PM Transcripts

SIXTH PLENARY MTING OF THE WORLD POWER
CONFERENCE HELD AT MELBOURNE
ON 2.0TH OCTOBER, 1962.
Speech by the Prime Ministelr, Rt. cno R. Menzies
Sir, Your Excellency, and ladies and gentlemen
It is my very simple task to offer a warm welcome
to the members of the Conference on behalf of the Commonwealth
of Australia.
As one who occasionally has to go aro-nd the world
and become involved in arguments in the world, sometimes
fruitful and sometimes fruitless, I want to tell you in a
minute or two that to my mind two of the great problems in
the world today, as you survey the whole globe, ' ire, first
of all, the enormous and growing pressure of population on
resovrces and second, the maldistribution of the benefits
of modern life between the highly developed countries and
the lesser developed countries, These are two enormous
problems. In the first place, how can the world provide a
decent standard of living for the thousands of millions of
people who will be living in it by the turn of the century,
unless something is done to bring the benefits of modern
discovery to the service of all people in all countires?
And this is where you come in, because there is no
single element so significant in raising the standards of
living, in increasing production, as the use of power, the
diverse use of power, the ultimate cheapening of power, the
putting of pow. er behind the man who works in the factory and
the man who works on the farmo
This is a tremendous task and, unless it is accomplished
by the end of this cntury, we will find a mass of
problems produced by pressure upon limited resources that
can lead to disaster in the world.
And, in the second place, Sir, this gap that
exists between those who have and those who have not, the
gap between the highly industrialised countries and those
that are still living on the soil, this is not a gap that
is closing; and it will not be closed merely by kindness or
good will or monetary help. This is a gap that tends to widen
and the right way to close it is to devote more and more
talent and occasionally a flash of genius to the bringing to
the service of people the benefits of power, its applied use,
its availability on terms that can be accommodated by the
country concerned. Now, I mention those very brieflyo They are two
very, very great problems. They will not be very far from
your minds as you go on to consider the changing pattern of
the world's problems in your field, I am confident, as I
have been here this afternoon and as I have read your
preliminary documents, that this conference itself and the
work that stems from it may well turn out to represent a
very great contribution to the solving of problems including
those to which I have briefly made referenco,
Sir, I think you will. understand how warmly indeed
as the head of the Ccmiuonwealth Government, I welcome you all
from overseas or from here to this Conference and to this
country,