PRIAE MINISTER'S VISIT TO U. S. AND U. K.
Speech given by the Prime Minister, ] Er. Harold
Holt, to the American-Australian Association
at the River Club. New York. July, 1966.
Thank you very much, MTr. President He nmanson, and
greetings again Governor Dewey, other distinguished guests and
gentlemen. I don't suppose there are many places around the world
where an Australian public figure can feel more at home than he
does when he comes into this room. You have reminded me that I have
had not only many free meals here Randal, but very pleasant ones
and to come back to you after a number of years in which I have
been Finance Iiiin ister of the Commonwealth and be able to say to
you, despite all, that they elected the old so-and-so unanimously
Prime Minister of Australia is a matter of great satisfaction to
me. Randal, your presence in this chair is a further
reflection of the warm-heartedness and friendship for Australia
of the American people. are out-nmbered, iaagine to the
order of at least seven, if not 10 to one, in this company today
by citizens of the United States. But that did not prevent them
recognising the wonderful work you have done in support of that
great man who laid so much of the basis of the co-operation
which has come to Australia from this organisation Floyd Blair.
They did not hesitate to look to you for the succession
when Floyd passed on and I refeat here publicly the
congratulations which I sent you privately at the time and I say
what a gracious gesture it was on the part of those whose
numbers were justified in maintaining an American in the chair,
that they recognised your own devotion to the purpose vhich this
organisation can so usefully serve.
Now you are all busy men and you don't want to hear a
lot of introductory comment from me but I shall tell you what I
have in mind to do in the time at our disposal. I gather it is
a little more elastic than usual because you are all expected to
be on holiday in any event. It is not only flattering to find
you coming along in such good number but reflective of the
growing sobriety , temperance and tolerance of the peo," le of this
great democracy that so many of you are here in good shape and
apparently having come through the July 4 week-end almost
unscarred. But we couldn't help in the date arrangement because
i was heimed in by the opening of SEATO last Monday ( June 27)
and I have to be back in Australia for Btdget discussions which
we will be having in our Cabinet in lit u.ñ e riore than a week's
time, with London ahead of LIe in between. It is rather
reflective of the shrinking world in which we live.
Earlier in the year, I relmemaber having answered
questions in the House of Representatives up to 11.15 one
m-rorning and the next morning I was talking to our troops in
Saigon. It is actually a shorter distance fromi Darwin to Saigon
than it is from Brisbane to Perth. Your Dean Rusk was out with
us at the SEATO Conference. The next time I looked him up he
was talking to somae group, I think, in Korea. Anyhow he was
around that area of the world and although on the map there seem
to be great distances between us, we are all these days
remarkably close to each other. But even so, it is useful to
hbave the word from those who have come froma the sp. ot.
I am not going to talk a lot about Australia because you
have had in recent times two people who have, I am sure, spoken
in quite enthusiastic order of my country. Sir Henry Bolte, the
Premiier of Victoria, is always capable of stating with enthusiasm
the prospects for his own State and indeed for the nation as a
whole. Ie have a fellow who has succeeded quite remarkably in
represtnting three countries at oncewith the same devotion. That
is a chap named Clark who speaks with the same enthusiasm for the
United States, for Australia and for Texas, all of whom he
represents very ably indeed. So you don't want too much about
Australia but let me just say these few things quickly in passing.
vve have just had the first Y. ajor drought for just on 210
years, People had al~ iost begun to forget what occurred when you
had a drought. In other areas it is som~ ething of a rarity in
these more recent years but this one was a quite serious drought,
particularly in New South * iales and Victoria. On our latest
assessment the sheep population had fallen from 170 million to
157 million in the whole of Australia a drop of about 8 per
cent which means that New South qales caught it a good deal
harder than that. The cattle population of that State, which is
not one of the great cattle areas of Australia, dropped by just
on 25 per cent.
Now~ that all sounds pretty serious but the matter
worth recording for you is that we have just closed our 1965-66
fiscal year and I think our export receipts are within a
" Coo-eel' on just the wrong side. But they are very close to
being on the right side of the record export receipts that wie
have ever gained. That was in a quite fabulous year, 1963/ 64-,
when everything seemed to go right. If we can just about touch
that figure in a drought-affected year, vith rural income down
very considerably, that demonstrates how the diversification
of the Australian economy has taken a lot of the fluctuation out
of our eco-iomic affai-rs.
e hardly felt these fluctuations, employment remained
high all the time, there was a little dampening of customer
demand, particularly whore, say, farrm equipment wvas to be s. old
and that radiated out to the consumer area generaliy. Right
through it all, erpl%. yment was sustained at what you would
regard, I' m sure, as an over-full employment level, -,,* hich has
become pretty well standard with us in good times something
just over one per cent of registrations of the work force.
The other thing that was interesting out of it was the
balance of payments. Ve had thought when we brought the Badget
down last year th., at they would show a substantial reduction by
the end. of the fiscal year. Some commentators put the figure as
. high as about dollars Australian 400 million but we thought in
the Treasury it could be up to dollars Australian 200 million.
The result, thanks to a strongly sustained capital inflow, plus
this good export experience and some drop in the level of iriports,
is that we have b. en able to keep our reserves just about where
they were 12 months ago, and that means in a very co-fortable
position for us.
Now the drought has left open the opportunity for a much
larger aereaWfor wheat this year. The land is rested and the
farmer looking for a quick cash crop in order to retrieve some of
his losses is turning to wheat for which there is a very strong
demand around the world, The acrcagunder wheat is expected to
rise from 16.9 to about 20.7 million acres.
Now I don't want to say anything very much more about
the Australian situation other than perhaps a word on capital
inflow. Some of you may have been concerned about this when
restraints were recommended in the United States and more
recently when a programme of monetary restraint was indicated by
the Govermnent of the United Kingdom. I have always held the
view myself that, provided the bait is strong enough or
attractive enough, the capital will come to the bait. There are
so many of you in this room that will know from the activities
of your ovn organisations that the bait is still a very
attractive one.
Capital inflow has, in point of fact, been at a record
level through the 12 months just under review. It is continuing
quite strongly and indeed as some of these project3 have come
into fruition and as the quite exciting story that will be told
of them around the world iakes itself more widely known, I
believe that this capital investment will tend to increase
rather than diminish.
The reflection of that which may interest you is to be
found in the Inigration inquiries we are receiving. ue nevcr
looked to this country because it is a very prosperous country
and opportunities abound here, but we are now receiving thruugh
our New York ofrice and through our San Francisco office,
immigration inquiries at the rate of 1000 a week each in those
two offices. Quite considerably in excess of what we have known
previously. Nsw I don't want anyone to interpret this as an
indictment of the Admbinistration. I assure you it is nothing of
the sort. It is reflective of this growring appreciation t1--at
here, in this vast continent the size of your own if you put
Alaska temporarily to one side, in this vast continent , dith just
under 12 million people and with so much developing and
happening of proiis3 for the future there is an exciting
opportunity for the kind of frontier experience, of getting in
on the ground floor of national development that you have known
through so much of your history. " e welcaTme this development.
Indeed, when I get backI'll be asked what our Administrative
arrangements are. I know it must be straining the present
resources of the two Consulates-(. eneral and, once the inquiries
begin, we certainly don't want to lose the interest of those
who have been attracted by this possibility. I can't imagine,
other than our ovwn people from the British Isles, any people
that would miore readily and agreeably fit into the Australian
scene than the enterprising migrant from this country.
Now we haven't been relying entirely on your capital
inflow because 90 per cent of fixed capital investment has come
from our ovn resources. We vithold 28 per cent of our gross
national product from current consumption for fixed capital
investment that is only surpassed by Japan. Your ov.' n figaiis,
I think, 17 per cent and the United Kingdom about 15 per cent.
So we are doing something for ourselves but the remaining 10 per
cent is quite critical because it is in that area that you get
the large projects, the new developments, new skills, new
enterprises and we welcome that flow continuing.
However, that is not what I came here principally to
talk about to you today because we share the concern and the
sense of importance that so many thoughtful people in this country
have about the situation in Viet Nam.
This importance and public interest is reflected in the
amount of attention given to it by all the news media and public
discussions. Because of the nature of medern reporting and the
episodic narrative account of day-to-day developments the
resulting picture in South Viet Nam is, I believe, incomplete ard
indeed misleading. I had the first experience of spending soime
time there just a few months ago, and w,, hat I found on arrival was
so different from what I had imagined in my ovwn mind from what I
had been reading day to day, that a misleading impression must
be held in the minds of a great many people and where discussion
is critical of the administration policy.
These days it is very much easier for public figures, and
I don't say this disparagingly, I'm one myself, to get the public
attention by criticism than by commendation. Good news is no
news, in the minds of sa. e of those who are looking to attract
a public interest.
The result is that very few people, even if they know
a good deal about the griamer side of the war in Viet Nam, have
any awareness firstly of the positive, constructive and helpful
things that are going on there affecting the general comrkunity
and far less of the amazing developments which have been
occurring in the surrounding area of South-East Asia under the
shield and security of the American presence in South Viet Nam.
But that is a story chich I've been trying to speak of
since I came here to the United States. It wasn't that I had
in mind to talk about principally when I came, but encountering
this atmosphere this apparent unawareness of what your ijresence
in South East Asia has meant to people like ourselves who live
in that area I felt it was time that somebody had something
to say about it and it is very hard to get something recorded
about it. If I were wanting to get some notice taken of me in sonm
sectins of the press of this country, I'd buy a six-feet pieoe
of canvas or calico and print somethirg abusive about your more
prominent people and go and hold it somewhere. Now that would
almost assure me of front page presentation in the most august
journals of this democracy.
I saw a picture the other day, a front page picture
of Dean Rusk addressing the National Press Club in Canberra and
behind were a little band, I think of six or eight young
people from the Australian National University. I had seen them
around quite a bit. I think they were there when Hubert Humphcry
came: They were there at the time when Sir Robert 1ivenzies opened
the National Library and I was there to help him along, and there
they were standing in the background with this same little banner.
And if they were to conduct a public hall meeting with
the views they were wanting to express on the banners, they
would ' t fill th1e 0INst couple of rows, but they will got more
notice taken of them by some sections of the press than by a
spokesman for your country or far mine when we choose to discuss
t ese matters quite soberly. So let's get a more balanced view,
not merely of what is happening day by day but of the total
situation there.
I've read the criticism as a public man I'm not
unaccustomed nor resentful of criticism but I find no
alternative prograe presented to that which has coravended itself
to three successive Presidents in your country and to two
successive Prime Ministers in mine and one of those Prime
Ministers a man who had been there for 16 years and knew
something of what the world was about.
I don't know how far in this company, gentlemen, it is
necessary to talk about the situation there. Surely amongst
the intelligent people I see around me, one doesn't have to argue
the case about hether this is a civil war or whether this forms
part of an organised coLmviunist penetration. The story that the
Ky government can't run the place properly, and that South Viet
Nam can't look after itself, completely overlooks the fact that
for six years after Geneva there was very good progress made in
that country, of a positive kind, and it was only when the
national product had increased about 20 per cent while North
Viet Najiis had fallen 10 per cent that you found this switch in
tactics and the present campaign of aggression, subversion and
infiltration developing from the north.
Now these things are surely clearly perceived by people
today. Surely it is equally well perceived that unless there is
a substanital force, whether it be the United States in company
with allies, or a grouping, as I believe it should be, of those
powers that you in unparalleled generosity helped to place on
their feet in Europe after their period of trial had passed
whichever way it is handled, qite clearly, unless there is that
strength in Asia, then you can hand Asia over to the Chinese
communists and proceed to deal with a very much smaller and
narrower world of the future.
But who in his senses would turn his back on half of
mankind 1 billion people East of Suez with their population
growing, not only assisted by their natural fertility but by the
fact that their public health measures are now keeping alive many
people who would have died either from famine or disease at
earlier points of time. Ve can't ignore, no matter how
indifferent we may choose to be, the fact thait there is going
to be a population explosion there. That there is likely
to ue doubling of that 1-2-billion by the end of this century and,
if we are wise, we will try to help the people of the area
through their problems. will try to help them take advantage
of what modern technology can accomplish.
I can say as one coming fro,] the area that they are
anxious to do more for thermselves. How much do you read about
it? 4-dho knows of the recent developments in relation to the
Asian Development Bank for example a billion dollars becoming
available for assistance through the area with this country
putting up a couple of hundred million dollars, Japan a couple
of hundred million, even my small country 85 million dollars
towards that fund.
Who hears about the meeting of ASPAC? The meeting of
ASPAC at Seoul a few weeks ago was no doubt briefly reported but
the significance of this gathorig of nine Asian countries was
riot brought out. Yet most of the countries represented at Seoul
not so very long ago were engaged, as we were, with Japan in
conflict. This conflict threatened to destroy my own country and
theirs. Our trade with Japan today is four and a half times what
it was in the early 1950' s. Now you may turn to the project of
the .' ekong Valley, the Indus wiaters Projects, the positive
programme which the military forces in each of these countries
and in South Viet Nam in particular include now as part of their
regular progrmi.; es of civic action, of rural development, of
village security and village development these are now accepted
as Dart of the necessary programmes of military forces in every
part of this area.
Would we have had the quite dramatic re-orientation of
Indonesian policy if there had not been the growing realisation
around Asia that the United States was firly resolved to stay
there in Asia, resist comm-unist aggression where it found it,
and assist the countries of the area to live co-operatively and
with growing prosperity and security in the years ahead?
, e have seen oountrics like Thailand emerge and prove
most helpful in the recent negotiations with Indonesia.
I know that you feel very lonely in this country at times,
particularly as criticisms are spread from one area or another,
but there are 34 countries giving aid in one form or another in
South Viet Nan. Some are giving military aid, others material
aid. I would hope that in Europe there would be a more faithful
recognition of what is being done out there.
I read a fine speech by former Premier Spaak the other
day in which he paid his own tribute to A ierican presence there
and chided his fellow Europeans that they were not doing more
to help. Now I just want to add one thought or series of
thoughts before I conclude what I have to cay. This relates
to the search for peace. I believe that there is nobody more
genuinely dedicated to the search for peace than the President
of this country. I have talked with him, I have read his
statements and I have heard what he has to say. There is no
doubt in my mind that he is genuinely dedicated to peace, just
as he is completely firm in his resolution that he is not going
to turn his back on Asia and leave the chaos, the destruction
which would flow from victory for Chinese coi. imunism there.
a* 7.
Australia, on my own public statements and those of
my colleagues, firmly supports American policy in South Viet
Nam and recognises the contribution America is making to the
stability and security, strength and progress in South East
Asia generally. -e believe with your Administration that the
search for peace must be genuine, persistent and imaginative.
The world cannot go on indefinitely with those in
opposing camps regarding it as made up of goodies and baddies,
the description reversing according to which side you appen to
be looking, All countries contain intelligent :: on and women
capable of a realistic assessment of their own national
situation and, indeed, of an international situation.
The leaders of the communist world must be increasingly
aware tma days that the hope for world wide response to
communist propaganda and methods has failed to materialise.
Indeed the past year has seen much significant movement in the
other direction. Free world corrmunities do not aggressively
impose their ways of life and forms of government upon others
but I tink we need to give more attention to ways and means by
which both the Iron and Bamboo Curt. airscan be made a little more
penetrable and the interiors a little more accommodating.
I am encouraged to come to this view because surely it
is galling to the leadership both in Russia and China, having
made sufficient technological progress to put man and satellites
into space with impressive accuracy and, in the case of China,
to develop a bomb and be able to make MIG aircraft, to find
that the masses both in Russia and in China are still seriously
short of many things, including the foodstuffs that they require.
It .: ould certainly be a boon to them if more of their
industrial cevelopment could be directed to peaceful purposes
and I certainly believe it would be a boon to mankind if this
would also happen in the freedo. u-loving countries of the world.
It always rather saddens . ie that, wvhenever there is a
serious discussion about ;-eace prospects, the stock exchange of
New York seems to take that amiss or in an unkindly fashion.
Down go the stock exchange values. This does not read too well
around the rest of the world. Surel y it is possiJle for
programmes to be available so that and I'm sure a great deal
of planning and thinking has been done on this by your own
Administration as peace prospects emerge ( as we would hope
they would at a not too distant point of time) we do have in all
our democratic countries the programmes for an era of peace that
will carry our people further along the road to the security a. r
wellbeing to , which we all aspire. that
There are personal contacts at various levels/ can help
towards a better understanding of seemingly hostile viewpoints
and aspirations. Trade is, of course, one of the major methods.
I know this is a controversial subject but there is normally a
mutuality of interests and of benefits from trade transactions.
Personal contacts are established on a basis of friendly exchanges
or co-operation. 1e have traded freely with Russia and China
in respect of wheat and wool and we do not see that this is more
inconsistent than the line we took with Indonesia when we had
troops in Borneo meeting the confrontation challenge.
8.
Ve were looking to the point of time, which we believed to be
not too far removed, when enough sanity would be restored to
Indonesian Counsels to have them wishing to co-operative with the
countries which could mean so nuch to their o n future and in an
area of the world of great consequence to us.
Tourism facilities for visits by journalists,
eicouragement of visits by cultural and scientific groups these
are minor ways to break the ice but there are a variety of other
ways in which tho ice can be thawed unless vie are completely
barren of hopc or imagination. I do not think any of us can
afford to becoAe. so rigidly imbedded in an attitude that there
they are and here we are and never the twain shall meet.
I amL sure it would be tiv-ely for China to review where
its current policies may lead. I say this because at this point
of time we are on the threshold I believe of a new Asia growing
in co-operation as it copes with this population explosion and
China standing at a crossroad between a friendly and mutual
beneficial associj. tion or a lonely path of persistent and
hardening hostility.
When I go to London I shall be expressing something of
the concern I felt in Australia, lest there be a reduction of
British interests in that area of the world. We are not looking
for massive British forces there but we are looking for a
continuing interest in the problei: ms of an area which, I thinl,
not only forms part of one of the major upheavals in human
history but an area, and with a body of people, that is shaping
a new world order the limits of which can only be imagined.
Modern technologies and a growing degree of co-operation can
transform for hundreds of millions of people a future which, at
the moment, is compounded of famine, of illiteracy, of poverty
and of despair. So we have a prospect which your o-wn President sees
quite clearly. e have welcomed his imaginative ap~ roach and
I do not say that only of your own President it is the
attitude of men of goodwill on both sides of politics in this
country. There has been nothing in hiunan history to match the
unparalleled generosity and vision which brought one of the
turning points of history in the Marshall Plan for Amlerica to
the world. I believe that your intervention in South Korea was
another of the turning points in history. You have been
following this up with enlightened policies in Asia or South-
East Asia of which my o-n is one wvhich reoognise this, which
are appreciative of it, which fecl grateful to the United States
for what it has done and are determined to co-operate with it
resolutely in resisting aggression, but helpfully and in a spirit
of comradeship in the great constructive tasks which lie ahead
for us all.