Letters to my Daughter

By Sir Robert Menzies and Heather Henderson

As Australia's longest-serving Prime Minister and the founder of the Liberal Party, Sir Robert Menzies is a towering figure in our political and cultural history. Letters to My Daughter is a collection of letters written by Menzies to his only daughter, Heather, throughout the fifties, sixties and seventies, when she was living overseas with her diplomat husband. They are full of warmth, love, humour and insights both political and personal and they allow us to see a completely different side of a man most Australians think of as a rather stern and forbidding authoritarian figure. The letters are so beautifully written they make you realise what a lost art letter writing is, and they are introduced by Heather herself, who explains the insider references and humorous asides. The collection also includes fascinating correspondence between Menzies and leaders of the day, including President John F. Kennedy and Gough Whitlam. Even the most rusted-on Labor voter will come away with a different view of Menzies and his legacy after reading this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pier 9
• Release date: Aug 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781742664729

Book preview

PART ONE

Djakarta

PETER AND I WERE MARRIED IN MAY 1955, AND WE WENT TO LIVE IN DJAKARTA immediately afterwards. Peter was a Third Secretary in the Department of External Affairs – a public servant – so I had to concentrate on becoming apolitical. Although I kid myself that I made some progress in this venture, privately I relished my father’s letters with political news from home. There were plenty of personal comments too.

While the business of living loomed large in our lives, as it did for all the foreign community in Djakarta, and while it provided wonderful material for colourful letters home, it was really no more than the background to our daily activities. Peter had his job to do at the embassy. Like most Third Secretaries at South-East Asian posts, this consisted mainly of drafting political and economic reports for the ambassador, as well as Colombo Plan, and consular and administrative work. His most frightening administrative job was to go out in a car for test runs with applicants for a position of driver in the embassy car pool. Peter also had his own car, which he and I drove with some bravado round Djakarta.

For the first few months I was learning how to run a house. This required improving my Girl Guides cook’s badge standard of cooking, and teaching a young Indonesian girl to cook at the same time. Instruction had to be by demonstration rather than by word of mouth because of the language difficulties. My father’s comment in an early letter on ‘the eccentricities of plumbing’ was in response to my letters about the shortcomings of the plumbing and electricity in our house in Djakarta. The electricity was on for six hours and off for six hours. We learnt, quickly, that the fridge was therefore useless. There were no flyscreens and the fly spray we had ordered was stolen on the wharf.

I also had to catch up on my non-family letter writing. When Peter and I became engaged, I had 900 letters to reply to; when we were married there were 600. Many of the letters were from people I didn’t know.

During our time in Djakarta, Peter and I were drawn into an active social life involving Indonesian contacts, members of other embassies, and our own embassy colleagues. Mostly this involved going to other people’s houses, but we also had people to ours. Much of all this was enjoyable but there were times when making up the numbers at a dinner party given by the ambassador was plain hard work. Our best form of relaxation was to spend a weekend at the embassy’s bungalow in the hills, about two hours away by car. The bungalow was carefully rostered between embassy staff but there was no objection to sharing it with embassy friends, which meant we could get there more often. In Djakarta, playing tennis or having a quiet meal with friends was our best way of relaxing. Many of those people have remained friends for life.

This was the first occasion I had been away from home for any length of time, and I think my father’s letters show very clearly how much my parents missed me – and I missed them – and missed the conversations we used to have about what was going on in the world of politics. My father was keen that, even though I was thousands of miles away and no longer directly involved, I should know what he privately thought about things, and what was actually happening – as distinct from what I might read in the press. Indeed, over the years that followed this was a constant, if not pre-eminent, feature of all his letters to me.

In January 1956 I came back to Canberra to have our first child, Edwina (Dwina). Peter stayed on in Djakarta until July, when he too returned. My father’s letters, therefore, cover only the second half of 1955.

26 July 1955

My sweet,

Today is Tuesday and there was nothing in THE BAG from you yesterday. Here we have a great moral – you are the best letter-writer the family has ever known and, therefore, when you miss a mail it is a catastrophe; I am the worst letter-writer the family has ever known, and when I catch a mail it is a miracle.

I am back in Canberra from Brisbane, where I went to explain the facts of political life to 800 businessmen at a dinner, and then my reminiscences of legal life to 400 lawyers. Your mother, who is, I regret to say, mentally afflicted, twenty speeches in a week, is having a succès fou in Queensland and New South Wales and will not return until Saturday. In the result, the Liberal Party gains votes in spite of me, and my own eccentric life continues.

Mrs Osborne¹ rang last night and gave an account of you. She said that at Djakarta, in a terrible climate, you arrived like ‘a breath of the English Spring’. I was, fatherly, pleased and gave some credit to Peter, who must be a much better husband than I have ever been. (Still, come to consider it, so far he has never had a daughter like mine! Have I ever told you how much I miss you?)

In our eminent capacity as Ministers of State, we are about to consider The Budget. The Treasury, which has no remote idea of that mystical animal ‘Public Relations’, announced per Artie² a 1954–55 surplus of £70 million, all of which had been prudently spent either on the States’ Works Programme, or on Defence Trust Funds or on debt redemption. But the great democracy, which your temporarily adopted country, Indonesia, is reputed to be achieving, understands nothing about finance and is told nothing by Treasuries who by instinct and practice regard ‘high finance’ as a species of witchcraft, the secrets of which are not to be exposed to the vulgar. And so, all the newspapers (whose mathematical talents extend only to their own circulation and advertising figures) are busy spending this illusory £70 million a second time on tax reductions, bigger and better pensions and handouts generally.

We will have some difficult and possibly stormy Cabinet sessions; for the truth is that inflation is once more on the way and some faintly heroic measures will be needed. Our people are so prosperous that they want to be more prosperous in terms of money. But as usual they will be told by some vocal people that they are more prosperous if they have no more goods but more money to spend on them.

If Brother Bert³ were not such a warm supporter by sheer inadvertence, we could run into a great deal of trouble. If he became politically astute for even a couple of weeks, we could be under genuine attack. I have been explaining to my colleagues that Bert’s antics give us a great opportunity for doing sound and unpopular things; but my voice has a hollow ring, for there is always some election just around the corner: elections can be won ‘only by votes’, and the search for votes is not always the science of statesmanship.

Well, there you have it. Before very long you will have the result because the Budget will be delivered on or about the 24th of August.

Syd⁴ is back from the United States with the most fascinating collection of reminiscences of how the rich tycoons live in America. I am hoping that he has brought back some practical results which would improve your enormous shareholding in Wilcolator⁵; but so far, on the two occasions on which I have met him, he has been too busy being thoroughly entertaining. I would have given anything for you to have been here to listen to him. Meanwhile, Frank⁶ has gone off with Ruby⁷ to South Rhodesia.

Finally, I want to tell you that your letters are a complete joy. When I realise, as I frequently do in the still watches of the night, how furious I would be having the water come on once a day, or the electric power come not at all, I can only be thankful that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, you have inherited so much practical good sense from your mother.

It is wonderful for us to know that you are so obviously happy. I have not failed to observe that since you have arrived, you have created a military crisis and a change in the political administration. Would you like me to send you as a birthday present a bullet-proof singlet?

I send you my birthday greetings. It is interesting to look back on the pale-faced little girl with pigtails and to know now that the pale-faced little girl has become, to adopt Owen Dixon’s⁸ phrase so brilliantly adopted by Peter at the wedding breakfast, ‘a nationally known figure’.

The dental boys deal with me in Melbourne every ten days. The main object of the exercise being that, when I come to see you in Djakarta or when you finish a tour of duty and come back to Canberra, I will be a presentable, if inadequate, father.

Much love, darling, and greetings to Peter.

Yours ever,

Dad

8 August 1955

My sweet,

There was another letter from you this morning but the intervening one which you referred to on the telephone had not arrived when I left home. However, I gather that it is now there, so I will see it before I send this letter.

You were enquiring about whether the people connected with the wedding had been paid. I thought that rather than impose this on Peter out of his meagre emoluments I would look after it myself. I have, therefore, suitably attended to Mr Harrison,⁹ Mr Fred McKay,¹⁰ the church officer, the choir and the emergency organist. For good measure, I sent a cheque to the Australian Inland Mission. I am so glad you enjoyed Mrs McKay’s description of the wedding – it will give a great deal of pleasure to all their people through the centre of Australia.

It was most exciting talking to you on the telephone. You had short notice and found it difficult to know what to say. We had two days to get ready and found it difficult to know what to say. Overseas telephone calls are always like that. The level of the dialogue is not high but the emotional experience of hearing the voice and judging the spirit is quite priceless. The previous night, when the junior diplomats were at The Lodge to drink your health, was disappointing when it turned out that some breakdown had occurred in the normal efficiency of the Indonesian telephonic services! Your mother was very upset and looked it; and I was very upset and tried not to look it. We gathered, however, when the call came through that you are, in spite of the eccentricities of the plumbing, very happy, and this of course is a great comfort to us.¹¹

I was down in Melbourne last week adding another chapter to my serial story with the dentist. Parker¹² arrived looking very well. Ken¹³ and I indicated to him very bluntly that he ought to cough up and send you a birthday cable. The first draft he produced was so obscured by sheep farmers’ technicalities that I venture to say – (a) that I didn’t understand it; (b) that, quite possibly, you wouldn’t understand it; and (c) that it was a stone certainty that the Indonesian operators would make a mess of it and probably convert it into something unintelligible or improper! Parker graciously accepted these arguments and finally told me he would send you one containing ‘smoke signals from Illira’.¹⁴ I trust you got it. He may have forgotten. He enjoys his visits to Melbourne.

Sir Ralph Richardson, the actor, and his wife, who was Meriel Forbes-Robertson (a member of the famous theatrical family) have just been up to Canberra to spend the weekend with us. We met them at the Windsor¹⁵ and saw them in Terence Rattigan’s Separate Tables, in which also there were Dame Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson. The Richardsons are an extremely agreeable pair with a small son, ten years old, with slightly reddish hair, named Charles. I had gone down to Sydney on Saturday night to have dinner with the High Court Judges and Lord Reid, one of the Lords of Appeal in London, and brought the Richardsons, plus Charles, back in a VIP [aeroplane] on Sunday morning. They have just left Canberra in filthy weather, hoping to be back in time for their evening performance in Sydney. I was terribly sorry you were not here to meet them, because that would have given pleasure all round. However, your mother got the covers taken off the billiard table and gave Charles a wonderful time playing an infinite variety of games on the table. He is a very nice little boy; [he] has the usual quaint mixture of grown-up good manners and childish pleasure that one expects from little English boys of his age. Mrs Nesbitt, the cook, showed me with great joy a piece of paper today just before they left. We had a dinner party last night for them with the Governor-General at the Peaslees.¹⁶ Young Charles had a sort of ‘High Tea’ in his bedroom on a tray while he reposed, like me, in bed. When his tray was collected he had written on a little scrap of paper in capital letters ‘VERRY NICE’. You can imagine how delighted the members of the staff were. This must really be regarded as the high-water mark of courtesy.

Your account of your talks with Madame Sunario¹⁷ were terribly interesting. I do hope that as you get to know more about the local scene you will write to me about it, for it is little indeed that we know about Indonesia or its people or their habits of thought or what their emotional structure is. By the same token, I obtained some father-in-law’s pleasure when I read the last dispatch from Mr Crocker.¹⁸ In it he referred to the electoral position and said that a good paper had been prepared by Mr Peter Henderson, which he annexed to his report. As it is very seldom that any ambassador refers to the personal activities of any member of his staff, I can only conclude that Peter is doing well.

I am so pleased that you have been so kindly treated by Mrs Crocker; pray give her expressions of our warm gratitude. And I am equally pleased that Peter is with Crocker, who is an extremely able ambassador and, I think, one of the ablest reporters of local conditions that we have had. I do not know whether you are supposed to know, but when he was in India he was on leave from the [Australian] National University. He has now agreed to become a permanent member of the Diplomatic Service, which is a very good thing for us.

Don Cleland, the Administrator of Papua and New Guinea, was down recently and had a meal with us. I began to work out with him in a tentative fashion a journey in the better season of next year that might take me to New Guinea and to Djakarta. However, who knows!¹⁹

Brother Bert by one means or another is winning the internal battle in the Labour Party, though I strongly suspect it is only by forcing his minority elements into opposition to the Labour Party. Under these circumstances (subject to what Bill Wentworth²⁰ may do), I might survive long enough to sit with you and see the gentleman opposite cleaning his teeth and study the footwear of your neighbours.²¹

I have now read the ‘missing letter’ letter. When you said on the phone ‘an important letter’, I guessed it in one. I must confess that I am delighted, which is selfish of me; but it will be wonderful to have two of you. We will naturally observe strict secrecy. When the time comes for you to come down to Canberra, I hope I will be honoured to pay your fare, so don’t worry about that.

Much love to you both,

Dad

31 October 1955

My sweet,

I write with shame because I know how long it is since I last wrote to you. But I also write with apologies in advance, because I know how long it will be before I write to you again. As you know, I have committed the unpardonable error of securing a Dissolution of Parliament, and from now until December 10th the usual election miseries will be my lot.

There are many reasons for the election, the more publishable of which were set out in my letter to the Governor-General, [a] copy of which I am enclosing for the confidential information of yourself, your husband and your ambassador. We all thought that, on the whole, it would be flying in the face of Providence not to seize the opportunity (which I hope we will not lose by folly during the next six weeks) to clean up the political position and to write ‘terminus’ to the career of the Right Honourable the Leader of the Opposition, whose mental oddities grow upon him.

I must tell you the latest story, which was put to me by a solemn-faced representative of the Primary Producers at a conference the other day. He said to me, ‘Have you heard the story about Dr Evatt and the conversation he had with a lady in a room at the Hotel Australia, Sydney?’

Hoping for a little scandal, I pricked up my ears and said, ‘No, do tell me.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘it was like this. Dr Evatt was walking up and down the room, talking to himself, occasionally calling out aloud, holding his head in his hands, walking up and down, walking up and down. The lady took him by the arm and stopped him and said, Dr Evatt, you are distraught. You are not well. Are you worrying about that man Menzies? To which Bert replied, resuming his walk and speaking more and more loudly, I am not distraught. I am perfectly well. I AM NOT WORRYING ABOUT MENZIES!!!!!

‘Whereupon the lady stopped him again and said, Well, under those circumstances, Dr Evatt, pray tell me why you are walking up and down like this in the LADIES’ ROOM?’

I am having sent to you his speech as well as mine. You will notice that he has appealed successfully to Molotov.²² The political effects have been quite curious. I am too old at this business to take any election for granted, because I know what talent some of my own people have for chasing ‘red herrings’ and allowing their opponent to take the offensive. But I find it impossible to believe that, after the events of the last fortnight, the people of Australia will proceed to make Bert Prime Minister. His Party agrees about nothing. On the very night that ‘that sneak’ was broadcasting up here to say that the case for an election was dishonest and wrong, Arthur Calwell²³ (Bert’s devoted lieutenant!) was broadcasting in Melbourne to say that only an election could clear the air, and that the sooner it came the better.

I deliver my Policy Speech on November 15th. My programme is going to be much less arduous than in the past, for quite frankly I would not like to have to stand up to another 1949 campaign when I feel as tired as I do. When the election is over – win or lose – I have faithfully promised myself three weeks’ holiday.

The general view on both sides of the House is that the Government should in the House of Representatives win eight or ten seats – or even twelve; in the Senate we are pretty confident about four states, optimistic about New South Wales and hopeful, but by no means confident, about South Australia, where I think we might quite well be beaten. If we lost South Australia, we would on the face of it lose control of the Senate. But the possibility cannot be ignored that the Anti-Communist Labour Party might collect a Senate seat or two, and if so I would not feel extremely worried about our position.²⁴ In any event, I have already shown my teeth by getting a double dissolution in 1951, and under these circumstances, if we had a bumper majority in the Lower House, I think the Labour Senators would be extremely diffident about provoking a conflict.

The ‘capitalistic’ newspapers have, as usual, been whipping up the idea that the back-benchers have not been given Cabinet promotion and there is gross dissatisfaction. Jo Gullett,²⁵ who has, as you know, been rather ready to reconcile the office of Government Whip with that of chief Government critic, has announced that he will not recontest Henty. His public statement was, as you would expect from Jo, done with courtesy, but I am sorry that he felt it necessary to retire.

The truth is, of course, as you know, that of the present twenty Ministers, no less than five (Kent-Hughes,²⁶ Townley,²⁷ Hasluck,²⁸ McMahon²⁹ and Senator Paltridge,³⁰ whom I appointed to succeed George McLeay³¹) came into the Federal Parliament for the first time in 1949 or later. Why a man should not be prepared to serve an apprenticeship of six or seven years for Cabinet rank, I don’t quite understand, though you may retort [that] my own apprenticeship was much shorter. But after the election, subject to some ‘blood-letting’ with Artie, I would hope to make some changes.

We had our final Joint Party Meeting on Friday last, in the course of which I made a sort of homily to Members about how necessary it was to pursue our own policy and not to be led astray by Bert’s bribes or side issues. You will be fascinated to know that most friendly speeches in my support were made by Jeff Bate³² and Bill Wentworth! Very hearty references were made to the work done by your mother, and a particular reference was made (prompted by Ivy Wedgwood³³) to yourself and how much your co-operation would be missed in this campaign. You might, if you have a chance, drop a letter to Senator Ivy and tell her that you have heard of what she said.

Your usual delightful letter arrived this morning. Some of the questions in it I have already answered, but I now turn to the others.

The redistribution has weakened Corio most unfortunately; on the last election votes, Oppy³⁴ would be about a thousand down. But I still think – and he does – that in the present atmosphere he will win. The experience of the last Victorian State election was that at least seventy per cent of the Anti-Communist Labour second preferences went to the Liberal Party. That was an election in which Jack Cain³⁵ was the Labour Leader. I would expect an even greater diversion when Evatt is the leader.

I do not think that any Minister will lose his seat, though the Country Party in New South Wales, who make multiple endorsements, have endorsed a second Country Party candidate, Dr Eggins, in Anthony’s³⁶ seat. I will know by tomorrow whether Jos Francis³⁷ will accept an appointment to be Consul-General in New York. I think he will. Apart from this, the only Cabinet vacancies will depend upon some unpleasant butchery by me.

Alec and Lindsay,³⁸ after a turbulent few days, have settled down very well, though I regret to report that your mother is up each morning at six or six-thirty and is, I think, feeling the strain. Marjorie’s³⁹ arithmetical calculations have been inaccurate and we are still waiting. I very much fear that this will mean that the earlier part of the election campaign will be conducted in your mother’s absence, though I am doing my best to persuade her that somebody else might, at an appropriate time, take the children over. But she, as you know, handles small children frightfully well. Alec is temperamental and possessive. He gets on well with Wally Dunn,⁴⁰ whom he obviously regards as the ‘uncrowned King of Canberra’ and who is really very good with him. Lindsay, who is shrewd and humorous, has taken a great shine to his grandfather and presents no problems at all.

You ask about Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend.⁴¹ On this matter, I think the press have behaved with their usual rather nasty hypocrisy. After all, they started the publicity. They keep their hosts of photographers and reporters hanging around gates and fences. And then when they have whipped up immense public curiosity, they criticise the Palace for not satisfying the curiosity. This is a typical twentieth-century press manoeuvre. I may have had some official word by the time this letter reaches you. But in the meantime, my own belief is that after an absence of some time, Margaret herself has not yet determined what she wants to do. So far as I am concerned, she can make her own decision and ought not to be bustled into it. When she makes it, I will support her and offer her the affectionate goodwill of the Australian people. But she is sufficiently intelligent to make up her own mind. If she lived in any other walk of life, she would be allowed to do it without publicity and recrimination.

We have just had a visit from an Indonesian Goodwill Mission headed by Dr Roem.⁴² We have looked after them very well and I think that they are going away feeling very happy. I was so glad you went to the airport to see them off. They appreciated it very much, as indeed they all do the fact that you, as the Prime Minister’s daughter, are in Djakarta.

As for yourself, your mother thinks that you should be down here by about the middle of December because she thinks that later on there may be difficulty about your travel. She will, however, write to you about this.

I don’t think it very practicable that we should go to Djakarta after the election because the truth is that I will be desperately in need of a month’s holiday, and I would hardly regard what could not help being an official visit to Indonesia as a holiday.

The only other item I can think of hastily is that John and Joan Weatherson,⁴³ returning to Melbourne from their honeymoon, stayed with us at the weekend. Alec, having been very much off colour, had been installed in my bed and I had been exiled into the principal guest room for two or three nights. Having, as usual, entirely forgotten that the Weathersons were coming, I arrived home late on Friday night, burst into the guest room, switched on the light and discovered that I was with the honeymooners! However, they treated me with offhand courtesy and expelled me without further argument.

I am attaching documents I have already mentioned plus a copy of my Richard Stawell Lecture delivered in Melbourne, which you might find interesting and about which Owen Dixon permitted himself to become quite enthusiastic.

Life still seems quite different without you, and the prospect of electioneering a horror!

With my great love,

Dad

1 December 1955

My sweet,

This letter is very hurriedly composed, but I notice that in your last letter to us you wanted to know about how the election is going and in particular about certain seats.

It has been – except for the brawls between the Joshua-Keon Group and the Evatt supporters, brawls which have assumed a quite old-fashioned quality – a remarkably quiet election. I have had very big meetings – frequently bigger than ever before in the same places – and except for some Communist operations at two or three meetings, they have been quiet, friendly and indeed warmly approving. All the Labour men I met are depressed and all my own people are confident. Even here in Sydney, where panic usually breaks out on the second-last Tuesday of the campaign, there is nothing but optimism.

Taking the Senate first, I feel (with all my usual conservatism, with which the family is familiar) pretty certain that we will win in all states. But there are complications.

The Anti-Communists in Victoria may poll enough votes to get a quota and therefore win a Senate seat. I do not believe that they will, for they would need well over 200,000 votes and I cannot see them getting it. They are first on the ballot paper, which will help them a little, but they have issued advice to their own supporters to give us their second preferences. This should, I think, bring us home with all three of our candidates.

In Tasmania, the Anti-Communists also claim to have a prospect of getting the quota but, again, my own judgment is that they will not manage it.

In South Australia, which is our weakest state, the Anti-Communists have put up a Senate team. But their organisation is quite impromptu and again they are first on the ballot paper, which makes our people expect that their preferences should just about give us our three places.

In Western Australia, old Agnes Robertson,⁴⁴ having been dropped by the Liberals on account of her advanced age, promptly went off and joined the Country Party and has, believe it or not, been made the leader of a Country Party Senate team, the Government Senate team in Western Australia being three Liberals. In my meetings in Perth, I spoke very frankly about the absurdity of imperilling our Senate position by fighting for a candidate who would if elected, be eighty by the time her term expired, and I am hoping that this will weaken her position sufficiently to make our candidates the winners.

In the Lower House, starting from left to right, here is the position as I see it.

In Western Australia, our own House of Representatives people – Hasluck, Freeth,⁴⁵ Hamilton⁴⁶ and Leslie⁴⁷ – are all unopposed. In Perth, where Tom Burke⁴⁸ has never won by more than a few hundred, we have the best candidate we have ever had for that electorate. A youngish man named Chaney,⁴⁹ with a good background and high qualifications, and a first-class platform manner. Our people expect to win, though, as you know, Tom Burke is himself pretty highly respected in Perth. The redistribution of boundaries will give our man, Cleaver,⁵⁰ a very good chance of winning back Swan.

In South Australia, the redistribution will, unless there is a sudden tide against the Government in the next week, give Sturt back to K. C. Wilson.⁵¹

In Victoria, the redistribution is unfavourable to Oppy but the atmosphere is so good and, as I discovered at the Ford Works, the division between the sections of the Labour Party so bitter that I really believe that Oppy is once more going to be the winner. I will offer a prophecy confidently that Malcolm Fraser⁵² will win Wannon fairly easily. It is difficult to see how, with the Labour division, we can fail to win Fawkner and Ballarat. Peter Howson’s⁵³ prospects are, therefore, better than ever before. We should win the new seat of Bruce in the Dandenong area. I spoke up in Bendigo, where the Liberals are extremely confident. I will, however, be surprised if Percy Clarey⁵⁴ can be defeated as easily as they think.

In Tasmania, it seems to be agreed that our sitting members will hold their seats, while there is a distinct possibility that we will win back Bass from young Barnard.⁵⁵ Kekwick is not the candidate this time. The man chosen seems to have a very good following in the Launceston area.

In New South Wales, I had a phenomenal meeting at Cooma and I know that Fraser⁵⁶ is nervous. We have a good candidate, but Fraser being Fraser is ‘all things to all men’ and will, therefore, take a lot of beating. I confess to having had some suspicion that the foolish Sydney organisation view was that Evatt was worth keeping in Parliament. I think they have now had this hammered out of them and, if so, Brother Bert must have a very smart chance of removing from his Party its chief embarrassment. Haylen⁵⁷ may well be beaten in Parkes, and Fuller⁵⁸ should certainly be beaten in Hume.

The Queensland position is favourable but obscure. Artie is tremendously enthusiastic, but I have my doubts about winning back either Griffiths or Leichhardt.

Still, as you can see, overall it is a pretty optimistic picture.

The Gallup Poll last week showed us still leading by fifty-four to forty-six. That leeway can hardly be made up by Labour unless there is the shortest and most violent landslide in their favour, and of that there is not the faintest sign.

Bert is going great guns. He is suffering from acute delusions of persecution; he is fitting on to his shaggy brow the halo of martyrdom. Every speech he makes he refers to me as ‘McCarthy’⁵⁹ and says that I am doing nothing but conducting a ‘smear’ campaign. Every time he says it, the lousy newspapers print it, though the reporters travelling with me all know and acknowledge that in the whole campaign I have not had occasion to make any reference to him on more than three or four occasions. His tactics are, however, I am sure, not succeeding. We will know all about it by the night of Saturday week.

My present forecast is that we will increase our Lower House majority from seven to something over twenty. I am