Menzies Found Reticent

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31542, 2 December 1967, Page 13

Menzies Found Reticent

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright)

LONDON, Dec. 1

The future historian was unlikely to learn much from the memoirs of Sir Robert Menzies, “The Times Literary Supplement” said in a review today. Sir Robert Menzies book, “Afternoon Light,” was a compound of well-told stories, admirably suited for television or a newspaper article, the review said.

However, it was of limited value to the scholar, as well as being of limited interest to the general public. “Naturally, as the Prime Minister of a minor, and not a major, power, he has less of interest to say than those

more intimately and frequentily concerned with events of world importance, but unfortunately on what would be of interest he is silent.

“He writes at length of ‘My Suez Story’, as a staunch supporter of the policy of the Government of the United Kingdom. “But except for the fact that it was at three o’clock in the morning that he was asked to act as chairman of the committee appointed in August, 1956, to discuss the nationalisation of the Canal

with Nasser, little that is nelw emerges, and the whole story is told on a superficial level.” The review said it was regrettable that Sir Robert Menzies had not recounted more fully his role in those events in which he played a major part. “Menzies’s personal account of his contribution to political life in Australia since 1949 would surely be worth having, even if it would have had

more interest in Australia than overseas.” The review criticises the memoirs for superficial treatment of Australian relations

with the United States and China. “One would have expected some comment on these subjects, unless one assumes that the absence of all mention of Asia in this book, like the virtual absence of reference to the United Nations, is indicative of the contempt in which its author holds both. 1 ’ The review speculated on

the omission of so much about Australia's internal politics and the inclusion of so much of little interest. “If not due to laziness, possibly his emphasis on the ‘world stage’, where his role was small, to the exclusion of the domestic one, where his part was important, arises from a conception of himself as a world statesman, rather than as simply an important minister of a minor state."