PARTIALLY BLINDED SOLDIERS ASSOCIATION
SILVER JUBILEE DINNERPADDINGTON
TOZ4 HALL,_-SYDNEY OCTOBER, 1964+
Speech by the Prime Minister, the Rt.. Hqn._. Slr Robe t Menzies
Sir and Your Excellency the High Commissioner
I am quite accustomed to beaing made a bit of a
chopping block but I have been chopped in three different
directions todUght. I have a sort of raixed assortment of
tasks. One I will conclude with, tb-Pt is the task of handing
over this remarkable historic volume Mr. Maloney for the
Government. I think I should perhaps begin by discharging
the lightest of my duties, I think it is rather sinister to
give a politician the Order of the Double Cross. ( Laughter)
Don't you? I know that it is well meant. but it lends itself
to misunderstanding, if you don't understand these things
quite well. I think I had better take it of" f for a moment
so that I can see this. There is a picture in the middle of
what I will say is a gentleman and I have had a quick glance
at it, and so help me Bob I couldn't make up my mind
whether it was Khrushchev or Nasser or Menzies ( Laughter).
Might be any one of the three.
I must tell you about..... I mustn't dejcr-ibe
him as the late Mr. Khrushchev as far as we know he is
not late. ( Laughter) But something has happened, ut I had
a long discussion with him once in New York in his office there
at his Embassy. . JlI want to tell you that he has a nice
earthy sense of humour. It may not avail him very much now,
but then, humour is wasted when you are out of office.
( Laughter) I went in to see him and his first remark he
doesn't speak English at least he pretends not to but he had
a brilliant interpreter so that the conversation was practically
non-stop. He stood up, shook hands with me and then looked
ct me and said, " For an imperialist you are not a bad specimen."
( Laughter) To which I retorted wiih that courtesy for which
I am famous, " Sir, for a Communist, you are, on the whole,
rather better than I expected." ( Laughter) And after that we
got on fine. He talked about disarmament without achieving
any and he went through all the old usual gambits which occur
in the vicinity of the United Nations in New York. But there
it is. Come to think of it, you know, the top part, the
cap, rather suggests Soekarno, doesn't it? ( Laughter Well,
there you are. Isn't it a brilliant piece of work? It looks
to me so ambiguous as to make it possible for it to be any one
of four men, with a snake down in the corners...... Now,
I would be upset about this to be called a Double Crosser, to
be called a snake in the grass or whatever it is, this would
be very annoying, except that f would have you know that this
is not the first decoration that I have ever received. I am
a physician, did you know that, ( Laughter) I am a Fellow
of the Royal College of Physicians. Doesn't make the faintest
difference to the bill. ( Laughter) So there I am, I have a
certificate to show. And the medical profession have a symbol,
you know, which was vulgarly described by a friend of mine
in law once as a snake crawling up a stick. ( Laughtor) a a. a 0 0/ 2
2 a
And so I am not unfamiliar with the symbol of the snake
in the grass. The raw prawn is a particularly Sydney expression.
( Laughter) In the genteel quarters of Melbourne in which
I used to live once, nobody ever heard of a raw prawn.
( Laughter) When I came to Canberra and fell. into low
company and had to meet a lot of Sydney fellows, you know,
in Parliament I became accustomed to hearing one of them
say " Oh, dontt come the raw prawn.'" ( Laughter) They had
another expression, " There wore sharks in the bay," ( Laughter)
These, of course, were meaningless to Victorians. There are
no prawns and no sharks, or at an ae oshrsi h
bay. Anyhow, Sir, I thai., k vou very much. This will
be hung in a suitable place of -onr.( Laughter) ( Applause)
I will execute, of course, a deed of trust so that it goes
to my descendants ( Laughter) and If -It is valued by some
curiosity-hunter some day at a sufficiently high figure,
it will attract, so I am told by my colleague the Treaslrer,
a suitable rate of taxation. ( Laughter)
Now, Sir, the next thing I want to say is that
I was delighted to find that your guest last year was the
General General Muttukumaru, the High Commissioner of
Ceylon. He has only been in Australia for what only a
couple of years now just under two years. He Is a familiar
friend of all of us, and I am delighted to think that two
years running, ho has come here. Indeed, if I may betray
a Scottish secret, I may tell you that among the many
occupations I have, I am President of the Melbourne Scots,
and he is coming down as a guest this year. ( Laughter)
That, of course, is bad enough from our point of vie, but
he's going to make a speech. ( Laughter) And so you can see
that Le has established himself.
Well, now, I dontt want to make a long speech
to you and I know that I am not to make a political speech
to you. Indeed, I have never been brave enough to ma~ ke
apolitical speech in Paddington Town Hall. ( 7au K~
You understand that, Jim, don't you? ( Laughter) -Anyhow,
I never have, but I must say that in the same electorate
one year, I made what was regarded as a speech at the
stadium. Now, you take it from me, if you want to' have a
novel experience, make a speech at the stadium,, standing
in the middle of the ring, with an all-direction mic. rophone
and noboay there with you ( Laughter) and 8,000 people, 2,000
of whom hate the sight of you and occupy the first threo or
four rows. A very remarkable experience. Every now and
then, I would look down and I would see my wife. She was
there. She never misses, do you see. My secret weapon.
And she was there and she was in the front row there and she
couldn't hear a word I was saying. I've never seen her look
at me with such mystified respect. ( Laughter) Not a word
could be heard. We finally got away, sound in wind and
limb, and went back to the hotel and they were rebroadcasting
this speech of mine. Honestly with very great respect to
the surroundings I hadn't a clue as to whether I had begun
a sentence or ended one. Because if you can't hear yourself,
it is very difficult to know whether you arc talking.
But that's been my experience. I like to hear myself because
sometimes I have a shrewd idea that nobody else is listening.
( Laughter) When we got back to the hotel, and heard the
radio, I said to my wife, " By Jove, this fellow's doing
well. Who's this?" And sho said, you." ( Laughter)
ee s/ 3
-3 -A
Well, I don't need to tell you that I went on from then through
the next three weeks, won an election and have been in office
ever since. ( Laughter) So peace to Paddington and good luck
to the stadiuml ( Laughter) Is it still called the stadium?
There is one in Melbourne they now call the Festival Hall.
( Laughter) They have a festival there this afternoon. You'll
read about it in the papers in the morning,,
But, Sir, I didn't mean to be so absurd as all
this. I just want to say this to you, This eye bank scheme,
this, I think is one of the most remarkablo things in
Australia, H~ would bring credit on any organisation that
thought of it and put it into effect. This is a tremendous
thing and it is a tremendous thing done by peoples many
of whom have already done tremendous things for thisocountry.
These are matters that we must never forget. And I was
thinking about tonight and saying t,-o myself, " g4ell, what is
there beyond the usual platitudes that one can say on an
occasion of this kind? WIhat is thore as we look forward to
the future that ought to be in our minds?" And I came to
one conclusion and I venture to state it.
It sounds a truism but it is more thin that.
It is that every year is a new year. Now this of course is
qiiite right, but every year is a new year. You begin a
year, you look back on a year in which the problems have
beenIA and B and C and in the next year you find thnt the
problems are D and E and F, They are changing all the time
because every year is a new year and the world is a new world
every year. The world is a new world for e~ eyperson born
into it. We all, don't we, remember our own childhood and
so on* That's the kind of world we know somethiing about
and we've lived in, but for everybody it's a new world, f~ or
every year it's a new world.
This year is, as usual I think a year full of
most critical events. I read them from left to right, I
wonltcbtain you very long, but it is worth thinking about
them. Next Tuesday there will be an election in the United
States of America, the election of a President. I am
not taking sides, this is not; my business or ycurs in That
sense but the Presidential eieutions may have a prufound
effec' on the relations of the United States witb. the rest
of the world. It may. I don't know. There arc controversies
going on in that country. I don't know one of thj candidates
Senator Goldwater. I do have the honour of knowing t-he
present President. But the important thing is that, whatever
comes or goes in an election of this kind, whatever mud is
thrown or whatever extravaganzas of argument may occur, it
is vital from our point of view, isn't it, that America
should continue to be the greatest stronghold of freedom in
the Western world, of tremendous importance to uls because of
her strength, because of her goodwill, of tremendous
significance to Australia's future security and freedom.
WIhen I say that, let me remind you that nothing
would ever persuade me or you to be anything else but
British. We're proud of it, But the facts in the world today
are the greatest single power) with its resources and good
will is the United States of America. It is from my point
of view, vital that the United States of America and Great
Britain and the whole of the Commonwealth should be as close
together as two groups of nations can be because we have a
common purpose and, I think, a common destiny, I think that's
one rather crucial event that has been played out and we will
all be listening at some time on Wednesday to discover the
result,
Then the next thing is this, in respect of which
this is a new year. We have a new Commonwealth. You
mustn't suppose when you look at the General which is
something to give you pleasure; look at me which is perhaps
in a different c, togory you mustntt suppose that we are
typical of the new Commonwealth. He comes from a country
which has a parliamentary system, which has elections and
parties. We have elections and parties. We live as
Winston once said to me in a fine eighteenth century
fervour of politics. We do. We, on the whole, rather
enjoy them. But here we are, we ae both democracies,
Great Britain of course, the father, the mother, of the
whole democratic system.
The interesting thing rjbcut the new Commonwealth,
and we will know more and more about it over the next two or
three years, is whether the new Comonwealth will be something
that advances democracy or retards it, because don't be under
the misapprehension that some peopile are in other countries
that all the new Commonwealth countries are democracies.
Not at all. I don't think Nkrumah would pretend for a moment
that Ghana was a democracy, because as I have had occasion
to say to him, playfully, more than once, " At any rate, we
don't put the Leader of the Opposition in gaol in Australia"
( Laughter) and therefore, any description of Ghana as a
democracy must be one, I think, rather modified by the facts.
And, of course, a number of the other new countries
have declared themselves for the one-party State, The oneparty
State. Indeed, when Mr. Mboya of Kenya was here during
the year, he spoke to a great number of Members of P'arliament
about the one-party State and the reason for it. 1tbs a
rather simple conception. There is just one party. there is
no-one else to vote for. This is, depending on youx. point
of view, a rather agreeable conception. But, of course, it
would be impossible with us.
One of my Labour friends in the Housp, whenn iMboya
vas getting warmed up on this, tapped me on i: l2d: r and
said, " Don't worry, old boy, yot'e had it fclr :. een years."
( Laughter) But, you see a one-party State in w! iich you have
no choice tends to consolidate a species of dictateship,
Now I believe, myself, implicitly that in all thesoae
countries, these new colleagues of ours the whole process
will tend to break this dowm, to establish from a beginning
of highly-centralised power in government, what re call a
democratic system, so that people are free and free to vote
and to make their choice. I think that's going to be the
process, but don't expect that totnppen overnight,
But whether the new Commonwealth survi.; res in the
form in which we now see it in my opinion largely depends
upon how far over the next live years or ten years its
activities and its attitudes advance democracy or retard it.
Now thatts the second thing that we are looking at a little
distantly at the present time in this year of grace, in your
twenty-fifth year, your jubilee year.
And the third thing is what's going to happen in
this corner of the world? Will South-East Asia continue to be
non-Communist, continue to be free from the Communist drive?
Now, I am not just talking a lot of hot air and politics on
this business, but everybody must realise that our future, the
a
future of neighbouring countries, the future of New Zealand,
these are all wrapped up in whether South-East Asia this area
of the world manages to remain outside the Communist orbit,
whether the Communist orbit is Russian Communism or Chinese
Communism and this is something on which really we must begin
in Australia to rise superior to detal. ed party differences.
There can't be any difference-on this matter, surely-that our
freedom, the future of this country, the future of free people
like the Malaysians who have a democratic system of government,
people in New Zealand, our close kinsraen, we must all be in a
position to feel that we are the mast-3rs of oir own future and
that the peace that we enjoy is the peiacc of freedom and not the
peace of submission, This is the great issue this part of the world.
I won't elaborate it, but you see I mean when I say each
year is a new year in the United 3, tes, in the New Commonwealth
in South East Asia, we hav,; seen problems emerga,
crystailise, become known, sometimes become critical sometimes
become easier, all in the space of one year, and next year will
bring its new problems, problems to which we will all have to
devote whatever talents and courage we may possess.
Now everything that I have said is really an expansion
of what I said to you at the beginning because I am here in the
presence of men who have done groat service to freedom in this
country great service. And they have themselves, w. th this
splendil effort of imagination, established this bank in order
that lots of people may have the opportunity future of. having
their sight improved or saved. This is an iraginative bold
thing and I am delighted to discover how magnificently it has
succeeded. And therefore I take the most sincere pleasure in
handing over the Volume Three of the eye bank to Mr. Malcney
who will receive it on behalf of the Government of New : 3outh
Wales.