SOUTH AUSTRALL-IN CHAMBER OF Mii. JF:: CTURES DINNER
, ADLLIDETH NOV M3ER J
Speech by the Prime Minister the Rt. Hon, R. G. Menzies
Sir, Mr. Premier Mr. Leader of the Opposition et hoc genus
omne. ( That used to be Latin in my timel)
I have hpd a most interesting night tonight. All the
time I have e-n saying to myself " ihat should I say?" and having
got a rough iaea about it I have then heard this one and that
one and the otner one pluck all the food out of the basket, and
I find myself left with only the crumbs that fall from the rich
man's tablel If I might start at the end, I ' want to say about young
Bob Anderson that having heard him tonight in full cry I hope
he never gets into the ' enate..., I won't dwell on it any more
than that. I beg of him as a frieuid not to becc're a Senator
because if he were in my House I could deal with him, but I find
it increasingly difficult to deal with Senators I hope you all
understand this travail.
Then, of course, the Premier who has been a Premier
for 23 years, seasoned not a novice like myself who has been a
Prime Minister man and boy only for l1~ years made a powerful
speech ( as he always does) and he went to some pains to explain
to you that South Australia is no longer a claimant State. You
know I've been waiting for that for a long time! When I think
of all the development that has occurred in this State, when I
think how increasingly difficult it is for me to get a majority
in this State, I've been waiting for the time when Tom would say
" We are no longer a claimant State". But although no longer
claimant, you take it from me South Australia is still clamant
( Laughter, applause)
In my earlier days when I was at school as no doubt
quite a few of you were in your own time somebody told 3
story, do you remember, about the old Bishop asking about : he
Angles and the Saxons who came in after the ancient Britons and
he was asked what they were, Angles or Angels a rather
difficult problem ( It's like claimant and clamant) and he said,
" Non Angli sed angeli". Now that was rather flattering; for
them to be converted from Angles to angels was something that
required a theological effort on the part of the Bishop. But
all that is needed in South Australia to convert South Australia
from being claimant into clamant is a characteristically nontheological
exercise by the Premier of South Australial
( Laughter, applause)
Jell, Sir, I've listened in and I've collected rhatever
crumbs I could find. I remember being here two years ago I
think two years ago. if I rememlber correctly ( but you will
correct me, won't you?). I was tolerably popular, I think so,
two years ago. And I went away feeling very content because I
thought that it was the finest Dinner of any Chamber of
Manufactures that I had ever attended in the world. And you
know, oddly enough I forgive you for everything you've been
saying in the last twelve months I still think sol
This is a remarkable occasion, and a remarkable place.
I did not know ( so brutishly ignorant am I) that South
Australia produced the first Chamber of Manufactures I might
have known it. Dear me, I haven't been in Parliament long
about 33 years one way and another, but I might have known that
all the troubles that I suffer from were bound to begin here!
You know it's ironical to think that in 1869 25 years
before I was born the seeds of my present troubles were being
scattered in this State! And it is a tremendous thing to
reflect that although at that time probably the manufacturers of
Melbourne and the free trade manufacturers in Sydney ( as they
were at that time) regarded South Australia as being rather
brash. It is a remarkable thing to recall that in these last
years or to be precise Mr. Premier, in these last 23 years,
this State has become a powerful manufacturing State, so that it
no longer needs to be looked at as the young brother who is
rather speaking nimself, but is, itself, a great
rcanufacturi..., -ommunity, a well-balanced community. Not a
community that forgets about primary industry because, just as
there was a temptation years ago for primary industry to forget
about manufacturing, so I want to say to you, never forget about
primary industry yourself because I am a believer in the
balanced economy of this country.
If something happens that is weakening to the primary
industries of Australia, the Australian manufacturers will find
it more quickly than anybody else. If something happened to
restrain the development of manufacturing industry in Australia
the man on the land would feel it more rapidly than anybody else,
: Je are no longer to engage in the false dichotomy that you are
for one or the other I am for both; and I am sure that you are
for both. It is the fact that Australia has developed a balanced
economy that has made us what we are today in spite of
temporary vicissitudes, a powerful and well balanced and strong
national economy. But we have problems in front of us. Some reference
has been made to the Common Market. I want to say, Sir that
I am afraid that an awful lot of people talk about the Common
Market just as they might talk about the blessed word
" Mesopotamia" without quite knowing what it's about. I
receive tLh most earnest letters from the most earnest people
who say, " What about a Pacific Common Market?". You know, it
sounds grand doesn't it? "' dhy don't we have a common market with
Japan and India and South East Asia? This is the answer", to
which I always reply that although I am not incapable of
certain stupid willingness to engage in a brawl, I wouldn't like
to have to look the Australian manufacturers in the eye and tell
them that I had established an internal free trade customs union
with the countries of Asia. I think that is right enough,
isn't it? Here we are, a great trading nation, most of our
exports primary products, but a perceptible and growing
percentage of our exports manufactured or processed goods, here
we are looking at the problem of the European Common Market,
lith Great Britain negotiating to go in, tthiet ho ne problem
that remains at all times as to the terms on which Great
Britain will go in and the terms will be terms that affect
first, Commonwealth trade, second, British agriculture, and
third, the European Free Trade area because Great Britain has
six associates in that area whose interests she must attend to
but from our point of view it is the interests of the
Commonwealth countries that are of first importance.
I am not here to make a prophecy about these matters.
All I want to say to you is that ever since the Goverrn-mnt of
the United Kingdom departed from the old statement that
agriculture was not to be in these negotiaticatns and began a
process of negotiation which includes agricultural products, my
own Government this is not a Party matter I'm sure that I
could speak for everybody in the Commonwealth Parliament has
been working on this matter, Ministers, officials, in London,
here, with the express purpose of protecting, so far as we can,
the patterns of trade which have made Australia, small as we may
be, one of the first ten intern: tional trading nations in the
world. I don't think that is always understood, that in
absolute terms, not per capita, but in absolute terms, this
country of ours in which you have such faith and I have such
faith, is one of the first ten international trading nations in
the world. ( Applause)
We have our own patterns of trade: we sell a great
deal to the old country, we sell a considerable amount to
European countries: we buy a great deal from the old country
and from European cuuntries, and it is our simple but difficult
task, to sLu..' for our own interests on these matters -not
preferring them to the interests of the peace of the world or
the strength of Europe, but as we are bound to do, standing for
Australia and Australia's future.
Therefore this thing won't come to a head in a day or
a week, or a month, or perhaps in two or three nonths and all I
want to say to you is ' hat I hope that in all these matters that
will be discussed we wi-l be able, whoever may be in office to
represent Australia with sanity and good judgment and with he
backing of the Australian people with the backing of
manufactures with the backing of people who are concerned with
growing wheat or butter or meat or wool, or whatever it may be.
Because I believe that these negotiations are the most important
economic discussions concerning us that will have occurred in
the lifetime of any man present tonight. Far more important
than the Ottawa negotiations, tremendously important, because
here we are witnessing a movement in Great Britain, our mothercountry,
which must lead to an enormous integration of the whole
of IWestern Europe; which must lead to a powerful association
between countries, some of whom have been at war with each
other in our own lifetime. And in all these matters we in
Australia, while not denying the importance of a powerful Europe,
are properly concerned to see that industries built up in our own
country on the pattern of British trade are not to be ignored,
not to be set on one side, but are to be treated with fairness,
with understanding and given some opportunity not just of
retreating a little but of expanding in the future.
Sir, these are tremendously difficult matters. But
there is one other that I would like to say a word about. What
do we export from Australia? ' Jell of course we export wool and
we export wheat, and we export meat and butter and dried fruits.
We export a great number of commodities of that kind and we
export some manufactured goods, " Some" growing, growing, I
agree, but still only " some".
Now why is South Australia no longer a claimant State?
Because South Australia has developed secondary industries in
balance with primary industries. Why is it that today in
Australia we need not fear that another 1929 will produce a
disastrous depression? The answer is because today in Australia
we stand on two feet ( you quoted my words on this matter, Sir),
we stand on two feet. Je are a great manufacturing country,
we are a great primary producing country; and if the wind blows
cold on the one it doesn't necessarily blow cold on the other.
! e have some balance, we can take up the shock. Je couldn't
take up the shock in 1929. But if we can't take up the shock in
1961 and 1962 then it will be incompetence on our part because
have all the foundations for it wre stand on two feet,
But in the world of exports we don't not yet, not yet,
Why don't we export manufactured goods? Now we've all spoken
about this, haven't we, before today and somebody says, " Oh, yes,
this is a very good idea, it's a very useful idea". -Je have,
within the limits of our imagination and competence done what we
can and we will continue to do more things as we think of them,
to develop, to encourage, the export of manufactured and
processed goods, But why don't we export more? Is it because
we are not as good at making things as they are elsewhere? I
don't believe it for a moment. Nobody can go around a great
factory in Australia and look at it, see the people on the bench,
talk to the people who are in charge, without saying to himself,
" But this is magnificent! There is a spirit there is a
vivacity in this thing'" Why can't we export? Somebody says,
" Well of course there are other countries that have a much bigger
turnover" and I if we just sit down comfortably and say,
" Jell, he " 71. s more therefore he can produce more cheaply",
that will be tne end of the question. I really want to say to
you 3entlemen, because I am a seetling mass of confidence in the
future of this country I just want to say to you: Don't adopt a
defeatist attitude on these matters. It may be that in order to
get exports somebody may need to take a little less piofit,
somebody may have to achieve exports without profit, or, if you
like at some technica] loss. But we will never be a great
country in the world, e. oncmically, until we are supplying this
massive mar! ret which lies just outside our doors,
With all the skill that we have, with all the
competence that we have, don't imagine for one moment that
because we pay people good wages ( as we should) and 4ive them
good conditions ( as we should) that we are contracting ourselves
out of the markets of the world. I don't believe it. I think
that this business of exporting the products of our factories is
the great matter which in the second half of this century will
determine the future of Australia. I believe that, I believe
that passionately. And if the day comes, not in my time -( but
then unlike the Premier I am not immortal!)-these things won't
come in my time, I don't very greatly mind that but I would
like to cock my ear up from whatever strange place it is that I
am in in another 40 years and discover that just as in my own
life time Australia stood squarely on primary and secondary feet
in her internal economy, sc she had taken her place in the world
standing on the same two feet, Because when she does, you see
what will happen, Why do we have troubles about the balance of payments?
Why do we have our overseas reserves running down? Why do crazy
Governments at Canberra get worried about the balance of
payments? though importers apparently are not. Why? Why?
Because, you see, w e believe and it is an old-fashioned beliefin
national solvency. We believe that a nation like Australia
ought never to get into a position in which she can't expect to
pay her debts abroad her debts for imports as well as other
things as they fall due. What we need to do in Austialia is
to get over all these fluctuations, which are inevitable in the
present picture. Ie can't control the price of wool re can't
control whether there is going to be a drcught or noZ and
therefore the sales of whbet, we can't control what the world will
pay for meat or for butter or for eggs; and as an exporter of
primary products we therefore stand right out don't we, in the
wind and the weathero If the price level falls then our overseas
income falls acutely; and if it falls acutely then we are right
up against the problem as to how we are to cut down our
expenditure on imports and we get right back to the old
argument about tariffs and import licensing and all the rest of
it. Now these are important matters, but speaking as the
temporary head of the Government of the Commonwealth of
Australia for another five weeks speaking in that capacity I
want to say to you that I don't like this state of affairs. I
would like to think that in due course we could take a
fluctuation in the price of wool we could take a fluctuation in
the world price of some primary commodity because we had built up
an export income of hundreds of millions in the products of our
factories? the products of our mines all these things on which
we are doing great and useful exploratory work today.
I hope, Sir, that I maake the point that I am trying to
make. There can be no avoidance of emergency economic measures
so long as the economic emergency is one a-ainst which you have
no protection. The right way to get a protection against it is
to encourage everybody who manufactures in Australia and I
think wvre can do it least as -, ell as anybody else in the worldand
to pers every one of them to get into this business of
exporting, to get into the business of making people in South
cast Asia, or whatever it may be, expect to buy Australian goods
because they are Good, because they are vell made, because they
have quality, and because they have a price that is competitive.
Is this impossible? If I thought it was impossible I
must confess I should go home and die in despair. I don't
believe it is impossiblf.. When I look back over what has
happened in this country of mine and yours in my own lifetime,
14hen I see the enormous development that has occurred, the great
surge of productive effort, the great increase in living
standards, I adopt as my mottc, that " nothing in my country is
impossible. ( Applause) And if that is right, and I make bold to
say, Sir, that it is right, then the kind of argument that we
have engaged in in 1961, 1960, with reserves runningdown and
emergency measures becoming necessary, will be looked back upon,
in another 20 or 30 years, as a sort of old wives' tale, just a
piece of ancient history. Just as we look back on what happened.
in 1929, when we didn't stand on two feet in Australia, as a
piece of ancient history, why shouldn't our sons look back on the
passing problems of 1961 as a piece of ancient history?
Here we are growing in population enormously. Does
everybody ' n Australia realise that we have received more new
citizens into Australia in the last l5 years than America did
pro rata in the great age of iimigration into that country? Are
we a+ iare of that? Don't we know that here we are living in a
country which is increasing its net population rather mor
rapidly than Japan is? tJe're a bit inclined to look about us in
a melancholy fashion, to think about the problems that this
population growth imposes on us. This is a magnificent thing, a
proud thing. It means that lO millions today, 20 milliorr then
milliorr, we can look at the future with confidence. Am I to
be told, or are you to be told, that with that -ro-th in front of
us we are incapable of meeting the competition of the world in
markets of hundreds of millions of people, with steadily rising
standards of living, only a few miles away from us? Sir, I don't
believe it. 4hat we need in Australia is a little less wingeing
about our temporary troubles, and a great deal more honest belief
in ourselves. This is a great country we may have confidence in it.
And the first thing to do to have confidence i your own country
is to have confidence in yourself. ( Applause