PRIME MINISTER'S VISIT TO U. S. A. AND U. K.'
Reply to Mayor Lindsay by the Prime Minister. Mr. Harold Holt
at Dinner at Metropolitan Museum of' Art. New York
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well, Mr. Mayor, before we let you go
away, would you come back so that people can see me gettin rd of
this thing to begin with. This isn't our principal gift, Ladies and
G-. ntlemen, but I thought it had better get out of the way in case
there was any confusion... ( Inaudible exchange with Mayor Lindsay).
This is not a very big cigarette case, but it holds a few cigarettes
and it has got in opals at each point around the me pof Australia
the capital cities. You won't find Alice Springs tht's an extra
opal, which we, in this difficult year, felt we couldn't afford
we've had a drought as you mentioned. But it's got all the regular
capitals and it comes to you as a small but sincere memento of a
warmth of feeling between Australia and your countr and in
particular the special place which New Yy~ rk has in the minds of
people in my own country who recognise it as one of the great
romantic and historic cities of the world. But I'm going to say
something about that so I won't spoil the speech. Here you are..
Well, now, Ladies and Gentlemen, that was really only a
little bit of trackwork. now settle down to the serious running.
Mrs. Holt and I, who have been honoured in so many different ways
in this visit we have had to the United States, and who have
memorable thoug. hts to take away with us of the kindness, the
graciousness of the American people, add another chapter tonight to
that story of our friendship with your country and of the unique
features which have made the United States one of the exciting
countries in the history of the human race. This city, New York, has
its o' ins pecial place of course. We take a magazine called the
New Yorker each week just so that we'll know what is going on around
the place. We never seem to get to a lot of the well-commended
and well advertised establishments I thought I might have got to
one of the livelier places of entertainment, but at least we have
had a topless show. here tonight as I gaze around the room. My wife
brought me here to this vionderful gallery and museum of yours in
order to see a mobile of the sun. I didn't know what she was
talking about. It seemed an unnecessary invasion into the very
limited time wie have had. But we camne to see the mobile of the sun.
I think wie have been back a few times since, and she is threatening
to return before we catch the plane tomorrow morning. But we
couldn't have had a more delightful setting for this dinner which
you have broug5ht to us by way of honour, and we couldn't have had a
nicer group of people, which, by succession of visits, seems to
include a great many of the friends, respectable and otherwise, I
have formed in this city of New York.
But you and I have quite a few things in common. You are in
the first six months of your Mayoralty. I'm in the first six
months of my Prime Ministership. I don't think you have to stand
for re-election as quickly as I do on the other hand I doubt
whether we will have any tugh fiscal measure in my Budget which
would endanger my position. It's a remarkable thing that you seem to
avoid these problems as you get close to your election. The following
year fiscal necessities build up but I don't want any trepidation
to develop in my own country on that account. I had the privilege
of introducing seven Budgets. It says much for the toughness, the
durability, the tolerance of the Australian people, that I was able
to succeed Sir Robert Menzies by unanimous election after a punishment
on my fellow countrymen of that kind and over that duration.
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2.
Tonight we have been honoured by an assembly here of people
whose names are household words throughout the world and whose
generosity or whose contribution to industry, science, to knowledge
and in a variety of other directions in which human experience have
come together in this amazing city of New York. I think, Mr.
Mayor, you have a population very close to that of my own country
and we have a country the size of the United States if Alaska can
be left out of it. It's always a difficulty for me about this
Alaska business. I've got nothing against the people of Alaska.
I've no doubt that they are very fine people, but it spoils my
whole comparison iffl have to bring Alaska into the comparison.
But leave them out, and there we are with the same dimension of
country to look after. I understand you have some 27,000 policemenwell
wie have only 18,000 policemen, and I don't know whether
that means that we're just short of policemen, or that you need
more policemen than we need policemen. But it's a fact. But the
thing which really makes me warm to this city is that, through your
gate and with the symbolic Statue of Liberty was built the greatest
democracy in the history of mankind. The strongest power, the
richest civilisation and most affluent society. This all came
largely through the people that flowed into this country through
this city of New York.
I happen to have been Minister of Immigration in my owin
country for nine years and made quite a study of how you did it
because in this day and age it couldn't be repeated. People
w,-ould want, if you brought them here, the schools, the hospitals,
all the other amenities of the community life the stress and
added burden of the community would seem almost insupportable. I
wionder if you would know that if you have the same growth rate in
the United States today in population that wae have in my country you
would have to build another half million homes a year to accommodate
that rate of population growth. Yet, through the 19th century, people
pDoured in the numbers were not accommodated in the organised way
that they are at this time but somehow '. he nation adapted itself
to the growth of population, new industries sprang up, employment
grew as the demands and needs of one supplied the opportunities for
the other. I have speculated more than once in a lifetime that if, in
that period of human history, the critics had succeeded in
discouraging the men in leadership in the United States at that
time if all the things that could be said against the pressures
that arise from building up a population too rapidly had carried
the day, then would w~ e have had brought into the cause of freedom
at a critical stage in two world wars the power, might and resources
of this great American democracy? I leave that thought in your
minds because it is somethaing I have often thought about and when
the doubt has attacked me at times, when the pressures on our
resources seem greater than we could comfortably bear, I was
heartened by the recollection of what had been accomplished in your
great country and I felt if America could be made great through
people of quality, and exploiting the resources of a pioneering
country, then Australia could follow in that example and itself
contribute a great democracy to the cause of freedom throughout
the world. We have been together in the cause of freedom four
times already in the course of this century and I suspect that
over the long; years ahead of us there will be many times shen
America and Australia will go in comradeship together, whether
in war, but, more hopeftilly, in the conditions of peace, to build
a better world for free people. I have been proud to acknowledge
in this visit the contribution that you have made to the security
for us all. I hap pen to come fromn an area of world where, as I
was just saying to M1iss Douglas, our hopes are highest but our
dangers are greatest. It's an area of the world where, over the
next 10, 20, 50 or 100 years, I believe a great new chapter of
human history will unfold. If it develops in the way in which
we would hope to see it develop, then that will be because of
the resolution, the generosity, of the people which made the
Marshall Plan a turning point of history. And you, Mr. Mayor,
through this city which has given so much in leadership and
inspiration to the American people as a whole, can feel that you
have been a great inheritor of the democratic tradition of a
courageous leadership -and that you, in your high office, are now
launched on the endless adven'ture of the public man who has to
give that leadership and see the issues through.
We have in your President such a leader and his resolution
is rallying the people in the area from which I come. Through
him and through you we give thanks to the American people for
vxhat they mean and tonight you have added a colourful, gracious,
and attrative memory to that feeling we have of comradeship
together in the great responsibilities, the great enjoyments which
the modern world has opened to us. Thank you very muich.