End of the Ming Dynasty

Even seated at his littered desk in Canberra's Parliament House, he always seemed bigger than life. His great black eyebrows clumped out angrily, like saltbush in the Great Sandy Desert, and his vast stomach bulged defiance against his double-breasted suit. He was quarrelsome, autocratic, always demanding, and the greatest orator his country has yet produced. He founded the Liberal Party that swept him to power, forged the government coalition that kept him there for 16 years. Prime Minister Sir Robert Gordon Menzies not only governed Australia. He overpowered it.

When he resigned last week at 71, he did it in true Menzies style. Playing out his drama with the skill of an actor, Sir Robert resigned not once but four times--to Parliament, his party, the Governor General, and finally to the nation on television. "I have given careful thought to my future in the light of what seems best for the government and country," he "said. "I can no longer sustain the very long hours of work which once delighted me. My pace has slowed down. In short, I am tired."

So, in a sense, were Australians, who long ago combined the Scotch pronunciation of his name ("Mingis") with a comic-strip character called "Ming the Merciless," dubbed his regime "The Ming Dynasty."

Deadly Sting. Merciless he was.

When members of his coalition threatened to rebel, he yanked them into line by the sheer force of his personality and his ruthless tongue. So deadly was his sting in Parliament ("The conducted tour of the Honorable Member's mind would have been more instructive if it had not taken place in gathering darkness") that opposition backbenchers were once cautioned against needling him. To a parliamentary complaint that he had a superiority complex, Menzies could only agree. "Considering the company I keep in this place," he snapped, "that is hardly surprising."

He was always something of a snob. As Prime Minister, he was constantly darting off to London for receptions and ceremonies, test matches at the fashionable Marylebone Cricket Club, and the Commonwealth Conference ("I make a few statesmanlike remarks. The eminent gentlemen of the civil service, who have already written the ultimate communique, say, 'Yes, that was a good point' ").

To the British Establishment, in fact, he is the perfect Australian: silvery-haired, conservatively tailored, reverential about traditions, plummy in accent, and, above all, delighting in pomp. Sir Robert literally clanks with honors. He is Knight of the Order of the Thistle, Privy Counsellor, Companion of Honour, Queen's Counsel, and three months ago he became the first non-Englishman to be appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, an order that entitles him to fly a blue, yellow and red flag depicting Dover Castle and rates him a 19-gun salute in the five ports for which the order was named.*

For all his love of pomp and circumstance, however, Sir Robert and Australia went far together. Since he took office in 1949, Australia has grown from a raw frontier land into a sleek and prosperous industrial power. In the process, it has developed the beginnings of a fine university system, for which Menzies deserves much of the credit. If Australians seldom loved him, they could hardly help respecting him for his realistic approach to the nation's foreign-policy problems. Australia has also loosened its ties with Mother Britain, joined the U.S. in SEATO and ANZUS, and developed a voice in world affairs that booms far beyond its remote location and population (13 million).

Meat & Drink. Menzies' successor--silver-thatched Harold Holt, 57, who officially takes office this week--is a far less awesome figure. A family man (who can take pride in three of Australia's most attractive stepdaughters-in-law) and debonair society figure who is equally at home in scuba gear or topper and tails, Holt owes his new job more to his unswerving loyalty to the boss than any Menzies-style charisma or talent for administration. In fact, as Treasury Minister in 1960, he imposed such stringent anti-inflationary controls on the country that a serious recession set in, leaving the economy wheezing for air. The recession has since disappeared, but Holt barely survived. During elections two years ago, his name was such political poison that Menzies' Liberal Party all but disowned him.

As a result, many of Holt's countrymen were wondering last week whether he could hold Sir Robert's tenuous coalition together. A few Liberal backbenchers have been bucking party discipline and threatening the coalition's slim one-vote majority in the Senate. If some were doubting Holt's staying power, Holt himself--with general elections less than a year away--was confident. "It's meat and drink to me," he said--in the pluckiest Menzies tradition.

*Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich.

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