The High Court’s Ambassadors Abroad

Sir Henry Wotton, a seventeenth-century English diplomat, defined an ambassador as “an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country”.[1] In explaining and defending his country’s policies and advancing its interests, an ambassador needs to be sociable and persuasive, as well as an effective leader of his staff, which will include an intelligence-gathering arm. He advocates for his country and advances arguments in its defence—in that respect his role is comparable to that of a barrister. He gathers evidence about what he supposes to be the future policies and actions of the host country, passing that information back home, and in that respect he is like a solicitor. His role is not at all analogous to that of a judge, who weighs evidence from both sides of an argument in the interests of fairness and justice. An international mediator is in an analogous position to that of a judge, but an ambassador is supposed to be an advocate for his country.

I’ll compare the effectiveness as ambassadors of three High Court justices: Sir John Latham, Sir Owen Dixon, and, more briefly, Sir Ninian Stephen. Dixon and Stephen also acted as international mediators, and I’ll say something briefly about their effectiveness in that role. I’m unconcerned here whether or not it was proper for Latham and Dixon to be given indefinite leave from the High Court to serve as ambassadors. In looking at these men in these roles, I will be quoting from shorthand transcripts and minutes of secret meetings, private diary entries and other primary sources.

Latham (who had been on the Australian delegation at Versailles in 1919) and Dixon were regarded as the top QCs at the Melbourne Bar in the years immediately following the First World War. Then, in 1922, Latham entered federal politics, was appointed Attorney-General in the Stanley Bruce Nationalist Party government, and from 1932 was Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs in Joe Lyons’s United Australia Party government, as well as Deputy Prime Minister, before quitting politics to accept the position of Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia in 1935.

As Minister for External Affairs he led a diplomatic mission to China and Japan in 1934 and arranged for the 1935 visit to Australia of the Japanese Navy’s training flotilla, whose officers included three Japanese Imperial princes, one of them the elder brother of the Empress.[2] Latham met the Emperor of Japan, who made a personal gift to him of two superb cloisonné vases, and he spoke to large gatherings all over Japan, winning much good will for Australia. For years he had been a connoisseur of Japanese culture—the rooms of his exquisite Victorian house in Flete Avenue, Malvern (still there and newly restored), were filled with Japanese art collected over decades. From 1935 he was founding President of the Japan-Australia Society. He cultivated friendships with Japanese diplomats and trade representatives in Melbourne and Sydney up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and spoke some Japanese, though how much and how fluently I cannot say. In any case he was the ideal choice as the first Australian Minister to Japan.

Appointed to the post on August 18, 1940, by the first Menzies government, Latham met with its Advisory War Council at its first meeting, on October 29, 1940, just prior to leaving for Tokyo. The minutes record Latham’s views. He said Japan was anxious to be on the winning side in the war and viewed Germany as the winner. Japan anticipated the break-up of three empires, British, French and Dutch, and wanted its share of the spoils in relation to its so-called “Greater-East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere”. There were many in Japan, he believed, who had liberal and democratic leanings and were friendly to Britain, but they had been submerged by the extremists. There was a strong and general dislike of the United States.

He thought some in Japan would wish to use his appointment to drive a wedge between Australia and Britain, and to gain benefits from Australia. On the other hand he was determined not to appear to be in the pocket of the British ambassador. He said that in Japan Australia’s prestige was higher than Britain’s, and that this would assist him in influencing the Japanese. He asked that the Australian government let him know in advance of relevant decisions on Japan and consult with him where necessary. He proposed to state the aim of Australian policy towards Japan “as one of friendship on the basis of mutual respect”. As the balance of trade was in Japan’s favour, a bargaining point in that regard was possible. His defence of the White Australia policy would be based on economic arguments and standard of living, not race. The Japanese would understand, because they excluded Chinese and Koreans from Japan.

Interestingly, he favoured ordering 500,000 pounds’ worth of aircraft from Japan, presumably Mitsubishi twin-engined bombers and Zero fighters (with ample spare parts in case of war, one assumes), in order to put Japanese interests in opposition to those of Germany. In my view this was a brilliant idea, but it was not taken up by the Australian government. Latham thought Mr Kawai, the soon-to-arrive Japanese ambassador to Australia, should be warmly welcomed, as that would give us additional credit in Tokyo. Latham was in command at this meeting of the War Council. There were no demurrals to any of his suggestions and he obviously knew what he was talking about.[3]

How did he handle discussions with senior Japanese, and what was the quality of the advice he sent back to Canberra? In Tokyo on January 10, 1941, he called on Japanese Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka. Matsuoka had taken Japan out of the League of Nations in 1933 rather than tolerate any more of the League’s criticisms of his country. Educated in the United States under the care of American host parents, he became a Christian convert but maintained his attachment to Shinto, which is not necessarily a contradiction. His diplomatic career was stellar from the outset. He was on the Japanese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, where he may have met Latham, for Latham’s admiration for Japan certainly went back that far. Matsuoka spoke perfect English. He had been instrumental in Japan’s joining the Tripartite Pact with Italy and Germany in 1940, and believed the United States wished to provoke Japan into war.

In Latham’s discussions with Matsuoka on January 10 he was very frank. I’ll quote from his secret report, based on the shorthand transcript taken at the meeting:

Latham: I said that I noticed a great difference between Japan in 1934 and in 1940. In 1934 I met a bright, happy, smiling and friendly people. The people were very different today. I was told that many Japanese would be frightened today to speak to me.

Matsuoka: Yes! That is so, but they will soon get over it. A renaissance is taking place, and there are always difficulties with a renaissance, and one difficulty is feeling against foreigners.

Latham: Yes! But the reactions of Japanese against foreigners appear to be so irregular and sporadic. A week ago there was an anti-American meeting in Tokyo; in 1940 there were anti-British meetings; in 1936 anti-Italian meetings when Italy was attacking a coloured race; and in 1934 anti-German meetings when Hitler had proclaimed the superiority of the Aryan race and had spoken in very disparaging terms of Orientals.

Matsuoka: I do not believe in anti-Foreign agitation. I repudiated it last year in a public statement and I stopped the anti-British agitation by speaking severely to the officers of the Municipality of Tokyo.

Latham: Yes! I heard of your statement, and I am glad to hear your views. I cannot conceal the fact that Australian feeling towards Japan now is much less friendly than it was in 1934. One reason for this is to be found in statements made in Japan with respect to a New Order in Asia, and the occasional inclusion of Australia and New Zealand in East Asia for this purpose.

Matsuoka: I assure you that in my view and in the view of the Government, East Asia does not include Australia or New Zealand. Japan has no designs whatever upon either of these countries.

Latham: Our civilization is European. It is not an Oriental civilization. Our own people will determine the character of our civilization, and are not prepared to have it determined for them by any other power—even by Great Britain herself, and much less by an Oriental power.

This discussion illustrates Latham’s forthrightness in representing Australia’s position. They went on to discuss China. Matsuoka confided that he and Prince Konoye were in a minority in the government—they both wished to treat China on the basis of equality. Superficially this shows Matsuoka’s frankness and the confidence he was reposing in Latham, but was probably a deception. It was a technique Latham seems not to have used—that is, admitting to having a view different from one’s government. Latham asked “whether your Excellency is aware of the extent to which Japan is not only making herself unpopular but actually becoming a subject of hatred in Asia?” He gave examples of the Japanese Army humiliating Chinese civilians in Shanghai, forcing them to bow before soldiers, for instance. Matsuoka agreed with him: “Such Japanese actions are very wrong, but many of the private soldiers are very ignorant.” Latham retorted: “But they have officers, and do not the officers control them?” Yes, Matsuoka replied, but some of the officers weren’t very good either. He was trying to improve their standards of behaviour, and it was not his policy to seek political or economic domination over China. Latham replied that “if such a policy as this were published and really adopted, a very different position would arise”. Whether Latham actually believed in Matsuoka’s professed respect for China is doubtful. One can see in the entire discussion the toughness Latham brought to his role in Tokyo as well as his ability to interact with Matsuoka at a personal and confidential level, drawing Matsuoka out on contentious issues.[4]

In March 1941 Latham addressed a meeting of welcome organised by the Australia–Japan Society in Tokyo. Australia’s commitment to Britain’s side in its war against Germany, he said, should not be taken to imply that Australia was not an independent nation, and our membership of the British Empire was entirely voluntary; “There has not been a British soldier on Australian soil for seventy years,” he said—an implicit dig at Japan’s military occupation of neighbouring lands. Australia’s commitment to the British side in the European war, he stressed, had nothing to do with our policy in regard to Asia and the Pacific, which was based on mutual respect between Australia and Japan, and mutually beneficial trading relations. He thought we could also learn from each other culturally. “We seek to interfere with nobody else. We are satisfied to live upon terms which will enable us all to live in our own countries in accordance with our own ideas and ideals upon the boundaries of this great ocean.”[5]

This was pure idealism, of course. In reality, Latham was advising Canberra to draw a line in the sand in regard to any Japanese threat to Thailand. In a cablegram of February 4, 1941, he told Canberra that Japan’s negotiations with France over Indo-China, which it was soon to occupy (provoking American sanctions and embargoes), had secured her a strong hold over that region, and our policy now should be to resist any incursions on Thailand and give material support to that country. Presumably he meant military support. “It may be urged that such action will bring about a Japanese attack on us,” he went on,

but in my opinion it is more likely to make Japan pause, for despite the outcry in their press I do not believe they want war, especially as it means American intervention, but seek rather to advance peaceably by slow stages, establishing each position before they make the next move. Compare with Hitler in Europe.

He thought the United States would support Australia if it moved to support Thailand, provided Australia explained its position to the Americans in advance.[6] Latham’s cables, incidentally, were copied to Australia’s legation in Washington.

A key meeting between Latham and Matsuoka took place at the latter’s private house on March 12, 1941, just prior to Matsuoka’s visit to Berlin and Moscow for talks with Hitler and Stalin. In this meeting Latham emphasised the determination and strength of Britain and the Dominions in the war against Germany and Italy. “I expressed to him my belief that he would be subjected in Berlin to great pressure and possibly to deceit to induce him to agree to action which would not be to the ultimate benefit of Japan and might threaten the peace of the Pacific.” Latham was referring to the possibility of a Japanese attack on Singapore. Matsuoka replied that his only concern was “for securing peace in the world”.[7] Latham obviously disbelieved this.

Not many days later, in Berlin, German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop urged Matsuoka to press his government for an attack on Singapore. “Just go ahead and take it!” was effectively Ribbentrop’s advice. Matsuoka replied that plans to invade and occupy Singapore were already in train. The German minutes of the meeting report Matsuoka telling Ribbentrop:

his [Matsuoka’s] attitude toward the British would appear to be friendly in words and acts. However, Germany should not be deceived by that. He assumed this attitude not only in order to reassure the British, but also in order to fool the pro-British and pro-American elements in Japan just so long, until one day he would suddenly open the attack on Singapore.[8]

On June 23, 1941, the day after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, Latham advised Canberra not to embargo exports of food items to Japan, because supplies were being obtained by Japan from elsewhere (the United States and Netherlands East Indies), and prohibitions of exports on Australia’s part would have no effect in Japan and only hurt Australia. Also, since just twenty-four hours ago Japan could no longer send supplies to Germany through Siberia, so there was now no danger of Australia indirectly supplying the enemy via exports to Japan.[9] This seems to me a reasonable and logical position, though some might call it appeasement.

In September 1941 Latham went to Singapore for discussions, fell ill, returned to Melbourne, and was still in Melbourne when war broke out between Japan and the United States. Judging from the material I have seen (of which the above is a small sample), he was as useful an ambassador as we could have had in Japan in those dark pre-war days. He understood and liked the Japanese people, put Australia’s position honestly and forcefully, and endeavoured to keep the relationship on as even a keel as possible. In his advice back to Canberra he could hardly advocate that Australia take directly hostile actions against Japan on its own, with the United States not yet a combatant and Britain otherwise engaged far away. Latham never minced his words in Tokyo, and was a strong advocate for Australia’s policies and interests in discussions with Matsuoka and his successor Teijiro Toyoda.

Whereas Latham’s host country had been a potential enemy, Dixon’s was a wartime ally. Dixon was appointed Minister to the United States in April 1942, in place of R.G. Casey, who had resigned. While on the High Court, Dixon had been chairing key wartime boards such as the Central Wool Committee, and accepted the Washington post on the understanding he would report directly to Prime Minister Curtin, not to External Affairs Minister H.V. Evatt, whom he disliked and distrusted. Evatt had sat on the High Court with Dixon through much of the 1930s.

Although Dixon secured the supplies of aeroplanes and other materiel his government required from the United States, he did not (unlike Evatt) feel confident in endorsing his government’s hostility to the “beat Hitler first” policy adopted by Churchill and Roosevelt—a correct policy in Dixon’s private view and the view of most historians. His judicial mind would not allow him to put forcefully a position he did not consider balanced or persuasive. His closest friend in Washington was Felix Frankfurter, a judge on the Supreme Court with close ties to the President, and it was partly this connection that pulled Dixon into the counsels of the White House so that he became privately of their view on many matters. After all, they were devoting vast resources to Australia and the South-West Pacific.

In Washington, Dixon sat on the Pacific War Council, chaired by Roosevelt, but his developing friendship with Frankfurter brought him much closer to the White House than that. He met frequently with Roosevelt at the White House, including in his bedroom, where the polio-afflicted President often worked. Dixon also developed highly confidential relations with Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest J. King, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, and senior people at the State Department including Dean Acheson, who became a close friend. I have dealt extensively with Dixon’s time in Washington in my Dixon biography and in an article for Quadrant in April 2003 titled “Australia’s War in American Eyes”,[10] so I will concentrate here on defining Dixon’s diplomatic strengths and limitations, and also illustrate some of his personal connections.

His ability to generate the respect that facilitates confidential relationships was based on his powers of conversation and high intelligence and culture, appreciated in a Washington that was still largely the preserve of a Brahmin class. Dixon’s relations with the key military men were good too, because he shared their factual, empirical approach to things (something that had long been evident in his legal judgments). On the other hand he was compromised in American eyes by what they rightly saw as incomprehensible strikes and go-slows on the Australian waterfront, and by the shamefully limited role of the AMF or Australian conscript militia, which was constitutionally restricted to fighting on Australian territory, in embarrassing contrast to American conscripts who were being sent thousands of miles from home to defend Australia.

As I’ve shown in my Dixon biography, the Americans had become very annoyed with Evatt’s complaints about the “beat Hitler first” policy agreed in January 1942 between Churchill and Roosevelt that gave priority to the European war, but the Americans came to see Dixon as his own man, and they felt free to confide in him their criticisms of the Australian government. Confide is perhaps not quite the right word, because possibly they hoped he would pass their “confidences” on to Prime Minister Curtin.

Here’s an example. On July 3, 1942, Dixon met at the Pentagon with General Marshall, a generous and straightforward man with no political axe to grind. The meeting was devastating. Dixon began by saying he had not worried Marshall because he knew that the general had been preoccupied with the course of events, but that it was desirable that the Chiefs of Staff “give some explanations” to the Australian government “and keep it advised of what was decided”. Marshall listened politely and then extracted from Dixon a solemn promise not to tell his government what he was about to reveal. He set out the history of the naval battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, saying that at one stage the Australian government had nearly destroyed Australia because they had said publicly that the Japanese forces had congregated in the Marshall Islands, “a thing known only through breaking the Jap cypher as the Japs must have been aware”. Repeatedly the Australian government had broken necessary secrecy and Marshall was very frightened of them, knowing he could not tell them anything with safety. There was a great scarcity of aircraft for American purposes and it was impossible to imperil the United States for Australia, a country “to which much had been devoted”.[11] There was no answer to that, and Dixon’s diary records none.

Dixon’s First Secretary at the legation, Alan Watt, was critical of Dixon, confiding to a friend that in his view, though Dixon was “a man of outstanding character and great ability”, “a very great man whom Australia might well be proud of having produced”, in Washington he was “not only out of place, but possibly doing Australia unintentionally considerable disservice”. “He is extremely witty,” he went on, “but his humour induces admiration rather than laughter. Irony makes few friends, least of all in the United States of America.”[12] In his memoirs, Watt later moderated some of these criticisms to the point of self-contradiction, saying, for instance, that Dixon’s laughter “was infectious”.[13] On the other hand Dean Acheson’s assessment of Dixon’s time in Washington was positive: “Second only to you,” he told Sir Oliver Franks, a senior British diplomat of the 1940s, “he [was] pre-eminent in inspiring complete trust and confidence in us in his disinterestedness, wisdom and integrity.”[14] The realistic view, of course, is that an ambassador is not paid to be disinterested or full of integrity, but exclusively attached to the views of his government, and a good manipulator. In that important sense Dixon was ill-fitted for the ambassadorial role.

Alan Watt thought Dixon inherently pessimistic, which was true. It was a characteristic Dixon shared with other diplomats there, including, for example, Soviet ambassador Maxim Litvinov. I mention the Soviets because they were the third great ally. Litvinov had been Stalin’s Foreign Minister and the strongest advocate in Europe for collective security against Hitler, but Stalin had feared that, given the weakness of Britain and France on the issue, and the ardour of Litvinov (a Jew), the policy would land him in a war with Germany, so Litvinov had been replaced by the non-Jewish Molotov and relegated to Washington. On one of Litvinov’s private visits with Dixon he let his guard fall. “We talked alone of the situation, about which he is depressed,” Dixon recorded.[15] Litvinov obviously thought Germany would win the war (this was July 1942). They talked alone on other occasions too. Dixon asked him about Stalin’s purge of the Red Army’s general staff, which Litvinov explained as the elimination of the fifth column before war began. Their discussions were frank, as were Dixon’s discussions with the other allies in Washington. He also got on well with Litvinov’s successor, Andrei Gromyko, who talked to Dixon quite openly about the high morale of the German troops, though he believed, especially since the tank battles in the Kursk salient, that the Germans would be defeated—they were now preparing to abandon Kiev, he said.[16] This was in late 1943.

In Dixon’s private discussions with Roosevelt at the White House the President was frank in his criticisms of Australia’s contribution to the war. For instance, he queried the discipline of Australian troops and their combat effectiveness in New Guinea, but the harshest words came from Roosevelt’s closest assistant, Harry Hopkins. I’ll give an example. Hopkins invited Dixon to lunch with him at the White House on April 7, 1943, on the eve of a visit by Evatt. The patronising tone of this private meeting shows the degree to which the Americans felt free to lecture Dixon, even on his diplomatic role in the United States. Hopkins pointed out that it was easy to exaggerate the importance of Australian expressions of dissent from Allied plans, and Curtin’s messages of criticism and incessant requests for “more, please”. “They irritated the President, who no longer (as formerly) took trouble in answering them himself but flipped them over to someone else.” Dixon’s main function, Hopkins thought, was to influence American opinion of Australia, and to influence too the important post-war plans that were already taking shape. Evatt “made Marshall mad”, Hopkins said, and “also King”. The President “too might be impatient”, he added, but “otherwise the [Evatt] visit did not matter”. The war strategy had been settled.[17]

Hopkins’s conversation here clearly reveals the attitude of Roosevelt, and one should add Marshall and King, towards Prime Minister Curtin—essentially, “When will he take a wider view of Allied strategy?” Dixon recorded nothing said by himself in reply. By this stage the battle for Guadalcanal in the Solomons (as close to Brisbane as Port Moresby was) had been won by United States marines at the staggering cost of 1700 dead and almost 5000 wounded. That said it all.

One might ask, had Dixon become the trusted, sympathetic confidant of people with whom he should have been struggling? Had he been “captured”? Some would say, “Yes.” However, one could look at it this way: President Roosevelt, General Marshall, Harry Hopkins and others—none of them had anything to gain by giving Dixon the confidential information they reposed in him. He could do nothing for them, and nothing they could say would broaden the attitudes of Curtin and Evatt, which clearly did not matter much anyway—that was the bottom line. They were taking the trouble to brief someone they liked and trusted so that there would be no misunderstandings.

The same applied when Marshall saw Dixon on April 8, 1943, and told him secrets no one in Washington would ever have told Evatt: “To Pentagon to see Gen. Marshall who sd he trusted me & wd tell me what I was not to say to a living person. Told me of strategy agst Japs. Thro Burmah, use of Chinese troops & training. Intention to take Clark I. Present operations in Aleutians.”[18]

Why did the general confide in Dixon? Because this man, later Secretary of State, after whom the post-war Marshall Plan would be named, considered Dixon “the most perceptive and understanding of the representatives in the war”, as he later told David Bowes-Lyon.[19] At a time when its government was not held in great esteem in Washington, one could argue that Australia was fortunate in having a man there generating sympathy for his brief through the respect and esteem in which he was held. Curtin knew it or he would have had him replaced. A more aggressive Australian minister (Evatt, say) might possibly have gained as much in aeroplanes and other war materiel for Australia, but at the expense of goodwill.

In 1950, as United Nations mediator between India and Pakistan following their first war over Kashmir, Dixon strove to produce a solution that could be endorsed by both sides. He spent four months travelling to every remote corner of Kashmir and conducting his own shuttle diplomacy between Karachi and New Delhi (he “invented” shuttle diplomacy), and finally produced a peace plan that both sides still consider the closest to satisfactory of any yet proposed for that seemingly intractable issue. Nehru, however, had an election coming up and backed out at the last moment because the compromises required might have cost him victory.

In summary, Dixon’s diplomatic mind might seem more judicious and impartial than Latham’s, less advocatorial, but then the situations of an Australian diplomat in 1941 Japan and in wartime Washington were utterly different. Latham had the advantage with his political bent and experience in foreign affairs. His judicial experience seems irrelevant to his tough performance as an ambassador, whereas Dixon’s highly analytical and judicial mind is pertinent to his conduct in Washington, where he weighed things up for himself, seeing everything within a wider perspective than he was being paid to do.

Our third subject, Sir Ninian Stephen, was also appointed as an ambassador, but an “Ambassador for the Environment”. “What is that?” you might well ask. Prime Minister Hawke gave him this job at the end of Stephen’s period as governor-general. He was expected to put Australia’s position on environmental issues at relevant world forums. Frankly, the limited achievements of those meetings have fallen away with time. Stephen made a lot of speeches, mostly around what he was briefed to say. He conducted one or two successful negotiations, for instance negotiations in Moscow that helped to bring the Soviet government on-side. On the whole, however, compared to the work of Latham in Tokyo and Dixon in Washington, it was light-weight. Stephen was an eminent front-man for Australia’s environmental push on the world stage.

One wonders whether someone who has once been governor-general should go on to undertake such lesser activities. Stephen’s own attitude to the job is illustrated by his reaction when, in the lead-up to its culmination, the much-touted Rio Earth Conference, he was approached to chair the second phase of the Northern Ireland peace talks. He accepted at once, dropped the environment position, and someone else filled in for him at Rio.

More impressive was some of the international mediation work Stephen undertook through the 1990s and early 2000s, examined in detail in my Stephen biography. His chairing of the Northern Ireland peace talks in 1992 brought all the parties around a negotiating table for the first time. He saw his role as a facilitator rather than a proposer of solutions, but after several months those talks came to nothing. Stephen has been criticised by Lord Mayhew for not being sufficiently pro-active in the role, not offering possible ways around political deadlocks, but it is probably fair to say that the time was not then ripe for any substantive progress towards peace. Ian Paisley told me he thought Stephen deserved a lot of credit for starting a process that later built upon the work he did in London, Belfast and Dublin.

Stephen’s 1994 mediation between the government and opposition in Bangladesh, on behalf of the Commonwealth Secretary-General, failed to provide a solution that the opposition was prepared to accept, though the government was amenable. Stephen brought his legal expertise to bear on the inter-party conflict that was threatening to provoke a coup d’état, and devised a range of possible compromises each based on the Bangladeshi constitution, which he had mastered to the last detail. As with Dixon and Kashmir, this was probably a “mission impossible”.

His work for the United Nations in 1998-99, devising a modus operandi for war crimes trials for leading Khmer Rouge figures, produced, after negotiations in Phnom Penh, a plan that was subsequently modified into something the Cambodian government could accept. His work on behalf of the ILO in Burma in 2001 and again in 2005, investigating claims of forced labour in remote regions of the country, produced carefully-documented reports but came to nothing because of the limited co-operation of the military authorities in Rangoon. Stephen’s impressive work on the Hague War Crimes Tribunal is outside the scope of this paper.

It’s remarkable that he should have undertaken these international mediatory roles in his seventies and early eighties, for they demanded physical stamina as well as sustained and concentrated thought. Although the results were less than had been hoped for, he was fitted for the roles, for he brought to these tasks his expertise in constitutional and international law, and his deep concern for justice.[20]

Sir Owen Dixon’s observed to Menzies that while it is possible to make a decent politician out of a lawyer, the process is irreversible. I wonder what we should conclude about moving back and forth between the bench and the embassy? Putting aside Wotton’s dictum about lying for your country, can a mind that has thrived in the salon of diplomacy ever happily return to the straitjacket of the law? Or is diplomacy just like a summer swim for a master of the law? In both these elevated worlds the players must watch their words, but which is the greater game?

This is the 2014 High Court Public Lecture, delivered by Philip Ayres in Courtroom 1, High Court of Australia, on September 10.