CITIZENS' LUNCHEONS ASTH'IELD TOWN HALL
MAY, 1.961
Speech byv the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. R. G. Menz--LSir
and gentlemen: I have been suffering this morning from a sort of-I
think I am right when I describe it as a sort of undulant fever.
Is that right? When the temperature goes up; and then goes
down? Because my good friend and colleague, Fred Osborne,
originally inveigled me into this matter, and that depressed me.
Then he said to me, " Of course you understand that they are not
all political fans of yours who will be there". I said, " Oh,
no, I know that", So he said, " Make a non-political speech".
And I said, " Do you mean by that, Fred, a non-Party speech?" He
said, " That's right". So that depressed me still further.
But then, by a singular stroke of genius on the part
of somebody, just as I was to come in here, I saw Tommy Androws,
Look at him! Tommy Androws! And as I am the greatest living
hopelessly incompetent cr~ icket lover in this country, I greeted
him like a man and a brother. And that cheered me up. Tommy
I must say that if I manage to say something worth listening t
today, you may take the credit.
I thought perhaps I might say something to you in a
genuinely non-Party way, about the business of Government,
because you are, for the most part, business men. I am
perfectly certain that in your more inaccurate moments you
criticise the Governme-int, and criticise politicians, and say
it's a great pity more businessmen are not in politics and
course I agree with that. The trouble is they won't come. An.
you say there ought to be more business in Governm,, ent, and, I
think that highly original phrase goes on, less Government in
business. Well I an familiar with all those things. Man and
boy now I've been in Parliarment of one kind or another for 33
years. The Mayor and I are contemporaries, I think he said.
Thirtythree years! He's a bit inclined to complain because he's
been an Alderman, treated rather badly, and he thinks that I am
a silver-tail because Itve been for l years or so, in total, a
Prime Minister. But 33 years, man and boy, we've been engaged
in it. I know most of the noises people make about us, and
about the business of Governrment.
I just want to say this to you: The business of
Government is not only the greatest business in the country, but
it is, I think, the most difficult business in the country. It
is extraordinarily difficult. I amn able to make a complarison,
because, believe it or not, it is now 21 years since I was
first sworn in as a Prime Minister. In these days I well
remember the kind of problem that fell on to the table. The
nizmber of problems has quadrupled in that time. I well remember
thie amount of paper one had to read, the number of actual
decisions that had to be taken. Today all those things have
quadrupled. Wge have all around the world, diplomatic posts.
We have to instruct Zhem and be instructed by them. I suppose
it is pretty safe to say that I would read 100 to 150 cables in
the course of one day and a great number of them pretty longwinded
because, thanks to the pe~ rson who invented stenography,
people dictate cables now. If they had to write them by hand
they would be much shorter and Much more readable. You have
masses of things ee-r-ing up fronm the various departments; you
have ministers to interview; you have to give a nudge at the
appropriate time in the direction of a particular decision on a
particular matter. And above all things you must keep
yourself informed, because it is a changing world, and it is a
world that can't be coped with even from here in Australia
without irmmense study and concentration. I would have hopelessly
collapsed under this job if I hadn't earlier in life
acquired the habit of concentrated work, and close stu of
particular problems. Therefore I assure you that this .5 a
very difficult business.
It is frequently a very technical business. There
are all sorts of things that one has to consider. You can't
deal with the economic policy of a country without having
acquired laboriously over years, a knowledge of economic matters
a knowledge of financial matters. There is a mass of
technique that underlies the easy and platitudinous
observations that you expect politicians to make to you.
Of course all this demonstrates that it is a
business that can't be learned over night. Now I wish I could
persuade everybody that that was true. The older I got, the
more experience I have, the more I know, because I must know by
this time a great deal about these things, the less dogiatic do
I become, the less certain am I that my voice is the last voice
of authority. But you produce to me some fellow who is in the
way of airing his mind on these matters and who knows nothing
about it at all, he knows all the answers. You can read him
frequently, day by day. The less you know, the more certain you
are that you are right.
Now there is another aspect of the matter that I wan
to say something to you about. I wonder to how many of us th
business of politics is an emotional business. There are a 1
of people who write and speak, who convert everything into tc:
of emotion. If I am discussing somewhere in Parliament the
question of the level of social services, for example, there i.
bound to be some hearty emotionalist who will say, " How would
you like to live on a week?" And of course I wouldn't.
That seems to me to have nothing whatever to do with the case.
This is an eimotional argument. It is easy to whip up emotions.
I toll you that on any great problem that arises, whether it is
the position of South Africa or whether it is the position of
some social service or whether it is something else entirely
unrelated to both, the easiest thing in the world, and the
quickest thing, is to be emotional. I don't think that I am a
stranger to emotion because I have a great number. But it is a
very great mistake to think that because a man has a cool head
he's cold-blooded. The two things are entirely different. I
hate cold-blooded people. But I like to hqve people around me
who have cool heads. Because cool heads and good judgment are
needed in the management of your public affairs, more than
perhaps anything else. So I say to you, distrust the easy
rather cheap emotional reaction. We all have it. It isn't to
be supposed that we are not human beings. Of course we all
have it. But when you have responsibility you must exorcise a
cool balanced jud: ement, because that is, after all, what you
owe to the people of your country.
Now, Sir, may I turn from that to say somethin%, about
our attitudes to Government? These are perhaps a few cautionary
observations which a Prime Minister of any political party could
make to you, if he had had a lot of experience in these things.
First of all Australia has now, as a result of great
efforts by Australians in two wars, and as a result of a growing
enlightenment in our own country about the rist of the world,
become internationally significant. I suppose that it's very
sel~ om that a few weeks may go by without I nyself being in
communica. tion in a direct sense with the Governr. ent of the
United States or the Goverm. ont of New Zealand, or the Government
of the United Kingdom. Fortunately I know all these men
now extremely well and we exchange our ideas with considerable
point and with complete frankness. I like to believe, :. nd I
think I am right in believing that Australia has a sir ficance
in the world of affairs rather more than the population of our
country would warrant. We are regarded, increasingly, as a
notable country, as a happy country as a country with an
immense future, and as a country made up of people who have
good common sense . and courage. These are good things to have
thought about our country around the world.
The result of all this is that from time to time an
Australian Government through its Prime Minister, or through
somebody, will offer an opinion on what goes on in the world.
It may be necessary to offer a public opinion on some problem in
some other country. I have done it myself a few times. And
the moment a Prime Minister does it he will be told " You mustn't
say that there's some other country that won't agree with you.
Now you mustn't do that you'll be misunderstood, here or here
or here". Gentlemen, this is an absurdity. Never offer an
opinion unless it is well considered; never offer an opinion
gratuitously, as if you wanted to blow your bags out and tell
the world how clever you are. But when you find yourself
called upon to offer a view on behalf of Australia, don't fall
into a state of terror because somebody, or some other country,
disagrees with it. If you didn't believe in your own view it
would be idle to state it. If you do believe in it, it's
pathetic to run away from it because somebody else, somewhere
else, doesn't accept it. That's the thing, that's one of thr
elements of maturity in our country which I believe we have K:
hang on to. You know there are a lot of people around the world
who talk about the ' colonial powers' and the ' colonial
attitude' of mind. There may be a few people left in Australia
who still think that the great problems of the world can be
safely left to other people. It's not true. Of course we must
have groeat friends; and occasionally we must subordinate our
views to the views of our great friends if we are to ensure the
security of our own country. But these things are well
understood by statesmen. The real point is that we are an
adult country, far more adult, far wiser in judgment, though I
say it myself, than some countries with many times our
population. And we must have in relation to these matters, a
decent pride for this is a remarkably great country.
I an not one of those people who believes that we
ought to go on as if we had a hundred million peopla as if wea
were a second United States of America, but I do want to
emphasise to you that we are so addicted, still, to the o.
knocking our own country and our own people that we occasionally
forget that this is, man for r. man, a great country, with a great
place in the world, and a great future.
Now, Sir, having said that may I refer to another
aspect of our relations to Government? Every now and
somebody comes to see me under the simple illusion that in ry
official capacity of course, control unlimited supplies of
something fascinating about money, particularly if you haven:
got it. And people come along, " Well now this is a thing, all
we need is œ 0,000, all wo need is half a million, all we need
is I've had all the vriants of this even in the last
few weeks. And they say, " Now the Cormmonwealth can provide all
this money. What about it?" If you show some reluctance, it
you are a little coy about ante-ing up œ Xmr, the assumption is
that you are an insensitive character, you are a cold-blooded
fellow, you don't understand the real needs of the case,
because if you did, of course, you would just find the money,
It would oms out of some magnificent cornucopia, just flowing
out. Thoerfore I want to renind you, if you need to be
reminded gentlenen, that Governments are not proprietors of
money. Al the money I have wouldn't solve the problem of the
smallest municipality in the bush. Governments are not the
proprietors of money; they are the trustees for the money
that ordinary citizens earn and pay to them. That's their
position. Easy enough for a Government to say, handsomely,
" Right œ 50m; that's no trouble". But the people will find
the This is the basic element of Government that
Governments don't have any money of their own. They borrow
money from the people, or they tax money from the people; and
whatever money they get in these various ways they are able to
spend according to their jadgment. We must never forget that.
ll the money that a Government has to deal with is money that
has been worked for and earned by private citizens and
transferred by them to the Government in order to give effect to
the Government's policy.
Therefore, if, as private citizens and we all are
we want more from Governments than we get today then there must
be more of us at work, we must perhaps work a little more
successfuly we must certainly produce considerably more. The
greatest illusion in the wjrld is to think that the standard of
living is a monetary standard whereas in fact the standard of
living is what a man has by way : f a house, by way of shelt('-,
by way of food, by way of the amenities of life. These are cK!.
material things I'm now talking about the material standards
of life. And they all have to be produced by somebody.
I say to you, therefore, that in addition to having
some pride in our own country, we must not place upon Governnents
demands which jointly we are not prepared to place on
ourselves. Because you are the Government. If you add up all
the people in Australia who work and produce and pay, they are
the Government, they are the creators of the available
resources of the nation. I don't need to tell you that if a
Government pretends to pay us as individuals more, and carries
out the pretence of inflating the currency it's just giving with
one hand and taking away with the other.
And yet, Sir, the odd thing about political life and
I say this quite dogmatically is that though inflation is
unpopular with many people, not by any means with all people
for there are some who have a vested interest in inflation,
measures against inflation are always even more unpopular..
Because you can't restrain inflation, you can't push down
inflation without imposing some immediate disability on -ohn
Brown, or Ton Smith I hope neither of then is here which hc
will resent and say " Why deal with me, why am I the follow to
be affected?" You can't have any policy, no Government can have
any policy, which is designed to produce some stability I. the
currency a firm foundation for future expansion unlc:
time to tine it takes measures calculated to produce ti; ar
result. Now, Sir, the next point that I want to mention is
this. We talk a good deal about democracy and I'm a groat
believer in democracy. Democracy is the only system of
Government so far in the world that has operated with over..
shadow of social justice. Pople can be very superior about . to
They may say how ridiculous that every man's vote should be oi
the same value when men are so infinitely varied. True enough,
perhaps. But I want to see a better system. The world hasn't
yet produced it.
The truth is that the great glory of democracy is
that it does pay attention to the individual person. The
authoritarian systems that exist in other countries tend to
reduce the individual to a mere cipher to a more calculating
medium in a blue book, or a statisticai record. But in
democracy it is the man and the woman who count. The business
of Goverrnent is to promote them, to enlarge their opportunities,
to broaden their borizons, to develop their personalities.
But when we have said that, I believe we must
remember that the point of democracy is not just that everybody
has a vote that's the mechanics of democracy, that's not the
essence of democracy. The essence of democracy is that every
individual, and he may express it through the vote from time to
time, has his own responsibilities, and because he has his own
responsibilities he has his own unalterable rights. This could
not be said about any other system of Government in the world.
If, occasionally, I think that I detect in our own
democracy a weakness it is simply that I think that occasionally
do you agree? we think too much of our rights, and too
little of our responsibilities. Because if we think of our
rights only, of our demands only, of our claims on Government
only, then we will transfer the responsibility for meeting those
claims to a smaller and smaller body of men; until ultimately,
we'll find that we have brought about a system of oligarchy or
bureaucracy, or even of autocracy, because the responsibilit7
has been piled on to other people while we ourselves assert ou. r
rights. Now, Sir, finally I would like to say this to you. I
have just said something about responsibilities. We don't have
responsibilities only to ourselves, or to our own country.
Here's something quite remarkable that is going on in the world.
We are, in a broad sense, aware of it; we have, in a true
sense done something about it as a nation. But in 1950, which
is not long ago, there were 2,500 million people in the world
2,500 millions. In 1975, in the absence of unprecedented
pestilence or ruinous war , or some disaster on which we can't
predicate any views of ours, in 1975 other things being equal,
there will be not 2,500 millions, there will be 3,800 millions
1,300 million more people at the end of a period of 25 years,
And by 2,000, again predicating the same conditions, it is
estimated that there will be 6,000 million people in the world.
Now here are we, in 1961, half way through that first span so
let us assume that we have perhaps a little over 3,000 million
people in the world today. Double that in the year 2 000;
double that in the lifetime of many, any hundreds of thousands
of -people now living in Australia.
This is a colossal problem. It is not only a problem
for the people who live in the large countries in the world,
it is a problem for us. Do we, in Australia, contemplating that
by 2000 we might have what? 20 or 25 million peoplet I don't
know remain indifferent to the fact that in Continental China
alone thore will be 1 000 millions at t; he same time? What are
they . oing to live on; What's going t) become of wor. 1M food
production? To feed 3,000 millions more people is a to.-k, a
challenge, a challenge to education, to our Ionorosity of
outlook, to our technical skill, our willingness to cont. i~ bute
so that land now not fertile will produce food for this coming
hungry world. This is a tremendous problem. We do sormethtng
about it through the Colombo Plan. We have a very creditable
4 1-6.
record in technical aid to new countries, under-developed
countries in the training, of their students in ;. ustralia. But
we can't afford to sit back on it, we can't afford to say " How
kind we are, how cltcver we ar". we, as a highly intelligent
and highly qualified cormaunity because we are in world terms
have a responsibility far beyond our numbers on this matter.
If the world as a whole doesn't do something increasingly about
this tremendous, this overshadowing problem1 then I believe
that we can look forward, or our sons can," l all the most
terrible results of a hungry population pressing upon inadequate
resources, with all the threat that it contains of starvation
and pestilence and war as the last desperate expedient.
Thereforo, Sir, I like to foel that when we bask a
little in the satisfaction that we occasionally have in our own
system of Government in our own happinoss, in our own relative
prosperity, though iz may vary a little, a high relative
prosperity, we should recognise that as a rowing nation we have
a significance and a responsibility in the world, and not only
to ourselves. I think that one of the unfortunate things is that all
too few p~ eople study history they think it's a rather
academic matter. History academic? The world would save itself
from an abundance of errors if it knew something about human
history. And we ourselves night g et a more proper understanding
of our opportunities in this world if we recalled a little
history. Because don't let it be forgiotten that in the spacious
days of groat Elizabeth, the first Elizabeth, the days of
Shakespeare and Marlowe and Beaumont and Fletcher, running on
into the time of Francis Bacon, the days of Raleigh and Drake,
the great blossoming period in 13aglish history, a period which
made this little island in the North Sea one of the groat
factors in the world, and in civilisation, at that time the
population of England was probably no more than todayts
population of New S_, uth Wa. les. We forget these things. It
isn't just numbers. It's quality. Give me 10 million people of
quality and they will influence the current of human events, and
human dLestiny, more than 50 million people of poor quality.
This is our ; reat opportunity. Vnd we seize it if
we just take a little time off, occasionally, as I've tried to
take with you today, to consider what our relation is to
Government, not in an or., anised Party sense, but as citizens,
what is our relationship to Government in our own country;
what is our relationship to each other in our own country; and
finally, what is the rolationship of all of us to a world which
will unquestionably bring its prob~ lems to us in due course,
unless we can have made our own contributions to the solving of
those problems, to the well-being of mankind, 6,000 millions of
them, and therefore to the peace of the world.