SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, MR. R. G. MENZIES
AT ME TING OF ST; TE EXECUTIVE OF LIBEAL PARTY
OF VICTORIA ON JEDNESDAY 2ND MARCH 1960.
Fellow Members of Parliament and Ladies and Gentlemen:
I want to make a small correction before I say anything
else. The President referred to me as being " sun-tanned"; I'm
not: I'm hard-boiled. I thought when I was in Indonesia recently
and Malaya that it was impossible for anybody to be hotter
than I was but I've felt hotter still in the last couple of
days in Melbourne. ( Laughter)
Now I'm not going to be here very long because I'm in the
middle of a lot of work in my Office and we have a Cabinet this
afte-noon, but I do want to say one or two things to you.
First of all, of course, I reply to your welcome with the
very greatest of pleasure. It's one of the sorrows of my life
that being in Canberra, necessarily, for the great bulk of the
time, and going to other States from time to time, I find myself
very seldom in my o. wn town and among my onm people, and you've
no idea what a pleasure I get out of coming here and seeing old
friends and feeling that I'm in my own place. If that could
happen more frequently, perhaps, Mr. President even the low
Sgrowls might disappear. ( Laughter)
I think, perhaps, I ought to say a word or two to you first
of 1ll about matters outside Australia. I was very struck on
this recent journey to Malaya and to Indonesia, by one very
significant fact. In Indonesia, Independence was secured as a
result of armed conflict and there were, and are, great racial
hatreds. It's a ve,' y astonishing thing to be in Indonesia and
to realise how almost completely the Dutch influence has been
expelled, not always to the advantage of Indonesia; though
it's their own country and they'll govern it in their own way.
But one sees there all the survivls of acute racial cleavage and,
as I say, to a degree, hatred, -hereas up in Malaya Independenr
was achieved as a result of peaceful arrangement between the
British and the Malayans. The whole atmosphere is different:
Europeans are going around about their affairs; large and
famous business houses in Kuala Lumpur and Penang are conducting
their operations. You go up through the country and if you see
some big engineering piece of work it's ' a guinea to a gooseberry'
that the Chief Engineer is called " Cmpbell" ( Laughter).
I didn't find any of this atmosphere of fear of the outside
influence or detestation of the Europeans. And the result is
that in Malaya the Government, under a most enlightening and
sensible man in their Prime Minister, the Tunku Abdul Rahman,
is going forward; they know that it's their responsibility to
conduct their country and, if I may say so, they seem to be
doing it with great efficiency and with high civilization.
Now I think there is something to be learned from all this.
The British history and tradition of converting Colonies into
independent States is, of course, well known and it deserves to
be better recognised all round the world. It's a most honourable
history. It is, in effect, a unique history. But there
are still some people who prefer to be late rather than early
with the creation of self-government. I think I used to belong
to the school of thought myself which felt that you must be
very, very, very cautious about reaching the right time. Today,
I'm not so sure. Today I'm more and more satisfied that the
important thing is that people should be able to rule themselves
and that if you help them to reach that stage, if you don't hold
them back, if you give them every conceivable kind of help and
training and encouragement, then when they do achieve their
independence, they will do it on the basis of friendship. And
we need that because we're not a very big country. le need it.
That, to my mind was the 5reat genius of Harold Macmillan's
visit to Africa a magnificent journey. It ali: ays sounds quite
simple these journeys always do, until you take them yourself
but they're not as easy as all that. And his, of course, was far
more difficult than mine because he is the Prime Minister of one
of the great powers of the world and, indeed, and I think in the
long run, the most influential country in the world. ( Applause)
And he goes down on a journey, starting with Ghana and
ending with South Africa, going through half a dozen different
countries each of them with utterly different problems from its
neighbour, each of them in a different stage of development;
some of them with forceful and even hostile leaders and some of
them with friendly leaders and, of course, ultimately, in South
Africa, the classic example of a country in which the racial
problem has attracted the interest of the whole world, though
not necessarily the intelligent interest of the whole world, because
it is a tremendously complex matter. And he's gone down
there; he's made speeches; he's met people; he's discussed
their problems with them and I will undertake to say he has, in
this one journey, profoundly influenced the future history of the
whole of the African Continent.
Cynical onlookers who think politicians like myself are all
words, and take jaunts what does it matter what they think
about me but I say this about Mr. Macmillan: I think this
journey of his has made such a profound impact on the future
history of Africa that it will be regarded as an " epoch-making"
visit. And the outstanding thing about it is that wherever he's
gone he's made it clear when he's talked to Africans, to the
indigenous inhabitants of these countries: " vJe are not your
jailers; we are your friends; we look forward to the time when
you are going to rule yourselves and we're not going to be too
petty about how you come to rule yourself. le want you to know
and we want you to fed that you are to come to your Independence
with feelings of friendship."
It seems simple doesn't it? I bet a lot of the things he
had to say weren't very popular with some Europeans in Africa
because whether we like it or not there are always conflicts
between the young turbulent native element, getting education and
getting a feeling of freedom and a great ambition for their own
country, and the older European inhabitatns who feel that things
haven't gone too badly and they might, with advantage; be left
alone. And Macmillan's visit has gone like a breath of fresh air
on all these matters. He has spoken in South Africa with great
frankness but on my advices, without leaving one ounce of rancour
behind him. This is a marvellous combination of firmness and
tact and good sense and imagination for the future. And it's
important that he should have done it in Africa because though we
talk about one hot spot in the world after another and they
seem to change every year very few people doubt that the
developments in the African Continent in the next ten years are
going to occupy an increasingly important place in the thoughts
of all of us. And of course, will have increasing significance
for us. Don't forget that from our point of view it's a very
grave matter that hundreds of millions of people in China should
have cone under communism; it would be a double tragedy if the
Communists, who have their eyes on Africa, should succeed in
establishing themselves by capitalising the interests, the enthusiasm,
the emotions of the native inhabitants and pointing out
that their white colonial powers are being unfair to them and
failing to see their point of view. This was a mater stroke by
Harold Macmillan.
Now I might, perhaps, turn from there to our position at
home. I'm not going to make an orthodox, political speech I'll
probably have to make one or two before I'm very much older.
I'll be out on a stump in Latrobe where I've already been preceded
by my friend, Mr. Calwell, who has my warmest good wishes
for this election to Leadership. ( Laughter)
But the thing I want to talk to you about very briefly has
nothing to do with . hat he is talng about. It has to do with
what the President said this morning in an indirect way.
Half of our problems as an organisation irise from the fact
that we live under a Federal Constitution. I'm a great believer
in a Federal Constitution nobody need suppose that I have any
ambition to see all power concentrated at Canberra. But it's
true that a lot of our problems crise from the fact that we do
have a division of power. So does the Federal Government that
has limited power over this and that, the State Government that
has limited power ovo-that and this and there will ways be,
in a sense, conflicts which don't need to be conflicts of
hostility but there will always be questions of jurisdiction;
there will always be in the feeling of a State Parliament or a
State Government a sense that it is too dependent upon the
Commonwealth in the financial field; there will always be a
feeling in Canberra that while we have the macjor responsibility
in financial matters, we don't have and you will agree the
major authority to deal with them.
All these things produce differences of opinion and arguments
and they will always go on as arguments. But the thing
that we have to remember is that we are all one people. I feel
strange in some places in Australia Melbourne's not one of them
I hasten to say to discover that I'm an outsider. I've nothing
to do with that State, I'm something to do with Canberra.
And I always have to tap them on the shoulder and say: " I'd like
to remind you that every man in this place is a constituent of
mine because I happen to be Pri-e Minister and I am elected by
exactly the same people only more". And that's to be remembered.
It's the underlying element of unity which must be preserved
and if you have that a sense of common destiny and of
common responsibility then whatever discussions we may have
about the details, one arising from some conflict of power,
another, perhaps ,. rising from a conflict of. ideas, they don't
matter. They're very healthy. I agree with the President. I
like to have this low grumble, this low mur.. er. It's a very
good thing; it shows that we're not dead. But I do beg of you
to remember that over and above all that we are one people and
just under that, but remarkably important, we are one Party. U', e
were once, inl943, fourteen parties. ' Je became one, and let's
never forget it. ' Je have presented to the people and to ourselves
a spectacle of inity which the other side of politics
envies in secret because it has been torn . sunder for years.
All I say to you is: " Don't let us ignore what we see in
front of us. Let's always come back to the fact that we are one
party". You take the Commonwealth body. Je have a Federal
Secretariat. And it's a very intelligent and very useful affair
to have. But we don't forgot at Canberra that the whole of the
field organisation in Australia is attended to by the State
Divisions. : ithout that we would be helpless, ic could go to
the newspapers; we could make speeches; we could go over the
air but wo wrould have no organisation on the ground; none of
this thing which is so vital to political success.
While the State Divisions on the other hand remember that in
the Federal Secretariat we have evolved a very considerable and
useful thinking and policy scheme which, in relation to Federal
matters, does work that can't be duplicated elsewhere, in relation
to Federal problems. And, therefore, here again is the
very proof of our unity. lemay appear to be different, but re
are the same thing operating through various instruments,
Now, I say that to you bucc. use that means that I'm saying
that in our Party organisation work we should lways remember the
Federal structure of the Constitution under which we all live.
Therefore proposals to alter that Federal structure are the
concern of all of us, People occasionally think that a Constitutional
amendment will resolve itself into an argument between
one Parliament and another. That's not true. Constitutional
amendments concern the whole people; they're not lawyers'
tricks or lawyers' problems; they are the problems of ordinary
men and wonon the lawyers may have to put them into form
but ordinary men and iomen are affected by these matters.
ile have just had a joint Parliamentary Committee on the
Constitution at Canberra. It has made a massive report, a
tremendous report, which I suppose very few people have had an
opportunity of reading as yet. And about 40 or 50 amiendments
to the Constitution were suggested. v-oll, I'm bound to say
without being too discouraging, but I think that's a pretty
optomistic approach to the problem. I've had a bit of experience
trying to make one or two amendmonts to the Constitution
( laughter) but I've never tried 57.
As a matter of fact some of you will remember that in one
year I think it was 1937 we had two amendments to the Constitution.
One had to do with marketing orderly marketing
notwithstanding Section 92. It came out of the Dried Fruits
Case and was designed to help, among others, the dried fruit
growers in the Murray Valley. And when it came to the polls I
couldn't fail to notice that it was most heavily defeated in
those areas. You never know. I hadn't a friend left. All my
friends in Kooyong who weren't very interested in orderly marketing
or dried fruits, or whatover it might be, used to look at me
in the street with considerable distrust and I just scraped-home
at the next election. It's a fact. I know a bit about Constitutional
referendums.
But at the same time we put up another proposal, lot me
remind you, to give the Commonwealth Parlia! iont_ powo.: over
Civil Aviation. Now you'd think, wouldn't you, that a problem
of that kind was obviously a matter for Commonwealth treatment
since you can get into an aircraft in Melbourne and be in Brisbane
in a couple of hours. So what? Enthusiastically you think:
We're in the habit of saying we vote If we don't
understand it we vote " No" which, no doubt, is a very safe thing
to do ( Laughter). And therefore I just want to tell you that
nobody need anticipate that we're coming out tomorrow with a Bill
to make 57 amendments in the Constitution. On the contrary.
tWe're going to examine this great and massive document with loving
care. I use theword " loving" in a metaphorical sense. It
may be that some amendments will emerge as being worth consideration.
I know myself of one or two problems that could, with advantage,
be straightened out, particularly the relations between
the two Houses on which I think that it's an unsatisfactory state
of the law at the present time.
But so that nobody will become involved in heated argument
prematurely, let me say that we have not yet discussed in Cabinet
this report. A lot of preliminary work is being done on it by
my colleague, the Attorney-General, and I've been doing some
reading on it myself, 3ut nobody need fear that there is going
to be a sudden announc. iuent that this particular mass of amendments
will be introduced to Parliament. We must discuss this
with our own colleagues in the Party, we must commune between
Members of the House of Representatives ,. nd ienators; we must
exercise our own judgment as to what is practical, as to what
people are likely to approve of. Therefore I'm not in the happy
position of the Labour Party in Latrobe rhich I notice has already
begun to say, not that , what we're doing about infl... tion is
wrong though they iill, of course, in due course say it's
rong but that what they would do about problems like the
problem of inflation. What would they do? They would alter
the Constitution in accordance with the terms of the recommendation
of this Committee. I think that's rather nice. You might
win a by-election with proposals of that kind, but you wouldn't
win a referendum. ( Laughter)
And so, Ladies and Gentlemen, I just take the opportunity
of reminding you of these things. Jo don't al:. ays think about
thom but I am satisfied that the 10 years in which I've been
able to be the head of the Commonwealth Government, 10 years of
very great advance all over Australia, would not, on the political
front have been possible if it hadn't been that I had a
united band of people behind me and united people working as you
work in the field. It is unity which has been our great strength
and if we preserve that, spiritedly, frankly, never afraid to
argue with each other though preferably in private but not
afraid of differences, but always remembering that it's the great
underlying unity that carrios this movement foriard and that
carries Australia forward. And Ithink that somebody else I
hope will be standing here in 10 years' time as a Liberal Prime
Minister looking back on nother 10 years of successful service
to the country.
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