SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE RT. HON. R. G. MENZIES
AT THE WHEAT 1HESE. RCH INSTITUTE, NARRABRI,
FRIDAY 29TH SEPTMBER, j.
Sir, and ladies and gentlemen:
I have been listening to the Chairman's speech with great interest
and it has left me with a very, very clear impression that he is rather
favourably disposed to the wheat industry. ( Laughter) 1 hope he will correct
me if I have the wrong idea.
But one error he certainly fell into: he seemed to tnink that this
was one of the rare occasions on which I could hear about the wheat industry.
I have been sitting in Parliament, man and boy, one Parliament or another, for
31 years, or 32 years, and I have never heard about anything else except the
wheat industry' And I don't suppose I will fail to hear about it in future.
As a imatter of fact I have been looking forward to this very much
because though I belong to that group of people sometimes referred to as " city
slickF. rs", being a lawyer by trade, I was born in the Mallez, in the middle of
the wheat country and wheat wo: the commodity I heard most about for the first
12 or 14 years of my life. I am old enough to remember the great drought of
1902 when in our district 2 inches of rain fell in the year, and that at the
wrong time. By the time summer was well on there was no grass, dead or alive,
and the north winds blew, and the sand came up out of the sandy loam and
deposited itself over any object that it 2ncountered, These were tremendous
experiences for people.
But I can also remember, as a small boy, an occasion when up from
Melbourne came an agricultural expert from the Department of Agriculture and
he was a very good man, indeed. On all counts a man of considerable
authority. But in those days of course I am sure it isn't so now wheat
farmers looked rather suspiciously at scientific gentlemen from the city. And
he went out and had a field day and I remember, as a small boy of abcut 9,
hanging around at the fringe of a group of about 20 or 30 or 40 farmers and he
was explaining to them the great importance in that partiualar soil of the use
of superphospLates. This was the first time that any of us, or any of those
listening had ever heard of them even as short a time ago as that. This,
Sir, was regarded wi-h immense reserve. 1" Wlhat's this new-fangled business"
" How much does it cost?" " How much do you need to use?" And he was explaining
to them that in their particular circumstances 1 cwt. night be a good idea.
Three or four farmers, who were the most advanced, daided to give it a go, but
in some moderation. So they put on half a hundredweight. But as a result of
putting on half a hundredweight they so improved their yield that other people
began to look on and be interested and to follow the example, But as you, Sir,
know, it literally takes years in the ordinary course of events for ideas of
that kind to be commonly accepted; and profitably acted upon.
It is, after all, not so very long ago, is it, that we began to have
our first great investigators in the breeding of strains of wheat? forget
sometimes about these great men. Many people today have forgotten about
Farrar. And yet Farrar began his experiments about 6 years before I was born,
And when I was, at the time I am talking about, 9 or 10, or 11 years old, I
can remember the enormous results that accrued when Federation wheat came into
general use Federation and Darts Imperial and these strains that had been
bred as rust resistant strains. Not entirely successful in the long run, but
with a tremendous, immediate impact on what occurred. And ever since then you
have had dedicated men going on with their work in the investigation of wheat.
You have had, particularly in recent times, the tremendous novel attention, I
rather think it is, given to the chemistry of the soil things which once
were regarded as acting according to some immutable law of nature. You can't
interfere with that: you fallow and you sow and you have a stubble and there
it is. But time goes on and research is finally winnirng its battle in the
minds of the industry and of the men w. o run the industry itself. This to me
is a tremendously important thing because by research you bring about changes
for the better; by research you accelerate progress, you improve production,
you improve quality, you nake yourself more competent to meet the demands of
the world.
And you need to, because the world is changing around us every
minute. I don't merel. y refer to the fact that there are threats of war, or
the circumstances even of the last few weeks which give the whole world cause
for arj. ety. But you take a problem that at this very moment our officials
are discussing overseas, the problem of the Common Market, I am not going
into any detail about this matter because a good deal has already been said
about it. But the wheat industry, it is quite clear, can be affected by
Great Britain going into the Common Aarket. It may aliaust be a certainty that
the old pattern of trade in wheat won't remain unaltered. I don't know.
Wve are all going to do our best to preserve it, and to improve it. But nobody
can say what is going to be the outcome of discussions in which Great Britain
ir negotiating with six countries of Europe and at the same time negotiating
with every country in the Commonwealth.
So that you have all these cross discussions and cross negotiations.
,1l these talks will go on a long time, a very long time. But from our point
of view what we have to get into our minds is this: that this is one more
proof that it is a changing world, that it isn't the old lines that ccn be
followed quite so simply, that it is undoubtedly true that if the wheat
industry is to go on being one of the most valuable significant industries in
iustralia we must find new mall. ets for wheat, we must find new methods of
cheapening the production of wheat, new methods of getting the greatest
possible value from the land, maybe new methods of marketing, I don't know.
But above all things we must find new millions of people in the world who
will want to buy from us. That is true of wheat. It is true of every other
agricultural product in Australia, but it is particularly true of wheat becauL
wheat, in the agricultural field, is one of our great major undertakings.
Therefore, Sir, I want to make clear that all the discussions that
will occur about the Common Market are not just arguments between politicians,
between people who are making a business deal about some commodity or other.
They are that; but they are far more than that. These are discussions which
remind us that for Australia, growing at the rate at which Australia is growing,
we must never rest until we have increased our markets all round the world. We
can, because most of the people in the world today live at a standard of living
immeasurably lower than any we know. But as time goes on, as help is extended,
as great international schemes bear fruit, the standard of living among the
millions in Asia and Africa will rise; and so will their demand for the kind
of thing that we produce so well in Australia. Therefore markets, markets,
markets we must look for them. But we mustn't fall into the error of
thinking that all you have to do is to find the market and all other things
will be added to you. The fact is that, though it is vital to find the markes
it is equally vital to fill it when you find it, to produce the goods for that
market. I have had some experience myself of people who took a few orders on
some trade mission this is fine but when orders came in by way of followup
the supplies were short. We must be able to supply every market that we
can find. That brings us back, once more, to the problem of research because
research is, in its nature, a slow business. Science doesn't proceed by a
series of brilliant improvisations. Above all agricultural science, the kind
of thing that is going to be done here, requires patient work and testing and
examination year by year. Research is a slow, painstaking thing, aiming at
a peat percentage of accuracy and a testinr. of results under every
conceivable circurstance. Therefore there is no time to be lost about
starting research, no time to be lost about encouraging it.
Let me remind you of this: when we were younger, a great deal
younger, there was a disposition to think that scicntists had alr. ost reached
their limit. They knew some of the broad principles of science, but so far
as the land was concerned, well, everybody knew what type of soil it was,
everybody knew, in the appropriate areas of Australia, that he ought to have
a three-year rotation and that in the black-soil country he wouldn't need one
at all I only discovered that during the Gwyder by-election. But you know,
all sorts of people knew all sorts of things and that was the end of knowledge.
But what has happened in Australia? What miracles have occurred? Whoever
thought, only a few years ago, of the trace elements work that has gone on in
Australia, of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of acres re-claimed from
uselessness into high productivity, either pastoral or agricultural? Nobody
ever thought of it only a f'c years ago. AWhoever thought, as I said, a few
years before I was born ii-yself, of the breeding of strains of whnt in order to
produce certain results which would avoid damage in the field? Somebcdy
thought of them. Somebody got on with them. I venture to say that the man
who goes onto a farm today, if he is prepared to take advantage of the
knowledge that is available to him, will go on twice as well equipped from the
beginning, as his father was. Then, if he can add to that, as much work as his
father did, as much enthusiasm as his father had, well there is no limit to
what may result from it.
Sir, I don't need, I hope, to say any more to satisfy you that it is
no mere formality for me to come here. I think this is a great enterprise. I
am perfectly certain that without this foundation, and other places in which
woik of this kind is being done in Australia, we will net be able to take our
place in the world of international commerce in wheat that we must be prtpared
to take as the world changes around us. So that in the name of our orn
country, in the name of new and expanding markets, in the name of that necessay
efficiency which will reduce costs mounting otherwise to thc point of
destruction, in the name of all those things I call this Foundatio:ñ blet9ed. I
think this is a splendid business.
I wasn't entirely su. prised to hear my friend the Chairman throw out a
broad hint of a financial kind I'm accustomed to that. I always say, " Yes,
my dear fellow, you must drop me a line about it". Oetween ourselves they never
forgot. But we will put that on one side. -e happen to be a modest
contributor to this thing. But that this thing is good, that this thing is,
in its nature, essential I don't for a moment doubt. It is a very great honour
to me, a very great privilege, to be here, to say something to you, however
briefly, and to declare it open. ( Applause)