Canberra, 10 September 1970
I am very honoured to be here today. I am very glad to have the opportunity of explaining to this audience why Britain wants to join the European Communities if fair terms can be obtained, and why in the long term we believe that this is very much in the interest of our Australian friends too.
2. I am sure that Australians understand very well the need for a greater European Community which includes Britain. Until twenty years or so ago your links with Europe were almost entirely with or in terms of the British Isles.
Of course Anglo-Australian ties, historical, practical, remain very strong: we have been reminded forcefully of this by the visit of Her Majesty your Queen to Australia in this Cook Bicentenary year. And we in turn, this year as in the past, have enjoyed the invigorating visits of many hundreds of your young people.
3. But today, you like indeed the British people, have much more direct experience of other European countries through trade and travel and every sort of contact. Australia herself is becoming more cosmopolitan with the arrival of new Australians from the continent of Europe. I believe you see clearly, perhaps more clearly than some of our own people, that the European group including Britain has a family likeness and a need for unity.
4. Of course Australians who came to the aid of Britain and Europe in two World Wars must always have seen clearly that Britain was deeply involved in the continent. But there is one great difference which must strike those Australians who knew Europe in wartime and now visit her in peacetime. Despite the suffering, waste and hatred of war, it must have been evident then that the protagonists, for example Britain or France or Germany, were among the most powerful countries in the world. Those countries, and Europe generally, still decided the world’s destiny to an extraordinary extent, as Europe had done for many centuries. America, Russia, China and Japan were waiting in the wings but the nations of Western Europe were still on the stage. How different it is today. European peoples are more prosperous than ever before. The motor car and the TV set are ubiquitous. But power in comparative terms, and indeed the sense of being masters of our own destiny, has to a considerable extent fled from Europe—even though in terms of human and economic potential the Europeans, if they could only pool their resources, would still be very formidable indeed.
5. And indeed the European Communities, which Britain has aspired to join these ten years past, have shown that Europe is capable of generating greater economic power and prosperity by eliminating barriers, and by building up its collective resources.
6. Australia is a long way from Europe but her origins and culture are profoundly European—never more so than today when her identity is more distinct and her culture more distinctive than ever before. The essence of European culture is surely variety and originality flowing from common sources.
Australia has, like Europe, a great and indispensible friend in the United States of America and other good and valuable friends throughout the world. But it would surely not be in Australia’s long-term political, military, economic or cultural interest to see Europe, including Britain, decline into a collection of impotent, if reasonably prosperous, museum/tourist countries. The European Communities are determined to avoid this. They will develop and grow in coherence whether Britain joins them or not, but if Britain and the other applicants join them, then Europe has a far greater chance of renewed vigour, of contributing beneficially to the world at large.
7. Britain sees the European option not as a rejection of other friendships and loyalties but as an opportunity for European countries to increase their capacity for doing more for old and new friends elsewhere. This is not playing with words and the seriousness of the present British Government’s intentions are shown by their wish to retain with you and other Commonwealth partners a presence in Malaysia. Britain has not turned her back on Australia in economic terms either. Since 1947 Britain has invested more than Dollars 3,000 million in Australia, more than all other countries taken together. And even since certain restrictions were imposed on investment in 19661 private portfolio investment in Australia has remained at a very high level indeed. This is a fact of great significance. It shows that British people have faith and interest in Australia’s future.
8. At the same time we must realise that trading patterns have changed very substantially. Today Britain exports twice as much to Western Europe as to the whole of the Commonwealth and Western Europe is after all, not much larger than the Communities will be if Britain and the other applicants join. The present Communities alone are our largest and fastest growing market.
9. Similarly and perhaps even more spectacularly Australian trading patterns have changed. During the past ten years the proportion of your exports going to Britain has fallen from 27 percent to 13 percent. Japan is your main export market: the United States your main supplier. Agriculture, which still provides the bulk of your exports to Britain, no longer dominates your economy, which with its new mineral and industrial resources is in an enviably buoyant state. After only a few hours here I feel what so many British visitors have experienced in visiting Australia in recent years. I feel everywhere the exhilarating and justified sense of optimism about the future and prosperity of Australia.
10. In trading terms then we are nothing like so dependent on each other as we were. Of course Anglo-Australian trade is still very important: and if we are both prosperous it can only grow more so. I realise however that some sectors of Australian production may be hard hit by our membership of the Communities. I am well aware how vital this matter is for some of your farmers in economic and human terms. I promise you that we shall treat it very seriously in close consultation with your Government, and remember that British interests are also deeply involved for we export far more to you than you to us.
11. I know that Australian opinion is worried about some aspects of Community policy, particularly about the Common Agricultural Policy. We understand very well, though we shall accept the Common Agricultural Policy which is part of the fabric of the existing Community. But in the long run, as Community countries have made clear, they are as anxious as anyone to remove the anomalies, and particularly to solve the problem of surpluses, the disposal of which is now a matter of concern to you.
12. I do not deny that there are serious problems but the problems are not of anything like the same order of importance as the opportunities. Among these opportunities I list high the opportunities for trade, business and collaboration which an expanded and dynamic Community can offer to the whole world including Australia. I have spoken about the prospects for future collaboration between a prosperous Britain within the EEC and a swiftly developing Australia. Perhaps I could cite just one instance of the type of collaboration I have in mind. Before becoming Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, I was Minister for Technology. One of the tasks of that department was to bring about collaboration between Britain, The Netherlands, and Germany on the development of a centrifuge process for the enrichment of uranium. This is the process on which Europe’s future power supply will be largely dependent. Only the combined resources of some of the major industrial countries of Europe can enable us to carry out developments of this magnitude. The tripartite European organisations have offered to make available to Australia the facilities for development of this process in your country. Just before I left Britain I read of your massive new uranium find in the Northern Territory. Raw uranium oxide is worth about Pounds 7,500 per metric ton. By contrast, enriched uranium of the grade which Australia might need for her own power station or for export, is worth about Pounds 60,000 per metric ton. It is for Australia to determine where her interests lie, but with so much of Australia’s development potential based on minerals I would think processing facilities of this type would be the kind of development which you would want to see undertaken. We, for our part, would like to use our strength as members of a European Community to work with you on them.
13. In this context I do not think you should underestimate the fundamentally liberal attitude of the Community to international trade in general, shown notably in its willingness in the Kennedy round to cut the common external tariff to very low levels. I believe that this liberal policy will continue and develop. The record of the Communities in terms of trade and aid with the developing world has also been impressive. Recently, so far as aid is concerned, some of them have been able to give more generously than Britain, which suggests another reason why Britain should join the Communities if possible.
14. Australia has shown Britain that she can seize opportunities and adapt to circumstances yet remain true to her essential nature. I do not believe that you would wish Britain to show any less capacity for survival and development. I think that many of you agree with me that the right framework for our development is the enlarged European Communities. I noticed that a leader in the Canberra Times recognised this in an editorial on 1 July, the morning after the opening of our negotiations. The editorial said ‘Britain can hardly elect to stay outside the European mainstream’. I would not personally go quite as far as this because we shall not and cannot join the Communities if we do not get fair terms but I think the general sentiment is absolutely right.
1 See note to Document 230.
[UKNA: FCO 30/803]