SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTI. i, THE RT. HON.
RTO. wGN]. MHEANLZL IEOSN, JEDNEJS4 3_ HJLYA T T_ H96E o BRIGHTON
~ 3TH JLYl6
Sir, Parliamentary colleagues and ladies and gentlemen:
In speaking to you tonight I want to say something
about affairs inside Australia. Although one or two sections
of the newspapers don't appear to like it, I would also like to
say something about affairs outside AustrCiia, because not for
the first time in our history they are of vital literally
vital importance to the people of this country. And a Prime
Minister who is not prepared to say something about them, is
not fit for his office.
But, Sir, before I pass on to that I want to say
something about affairs inside Australia. And in particular I
would like to say something very brief supplementing wh-' my
distinguished colleague Senator Gorton and the candidate aave
said to you about the development in this country over the last
ten years. I have yet to encounter anybody and I will warrant
that none of you have encounte-' ed anybody who is prepared to
say that the people of Australia, by and large, in material
terms, are not better off today than we ever were in the history
of Australia. I don't need to quote individual statistics.
The fact is I just put this to all of you that if we could
go-back.-to--thetime-hen--we were-children, go back to our
parents and our grand-parents and ask them to imagine the state
of life in whihc 95 j of us live today, they wouldn't have
believed it possible. Have the people re-elected us because
things have been going bad? Or haie they re-elected us because
they felt, year by year, election period by election period,
that things were going wiell. Now I don't need to repeat all
these statistics. Statistics are frightfully interesting
things. I much prefer to say to the human beings who are here,
and who may be listening: you test it for yourself: l'k back
over your own experience. What is it that a divided Labour
Party with Leader quarrelling with Deputy Leader, with factions
fighting around every corner, what is it that the Labour Party
can give you which you haven't had from your own Government.
That is a fair simple test and all I ask is that sensible
people s :, uld think about it,
Now I have taken some interest, casual interest, in
trying to follow the to and fro of my opponents, particularly my
good friend Arthur Calwell. ( Interjecticn: How can you, you're
never in the country) Now, wait a moment, wait a moment son.
( Interjection: You're never in the country) Oh, is that so?
( Laughter) You know I always know when I am winning because
when I am winning somebody tries to make incoherent noises so
that I won't be heard. I want to tell you I am too long in the
tooth for that. Sir, my good friend Arthur Calwell, the Leader of the
Opposition, he leaps on to a band waggon have you noticed
it? every morning. It's a different band waggon. If he
reads a criticism in a newspaper which is not difficult
then that is his policy for the day. ( Laughter) Or at any
rate until the afte rnoon newspapers appear, when that is the
policy for the evening. ( Laughter) And that is very amusing.
I enjoy Arthur. I've enjoyed him for many years. I hope to
enjoy him for many years to come. ( He enjoys you too!) : 1-
couldntt enjoy anything more. But what is he going to do about
all these things? Have you discovered how he proposes to
improve the present state of Australia. I am not talking about
funny little doctrinaire ideas about socialism and so on
they are all so stupid that most people in Australia reject
them out of hand and most of the Labour men apologise for them.
I wonder if you know that this Labour Party whihi
moans and groans about Social Services and is prepared to offer
everybody pie in the sky, I wonder if you know that in the last
year in which they held undisputed power in the Federal
Parliament, 1949, they spent in the last full financial year,
1948-49, of what I will call for this purpose, the Calwell
Government, the total payments of Social Services, a topic now
dear to their hearts, was œ 80m. and that in our last completed
year of office it was œ 300m. The œ 80m. boys come along and
promise you everything. Je perform. We have never made a
Social Services promise and don't put your hand up to your
face, it doesn't improve you we have never made promis s
that we have not performed. ( Interjection). Oh, yes. I know
all about that. How many pounds a week do you earn, sir? He
can't answer that, you see. The fact is that he is earning
about four times as many pounds a week now as he could have
earned in 1949. ( Interjection) ' Value back in the pound'
Value in the standard of living in Australia, yes. And nobody
could deny not even my vociferous friend that the standard
of real living in Australia is at an all time high in the
history of the country. Nobody could deny that our provision
for the poor and the aged, the invalids, the pensioners, is at
an all time record in the history of Australia. What I want to
know is what, at this by-election, at which apparently the
Labour Party has given up the ghost and is not appearing at all
except to hand out cards on Polling Day, what are they telling
you that they are going to do for Australia which we can't do
and haven't done and are not doing? Now that is a very sensible
fair question. And that, in reality, is the only question that
you need to worry about, I venture to say, in this election.
But Sir, my friend down here got in early about
inflation and I assume that he is a Labour man. ( Interjection)
Well I am assuming that, sir, your favour, ( Laughter) And
assuming that he is a Labour man I an very interested in the
question, because I noticed that the Leader of the Opposition
has something to say about inflation. It is very interesting
to me you know I am a sort of old hand now in the Federal
Parliament. I have heard all these arguments tit-after time.
I've heard these prophesies. And every tir. c I hoar orn from
my friend, the Leader of the Opposition, I think of the
expression? you remember, ' And if there be prophesies, they
shall fail'? Because oe:. y prophesy he ever made has failed.
I remember, and my friend Rossiter here, on the
platform, will remember it: there was a by-election in Flinders
and we lost it because the Leadeir of the Opposition, and in
particular my distinguished and prophetic friend, Arthur
Calwell, were going around saying, " In three months' time there
will be mass unemployment. In three months' time youwill be
ruined. Spend all your money. It won't be :. rorth saving."
Dear me, it made my flesh creep even to read abcut it.
( Interjections) And as a result of all this :-illy tattle, they
won the Flinders by-election. EBt they didn't hold i; beyond
the next General election because by that time people had
discovered what arrant rubbish it was, ( Interjection) Not a
change of heart, a change of knowledge They had discovered
then, that although it may be the professional techniaue of an
Opposition of this kind to cry Calamity, to prophesy gloom and
disaster, the people who ought to be running the country are
those who meet the facts and who deal with themn; who are
optimists and who look forward to a general recovery of the
country. And how right they were, in 1954. when that General
election occurred, because from that time until this Australia
has made unbroken progress.
But ohe one thing that my friend goes back to
occasionally is inflation. Now I have many times said and done
things about inflation and some of them very unpopular. But
there was a time, only a few years ago, when my Labour opponents
in Parliament used to describe talk of inflation as a mere
bogey. " Nonsense!" they used to say: " All this talk about
inflation is, I suppose, a capitalist trick to deceive the
worker". I used to hear this kind of thing time after time in
the Federal Parliament. What has the Labour Party offered to
solve inflation. Because, after all, inflation if we may
reduce it to its simplest terms is a state of affairs in
w~ hich there is a greater demand than there is supply and therefore
the cost of the thing you want goes up: whether it is the
supply of money, or the supply of goods or the supply of
services. This problem of inflation is a tremendously difficult
one. Every country in the world has encountered it. Every
country in the world has had to do something about it. We have
been acting along the lines of a policy design to check inflation,
to hold it within, bounds, and, ultimately, to arrest it.
But what does the Labour Party propose about it?
Now I gave myself tho trouble it was a pleasure as
well as a trouble to write down on a piece of paper what I
understood to be the Australian Labour Party's answer to
inflation. I derived this entirely from reading in the Press
what Mr. Calwoll has said and I have been reading, as far as I
can, what his Deputy Leader has had to say and of course I
have heard them in Parliament and I'm not unacquainted with
their views and I see that the first thing that Mr. Calwell
wants to do is to spend œ F60m. a year in the Northern Territory.
Oh, yes œ C60m. a year in the Northern Territory. ( Interjection:
A flea bite) A flea bite you say, Sir. I compliment
you. Because the last year he was in office and had all the
power in the world he spent alVn. And we now spend about œ a4.
or œ l15m. Not too bad, when you consider everything. But he
thought better of it and as he doesn't expect to win an
election or to be made Prime Minister ho can afford to be a
little easy, a little at large -it doesn't matter if the
clothes ar~ e cut a bit too big -and therefore he says: œ C60m. on
the Northern Territory. Well as an answer to inflation I don't
quite follow it. ( Interjection: No you wouldn't) ( Laughter)
No, of course I wouldn't. œ C60m. more money but how many more
goods or services to buy. His Deputy Leader, stung to rivalry...
yes, stun., to rivalry by his Leader, has undertaken
to say that we ought to spend œ lOOm. a year on foreign aid.
( Interjection) Of course you would. You are the kind of fellow
that would make it œ 300m. like a Labour loader as long as
you didn't have to find the money. ( Laughter) ( Interjections)
Then, Sir, the next thing that I see they are going
to do is to restore import restrictions. They must mean that
because they complained violently when we took them off.
Almost as violently as they complained, a few years ago, when
we put them on. You know you can't be right, can you, on these
matters. But he is going to restore import restrictions because
there are too many goods available to be bought according to his
view. He is going to increase Social Services? He would be
hard put to it to beat our record. He is going to increase the
cost of production. ( Interjection) Of course. " Hear, hear"
says his devoted follower. ( Laughter) Increase the cost of
production: that's a fine anti-inflationary measure. And
above all things, Sir, to reach the height of the ridiculous, he
has developed a tremendous hatred of overseas investment in
Australia. pol i cy? This is the Labour Party's what anti-inflationary
Now just let me say something about the last one:
the hatred of overseas investment in Australia usually associated
with some extraordinarily profitable concern. ( Interjection:
Don't you like people to be inconsistent?) I love it.
( Interjection: I thought you did) It gives me such an
advantage over thorn. ( Applause)
Now, Sir, overseas investment. I just want to say
this: that one of thO notable ovents in our period of office
is that Australia, which was in no sense attractive to overseas
investment when we came into office quite the contrary
because of Bank nationalisation and all those eccentric affairs,
has in these recent years, attracted from overseas and in
spite of theories to the contrary * mostly from Great Britain,
something like œ lO00m. a year of private capital investment. I
am not talking about Government borrowing on Government account
from the ! iorld Bank or wherever it may be, but private capital
investment brought in here by private enterprise, producing
enormous factories, enormous developments and employing scores
of thousands of people. That has happened in the last ten
years and increasingly during the last six years. Is that
unimportant to us? I wonder whether we would have gone as far
as we have or have had as much production as we have had,, or
have had as much employment as we have had, if we hadn't
received this proof of confidence from people outside, not only
in the future of Australia but in the stability and honesty and
reliability of its Government. ( Applause)
I remember one election -not long ago speaking to
a lot of employees in a vast works -not very far from here
and my opponent of that time had only the previous day denounced
overseas capital in A~ ustralia. I tell you I had groat fun
saying to four or five thousand men: " Now of course you know
that these works were established by American capital. Are you
in favour of American capital? Are you hostile to the jobs that
you are now occupying. This silly little Australian outlook
the littlest Australian outlook: we're not to have people
coming in from outside; we're not to have money coming in from
outside. I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, if that doctrine
prevails then Australia's progress will come to an end. Ten
million people in a country of this si. in a Continent of
this size, can't possibly themselves, out of their savings,
produce all the capital that they need for the vast development
that we must have in this country.
And therofore I can only conclude that if we had a
Labour Government they would say to these people: " You stay
away; we don't want you". ( Interjections-Now look, if you
want a little technical advice, the three of you have got most
unmusical voices, you all shout at the same time and you drown
each other. And the result is that all you are is a rather
foolish noise off-stage, You take my tip as an old interjector:
" Get the other fellows to shut-up; then speak very, very clearly
and slowly." Everybody will hear you and so~ un-. oztunatsly,
will I. ( Applause) Now, Sir, having said a few things about that matter
might I just say something about another matter 1. which is
primarily outside Australia, though it has groat concern for us.
If thero is one thing that is pretty obvious in the
world today we discussed it a great deal1 at the Prime
Miites Conference in London it is that there is a stirring
of the movements of self-government in Africa far more acute
( Interjections) well if you like it, listen, ( Applause)
there is a stirring of the movements of self-government in
Africa, the whole of Africa Africa contains over 200 million
people and this stirring is stronger, s-w-fter, than anybody
ever thought of before. And the result is that we have all had
to think hard about what happens whten countries which have
been colonies or territories want to govern themselves a very
na ',. ral feeling, a feeling that grows stronger as more and more
people in the community are educated and learn to think and
learn to assume or assimilate the ideas of Government. And the
result is that we have seen in the last few years and I've
had great reason to understand about it because I have seen
their leaders repeatedly we have seen the coming to life in
Africa of a new Commonwealth member in the shape of Ghana up
above the Gold Goast, Nigeria up above Lagos, Nigeria which is
a bigger country than Ghana and which will become fully independent
and fully a member of the Commonweal th inside the next
month or two. We have right across Nyasaland and Rhodesia and
Kenya great movements for self-government. And south of some
of those on the western side you have the Congo which has now
been given self-government and, unhappily, at the moment, does't
know what to do about it; and is involved in riots and wars and
feuds of the most formidable kind.
Now, Sir, what to do about these events is a matter
of tremendous concern. Because, ladies and gentlemen, the
position is: it is easier for people to ask for and obtain
political independence than it is for them to achieve economic
independence. This is one of the great pro blerns. C ; on) Of
course you don't agree but every one of the nine Prime Ministers
at Downing Street agreed. And so therefore you must dissent
from them. This is one of the great problems and I regard it
as a great and grave problem. Because if countries become
independent, politically, so that they govern themselves in a
political sense, but they are economically dependent upon other
people, then the Communist powers will se., an easy opportunity
of coming in with help and thereby7 buying themselves into some
measure of internal control. And, Sir, that is why the economic
position of these countries is, in my Qpinion, a tremendous
challenge to the free nations of the world. More and more and
more, all the free nations of the world will have to realise in
relation to these new countries that they are their brothers'
keopers; that they must help; that they must do what they can
to forward the economic development of these newly omerged
self-governing communities. And, Sir, we had a great deal of
discussion about that and a great number of studios are in hand
on that point. Every seriously minded man who is concerned with
world affairs recognises this problem and wishes that something
may be done about it.
But, Sir, there is another aspect of self-government
which I venture to say is very considerably misunderstood.
Indeed, some of the things I have said about it myself have
been grossly misinterpreted.
Last December I had occasion to take a short journey
into Indonesia and a short journey into Malaya. Now here you
have two countries, both of which have achieved self-govurnment
quite recently: Indonesia in 1945; Malaya two or three years
back. But the difference is this: that in the case of
Indonesia the achievement of independent self-government was
preceded by war, by conflict, by bloodshed, by hatred. And the
result is that there are still echos of these things in
Indonesia and Indonesia has yet to settle down into a stable
Govornmon stablo economy, with no internal armed conflicts,
But in the case-of Malaya: Malaya was a British colony
administered originally from the United Kingdom, the one great
colonial power in history which has understood the responsibility
of having colonial territories.
When Great Britain saw that the time was comaing when
Malaya would wish to have self-government, when the Malayans
would wish to govern themselves, did they do it in a spirit of
reluctance or conflict? Not at all. They first of all.,
conjointly with Australia and New Zealand, invested forces in
Malaya in order to get rid of the Communist bandits, in order
to give ti-e Government a chance to work and to survive. And
they then, on a Constitution drafted by the representatives of
half a dozen Commonwealth countries, and presided over by one
Of the Lords of Appeal of Great Britainbg, av e complete selfgovernment
to Malaya, under their very distinguished Prime
Minister, the Thnku Abdul Rahman.
And, Sir, in Malaya what did I find? Hatred? No.
Friendliness? Yes in abundance. The old English and
Scottish firms, Irish firms, carrying on their work ' as of old
inKuala Lumpur and in Penang and so on. Up in the hills on
some bydro-electric work where you would expect the Chief
Engineer to be a Scot, he was one. This I think tras a superb
example of how much better it is that Independence should be
* achieved in friendship and with goodwill, than that it should
be achieved by revolution and blood. ( Int. rjections: Wdhat
about Sharpeville?) My dear sir I know nothing more than you do about
Sharpoville. Now don? t get yourself misled by Sharpeville.
There have been thousands killed in Africa, outside South
Africa, for everyone who was killed in Sharpevillo. I regret
to tell you that a groat deal of the independence that I have
been talking about has been followed, if the circumstances were
not right, by bloodshed; by the deaths of hundreds or thousands
of people. 1. fhat I am saying is that our method, the British
method, is the best. If there is to be Independencu, let us
have it with friendliness. Lot us have it with , oodwill. Let
us, above all things, precede it by training the colonial
peoples in the art of self-government, in the art of administration.
The great secret of India, for example, as a selfgoverning
country today is the old Indian Civil Servant. The
fact is the British trained po* ple, they brought up a great
number of people, thousands of Indian people, and people from
Pakistan as it is now called, and they were trained into the
Civil Service, they were hiighly educated, they have become
great experts I've known quite a few of them. And Sir
without them, no self-government could have been instantly or
very quickly, efficient. That is the whole technique of the
British Colonial System and developing colonies into selfgoverning
nations.-Now Sir, Ijust want to take that proposition and
reduce it to a point ( Interjection) I know; I road somewhere
today from some goat that people don't rant to know about
affairs overseas. Eve-py thoughtful Australian does. ( Applause)
Thoughtful Australians knew that these things are of supreme
importance and as long as I think they are of supreme importance
I shall so describe thema.
I just want to bring out the point of what I hiave
been saying because I am going to relate this to one of our own
territories. I want to bring out the point. And the point is
that provided you do your best to develop the people in the
colony or territory, provided you do your best to give them
education, health services, a knowledge of the instruments of
governme-int and bring them to s point where they can first
participate in goenetand then take it over if they are
so disposed if you are pursuing that policy, as we were in
Papua and Ne w Guinea, then if you get to a point whqre you
think they may be you're not sure that they may be ready
you think they may be that last point which may come in 1
years' time, I don't know, whatever period you care to name
then I say: " It is better to take some small risk of doing it
a little too soon than to delay it to a point where the agitation
for it breaks out into hatred and rebellion". ( Hear, hear)
( Applause)
Now that is my view and I would have thought tb-ere
was nothing very strange about it. ( Interjections) Nothing
very strange about it. Do I gather you disagree with it?
( What have you done for New Guinea?) Boc -usc if you d~ isagree
with it you arc going to be in great trouble as a Labour man
because Mr. Calwell thinks I am talking about it too soon and
Mrt Whitlai-says it ought to be done now. ( Laughter) Al. I
can do is toll you our view on the matter.
I wouldn't be foolish enough to suggest that this is
a matter that can be achieved in a few short years. Of course
it can't. ( Interjections) As there has been a certain amount
of reference made to what I said about this matter-or rather
to what was alleged that I said I think I might quote you the
verbatim report from the tape of what I said about this when I
came back to Sydney a few weeks ago. ( Interjection: We got it
in the Press) Oh no you didn't; that's why I am, quoting it to
you. I said: '' Whereas at one time many of us might have thought
that it was better to go slowly in granting Independence
so that all of the conditions existed for a wise exercise
of self-government, I think the prevailing school of
thought today is that if in doubt, you should go sooner
not later. -I belong to that school of thought 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 when
people have to wait too long for their Independence then
they achieve itwith ill-will and that, perhaps, is the
difference between British Colonial policy in this century
and that of some other country."
And then somebody said: " Would you apply that to New
Guinea?" and I said this:
" When you say ' apply that to New Guinea', yes. But that
does not mean that I belong to this fancy school of
thought that you write a timetable out and say that in
ten years' time so and so, and in 20 years' time, so-andso.
That is just silly" ( Interjection) Believe me my
boy I've heard it said in other countries, very definitely-
" But we are all doing a faithful job of work in Papua and
New Guinea. Wie will go on doing it,"
And then I went on to say " that we may get to a point
or my successors may get to a point, where they say: " Well
maybe if we allow then to determine their future now, it
is a little premature: I would sooner take that risk at
that time, than leave it too long'"
Now Sir, and laidies and gentlemen, I think if I may
say so that is good commonsense. That is all. Nothing very
rovolulionary about that: it is good cormionsense. But,
ladies and gentlemen, there is now being built up around this,
some sort of idea that we ought to be out of New Guinea and
Papua in a few years a few years. And the result is, if that
view obtains currency, that the development of Now Guinea for
self-government will be greatly postponed. Because what New
Guinea and Papua need for their conomic developmeint for the
development of their population, is a steady inflow of investment
in those lands so that their rural-industries may be
developed, their cattle industry developed: all these various
things which mean a rising standard of living for the New
Guinea people and for the Papuan people.
All these things require confidence and investment
and I do wish I could persuade people who are talking but
8.
" Out in five years" to understand that if they are believed
they will make it impossible to be out in many many mr years
than that. Weo want to see a steady development as fast as
possible, according to our resources. iind aftor all, we are
spending a groat deal of money in New Guinea, or you are,
through us. d1e want to see all these things go on. But above
all things it , ould be idle to talk about giving self-government
to the native inhabitants of Now Guinea and Papua unless
you had developed their economy in their country so that they
had industries, so that they had employmient, so that they had
a standard of living of a kind that we would recognise based
upon their owrn efforts in their own country.
Now Sir I apologise for having discussed those
miatters because, of course, apparently they have nothing to do
with Balaclava. But they have a great deal to do with the
future of this country: a hostile New Guinea would be deadly
from Australia's point of view. A friendly Now Guinea is
essential to Australia. And the right way to get it is to
pursue in a porfectly normal sensible fashion, the development
of this country and the developm-, ent of its people. Not being
turned aside by chocr-chasers or by violent advocates on one
side or the other, but going straight along the track and
saying: " Our ultimate objective, as Australians, is that we
shall bring these people to a point when they are fit to rule
0 themselves and to determine their own future". When we have
done that we will have discharged a gre2at trust for humanity and
we will have brought great credit and, as I think, great
security in the true sense, upon ourselves.