oMCIAL OdNING OP 1961 UCIR1IQ 9IZP 3XsW 63CP
and u. 1961
Upfeeh br th Prime Miniter. th t. Hon. It. aG. MenLAsies. H. P.
Hr, Falkiner, ladies and gentlement
In case I forget it, I declare the Show Open. ( Laughter)
( Applause) And I gather from your applause that that's really all
I need to do about it. ( Laughter)
But I had a very plaintive letter from Geore Falkiner
inviting me to come aown here. lie reminded me that it was
years since I wae here last to do this Job. I vasn't likely to
forget it) Jeouse with all the optimism that characterises a
man who had only been Prime Minister, at thIat time, for two years
all that optimism has long sine deserted me I come down Just
with a hat, flow down from Canberra and was to rly back at the end
of the afternoon. There I was, Just a hat and, of courseo a
oi tain number of garmots on aeo I was very well reooiVed people
were immensely courteous they were not so angry with me in 1951
as they have been occasionally since and we got on very well. I
left here and caught the plane at about a quarter past five and
we got overhead at Canberra, There was a thunderstorm and the
lightning flashed and the clouds were sweeping around and every
nov and then I could see the lightss as 1 imagined them, of my own
house and a clear mental picture of my poor wife saying " Where is
my wandering boy tonight?" Finally the pilot came down and said
" I'm sorry, we hove to go back to dyney". If any of you have ever
tried to sleep in a Sydney hotel, having nothing to oear except the
kind of thinj I'm now wearing, you will understand exactly how
well I remember that occasion.
There's one other thing I would like to say. I zrmember
it from the time before and it is quite fascinating. There is a
very studied form of insult delivered to a politician by you
" sheep fellers". Just as the politician begins to think " how that
asn't a bad sontenoe", an intorjaector says " baaaa, haaa baaaa".
iou can hear it all round the place. -4hereas this regrottable
looking old ran opposite me, ever since I arrived and sat down has
been wrinkling his nostrils at me. ( Laughter) A very subtle form
of insult that, and one which I must set about introducing into the
louse of Reprusentatives ( Laughter) You couldn't call a man to
order, could you, for wrinkling his nose. You can't rise to a
point of order and say " The honourable member for"-let's take a
name at random " East Sydney" ( Laughter, applause) " is wrinkling
his nose at ms",
Anyhow, Sir, whaever my sins or long since forgotten
merits may be, you don't nded to apologise to me for asking ae to
come to this Show, because as you have rightly said this is ihl
great industry in Australia. There can be no question about that
at all. ( Applause) I've had it very much in my mind of recent
times becauseo as Imay tell you rather confidentially9 we've taken
a few rather unpopular steps in the last six months I wouldn't
want to have it mentioned outside but I don't mind admitting that
that is so, ( Laughter)
Jut I Just want to take the opportunity of saying to you
that every step that is taken to suppress inflation in Australia is
bound to be unpopular with somebody; but it can't be unpopular
with you. Jecause if there is one great industry in Australia it
is the wool industry, and if there is one industry that can't
afford domestic inflation it's yours. You meest the world, you meet
the world's demand, you are paid 4hat the world will pay youl but
you can't pass your added costs on to the man next door. Ieople
0ooauionally forgot that even so amaxing an Industry as the wool
industry oan really be priced out of profitable exi!; tenoe booauue
of the rise In costs internally,
Therefora I suy for myself that It doesn't worry me it
somebody doesn't like some carefully conceived anti-inflationary
measures because I happen to havre enough wit to know t at the
solvency of Australia, the arvth of AuetruJial the capacity of
Australia to receive mi,; runts year by yeurs the prospects of
Australia having 20 million people in the lifetime of many of the
men here present today, all those things depend niot only upon a
world makt for wool, but upon a sucoeamfil ; 2ld market for wool*
-Ind it can't be a aucoessful market if & alloping inflation is
allowed to take charge on the home-front. ( Applause)
Thereioreq Sir, quite unblushingly I Invite you to think,
to understand, that as nobody has yet blot rid of an inflationary
boom without hurting somebody, without treading on somebody's corns,
it is the duty of a practical statesmanl to select toe corns, rot to
* a afraid of treading on a few corns, but to say " WJhat Is th Xzeat
object to be achieved? And If I can achieve that for millions of
people I must content to annoy thousands of people". That's It.
This is, In the old phrases the problem of the jreatest 4,00d for
the gftatost number.
Now 1 believe as you belie ze, that these passing
incident* are only passing Incidents* 4. have had then before
today -and we've come through Lhem. George Falkiner -dus good
enough to ref ir to what has happened in Australia In the last
years. It In really fabulous. do forget so easily, ' Old men
forgot; yet all shall be forgot' yo-i know, Shakespeare, as usual,
was rightt we do forget . hose things, Jut if any one of us here
today had sat down In 194~ 9, or,' 50, and had put In front of him or
her a statement of what the position In Australia would be In 1960
he would have disbelieved it, she would have disbelieved It, It
would have been reearded as perfectly Coolishe dho had any reason
to suppose that 90 million sheep should become 150 million, to take
you~ r own great industry* WIho would have supposed that we could
ha-io seen, with our handful of peoplo the tremendous do iolopment of
this country, a development so remarkable, If you will allow me to
say so, that the ieople overseas who are shrewd Jud,, os of our
, ountryt who are not interested in our ooubitry In order to lose
money In its are so interested in this country, and Ita Aiture
prospects, its potentiallties, that contrary to all the
pessmistst i. rophecieos we are having In the current year an even
greater inflow of private capital invoutment Into ' 1stralla than
we had last year, when It was an all time reaurd. ( Applause)
Siwg all this means something to you; It means something
to this groat Industry. It means that more and more and more we
are developing a large population ourselves and t-he strengtii of a
nation to sustain, and be utained by, our major Industries*
Now the only other things that I want to say Sir are,
first that one of the groat problems In this industry Is research.
I donit suppose I wuuld have such difficulty In , oin4 down the
street somewhere, In Sydneyo even In that boni~ hted centre that
I came from,. Melbourne, to find somebody who would say, " Oh yes,
Ltd love to be a sheep man, 4ulte eusy, quite easy. YOU just
sit on a verandah axnd smoke a pipe., and watch the wool grow. It's
an simple as that**
I lke to remember that even in my own lifetime the
quality, the yield of wool, the knowledev of pastures, the pride of
achievement in the wool-grower, has grown out of all sight. This
Is a proud industry, as veil as being a & reat Industry, And
because It'is a proud one, it must have research; it must grow
and grow. People of pride are not satisfied to decline . they must
go on and be strong.
In the pavilion that I went throuagh before lanch,
lookind hastily and, Itm isfraid, nut always intaligently1 at the
exhibits and at what was .4oij on, I once more had reason to be
tiani~ fu2. that the wool indust~ ry has been aware,, increasingly, of the
need for researoht some of It in the laboratory, uiomo of It in the
officel a lot of it on the sheep farm Itself, a lot of it
conducted by practical sheep men, a lot of It conducted byr
scientists who, an I was hmappy. to obseve toduy, are in no case
" lone,-hairod" l scientists they all looked quite respectable to me.
('. aughter) Rather like politicla 5. Jut the Importancoe of
reseurch, I. think, oun't be over-estimuted because wool of course,
hias. Its battle to fight in the jorld. I'm an optimist on that
matter,-if I may say so, buicauso for the last 20 years I've been
listening to people who have said " Wool is finished. ' Thore's a
synthetic fibre that's joing to put It out of business". I once
4as cajoled into a darment mude of on. of these synthetic fibres.
I put it on onae, I hated it, and I'Ve never vorn it siode
We've aliraya been told that the day of jloom theday of
disaster, is around the oorner. I don't believe it,. believe
that If wool Is constantly reinforced, as the ; reatesi; of all
riatural fibres by the efforts of scientists and passing out,
ultimately, iiato the efforts of breeders Qn developors of wool
production, it will hold its own ajainst competition. If it is of
any Importance to any of us lid like you all to have this In mind
! eawase live had it in my own mind for various purposes a g~ ood deal
of lates the population at the w~ orld was 29500 adliions, so the
statisticians uaid in 19% 0# In 1960 this had become about 3,200
millionis, a very big increase. Wy the year 2000 wind and wnather
penItitt, in the absence of some enormous worlA catastrophe, the
estimate is that there will be 6 000 million people in the worldt
that the p~ opulation will double 1n a period of 40 years, or near
enough. Does this make you pessimistic? It presents uzt with
problems, It presents the world 4ith colossal problems bucause
the se people must be fed and clothed* jut from the point'of view
of this great Industry Lhis Is a marvellous opportunity. We are
not to suppose that you are~ just cate~ ring for the existin,,, demand
for the great fibre. The demand us the atund-ird of living rises
around the world* will 4rov will double, will treble# will
cjtwdz'upl* of course it wiii provided that t~ he Industry itsirf
4ith * all the aide of theoreticl and applied soienoe is able to
meet the market to most demand to meet the calls offashion, to
meset the calls f~ or trousers that don't have to be crossed by your
' ii~ fo, all these maorn developments that have been of such great
importancu, and will. be moro so in the Puture. Therefore
research by you, by the technical experts# by the sclentists is
trixendously Important.
The other thinjg 131rl In promotion, because this is a
sort of salesman's world. Do you know, If I may betray a guilty
secret of politics to yout that I occasionally have the most
manificent and brilliant Ideas ( Iaughtr), but the trouble is I
have to sell them to people, I have to make them understand that
they ure magnificent and brilliant. That's reasonable, isn't it?
Jo the art of salesmianship is tremendous the urt of promotions
I am delighted to see that under the virle leadership of my
friend Sir William Gunn ( Applause) this promotion campaign oes on,
The orld is not going to beat a path to our door just bocuuse we
grow ereat wool. I know that somebody said that that would happen
if somebody had a good idea, You must go Into a world, no
country in which an compare with Iu~ zralla as a drower of fine
wool* and you mast constantly have right under their noses, and in
LI-wir minds the virtue, of this jreat fibre., You iean't leave It
alones, you can't stay at home iand say$ " Well, they will ome along"
4uoause they won't, It's not that kind-of world.
4*
Therefore the promotional programse seems to me to be
something of the most tremendous Importanoo. I hope nobody is
going to say, " Well if the Govurnment thinks that, let the
Jovernment do it." Do you know one of the things I like about
this greatest of all Australian industries is that it has never yet
put Its nook Into the overnment, -Oe politioal noose. It has
been its own m aster; ( Applause) it has had Its own pride; it has
made its imortal oontribution to the life of this country. Sir
I hope it will be like that alwuyst long after my time; long after
the time of other people here.
Therefore I hope I have conveyed to you that this to me
is not Just one of those ohores that a political man has to do.
This to me has been an occasion of opportunity and of very great
pride. So. for the seoond time, I declare the Show open*