SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE RT. HON. R..
MENZIES, AT OPENING OF T2 POi. ER STATION, ON
__ MTAHY 162
Sir, colleagues, Your Excellencies, and ladies and gentlemen:
It is only a few days ago that somebody was talking to
me about the great art of speech-making, and in my usual dogmatic
fashion I said to him " Of course the essence of it, old boy, is to
get as close to the audience as you can, so that you are on easy
and even intimate terms with them". And here I am today, feeling
remarkably elevated for the first time since last December.
( Laughter) There is one other thing that I ought to tell you,
. hen I have concluded my few remarks my instructions are to pull
a switch. I see that it has on the switch that it was used by
my wife in opening Tumut 1 and I am therefore very sorry that the
doctor has prohibited her from being with me this afternoon.,
But, I have been warned by Sir William Hudson, who, under the
direction of his wife, manages this enterprise, ( Laughter) that
when the switch is pulled there zrill be a co-tain amount of
mystery go on donm below, and then there will be the most
deafening noise, and I am instructed to warn you all to remain
quietly seated: there will be no occasion for panic because he
assures me that the whole thing has been tested and that it will
worko So that tremendous noise which will occur when I pull that
switch, will of course, be understood by you and will be
gratefully received by me as a substitute for applause.( Laughter)
Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is really, as I don't
need to tell you, a very remarkable enterprisco It has so many
aspects that one could speak for two hours and not deal with all
of them. But this is a very remarkable undertaking, with
various facets some of which are occasionally forgotten. This
enterprise, first of all, began as an imaginative conception, a
conception which was operated, which was put into existence, by
my predecessors; and I always acknowledge the imaginative effort
that they engaged in when they established the Snowy Mountains
Authority. It so happens, by the circumstances of politics,
which do change from time o time that my own Government has had
the opportunity of enabling the taxpayers to find the money to be
spent on it, and in large licks. Senator Spooner, as he admits,
has been the Minister for 11 years, the Minister in whose parish
this comes0 I tell you that his persistent attempts to get more
from the Treasury than he really expected to have excited my warm
admiration. And it is because I have very frequently come doiwr
on his side that he has this high opinion that he has been
expressing to you today. He has been an enthusiast.
But the whole point about this enterprise is that
everybody connected with it is an enthusiast. Sir ! Jilliam Hudson
is a quiet man. In Canberra he seems almost a shy man; it is
very hard to draw him out at all, a most retiring fellow. ho
has ever flogged an enterprise of this kind along in the fashion
in whic' he has done? The moment you meet him and step into a
car and find yourself driving into the domain of the Snowy
Mountains Hydro-lectric Authority he becomes a d7ynamo himself.
He convoys his enthusiasm to whoever may be with him; he conveys
his enthusiasm to a very remarkable team. And my one attempt,
which failed, with my colleague Senator Spooner, was that when he
said that he ywanted me to open this Power Station I said " Well I
look forward to the time when we will have Sir illiam Hudson
open a Power Station". Frankly I think he should have opened
this one. Therefore, as I have had this task put upon me I
esteem it my duty to say not for the first time, that Australia
will never adequately understand the debt that it owes to this
man, and to those who have worked with him. ( Applause)
V* My colleague said something about wives, Wives are very
important: none of us would be here but for wrives. But Lady
Hudson is herself, again, the embodiment of the womn, the wives,
who have contributed to the success of this scheme a very
wonderful success, and a wonderful contribution.
Noj, Sir, there are other aspects of this Snowy
Mountains Scheme. , le think, perhaps, we who live mostly in
cities, think of it perhaps mostly in terms of power, electric
supply and of course it is quite true that it makes a tremendous
contribution to the supply of power in two States. But it is easy
to overlook the fact that in the course of creating power it
provides vast storages of water and facilitates the ultimate
irrigation of many hundreds of thousands of acres of land. ;. nd if
there is one thing that is clear in Australia it is that for the
purpose of diversifying the products of the soil, of attracting
population into rural areas developing export trade on the grand
scale, the spread of irrigation is an imense contribution. I
think I am right in saying, but I speak subject to the correction
of the experts whom I see here, that already in New South Wales
and Victoria something of the order of 3 million acres of land are
under irrigation. This is a tremendous contribution to
Australian peduction, to Australian population to the Australian
future. And this groat Scheme is going to replenish, and add to
those resources, and therefore bring that tremendous piece of
benefit to Australia.
You see the duality of this thing? Power, yes,
primarily for the cities, .? ater, yes, primarily for the ( mtry.
Here you have something that comes in aid of primary industry, of
secondary industry; indead, that comes in aid of the whole
economic development of Australiao
Then, and here I do no more than repeat sor. lthing that
has been well said by my colleague, this enterprise has itself
not only created things, the kind of thing we see today, the next
great step, but it ias also served as a remarkable nursery of
talent. Think of the young engineers, think of all the young
technical people, wuio been working on this enterprise; and
who, in due course, go : t from it and enrich the technical and
engineering life of Aus-alia with the product of the skill some
of which, a good deal of which perhaps, they acquired in and
around these mountains. And our contractors in Australia, some
of whom are now becoming extraordinarily competent and prominent,
have, I venture to say, learned more in a few years about largescale
contracting and engineering works learned more in a few
years by the example of world-famous enterprises, than they might
otherwise have learned in a quarter of a contury,
So that this great Scheme enriches Australia, not only
with power, not only with water, but also with skill and
exp-rienco; and in the doing of all these things it is opening
up a section of Australia which I believe is destined to be one of
the great tourist resorts of the , orld.
Now this means that one must say that it would be
difficult to imagine, and certainly difficult to find, any enterprise
which had so many facets to it as this one has. Therefore
today as I take the mechanical step of pulling a switch, as we
celebrate the establishnent of yet another Power Station in this
great enterprise, let us remember with pride as Australians that
this Scheme was conceived and brought forth, has been carried on,
has been brought step by step towards its a. oLjletion, by people of
this country, and the people of countries friendly to us, anxious
to participate with us, in the development of a great continent.
Sir I believe that this is in its own fashion an
historic event and I thtin that all o' us who are here today so
long as we live will be vuey happy to think that we were resent on
an occasion to mark achievements which do Sc'ri:,' h credit to the
country and so much honour to those who have been primarily
concerned in it. Now hav. ng said that, rememaber my warning, I Wl. l
null the switch. i declare this Stati5n opn,