SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE RT. HON. R. G.
MENZIES, AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 16TH JNE 16o
This is a proud day for mae. To one who has had a
great deal to do with the recent expansion of Universities in
Australia, and who is himself an Australian Graduate, an honour
accorded by this famous foundation means more than can be
readily expressed. To the political leader of the Australian nation it
means even more. For on this day the most powelful country in
the world offers a courtesy, so to speak, to another country,
weak in numbers but strong in will, whose future is bound up
with yours, the body of whose intellectual and spiritual character
is part of a common inheritance.
You have honoured me by asking me to speak. I would
not wish to acknowledge that honour by offering you the common--
places of that escapist piety of sentiment which characterises
most after-dinner oratory. I shall not say that " we are
cousins" because, for the most part, we most certainly are not;
we get on much too well. I shall not say that we have the same
kind of parliamentary democracy, because we have not; we in
Australia live in a constant blur of good-natured bewilderment
at some of the " oddities" of your own constitutional processes.
But of course we do have great things in common; so
great that if we avoid insanity in the English-speaking world,
we shall always be friends and allies, To preserve this friendship,
we are to face up to our tasks, accept our responsibilit~ cs
with some favour or affection, no doubt, but without fear.
Today, fear is our greatest enemy. So far, a century
of the most brilliant scientific achievement, of growi ng political
consciousness, and of material advancement, has been marred
by fear, suspicion, and actual hatred, to a degree without
modern precedent. Many have developed a fear of life and of its problems.
so that the psychiatrists flourish like the green bay tree, Many
of us have learned to fear our own unruly impulses and -the individuality
which is our divine gift, and therefore seek the
protection of conformity. If we seek to " Keep up with the
Joneses", it is mostly because we want to be like the Joneses
and avoid the accusation of being odd, or different, or conspicuous.
' 4e fear to be unpopular. WIh en we do something we
regard as generous or helpful, we are dismayed to find so muCh
ingratitude. On quite a few occasions I have been asked by
prominent Americans why the superb American International generosity
of recent years has so frequently been received with such
covert resentment or open hostility. My reply has always been
that the world power of the British in the 19th century may well
have inspired respect, but certainly did not purchase populariti-y.
Power exacts its own reactions. Friendship cannot be bought,
and great powor, however benevolently exercised, will always
produce puzzling resentmentL-s. " Why should this rich nation have
more than we have?".
doe are frequently invited to fear the poten~ tial eneray-
In destructive technology, we find him so clever, and forget
that in the constructive sciences the contribution of thie free
world is so much greater than his.
ile rejoice in power, but we sometimes fear and misunderstand
the responsibilities it brings. We are tempted to
withdraw into ourselves to enjoy the fruits of our own labours,
and to let the re3st of he world go by.
This brings me to the point I wish to make today,.
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0 2.
Tennyson, no so dernode among the young, once wrote a
few lines which have been much misunderstood
" We sa iled wheirever ships could sail,
Je founded many a mighty state;
Pray God our greatness may not fail
For craven fear of being great!"
This was no imperialist tub-thumping. It was brilliantly perceptive.
It saw clearly that greatness imposes responsibilities:
that power which is merely enjoyed is a menace, but that power
with responsibility can be the salvation of the world.
The great free powers are on trnlt today: none more
so than the greatest of them, the United States of America. The
way in which they survive this trial will depend upon how they
rise to the splendid but awful responsibilities of power: how
bravely they guard the inner liberties of man: how utterly they
cast out fear: how clearly their light shines before men: how
far they keep the feeling of adventure, and avoid the defensiveness
of riches. A desire f~ or power seems natural in mankind. Among
politicians it is thought to be endemic. But the great men and
the great nations are those who, having achieved it, do not
weakly recoil from it, afraid of leadership, or rejoice in power
for its own sake and for the precarious comforts it brings.
The twentieth century, which might so woll have been
the golden century of civilisation, has been bedevilled by the
lovers of power without responsibility. 4o do not denounce the
infamous memory of Hitler because he g ained and exercised power.
Much greater men than he gained and exercised power to defeat and
destroy him. Hitler is infamous, as are the other malevolent
dictators of our time, because with all his power he had no
smallest sense of responsibility for the true g7ood of men and
women. He obtained power, and became a monster.
Today, the communist threat is the result of another
and terrible misconception or denial of the duties of power. If
the men who come and g7o as the controllers of the destiny of the
Soviet Union were content to pursue their philosophy in their own
land because they believed that their system, so alien to us,
was the one to give peace and security and social justice and
happiness to their own people, we might well wonder, but we
would stand aside, on the principle of " live and let live", But
when we see them as an aggressive force, aiming at the bending of
hundreds of millions of free people to their own will, we know
that we are again seeing the search for power without rospohsibility.
The answer to power without responsibility is not power
simpliciter, though some people are prepared to rest there. '! Get
toug i" has an appeal, particularly if the slogan-makers can
stigmatise those who would wish to negotiate as " appeasers". In
a world such as we live in, power is essential, but it is not all.
The truth, self-evident though it may be, is that the only answer
to power witiaout responsibility is power with responsibility.
It is not sufficient to say that tL-his is the truth. As
usual, it is necessary to say what it moans.
It is a matter of famous record that in this place
George Marshall announced the groatest and most gonorous aid plan
in history. But greater even than its generosity uas its intelligence.
It was only a great power that could g7ive great aid
to others, But the diving of that aid was an ackno,, wledgment of
the responsibility that goes with power; a rusponsibility based
upon an understanding of international facts and the true foundations
of peace.
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3.
Here we have g reat scope for the imagination. ' vie know
that, on our side, the greatest of all wars was fought for
freedom, 3ut this did not havc a purely selfish connotation.
It did not mean freedom for those who alrcady enjoyed it; for
Americans and British and Frenchman and Australians. It meant
freedom for all mon, including those hundreds of millions in
countries moving towards independence, for whom self-government
is thne greatest of all adventures. vlhen you in your great way,
and we in our small, tax yourselves and ourselves to help new
nations, we are not just being more or less comfortably generous,
and feeling -ood about it. Wde are rocognising. the one-ness of
humanity, and the profound responsibilities of power and of
possessions. It is not philanthropy, but wisdom, to accept the
task of guiding and helping other nations and people, so that
they may acquire not only the institutions of freedom, but,
much more importantly, those rising standards of living and of
thaought without n rhich free institutions will wither and decay.
True, we may properly admit that we -rish to restrain the expansive
move of communian. To this end, as in the case of SEATO we
enter into military engagements and make military preparations.
But these will fail unless, in those new nations which stand at
risk, economic growth is stimulated, the development of the
individual is pursued, and the communist powers find themselves
increasingly confronted by communities resolved to accept no
slavery of the mind.
In the performance of our responsibilities, there is
no time to be lost. Since 1945~ the hitherto little-known new
world moves rapidly to a series of now nationhoods, Lor.-I at
Africa, until recently a nest of colonies, where a score of new
nations are coming to birth. Are we to be just kind to them,
giving to them that which we feel we can comfortably afford, the
" crumbs from the rich man's table", or will we see in their
(: mergence a great challenge to the wisdom of western civilisation?
Is there not a wise-self-interest to serve, not a narrow selfishness
for self-protection, but a self-interest based upon the
understanding that our own freedom is dependent upon the freedom
of others: that we cannot havc peace and prosperity for ourselves
alone? May I venture to remind you of one of the great economic
phenomena of our time? It is that, nationally speaking, the
gap between the ' haves" and the " have nets" is becoming greater.
I believe that this is not true inside of our boundaries,
where social responsibilities, e-xpressed in terms of schemes of
social welfare and social justice, have led to a narrowing of
the gap between riches and poverty. High and graduated taxatioi
is, within reasonable limits and subject to legitimate grumbling,
accepted. More and more, in our own place, we carry the burden
of being our brother's keeper.
But internationally, this, in spite of great efforts,
is not by any means true, 4oe live in an ago of amazing technological
groi.-th. Aided by the most superb technical skill, the
great industrial countries make progre ss in an almost geometrical
fashion. The luxury of yesterday becomes the mass-produced
commonplace of tomorrow. And so, nationally speaking, and in
the words of the old song, " 1the, rich get richier",. But what of
the new nations, the relatively poor nations, with sketchy or
primitive industries, with little technical skill and with, as
yet, small facilities for increasing it? At best, their rate of
material improvement is arithmetical, not geometric. So far from
catching up they are, in relative terms, falling behind.
This consideration, quite clear as it seems to me,
must give us all furiously to think. In face of it, we cannot
rationally decide to do less; we must do all that we can, even
though it means we do a little less for ourselves, " Charity
begins at home" is a cynical proverb, and, in this w,. orld, a
false one.
I never come into the United States without feeling
something of the pulse and drama of your strength and growth.
Your resources are so boundless, your productive skill so boundless,
your optimism ( that great driving forcc) so all-pervasive.
Moro than any other country in the world yucould, in an economic
sense, live to and by yourselves. Lnd yet your high destiny
is to use your strength to ive light and leading and encouragement
to the world. The measure of how you fulfil that destiny
will be the measure of your greatness. You have accepted the
greatest responsibilities in htuman history. In this famous
place, the father ( or mother) of so many who have served in
high places and have, in high or humble places, given leadership
in the fields of the mind and the spirit, may I pray that year
by year there will be more and more of your graduates who will
persuade their follow-citizens, not only here but around the
world, that, just as rights are less significant thaan duties, so
is strength admirable only for the responsibilities it accepts
and discharges. The free world and that gre at area of the world which
longs to be free, look oyou with gratitude, but also with hope.
It is an honour to be enrolled in your brotherhood, and a rare
privilege to speak, not so much for myself, as for Australia,
your young but determined friend.