MENZIES FOREST IN ISRAEL GALA CONCERT
CANBERRA THEATRE, CANBERRA 23RD OCTOBER, 1965
Speech by the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies
Sir, Your Excellencies and Ladies and Gentlemen
I don't need to tell you that this is a remarkable
honour for both my wife and myself, the kind of thing we would
have never thought of, once, the kind of thing that we shall
never forget now that it has happened.
The evening has been, as you haven't failed to
notice, rather cunningly arranged. For the first half of the
programme we were taken to Heaven by iir. Kentner, and then you
descend to earth and you listen to three gentlemen three men,
anyhow ( Laughter) two of whom are politicians four men,
one of whom is an ambassador who, of-course, by definition is
a respectable man, and the other my old friend, Mr. Ungar.
But be of good cheer, when the speeches are over, you will be
taken back to Heaven by Mr. Kentner. ( Laughter, applause)
I must say that I love the idea of the forest.
It is a very happy association between Israel and Australia
because a forest has beauty, it has usefulnessi it has endurance,
and above all things, it expresses a spirit of continuity which
to me is the most important thing in the world. A forest.
You know, it is a curious coincidence that my
old friend, 3aron Snider, who has been a friend of mine for
many years in spite of the fact which now appears he used to
listen to me at political meetings it is a very happy coincidence
that he should have quotedoIalter Scott because, strangely
enough, I propose to quote him twice tonight.
The first thing I want to quote is a tag that all
of ys~ u will remember from your schooldays from " The Heart of
Mid-Lothian" " Jock, when ye hae naethin' else to do ye may
be aye stickin' ma tree. It ' 11 be growin', Jock, while youtre
slee'pin'". I read that I learned that when I was a child, and
I have never forgotten it.
And it happens, Sir, that people with my name
have another interest in forests, because the people of my
clan I don't claim that there are not a few bar sinisters in
( drowned by laughter) I am willing to accept that out
oThand. But the heads of the clan, in the great days of the
Mingies clan because that is the right way to pronounce it
they were great foresters. They planted forests all over the
Lenzies country, right up to the ald Caledonian forest. One
of them introduced he larch into Scotland, and by very good
judgment when in Coronation year I went up to Scotland to what
was once the country of my clan, alas no longer, because they
fell into litigation and waed it on lawyers ( Laughter) but
I went up to open a power station on the Gaur just near the
Road to the Isles on the fringes of the old Caledonian forest
and the souvenir they presented me with was so appropriate two
or three seedlings from the old Caledonian forest and one of
them at least grows amain in the Lodge gardens today. And when
I get around to it I must have a little notice put alongside it
so that those who live there in the future will see that the
element of continuity survives. This is from one of the old
forests of one of the old -tountries of the world. / 2
2
And therefore the idea of the forest is something
that strikes deeply into the heart and mind of both my wife
and myself as it will into the hearts and minds of my family.
The Jewish Xational Fund which has been referred
to, and with which there may be some here who are not familiar,
has been operating, I think I am right in saying, for over
sixty years sixy-two years and in that time it has raised
vast sums of money for the express purpose of taking a country
the old Palestine arid, eroued by wind and weather, not very
fertile full of history but not full of water they have set
out to 6uild it, almost physically to build it.
I remember at the very beginning of 1941 being in
Palestine because even at that time, as some of the older of
you may recall, I was Prime Minister ( Laughter, applause).
In fact I was reminded as I came in tonight by a very celebrated
newspaperman in Canberra that though he still cross-examines
me, the first time he ever did was in Palestine at the beginning
of 1941. And I was fascinated by what I saw even though so much
more has been done since by hard work by imagination, by the
completely constructive ideal of a national rebuilding. And
therefore, when in due course Israel was established as the
independent home of the Jewish people, this was something that
didn't just start, as we might say, from scratch, but worked on
a basis which had for a number of years been steadily created
by the Jewish National Fund.
Now that establishment of Israel as an independent
State was swiftly acknowledged, of course, and s pported by
Australia, but it had a worId significance, a world significance
that we do well to reoall. And here I come for the second time
to ;, alter Scott, because this is one of the little verses that
you find in " Ivanhoe" " When Israel of the Lord beloved
Out of the land of bondage came,
Her father's God befo> her moved
An awful Guide in smoke and flame."
of the house of bondage..." for the second conspicuous
time in history, end the earlier time was long long centuries
ago for the second conspicuous time, the Jewish people, oh
many many scores of millions of them came up out of the house
of bondage. They didn't all go to Israel. They couldn't all
go to Israel. But the establishment of Israel as an independent
tate wis a gesture not only on the part of those who creatod
it, but on t e part of the world, that there had come up out of
the house of bondage the disabilities and persecutions of
centuries that culminated in Hitler's Germany, and are not quite
extinct I regret to say, elsewhere those aisabilities and
ersecutions were in a symbolic way, brought to an end, and
pence the State of Israel.
The civilised world, I. like to think, saw in the
establishment of that State that State in which this great
forest will grov, not only the providing of an independent home
for many Jewish people but also a shining symbol of delivery from
bondage, of relief from persecution, and I believe, I am sure it
is true, a shining symbol of world repentance, long delayed but
never too late. But havin, said that Sir and w-ithout desiring
to keep you here too long I would like to say something agout
the 70,000 Jews in Australia about them to them. AHd not
just as 70000 Jews in Australia but as 76,000 Jews of Australia,
because this is really the burthen of my song. / 3