The SPEAKER. The Chair declares the House in recess at this time subject to the call of the Chair.
Accordingly (at 12 o'clock and 5 minutes p. m.). the House stood in recess, subject to the call of the Chair.
RECEPTION OF THE RIGHT HONORABLE ROBERT GORDON MENZIES, PRIME MINISTER Of AUSTRALIA
During the recess the following occurred:
The Prime Minister of Australia, the Right Honorable Robert Gordon Menzies, entered the Hall of the House of Representatives at 12 o'clock and 13 minutes p. m., and was escorted to the Speaker's rostrum by the committee appointed for that purpose.
The SPEAKER. Members of the House of Representatives, it is my great pleasure, and I deem it a high priVilege, to present to you the representative of a great. a free, and a friendly commonwealth. I present to you the Right Hon• orable Robert Gordon MenZies, Prime :P.1i:1ister of Australia. [Applause, Members:rising]
Mr. MENZIES. Mr. Speaker, oddly enough it does not seem strange to me today because this is only one of, I suppose, a thousand speeches in the course of my lifetime, but you have received me with rnch warmth that I must tell you, at once I feel at home. Of course, Mr, Speaker, I am a House of Representatives man myself of 16 years' standing. Indeed if you will excuse a little autobiography, half of the 16 years have been devoted to assisting the government of my country and the other half to assisting some other gentlemen to run the government of my country by giving them the benefit of my critical advice.
One other thing, sir, I would like to say to you at once is occasioned by your reference to my country as a great and friendly country. The truth is that when we Australians think about the other people of the world we think of some of them as foreigners and some of them as not. I want to tell you at once that except In the jaundiced eye of the law, Americans are not foreigners In Australia.
Third, I have this very great honor o fspeaking to you this morning not only as a representative of Australia, but also,if I may assert that right, as the representative of the British Commonwealth of Nations, a commonwealth which is your greatest group associate and friend in all the things that matter in thisworld.
So far as Australia ls concerned we of course have the closet possible association with you. One has only to go back to the early days of 1942 to recall the impact of the first American troops to arrive in Australia. "Impact" is perhaps the right word because they swept in on us almost like an invading force. If I can reveal one of their secrets, their company was not always strictly masculine. But they came with almost delightful and refreshing courage and optimism. From the very time they arrived, whatever doubts may have existed in some minds disappeared. We knew that with these magnificent allies and these imperishable friends that there could be one end and one end only to the war. I believe the association in this war has done something which will endure forever In the relations between your country and mine.
Once again, sir, we have a small, but I hope significant and growing association In the campaign in Korea. The campaign In Korea Is something that is giving us all cause for anxiety. I know that. But I would like to say to you as an onlooker for this purpose that the onlooker who has any discernment in his eye will recognize in this hastily improvised campaign in South Korea, a campaign hastily brought up against deliberate and organized aggression a really brilliant feat of arms, and its value will be more appreciated as the succeeding stages of this combat unfold.
We, as you know, in Australia are not rich in manpower. We feel that our people when they go to war are first class fighters. But we are not rich in manpower. We are not rich in standing armies or immediately available resources. We have already some commitments in Malaya where for a long time now operations of a defensive kind have had to be carried on against Communist bandits. But already, as you know, in the case of Korea, indeed within the first few hours after your own decision, we placed at your disposal a. fighter air force and certain vessels of the Royal Australian Navy. As far as ground forces are concerned, I think I can say this to you: Our capacity is very limited. We have no substantial standing army, and troops for service abroad must therefore, in the normal course, be specially enlisted, trained, and equipped. But in my talks with your leaders here it has been completely agreed that the time factor is so important in Korea that a comparatively small force, speedily trained, equipped. and dispatched, is better than a larger force postponed for many months.
In the light or these considerations, and after full consultation, and I think I can say agreement with the United Stat€s authorities, the Australian Government will, on the basis of the army component of the British Commonwealth occupation force in Japan, and further recruitment of men with battle experience, organize and dispatch within as few weeks as possible a. force which, cooperating, as I hope and believe it will, with the New Zealand force, would serve to make up a. first-class combat group. [Applause.]
I would like to see these troops and others made available by the United Kingdom, and other British Commonwealth countries, brought together sooner or later, and I would hope sooner, into a British Commonwealth division. serving alongside your own men.
Now, sir, I am not to delay you too long. I have already noticed with warm approval that there is a clock opposite the Speaker, as there is in my Parliament, but I would like to say a few words to you, if I may, about my own country . in relation to the problem which goes · outside and after Korea. Korea, after all. is a symptom. It is a symptom of a. very widespread disease in this world, ' and it behooves all of us, in our own way' in our own lands, to do what we can to develop our strength; our moral ' strength, our physical strength, in order' that we may at all times be fit to resist aggression, and fit to drive out fear.
As far as my country is concerned, we, therefore, have been addressing ourselves to what I will call a triple problem.
The first is the problem of getting' more people. When I was a very small boy there was much talk in Australia.: about American immigration, about the vast class of people who came to this continent from the Old World. It is only . recently that I began to have a. look at that matter in statistical terms, and I would like you to know that at the present time our immigration program in Australia is at least as great as any undertaken by your country in the whole course of its history. You must remember that we are a community of 8,000,00. people. You might think we are more, because occasionally we make quite a bit of noise, but we are a community of 8,000,000 people.
We are now taking In year after year 200,COO immigrants from the Old World which, after all, is, 11 one may venture on a proportion sum, just as 11 you were undertaking now to bring in with your vast population the better part of four millions every year. Two hundred thousand immigrants coming into a community of 8,000.000. And that presents us, of course, with tremendous problems. But we have accepted those problems because we believe that the time is overdue when all of the countries that love freedom should determine to develop their strength and not to float along and fail to develop their strength. But we shall have no proper strength for so great a problem until we have a great population.
The second thing that we are endeavoring to do goes hand in hand with that; you cannot have a free world as it ought to be unless you encourage all around it an expanding economy. We must have an expanding economy in Australia; we must, as you have done in your time, set out, and we are indeed now setting out on it, we must set out on a new era of development. Here is a great contin2nt like Australia that needs water. 'The water falls, but it runs away. It needs storage; it needs irrigation; it needs more industrial horsepower; it needs more land cleared; it needs a greater production of the wealth from the soil; it needs these things, and it needs them quickly. I want to tell you that so far as my own Government is concerned we are determined to exercise every ounce of energy that we have to bring in to Australia in the next 10 years such an amount of development, such an amount of new wealth, such a basis for new industry, such a high living standard for new and expanding populations that we shall in due course be able to look at all our friends around all the world and say: "Not only are we your friends, but we have power to serve you and to serve ourselves, and to serve with you." (Applause.)
The third thing, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps these are merely illustrative, but I am talking about my own country-the third thing to which we are devoting our attention is the preparation of man. power not only for industry but for the defense of the country, not only for the defense of the country, but for the defense of freedom wherever freedom Is challenged. We this year-I cannot go back too far because at the moment we are a 6 or 7 months' Government-we are this year introducing for the first time in peace in Australia a complete ·system of national service training calculated to produce year by year under a draft system a substantial number of trained men and to build a substantial reserve over the years to come.[lApplause. ]
Now, sir, I shall elaborate on those matters. I do not want to elaborate on them. Whenever a politician speaks out of his own bailiwick, somebody is bound to think that he is criticizing somebody in the other bailiwick, and I do not want to do that. All I want to do is to express my own faith and the faith of my own country that we all have laid on us today the duty to be prepared, to be strong-, not with the strength of a bully but with the strength of a deliverer.
The world needs the United States of America: the world needs the British people of the world: the world needs every scrap of democratic strength that can be found in it, because nobody, however optimistic. need underestimate the measure or the character of the danger that always confronts us. It is not merely our privilege to be strong; it is our duty to be strong.
Sir, we in Australia occupy a vast continent as big as the United States but with a population, as I have said, no greater than yours was In the early days of the nineteenth century. But what of It? The power and the significance of the United States are not the creation of a few modern years. They are a growth of centuries. The spirit of America was not breathed into you day before yesterday. Some of it goes back, I am proud to say, to the Shakespeares and the Raleighs and the Drakes and a common heritage. It found its most eloquent expression in the Declaration of Independence right back in the eighteenth century. It was guided into new and noble paths by the immortal Washington through the lives and words and deeds of countless famous or obscure men and women. It has been built into the character of your people right up to the day when a noble declaration by an American President, and an epoch-making vote by an American Congress, can bring light to dark places, and, let us not forget, hope to many people about to despair.
History, sir, is continuous, It Is dynamic, and never more so than when a nation has pride, when it has courage, when it has responsibility. Sir, those are the reasons why the Prime Minister of a numerically small people may speak quite frankly to the Representatives of an enormous world power in brotherhood and with, as I believe, high mutual respect.
Mr. Speaker, In the name of Australia, I salute you and your great people. May all that you stand for and that we stand for be preserved under the providence of God for the happiness of mankind •
[Applause, the Members rising.)
At 12 oclock and 33 minutes p m., the Prime Minister of Australia retired from the Hall of the House of Representatives