HOSKINS FAMILY IEMORIAL SERVICE AT HOSKINS
ME~ MORIAL CHURCH,-LITHGOW. NSW. 17TH OCTOBER, 1965
Speech by the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies
It's a very great honour to be here and to be
asked to speak on such a notable family occasion. I'm a very
old -friend, I'm happy to.. ay, of several of the distinguished
members of the family. I was warned by one of them that on
this occasion I should not embarrass the family by talking
about it. Having met scores of members of the family, having
been across the road compassed about bj a great cloud of
witnesses all of whom appeared to be Hoskins, I dare not omit
to speak about them. Ineed, that is what I am here for.
Andbifg a Presbyterian, Sir, I like a text,
and my text, though ithasn't found entrance to the Authorised
Version and still remains in the Apocrypha, it is a great one,
a suitable one " Let us now praise famous men and our fathers
7hich begat us." There can be no more splendid invocation
than that, because we are praising today, with our memories and
with our prayers, notable people, people who were creators
in this country, people who lhave not merely lived and passed
on but who have left this country in their debt. W~ e are
celebrating an uncommon family and therefore uncommon
individuals. Now Sir, the-. history of the Hoskins family in
Australia, runing back now over 112 years if I mistake not
is a very remarkable sne. I was fascinated to discover when
I was informed of some of the details that at one stage the
founder of this shall I call it a dynasty in Australia
worked in Ballarat. This at least gives me some faint contact,
in terms of place, if not in terms of quality, because I was
at school in Ballarat and my parents were born in Ballarat, and
so the family lines have merged to that extent.
But the story of this family, Sir, is a matter
for pride for the family and it is a matter of gratitude for
the country. Having saiA that, I would like to add that it
gives all of us something to ponder.
,' ae all know, don't we, that this has been described
as the age of the common man. I want to say something to you
about that. I remember during this last war making a speech
in London in which I used the phrase the common man. I
used it I thought in a very appropriate way on that occasion
because I was referring to the behaviour of the people in
Great Britain under the bombs, under attack, and I said it was
an age in which the common man had become a king. But I had
letters from people, 9uite a few, protesting against the use of
the word " common as if it involved some condescension., Perhaps
I had better explain to you at once, it doesn't. The word
" common" is one of those words in our language which has an
almost infinite vaietlo f meanings. You may say, " That's a
very common fellow." You don't mean something pleasant. You
may say that the Elder Pitt was the great commoner. Not
offensive on the contrary. You may say that a Royal personage
has married a commoner. There are enormous varieties or meanings
to be found. But it has been said and said in some senses with
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profound truth that this is the age of the common man. It's a
great truth so long as we understand what it means. I want
to give you two reasons for saying it's true, before I make a
certain gloss upon it.
The first is that true democracy, that which we
all in our own ways try to practice in Australia, true democracy
seeks to achieve not ustice to a few or something for the
talented but justice for all men, for all women, and regards
the good life of the individual as the ultimate aim of government.
This is worth remembering.
Politics is not a matter of loaves and fishes
entirely. Loaves and fishes may come into our economic life,
but the essence of it is that in our ways whatever our party
beliefs may be, we must all the time be struggling for the good
life for the individual because that will be he ultimate test
of the value of whatever contribution we make to our country.
And in the second place in all times of crisis ( we can say
this with pride), in all times of crisis for the nation iT is
the spirit of the ordinary man and the ordinary woman that has
provided the foundation of survival and success.
I had the great honour, as you know? of enjoying
the close personal friendship of Vinston Churchill, and like
you, I shall never forget how his w'qrds rang out and gave
encouragement and hope and confidence to his people and to
people all round the world, and yet he was the first to know
and to concede that he wasn't creating something in the
individual; he was evoking from the individual something that
was there. This courage and determination came from ordinary
men and women and he made their deepest feelings vocal. It was
he who led out something which is part of the genius of the
common man the common individual, the ordinary person in a
community like ours.
Now Sir, having said that let me look at the
other side of the picture. I rather think it would be a calamity
if our applause of the age of the common man for the reasons
thati have just been stating induced us to yield to the
temptation to resent or reject the uncommon man. This is a
great danger. One sees occasionally a symptom of it the
little flashes of jealousy, of hatred, of malice. This is too
easy a strong temptation; it's easy enough to yield to it,
and therefore, to look at the uncommon man as if he ran counter
to the pattern of life that I have just been saying something
about. My reason for saying that we must not yield to that
temptation is that in all history it has been well established
that it is, after all, the uncommon man who initiates ideas,
who provides leadership, who has honourable and powerful
ambitions who supplies the driving force who has a capacity
for industry beyond the minimum of obligation, who has sufficient
courage to efy disaster and not to be misled by temporary
success. This is somebfinition, I think, of the uncommon
man and it is appropriate to refer to him because the founder
of this notable family was an uncommon man. He answered to all
of these things that I have been t lking about.
And that adds up, Sir, to this, that the ordinary
man must have a proper pride, should never be over-anxious to
submerge himself or to be misled, but at the same time, he
must a Iways have a belief a true belief, a true appreciation
in and of the quality of the uncommon man. Eow of course the
uncommon man, Sir, the uncommon man may turn out to be a tyrant,
a dictator, and therefore a destroyer if he forgets that the * o
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spirit and happiness of the common man is his chief concern and
that his ambition must be for the people and not for himself.
will Let me apply those ideas by one or two examples that
wilreadily come to your own mind. Hitler, of course, was the
latest in this century he was an uncommon man, who turned
out to be a destroyer so that he had to be destroyed.
Napoleon, who overshaAowed Europe, who overshadowed the then
known world in the height of his military successes, his military
genius, he was an uncommon man. Nobody would doubt if for a
moment. But what did he achieve? Measure what he did against
its defect for the common man, its value for the common man, the
ordinary man. I remember standing once in Paris looking
through the i. krc de Carousel right up the Place Ae la Concorde
to the Akrc de Triom phe at tUe other end and this beautiful
arch is covered with the boastful recorA. of Napoleon's victories,
his conquests of this piece of land or that piece of land.
INothin remains except the marble the victories forgotten, the
victories fruitless, the conquered lands once more free. Here
is a boasting piece of marble the uncommon man, who in all
those respects failed in his duty to the common man,
On the other hand, we ma~ think of people I don't
need to name very many of them Shaftesbury, in England the
founder of factories legislation, the true beg inner of all the
humane industrial legisqation that has come to us since this
so-called remote aristocrat the uncommon man, a tremendous
benefactor of ordinary people. Lincoln, in Amnericai the great
industrial creators in our own country, because don t forgyet
that there are two kinds of people wno come to great w7ealth and
position in the country. There are those who make money because
they are good at making money. There are those who make money
or power or influence because they have created something and
maintained something for the benefit of other people. Anid the
fact that they have some benefit from it is no more to say than
to say that tIe labourer is worthy of his hire. The greaT
names -I won t make invidious distinctions, but I could at the
slightest thought mention five or six great names in industrial,
manufacturing, mining history in Australia who are the names
who would be the names of people who were uncommon men and wAo
have laid common men under heavy tribute.
I was looking the other day, once more Sir in the
Gospel according to Matthew at the parable of the talents.
There is one word in it which deserves emphasis because you
remember that when those who had five talents, two talents, went
away ad put them to work, did something with them, and came
back having doubled them the word that was spoken was,"'. ell
done thou good and faith{' ul servant". True, true, they were
the servants of the master who had given them the talents, but
they were also servants because nobody could have done what they
did without serving some good public or private end. The
uncommon man. Whenever we are fortunate to encounter him he
is the servant of the country and the servant of his people, and
there is every reminder of that as we stand or sit in this place
on this most notable occasion.
I wonder, Sir, if I might conclude my remarks by
saying that many years ago, I read for the first time and that
was a great event Robert Louis Stevenson's " Child's Garden
of Verses". There may be people here who have become so gown-up
that they think they hnave outgrown them. I ho e not. I hope
not because Robert louis Stevenson will himself never grow old
in the minds of people, and his " Child's Garden of Verses"
remains a joy forever. Remember the poem about the river and
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the children putting their little boats into the river and
floating them away, and exciting childish pleasure? And
then it goes on " Away down the river
A hundred miles or more
Other little children
Shall bring our boats ashore"
This verse has stuck in my mind. It has, in my own case,
continued to have a profound effect on my own mind
" Other little children will bring our boats to shore.....
Other little children will benefit or suffer, according to
our virtue or our vice; every time we do something that is
at all significant, we are launching a little boat on the
river of life, and other little children will bring it to
shore. Let us never forget about that.
Nman could be a great pioneer and constructor as
the founder of this family was if he had thouight only of
today. He must, from time to time, have looked forward and
have said, " Yes, if I can do this, then we can do so-and-so,
then we'll do something else," looking to the future,
conscious of the fact, as we all must be, that we are not
here today and gone tomorrow but that we have our little
mark to make for good or evil n h akdos' u u
too quickl. That's why I t~ nk that that is a geat poem,
a wonderful poem deserves to live with us, as I indeed I
hope I mayr say it has lived with me.
And so here today in the presence of so many members
of this family, this famous family, recalling the achievements
of this family, I would like to think that we, like themselves,
will look for-ward with thankfulness for what has been done
and with a profound hope that when our boats come to shore,
they vill be found by happy children in a happy world all
the better because we launched our boat.