London, 22 October 1974
Confidential
UK/Australian Constitutional Problems
1. I attach a copy of a Personal and Confidential letter which I have received from Sir Morrice James about a dinner given by Mr Whitlam for the Prince of Wales.1 Personally I think it was a bit ‘off’ for Mr Whitlam to subject the Prince to a harangue of this kind but the deed is done and we must handle the event as best we can.
2. My first suggestion is that subject to the PUS’s agreement the Private Secretary should send a copy of this letter to Sir M Charteris so that he is warned in advance of the Prince of Wales’s return of what has passed. It could be explained to Sir M Charteris in the Private Secretary’s letter that we are looking into the details of the various constitutional problems already and that he will be hearing from us in due course.
3. I do not have any comment on the first three paragraphs of Sir M James’s letter but I wonder if we would not be wise to try to defuse the issue of the National Anthem by voluntarily suggesting from this end that, since The Queen is Queen of Australia when she is there, the right course would be to play ‘Advance Australia Fair’ as the anthem rather than ‘God Save The Queen’. It seems to me crazy that there should be two National Anthems and I cannot imagine that The Queen would feel strongly about the maintenance of one in preference to the other. What annoys people in the Australian States is the feeling that Mr Whitlam is trying to cut down their relationship with the United Kingdom. lf The Queen were voluntarily to make the suggestion that She thought it more appropriate that one Anthem should be used when She is appearing as Queen of Australia and that it should be ‘Advance Australia Fair’, I cannot believe that the States would continue to demand ‘God Save The Queen’. I believe that in the case of Canada both Anthems (‘God Save The Queen’ and ‘0 Canada’) are played and I would suggest that the same solution should be applied there. By acting in respect of both Canada and Australia it would help to stifle any criticism of The Queen’s action having been taken at Mr Whitlam’s request. Clearly this is a somewhat tricky issue but I must say that I would be in favour of our taking an initiative if it is possible to resolve it.
4. As regards paragraph 7 of Sir M James’s letter I am not entirely certain that a referendum on the subject of the abolition of appeals to the Judicial Committee would necessarily make it all that much easier for the British Government to enact the necessary legislation. I do not know for certain what the position about referenda is in Australia but my guess is that once a referendum has been carried (and there might be considerable doubt about one being carried on this issue) there would still have to be legislation; only when such legislation had been carried through would the matter be passed to HMG for legislation in our Parliament. But even then the States would be perfectly at liberty to lobby against UK legislation. I suppose it is possible that Parliament could prove difficult though I presume that if the Government were prepared to use their majority they could guarantee success. I recommend, however, that we should leave this matter to take its course since all these constitutional issues are already under discussion by the appropriate experts.2
1 See Document 486.
2 Brimelow agreed Charteris should be sent a copy of James’ letter, suggested the Queen should accept the advice of Australian ministers on the question of the anthem, and agreed with the final sentence of Wilford’s minute (UKNA: FCO 24/1933, minute, 23 October 1974).
[UKNA: FCO 24/1933]