Australia: 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 communiqué, 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.*