COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA. PZ/
STATEMENT BY
The PRIME MINISTER, the Rt. Hon.
R. G. MENZIES, M. P.,
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS.
[ From the Parliamentary Debates," 20th October, 1960.]
Mr. MIENZIFS .( Kooyong-Prime Minister
and Minister for External Affairs)
-by leave-Sir, I arrived at the United
Nations General Assembly on the afternoon
of Friday, 30th September. The general
debate was on. President Soekarrio spoke
for two hours. He circulated a copy of
his speech. The speech consisted of 66
pages of foolscap. There was an added slip
circulated. It was marked ." Vital and
was to be inserted at page 65. This sheet
contained the terms of the proposed fivepower
resolution, of which I became aware
' for the ' first time, the five powers being
Ghana, India, the United Arab Republic,
8764/ 60. Yugoslavia and Indonesia. The terms of
the proposed resolution were these-
The General Assembly
Deeply concerned with the recent deterioration
in international relations which threatens the
world with grave consequences
Aware of the great expectancy of the world
that this Assembly will assist in helping to prepare
the way for the easing of world tension
Conscious of the grave and urgent responsibility
that rests on the United Nations to initiate
helpful efforts
Requests, as a first urgent step, the President
of the United States of America and the Chairman
of the Council of Ministers of the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics to renew their contacts
interrupted recently so that their declared willingness
to find solutions of the outstanding problems
by negotiation may be progressively implemented.
For some reason my distinguished friend,
the Prime Minister of India, rose at the end
of President Soekarno's speech and formally
moved the resolution. I was, I confess,
greatly concerned about the terms of the
resolution, not because of its opening paragraphs,
with which everybody would agree,
but because Jof the operative clause, that
opertive clause being the request that the
President of the United States of America
-named as such-and the Chairman of the
Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics should renew their
contacts. That was a very, very important proposal.
First of all, it had defects and it had
dangers. " To renew their contacts, interrupted
recently" was a clear reference, if
to anything, back to the Paris conference
when there was to be a summit conference,
when the four people were to meet. That
was the only period of interruption, and the
contacts which were interrupted were interrupted
at Paris when those four great men
were to meet. Yet, Sir, the resolution moved
by Mr. Nehru did not call for a summit
meeting of the four; it called for something
quite different. It did not call on the four
great men, the four responsible men, the
four men who led atomic. powers, to meet
again; it called on two people out of the
four. That seemed to me to lend colour
to what I believe to be the false but not
uncommon propaganda that the real world
issue is between the Soviet Union and the
United States of America.
The first real step was to get the four
atomic powers, the four powers which have,
beyond all understanding, the great powers
of peace and war in their hands, to meet.
I would have thought that that was the first
thing-to get those four people to come
together, not because of some oddities about
Great Britain or the United States or France
-not at all-but because they happened to
be the people who had atomic weapons and
who, therefore, had enormous powers of
life and death for all the rest of us in the
world. Something could come, from my
point of view, of a meeting between the
four; nothing could come of a resolution
which'said: that two out of the four ought
to meet'together.
That reolution was moved, and then the
distinguished Prime" Minister of Great Britain, the Right Honorable Fld.
Macmillan, and I-he very naturally, and I
by some chance-were invited to come to
Washington to see the President of the
United States early on Sunday morning,
2nd October. Very naturally we agreed.
We said we would go.
On Saturday, 1st October, I had lunch
with Mr. Macmillan and with Lord Home.
We had a little talk and we then flew to
Washington. I dined with them at the
Australian Embassy, with our Ambassador,
Mr. Harold Beale. We dined, and we talked
about these matters. Like me, they were
troubled about the resolution-and they
were troubled about it for very obvious
reasons. Straight-out support of the resolution
would be travelling, we all thought,
in the wrong direction. Here was a resolution
which said, " Let two people get
together and then everything may be
arranged But, on the other hand, straightout
opposition-if we all voted " No"-
would be misinterpreted. People would
look at the first three or four recitals in the
resolution, all in favour of peace, and then,
if we voted " No we would be told that
we did not want peace. Therefore, straightout
opposition would be misinterpreted.
That was a very difficult problem, Sir. I
suggested on the Saturday night that an
amendment in positive terms might be put,
and my distinguished friends, Mr. Macmillan
and Lord Home, having heard what
1 had to say about this matter, said that they
would like to think it over. On the next
morning at 9.30-a rather intolerable hour
on Sunday morning-we went to the White
House. My former colleague, our distinguished
Ambassador, Mr. Beale, was
there, and we had a close discussion-
President Eisenhower; Mr. Herter, the
Secretary of State; Mr. Macmillan the distinguished
Prime Minister of Great Britain;
Lord Home, the Foreign Secretary, and
myself. I think, Sir, that I might be allowed to
say that that morning, and under those
circumstances, the Americans were worried
about the position that had been created by
the five-power motion. The President himself
had received letteirs from the five
powers-India, Indonesia, Ghana, Yougoslavia
and the United Arab ' Republicenclosing
the resolution. The President had
bteen working on a draft reply setting out
reasons why a personal and special meeting
wvith Khrushchev was not, in the then atmosphere,
acceptable. I would not wish honorable
members to believe that this was A
rather dour attitude on the part of the
United States of America. All who have
witnessed these things know th at
Khrushchev had made it just about as
difficult as anybody could make it for a
meeting to occur.
In the course of the talks on the Sunday
morning, I said-and let me say at once
that I take full responsibility for this-that
I thought it quite useless to be coming down
in favour of a resolution which, on the face
of it, did some wrong things, as I understood
them, or to be coming down flatfooted
against the resolution, in which case
a lot of people would misinterpret tfie vote
and misinterpret the views. Therefore, for
better or for worse, and I still think for better,
I said, " This kind of resolution is not
one that you can flat-footedly oppose or
flat-footedly support. Why do we not have
an amendment of this resolution which will
bringa the whole of the United Nations back
to the realities of the position?"
I say this, because I understand there are
some people who think that I was a sort
of fall guy think that is the term.
On the contrary. I have great pride in
being the Prime Minister of this country
and in having views of my own on behalf
of my country. Therefore, I said, Well,
why not ' have an amendment? Why meet
this thing full face? Let us have
an amendment which in positive terms
will say what we believe to be the
truth? We had a discussion about
that. I do not want anybody to believe
that they all agreed at once with what I
had to say, but at least I said it.
I want honorable members to understand
that the United States of America was
itself deeply concerned about this matter.
It knew that to have a resolution passed
which put the whole onus on the President
of the United States was wrong. The
Americans knew that this was putting the
whole situation out of balance. They
knew, as I believe, that this idea that the
whole conflict in the world is between
the United States and the Soviet Union is
a false idea, a wicked idea; something that
has been devised and promulgated by
8764/ 60-2 people for no good purpose. Therefore,
they were deeply concerned. So, Sir, after
an hour and a half of discussion that morning,
I said that I thought we ought to have
an amendment. I did not care very much
who moved it, but we ought to have an
amendment. There we were-the President
of the United States of America; Mr.
Herter, the Secretary of State; Mr.
Macmillan, the Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom; Lord Home, the United
Kingdom Foreign Minister; and myself.
We were all discussing this matter to and
fro. In the meantime, President Eisenhower
had received a letter from the five powers,
signed by Dr. Nkrumah of Ghana, and containing
the resolution, about which I will
say something later. The President himself
had been, for the previous 24 hours,
discussing with his advisers the problem of
how this letter ought to be answered. For
better or for worse, for richer or for poorer,
I came in with my idea that you could not
deal with a problem of this kind by saying
Yes" 1 or No that you might deal with
it by saying, Here is a positive proposal
And the positive proposal that I had to
make was that there ought to be a renewed
effort to get a Summit meeting of the Four
-not some theoretical meeting of the Two,
but a positive Summit meeting of the Four.
We debated that and they said, Well, do
you have an amendment in mind? I said,
Yes ". They said. " What is it?" I
indicated it in a rather vague way, and said,
" All right. I will go away and draft it."
This is very interesting. We finished at
11 o'clock on Sunday morning. I went off,
, having promised to draft an amendment and
to send it to the Secretary of State, Mr.
Herter, at lunch-time, and to Mr. Macmillan
and Lord Home. They got it by lunch-time.
There it was. With some small amendment,
that was the amendment that I moved in
the United Nations General Assembly.
They received it at lunch-time, and after
lunch we met at the British Embassy-the
British Prime Minister, Lord Home, Mr.
Herter and I. They had the terms of this
proposed amendment. By the time we had
talked it out on the Sunday, I understood
-1 have no reason to believe now that I
. had been wrong-that they approved of it.
I think it is proper, Sir, to tell this House
in my own country what the proposal was.
In the early part of the five-power resolu-
. tion there had been three paragraphs with
which nobody could quarrel. My amendment
was designed, not to omit the earlier
paragraphs, which were quite good, but to
omit the last paragraph. The amendment
was in these terms-
Omit the last paragraph of the draft resolution
submitted by Ghana, India, Indonesia, the
United Arab Republic and Yugoslavia ( A/ 4522),
and substitute therefor the following:
I must ask honorable members to forgive
me for this strange form of words used in
the United Nations-
RECALLING that a Conference between the
President of the United States of America, the
Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the President
of the French Republic and the Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland was arranged to take place in Paris on
17 May 1960, in order that these four leaders
should examine matters of particular and major
concern for their four nations,
I think that is something that every honorable
member would agree with: Recalling
the fact that the four great leaders had met,
not to discuss all the problems of the world,
but to discuss matters on which they, as
-the leaders of the four great atomic powers,
might have something to say. The amendment
continued-
RECALLING FURTHER that the Conference
did not actually begin its work,
NOTING that the President of the United States
of America, the President of the French Republic
and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland thereupon
made a public statement in the terms following:
I quote the words of three out of the four-
They regret that these discussions, so important
for world peace, could not take place. For their
part, they remain unshaken in their conviction
that all outstanding international questions should
be settled not by the use or threat of force, but
by peaceful means through negotiation. They
themselves remain ready to take part in such
negotiations at any suitable'time in the future."
I think it is not a bad idea to recall the
minds of honorable members to the fact that
three out of the four leaders of the powers
at Paris used those words, and meant them.
I went on from that to say in my amendment-
Believing that much benefit for the world could
arise from a co-operative meeting of the Heads of
Government of these four nations in relation to
Sthose problems which particularly concern
them,-Obviously, those problems were, for the
atomic powers, Berlin and all those things
which are flash-points of international
affairs-BELIEVING FURTHER that progress towards
the solution of those problems would be a material
contribution to the general work for peace of the
United Nations,
URGES that such a meeting should be. held at
the earliest practicable date.
I would have expected, Sir, speaking in my
own Parliament and among my own people,
that nothing would be said against that
view. Here it was. Here was a call to the
four great powers to sit down together and
try to make the world more safe for ordinary
people.
I put in my amendment. That was on a
Monday. At that moment, it was well
known that Khrushchev was not going to
meet Eisenhower-unless, of course,
Eisenhower went through the remarkable
performance of apologizing about the U2
incident and withdrawing all his claims
about the RB47 dincident-and that the
President himself had said that he was not
going to meet Khrushchev on those terms.
Therefore, the position was that the current
President of the United States and the current-
if that is the right word-head of the
Soviet Union were not willing to meet personally
without conditions which mutually
were completely unacceptable. On top of
all that-and let us be sensible about this
matter-at the very time at which we were
having this debate, a new President of the
United States was about to be elected, and
what he would do or say, who would know?
I want to pause here, Sir, to make a few
observations, because I have been told by
my friends-nobody is so frank as a friend
-that some complaints have been voiced in
Australia. I have tried to understand them,
because I am really a tolerably broadminded
fellow. I understand that the first
complaint is that I was being used by the
United States and the United Kingdom,
which happen to be the two greatest powers
in the free world and our most powerful
and devoted friends. I hope I have answered
that complaint. For better or for worse,
the proposal for an amendment was mine,
not theirs. I thought, in my new-found
innocence, that Australia was entitled to a
mind of its own. Indeed, I have been told
by some of my friends opposite in the past
tl, their great complaint is that we do not
have a: mind of our own. As I have said,
I thought we were entitled to a mind of
our own. Believing that a certain course
was right, I advocated it. I need not add
any words to that.
In the second place, I gather from the
critics that, in the interests of Australia, I
should have preferred pleasing the five
nations which I have named by supporting
something with which I strongly disagreed
-and with which I utterly disagree at this
moment-to acting in concert with our most
powerful and most unambiguous friends.
If that is the price of admiralty, then I
resign from admiralty. I have learnt, perhaps,
very little in my life, but I have learnt
to know who are our friends.
Contrary to my expectation, it was ruled
that the five-power resolution and my
amendment should be discussed separately
from the general debate, on Wednesday
morning, 5th October. My major speechwhich
appears to have missed fire here, for
some reason or other-had been listed for
the afternoon. Therefore, unlike anybody
else at the United Nations, I had to make
two separate speeches instead of one. Therefore,
on Wednesday morning-knowing that
on Wednesday afternoon I had to make my
most considerable speech--I moved my
amendment. At question time this morning, when I
was treated so kindly, my distinguished
friend, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition
( Mr. Whitlam) said to me, " I would like
to know what you said on your amendment
I want to say at once that I have
arranged that the full text of what I said
will be made available to members, because,
unhappily, it does not appear to have been
rather widely reported. I will permit myself
the luxury of quoting a few of the things
that I said that morning to the cold and
unresponsive audience of the United
Nations General Assembly. I think I should
do so. A motion had been put down in the
name of five powers, and I was moving an
amendment. Among other things, I said-
Let me say at once, that nobody can more
warmly appreciate the high motives of the sponsors
of the resolution than I do. They feel, no doubt,
that it would be a bad thing if all the Heads of
State and Heads of Government departed from
this Assembly without leaving behind some visible
evidence in the shape of a decision. They believed, no doubt, that the people of the world would be
disappointed and perhaps disillusioned if we all
departed and nothifig at all emerged. They therefore
introduced this resolution and part of its
purpose, as it has. been explained to me, was to
try to take advantage of the presence in North
America at the same time of President Eisenhower
and Mr. Khrushchev. But if I believe, as I do,
that the effect 6f the resolution, if carried, would
be undesirable, then I am bound to say so.
I hope that honorable members will realize
that that was an authentic Australian voice
upon thi matter. I went on to talk about
the conference in Paris-the conference
which did not occur, the conference which
broke down because of Khrushchev's
attitude. I said-
Many of us had thought that the discussions
about nuclear tests could have been brought
within reach of finality.
I still believe that. I continued-
After all, the great nuclear powers were not so
widely separated on this issue that some effective
lead could not have been given. But the Paris
conference failed even to begin, because the leader
of the Soviet Union would not participate. I have
my own view about his stated reasons, but at
this moment I would not desire to debate them.
This was said in the morning.
The material and relevant fact was that the
leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom
and France, promptly made a statement in which
they said:-
I trust that this will be remembered for
years, but not, I hope, with tears.--
" They regret that these discussion, so important
for world peace, could not takeplace. For their
part, they remain unshaken in their conviction
that all outstanding international questions should
be settled not by the use or threat of force, but
by peaceful means through negotiation. They
themselves remain ready to take part in such
negotiations at any suitable time in the future."
My speech continued-
This, it will be agreed, was a fair enough
proposition, good-tempered and. tenacious in the
cause of peace. Should it be rejected now? If
we have now reached a point in our discussions
when we feel that talks of this kind should
proceed, why should we not say so? Why should
we, by carrying the five-nation resolution, dismiss
the United Kingdom and France from the first
act? Then I went on to say this, and it is worth
remembering-Mr. Nehru himself has frankly stated that there
are serious limits to the usefulness of bilateral
talks; but what I would wish to know is whether
any valid reason can be advanced for supposing
that in some way the President of the United
States was the stumbling block, and that therefore
in any renewed discussions he should be the one
leader of what we call the Wes: ern World to be
brought under persuasion or pressure.
My own view is that we should encourage the
resumption of these summit talks. No doubt, a
meeting at the Summit cannot be arranged quickly
or without preparation. We shall have to feel
our way forward, and a way may be found.
But it will not be found in the next few days,
and I doubt whether it can be found by trying
to rush at it. The Australian amendment reflects
what I believe is the view of the majority here,
that we should try to recapture the hope that was
offered to us in the early part of this year when
we were moving towards a Summit meeting.
I concluded this excerpt by saying-
There may indeed be other amendments. I
should like to say for myself that I am much less
concerned about the details of draftsmanship than
I am to avoid the perpetuation of the notion
that the world confict is between the United
States and the Soviet Union.
Well, Sir, before the morning session
ended, in the course of which I regret to
say that my distinguished friend, Mr.
Nehru, made a somewhat remarkable commentary
upon my amendment and my
speech, the President indicated that two
further amendments were being circulated
and that the matter would be concluded
at the night session. This was on the Wednesday.
I will by-pass, for the moment,
the afternoon session. At the night session
Cambodia, which after all is an Asian
country, indicated that it would have supported
my amendment as a separate resolution.
This was a merely technical objection
to its form. For some reason or other,
and I still do not understand it, because. in
these United Nations affairs I am a new
boy, the foreshadowed further amendments
that had been referred to by the President
in the morning were not submitted.
So, the first thing which happened after
Cambodia had said this was that we voted
on the Australian amendment. Of course,
the result has given immense pleasure to a
few people. I do not know why they should
be so pleased that an Australian amendment
should be defeated. Still, one lives
and learns. So the Assembly voted on my
amendment. It was supported, on the vote,
by France, by the United Kingdom, by the
United States of America, by Canada and
by ourselves-not a bad voting group, I
think. There were 45 people who voted
" No" and 43 who abstained. Very interestingly,
among the people who abstained
and so said neither " Yes" nor " No" were the Soviet Union, the entire Sc. t
bloc, Japan, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand,
and Cambodia-for the reason I have referred
to. It was then proposed that
separate votes should be taken-this is a
highly technical but fascinating problem for
us who are parliamentarians--on the inclusion
in the five-power resolution of the
words " the President of". See what I
mean? The President of the United States
of America-and then " the Chairman of
the Council of Ministers of This, of
ccurse, is something which we min our
innocence in this Parliament know nothing
about. Anyhow, it was proposed that
' separate votes should be taken, and my
distinguished friend, the Prime Minister of
India, Mr. Nehru, objected, I thought, with
great force, that if these words were omitted
the five-power resolution would be meaningless
because, of course, diplomatic relaticns
had not been cut off between the
United States of America and the Soviet
Union. They had never been interrupted.
I might say I thought he had a great
deal of force in that but, as I did not like
the five-power resolution, I remained relatively
unmoved, except intellectually, by
this argument. Sir, what happened?
Separate votes were put to the vote of the
Assembly. I want to mention this to
honorable members because some people
rather foolishly have tried to make it appear
that I, representing you in this Parliament,
had done something foolish and had been
left out on a limb. But when the separate
votes were put to the vote those in favour
of separate vo: es-in other words those
who must be regarded as being not in
favour of the five-power resolution as a
whole-were 37, and against them were
36, with 22 abstentions. It is lovely, you
know. Some of you have been there, but
I had not been there before. Somebody
says " abstention" in English and somebody,
being brought up in the French language,
says " abstention" in French, but
it amounts to the same thing. There we
were, 37 in favour of separate votes, 36
against and 22 abstentions. Those in favour
of separate votes,-and I mention this because
some silly fellow who tried to pretend
that I am becoming bad friends with
the Asian countries suggested the contrary
-included Pakistan, China, Japan, the
Philippines and Thailand.
if I may permit myself to say so,
1 do not mind finding myself standing, as
to three of these countries, alongside our
colleagues in the South-East Asian Treaty.
When the separate votes were taken,
because it had been decided there ought to
be separate votes, those in favour of retaining
what I will call the separate phrases"
the President of the United States of
America, the Chairman o the Council of
Ministers of the Soviet Union-numbered
41 with 37 against and 17 abstentions.
The President ruled that there should be
a two-thirds majority. There was not a
two-thirds majority, and the President's
ruling was upheld. All this was going on in
the one day when oddities of all kinds-
Heaven help me!-were being published in
my own country. Those who voted against
the retention of these personal phrases, in
other words those who voted against the
idea that we should be telling President
Eisenhower and Chairman Khrushchev to
get together, included all of the South-East
Asian countries. That, I think, is something
worth noting.
After all this argy-bargy-I think that is
the expression-Mr. Nehru, the very distinguished
leader of India, stood up and
said that, having regard to the voting, the
Sfive-power resolution would be withdrawn.
So at one o'clock in the morning of the
same sitting day the five-power resolution
had gone. You may ask what had happened
to my amendment submitted on behalf of
Australia. Many people have been eager
beavers to say that my amendment was just
ridiculous and that I had made a fool of
C my country. When I make a fool of this
Scountry I hope that you will expel me.
The fact was that by one o'clock in the
morning the resolution to which my amendment
had been an unsuccessful alternative
had been withdrawn-withdrawn because
. other amendments had been moved or other
procedures had been adopted which persuaded
its sponsors to withdraw it.
I want to stress to honorable members
that this is not a party political matter.
All of us are Australians and we want to
feel that our country counts. The fact is
that by the end of that day two remarkable
things had occurred. First, the proposal
sponsored primarily by Yugoslavia, the
United Arab Republic, Indonesia and others had gone. It had been withdrawn. In the
meantime, in the course of the voting, four
atomic powers-the only four atomic
powers-had been called to the ballot. You
may think that I am rather foolish, but at
any rate I called them to the ballot. Four
6f them, Great Britain, France and the
United States, had voted unhesitatingly for
a convening of the Summit conference as
contained in my amendment, and the Soviet
Union had not voted but had
abstained from voting.
Four days later, under circumstances
which vex the honorable member for East
Sydney ( Mr. Ward), I had a talk with the
head of the Soviet Union, Mr. Khrushchev,
in which he made it abundantly clear that
he wanted a Summit conference. That was
why he had not voted against my amendment.
He wanted a Summit conference
and by one o'clock-after midnight that
day-I went back feeling in my simple
vanity that at any rate we had now got to
a state of affairs in which there would be,
after the American presidential election, a
Summit conference. It is very difficult, even
for such an old hand as myself, to understand
why this achievement-because it was
something of an achievement-should be
regarded as in some way discreditable to
our country, to which most of us were born.
To sum up, Sir, my amendment was lost,
but the resolution was withdrawn. Three
atomic powers had voted for a Summit
meeting and the Soviet Union had abstained.
Not one of the four atomic powers was
opposed to a Summit meeting.
I pass on from that. I made a speech
that afternoon. In my simplicity I thought
that that was the major speech, and my
distinguished colleague, the Treasurer, who
was present probably-God bless himthought
likewise, because the speech in the
morning was on this technical problem. As
I have said, I made a speech in the afternoon.
It lasted for about 40 minutes. It is
very interesting for an Australian to go
abroad and make a speech on the great
United Nations platform. This was the
only occasion in my life when the American
press swept a speech of mine into its
columns. But that did not happen here in
Australia. A pity! It is a pity that we
should have this inferiority complex because
after all, Mr. Speaker, in my speech in the
afternoon I had made up my mind that if
Mr., Khrushchev were to come and bully
people-taunt people, and beat things on. the
table, including his shoes-it was really high
time that somebody speaking for 10,000,000
people-that is all-should make it quite
clear to him that we are not frightened'.
Therefore I let myself go, as you might say.
But of course, what happened in the United
Nations Assembly, apart from all the beating
on the table and the wearinge out of boot
leather which was all very funny from our
point of view? I think that Mr. Khrushchev
wanted to persuade or terrify new nations
into coming into his camp. We know
n6thing about that. We are not easily
per suaded, and we certainly are not easily
terrified into somebody else's camp. But
that seemned to be his idea. He had his
heelers with him. There were with him
about half a dozen representatives from his
satellite nations who would not dare to
applaud without first looking round to see
whether he gave the high sign. Wonderful!
I wish. that I could organize that sort of
thing some day! Mr. Khrushchev talked
about co lonial ism. He tried to read into the
minds of some of the delegates a bitterness
about their old status. He was talking for
the most part to people who represented
countries in Africa which, by wise providence
on the part of the United Kingdom,
had ceased to be colonies and had become
independent nations. I thought that was a
monstrosity. Anyhow he did it. Therefore,
I thought on your behalf-if you do not
agree with what I did you will say so--that
I ought to use a few words mildly about this
situation. Let me quote one or two, of the
words that I used, because apparently there
has been some difficulty in reporting them in
Australia. I said-
I beg of all these distinguished representatives-
I was referring to the representatives of
the new countries, primarily -in Africato
put bitterness out of their minds. So far as
they are concerned, the past has gone. The dead
past should bury its dead. It is the present and
future that matter. Most of them know that political
independence can be won more swiftly than
economic independence.
I pause here to repeat the last sentence
because some rather silly fellow has said
that I was not on the same wave-length as the new countries. I leave it to the 1. A~ e
to decide. I said-
Most of them know that political independence
can be won more swiftly than economic independence.
And yet both are essential to true
nationhood. Under these circumstances, nations
which are older in self-government should not be
looking at new nations as people whose support
should be canvassed, but as people who need
objective assistance with no strings if the material
prosperity of their people is to be improved.
It is one of the significant things in contemporary
history that the advanced industrial nations
are, because of their scientific and technological
adv antages, improving their standards at a
phenomenal rate; while less advanced countries,
lacking the same techniques on the same scale,
are advancing at a slower rate.
This is not one of the facts of life which one
may observe and, having observed, forget. Itsignificance
is that the gap between the advanced
and the relatively unadvanced tends, unless we do
something about it, to grow wider every year.
It is not a state of affairs which civilized and
humane thinking can indefinitely tolerate.
I said this on Australia's behalf, and I am
sure that no honorable member will disagree
with it.
if in this Assembly and in the nations here
represented we will constantly remember that our
trust is for humanity and that, indeed, the United
Nations itself has no other reason for existence,
we will more and more concentrate our efforts
on providing economic and techn-ical help for
new nations to tho very limit of our capacity; not
because we want, to put it crudely, to buy them
into our own ideas of things, not only because
we really and passionately believe in independence
and freedom, but also because we believe that
our fellow human beings everywhere are entitled
to decent conditions of life, and have enough
sense to know that independence and freedom are
mcre words unless the ordinary people of free
countries have a chance of a better life to-morrow.
This point of view seemed to me to underlie
the temperate and persuasive speech of Mr.
Macmillan and other speeches made by democratic
leaders.
But there are others who have so far misunderstood
the spirit of the United Nations as to
resort to open or veiled threats, blatant and in
some instances lying propaganda, a clearly expressed
desire to divide and conquer. They
should [ earn that threatened men live long
and that free nations, however small, are not
susceptible to bullying.
I am still quoting myself, which is an ill
business. I continued-
I will permit myself the luxury of developing
this theme, though quite briefly, in the particular
and in the general.
I hope honorable members will not think
me boring but this was a phase of my
speech which, I believe, had an immense
impact on the Assembly. I said-
In his opening speech, Mr. Khrushchev made
his usual great play about " colonialism As Mr.
Macmillan reminded us, the answer to much of
his story is to be found in the presence in this
Assembly of many new nations, once colonies and
now independent.
Mr. Khrushchev said among other things;
" Nations who oppress other nations cannot
themselves be free. Every free nation should help
the peoples still oppressed to win freedom and
independence." This was, in one sense, a most
encouraging observation. It made me wonder
whether we were perhaps about to see a beginning
of an era in which the nations of Europe,
which were once independent and are now under
Soviet Communist control, are going to receive
the blessings of freedom and independence. What
a glorious vista of freedom would be opened up
by such a policy! How much it would do to
relieve the causes of tension, and promote
peacel I venture to say that it is an act of complete
hypocrisy for a Communist leader to denounce
colonialism as if it were an evil characteristic of
the Western Powers, when the facts are that the
greatest colonial power now existing is the Soviet
Union itself.
This brings me now to the point. I said-
Further, in the course of this Assembly, Mr.
Khrushchev was good enough to make some
references to my own country and its position in
relation to the territories of Papua and New
Guinea. He calls upon Australia to give imme.
diate full independence and self-government to
New Guinea and Papua. As a piece of rhetoric
this no doubt has its points. But it exhibits a
disturbing want of knowledge of these territories
and of the present stage of their development.
Nobody who knows anything about these territories
and their indigenous people could doubt
for a moment that for us in Australia to abandon
our responsibilities would be an almost criminal
act. I am quoting this part of my speech
because, subject to correction, I feel that
these words impressed themselves upon our
friend. I said-
Here is a country which not so long ago was
to a real extent in a state of savagery. It passed
through the most gruesome experiences during the
last war. It came out of it without organized
administration and, in a sense, without hope.
It is not a nation in the accepted term. Its
people have no real structure of association except
through our administration.. Its groups are
isolated among mountains, forests, rivers and
swamps. It is estimated that there are more than
200 different languages.
Probably my distinguished colleague, the
Minister for Territories CMr. Hasluck)
would tell me that I underestimated the
number. I continued-
The work to be done to create and foster a
sense and organism of community is therefore
enormous. But, with a high sense of responsibility, Australia
has attacked its human task in this almost
unique area.
Since the war some form of civilized order has
been established over many thousands of ' square
miles which were previously unexplored.
We have built up an extensive administration
service Really, I do not need to trouble
honorable members about this. I told
them the simple, dramatic and moving
story of what has been done in Papua and
New Guinea, and I ended by saying-
I could go on like this almost indefinitely.
The achievement has not been without cost.
We have put many more millions into Papua and
New Guinea than have ever come out.
We have established many local government
councils, democratically elected on an" adult
franchise, and we have set up a Legislative
Council on which there is a growing number of
indigenous members.
Mr. Khrushchev includes us in his diatribe
against " foreign administrators who despise and
loot the local population". I have shown how
exactly opposite to the truth this is in our case.
His further extravaganza about " the overseer's
lash and the executioner's axe must relate to
areas with which he is more familiar than he is
with New Guinea and Papua.
We do not need to be lectured on such matters
by a man who has no record whatever of having
brought colonial people into freedom and selfgovernment.
We indeed are proud to be in. the
British tradition of the 20th century-a tradition
which has by sensible degrees and enlightened
administration brought the blessings of self government
and a seat in the councils of the world to
many former colonies.
I also spoke about neutralism, and I . inflict
this on honorable members-
Neutralism is, of course, one of those rather
rotund words which does not readily, admit of
definition. If, when we say that a nation is neutral,
we mean that it will not under any circumstances
take arms in any conflizt which does not concern
the protection of its own immediate boundaries,
it seems to be a notion hard to reconcile with the
Charter of the United Nations which contemplates
under certain circumstances the use of combined
force in terms of the Charter itself.
Mr. Nehru, the distinguished leader of India,
has not, I think, used the word ". neutral" in this
sense. He and his government maintain large
defences in their own country, and are active supporters
of the Charter. What he has consistently
made clear is that he stands for non-alignment, in
the sense that he will not engage in. any special
military or quasi-military alliance.
My own country does not subscribe to this view,
since we are party, for example, to the South-East
Asian Treaty with the military associations which
are either expressed or implied in it. But we do
not quarrel with each other about these matters. I
would think it impossible to believe that some of
the greatest leaders of so-called " neutral" countries
would regard themselves as being neutral in the
great conflict of ideas.
Sir, having said all that at, I am afraid, too
great length, I now. turn, quite briefly I hope,
to some general observations about this
rather historic General Assembly meeting.
First of all, a determined attack was made
by the Communist powers upon new nations
to. encourage what I have already described
as retrospective bitterness I do not
think that on this matter the table-thumping
succeeded. In the second place, attempts were made
to defeat or to undermine the Secretary-
General. In particular, a very remarkable
proposal was put forward that there should
be three secretaries-general instead of one;
and for some very odd reason, one ought to
be from what we would call the Communist
group but what Mr. Khrushchev-I
apologize to my friends opposite-calls the
socialist group, a second from the neutralist
group and a third from the capitalist group
of which, no doubt, I was one of the representatives.
There ought to be three
secretaries-general, and everybody would
have a veto on everybody else, and therefore,
of course, nothing would happen, and therefore
the United Nations would come to an
end. He did not get very much success
with that remarkable proposal.
But there are some aspects of his general
campaign about which I think I should
report to this Parliament. First of all, I
believe that what he has been saying and
what he has been doing are designed to
divide the United Nations into the disunited
nations. After all. if there is one thing
about the United Nations that matters, it is
that it possesses a sort of universality. As
I said in my own speech, he wants to produce
a result like ancient Gaul-according
to our late respected friend, Julius Caesar,
all Gaul was divided into three parts. This
man wants to divide the United Nations
into three parts and therefore into the disunited
nations.
One of the groups that he wants to produce
in this disunited body is what he keeps
on describing as the neutralist group. What
is a neutralist group? Sir, one of the things
that I beg all honorable members on both
sides of the House to avoid is this fallacy of
easy classification. So-and-so is an African,
therefore he must think like all other
Africans! If one African is neutralist, therefore he must be neutralist! This is an iuult
to people. Does anybody suppose that
because people were born west of the Soviet
boundary in Europe, whether they are
Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen or
Italians, they are the same kind of men with
the same kind of ideas? This, of course, is
utter nonsense. You may go over the whole
zone of Africa and tell me that so-and-so,
so-and-so, and so-and-so must think the
same way because they are all Africans and
they are all African leaders. Sir, I tell you
that the greatest speech made at this General J
Assembly was made by the Prime Minister
of Nigeria. He is a most remarkable man,
and his speech made an unforgettable impact
on the minds of all of us. It would insul'
this great man-the head of the Government
of the greatest single nation in the
whole African continent, a nation of
40,000,000 people-to be told that his
country must be classified, along with other
countries, in a group or a bloc. No one
could have been more explicit than he was
about the need for every nation to live its
own life, to face its own future, to accept
its own responsibilities. The people who
want to denigrate the whole of modern independence,
and to treat new nations as if
they were merely groups to be bought like
bunches of bananas, make a very great
blunder. That was perhaps the greatest
blunder that Khrushchev made.
Let us consider the ways in which Mr.
Khrushchev failed. He failed to undermine
the Secretary-General. He failed to destroy
the work that has been done with regard to
the Congo. He failed on occasion after
occasion, and I will not take up the time of
the House in recounting them all, because
I have already taken up too much of its
time. He had some success, no doubt. He
may have frightened somebody and he may
have weakened a little the position of the
Secretary-General; I do not know. You and
I in this House are fortunate to have grown
up in such an atmosphere that we can laugh
at nonsense and not be frightened by it, so
how am I to know to what extent Mr.
Khrushchev succeeded in frightening
people? He tried to disunite the United
Nations. He tried to introduce some strange
dogma about neutralist groups.
He had some point, I suppose. He said
that when the United Nations was established
it had 50 member nations, that now it
haL nearly 100, and that therefore there
ought to be some reconstruction of the
structure of the organization. I do not
object to that suggestion, so long as it is
understood that one of the dangers that'
have grown up in the modern world is that
the General Assembly, which has relatively
little power, has become tremendously important
because the heads of governments
attend it, wvhereas the chief executive body
-1 am not using the word executive " in
( a technical sense-the Security Council, has
been put rather on one side. The Security
Council, Sir, must continue to include in its
membership people who represent the great
powers, which themselves are the backbone
6of the United Nations and which themselves
{ carry the major responsibility for peace.
KBut, subject to that proviso, I do not object
to the suggestion that a reconstructign of
the United Nations should be considered.
I want to say only one or two things
more. I had the very valuable opportunity
of seeing, on your behalf, a number of
world leaders. I would not wish any member
of this Parliament, on either side, to
believe that I was being exclusive,' talking
to this side and not to that side. In the
course of rather less than three weeks I
had the closest discussions with President
Eisenhower, with the American Secretary
of State, Mr. Herter, with Mr. Macmillan
and Lord Home and with Mr. Nehru. I
had a long interview with Mr. Khrushchev.
I sought the interview, and I tell you quite
frankly that the main reason why I sought
it was that I thought that if I came back
Shere and my friends, or friendly opponents
who sit opposite, asked me whether I saw
k~ Khrushchev and I replied that I had not,
they might think it rather odd. So I sought
an interview with Mr. Khrushchev.
I had already expressed myself, as honorable
members will have gathered from what I have already said, with a certain degree
of clarity. Nevertheless, I had 70 minutes
with Mr. Khrushchev. I want to say to the
House that I came away from the interview
quite satisfied that he would like a Summit
conference. Being more interested, as I am,
in substance than in form, and as what I
was trying for from the day I arrived at
the United Nations was the substance of
a Summit conference, I am very pleased to
say that three of the atomic powers voted
for a Summit conference on my amendment,
and that the fourth, through Mr.
Khruschev, has indicated to -me in the
clearest possible terms that a Summit conference
is considered a good idea.
I saw, of course, the Prime Minister of
Ethiopia, who is an old friend of mine. I
had a talk with President Tito. I spoke to
Mr. Luns, the Foreign Minister of the
Netherlands. Dr. Subandrio, of Indonesia,
was a guest of mine, and I had a long talk
with him. Indeed, one would be surprised
at the number of people who concern us in
this world with whom, in the course of
a fortnight or three weeks, one can have
useful talks.
I ' have occupied the time of the House
long enough. Having said that I believe that
Mr. Khrushchev wants Summit talks, and
that I think something might come of them,
I would like to conclude by saying that 1
have by no means been disposed to defend
myself on the matters about which I have
spoken. I believe in my heart and my
mind that I pursued the right course at New
York, and that I spoke and acted in the
best interests of my country.
I lay on the table the following paper:-
United Nations-General Assembly-Ministerial
Statement.
and move-
That the paper be printed:
BY AUTHORITY: A. J. ARTHUR, COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT PRINTER, CANRERRA.