The Legacy of Menzies

Observers of Indian politics used to ask After Nehru, what? Mr. Nehru had seemed, for seventeen years, completely to dominate Indian policy. If that was true of India in the Nehru era, it was equally true of Australia in the Menzies era. For sixteen years, from 1949 to 1965, Sir Robert Menzies was Prime Minister, not only in the sense of first among equals, but Prime Minister in a particularly dominant, almost autocratic sense. Compared with him, his Ministers seemed to be minor figures, and the leaders of the official Opposition, the Australian Labor Party, though colourful personalities (Dr. Evatt, the leader from 1951 to 1960 particularly deserved that description) , nevertheless were condemned, or condemned themselves, to virtual insignificance in competition with him. Just as India's policies have persisted under the Congress leadership since Mr. Nehru's death, so too one can expect that in Australia Sir Robert Menzies' retirement will reveal that policies and attitudes which have been attributed to him personally are in fact those of the majority of influential Australians, and are likely to outlast the man. Sir Robert has expressed his admiration for Alfred Deakin, the first Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia. He speaks of Deakin as the great constructor, the man under whose aegis the major settled policies of the Australian community protective tariff, immigration control, wage arbitration, national defence, judicial control of the constitutionwere enacted into law. If Deakin was the great constructor, Menzies was the great adaptor. The settled policies have been slowly altered, but without much visible, outward sign of the change. Sir Robert's public manner has been characterized by a certain lordly hauteur. He would toss off a withering quip at the expense of anyone who disagreed with him. (At a Brisbane meeting during his last election campaign, in 1964, he dealt with a lady interjector thus: I gather that you are neither young

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