just want to say a few words on another aspect of
this matter. It's a very great mistake, Sir, for your industry
or for the wool industry or for any other industry to think that
it will sell its products by the Divine Grace of the Almighty.
It won't. It has to sell them, and to sell any commodity in the
world today, you must pay enormous attention to design, to
quality, to presentation to design. This, Sir, I venture to
say, is a matter to which we have devoted rather too little
attention in Australia. A little bit inclined, aren't we, to
say " Oh, well, you know, it's wool, it's good, it's fine
quality, it's go all the things in the wrrld. WVhether it looks
a little unpleasant, that doesn't matter." Design, design is the
whole background of salesmanship, just as my wife occasionally
reminds me that a capacity to produce the goods behind the
presentation is equally important. Something, I hope, we will
not forget, 3
4
The other day I .; as looking at the J; ornal of the
Royal Society of Arts, oT which for some reason understandable
only to the Almighty, I im a Fellow ( Laughter) and every now and
then the Royal Society has a symposium of people who discuss
certain topics. The other day the had a great symposium on
design with Prince Philip in the chair, and when I picked this
out of my mail basket and glanced through it, I reminded myself
of a time when I oh many years ago before the time of half of
you I was in England on a Parliamentary Association visit.
You know how onerous that can be.
We went to Kidderminster, and I -as Attorney-General
of Australia at that time so I was in charge. The Mnager of
the Kidderminster carpet factory we were visiting, he did't
know who we were and I am bound to say in his favour he couldn't
have cared less. ( Lauohter) And we went along to a larze display
room oh many times the size of this. We saw some lovely carpets
and then not quite so lovely carpets anu then some good carpets
but not quite so lovely, and when we got to the far end, we came
across a floor full of carpets of the most horrible description.
You will all understand me when I say ; hcdv were all orange . nd
black flecks, you know. They were errible. And in my n
innocence this was many years aFo ( Laughter) I said, " But,
Sir would anybody buy such revolting carpets as these? And he
looked at me and said, deadpan, " Oh no, we make these for the
Australian market". And I am bound to tell you that I thoui t
he was having me on you see, until the next time I went to
provincial town in Victoria I won't name it and had tu stay
overnight and there was the very carpet on the floor. Well,
it was no doubt having this kind of thing in mind that the Royal
Society of Arts decided to have a discussion about design and I
don't apologise for mentioning design because design in the textile
trade will sell more than any individual salesman. ( Hear, hear)
It is a fundamental error to think that most people
have bad taste. Some have bad taste but in the long run, you must
cater for people who have taste. When we do this constantly, then
I see no limit to the textile trade in Australia, but at this
Conference, they had a series of people..... I read this only
yesterday, that s why I have it so much in with Prince
Philip in the chair and they gave a few medals to people.
Do we give medals, Gordon, to people for ood design? Well we
ought To. ( Laughter) M-ake a note of tha Mr. C. rmody. hen
each man who received a medal had to make a speech. A more
revolting exercise you can't imagine. But one of them who
received the medal was the managing director of a world famous
whiskey and gin firm.
iow, I say nothing to all our wives who don't understand
about whiskey and gin ( Laughter) but it wasn't easy, was it, to
associate in one's mind the idea of selling whiskey and gin and
what-have-you with design. And et, of course, this man was
able to establish quite clearly that they had paid a great deal
of attention to the problem of how they presented their goods to
the world, and I made a note of one thing that he said. Might
I read it to you, bearing in mind that this is a man who was the
managing director of a firm that sells spirits but is equally
applicable to every man here tonight who is in the textile trade.
He was talking about the head of a business and he said, will
happily plough revenue into technical research, into capital
reserves, into the shareholders' pockets, into splendid staff
welfare schemes, but into the appearance, taste, function and
elegance of the article on which this part of his commodity empire
is to be founded, still I fear, all too rarely." Something in
that, isn't there.
L
5
I am an immeasurable believer in the textile industry
in Australia. I don't have to be converted by my fricnd, Sir
Robert, but I think that in the long runt the permanence of any
industry will largely depend on how far it compels the taste and
judgment of the people o the country, and in textiles above all
things, there must be superb quality or there must , e a mere
wretched dependence on what some government may do or cn what some
tariff board may dn.
And this is tremendously important because as yqu
have been reminded-here is an industry that employs in the direct
sense 74,00 people in our country. In other words supports
in a full sense a quarter of a million, an industry whLc has done
more for decentralisation than any other that we know an
industry which emplos more female labour than any othe---dustry
we know of. This inaustry, viewing it broadly, has ti-us
claims on Australia. It can't sunport them merely by s
" You mus+ help us". It can support them best by saying, .: ill
help you. We will help the country because we are preparea to
say that we will let everybody understand that what we do has
great design and great qualiuy and w: ili be bought on its merits."
Do you see what I mean? I hope you do because great
believer as I ar. and faithful as I am to the memory of my father
who would have murdered me if he thought I k:-ere not a protectionist,
as indeed I am, but in the long run the whole purpose of
tariff, the whole purpose of protection is to give you a
class opprrtunity of seizing the market; but whether ycu ncid
the market, having seized it, will be up to you.
Sir it seems an cdd thing to do at a dinner party,
but I declare this Exposition open.