PRESS CONFEREZNCE GIVEN BY TiHE PRIME MINISTER,
THE RT. HON. R. G. MENZIES AT KINGSFORD SMITH
AIRPORT, SYDNEY ON MONDAY 20TH JUN, 196o, 9 AM
PRIME MINISTER: No doubt you urant to ask me some questions but
perhaps before you do that I might just say something
quite briefly about the principal objects of my visit.
The Prime Ministers' Conference, as you probably
know, Endbd up much more successfully than some of us
had expected. It had all the makings of difficulty.
There had been a number of statements made about the
South African facial policies. Then the Prime Minister
of South Africa couldn't come for reasons that we know
of. He was represented by his deputy, Mr. Louw, who I
thought was in a difficult position for that reason. ! bL
adopted our old rule that we don't engage in official
discussions on internal policies, or, for that matter,
on disputes bet\.; een Commonwealth countries. We had, as
you will remember, refused to discuss in open Conference
the argument about Kashmir and so that rule uas re-affirmed.
But we then did have some r'ivate discussions,
with his approval, with Mr. Louw. And in the end result,
as you know, the communique which I hope will be
the last communique I'll say something about that in
a moment contains something on that problem which was
acceptable all round, and w~ hich I think it u~ ill be admitted
wasn't frightfully controversial. But the essence
of that matte. that discussion, was not what its
result was, but the temper in which it was conducted. I
thought it was the best evidence of the liveliness and
reality of the Commonwealth that such an explosive matter
could have lent itself to discussion of a completely
good-tempered, reasonable kind. That was to me a
wonderful thing. In the private discussions tha I took
part in Dr. Nkrumah the Prime Minister of Ghana, the
President Ayub of Pakistan, the Tunku Abdul Rahman of
Malaya, all of whom have very power: ful views on this
matter and-had expressed. them were, I thought, completely
reasonable. They didn't put their criticisms
in such a form as to render the position of the European
people in South Africa intolerable. On the contrary
they, I thought, recognised very well the problem of a
minority of European people, people of European descent,
who after all had largely made the economy of South
Africa and had been responsible for its development.
They recognised that. They made various suggestions
I won't endeavour to rehearse them here but Mr. Louw
undertook to report them to his Prime Minister, but I,
naturally, on my travels, have not heard anythingC
directly since.
I think on the u; hole a lot of good came out of the
discussions. The ground was cleared a good deal. I
think that these responsible leaders of one African and
two Asian countries were much more roasoned* in their approach
than some of the more extravagant statements that
I heard and read on this matter outside the conference.
I said just then thlat I hoped it would be the last
communique. As the oldest inhabitant of these Prime
Ministers' Conferences I'm famnous for always objecting
to having a communique; not because I object to communicating,
but because in my experience these communiques
are always such platitudinous documents. If
anybody disagrees it doesn't go in and therefore you get
what is universally agreed on, such as that we are all
in favour of peace or that-t-e are all resolutely opposed
to sin, or whatever it may be. And although these
things come to the journalistic ear with all the charm
of novelty, I think they get a little uninteresting and
I've been saying, " V,{ hy have one, it doesn't matter". I
think I'm getting a few converts on that matter for this
reason and this is a very interesting aspect of the
Commonwealth. Today we have That I'll call the old Crown Commonwealth.
countries Great Britain, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa and we have the new ones
India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Ghana and Malaya and at any
tick of the clock, now, Nigeria and, subject to wind
and weather, the ., lost Indies. It is estimated that
there must be three or four more African countries, once
colonial, or now colonial, which are going to, on achiev
-ing their independence, apply for membership of the
Commonwealth. There might be 16 within two or three
years, within five years conceivably 20 Commonwealth
countries if every colony that becomes independent and
self-governing chooses to remain in the Commonwealth or
desires to remain in the Commonwealth. It is a. very
interesting thing that almost without exception they
do. There are great Allelulias, very properly, about
getting Independence, perhaps achieving the status of a
republic, but almost invariably they say, " 3ut we want
to remain in the Commonwealth". And I think myself that
that is largely b; cause it's in Commonwealth Conferences
they can have all this kind of frank exchange of opinion
in an intimate way without all the gallery play that is
involved in motions and amendments c. nd lobbying and
votes.
QUESTION-Sir, did you get that impression with South Africa,
that they wish to remain in the Commonwealth?
PRIME MINISTER: Undoubtedly, yes, undoubtedly. And if we are going
to have more and more new members of the Commonm. ralth,
then I think that we are in grave danger of getting to
a point where somebody will say: " I want to have a
vote", you know, " The numbers are building up;-how can
we determine what anybody thinks uhless we have a vote".
And the day we have a vote we might as well wind up in
my opinion, because we will then be indistinguishable
from a major committee of the United Nations. If we
are going to retain the character of the Commonwealth
then no votes: we meet to meet, to talk, to exchange
our ideas, to be perfectly frank with each other, to be
rude to each other if you like in person so much more
decent than being rude in writing. That makes a special
association and these people understand it. But we are
having an official examination made of what rules, if
any, ought to be applied to future admissions, because,
quite obviously, you may have a present colony with
million people in it achieving independence, you may
have another with half o million people or 300,000 and
the question, " Should everybody just come in automaticaly?"
1, well that's being looked at. But I believe, myself,
that it is go!. ng to be very difficult to discriminate
between countries now within the Empire and in
future to be within the Commonwealth. It's very difficult
to discriminate and to say, " Well, you are in the
1st Eleven and you are in the 2nd". And to my mind, if
we are to preserve the character of it, we ought not to
have these communiques so that people have to argue and
argue and argue as to whether something should be said
in a published document about a particular matter. What
needs to happen is that we should say, ' Itell, we meet
we discuss, we don't issue a communique". We make i
quite plain that we're here to exchange our views and we
can agree or disagree. " de will indicate from time to
time what the subject under discussion was and if any
Prime Minister , ishes to explain to his own country what
his views are on a particular matter, well, so far as I
know nothing has ever prevented him from doing so in the
past and that will continue. I think that by increasing
the informality of this matter we may get over the problem
of numbers.
Of course, there is another aspect that we considered,
that we will have to think about a good deal in
Australia, and that is the problem of Africa as a whole.
We have got all taken up with South Africa but Africa
as a , hole with over 200 million people is made up of a
series of communities who are literally galloping towards
Independence. This is not just a nice stately
process they are galloping towards independence. Th
United Nations expects to have about 10 or 12 I think,
new African communities asking for membership of the
United Nations inside the next 12 months.
QUESTION: Do you think it likely that anyareas now under non-
British administration may seek admittance to tho Comm nnwealth
when they gain Independence?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I don't at the moment, no. No, I don't. But
one can't tell, but I would think npt. Certainly they
are going to seek admittance to the United Nations and
that gives rise to two matters that we in Australia will
have to do some thinking about.
Thofirst of them is that these communities will for
the most part not be economically independent. This is
one of the current problems of the world: how to reconcile
political independence with unquestioned economic
dependence on other people. People attach such importance
to political independence that they are a bit inclined
to overlook the other aspect of the matter and
therefore most of these countries, most probably all of
these countries, will be in a state of considerable confusion
unless they get economic aid from somewhere. The
Soviet Union will be very happy to extend it on terms.
I discovered in the United States in discussions there,
that there is an increasing awareness in the United
States of this African problem, taking Africa as a
whole. Jhether that involves some new plan on the lines
of the Colombo Plan or some extension of what we call
the Colombo Plan is a matter that we have all agreed to
study. Nobody has committed himself to anything; but
we've all realised that there is every possibility of
the most tremendous duplicated and re-duplicated political
turmoil in the Continent of Africa, unless these
emerging countries can achieve some kind of economic
stability, or at any rate go along some portion of the
road towards it.
QUESTION: Mr. Monzics could you tell us about SEATO; whether you
think SEATO sarcatrain Communism in Asia?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, but before I got to that I was just wondering
whether I had missed some aspect.
PRESSMAN: You started off, Sir, by saying there wore two
points, but you have only mentioned the first
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, the second. I really intended that my first
point should have beon this, that whereas at one time
many of us might have thought that it was better to go
slowly in granting independence so that all the conditions
existed for a wise exercise of self-government, I
think the prevailing school of thcught today is that if
in doubt you should go sooner, not later, I belong to
that school of thought myself now, though I didn't once.
But I have seen enough in recent years to satisfy me
that even though some Independences may have been premature,
where they have been a little premature, they have
at least been achieved with goodwill. And wihen people
have to wait too long for independence, then they achiee
it with ill-will, and that perhaps is the difference
between the British colonial policy of this century and
that of some other countries.
QUESTION: PRIME MINISTER
QUESTION: PRIME MINISTER: Would you apply that view to New Guinea, Sir
I would apply that to any country.
Continuing with Now Guinea, Sir, did you discuss
anything about the New Guinea area with the Dutch?
No, no I didn't go there. Mr. Hasluck went to the
Hague. ' dhon you say " apply that to New Guinca" 5 yes,
but that doesn't mean I belong to this fancy school of
thought that you write a timetable out and say, " In
years' time so and so, and in 20 years' time so and so".
That's just silly. But we are doing a faithful job of
work in New Guinea and Papua. Wo will go on doing it.
We will get to the point where the standard of living of
the indigenous inhabitants has risen, as we think, pretty
well, We may got to a point, or my successors may get
to a point, where they say, " Well, maybe if we allow
them to determine their future now, it is a little
premature". I would sooner take that risk at that time
than leave it too long so that the demand for self-determination
became explosive and produced hostility.
It's the contrast between Indonesia , nd Malaya. You
can't got a better example of the two things,
The SEATO Conference was very interesting. I had
never attended one before. I was impressed by it. I
was rather sceptical when I went there about some aspects
of the matter. I was rather pleased with it. I
thought that the countries reprusented took it seriously;
the speeches that were made both in the General Sessions
and in the confidential sessions were very . ood, very
direct, intelligent, reasonable. I think that there is
no doubt about it that SEATO has had the effect of inducing
for the first timu some sense of com. naunty, of
common danger and of the need for common associ. tion, in
the SEATO countries. But I thought, and I said when I
was there, that one of the great dangors was that we
should regard the South East Asian freaty Organisation
as a place on the map just as we talk _ bout South iast
Asia, as if it were a ogographical expression. Whereas
if it is to meon anything it has to be a community of
N. tions with a sense of community, and they won't develop
a sense of community while they continue to have niggling
little disputes, one with the other, Cambodia and
Thailand h-, ve a dispute about a Temple. '. 1ll~ with
very great respect to the Temple, this dispute doesn't
seem to justify bedovilling the whole of the relations
between the one country and another, both of whom stand
equally at risk. And there are other disputes about a
few islands and this and that and I urged that every
step should be taken to get rid of those li ttle internecine
arguments, because the Communists, the Chinese
Communists principally in this case, would of course do
their best to exaccrbace those problems, create ill-will
and thusinternally to destroy the value of SEATO. That
point was well understood. I am very impressed by the
serious approach that all these representatives took of
the matter. . io had the military planners there, As is
well known nobody has some concrete commitment of a military
kind, but the military planning has been seriously
attended to! We have just sent over to be the Chief
Military planner, Major General . ilton who, as you know,
is one of the most brilliant of our younger Generals in
Australia.
QUESTION: Sir, you told us before you left Canberra you were
going to form some opinions in your mind in London on
the problem generally of South Africa. Have you any
recent views. Did you change your thoughts about the
South African situation when you , ot to London and had
these talks?
PRIME AINISTER: Change ; rhat position?
QUESTIONT: Joll you were joing to form some opinions about
South Africa.
PRIME MINISTER: Yes. I don't feel anymore disposed than I did then
to make a speech about South Africa's internal policies,
but I have views about them, yes.
QUESTION: You were speaking : bout other countries in which you
said the position generally " might become explosive".
Does that apply too. would you say to South Africa?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, yes. I am very glad I don't have the responsibility
of government in South Africa, because I
think that there are certain ideas that are there current
and practised, the workability of which I gravely
doubt. That is an understatement. I don't think they
will work. But I'm not going to pruach to them. Too
much preaching to the South Africans has been done. It
is the best possible way in which to harden them in,
perhaps, n inflexible application of their policies.
QUESTION: Can you tcll us nything about the situation in
Tokyo?
PRIME MINISTER: ioll it happened when I was in mid-air, so to
speak, but I don't feel very happy about it. oJem ight
as well face up to it. This is, from a public point of
view, however it may be explained, an admission that the
Government of Japan doesn't feel : ble to control unruly
elements at a time when there is a proposed visit from
the President of the United States Japan's most
powerful friend since the rar. Well, that I think, is
a most unhappy event. Once again nobody would envy
Prime Minister Kishi the choice that he had to make. He
might very wellsay, " Well I am not going to put my
distinguished visitor at any risk", but the end result
of it all is that the Communists have scored a notable
propaganda victory and Communist minorities in gon-communist
countries will be encouraged to believe that they
can push Governments around, Woll, that is a pretty
serious weakening of the position. ! We havo, well all of
us have looked to Japan in this sense that Japan was to
be encouraged to stay out of the Communist orbit, that
we in Australia, for example, would increase our trade
with Japan, our economic contacts, because we realised
that a Japan that wasn't economically sound was much
more likely to pass into the control of the Communist
powers. The United States has adopted the same view and
the result has been that a good deal of the specific
concept both of the United States and of our own country
ind others . round these parts, has boon based on,
at any rate, a stable non-Communist orderly Japan, repenting
of the past and learning to live in a civilised
fashion with the world, and in it. And under those
circumstances this gree-t concession to the capacity of
a rol tively few people to do mischief is, I think well
very unhappy, perhaps unavoidable, I don't know.
markedly different from one or two other bowlers I've
seen, nor were either of the three balls for which he
was called markedly different from any of the others
that he bowled that day. However, who am Ito say?
QUESTION: Did you find any interest in the Australian economy
while you were over there?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, well I was very interested to find both in
Great Britain and in the United States that there is a
very great concentration of interest, economically, on
Australia. The disposition in the United Kingdom is to
move ratler more and more in the direction of Australia
for the purposes of investment on the ground, apart
from the fact that we are a stable community, as we are,
that there are all sorts of enormous possibilities of
future development. And in the United States, particularly
in financial circles in the United States, it is
really quite exciting to discover the attitude that
men who are engaged in dealing with investable funds,
find what their attitude is towards Australia. I have
come back a complete optomist about the attitude of
these great countries overseas to us and to our develop-
® ment and I would confidently expect that unless we do
something pretty silly or are hit by some strange
catastrophe, we will find, year by year, an increasing
interest expressed in practical terms.
QUESTION: On the local political situation, Sir will you be
taking part in the Bendigo and Balaclava by-elections?
PRIME MINISTER: I haven't a clue, though I strongly suspect.
QUESTION: I thought you had probably received cables
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, no. I've boon too interested in reading all
the side-play about Bendigo.
QUESTION: -Iould you comment on that.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I've . hoard a fuw " rumbles" ( Laughter)
QUESTION: Did your oconomic talks in England and America
embrace questions of monopoly and restrictive practices,
Mr. Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir. Not as far as I was concerned, no.
QUESTION: Did you reach any understanding, Sir, about the
future of missile tusts and the Joomera Range?
PRIME MINISTER: Nothing more than you know. They believe there
that the Joomrora programme, in total, won't be very
materially affected. They are still working on the
question as to whether they ought to go in for space
research, in which case ' oomera, of course, would have
further application. But so far we have had no report,
unless it's cone within the last day or two. But they
wore working on that when I was there. I think they are
interested in the problem of space research myself, but
of course it isavery largo financial considoration.
QUESTION: Could you tell us, Sir, if you think the world has moved
in the time you've boon away? Do you think the situation
has improved?
PRIME MINISTER: I think it's moved a little eccentrically. But now
that I'm back, no doubt all that will change.
With the compliments of:
Hugh Dash, Press Secretary to the Primo Minister.