SPEECH BY THE PRI4 MINISTER, TEE RT. HON. R. G. MENZIES H
AT ST. MARK'S LIBRARY, CANBERRA, ON. 27TH AUGUST, 1959C.
My Lord Bishop and Ladies and Gentlemen:
I like that little touch of my friend Sutcliffe's about
another Prime Minister. ( Laughter.) There is a certain delightful
ambiguity about it; but if he is, In fact, intending to give me a
guarantee, as a very important civil servant, that I will still be
in office next year, I would be delighted to have it. But each
time I open the paper and I read about the latest uproar that has
been created by something my Government has done, I begin to have
my doubts. ( Laughter.)
Sir, I thought that instead of talking about some
particular current problems of international affairs, it might be
a good idea to say a little about some perhaps less obviou. s aspects
of what goes on in the world. We are very much inclined, aron't we,
to classify the world; to talk about the democracies in a sorlb-of
comprehensive expression without, perhaps, working out very closely'
what we mean by such an expression.
Back in 1919, somebody coined a great phrase in fact,
it was before that about making the -ntrld safe for democracyone
of those great rotund phrases that atbr-wct the mind superficially.
But I think we ought to do a littlt! thinking about what
it means and what we mean by " democracy", and In the course of my
little talk to you, I will suggest that We havo not beenwvery cle;' r
in our minds about this matter, and that a good deal 01 wiL
meaning stuff goes on in the world under the name of demcracy
whi-ch is not very usofil, and my even be rather dangerous.
Since that phrase was coined? what has heppened to the
world? There was a comfortable feeling in those days that the
world was steadily advancing to what we understand by democracy
parliamentary democracy. People pointed to a species of parliament
in Russia; they pointed to the Reichstag in Berlin; they pointedsometimes
a little hesitatingly at the Chamber of Deputies in
Paris. And there was a general feeling that the whole thing was
going on and that in due course everybody would be in line with us
and adopting our kind of parliamentary self-government.
Well, the fact is that since this phrase was stated,
hundreds of millions of people in the world have passed even out of
the expectation of any form of democracy, or the immediate
expectation of any form of democracy, because the rule of
dictators a rule that has considerable attraction for many
millions of people had extended itself since then over hundreds
and hundreds of millions of people. And I think that under those
circumstances we ought to give a little thought to the problem of
the spread of democracy. A greater area and a greater population
are under dictatorship today than anybody dreamt of 30 or 40 years
ago, Of course, there are reasons for that. They are reasons that
I have had occasion to think about in the past.
Parliamentary democracy began with us not with Australia
but with the people of our race, the people of Great Britain. it
was not exotic; it was a slow, steady growth from the soil
local government, larger areas of government, then a parliament
on an entirely undemocratic basis, then a series of reform acts which
made the parliament established on a democratic basis. All these
things occurred not hastily overnight but slowly over a course of
centuries, and in the present century the extens'ion of the
privilege of democracy the privilege of the vote to women; . so
that you have a complete suffrage.
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I think, myself and I have always thought so in nmy own
life, that in Great Britain they do understand the working of this
machine this system perhaps better than any other people in the
world. And they ought to, because over the course of centuries,
and perhaps unconsciously in the early stages, tihey invented it,
and it grew up and they grew up to be part of it. We in Australia
have inherited it. If am rather disposed to think that in terms of
true democracy, we have no superior in the world in terms of
democracy. I rather think we are probably the most democratic
country in the world.
In the case of Germany, in the case of Russia, people
had a little more disposition to take orders; a little more
disposition to like governments with a touch of authority; and
the result was that the parliamentary institutions which were adoptEL.
in those countries did not have their roots in the ground, and they
blew away in the first high wind. That is not so with us. We
-were born and bred in a particular outlook on government and on the
rights of the people and on the function of parliament and on the
function of an executive; whereas in countries such as thoseI
have mentioned with a what I might describe crudely as a sort of an
instinct for being ordered around, parliamentary government was
overthrown and overthrown quite readily. It did not have its
roots in the soil as in our case. Now, in the case of some of
these countries these things may well change as time goes on.
But the point that I am making to you is that when we speak about
our democracy our systen of parliamentary self-government we
are talking about something that we ought to understand; something
that is deep in the line of tradition in our country, and that
therefore it won't be easily overthrown.
A man who arrived in Australia and by reason of some
temporary trouble or some disorder, set himself up to be the master
of this country to be the dictator of this country would, in
fact, be greeted with howls of derision; not with black rage but
with contemptuous laughter, because we don't look at things in
that way, and we never will. But that rule does not apply everywher-
Therefore, we had better look at our own democracy and ask
ourselves one or two questions. The first of them is: Are we
making, as far as we can, democracy, as we understand it, a good
thing? Are we making democracy safe for the world, to reverse the
old tag? Well, I think there are many admirable things about our
democracy. As I say we are, I think, at least as highly advanced
in that field as anybody else in the world. But we still have some
very quaint manifestations of things which are the enmy of true
self-government. We have a tremendous amount of complete
selfishness in our approach to public affairs. I know from long
experience that nobody who~ was affected by any government action
ever came along and said " I'm against this because I'm going to be
worse off" perish the thought! He always explains to you that
his attitude is one of complete disinterest; he is thinking only
of the good of the country. Well, whether it is cynicism on my
part or not, I think that in the majority of cases, the first
reaction in the minds of many people is a selfish reaction. And
until we get to a state of affairs in which a man may genuinely
ignore the small damage to himself,' because he sees the large
advantage to the country, to the nation; until we have reached
that pointi we won't be able to look the world in the ~ re and say
that our system of government is the very one for them, and that
they are complete fools not to adopt it.
The theory, I suppose, of parliamentary democracy is
that you are elected to parliament by a sufficient number of
generously minded, or misguided, electors. You are elected for
an almost intolerably short term of three years. What are you
elected for? Just to reflect particular interests? To bow in
the wind of current opinion? To yield to pressure groups, more and
more organised every year? Is that you function? Because, quite
frankly, if that is the function of a member of parliament, any
third-rater will do, because you don't need to be extraordinarily
able or have high character or strength of mind to bow as some
passing event may invite you to bow.
A member of parliament has a very great duty to his
people, and one of those duties, of course as has been said by
better rmen than me before today is to bring to the service of
the country their own judgment and industry and character, not
distorted by anybody else's opinion at all, with the sure knowledge,
of course, that if what they do, if what they say they stand for,
if what their judgment requires them to decide at some particular
point does not commend themselves to the electors they will be out.
From ihe point of view of democracy it is much better for a man
to be out by exercising his own mind and character than to be in
by abandoning then. Pressure groups all this tremendous
organisation that goes on to have special interests put forward,
no doubt it is inevitable, but we must beware of letting it set
itself up as a substitute for the true duties of parliament and
the people who sit there.
Then of course, we have other disabilities. We might ap
well be frank about them. We have a great deal of intolerance,
and I don't suppose that any country will ever, in the true sense,
become the perfect democracy until it has achieved an attitude of
perfect tolerance, because if democracy means anything it :. eans
that the other man's significance in the cormmunity must always be
recognised; the other man's views in the commnunity must a'lways be
recognised. And intolerance of minorities, or intolerrtnee of
people who appear to us or to some of us to be a little odd in
views, is not democratic; it is something that we must always
watch. And then, of course and I think it more every year
our democracy is always being challenged by sheer sensationalism,
You have only to open your newspaper any day and you find some
sensational treatment of something not calculated to improve the
judgment of the reader, but to distort it; to make him feel that
that particular thing on which his c-,-. otions are being wound up,
is really the overwhelmingly significant thing of the day. Let us
see all these things in proportion.
Well, those are what you might call a few of the
orthodox moral homilies, but they are not irrelevant to the
consideration of democracy, because I say that in spite of
whatever defects there may be, I am proud to say that I * believe
Australia is as near to the ideal of parliamentary democracy as
any country in the world.
Now Sir, having said that, let mae just refer to the same
problem in the international sense. There is a common error
made in my opinion, it has been made in most countries and by
many people since the last war and that cormm-on error is the erro.,
of assuming that a system of goverment that is good for us is
good for other people, automatically. To take one example,
Australia has trust responsibilities to the north, in what I will
call, compendiously, New Guinea5 a large native population
inevitably, since we have not been there for very Long, a
primitive community, with its own infinite variety of languages
I am told there are literally hundreds of languages, not dialects,
but hundreds of languages. And with a native population an
indigenous population which varies from those who achieved
education as we understand that term, to those in the remote parts
of the island who are still living in a state of primitive savagery,
so that anybody from the outside who goes in, goes in at his own
risk.
There you have the most complex structure a complex
of languages, a complex of cultures, ranging from European culture
to the most primitive up in the mountain fastnesses. And yet, at
any meeting of the Trusteeship Council there will be heard some
well-meaning person who wants to establ~ ish a time-table and say
that within 1x" 1 years self-government parliamentary selfgovernment
is to be established in the territory. And that has
agreat appeal to people. They sayt They are God's creatures;
they are human beings. Why shouldn ttthey have the right to rule
themselves?" And yet, if we walked out tomorrow, leaving them
with what we are pleased to call parliamentary self-government, the
result would be disaster in that area, and everybody knows it.
But, of course, the second fallacy in the minds of these
rather occasional and earnest people who want to put everything
into a time-table, as if all countries were the same, is that
stohmaet wohfa tt heims rgeoaold lyf orb eulsi evmeu stt habet aglolo d cofourn trsioemse boardey etlhse e. s amelIis
a very comfortable assumption that because parliamentary selfgovernment
is good for us, and we understand and we know how to
make it work, and occasionally we get a bit of value out of it
and occasionally we get a bit of fun out of it because of all
this which suits our temperament completely, a lot of people are
willing to say that it must be good for Indonesia, or it must be
good for New Guinea, or it is a splendid system for some other
country. How do we know that it is? Why do we assume that a syst; Aof
government which is not only a matter of our choice in our own
time but is a matter of inheritance; a matter that hazs been bred
into us a matter about which we have instincts. why should we
assume ihat a system of that kind can be imposed or conferred in
one blow on countries that have no such tradition, no such
experience, no such instincts? It is quite unreal, and I think
that we ought to beware of it.
You won't fail to notice that thore are two or three cases
in very recent history in which what we are pleased to call
the boon of parliamentary self-government has been conferred on
some large number of people to whom almost the first thing that has
happened has been the attempt to run a parliament fails; the
parliament is dissolved; then somebody comes along and says, " I
will take executive charge of the government and I will, of course,
take suitable steps to have a constitution drafted and then I
might have a constituent assembly to get it dealt with." And so
the first fruit of the creation ofT self-governmient is a species of
dictatorship; and we have seen it. Make no mistake, it exists in
two or three countries in essential particulars. It is only a
phase, I know, and it will be succeeded by some broader system of
administration; but whether that will be what we call the ordinary
parliamentary system as we understand it, I don't knou. I think
what we have to face up to is that we have a pretty full-time job
making our own system of parliamentary self-government serve the
purposes of the comm~ unity to the highest possible extent without
worrying too much about encumbering our neighbours with advice
or instructions as to what kind of system of government they are
to have. Because the truth is though you won't be here to
confute me and I certainly wontt be here to be confuted that
in a hundred years' time there will probably be as many clearly
different systems of government in the world as there are nations
in the world; each will thrash its own out.
Therefore, we must be careful about making this assumptionnot
uncommon, I regret to say, in the western world that the
system that is good for us must be good for other people, and
therefore all you have to do when the time comes, or not
infrequently before the time comes, is to say, " Here we are, now
set up a parliament; give everybody the vote, and all things will
be added to." Well, it is just not true, vie may be very proud of
our system and indeed we are but we are not to be assuming
that it is going to be equally good for everybody else.
In the nineteenth century they understood a few of these
things very well. I know it is the fasion nowadays to say that
they were a lot of rather stuffy people, but it was a very great
Foreign Minister of England who, in the nineteenth century, laid
it down as axiomatic that one of the first things about foreign
policy was not to interfere with the internal affairs of other
countries; concern yourself with your relations with them, to
help thei, as indeed we are very proud to help in many places; to
give then on their request, such advice or experience as we may
have; but never to be butting in in our homely phrase on how
they conduct their internal affairs. And that is a pretty good
rule. Occasionally, exceptions may have to be made to it.
Occasionally, as in the recent events in Laos, you may have to watch
very carefully the rest of the world may have to watch very
carefully to see that what begins by looking like an internal
matter, does not achieve an international quality and invoke
international action. But that, of course, truly considardl im,
not an exception but a mere illustration of the rfl.
May I, Sir, before I finish, Just make one little gloss on
what I have been saying to you. People, public pooplc particularly,
and men particularly, like to make speeches ftrdinner. It is
a very suitable occasion o'n whieh toc maiit a speech, because everybody
is well fed and in a cheerful mood and the lightest witticism
evokes roars of laughter. And in that delightful atmosphere,
people are in the habit of getting rid of all the problems of the
world with a sweep of the hand, making powerful speeches about
Anglo-American relations, or something of that kind. It . j,, oes
down very well; everybody is for it, in the broad; and then
everybody goes home and says " That was a wonderful night; a most
powerful speech." And yet, you know with great respect to my
fellow after-dinner speakers a good deal of it is wasted; a
good deal of it was rather uselessly said, and for this reason
I'll take the same illustration: The great democracy of Great
Britain and the great democracy of the United States. People will
speak about these two democraces as if they were the same kind of
thing. They are not; as if they had the same system of government.
They have not; as if the approach of their leaders to the formulation
of policy was conducted in exactly the same way on both sides
of the Atlantic. It is not. The most important thing in the world
to discover, if you are going to avoid bickering, which occasionally*
happens between Britain and the United States, is to understand the
large differences of government that exist not just ignore the
differences and concentrate on the fact Lhe undoubted fact that
there is a parliament whatever you call it, whether it is called
Congress or Parliament and that everybody has a vote, as if
those two things, in this simple manner that I was describing to
you earlier, represented the whole definition of democracy, and
therefore we have the same system.
I have had a great deal to do with the United States
administration in my time, and the leading men there, and a great
deal of occasion for studying their system of government; and I
am constantly struck by the remarkable differences between their
system and ours. And if one establishes those differences, then
which one is it that we are wishing on to our neighbour. You see,
we come up against an awkward problem on the threshold.
In our country, in Great Britain, ministers work out their
policy in the Cabinet room and finally a policy emerges; it is
announced. And that is the policy of the government. The
government may be thrown out by a parliament that does not like it,
but until it is, it is the policy of the govrnment.,,-_ and-anybody
around the world can read it and say,, " well2 there you are, the
policy of the British GoVprnrnont, chte Australian Government is
so-and-so." The whr'lo thrashing out of this thing occurs behind
closed doors, and after a lot of close study very frequently of a
lot of documents and consideration of conflicting arguments.
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But in the United States of America, they are accustomed
to public evolving of policy. So that it gets thrashed out by
public discussions in committees, by somebody making a statement
to the press and somebody else disagreeing with it. All this is in
the process of formation.
I remember having one of many very fascinating talks with
the late John Foster Dulles who was a man of great character
indeed, but was regarded here for a long time, and in Great
Britain, as a man who had no policy except one that changed from
day to day. Well, the reason for that was that he gave me this
by way of illustration: He came back from a very important
conference in Europe. He prepared a report to the President on his
way back. He despatcheC, i lo the White House when aL-.' rved at
his house that evening, and foñ iC. rr t-1 4c -able a sir-.': ons to
attend a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee nztex rmernin'-Pt
o'clock and he felt that he had to go. I wouldn't have, I fepr
Laughter. But, so deep-rooted in the American mind is this
question of congressional committees that here he was, the most
pressed, the busjo:-t man, with all his responsibilities, with
no opportunity of talk with the President at all, going before
a committee with all the glare of lights and television, o doubtand
the press, and was cross-examined from 10 o'clock ir. the
morning until 6 o'clock in the afternoon on how his mind To
on this thing. And the result is that he is put in a pos. ion, y
see, of threshing out, coram publico, what the policy miag-i t-rn
out to be, saying, " Well, of course, on the one hard I th-'
that is a consideration" and then, of course, scmebody n'-y twrite
down the bit that suits him and off it goes ard tie ex';
fellow writes down what he thinks.
( TAPE CHANGED AT THIS STAGE)
A minister in our country Iknows every noise hr. t.
parliament makes. He is familiar with the procedures of the
parliament. He is in constant contact with the members of
parliament and in particular with members of his own party that
support him. And the result is that he is very seldom taken by
surprise by something that emerges. 3ut in the United Sta.'; es thn.
is not the position. Ministers don't sit in conc-e.. s; of
them, in fact, have never been there I mean el; er ) cen r: iember3
of the Congress. The result is they have to deal wit-t.'-Lr
legislation and all that kind of thing by what we c. " s
remote control. That suits the United States of America. It has
one great advantage, of course, from the point of view o'
President: he may pick the best man at that subject
it may be in the country; put his hand on him and say, '. o1
come along and administer Commerce or administer Agriculture or
administer Defence" or whatever it may be. And that, no doubt, i
an advantage. But against that we have always seen tho
disadvantage of having an executive which is detached f. r" n
parliament, detached from the legislature; and to th't extent
not susceptible to the daily collection of impressions ar1, te ci.:
making and answering of criticisms.
All right, I like our system; the United St.-. es : ikes
its system. But you have only to look at those two illustrations
to see that people who assume that we both have the same system
of government are doing a disservice to our good relations, because
when you are discussing or thinking about your relations with
your friends, it is a good thing to have a clear understanding of
what differences there are in your methods, so that you may not be
led into a dispute about something which turns out to be based on
pure misapprehension of the machinery or procedures adopted by the
other man or the other country.
Well, Sir, that is a very rambling discourse. It lacks
the compactness of one of your sermons, Sir, ( laughter) but I hope
that, like your sermons, it may give us something to think about.
7.
CHAIRMAN: Ladies and Gentlemen, you have now got an unrivalled
opportunity. You may ask questions of the Prime Minister. Do
take advantage of your opportunity.
UESTION: Mr. Chairman, when Mr. Menzies was talking about
democracy in the first part of his speech he mentioned that one
of the most important characteristics of the member of the House
or the Senate or any other parliament, should be that he exercise
his own judgment, his own decision; in fact, he should be rather
like the idea in Burke's letter to the electorate of Bristol.
Coming from the U. K. about two years ago, I find that in
Australia, the awful thing the Liberals invented in Birmingham
in 1870 or thereabouts, the caucus, is very much stronger out
here, and for that reason I wonder whether Australian democracy
is not, to some extent, tempered by the influence of caucus
and is not, therefore, altogether a true reflection of the
individual member's personal opinions, or the opinions if we
must be on a mandatory basis of the electors who put him up
for the post?
MR. MENZIES: Well, Sir, I hope I did not convey the impression
that I believe that all parties ought to be abolished or that we
will ever have a parliament that consists of 124 independents,
because, quite frankly, I think that would be terrible.
Parliament would simply cease to work, in my opinion, under those
conditions, and I would hate to be the independent Prime Minister
who presided over 21 independent ministers. I would not want
that post. But what I had in mind, of course, was that Donceiing
the importance of party alignment we all have them, in ill
aspects of life. We like to be with our friends who have the
same common approach to a problem as we have. And therefore
nothing that I say runs counter to that. But I do say tIt. t a
member of parliament wno pñ ants hirnself to ti pucle as
possessing a body of views of that kind, to which he will be
faithful and in which he believes, is not to allow himself to
be diverted from his proper course in carrying out those ideas by
some temporary schmozzle, by some temporary complaint, or a
little whipped-up popular temporary :--ovement or agitation, unless
he agrees with it. That is the point at which he mrust sy, " I am
here to exercise my judjient and not merely to take orde. rs whlich
lie outside the scope of what I have atiitted to the electors
and on which they have elected me,
I think you are quite right: That the caucus idea has
developed a great deal. It is, I think, pretty rigid in the
Labor Party; it is somewhat looser in my own, because some more
liberty I think, is permitted. I am sure it is permitted, except
on vital matters which affect the life of the government; in which
case, of course, any member of my party is free to vote against
the government, so long as he knows he is voting to put it out.
And that, I think, has a somewhat stimulating effect. ( Laugh"'; e.)
But I must say to my friend at the back that though I
concede these points about Australia, I thought I had perceived
them in equal degree in Great Britain. I think that if a party
in Great Britain held the Treasury Benches as one did not so
long ago by 7 or 8 votes, you would find that tiiat caucus
instinct would be very, very powerful, even if it represented onl,
the instinct of self-preservation. ( Laughter.)
QUESTION': Do you think that the establishment inr some of the
countries of the new British Commonwealth of semi--dictatorial
governments is likely, in the long run, to upset the unity of the
Commonwealth and take those countries out of it?
MR. MENZIES: It is very difficult to answer a question like that
dogmatically. If I thought that the establishment of semidictatorial
governments here or here would contin'r until the
whole thing became a straight-out dictatorship, nou a preliminary
stage to getting a parliament or a constit4iion, but an established
thing, then I would think that it was almost impossible to
contemplate how such a government could fit into the conception
of the British Commonwealth. Because, although we have watcred
down or altered a number of the old elements which were once
thought to be of prime importance, I think the fact still remains
that we do set out to be an association of free and selfgoverning
communities, and an inveterate dictatorship . ould
I think, lead me if I were one of the people to d is to
doubt very much whether such a country ought to reman in the
Commonwealth. But, of course, I am bound to say to you. that I know one
or two of the pseudo-dictators. I am perfectly cortoon that f-n
each case it is regarded as an interim stage only to enble : he
country to be put into a proper state of organisation an. to
enable democratic institutions of some kind to cemele. If that
so, then one must not be in a hurry. If it turns out not to be
and it became as great a matter of plain dictatosLj L. 2 Germany
under Hitler or Italy under Mussolini, then I thinh I Yould be
voting against them.