SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE RT. HON. R. G.
MENZIES, AT THE OPENING OF LEGACY lWEEK ON MONDAY,
SEPTEMBER, 1960
Mr. President:
I think it is a very remarkable honour to be invited
by you to open " Legacy deek" a great honour. But in one
sense a very easy thing to do because I think most people now
in Australia I would have hoped all people in Australia
regard Legacy as one of the finest things in our r. oderrp history
in Australia. It seems almost fantastic to me to look at the
Notice Paper and to see that it was founded only in 1923 by
your old friend and my old friend, Stan Savige one of the
finest Australians of our time and in 37 years it has
established itself as something, I think, quite unique.
We are all prutty good when we are in the right mood
at explaining to other people what our rights are, what would
be done for us if only justice wore done. I must not make an
exception of myself in that connection, because if justice were
done to me, I probably wouldn't be horo, at any rate in my
present capacity; but it is true that most people who give
service to their country create intheir country very properly,
a aense of obligation, and occasionally may be disposed to
emphasise the nature of that obligation. That is inevitable,
quite understandable, and indeed, in a groat number of cases,
most proper. But this organisation is unique an organisation
of people who have, on the basis of their service to their
country, accepted and poeformed addicional obligations whieb
they regard as arising out of that service. That is a very
remarkable thing, and all of us who have watched the work of
Legacy through all those years never ooaso to be thankful that
such a spirit should have found embodiment in-so many people.
A legacy. dhen one talks of a legacy a little
hopefully occasionally, it indicates an idea that we are going
to get something in cash or in kind. e are going to be at the
receiving end. Most people think of a legacy in that sense.
There are not too many people who think of a legacy in another
sense. It is a cant phrase to talk about certain evil things
in the world being a legacy of wi~ r. t has been left to this
body, almost alone in the world as far as I know, to regard this
legacy of war as something which imposes upon it a great trust
for other people, and an obligation to do things for other
people. This is a brilliant use of this word, and it is a very
fine thing for thousands and thousands of people that you
should have thought of it in that way.
e live in a time when people look to Governments
more and more for almost everything and because people elect
Members of Parliament, Members of Parliaent are under an
obligation to give effect broadly to lha the poople wanc; and
more and more over the course of rc ont years in Aus uralia
the last 20 years in Australia the position has boon that
Governments are expected to perform more things, and do, in
fact, perform more.
I was reminding another audience yesterday that when
I was first Prime Minister, which, believe it or not, isover
years ago now, the total Social Services bill of the
Commonwealth was œ 17m. and this year it is œ 330m. Now this,
of course, indicates how more and more Governments are to make
provision for people in the country who need it. But the thing
to remember is that Governments can act only in the broad.
They, so to speak, deal with human problems by vholosale; they
establish a rate of pension; they establish statutory
conditions for a man or a woman getting that pension. These
rules have to be hard rules, precise rules, because you can't
have Social Services paid out by the Govorncont according to
the whim of individuals at any point of distribution and,
therefore, you have the broad swoop of the law. Injustices
nust happen in individual cases, but that is unavoidable if you
are going to have a body of rules laid down which will, in the
broad, do the highest comron measure of justice that Parliament
thinks appropriate, You are not in the wholesale business. You are doing
something which no Government could do if it had all the
goodwill in the world and all the money in the world. You are
dealing with people, not as icembers of a group, not as one
person out of a million who must be dealt with according to
the rules that apply to the rest of the million: you are
dealing with individual cases with humanity with knowledge,
with a capacity to select, with a capacity to understand how to
deal with this individual widow or this individual child: ho-"
to do something which will help this particular boy or this
particular girl to be educated, to be trained for something.
This is a tremendously human task, and it can be dealt with only
by looking at individuals and dealing with them on their merits
so that you don't have to say, and you have no desire to say,
" Well, there is a broad rule here and it doesn't fit this case,
but it is just too bad. iJe have the broad rule and it is
unalterable." The groat essence of Legacy, to my mind, as a man
watching its work, has been its capacity for selecting the
individual for individual treatment, and this is something that
no Government department can , o.
I an not among those who criticise Civil Servants.
There are an awful lot of thoe about, and no doubt a fair number
of you here today are, or have been, Civil Servants. The Civil
Service in this country consists of an honourable body of men,
of a level of capacity not inferior to the loval of capacity in
other undertakirn. Lot us not be too quick on the draw when we
are dealing with the Civil Service; but the Civil Service can't
do what you are doing. It must act under the rule. It iust act
according to the book, and if it didn't act according to the
book we would be in strife. But you are able to do the things
that the Civil Service can't do.
We have many departlments, if you will allow me to
repeat something that I have said before today. There is no
" Departient of Loving Kindness", and there cannot be " Minister
for Loving Kindness". " Permanent Secretary to the Department
of Loving Kindness". Dear mel The first thing that would
happen would be that someone iown the line would say: " But look,
I must have the book of the words. What are the rules of loving
kindness?" and you let us -et to work defining the rules of
loving kindness: we'll have a magnificent body of rules, but
there won't be any loving kindness. This is something that no
Government can provide for you. As individuals we're really
quite a soft-hearted lot. You'd be surprised. But wo cannot
dispense loving kindness as you dispense a pension or a benefit
under some Act of Parliament. And therefore, Sir, I am a groat
believer in Legacy. I think it is quite unique. I hope that
in this Appeal that is going out this week, you will raise at
least twice as much as in your wildest dreams you hope to, And,
indeed, if it becomes adequately known in Australia that this
Appeal is on, I want to tell you that I believe there will be a
response in the hearts and minds of people that will astonish
you. I wouldn't be too modest in what you are looking for;
wouldn't be too modest in what you tell people about what your
work is, because this is the groetest humane operation conducted
by individual private citizens, nost of whom. might say quite
well: J1ll, I've done my share. I've done my tour of
duty. Let somebody else look after this.
3.
after this. Let the Governmuont look after this. This is a
magnificent hoart-waring thing.
Now, the only other thing I want to say to you,
though it nay take a little time, is this: Australia is one
country. It is in its way a sort of microcosm of the world.
What happens here is happening in oe form or anotho-in mot
other countries. What you are doing here the riatter that 1
have beeoon talking about provides. i ny opinion, a koy to
some of the great problnems now current in the world Ill tell
you one, because we discussed it a great d'al when I was in
London at the Prime Minis hors! Conforence,
I can go back to a time when we sat thoere five of
us Great Britain, Canad, South Africa, new Zhaiand, ! AustYrlit
We didn't disagroee about very uch; we had an agreCable series
of talks with each other. All that now, numerically, is change.
4e havencw nations, formorly colonies, becoming : eCobors of the
Comnonwealth every year. Ghana appearod for the first time
three years back. . ost Indies well on the way. TigerLa
will certainly be at the next Prire Ministors' Conferenco,
There are discussions going on u Malt. You know all th
discussion that's going on about thc Contral African Eopublic
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland on which the Monckton Coru: iission has
just booeen sitting? lie have Kenya; Tanganyi'ka, i-have the
vexed probln of the future of South Africa, should South
Africa become a Republic. You can hardly set a li. mit to the
dovelopont that is going on in the world a pol--cll
development. It's soothing that nobody visualisod even five
years ago, the speed with which now nati:> ns are coming irntu
existence. There night very well bc 20 or 24 seeking _ oDborshi-p
of the Cor. onwealth or holding emonborship of the Commonwealth
inside five yors fron now. Now this mons that we are living
nor and moro in a different w'rorld, The tiy'. e has ) noe by Then
we can just look at South Africa at Africa, rathor, to use
the entire continent when we could talk about Africa and say:
" Oh, yes," a feiw cliches you know " Darkest Africa", or " I
wonder what is going on in the Congo", or " How is tl-he diamond
industry?" and all this kind of thing. The fact is that in
these years, and it will continue country after c -untry, sono
of the very nanes of which we will not have heard before, are
coming into existence and, of course, one of the facts of life
is that when an agitation bodins in any country for selfgovernont
and it is powerfully led, led with fire and
imagination by some leaders, it gro'rs. It grows on itself. 7t
accelerates its spcod and all the chancos are that the country
i-ight find itself with political indopendonce ' hen econ-1omically
it cannot survive off its own resourcos or its efffno rts,
This is a groeat problem of our tine intornationally how we
are to act so that political indepondenco with all its
implications for friendship . nd alliance aroundu the world can
be nmatched with econonic indopondence, with a gonuine capacity
to survive out of local resources. Woll, some time ag. o we had
a shot at this. It ought to be romombored here roith so:.: e pride that
just as Australia wias the c untry that croated Loeacy, so
Australia was the country that pro.. ated the Colombo Plan, and
we have at all tines booeen active contributors to the Colonbo
Plan not just to mTake gPood follows of ourselves. You don't
do your work in Legacy to mnake good follows of yoursolves: you
do it with both eyes on the end result, the end result being
the helping of somobody to live a fuller and freer and better
life. And similarly, when uw) ive aid internationally we -uss
be vastly careful to soee we are not doing it to be just " good
follows", not doing it just to advertiso some goods, hut that
we are doing it because wo realise that a rise in the econom! ic
standards, a rise in the standard of living of these neol,
I
countries that have cone to political indopondenco is the one
thing that will not only do justirc to their people, but enable
then to maintain their independence and to resist the onset of
the strange, nad doctrines of Communism. The best defence
for them against Conmunism, against any other form of w'hat I
will call disorder, is that they should develop their own
strength, that their people should look forward to a rising
standard of living, generation by generation.
Now that imposos a tromndous obligation on the
nations of tho free world, just as you said, and this is all in
parallel. It isn't' sufficient to have won a war or helped to
win one. It is now our obligation to help others who have
suffered in consequence of that; so it isn't sufficient for
the nations of the free -world to say: " Well, we won this war.
We nay now attend to our own business. Just too bad if you
people down there or out there are not doing too well, but
charity begins at hore: o we're going to build up our own
strengths we're going to go around telling each other how high
our standard of living is." It is very nice to be able to do
that, but there will be no peace for the world if more than half
the people of the world are living under circu-istances i; which
the glories of political independence have become croplotol:
Dead Sea fruit-have proved to be nothing but a misleading
circumstance because in their own homos and in their own lives
freedom is not accompanied by a rise in the standards of life,
Now, the United States of Al'erica has, I thin':,
faced up to this responsibility magnificontly not to get
thanks, because she hasn't had many thanks; not to buy some
smile from sonebody, because you can't buy that kind of thing
but because I genuinely believe that the people of the United
States who pay the piper for these enormous grants in aid, have
realised that the power which is theirs after e. merging
victoriously from two wars must be accompanied by a sense of
responsibility. They, theseolves, have accepted that particular
legacy of war in the sense in which I used it in relation to you
earlier; but it doesn't end there,
Wet must all do more and moreo: won't always be very
popular. Thereo's always somobody who's able to say: 1" Well,
look at the m,. ney you spend on Colombo Aid. Look at the money
you spend in relation t. the other powers of South-east Asian
Treaty Organisation. Look at tohe oney that you lay out on the
various Agencies of the United Nations. ! hy, if we didn't
spend that abroad, think of the houses we could put up in our
own country: think of all the slum clearances that could be
facilitated. Let us look after ourselves." If every nation in
the world, which is now a free nation, decided that from now on
it would look after itself each for itself and the devil take
the hindnost the world would be tumbling into the most
frightful catastrophe of history before we're 20 years older.
The whole condition of survival is that the new nations should
be made to feel that they have our sympathCtic, individual
interest, our desire to help, our desire to build them up,
There's one aspect of that which I have mentioned once before
publicly, but which I propose to mention wherever I have the
opportunity, and it's this: It was pointed out rather
yaphically at the last Prime Ministers' Conference by Mr. Nehru
himself in a very thoughtful speech. After all, if there's
one man in the world who can speak about countries a. chieving
independence and about their probles, it is hru himself,
with this enormous country of his own full of economic problems,
and, of course, now with intornational problems of a rather
unforeseen kind; but he pointed this out, and it bit itself
into my mind. We talk about this country being one of the " haves"
and that country being one of the " have nots". You reuember
that before this last war there used to be great discussions
going on Jtbout the atti~ udo of Germ.-an.-because wo had coLonics
and Gormany didn't havo thorn to the sa-1mo extent thoi " haves" T
and tho " have nots" a: i'ld thero rust a conflict botwoon
thorn1, just as it's said thoro must arr. ays bo a co,-nflict b) ctwcon
tho rich and thopoor; Tu'his ., ivo: 3 risc to bittornos-s and to
hostilitics. 4ll there's a. let ofl -ruth in it, b, t the
ironical position zoday . s t'ut thi: last war ;. io KL,. vo
soon a most tremelndous to,., amioal improve::-. nt
Whoevor thought when thJ. s a e tl-at cep: r: 2c
knocking tho moo,. n about vith__ 0 ' s WhJ! 3Covo
thought that thoro would be vastu cerJvatiti-.: on V irsatellitos
into orbit alound Th o , arx.( that r: . ortt in
few yoars tiro or pe:, rhaps earlier hum., an bei-ng.-, s
taking obsorvations fromi those
Tho wonders of physical sco nco hae 1, vilod to
tho world more in the last ten years in term,. s ci Cp-, po2 ication
than in any other period of hur. ian history and tho ,-oat industrial
powers Unitod States of iAme1rica, GroaLt Britain,
Australia, because wo aro, ran tc, iman, a consi'lerabile
industrial power with consideorable ros ourcos of scientific
skill and of tochnology theso nation-s will progross as the
rosult of thtose th2. ngs at lan ono-,: mous__' y rapid rate. Wo' , o only
a-t the bo., innin g ofL it, but ,-ou take -; ho United States o::
An--orica: you can't have 180,000,000 -cop-l with ta Jir
resources of trainod scienit sts, 1,1it!_ geius ' or
production, for engineering prdctc -' ou c1 tK
nation like that without seeing thadu 11" ls P* 1od it-s
wealth, its standards of livin a: aou gcin7; u~ + o k1cer
increasing at 2 per-cent a yoar r;. re a.-. j.* i,. h-, xyo-ica1 T" OeSJOl
They'll beg in to increase by t11._ s3 u-~ Oeforo
knujw whore we are because of the enorm._ ous Ji:: pact, 1. Of dc7oo
cal resources and imaprovemeint. Iv1 yu go ' o 11i-. gria or 1hana,
oIc-or Tanganyika, if they cui-e a IonF into ine 1re,
they ' Jon' t have these technmical ) LUI. cces -a rie'e anro of
trained rmon scientificanlly or tech i:. cally, the Llost rud-ientary
fo.-rms of equipmDent as com_-paLrd the technological
c-) untrie-s and the result is tha,-t th---y wrill ad,. vance even
left to them-selves they will advance -but they will advance
only a little bit Lat a ti-, osat the best by aritihnetical
progression; certainly not b-& g om, otricai progression0 And
the result of that is tha,, t ues the rest of the world does
something. ab-u it h a, beIe n tose countries and the
advanced countrios wJil3 ro-\ 4 eryc I thnink iti iS a ver
striking consideration, but i" rour rate of lmrjeotin tiie
free w,-orld is like-. that and theirs isLike th: it s ta-nLs to
reason thtat the g; ap between the thaves nd the have' n ill
become wider and w,. ider, and. as a) 4-of that a loj--f these
countries will be ter~ rmted ' c ad: Dpt" alien ideoas Ond ' ru-L
themiselves int, rbit around the--iroLng idea. o,,-LecaP. õ lanct.
ThiS is a mttor ) f gr--ave considera tion for the-.
world and, consequently. I bolie j, tr: a wero not ju," St to D
along, saying-" Ill, we're Jluing ovthn. It is L_ reasonable
minimum. Charity beg-ins at hom. W could spend this nmoney
with reat advantagec inside our ownm c-, untry. 1"
You g ont-cicon don~ t honour, t-he name f Le; cy by doing
as little as you can. You honour it by d gaF; imuch as you
can. The whole of the Leg-acy'rvmn is 1> ased iion-: n
something, without technical obi nat -ll, Join-sc inething
voluntarily, doing something.-bocax>, 3 you re,, alise J.. r. u treme-,. ndous
individual purposes to be served. ISrid in the same my we1, the
nations of the free world who enj ov -i; rosperity, who can see in
front of us a long vista of .1ranatildly iniproving. P stuamdards
rmust turn aside from time, to tim~ e end,' have a loc-,-k tat ou-.
neighbour, thaou:-h the neighbour T-ay ic: fi-o thousanil miles
away, adsay.-I". W 1ht about h~ im? Is ha crigaong" too?
6.
Couldn't we take just a little less of the surplus of our o: n
comparative wealth in order to onablo him to devclop those
technical matters in particular i. n his own country, w;' hich will
enable him to live in a country that is frIc, but not only
self-governing, but self-supporting and proud and independet? 12
Now, Sir, that sounds sut. riciousy lb n sornion.
but if you invite no to coie to Loe.,. acy you proh.. de r2Qmw ith
text of the highest magnificncc c-n\ Prosbyt rian Can bo
presented with a text wifthou-cin tinlec tUivttijn ,, y up to
preach a serr., on. t