SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE RT. HON. R. G. MENZIES
AT THE OPENING OF THE MAUJSON INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY OF
ADELAIDE. SATURDAY. lTH APRIL. 1961.
Sir, ladies and gentlemen,
This is a very, very notable occasion. I would have
hoped that the reason for it were known to everybody in
Australia, and in particular the younger prople of Australia,
because this is one of these occasions when we say " Let us nor
praise famous men".
Indeed we are met here to think about and to talk
about one of the very greatest Australians that this count2y
has had. I think it is one of the ironies of life, at least of
contemporary life, that if you were to say to the average
citizen, " Who are the best known people?" he would at once thin'n:
in terms of headlines. The footballers wo'uld come first; anu.
the cricketers would come second; and the politicians a most
honourable third; and the rest nowhere. This has always so. c; i.
to me to be something of a monstrosity. Never more do I think
that than when we are here to think about Douglas Mawson and
his character and his achievements and his enormous stature,
not only in our own country, but in the world one of the very
greatest of Australians.
That greatness, Sir was a versatile one. He was, of
course, a great explorer; but he was a great scientist. I
have marvelled as I have, as a non-scientist, struggled to
understand something about his work. I have marvelled at the
enormous amount of scientific work that he did, the
investigations that he conducted, the things that he worked out,
the things that he published. He was first and foremost, I
think, a great and versatile scientist.
I don't want to say anything that might subtract from
his repute, but in the highest sense of the wford he was
something of a politician; or shall I put it, ' he was
something of a statesman'? Because with all his science and
with all his exploration, it was he more than anybody else who
added to the territory and responsibilities of this country,
millions of square miles of Antarctic territory.
That, of course, from a scientific point of view may
be regarded as something of an eccentricity. But from the
point of view of Australia it was an uncoLunon thing for a man
in the very middle of exploration, and of investigation, to
feel that he had a duty to his own country to extend the
responsibilities and interests of his own country. If today we
look at a map of the world and see certain areas marked out as
Australian Antarctica, there may be some in the world who don't
agree with it, and some who are perhaps agnostic on the point.
But never let us forget that when we ourselves see these areas
marked out, there is one man A: ove all men who can be thanked
for it, and that man is Douglas Mawson.
Of course he was an irmmnense explorer; but why was he
a great explorer? I myself in physical matters rather like the
beaten track. I like to go home, for example, at night by the
well known route; I like to proceed from point A to point B
by a well-known track. My wife is not like that at all I'm
sorry she's not hero but she is not like that at all: she
likes going, down the highways and byways and getting lost. But
to be an explorer of this world, and of its resources, you must
first of all have enormous ima-ination. This is not a task for
dull people, for routine people, for people who merely see
today's job and the result of today's job. This is a task for
men of imagination. And I start with that with Douglas Mawson.
2.
I used to think myself in my earlier and perhaps, for
all I know, better informed days, that a gologist was a man who
went around knapping bits of rock and putting them in a little
sack, and then telling you without any danger of contradition
what age they belonged to and all about them. It fascinated
me. For nany years I wished that if I could be reinciarnato I
should be a geologist. I dare say I would have found the slubi'c
matter to deal with not nuch nore unresponsive than that whi; h
I deal with today. ( Laughter) It all seened rather mna toer od
fact: you had a body of knowledge and you applied it to a
particular fornation.
But of course for the work that Mawson did imag.:
was of the essence. Not the kind of imagination which kn.
what the answer will be around the corner; but the imaginQ-' ou
which knows that there is an answer around the corner and
determined to discover it. So here was a great nan of grc',
imaginative qualities. And in the field in which he workc
needed to add to imagination, courage. Because imnainatioo , t
exploring instinct, in whatever field it nay be, is worthiL* c..;
without the courage to pursue it, without the courage to ieet
the unknown, and its dangers. In that field he is a household
name, not only here but all around the world.
Then with imagination and with courage he neoded, and
had, endurance. Not short-lived courage, not an imagination
Seasily baffled, but the capacity for hanging on to it for
enduring, for seeing it right through. So with these three
enrrmous qualities which were essential for his wor-k he
succeeded as nobody else has succeeded. He set an example that
I don't think anybody else has been able to equal. He . chievc
results which I believe are outstanding in the whole history o.
Antarctic investigation. It is almost baffling, Sir, to those of us who are
nade of nore ordinary stuff, to think that one man should have
done so much, should have thbought so much, should have recorded
so much, as I hope this Institute will make clear to future
investigators, should have published so much, and above all,
should have influenced so many. That is one of the great things
that year after year, generation after generation, people will
be influenced by what Mawson did and thought.
It nay be, I suppose inevitably, that in 10 or 20 or
or 50 years' tine the boundaries of knowledge will have been
so extended that sone of the things that he found and recorded
may be regarded as commonplace; just as the great basic
principles of physics are today regarded as commonplace; just
as the great basic principles of nuclear fission are today
regarded as commonplace. But they wouldn't be commonplace
they never will be commonplace so long as people reuoember that
the foundations have been laid, the great principles
established by remarkably great nen.
And so Sir, this Institute will, I believe, take its
proper place in the life of this University, and in the life of
Australia. In it will be found not only information and rich
material for research, but a profound inspiration to the people
who come later on.
You know, Sir, today I say this with particular
reference to the graceful rerarks made by the representative of
the Academy of Science of the Soviet Union today we are, as I
an constantly being reminded, entering the " Space Age". And
that, of course, is an exciting imrginative thing. We all
admire the achievements, particularly the achievements of the
last few Jays, in that field. I hope that we haven't become so
0 3.
miserably isolated, one from another, that we can't admire and
applaud immense work in the scientific and technological field
wherever it happens. This i. s all part of the ultimate
inheritance of mankind; '., ough as a rather earthbound
character myself I sometimes take time off to say " 1' here are so
many things on the earth, and in the earth itself, that we ' o. itt
know about. I hope we shan't neglect them". I hope chat
Antarctic research fram our point of view in Australia will
continue to be something that we regard as of immense
importance. Indeed if I may, Lady Mawson, with your permissi., on
interlard these somewhat pontifical remarks of mine with a
rather whimsical recollection, I would like to do it.
am afraid when I was a boy and for all I know some of
Professors were once boys; ( Laughter) there may be no imm-to d'-_ C
ΓΈ urrent evidence of it, but I am sure you were-but when I a
a boy, we thought of Antarctic explorers and of Arctic
as gentlemen With furred parkas, with dogs, with sledso T'o/
were remarkable men. And the whole of their history was a
history of tremendous courage under tremendous diffLc. l. it-s..
But what it was all about we were not too sure, wer I.-
fact at one stae I remember we had an idea that the one thng
that mattered was that somebody should be the first to get to
the Pole. No doubt that is very good. We were not conscious
I wasn't anyhow as a boy of the tremendous significance of all
these things which went far beyond the stirring, remarkable,
heroic, romantic story of courage and endurance.
Perhaps those who, like Mr. Rymill, Mr. Law, hav.
been down in those strange parts will bear with me: If tell
them a simple story ab. out that very remarkable Dar who *:. QI'i
under Sir Douglas, Frak T-urlchy, that phenomenal photographer.
In 1941, in about Pebruaary, I was in the Middle East
and went with Si. r Thomas Bi] t to Benghazi, the day after the
battle of Benghazi it was. n Polar re-ion we were in, I can
assure you and with l. ovJ. ti for a ie Minister, something
I have seldom experiencQd, we flo. u in a tolerably fast
plane and we were escorted, . believe it or not, by a couple of
fighter aircraft. But the following day we flew back from a place called
Barce in a biplane called a Valencia. Nobody could remember
when it was built, but it was regarded as almost the equivalent
of a T-model Ford. It had two flapping wings, and it had
those windows ma1de of what laymen like myself call " mica" but
might be anything, and they were warped and twisted by the
weather and by old age. As soon as we made a little height
alongside the mountain range that runs there, it got colder and
colder, and the blast came in on us. We were all sitting in
mangers that's all I can describe them as on the side of
this plane. The wintry blast cane in; we had been provided
with r. ading matter of a good solid kind like London Punch, and
other journals of that kind. So far as I was concerned I
grabbed as many as I could and tucked them inside my trousers.
And then when a very respectful young Lir Force lad came along
and said, " Would you like a rug?" I said, " Certainly bring me
two". ( Laughter) And he brought me two blankets and I
ensconced myself in them and so did other people.
Finally we got out at a windswept aerodrome called El
Aden, which some of you know, so stiff with the cold that it
was hard to walk. It was 400 yards across to the airport
building and to a really nourishing drink 400 yards. Out got
Frank Hurley. He had boon travelling a little farther back in
the plane than me. He was in uniform, and when he got out he
could hardly walk. So I said, " My dear Hurley, it's all right
for a s:) ft civilian like no to be flozen, but a polar man like
you He said, " That's the trouble, that's the trouble.
When this boy cane along to me and seeing my grey hair, and
being innocent of my lack of rank said to me, ' Sir, would you
like a blanket or two?' I started to say ' Yes' and then my eye
caught my polar ribbons and I thought, ' I can't lot the siA: r
down'. I said, ' No, no thank you very nuch, no thank you vcr*
much. On the whole I think it's rather stuffy". ( Laughter)
And so, even more than I did, he linpod away in the directi:-n of
that distant, but tantalising, whisky, as we hoped, in th,
Officers' building.
Well there it is; that is the kind of thing po: iLas
illustrated by that story that we used to have in mind.
Of course that is not the story. Who knows wha
cone out of the Antarctic? Who knows today, even the r.. st
scientifically gifted amongst you who knows what yet
learned from this vast tract, what stores of scientific
knowledge, of material resources for all we know, , f rnc-. eol
ogical information from which we may derive matters of Inrc.?
importance, particularly to this Continent? Jho ; 3 : t:
the Antarctic region itself will not in due course
one of the main highways of transportation around the worldl
These places get closer and closer. We have just touched , th;-
fringes of knowledge.
I believe myself that what may come for mankind c". t
of this previously desolate area nay turn out to ' e not orly
exciting but superb in its significance*
But I hope tiiat those who are here when all thcs
mysteries are disclosed will ren cber, will honour the
will respect the memory of Douglas Mawson who, more than any
other mortal man, will have provided the key with which to
unlock the door. ( Applauc;)