N. S W, C* 14DBER OF I4ANIJFACTUB. ES DINNTER
AT HOTE. L ATSTRDLIA, S'ThNEY
N ':? 1SI TOFcjhE.* i
S ehb the Rf-J-rig Mrister, R t. J1orn., IG Menzies
Sir, Your J ccellency and Gentlemen
I thirdk this is a splendid toast Australian
Industry, No doi; WLt thlis is a comprellensixe expression.
I can dwell on thte problems of pirimary iLndutry, touch
lig'atly on th e problems of secondary industry and go to
town on -the pro bleri of 1ertiairy incus try,, I tiir tihis
is* splendi. But before i begin -to anako wha,, t you Will be
delighted to know%-will be a very shlort sipeci it'~ s all
right, thle Lord Mayor has, stipul-jated for an hour ( T-aughter)-
* im. Kirby th-inks ho can comp-ss himself withi n thee quarters
of. an houir and so I am goig to make P very short. spe) ch; q
but before I do2 I worild. like to rnak%, asSI usually do, two
orelim-inary Observ. ations,,
The first iLs Tha t' i-hvo bcen h. er e boefore( L gt)
I can remsmlber one year wvIien profit and loss -, ccounts were
ra thler healthy-I-, whien I got a rg~ fL. l goo., d reception and
another year when I froze in my pla~ ce and thel -ic--cagulated
around ine,. ( Laughter) But I wn1 dwell, on thlese thiings.
Thie fact is that, looking a& r-cand i was delighted to
find thaat there aie more yo Lzrg ma. n at the D-irmar than I ever
rememe( ein eoe ( Aplue) o, as your vresident
said to me, this may be merely the resuilt of t! he old adage
tt ur get. n old wihen y-ou -L~ rnk thIe poli-Jcez;. en look
youig, ( Laughl-ter) and of co~ urse, to , ne the pold ceme-. n have
looked childishly you-ag for' years and. year-s,, I ain bound to
s ay t o ycu, Mr, r~ ne th. at whoin I am being drivenl thr oughl
Sydney, your young paliceman 11o doubt wel~ l disciplinted by
you, always sal~ ute meo,, ( lraugt-ter) if I kept a diary I would
makle a note of thtfact, But th.-is ivC. a splendid thiing that
-in this Chiamber in a couna'ry In whicha m-anufactul-ring is going
to be more and%, iore iprattas the population grovis, as the
S-U-rengit[ 1 Of the coU; n'tx7y grows, you sliould have so mrany men who
ar. e young men, I wonder if I could tell you a story about that.
I have tried it on scoebody,, Soma of thle younger among you
may have forgotten thlat by some accident.-Lal circumstance, I was
Prime : KLinister cf the cvuntry in 1939 -it's only 23 years ago
and I hiad * brought bacIh Sir Brudenell Wite, tht great man, to
be Chnief of thle General. S-laff(, 1 was sitting in my office at
tile Victoria Barracks and he came in and we walked into town
together. Some of the mor-e travelled among you will know
Melbo~ urne, I( aughter) There is a road calle-. d St. Kilda Road,
Brudenell White and I, hie being at least fifteen, sixteen,
perhaps seventeen years older tlln me were walking in side
by side. He, slim and elegant and precise and I, as you
might suppose. ( Laughter) We ad thiat day been discus. sing
who oughlt to be given thLe conLmand of a division, because the
War was on,, Brudenell ; daite said to me, " You know. Prime
Minister, ( very courteously) I am a good deal older thllan you
are~ l Aknd I sort of shru-Lgged my sho0ulders at th-Iat i. f a s mwu ch
to says " Well, donft make too much of a poi-' nt of it", you see,
He towantto say to you is that Jit will fallt your
lot tomake many appointments i~ n your time; if you have a man
who has the brains and the character and thle quality and some
experience, never refuse to appoint him because you think he's
too young." Now that was brilliant advice. And he then went
00a & OaO ao/
on -to add with a wry smile.) and I remeinbcr this because hie
vwas killed in an aircr; ., ft accident only nine months later,
" You know, wh,, en I was first the Chief Staff Officer of the
First Australian I was thirbyfour, and there hoave
been people so kind as to th-ik I didn't vake a moss of .1
Now this is something I have always remembered. And that's
why, whien I walked i~ n b~ tonight, I was so delighited to fee'L
that, hl have suffered froin the older members of the
Chamber, year after year, ( Laughter) theewl b Am
to come when ray success or will be a ble to deal with the bih
and. mpcming and intelli1gent membors or_* the Cliarbor, ( Laugneter)
( Applaus3) el tat' myfis preliminary observatioli,
Hy second is this--I haven~ lu been able to size up
yet completely who Might be here, but 1 have caught the eye
over there or S" ir Frank Packer, and I don't th-ink IL ought
to let the occasion pass, on our, first joint appearance in
your city, withoutv saying that the chall-enge for the, Atmrica's
Cup produced for Aust: calia moregoi~ 1l morc interest, more
ernthusiasm, more news in t'Pe United States of Areica than
anything else I can -rememer, ( 11ozar, ( h~ pplauze) c
was natural~ ly a little hurt rull th-is because ( Laughte~')
Lord knrow, VLve bleen thr~ ough th e United. States and tGrafficked
witti the great and made ptoerful spcUes yeL ya
after year. I -th. nk th ~ p3sLnis I v ncver ratd ro-re
than a quarter of a clms ( Laughcetr) And tie got t-wo column-S
a day, in every newspape-r Fi-ank, itts a fair thing to say to
yuon behialf' of all of us, th). a-t w aeveyfrtf' to 01ou
and those associatod with. you for' t1-is marvellous peeo
enterprise. ( Hoar, ( plcTa' , r il
Having said. thiat, Sir, 2' coma back -to my toast
Australian Industry -aind as ' T said. l, t~ s a t'r-Irartitoe affair,
but of course I krnow tha-t at hea-rt m-ost of YOU are mar, 7ufac-
Curers and therefore yc-. u are properiy and pi': ofounCLy initerested
iLn secondary indu-stry, There : L oin hp hn r w
things that I want to say toyou about thi. S8
First of' ali, as for ti-io attitude of Austra: lia tGo
nmaniufacturing, th2 ssur; is, closod Every party at every
rphase-4. modern Jaistralian histor-y believes i* n secondary
industry and believes in a polic( y of protaeotion. ( Hear, hear)
( Applause) I amn so oll now and doddering that I can remember
a timo whien people actually argued about protection and free
t r a d It secms intere sting tL. o go back on it,, 1 remember my
father in a lit. tle country village bir-ing the great prcotectionist,
Oddly onougli, he won the .1oca? 1 seat in Par-. liament and as his
protectionist views became better 1kno; wm, ho of cou'rse lost it,
I don't noeod to pursue that line any further. But all those
old false issues have grone, I don't think[ any man would be game
to stand up in any Par-liameont Federal or State and say that
he didn't believe in an effective meaure of protection for
effective Australian secondary industr-y0 And it is theoro,
And so that is where we all st.. and,
flut perhaps we occasionally have a temfttion to
look at our section of industry and to think thnat you can
look at it in a watertight co-_, partzment0OWll, Ilm a manufacturer
and thais is my prime interest and we have, inevitably,
differences from the primary indiistries and the secondary
industries; of course, i-n part1cular, from time to timre, with
the Goverrnment" ( whiich always means tha Covex'ninment c~ f t-e
Commonwealth) ( Laughter). Now, gen-Ltlemen, all I want to say
-to youa is this. The tiine bas come in Australia for us to
realise that our commnon interests are inuch-superior to our
-iLndividual interests, We are really moving in-to a new phase
of our history. I don't want to make so:-cme contentious speech
a* 0 a** 0e / 3
abc-, uit heCormmonm Mark et but anybod. y ~ I red h nw il
Inow per ct'ly, well tat -in al' probabiliL ? Le pti
that way G.-( eea b Britain is going int;, o the CoLmon M3,.' Ket9 and
that Groat iBritair-zind e Si. ur who,-C a ltoh cre feel that
one of the great stroingth s about the Common Market will be
t~ tthey will have an enormous honze market; and. th'at the-refore
they can increaso their officiercy, their tL-Iurnov~ er, reduce
heir costs on the goods thit they sell t h re? o h
world including Australia. This is wher e manufacturers come
into Lhis -oictuc0, Now th-is is9 tilf-k in all pvrobability,
going to happen. Idother what have roead : racontly inproves the
bargaining position of Groat Britain or not, I don~ t venture
to say, except privately, but 1 tink thle truth is that this
enormous modern development is going to occ-ur and, of coarse1,
it prese-nts problem.,-to Australia0 So peozle triinik thal;
-nlss you fal~ l into a pa-siona, at fmidyu cL
treat the prlobleri sec iously0I o treat itscrioJ-sly, ThtiIs
is a great problem0Bu,, t. Lho-grea ter the prolom10 I the more
rea. l the problem, thJe les s rea-, son there is for an Aas tralian
to fall into a panic raboat it,, WeT have a highi tr-adition, I
thaink, of clar. ity of' mi-nd and of courage and dcioand
I-re Coll face these problem-' s -' T1hey carc great p,) roblems.
' You may be disturboa6 about a problem but niot
depr-essed0 I am disturbed"' but, of course, I am, not depressed,,
Bu~ t i do say to you thiat wo ha--er here ain enoriaous -problem
which~ we can meet, bat we iron1t ia1ewe iie 0t usle
up into rection: 3 6nd fall bsc*, k inlta an Idea th-at j. f you ara
going to do soraethin. Eg for mnacrngYou ough-t to do it at
the expense of the Trian on t1; ea n. This is n): Dscnmso beca-use,
of Course today if -it vi'Gre rnot for thie man-on tLhe lan-d and
the., expor? income thai; he earns mnfatr in Austraia3
could be crippled almost ov. nih: byJ laclk ofJ imports of rav,
matorials, Thberei: oo we are all, as you mi-, ght, say, in the
samane boaw emus inrcaingy think of ourselves as
be-ing in thei saneo boat,.
I would venture, Sir, looking arou~ nd this audierce,
to soy be. L~ fo vryod ! present thlat ue all know tha-t
if ' this counatry is to stanid firmly on its own feet in the
ntwexet~ n4ty t thve: ei mcre and more poople.. it
can't have more and more? people unless these people are
employoC+, I~ t can"'; have them-eomployed uonless -manufacturing
ind-tr tetir ndItrny ai re able tCo take them up and
employ theCm beciuse oreo more i the, ru. ral industries?
mechoanization re + placer, manpowor0All this is so true as to
be hardly worth mentioning, but at thae same time, those whio
manufacture should, and I knw wi] I, avoid thae temptation to
Say, 111, ell, if you want us to employ + the increasing population,
you must simply give us protection however high it may go and.
whatever it may cost somebody else0The truthi is that while
manufacturing develop:-: ent in, a growing economy is vital and
I hope th. at my on people have-C sh-ownm tnat in what we ~ vo been
doing it is st-ill tr,, ue thac-t the vo~ percentage of our
export incomae is earned on farms and stations an d gardens of
Auis tralia and t hat we muast not Pvrsue policies whicoh pr,. ice
them out of exist-ence. Now thI., at7Ls elementary. Of course it
is, D! Bu what it mean-s is that perh-aps over thne next five or
ten years, we. should not so mu~ ich th'Liink of ourselves as
manufacturers withi special i'nt-orcsts and no connection with
thie firm next door or prinrjry prorluoer', graziers councils, wool
and meat fedorators1 with no c-Dnnection with the firm next
door, or tzansport -w& tto iis i conncto wih h
03 a 0 0~ 0 0
firl-1 next door. Ibelieve that what ixve have to do on those natters
is to get tc'gother arid roalise thaL14* hav aCVom i00 ity o
inteiesit on this riatt,, 3., a corimrnrlty of' interest whiici wei
w sacriftce at our own par: Ll, And, realily, it was having
-oil th ose things in mind tht Iecny announced publislyl
that we were going -to conduct, throughi a competent commttee
as Ihcw~ ewil ascmb]. e, an investigation into a great
number of these miatters -not to discover ways and means of'
pushing thE tari-ff up or pushing tho tar-', ff' down, not to
discuss ways and means of subsidizing some primary industry
or not subs idizing it but to get together on -thi. s matter so
tat we may discover Uhat in this marvellous country of oiirs,
ttere is a profound comm. unity of' interest.
' Ae all have, gentlemen, unsuspectod capacity fo.-r
unselfishxiess and this is what we must call on, because I am
perfectly co'ir~ ain that if over the nes-t decade, and 1 ama
happy to assure you that i won't be Primeic Minister at te
end of that time ( Laughter) this will be-i a weight off your
minds -but if -At the end of the next decade, , ie find tGhat
Australia,~ conflronted by new circumastances strategically
placed as 11slhe ise in this,, corner of' the worl. d, has donE; great;-
things in developing tier o-wAn indistries, i er ownr maarkets and
increasingly stands on her own fe,: et and has1 pride w-itliout
arrogance, confidence without elaserinss t~ riis will
be a wonderftft thing for ouro cout-L-~ y,
Every now and. ther., as 1 look at my g r-ndc-_ hildren,
of whom I have novr qulitE! a and, tUhanyd are respect:[ Xl
to me because the eldest is on. ly n e or-t e n ( Tau . te r1 -v k-ry
respectful Grantpal" No, Grandpa" 0"' lrandpa
very important?" Oh yes, and the answer~, of course,, " Vory,
Yes0 Yes."~ ( Laughte57) Baiu when I ami ju-st dust and ashe,
I~ d like to think that th~ ese bñ atts, having come to inan~ s
est-ate and womangs estate, would. look at me and look at you
at this end. of this room and say " They understood the
problcm2 ' they knew-i-t tbice:{ coped u~ ith it and that's why
Australia is one of theo g.' eat9 great, countries of the
world, Now, gontlenr, as used to be said in somie papers
" Tfteras my sc-ntiments1And as 116hem's my sentiments",
an going to ask you al a stand up and drink tGhe health of'
Aus tralian Industry.