FEDERAL COUNCIL OF THE LIBERAL PARTY OF AUSTRALIA
HELD AT HOTEL CANBERRA. CANBERRA 12TH APRIL, 1965
Speech by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Menzies
We are twenty-one today and we have the key of the
door. That's something we ought to remember, politically.
We have indeed been either fortunate or wise, or a-mixture of
both because one of the outstanding things about this party,
twenty-one years old, is that it has secured the support in
Australia, I am quite convinced, of the young and ardent who are
ambitious and self-reliant. ( Hear, hear) That, I think is a
pretty good thing to be able to say and a better thing If we
maintain its truth. We attract the young and the ardent with
ambition and self-reliance. It is worthwhile recalling every
now and then that Australia would not have made the enormous
advances it has made if it had been a communitrof people with
dependent minds. The fact that Australia has grown as it has
demonstrates that we have people of independent minds who aim
to be contributors as well as beneficiaries.
I think when I have said that I have probably said
what is at the very heart of our own approach, of our philosophy
and, as I will set out to prove to you, of' our practice.
Now I know that if the leader of a party and if the
leader of a government in particular talks about what has
happened, he is told that hie is living on the past, I have no
desire to live on the past. I have no particular desire to
live in the past, but I think that it is worthwhile recalling
a few things because they may explain to us everyone of us,
' why we have had this remarkable success, politically, and the
reasons for what we must do if we are to continue because the
past is never to be ignored, the future is never to be regarded
as something that is entirely dominated by the past.
Itts very interesting to me, looking back over these
years, looking back to that time when to be the Leader of the
Opposition was not a frightfully lush occupation. I had a
secretary and a typist and I received a private member's salary
and a handsome allowance of œ 3O' a year for being Leader of the
Opposition. These times have changed very much and, I think,
for the better but in those days it wasn't easy.
And I remember all the preliminary work of creating
the party being put in hand in my office and I remember that
my then Private Secretary Eileen Lenihan, who did so much
tremendous work at that time, was ultimately presented by us,
when we became a party, with a silver dish with a suitable
inscription. This was rather single-handed business at that
time, and for no strange reason, my old friend, Mr. Anderson,
who has been one of the great valiants in this party ( hear, hear)
( applause) will remember well that when I set out on this
expedition and first of all found out how many different
organisations there were, he was thie leader of one which I
think was called the Service and Citizens. And there he was,
never in much doubt about his own mind, Bill, and therefore
when he came along, I knew that he would speak to his people.
We had a conference over there in that improbable-looking
place along the road and we ultimately began, as the President
has reminded us,
2-
Now the first thing we did, the thing that our
opponents have not done, was to say, " Well, what do we learn
from our vicissitudes?" vie had been almost butchered in
194+ 3, 1 can speak about this with some detachment because
contrary to the public impression, I was a private member
at the election of 194+ 3, for a variety of reasons I needn't
go into. And there we were with a battered remnant in the
Parliament. I think that at that time that out of a House
of 74+, we had 17, After the following election we had
perhaps 20 and I will venture to say that there never was a
better Opposition in the world, ( hear, hear) because we set
aboutit the right way.
We said, " Now, here we are, despised and rejected"
and we were of course, at that time led by a leader whose
political life was regarded by most people as finished,
So we had no great assets either in the front or otherwise,
but we made up our minds Zhat we would come back, that we
would unify ourselves, that we would do the things that had
to be done folrget about the past and say to ourselves " 1we
must have one party full of unity and fire, and we musi have
a programme, a plati'orm, which will make people understand that
we have been thinking in the future." We set about it in
19.44. and 194+ 5 and we produced a new look if I may use that
phrase, for the nev party, and the effeci of this forward
thinking this liveliness, this being modern, being prepared
to be a little adventurous was that although we didx. It win
more than two or three seats in 191+ 6 ( and I remember it so well
because the cry went up in all the club armchairs: " You will
never win with Menzies") we went on and, in 194+ 9, had one of
the historic victories ol Federal politics.
What I want to say to you about that aspect of the
matter is that I don't mention it as if we might pat ourselves
on the back and be boastful. I want to ask you why, why we
won in 194+ 9 and why we have gone on winning ever since.
Now why? There is no simple answer to this, There is an awful
lot of luck one way and the other in politics but I want to
tell you that my belief is that over the whole of this period
of fifteen, sixteen years, we have won because we have been the
party of innovations. Not the party of the past, not the
conservative party dying hard on the last barricade, but the
party of innovations. And a number of the innovations that
have been made I don't think would have presented themselves
to the minds of most of us in 194+ 9.
Now I really haven't the time, nor have you the
patience for me to be going through a list, but I am mentioning
them in Lhis connection. These were innovations, these were
evidences of a lively mind and a forward-looking heart. This
is the whole thing that we must remember and that we must
continue to remember and act on in the years to come,
You take social services, They had a stock pattern.
Our opponents thought that they had a monopoly of interest in
social services, but you just look back on it and think of the
things that we p . uduced not our opponents the things that
we produced, the innovations in this field: The Aged Persons
Homes Act, one of the great social measures of our times ( hear,
hear), the Medical Health Scheme, the Pharmaceutical Scheme,
housing loans, housing insurance, these matters being handled
with great distinction if I may say so, and a meticulous
attention to detail by my colleague, the Minister for Housing.
( Applause) Ott S**/ 3
S3
Foreign policy. We were told that we were just a lot
of dead and gone people, we had no foreign policy. It had never
occurred to us in Opposition to be offensive to our great friends
and therefore we had no foreign policy,-And yet, in our time,
what has happened? We have had the Colombo Plan and never forget
that it was devised by Australia. We have had the A1? IUS pact in
which we played a crucial part and we have had the South-East Asian
Treaty, now under some ecclesiastical fire ( Laughter) but I still
venture to think a remarkable treaty in that it exhibits the will
of nations free nations, to help to preserve the freedom of other
people. hese are three pretty considerable achievements, I think,
in the field of foreign affairs, and we are not exhausted by them
because quite recently my colleague, the Minister for External
Affairs made a speech, a statemdent in the House which I will venture
to describe as the finest statement on foreign policy to be heard
in the Federal Parliament. ( Applause)
In the world of finance, I have heard what my old friend,
the Premier of Victoria, had to say with great vigour this afternoon,
but I would remind all of you that when we came into office, the
financial agreement had been operated in such a way that when the
Loan Programme had been arranged and had been allocated, the duty
of the Commonwealth came to an end. We were the first government
to come to the aid of the States on their Works Programme by, in
effect I don't use the word technically underwriting the'
approved Works Programme for the year.
My colleague said something this afternoong I thought
rather honest about this, We have been called on to subscribe out
of revenue which we have to raise the shortfall in the Loan
Programme. If we look back over the period of office of this
Government, we would find that the shortfall of subscriptions by
the Commonwealth must have amounted to œ-700M. or œ. 800M, over the
whole of that time. This was a novelty.
I dontt know what the professors of political science
teach, except that I have always thought that it was perhaps not
very political and not very scientific ( Laughter), but that is a
mere discourteous remark on my part. I don't quite know what it is
that they teach but if they are interested in the history of
government relations in a Federation, then they ought to recall that
it was a Liberal Government, it was our Government, which for the
first time departed from the strict letter of the law under the
financial agreement. Wie did indeed, and undertook voluntarily a
policy which would help the States whose responsibilities on public
works are so high and who, if i may say so, attend to those
responsibilities so well so that we might be able to say, " Well?
we don't want you to be scrambling through the year wondering how
tmuch the Loan market will produce. If we agree on a works programme,
you may have the whole of the proceeds of the Loan market and if
there is a shortfall on the borrowing market then we will see you
through." Now I mention this, I don't wa-to argue about it,
I merely recall it to remind you that this was a revolutionary change
in the relations betveen the Commonwealth and the States in respect
of Loan raisings. Now so far, it's not too bad is it? These are
revolutionary changes. These weren't produced by conservatism,
these were produced by dynamism in a conception of what the
Commonwealth meant and what the nation meant and required.
You will recall I don't need to elaborate it what
we have done in the educational field. I am quite accustomed now
to being told by all sorts of people, professorial or otherwise,
that we are falling down on our job. What was our job when we oame
0 a0*/ 0
back into office at the end of 194+ 9? It had nothing to do with
maintaining universities. Nothing whatever. We were the first
people to say, after the war with all this clamant demand for
University training with all this healthy desire on the part of
thousands, scores ol thousands of people to get a better education
and to be better citizens: " We will come into this field." i The
first Commonwealth scholarships were produced by us, The first
grant to the universities was produced by us a very small one, a
little quiet, tactful thing of about Vi~ m., Lut we produced it.
And then we appointed the Murray Committee and then later
on the Universities Commission and then later on the Martin Committee
on Tertiary Education. And what was regarded as an innovation in
1950 LiM. or œ 1 M. has now become œ 30M. a year. I know that
this produces its disadvantages, in a sense, for the States because
none of our programme could succeed without the co-operation of the
States, and therefore I am not saying that we are solely responsible,
but I am saying that we were -the first people to come to the
conclusion that tertiary education in Australia was of such overwhelming
importance for the future of the nation we must forget
all about constitutional inhibitions. We must simply set out to
use our financial resources to bring about a new era in the
university world, I don't care much what undergraduates say in a
noisy way at a meeting -I used to be an undergraduate myself an.
no doubt reasonably noisy but I do know that whenever I go round
Australia and look at a university and see the great buildings rising
to the sky, I take some pleasure in the fact that it is our
Government and our party that has produced these phenomenal results.
Science teaching, technical schools I don't need to go
through the whole gamut of this. I have made far too many speeches
, in it. I hope you will all have it in mind, but the point that
I am making is that this has happened because when wie were out and
broken and beaten, we didn't simply sit down and decide to refurbish
the slogans of the past, but we did decide that in the new world
we must have new ideas, forward-looking ideas, drive and imaginahion,
and all of these things are the result* This is what I beg of you
not to forget. It is not a matter of resting on your oars as they
sometimes say, and saying, " Well, look what a good job we have
done." Yes, we have done a few good things but I want to remind
you that the whole point of this is, that being out and looking
forward to being in we set about developing fresh ideas and drive
and imagination. And all of these things I have mentioned
illustrate it to you. I could give you a long list in the field
of trade and payments, the balance of trade and payments, what has
been done in the trade world with treaties and commissioners, what
has been done in the mineral world, to which David Fairbairn made
some short but valuable references this afternoon, I don't want
to take up your time with details on those matters except to say
one thing about the balance of trade and payments.
A campaign goes on from time to time in Parliament and
out of it to the effect that my distinguished colleague, Mr. Holt,
whose services to this party are beyond praise, ( hear hear)
( applause) is constantly assailed because it is sail that he
doesntt care what happens, He will take overseas money on any
terms and under any circumstances. This is an awful lot of
nonsense. There are all sorts of attempts made to create divisions
and they are created by people who have never read what he said
or what I said in a policy speech, but they are anxious to create
a countervailing rift in the Government to match that obvious
rift or is it two rifts? or three rifts? which exist in the
Opposition. sO~ g
I just want to remind you of one thing. It is quite
true that in a perfect world, and if we had fifty million people in
Australia, we would sell our goods abroad, we would buy imports,
we would hope always to have some slight baance in our favour on
the balance of trade, and then, of course, everything in the garden
would be lovely, Anybody who is out of the kindergarten knows
perfectly well that eleven million people with this enormous
continent to deal with with new resources being turned up every
month, every year, can~ t deal with these matters, can't develop
resources alone, They would have to rely exclusively on their
own savings. It can't be done, and therefore we have adopted tti e
view, and I am sure you have too, that Australia has great valueto
gain by being able to attract investment capital and in part* icular
private investment capital into this country so that we may develop
the country and be fruitful and multiply and inherit our part of
the earth. Well, we are told that this is all wrong. I just want
to tell you that although we would always wish to see Australian
equity interests in overseas capital invested here and quite a
number of people who bring capital in understand that and act on
it the fact is that but for the inpouring of private capital
into Australia in the last dozen years, our development would have
stopped far short of what it is today. ( Hear, hear) ( Applause)
I did notice the other day that, reading Hansard
I don't know whether you read Hansard; I occasionally do I read
a powerful speech by somebody who gave me to completely understand,
an Opposition Member I hasten to say, you don't need overseas
capital. All you do is to create it inside Australia, You know
a nice docile Reserve Bank, plenty of money for nothing. Inflation?
V'ell, what does it matter? Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have
some reason to be proud and therefore you have some reason to be
proud of the extent to which development has occurred in Australia
with the blessing and practical support of people overseas,
The one thing I want to put into your minds about it
is this. If we don't have confidence in ourselves in Australia,
if we really don't believe in all the basic elements that make a
country like this, we can't expect other people to have confidence
in us and if other people had had no confidence in us nobody would
have Leen arguing about overseas investment, because ii wouldn't
have happened. It wouldn't have happened, They do this not because
they love our beautiful blue eyes or whatever wretched colour they
may be, not for a moment. It is because they look around the world
and they see Australia and they say, " Well, now this is a country
that has stability and a great future and resources, with a future
development of resources, This is the place for us to go with
our money." I don't take exception to that, do you? I think that
is rather an agreeable state of affairs, and therefore I ask you
to remember that because this again is one of the reasons for what
has happened in the last fourteen or fifteen years. This has been
going on and one of the basic reasons for it is that we have been
able, with imagination and a forward-looking eye, to produce an
economic climate, a temper of opinion, a temper of hope, which has
persuaded people that this is the place to be.
I'm putting all this to you, not as one who looks back
and says, " Well, I did rather well, and although I am doing rather
badly now, I hope you will hold it in my favour." 1 This is not the
point at all. When any government gets to that state, it is time
it was changed, and all these things have been done because we
haven't looked at it in that way. lie have gone on and on and on
with new ideas, with new drive, with a new vision for our country.
.1 6
5
6-
And so, Sir, that is the lesson of the whole thing,
looking back over the twenty-one years complete re-thinking, a
revived attack on the future, modern and progressive ideas, but for
those things, we might have succeeded once on a catch vote. We
never could have succeeded in seven consecutive elections because
the people of Australia are not fools.
Now that is all I want to say about the domestic scene.
There is one other aspect of this matter that I thought I might
trouble you about in a rather disorderly sort of fashion and that
concerns our external policy, I think a policy in relation to the
United States, in relation to South-East Asia which is, if I may
use the expression, unanswerably correct,
I was rocked recently in the House of Representatives
when this was under discussion to hear the Leader of the Opposition
say that there never could be a bipartisan policy because on all
these matters the Labor Party could never agree with us, and I
wondered what it was about our policy with which the Labor Party
couldntt agree and what the Labor Party would itself do in
substitution for these policies if it were in office, and I can't
tell you the answer. Would it get out of the ANZJS pact? Would it
abjure our responsibilities under the SEATO treaty? Would it leave
Malaysia to fend for itself? Would it ignore South Vietnam and
this historic battle confused by all sorts of difficult things
but this historic baitle for the freedom of man in South East
Asia? I wish it would get up sometime and tell us what it would
do because it can't agree with us and therefore it must do something
apparently materially different.
Now, we have had a few discussions lately on Vietnam.
I have enjoyed the receipt of some correspondence from dignitaries
of the Church of England which I have received with great respect
although I am Presbyterian myself ( Laughter) but that doesn't
matter. I have now received another letter and within the next
day or two when I have become free of my engagements here I will
no doubt compile another answer. But it is quite clear tF~ t there
are mixed feelings about South Vietnam and at the last moment, the
Opposition has pretended to discover, and has been encouraged by
some headlines in the newspapers, that we are completely at outs
with the American Government, the American Administration, in
relation to Vietnam, and so perhaps at the risk of wearying you,
I ought to remind you of two or three things.
First of all, of course, Mr. Hasluck made a statement
in the House in which he stated all the views extremely well which
I ' repeated later on, perhaps indifferently, but he stated the
policy of the Government in relation to this matter. All I can
tell you is that I have every reason to know that his speech was
received with very great pleasure in dashington and with warm
approval. ( Hear, hear) ( Applause)
Well, then, I went down, making one of these weekend
speeches of which there are too many and which I am endeavouring
to eliminate, and I spoke at a place called Cheltenham in Victoria,
My. colleague, Don Chipp was there, In fact he took me there.
And as part of another theme that I was talking about, I undertook
to say something about the American actions in Vietnam.
I asked them why they thought the United States of
America was sending its men into Vietnam and spending vast sums and
producing vast stores of equipment, and I said, " Why do you suppose
they are doing it?" This is not a bad question, I put to you:
I hope I won't have anybody suppose that they are doing it because
they want to make South Vietnam an American colony, That would be
too silly for words. That would be, in the homely phrase, buying
* a00a / 7
-7-
trouble. I don't think any of us would want to have one of these
countries as a colony. Of course not. Is it because the Americans
have enormous financial interests in that country? I venture to
think they have practically none. Then why are they doing it?
W iy are they, with all the temptations in the world to be isolationist
sa. ing " Well, we won't protect our own interest at home so much.
We have the wide seas on each side of us but we won't allow that
to influence us," WVhy are they doing it? They are doing it because
they believe that what is at issue is human freedom and they believe
that human freedom ought to be defended wherever it is challenged
and that they, as the greatest power in the world, should accept the
greatest responsibility for it.
Now I hope nobody thinks that to talk about human freedom,
after all the experiences of this century, is to talk high-falutin'.
This great issue, this basic issue of human freedom has wracked the
world twice in this century, '. as cost millions of lives and distorted
the whole economic history country after country. Don't let us
treat it as if it were an ex;.. ndable commodity. And I take off my
hat to the Americans who onl. y fifty years ago were deeply sunk in
isolationism, who had the Mon.:-oe Doctrine around them I take off
my hat to them because twircc not, in particular since the last
war, they have assumed encrimicas res-ponsibilities for the preservation
of human freedom including our own. ( Hear, hear)
Well this of cou:-se, was regarded by our opponents,
particularly those of wat I believe is called the Left Wing, was
regarded as absolutely sabre-ratt'.: g stuff you know, no relation
to the facts of life. And then Pr~ sid nt Jolhnson made a speech,
but before he did I , is asked a qucst-ion oh, this was a gaffe as
I have gathered since, an awful gaffe by me. So I thought well,
I am as capable of making a gaffe as the next fellow T will have a
look in the Hansard to see what it was because I had been asked
whether I was prepared to urge on the inited States that they should
negotiate a peace. Urge on the United States....... Nobody would
be silly enough to ask me to urge something on Peking because I
don't suppose they ever heard of me. I don't suppose they will ask
me to urge something on Ho Chi-Minh at Hanoi because we are not on
the closest of terms and therefore it was America. We had to say,
" Come, come" and so I was asked a question and I said, " What I was
directing myself to on each of these occasions was a suggestion,
about which some people have been quite vocal, that the United
States, instead of fighting should negotiate." I emphasise those
words " instead of fighting should negotiate.... negotiate
with an enemy which has violated its obligations in relation to a
cease-fire, negotiate with a country that has ignored its international
obligations, and negotiate with people who keep on shooting
when the Americans have stopped shooting." I see nothirgin that
that I would want to withdraw or qualify for half a minute.
Well then, of course, the fat was in the fire because
they said, " Well, the President three or four days later, he
said, ' Yes, I'll negotiatetIt hit the headlines, quite misleading
headlines and in case you have been beguiled by them, I think I
ought to Zell you what the President said. I have the full text
before me. What the President said at Johns Hopkins was almost,
word for word, what Paul Hasluck had said and what I had said in
the speeches that I made. He went on to talk about the principle
for which Americans were fighting in the jungles of Vietnam
" Tonight, Americans and Asians are dyihg for a world where
each people may choose its own path to change."
That was well spoken if I may say so. / 8
408 I
" Only in such a world wil-L our. own. freedom be finally seue"
Th-at is worth recalling. If I may say so I can imagine a state of
af'fairs in which the United States of America could maintain its
safety and security with South East Asia in communist hands. I can't
imagine such a thing in the case of Australia, and therefore everything
that he says can be accented two or three times for us.
" Only in such a world will our own freedom be finally'
secure, This kind of world will never be built by bombs
or bullets yet the infirmities of man are such that force
must often precede reason and the waste of war the works
of peace. 1
This is the President at Johns Hopkins. Then later on he told what
was happening " Trained men and supplies, orders and arms flow in a
constant stream from the North to the South...."
( the North the innocent party I gather some people think) From North
Vietnam into South Vietnam, replenishing the Vietcong, already with
powerful formations of troops, the oommunists in their pockets in
South Vietnam and over the border into Cambodia, and the North feeding
them., And who feeds the North? ., fell, I dontt need to answer that
question. " Simple farmers are the targets of assassination and
kidnapping, ( This is Lyndon Johnson not myself)
Women and children are strangled in ihe night because
their men are loyal to the Government. Small and helpless
villages are ravaged by sneak attacks."
don't need to go on, He gave a vivid account of what is occurring
and then he put the same question as I had put to the worthy
citizens of Cheltenham. He said
" Why are we in South Vietnam? We are there because we
have a promise to keep,"
So have we dontt forget, ladies and gentlemen. The South East
Asian treaiy is a treaty which imposes upon us obligations which are
several as well as joint and South Vietnam is one of the protocol
states whose security is guaranteed by the South East Asian Treaty.
Therefore this applies to uss
" Why are we in South Vietnam? We are there because we
have a promise to keep. Since 1951+, every American
P'resident has offered support to the people of South
Vietnam. lie have helped to build and we have helped
to defend, Thus over many years we have made a national
pledge to help South Vietnam defend its independence"
and he went on to say ( so far from running for cover as some of
these critics thought he should) he went on to say,
I intend to keep that promise. To dishonour
that pledge, to abandon this small and brave nation to
its enemy and to the terror that must follow would be
an unfortunate wrong. We are also there to strengthen
world order. Around the globe from Berlin to Thailand are
people whose well-being rests in part on the belief that
they can count on us if they are attacked. To leave Vietnam
to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people
in the value of an American commitment and the value of
America's word...... We must stay in South-East Asia as we
did in ] 3urope. In the words of the Bible, ' Hitherto shalt
thou come but no further". 000060/ 9
9-
Now I think somebody would need to have a great deal of
ingenuity and almost genius for falsification to find any difference
between that and what we have been saying, and that is why what
we have been saying has been received with such warm approval in
Washington. Then the President goes on a little later
" What is our objective in Vietnam? Our objective is
the independence of South Vietnam and its freedom
from attack, We want nothing for ourselves, only that
the people of South Vietnam be allowed to guide their
own country in their own way. We will do everything
necessary to reach that objective and we w~ ill do only
what is absolutely necessary. In recent months, attacks
in South Vietnam were stepped up. Thus it became
necessary for us to increase our response and make
attacks by air. This is not a change of purpose.
It is a change in what we believe that purpose requires.
We do this in order to slow down aggression. We do
this to increase the confidence of the brave people
of South Vietnam who have bravely borne this brutal
attack for so many years and with so many casualtieso... 6
We will not be defeated, We will not grow tired. We
will not withdraw either openly or under the cloak of
a meaningless agreementil
That's what he said that is what he means. That is
what the people of America siand for, and later on he came to the
question that has vexed some people well-meaning people people
of the highest intentions. He sail, " Should we negotiate?"
Well, of course, having regard to what he said, to negotiate in
the sense of abandoning the position would have been unthinkable.
Unthinkable. And he knew perfectly well that the one condition
that has been put forward by North Vietnam, by its communist
backers is that they won't talk about anything unless the Americans
get out. In other words, unless the Americans abandon South
Vietnam to their clutches. That has been their condition*
And therefore he said
" We have stated this position over and over again fifty
times and more to friend and foe alike and we remain
( no change of policy here) we remain ready with
this purpose for unconditional discussion."
That is to say, for discussions which dontt involve the condition
that has been put forward and which has now, I noticeg been
violently repeated, that we get out because we are not getting
out. We are there, and we are there to do our job and we will
do it. But if, under some circumstances, discussions could occur
which meant that we didn't abandon South Vietnam and that they were
not left exposed to violent attack from the north, then of-course
we have no abmition to have our men killed, we will be prepared
to discuss, This, in effect, is what the President said.;
This is so elementary, isn't it so simple that it is
hard to believe how it could be distortel or misinterpreted.
The speech by the President ought to be made compulsory reading,
I have read only a bit of it. It ought to be made compulsory
reading because I will venture to say that if the President of
the United States has no other claim to being celebrated in the
history of his country, he would have established a right by
this one speech and by this one simple policy. as~ go~ e
Dontt be misled by the superficial readers or the headlineclutchers
who think there is a division between us, I am happy to
say that I have had very good messages myself from Washington about
what I have had to say and as I have indicated, Paul has too.
There is no Aifference between us on this matter. We
are in the closest, most constant contact. It is perlhaps one of
the things that our Government has done in these years that I have
been describing that beginning with a somewhat dubious relationship
with the United States, we have established an intimacy of contact,
a daily exchange of views in Washington on the most friendly terms
ihich I can only regard as one of the invisible but all-powerful
elements in the security of our country.
Now I am sorry to-have taken up so much of your time
on that. I hope I have been sufficiently clear in what I have
said because I set off to review the past and to remind you that
it was the result of an activity and imagination which must continue
for the future, and in the second place I wanted to deal with this
current matter to de monstrate to you that the foreign policy of
this government is one which may incur some momentary hostility
with other people but which involves the deepest friendship, the
deepest co-operation, the deepest mutual understanding, with the
great nations of the world.
OL a F