EMBARGO: 10O. 30 _ mSunda, 1__ October 1970
JOH1NGORTON'S FIRST 1, 000 DAYS"
TELEVISION INTERVIEW GIVEN BY TIIE PRIME MINISTER
MR. JOHN GORTON ON CIANNEL 7i'TV NETWORK
Interviewer Peter Martin
Recorded on Wednesday 7 October for screenln on Sunia 11 ctober 1970
P r o g r a m m e opens with film segment showing Mr Gorton speaking to well-wishers
outside Parliament House on the day he became Prime Minister 9 january 196F.
Q. Prime Minister, that was more than one thousand days ago now, more than
two and a half years ago. Ncw, looking back on your first weeks of settling
into office, you must have had some expectations about the office what it
meant and some of those expectations, if you are like everyone else, must
have been fairly solidly tested or abandoned pretty quickly. Did you have
ary expectatio-s that got shot to pieces?
PM I don't think I did. I don't think I had firm expectations a;. d therefore no
expectations to be shot to pieces, and indeed, there wasn't much time to arrive
at firm expectations. The first day I was there Harry Lee rang up from
Singapore about problems with the British withdrawal, and then we had a postal
strike and things just seemed to pour in one after the other.
Q. It was a very busy time. You also had in a matter of weeks the beginning
of the Tet offensive. Did you wonder at that time what the hell you had gotten
into?
PM Well I had been in the Cabinet, but I think what struck me most in the first
month or two was the enormous importance everybody seemed to place on every
word that one spoke..... and the interpretations that were put on that word. The
words were taken inside out and interpreted different ways by different people,
which is something I hadn't expected. I guess that is one expectation. And
you mentioned the Tet offensive. At that stage I had made the statement we would
be sending no more troops to Vietnam. That, of course, had been decided by
the Cabinet in the previous Cove rnment. It was known to our allies a: nd everything,
but I was surprised at the surprise with which that was received.
Q. 0-e newspaper wrote when you were elected Leader of the Liberal Party
" Fasten your seat belts, please". Some political corresponde.-ts who have
been here for twenty or thirty years or so tell me that they have never seen such
a tumultuous timae around the Parliament in all their experience. Do you agree
that this has been a stormy and eventful period S 2
PM Oh, I am sure it has been. It has been stormy and eventful inside the
Parliament, but it has been stormy and eventful in Australia's history, I think,
We reached a stage where from the defence point of view the whole of our
previous concept of our history was changed by Britain's withdrawal. We
reached a period of development where we took a completely new approach in
trying to protect Australian ownership, as far as we could, without stopping the
inflow of overseas capital. There was a completely new kind of approach there.
We had to look again, or suggested we should look again at Commonwealth / State
power relations. And all these matters were things that had just gone along
quietly for years and suddenly they came to a point where there were new facts,
new requirements, new discussions.
Q. They are all things that lead back to you, though. Do you acce; t responsibility
for the fact that it was a stormy period?
PM For everything except Britain's decision to withdraw from the near North:
Q. Your first Cabinet was generally regarded in the Press as something of
a disappointment. The phrase that was being used was " new broom". People
said the new broom hadn't swept clean. You later made considerable changes,
but why didn't you change at first'? Were you overawed by your more senior
Cabinet colleagues?
PM I don't think any of my then more senior Cabinet Ministers who sat with
me in the Cabinet would for a moment think I was overawed. But they were
senior Ministers of considerable standing in the Party and in the cou-try and it
could have been too much of a new broom I won't mention names but there
were a number of senior people and changing them all round straight away I
think could have had more detrimental effects than good ones.
Q. Well, if I may be impudent enought to suggest names because they have
been suggested publicly it was suggested that Mr Hasluck ar: d Mr McMahon
and Mr Fairhall, with their seniority were a little more conservative on many
issues in Cabinet than you were and that they tended to resist the changes you
wanted to introduce. Did you find that frustrating?
PM Well, I vo uld say it was true to say that as a general thing these
gentlemen were more conservative than I was on many matters. Did I find
it frustrating? No, and eventually I think the conservatism tended to be
overcome.
Q. How? 6 / 3
PM Oh, by force of circumstance, cogency of argument and persuasion and
passage of time you put it how you like.
Q. Now, it's a fairly open secret, T think, that there's not a great deal of love
lost between you and Mr McMahon and between you, and for that matter, Sir Henry
Bolte. Do you find that when people within your own Party disagree with you
that they are harder to get on with than some Opposition members, for example?
PM Well, I suppose that anybody in any Party would find that peo-le within that
Party who disagreed with one were more difficult than people in the CQ; Jposition.
You expect the Cpposition to disagree, but I found Mr McMahon. a very, very
good Foreign Minister and a good Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party.
Q. You didn't mention Treasurer?
PM Well he's now the Foreign Minister.
Q. One of the early storms came with the one of the fairly quiet storms,
I suppose, the appointment of Mr Hewitt as Secretary of the Prime Minister's
Department. This brought up allegations of interference in the Public Service,
and you are quoted on one occasion as saying, " I see every reason why the
Prime Minister ought to be able to appoint somebody in whom he has complete
confidence and with whom he has worked before". Do you regard Plublic Service
neutrality as a bit of a myth say, at the top level?
PM No, I think the good public servants at the top level, or at any other level,
can't be expected not to have their own political beliefs, but can be eg.-ected to
subordinate those political beliefs to carrying out the policy of the Government
of the day. But I don't think that has got much to do with what you have just
quoted. I think the appointment of the Head of any Department ' s within the
province of the Minister running that Department, and it will run much more
smoothly and much better if the two men know each other and can work together
well, than if they don't, and this I think is particularly true in the case of the
Prime Minister's Department. Now I had worked not with Hewitt but when
I was Minister for the Navy he was in the Defence Section of the Treasury and we
had many an argument on that occasion, and then I worked with him when I was
Minister for Education and he was the Head Qf the Universities Commission, and
one knew each other's style of work and it seens to me had co-mon confidence
and that's a good thing to have in any Department.
Q. Do you accept the fact that Mr Hewitt is very often regarded as something
of a bete noire'
PM Well, I have got to accept that a lot of people from time to time, and a
number of people constantly, regard Mr Hewitt as a bete noire. Then I have also
got to accept the fact that that applies to me too. So why shouldn't we work
together
Q. Well can I ask you then you have talked about your relatiopnship with
Mr Hewitt. What about at the Cabinet leveli Now after you had settled in and
you had the first Cabinet, you then introduced a number of other people : who
were associated with what people called the Mu. hroom Club. Do you -find that
you work better at say the Cabinet level with men who are close friends? Would
you rather have that than a situation where some of the people who disagree
with you get right in at the first level of policy"!
PM No, I wouldn't. And what's more I don't see that they are mutually
exclusive. I don't see why a person can't be a-personal friend but have a
completely different view on some matter and put it forcefully. I can'-t see any
reason for any hangover of resentment when that happens, and ideed, it seems
to me that in a way it is essential that it should happen. It would be a bad thing
to have everybody just sitting around just waitin~ g to see what a Prime Minister
wanted and then, saying It would be bad for the Prime Minister and for
the Government and for everybody el-e. And jr. the Cabinet I don't thin-k we have
got anybody who was in any way associated with what has come to be called the
Mushroom Club.
Q. Not yet? 7
PM Well, don't think we have at the moment.
Q. The philosophy of the Liberal Party also seems to have come in for a lot
of testing in your period of office. Apart from the Federalism issue we'll
deal with that later perhaps, the free enterprise plank of your party's -Alatform,
one of its basic tenets now seems to be accepted with perhaps a few more
qualifications than before. For example, you made the MLC decisiorn without
consulting Cabi-net. You also had the Industrieo Development Corporation, the
business surrounding the guidelines for overseas capital generally. Nlow can
you tell us how, for example, the MLC business came about'i
PM Well that came about as a result of our learning that an u-ndiscloced buyer
or buyers were buying up large quantities of NLC shares and putting them in
the names of nominees. Nobody knew who had them and they were continuing this
buying process and it became evident, and I believe factually evident, that unless
some action was taken fairly quickly, a stage could be reached where this buying
up of shares would give whoever was buying up a controlling interest ill the MLC.
And we felt that that was an Au,. stralian company with a great lot of ca. Ital at
its disposal, a lot of premium income, a lot of! other income a-lid that wie wouldn't
want that capital and the investment of it to fall under overseas control. You
wanted to ask me something about that?.,
Q. You were in Western Australia at the time, I think. Was this a question
of getting hurried phone calls? 0
PM Oh, no, no. We had the papers beforehand. I had to go to Western
Australia, but I had studied it through beforehand and took them with me and
made the decision from there, but it didn't just come up when we were in
Western Australia at all.
Q. On this general question. You have dealt now recently, for example,
with Queensland Mines. You have dealt with MLC business. You have dealt
with ESSO/ BHP. This is what is generally -being termed your economic
nationalism. Wouldn't it be better to lay down set rules that everyore knows
so nominate perhaps certain industries that would be cc-sidered
vital . in the national interest to control locally'
PM I don't think it would. 0 f course, there are some industries which have
been nominated as industries which shouldn't be allowed to fall into overseas
hands television stations and media, newspapers, banking a number of
industries. I don't think you could lay down a statement saying well, mining
mining covers an awfully large field should not be allowed to
fall into overseas hands, nor should you. I'm sorry, I'll start again..... should
not be allowed to fall into overseas hands. Nor could you lay down a rule
saying well, the level of investment from overseas in mining should not be more
than twenty per cent or thirty per cent or forty per cent or whatever you mention,
because there is so much variety in mines. There is so much variety in the
amount of capital required. ESSO/ BHP, for example is a 50/ 50 partnership.
It requires hundreds of millions. Some other mines require far less an amount
and I don't think you could lay down rules which didn't become restrictive
because they were insufficiently flexible.
Q. Aren't you worried, though, about the possible feedback in future if you
make another decision like that, and someone can say, " Well, Gorton's done
that because one of his Liberal Party backers is in that company and he want a
bit of protection," if you do it on an individual company basis.
PM Well if somebody could say that and could in any way advance any evidence
to back it, yes, one would be worried, but I don't think they ever could or
would be able to say that.
Q. You are confident that you can avoid that.....
PM I couldn't avoid somebody saying in the case of a decisicn, " Well,
somebody who supports the Liberal Party is there and that's why the decision
was made, but I am quite sure that in any circumstances of that kind the
reasons for the decision would be such that the vast majority of people vould
see that there were reasons for it, whether they agreed with them or not. a / 6
Q. Prime Minister, getting down to what might be generally called your style.
Someone said of you once you probably recognise the quote " He's really too
wilful, I think, and obstinate sometimes, rather than strong-minded. I think
he is the sort which learns only from experience." Dr Darling, your previous
Headmaster at Geelong Grammar. Do you accept that as a criticism of you?
PM Well, of course, he wrote that when I was at school and I have had a lot
of experience since then and presumably learnt a lot from that experience I
hope:
Q. Well one of those o ences has been suggested as maybe reflecting that.
It was the off-shore one 1t? Off-Shore Legislation crisis. Nc. w it was
suggested, for a start, that ou had reached breaking-point and had a vh ole
series of criticisms within the Party room. And then the Off-Shore Legislation
came up and suggested one theory that explained the crisis that followed, and you
said " I'm sick of this now. This one I am going to stick with."
PM No, no. Well, if there were any truth in that, which ones did ore not go
ahead with before which would lead one to say, " Well, I am sick½ of pulling
things off" I mean, we did have a lot of criticism from certai: quarters on
the IDC and we didn't say well we won't go ahead with it. We had a lot of
criticism about the Health Scheme which we introduced and theories about
what might happen, but we didn't stop. We went ahead.
Q. There were some modifications, I thinllk, at that stage?
PM Oh, I don't really think
Q. Well you accepted the Senate's modifications?
PM Oh, well, they were not basic in any way at all. No, the Off-Shore Minerals
Legislation is legislation which is needed to define just who has got sovereignty in
these areas. At some stage that will be defined one way or the other.
Q. I am not in fact querying that suggestion, but I am wondering, and a lot of
people wondered whether that was really the way to do it. You havern't got that
legislation through yet.
PM No, we haven't got it through yet.
Q. There was a story that one of the compromises that came up from members
of your Party Mr McEwen took it to you you took one look at it and told him
what the people concerned could do with it. 9 / 7
PM But these were all stories which were written by people who were-n't anywhere
in the vicinity. I am sure that Mr McEwen would completely deny some d the
wild far-out stories that came up. There were, from memory, propositions h ich
I didn't think were sensible propositioas. But this way that people wrote about
throwing them on the floor, or something. This is just ridiculous.
Q. But couldn't you see at the time it might have been better just to null off,
wait a little and then put it through later? As it turns out, you are probably
going to do that.
PM Well it might have been. But it seemed to me to be a prooer thing to
happen for Australia, and it still seems to me to be an essential thing to happen
for Australia. Perhaps it would have been better not to go ahead but I think the
adherence to the necessity for doing this was necessary, and is necessary
a matter of timing and other things comes into it.
Q. You have occasionally got annoyed with your critics. You referred at one
ste 3e at a time of crisis on the eve of the general elections last year, to white
frog-bellied things that come out of the sewers or something. You have also
criticised some pressmen for taking an attitude to your New Guinea trip,
sayi ng It was going too well they were saying it was going too well and
what could they do to denigrate it. One gets the impression that you feel
sometimes, in times of stress rather plagued by people.
PM Well let's look at both those things you have mentioned. May I say that the
-white frog-belly or whatever it was, was not on the eve of the gereral elections
I'm sorry, I think it was the day before the election. It could well have
been, but it was in reply to a specific question about a lot of calumny, personal
calumny that had been poured out and somebody printed photographs, denigratory
photographs which didn't seem to me to have anything to do with political matters
or anything of that kind just personal calumny. And that was in relation to
that alone. As far as New Guinea was concerned, well, you know I can't
reveal my sources but I think the sources are fairly I believe in the sources
anyway that some of these statements were made on that New Guinea visit, and
if so, I think it is a reasonable sort of a thing to say they are not quite impartial.
Q. You concede then to pressmen who rely on similarly reliable sources
that they could sometimes be right.
PM Sometimes be right and sometimes not:
Q. Prime Minister, you mentioned the obvious one of the calumny directed
against. Your personal criticism by Mx St Joh was one of the most dramatic
events in the Parliament. / C
PM Yes, it was.
Q. What wac your reaction? Were you furious? Were you aigry'! ' Were you
cool?
PM I was very surprised that that should happen, not only at the strictly
personal attacksG but the other statements made about never consulting:-with
Cabinet, acting like a dictator and a lot of things which seemed to lave no basis
in truth whatever. And it is an unpleasant thing to be publicly attacked in that
way.
Q. Can you remember your very first reaction? Just surpri-e 7Ths it anger?
Or did you find yourself very cool? There tend to be the two extreme
PM I don't think I could say one would find oneself to be very cool under that
kind of approach. I do remember getting more and more surprised as all these
odd accusations about dictatorship and so on came up. Nor do I really think that
anger is the exact word that describes one's reaction. There is a word, but I
can't think of it, but it is nearer to anger that to coolness, but it's not quite
either.
Q. Another criticism that is made of you is your tendency, as one vrriter put
it, to talk too much about what the G ocernment hopes to do without first working
out how it hopes to do it. Do you accept that criticism?
PM In one way that could be a criticism, and yet I started perhaps I am not
doing it as much now I started with a belief that in many, many areaS, a
Government should stimulate public discussion on a particular subject, should go
before the people and say, well, this is one way a thing could happen; on the
other hand, this is another way it could happen, but on the whole we would hope
it would happeli this way. And that would get people writing into the newspapers,
or writing columns or arguing, which I had thought was quite a good way for a
democracy to function before the Government finally came dowm. I still think
it is except that it does tend to the sort of criticism that you just mentioned being
made. I don't think that that criticism leads to a better way of running a government,
but it probably leads to getting into lesS trouble.
Q. Forgive me, but I have just thought of one example that puzzled me at the
time which may come in that category. The Cape Keraudren business, the
atomic harbour, that was a puzzling one because the announcement was made
that that would be tried, that a study would be completed within six mo: nths,
whereas in fact, in basic terms, you need two years for an ecological study
to be made. / 9
PM Well, no, at the time, the Department of National Develomient at that time
had received this request tbr this to be done, for this atomic harbour to be
blown, and the expense of it was to be borne by the entrepren~ eur who had a lot
of iron lea ses. an the United Sta* people were prepared to carry out thi s
study and those were the time scales given. But it subsequently transpired that
the man who was going to finance it believed that the richness of his ore deposits
was not as great as he thought they were and so he wasn't prepared to go ahead
and finance it and that's what happened. But it was quite a firm proposal as put
forward.
Q. I got the impression at the time that it might have been a bit of grandstanding.
PM No, it
Q. When you drop these phrases at first, as you fly a kite, it can look a bit
like grandstanding.
PM but this was what happened to this one. It was going to be
financed by the big businessman
Q. Now, Prime Minister, one of the areas vwhere you have bad criticism has
been in the External Affairs area, the Foreign Affairs area where you have taken
the initiative yourself on a number of occasions0. Now very early in*.
your Prime Ministership you said " No more troops in Vietnam". Shortly
afterwards you were saying,. " Well, I am not quite sure. I don't want to be
committed all the way into the future", or to that effect.
PM Yes.
Q. You have also said during the last election campaign, or a bit be:. 2ore it, as
far as the troorps in Vietnam are concerned, itt s" one out all cut but in fact it
will be one battalion back. Is this the function of your speakiig too soon?
PM No, I don'tt think it is, but you can makce your own mind uip about that. We
had made a decision as a government that we wouldn't be providing a14. y more
troops to Vietnam and the question actually asked of me was a question about the
immediate future because of the Tet offensive and so on, and I announ. ced what
the Government's decision had been. But later on I was asked " Does this apply
forever", and no-one can say that something applies forever because a whole
scene might change, but it did apply and in fact did apply all the way up-until
now. On the question of the withdrawal of our own troops, we had three
battalions there carrying out a particular funiction, and they were a viable force
we could have 1people at rest and people out. And they would not be able to
carry out that same function, and they won' t be able to carry out that came
function with a paart of them being withdrawn. They will have to have a
modified and different function. But if they were to have carried out thle
same function that they were carrying out at that time, then they would all need
to stay there or the whole lot would have had to come out.
Q. You don't think you could have foreseen that at all?
PM I don't think, so, no, on the advice I had at the time.
Q. There was only a matter of about sever; weeks, I think, between the two
statements
PM Well we did have, if I remember rightly, further movements towards
Vietnamisation and other changes in the overall picture in V etr-n.
Q. One gets the impression at times, if I can put this to you, that sometimes
in our Vietnam commitment, on one or two occasions anyway, you have seemed
to have been a little annoyed with the Americans. There was the instance that
came out in public to some extent of the bombing pause that President Johnson
announced just after Mr Fairhall had made a very strong speech in Parliament
saying no bombing pause was out, Vietnam pulling out, giving concessions. Do
you have problems or have you had problems over this two and a half year
period in the relationships with the American. people?
PM No problems in the relationship with the American people or with the
American Government. I think at the time you were speaking of and one has
got to cast one's mind back quite a while for this -I think we had a feeling
if there was going to be a bombing pause, we might have beer, told soo-ner
than we were that that was the actual . policy af the United Stat es. We were told
but not far in advance.
Q. There was then t'he thing which I think Mr St John raised to some extert
and it has also been raised by other people, that you held a midmight press
conference on October 17 and you said that there was only gave the only
official confirmation, I think, throughout the world at that stage.....*
PM This has been alleged, of course. What actually happened there was that
the cables were running hot from the United States and perhaps from Europe
I don't know the media cables were running hot with statements ofZ What was
going to happen and what the United States were going to do, and our owin
press people wanted to talk to me about it. And so I came baick to the House
and talked to Alan Barnes of the " Age" and some other man
Q. AUP
PM Ken Braddick of AUP. They seemed to get slightly different stories and
Braddick's was a little bit the more interpretive, I think, than Alan Barn~ es'
and led to this allegation of official confirmation of something. I think if you
see the stories that Barnes wrote or that somebody in the " Sydney Morning
Herald" wrote covering him, they were rather different from what Braddick
himself wrote.
Q. Then again in the foreign affairs area, the Malaysia Five Power talks, and
the Malaya/ Malaysia controversy. This was also one which struck me at the
time. In that same speech you refer -ed to " Malaya" rather thani " Malaysia".
You also suggested to the Malaysians that they should tidy up their ovin affairs
a bit. they were having racial trouble. Was that diplomatic'i
PM I don't know, but I think it was necessary for Australia's position to be made
clear to everybody and Australia's position was that we were not goilng to get
mixed up in inter-racial strife. I think it might have been more diplomatic to
say something which could be interpreted several different ways, but it wouldn~ t
have been as clear to all concerned and on the whole, in the long run, I think it
is rather better for a nation's attitude to be quite clear in relation to things
like that. And so that was made clear. Also we did not wish to become involved
in any quarrel that might arise between the Philippines and the claimns to North
Borneo. We therefore drew some distinction between the commiitmernts that we felt
we had in I'm sorry, Malaya or the Peninsula of Malaya. I think everybody
knows what that mearas as distinct from the other component parts of Malaysia.
And I think it's proper to make one's position ' known in these matters.
Q. We have very little time left, Prime Minister. I want to touch on a couple
of other areas, one is New Guinea and the controversy you have beer, involved
in. It seems to have been, for a start, the only area in which that I can think
of where you have used the Menzies technique of stealing the Opposition' s
thunder when you appointed Mr Johnson as Administrator.
PM Why? Were they going to do that, or something?
Q. Well Mr Whitlam had mentioned him favourably in the House.
PM Well he had been mentioned favourably to me by quite a num.. ber ai people
who knew him and had known him during his Army days and ever since. And
in fact I especially asked him to do it, and great credit is due to him because
he had been appointed as the Head of a College of Advanced Education in
Tasmania at a far more comfortable job, a far less straining job, and I could
imagine at least at the same amount of remuneration, but he went backx there
because he felt that was his duty. I think it was a good appointment, as I think
the new Secretary, David Hay, was a good appointment.
Q. The hot issue of New Guinea is still the Mautaungans, and it is a
continuing one it looks like. Can you understand, follow their argument against
the way European and Chinese influence may be increased unnecessarily in
their view by having a Multiracial Council? e. / 12
PM No, I can't but that doesn't matter. That doesn't matter whether I can or
not. I don't believe the European..... I can't understand how a multi-racial
council, made up as it is, could increase the European or the Chinese influence.
But if the people of the Gazelle Peninsula believe this that's a different matter
and that is why I said, " Well for goodness sake let's find out what the people
want. Let's have a referendum and we will abide by the result".
Q. Are you confident that we can avoid the kind of thing that has been in
Africa?
PM No, I'm not. I think if we precipitately vi thdraw that we could lead to
the situation where the majority of the population would be sorry that ve had
withdrawn I am speaking of all the Highlanders and many in other areas would
not wish to be ruled by the elite and where there could be repetition of some
of the internal struggles that we have seen in Africa. And this is one of the
great, great problems of . New Guinea.
Q. Can't we also get into a situation as in Kenya where we find ourselves
having to put people in gaol? And then finding them national leaders. That
happened in so
PM I suppose that that is so, but isn't the difference between our approach
to New Guinea and the approach to Kenya that we say and mean that when we
can discover the wishes of the majority of people then we will meet those
wishes. There is no question about that. Certainly we have given evidence
of our continuation along the path of handing them more self-government, but
the real difference, I think, is that we say, " Right we will get out". Now, it
is hard to know exactly the best way you can discover what the wishes of
the majority of the people are, but it could be done either by statements and
votes in the Hcuse of Assembly, it could be done by a referendum of some kind,
it could be done by something which is more natural to them than to us, which
is sitting down and getting a consensus of opinion. But I wouldn't go into the
means of it, but I do think we should find out what they want before we take
action.
Q. Prime Minister, one final question, because we have run a bit beyond
our time infact. Does it perturb you as a proclaimed Australian nationalist
that the time of your office has seen some of the strongest emotional
divisions in the Australian community the youth/ age problem, which wraps
up with drugs and marihuana to some extent, and different standards of
morality, the anti-Vietnam movement, and the growth of conscience issues
rather than economic issues to some extent? ./ 13
PM I don't think the growth of conscience issues in internal matter iz divisive.
You are thinking of people saying, " Well, more ought to be done for the poor,
and more ought to be done in preserving the environment, arid these.
matters, and I don't think there is any strong antipathy between.-the peop. le
who are saying " More should not be done for the poor" or we shouldn't look
after our environment. It is disturbing that the Vietnam question should have
raised the controversy it did but then I think it's a matter of decisior. as to
whether we are divisive or whether those who use the methods agalinSt observance
of the law are divisive.
Q. Prime Minister, what do you see in the next one thousand days'!
PM Well I hope there will be a little more peace and quiet at some stage during
that thousand than there has been during this thousand which has Seen more
changes, more new problems, more solutions of many problems than I think
any other thousand days has probably seen.
Q. Thank you, Prime Minister.