S COMMONWEALTH BANKING CORPORATION GOLDEN JUBILEE
DINNER HELD IN SYDNEY ON 16TH JIULY 1
Speech by the Prime Minister, the Rt, Hon. R. G. Menzies
Mr, Chairman, Your Grace, My Lord Bishop, Parliamrentary
colleagues and Gentlemen
You will be delighted to know that I am making a
very short speech tonight because, for some reason or other
I haven't been too good today. I mean physically ( Laughter)
and I therefore found mysalf bringing myself here with a little
bit of reluctance this evening. Butt anyhow, Warren McDonald
haa agreed that I need not make one of those forty-minute
talks which are supposed to come so easily from political lips.
As a matter of fact, I have had a very interesting
weekend. I saw a Rugby League match on Saturday; ( Laughter)
I read the rules the night before, ( Laughter) not being
familiar with this strange game, and when I arrived at the
Sydney Cricket Grcund, I said to my hosts, " Well, I read the
rules last night. There are some points in them I don't fully
understand" and they at once offered to make me a referee,
( Laughter) ( Applause) Anyhow, we wcn ( Laughter) That gave
me e great deal of pleasure,
Yesterday morning, just in case I had become a
little elevated by the inspiring events of Saturday afternoon,
I had to go and read the Lesson in the Presbyterian Kirk, and
the Lesson included the Ten Comnandments, No document could
be more disturbing to a practising politician ( Laughter) than
the Ten Commandments; unless, Your Grace, it is the Sermon
on the Mount, That, really, some of my colleagues find
impossible. Anyhow, all I wanted to say to you tonight was that
I can remember in my youth the uproar that attended the
establishment of the Commonwealth Bank. I think it is quite
safe to say that of those who established it few if any, could
foresee its future, Few, if any, could have understood either
the fact or the reasons why it would become some day, in one
of its manifestations, the Federal Reserve Bank of Australiao
Central banking was not very much talked about or very much
understood fifty years ago, It is now talked about a great
deal. ( Laughter) But, Sir, right through the history, this fifty
years of very distinguished history, there has been from time
to time controversy. First of ally the Bank itself established
under a Governor whose picture you will see here on this golden
programme Look at him] He lonks exactly like a staunch
supporter of the Liberal Party ( Laughter) And yet he was
appointed by a Labor Prime Minister, It shows how broadminded,
Arthur, they were in those days. ( Laughter) ( Applause)
This is something you must remember after the next election
( Laughter) And then it went on for a long time. It went on
through the First World War,, It developed, perforce, a
tremendous extent of activity and a variety of activity. It
is a very curious thing that amid all the horrors they produce,
these two Great Wars have produced other things and, in the
case of Australia, brought us measurably nearer to central
banking, Just as in the field of science, the developments
under t. he pressures of war, both times, have been almost fabulous.
8 a ** 000o
0 2.
Then in 1921a Board of Directors, That produced a
great argument, and a great uproar. And then later on, that
disappeared and then later on, my own Government re-established
it; and on each occasion arguments broke out which were full
of heat and occasionally had gleams of lignt. But, at any
rate, they were full of heat. There were misunderstandings,
there were threats, there were fears. Never, I suppose, has
a great institution passed through such a chequered career in
so relatively short a time. And I believe that today there is,
in the banking world, a higher level of mutual understanding
than we have known for a long, long time. I believe that there
is, right through the banking world of Australia, a warm appreciation
of the significance of the Central Bank, the Reserve Bank
and, equally, a recognition of the skill with which the Commonwealth
Trading Bank, the Development Bank, the Savings Bank are
carried on.
All this, I believe, has brought about an era of good
relations and good relations in the banking world are immensely
important Good relations between banker and customer, yes;
but good relations between bank and bank, And this of course,
could not have happened in the middle of all the political
disputes and the fiery eloquence at Canberra, unless these
Banks had had men of singular talent engaged in directing and
serving them,
I would like to take the opportunity, because at one
stage he was regarded as a controversial figure, of paying a
wholehearted tribute to Dr. Coombs as the Governor of the
Bank, ( Applause) Throughout the whole of my long association
with him now, I have cone to regard him as a man of immense
ability and of the most impeccable integrity. ( Hear, hear)
( Applause) While, of course, on the trading side, subject to
a little interruption occasionally by Warren McDonald, the
show seems to me to be very well run, ( Laughter) He has
referred to Mr. Armstrong who is by common consent, a very
great trading bankero ( Applause, And in the result, I believe
that we have now a pattern of banking, arrived at after almost
the whole of the fifty years have gone, which is calculated to
serve the interests of the people of Australia.
Indeed Sir, tho one general observation that I wanted
to make is this: We, in Australia, have developed when you
come to think of it, a habit of mind on certain matters which
Y believe has proved extraordinarily usefulø We have not
been doctrinaire and said, " That's something that the Government
ought to run and that nobody else ought to run." Nor have we
carried our views on the other extreme to a doctrinaire limit.
The result is, in broadcasting we have a dual system. The
Government stations and private enterprise. In television,
we have the dual system, except at Canberra ( Laughter) where
the Government station has not yet arrived, but is understood
to be on the way. But its very interesting isn't it,
Radio the dual system; television the dual system;
banking the dual system. And when we look back on it and
know these things have been argued about and hammered out
over many, many yeors I thldn most of us, irrespective of
political views, would be disposed to say that this kind of
compromise has been a happy one, because it has given full
scope for the authority of government and adequate scope to
the ingenuity and enterprise of the private citizen. ( Applause)
And none of these things were in the minds of the founders of
the Commonwealth Bank, I think; I don't think that many of
them, although he was a man of ability, could have been in the
mind of the first Governoro 00o 0
3.
I was sent by kind permission of Mr. Richardson an
excerpt from a newspaper called the " Sydney Morning Herald".
( Laughter) Not a recent number. That would have been an
unkind thing to do; but quite an old one, fifty years ago
in fact, and it contained an account of how Denison Miller
was appointed. There it was, Very interesting pjce of
history in the bank; and on the left-hand column, there was
a vivid description of a game of poloo Polo, That's a
very aristocratic game, they tell me, Ard on the other
column, a vivid description of some of the great cricketers
at work George Bonner and Charlie Macartney and the like.
And I thought, " Well, now that must be a good newspaper
polo, an account of the foundations of the Commonwealth Bank,
and a lovely account of a cricket match, and I will remember
it in my prayers, in future," ( Laughter)
But, Sir, the real reason i referred to it I must
not perpetuate these old reticences of mine, but the reason
I referred to it was that here was the beginning of great
events. After all, nobody could deny the massive size and
quality and extent of the Banks we are celebrating tonight.
Nobody. And yet here is the very beginning. A little
letter from Andrew Fisher " Dear Mr. Miller. I would like
to know whether you would be interested to accept a post in
the service of' the Commonwealth of Australia, etc, etc."
All done with true Andrew Fisher caution. Nothing committed,
a little Scots reserve, very proper ( Laughter), and the answer
is there. It is of a similar character, and in the upshot,
there is an Order in Council, and that; man becomes the Governor
of a Bank non-existent up to that time, not a person on the
staff, not a skerrick of furniture, not a building to work in.
That is how the Bank began and in fifty years, we have seen
its development, its ramifications, its authority and we
have, if I may particularly refer to its Reserve Bank functions,
seen it as one of the great and respected Central Banks of
the world, ( Applause)
Sir, you may have noticed that it is not uncommon
for the Leader of the Opposition at Canberra, ( I don't know
what happens in Sydney) to disagree with the Prime Minister.
I seem to remember doing it myself, when I was Leader of
the Opposition ( Laughter) but tonight though he may express
different reasons, I am happy to say that I am going to be
supported in the presentation of this Toast by Arthur Calwell
who is my devoted political enemy ( Laughter) but, I don't
mind admitting, my personal friend. Now, Arthur.