COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
SPEECH BY
The Rt. Hon. SIR ROBERT MENZIES,
ON
RHODESIA
Ministerial Statement
[ From the Parliamentary Debates," 16th November, 1965]
0 Sir ROBERT MENZIES ( Kooyong-
Prime Minister).-by leave-Mr. Speaker, I
propose to make a statement to the House.
When I have finished it, I will table some
relevant documents on Rhodesia. Those
dcments contain a verbatim account of
the communications between Mr. Ian Smith
and the Prime Minister of Great Britain. I
am happy to say that there will ' be enough
copies of the documents for every honorable
member to have a copy for his own consideration.
At the conclusion of my statement,
which will not be very long, I will
move that the House take note, not only of
the paper, hut also of the papers that I will
table so that all will be available for
discussion in due course.
Recent events in Rhodesia, and the reactions
to those events in other countries,
hrave presented to all of us acutely
difficult problems. It is therefore desirable
that I should, on behalf of the
Government, set out for the benefit
of honorable members what we believe to
be the facts and what views we take on the
various suggested remedies. First I should
point out that as Great Britain is for this
purpose the colonial power, only the Parliament
of Great Britain could grant independ-
14540/ 65 ence to Rhodesia. The Unilateral Declaration
of Independence by the Rhodesian
Government was therefore illegal. The
Declaration having been made, and the Governor
having dismissed Mr. Smith and his
government, a position arose in which the
only lawful government in Rhodesia is now
the Government of the United Kingdom.
The executive authority is at present in
the hands of the Governor, subject to any
legislative or administrative steps taken by
Great Britain. We accept the view that it
now becomes necessary for the Governor
of Rhodesia to call, if he can, a new government
into existence. If he cannot do so, the
responsibility for the government of
Rhodesia will rest with Great Britain. It is
important, I think, to remember these basic
facts. Rhodesia is not now without a government
at all. That is, it is not in a state
of anarchy, but is subject to the direct
authority and control of Great Britain. Let
me emphasise this. The objective of any
action now to be taken must surely be to
assist the United Kingdom to bring into being
a constitutional government, and to end
the illegal situation in Rhodesia. The sooner
this can be done, the better. If it cannot
be done, or if it is not done with reasonable
promptness, the risks of violence, bloodshed,
and extreme action, to which I will
refer later, will grow, bringing grief and
suffering to millions of human beings.
The Rhodesian problem has twice been
discussed at Prime Ministers' Conferences.
On each occasion, it was unanimously-I
repeat, unanimously-accepted that the
authority and responsibility for leading
Rhodesia to independence must continue to
rest with Britain. Though this seems at present
to be under some challenge in the
United Nations Assembly, it still remains
the central truth in the controversy. In the
discharge of its responsibilities, the Government
of the United Kingdom went to
great pains to conduct discussions with the
then Prime Minister and Government of
Rhodesia. I will narrate, as objectively as
possible, what the British Government did.
It indicated very plainly that it was not
contemplating force; that it wished to establish
a basis for ultimate independence which
would be fair to all the people of Rhodesia.
It did not take the extreme view, now being
advocated by some, that the Constitution
of Rhodesia should immediately be altered
so as to provide for an immediate African
majority. It realised that the people were
not yet ready for this, and that to act precipitately
might conceivably create what
might be called a " Congo situation", of
unhappy memory.
The Government of the United Kingdom
indicated five principles as providing the
basis upon which independence could be
granted. These principles were-
1. The principle and intention of unimpeded
progress to majority rule,
already enshrined in the 1961 Constitution
of Rhodesia, would have to
be maintained and guaranteed.
2. There would also have to be guarantees
against retrogressive amendment
of the Constitution.
3. There would have to be immediate
improvement in the political status
of the African population.
4. There would have to be progress towards
ending racial discrimination.
The British Government would need
to be satisfied that any basis proposed
for independence was acceptable
to the people of Rhodesia as a
whole. As principles, these appear, as Mr. Harold
Wilson has said in the House of Commonf
to have been accepted by Mr. Smith. ThRW
real difficulties arose as to their application.
The five principles, as I took an opportunity
of telling Mr. Wilson, were and are completely
in line with our own thinking. Having
regard to what has happened, I thi
I should now tell the House that Isent*
message to Mr. Smith just as he was entering
upon his discussions in London. I said I
had a natural understanding of the problems
confronting the European settlers in
Rhodesia, a country which has enjoyed its
own substantially but technically incomplete
form of self-government for many years,
and in which the contribution of the European
settlers to the economic vigour of the
country has been most substantial. I repeated
my own view, which I have on
several occasions expressed, sometimes quilf
forcibly, I hope, in Prime Ministers' CoW
ferences, that two extreme views that had
been put forward were not practicable.
The first extreme view was that either
immediately or within a few months thee
should be adult suffrage with, in cons
quence, an African majority. If this view
were to prevail then, as I said to my friend
Mr. Smith, I could see all the elements of
bad, because inexperienced, government,
and possible economic disaster. The other
extreme view was that the achievement of
an African majority should be indefinitely
resisted. This view, as I have repeatedly
said, and, as I said to Mr. Smith, was, in
the prevailing international political climate,
quite impracticable.
I pointed out to Mr. Smith, as I have
done in * Prime Ministers' Conferences, that
in my opinion the matter was one of timetable,
a matter of phasing in more and
more African voters until after some
reasonable period of time they found
themselves in a majority. By phasing in
I mean such measures as adjustments to
the B roll and perhaps the creation of a
blocking third in the local Parliament. After
all, the 1961 Rhodesian Constitution and
the discussions attending it seemed to me,
as I pointed out to Mr. Smith and as I
have pointed out in Prime Ministers' Conferences,
to contemplate that ultimately
the African voters would prevail. I told Mr.
Smith that the working out of such a time-
Stable should provide a good basis for agreement.
I told him that should agreement
fail to emerge and should there then be a
unilateral declaration of independence, the
results, not all of which were foreseeable,
could be painful and difficult. I told him,
SasI have since told this House, that Commonwealth
countries would not recognise
an independent nationhood so achieved.
It should be clearly understood that a
similar line was followed with much
patience and reasonableness by the British
Government. Mr. Wilson himself, in his
speech to the House of Commons, put it in
this way-
Although successive British Governments-
I emphasise " successive British Governments";
the Home Government and the
SWilson Government have followed identical
policies in this respectare
deeply and irrevocably committed to guaranteed
and unimpeded progress to majority rule, the
British Government, who alone through the British
Parliament have the legal power to grant indeendence,
do not believe that in the present and
ragic and divided conditions of Rhodesia, a
majority can or should come today, or tomorrow.
A period of time is needed, time to remove the
fears and suspicions between race and race, time
to show that the Constitution of Rhodesia with
whatever amendments may later be made can be
worked and is going to be worked and that the
rule of law equally with the maintenance of
essential hrman rights will be paramount and the
time required-
This, I think, is a very wise statementcannot
be measured by clock or calendar but
only by achievement.
In spite of all these efforts, this illegal
declaration of independence has now been
made with the constitutional consequences
to which I have referred. What has happened
since? The British Government has done two
things. First it has, through the Governor,
S dismissed the Smith Government. It has prohibited
exports of arms to Rhodesia. It has
imposed certain exchange restrictions. It has
denied Rhodesia access to the London capital
market and has terminated Commonwealth
preferences. Some of these clearly have more relevance
to the particular position of the United Kingdom
than they would have to the position of
Australia. But the British Government has
also imposed a ban on the import of tobacco
and sugar into the United Kingdom, these two items constituting more than one-third
of the total Rhodesian exports. It will be
observed that the imposition of these sanctions
by Great Britain has been made with
what I would call constructive moderation.
As I understand it, it is not aimed -at ruining
the total economy of Rhodesia, for that
would be to punish indiscriminately, but to
provide a means of persuading the European
minority and its leaders to realise -the gravity
of the situation, to have second thoughts,
and to approach the lawful Government
with an expression of willingness to negotiate
to finality on the basis of the five principles.
The second action taken by the British
Government was to bring the matter before
the notice of the Security Council. Now this
may at first sight seem to be inconsistent
with the sound basic proposition that this is
a matter between Great Britain and Rhodesia.
But I have no doubt that the British
Government felt that it was better for it to
take the matter to the Security Council, to
outline the steps taken by it, and endeavour
to secure international support for its actions,
than for the matter to go to the United
Nations under the auspices of other people
who might demand courses of action which
did not recognise either the particular
authority and responsibility of Great Britain
in this matter or the present constitutional
position of Rhodesia. Recent events seem
to have justified this view on the part of the
British Government, though they have at
the same time presented us all with problems
of the utmost gravity.
I turn now to considering our own attitude.
We have, as I have previously pointed
out, refused to recognise what is now an
illegal administration. We have also in this
House rejected any notion of the use of
armed force which would be repugnant to
the people of Australia, but would also inevitably
produce more ruin and disaster than
any of us would be prepared to contemplate.
We will not either physically or financially
contribute to the use of force. Measures of
enforcement-if I may use that phraseneed
a good deal of thought. Are they to
punish, or to persuade, or even to compel?
We reject the idea of punishment, for it
would be undiscriminating and, therefore unjust.
The madhinery of persuasion deserves
more thought. This -great problem is essen-
' tially a matter to be solved by negotiation,
in the light of the principles that have been
stated, and with the object of securing a
peaceful and ultimately a democratic future
for Rhodesia.
The demands currently being made at the
United Nations for violent repression require
critical examination. Suppose the United
Nations directs or proposes military sanctions.
What will be the object of this exercise?
If it is to defeat the European Rhodesians
in the field and kill a number of
them, what problem will be solved? If
adopted -it would represent a violent course
in which the innocent would suffer with the
guilty, and would embitter racial relationships
in the whole African continent for
generations to come. If the object is not
to be punishment but persuasion, what is it
that the Rhodesians wilt -need to concede
in the face of force? What new Constitution
or form of Government will be demanded?
it is, alas, quite clear that if the United
Nations authorised armed force, the clamour
would be for an immediate adult suffrage,
the immediate application of which would'
quite plainly have at -the best hazardous,
and at the worst disastrous results. What is
needed in Rhodesia is a reasonable timetable,
accompanied by a special educational campaign,
-to which all of us might well contribute
somnething, to fit -the African voters tor
their ultiimat~ e authority.
What I have said emphasises the nature
of the deep differences which the debates in
the United Nations have already disclosed,
differences which are fraught with great
danger and on which we are bound to express
our own views with some frankness.
The first difference, and I here repeat
myself, concerns the position of Great
Britain as the colonial power whose legislative
authority has been illegally defied by
the Smith administration. That problem is
one primarily for Great Britain and Rhodesia.
What Great Britain is seeking at the
United Nations, as we understand it, is
general international support for her own
measures of an economic kind. This does
not satisfy what may be called the direct
action or armed force views of many
nations, particularly of some in the Afro-
Asian group. They demand armed force,
and are attacking Great Britain for not
employing it. If these nations had their way,
the United Nations would no doubt be
called upon to establish what might be somewhat ironically called a peace-keeping
force. I say ironically, because them
peace to be restored or kept would haveMW
been broken by the action of these nations
themselves. I have already put and answered the
question as to the objective of armed force
which, it would appear, would be not onlo
to punish but to create a new Constitution
and system of government on a basis which
we would not want to see established overnight,
or prematurely. My colleagues and I
have had very great reservations about even
economic sanctions.
Mr. Uren.-I thought you would have.
Sir ROBERT MENZIES,-I am delighted
to hear that the honorable member has been
thinking. I will repeat the statement, having
regard to this brilliant interjection. My colleagues
and I have had very great reserva
tions about even economic sanctions. lie
we accept for ourselves some economic
measure or measures, it will not be because
we think them intrinsically equitable. They
may bear most heavily upon the Africans
themselves-which is something wort
thinking about-and if strongly resisted bo
the Rhodesians themselves imposing sanctions
against, for example, Zambia, formerly
Northern Rhodesia, that great copper
producing country might well be ruined.
But making allowances for these views, we
have come to the conclusion, particularly
having regard to the way in which Great
Britain is being attacked for employing
peaceful means, that we would regard
economic measures as the lesser of two
evils. The greater evil would be the use of
force with all its bloodshed and misery.
This would be aggravated if the forces were
directed by racial hatreds or gave rise to
political consequences of which advantage
could be taken by other and more hostile
nations. It might well be, and this would
appear to be the judgment of the British
Government, that the losses arising from
the kind of economic measures they have
announced will be sufficiently serious, while
not involving utter disaster, to induce most
Rhodesians to have second thoughts, and to
come back through constitutional means to
the negotiating table. We hope that this
will occur, and will occur before too much
damage has been inflicted on people who
have, as I have pointed out, been the greatest
contributors to the prosperity of Rhodesia.
SWe will not export arms or military equipment
to Rhodesia. We do not import sugar
from Rhodesia, with which we have a fairly
modest trade. But we do import tobacco.
On this we will follow what has been done
by Britain, and put a ban on the import of
Rhodesian tobacco; this, of course, will not
pply to tobacco in transit. Tariff preferences
to Rhodesia will be suspended. We will cooperate
with the Government of Britain in
two other financial respects: First, we will
amend the definition of the sterling area in
the Banking ( Foreign Exchange) Regulations,
so as to exclude Rhodesia, or make
such other amendment as is appropriate to
exclude Rhodesia from the treatment
accorded to sterling area countries, and,
secondly, we will take such action as is
open to us to prevent evasion of the British
0exchange control measures. We do not have any diplomatic mission
in Rhodesia. We have a trade representative,
whose appointment in Rhodesia will terminate.
Above all things, we hope that none
of these measures will be of long duration.
It would be a sad commentary on the unwisdom
of mankind, if through the obstinate
pursuit of an illegal course, this prosperous
country should be reduced economically to
ruin, to the lasting unhappiness of all of
its people, voters or non-voters, white or
black. I present the following papers-
Rhodesia-Ministerial Statement, 16th November
1965.
Documents on Rhodesia, 27th October 1964-
Ilth November 1965-
and move-
That the House take note of the papers.
Debate ( on motion by Mr. Calwell)
adjourned.
8Y AUTHORITY: A. J. ARTHUR, COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT PRINTER, CANBERRA
14540/ 65-2