Hasluck, Salty Language and Quadrant’s Misogyny

SIR: Philip Ayres has written a perceptive review of Geoffrey Bolton’s biography of Sir Paul Hasluck (April 2015). Having attended the Canberra book launch in December, and on reading the book thoroughly, I concur with your reviewer. The launch had a certain piquancy as it was distinguished by the presence of the Governor-General, General Sir Peter Cosgrove, who gave more than official authority to the proceedings. Sir Peter served as a junior aide-de-camp to Sir Paul in 1972.

As a former diplomat, I have kept a keen interest in the history of Australian diplomacy. The National Archives have surrendered many official documents on Hasluck which explain his political psychology and his relationships (personal and official) with some key players in the nascent Department of External Affairs.

Arthur Tange served with Paul Hasluck in the period. Hasluck betrayed Tange over a trivial function of diplomatic representation. Tange trumped Hasluck when he was appointed as the secretary of the department in 1954. Sir Arthur, as he soon became, probably stayed too long at the helm. Having been a diplomat in a formative period of Australia’s political history, Hasluck then asserted his authority over his new department. His animosity towards Tange had not abated. Both proved obdurate. Hasluck’s weakness was in governance, for he resisted team-building which might have advanced his claims for real leadership. He neglected to foster any workable relationship with Tange.

Hasluck controlled External Affairs from a distance and arrogated the sole authority to speak for and of the department. In doing so, he stifled initiative and his dead hand alienated many of his officers. Hasluck monitored public opinion and interfered with his department’s ability to shape and influence diplomacy. Yet paradoxically, he could be a warm and kindly fatherly figure. One senior diplomat remembers him with affection, for his benign side, finding him considerate, appreciative of briefings and effective. In contrast, another officer who worked for Hasluck found the experience diminishing.

His official gate-keeper, the late Ellestan Dusting, assumed a conduit role in any communications. She was appointed for her personal loyalty to Hasluck, rather than supporting the wider interests of External Affairs. Tange resented this off-hand treatment because it demeaned his authority and status as a senior mandarin. For his implacable defence of this remit, he soon fell out. Tange earned his passage to India for a five-year exile. His replacement, Sir James Plimsoll (Jim the likeable), was an obliging and charming spirit who is still remembered for his consummate diplomacy. Yet he turned out to be the antithesis of Tange, in that he was an unreflective administrator.

Paul Hasluck was captive to his odd personality. At times he could be over-sensitive, aloof, arrogant, petty, vengeful, hyper-critical and inflated with a sense of self-importance that a more confident man or woman might have subdued. Self-conscious to a fault, he was obsessed with his place in history and did his best to whittle down his putative parliamentary colleagues who did not equal his perceived intellectual command. His churlish pen portraits, published posthumously in 1997, The Chance of Politics, demonstrated inherent character flaws—he could be uncharitable and small-minded when he was on the cusp of being a statesman.

He lacked an ability to engender affection and felt that merit was its own reward. Fellow party members could only agree with him for his perceived lack of it, and did not regard him as an appropriate successor on Harold Holt’s death. Colleagues had to be courted and obliged, whereas Hasluck felt that this was an unseemly activity to be avoided. John Gorton presided, winning the leadership. Australians can be thankful that Hasluck, along with not a few other politicians, was denied the prime ministership which, for his insecurities and diffidence, he would have been poorly equipped.

Remember him as one of the finest to assume the titular and functional position at Yarralumla, where he could enjoy the pomp and circumstance it afforded. He had a refined sense of protocol and assumed and exemplified the dignity which is expected in any vice-regal role.

Does this critique seem too critical? Geoffrey Bolton has gifted us a measured testimony of a storied and influential figure. Hasluck has bequeathed an enduring legacy which rises above my ungenerous tribute. His assured stature, if not statue, dwarfs us. Sir Paul, this is another pen portrait of yourself. History would demand no less.

Mike Fogarty
Weston, ACT

On Two Writers

SIR: I have been taking Quadrant for a number of years and have frequently distributed articles therein to my family and friends. The issue of April 2015 is very disappointing. The story titled “Love” by Brad Jackel ends with an excellent last paragraph about fatherly love. However, one has to wade through pages of foul language for which it is impossible to see any good reason. In most cases, fathers do not speak to their sons in that way because they are hopeful that they may turn out better than the father. For Mr Jackel it shows an inability to express himself except by that very third-rate means.

The review by Philip Ayres of the book Paul Hasluck by Geoffrey Bolton is also a disappointment. It is not difficult to see the angle from which Mr Ayres is viewing the book. Early on he states: “His parents were in the Salvation Army, an unpromising background …” which would seem to express Mr Ayres’s views rather than those of the thousands of people, including servicemen during the war, who have been cared for by the Salvation Army.

He quotes Hasluck’s views on Molotov: “He is easily the outstanding person of the conference, in fact the most impressive figure I have met—Churchill or the King or anyone else included.” A little later in the paragraph Ayres says, “but why did Hasluck put ‘the King’ in there? A nice guy, but …” Whatever one may think of kings, and it is not hard to imagine what Philip Ayres thinks of them, they are still impressive by their rank if by nothing else.

In regard to Mr Ayres’s contribution it is just a matter of making sure not to read any further writings of his in Quadrant. However, in regard to Mr Jackel, I feel that another article by him or anyone else using such objectionable language will result in my not renewing my subscription.

Frank Long
Mawson, ACT

Religion in Public Life

SIR: I write regarding Anthony O’Hear’s article “Religion in Public Life” (March 2015). I don’t know what the professor’s own religious convictions are, but his treatment of Christianity, and its relationship to the state, had a wisdom, historical awareness and sympathy that is rare in such discussions. His warnings to both, about the way a desire to eradicate the other will actually compromise the essence of each, are prescient. As a clergyman in the conservative Protestant tradition I felt respected, and respectfully challenged, by Professor O’Hear’s superb article. I thank you.

Matthew Arkapaw
Riverwood, NSW

The Quadrant Line-Up

SIR: Are you aware of the male-dominated top-down layout of your read? From the Editor, Literary Editor, Deputy Editor, Contributing Editors, Columnists to the Editor-in-Chief—all are male. Of the forty-six authors who contributed to the March 2015 edition, only six are female, and a couple have names that do not label a gender. And astonishingly, all letters to the editor are from men.

What does this tell us about Quadrant and its perceptions of the world around it? Catharine A. MacKinnon, in her analysis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, titled “Are Women Human?”, notes that Article 1 of the Declaration encourages us to “act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood” and questions whether or not women must be men before its spirit includes them.

To this day, women enter human society assigned roles that have already been drafted. As we grow, women have to learn the intricacies of these roles in order to be able to understand how others respond to us and how our response to them will be construed. And so, women become a product of their surroundings. Many women put their dreams and aspirations on the back burner in order to birth and nurture children, and to allow their male partner to continue his patriarchal role in the family unit. Certainly there are women happy with this role, but what of the women who are not?  Society needs fully functioning and autonomous women in order to create a future generation.  Many women’s dreams and aspirations lie unfulfilled because they choose not to have a voice, struggle to find their way back into their dreams and aspirations, but most importantly, their structural social surroundings do not allow them to do so. Women need full human status in social reality.

Is Quadrant fostering such a structural social surrounding? Or is it living in ignorant bliss? Or are women really that absent from this part of life? It is hard to see in Quadrant the vision of humanity in a woman’s face.

Shan Stevens
Hong Kong

André Malraux

SIR: I refer to the article in your April issue on Simon Leys by Anthony Daniels. Daniels repeats, apparently with approval, Leys’s claim that Malraux was a “phoney”. I am very familiar with Malraux’s life and work and, in my view, Leys’s assessment is nonsense.

Daniels’s comments are, as far as I can tell, based on the essay on Malraux in Leys’s recent book The Hall of Uselessness. Leys’s essay includes no discussion whatsoever of Malraux’s works but relies instead on cherry-picked comments from a small number of selected secondary sources—all of which, predictably, are hostile (and, I should add, mostly out of date). Despite the reputation for reliable scholarship that Leys seems to have attracted in some quarters, his essay is in fact an excellent example of poor scholarship. Daniels claims that Leys provides a “reasoned, informed and irrefutable destruction of Malraux’s reputation”. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Malraux led an amazing life which included active involvement in the anti-Fascist Popular Front in the 1930s, combat on the side of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, service with the French army in the Second World War, participation in the Resistance, and a very active period as France’s first Minister for Cultural Affairs in the post-war years. His literary output was extraordinary and included La Condition Humaine, which won the Prix Goncourt, and a series of brilliant writings on the theory of art such as The Voices of Silence. He continues to be regarded as one of the outstanding figures of French twentieth-century literature and art theory. If Malraux was “phoney”, let’s have many more like him!

Derek Allan
Canberra, ACT

Language Standards

SIR: Dr Robert Solomon’s “Language: Evolution or Revolution” (January-February 2015) shows a keen ear for “English as she is spoke”. It is a truism that “as she is spoke” is not synonymous with “as she is writ”, as the now notorious pronunciation of hyperbole as hyperbowl hilariously attests. Such howlers should not be too harshly judged, since correct pronunciation stems from hearing the word correctly pronounced in the first instance, and times were when one such arbiter was “Aunty”. The BBC acquired this nickname from the prudish “Aunty knows best” attitude it exhibited when its presenters were rigorously schooled in correct grammar and pronunciation, as were those of its Australian counterpart, which inherited the nickname.

When freedom of expression supplanted elitist pedantry it put an end to all that and modern presenters have lowered their sights. Now errors rooted in inherited ignorance abound as described by Dr Solomon. So pervasive is it that in this very journal “begs” instead of “raises the question” can be found.

Many a young television presenter tends to mumble and bumble through ungrammatical items in a patois in which many viewers, particularly in the older cohort, are not fluent. Older and well-trained readers meanwhile have been transferred to radio where their diction stands in stark contrast to callers and untrained presenters alike.

As Dr Solomon notes, the American siren song can muddle our once distinctive lingo. An old favourite is a good example. When a visiting GI inquired at a hotel reception desk, “Are you the manager?” to be answered, “No, I am just a clerk,” he rejoined, “You a clahk? Ah don’t hear you go tick tahk.”

L. Peter Ryan
Clayfield, Qld