'British to my bootstraps' - what did Menzies mean?

The slanderers of Sir Robert Menzies often pick on his proud declaration that he was 'British to his bootstraps' to demonstrate that he was un-Australian and a frightful toady to Britain and the British aristocracy. Whether they said this through egregious ignorance or sheer ideological hatred I cannot say for each individual. That Bankstown guttersnipe Paul Keating would qualify for both motivations.

Anyone who is acquainted even slightly Menzies' political philosophy, which is essentially Burkean, would know what he meant. Lord Carrington dismissed the accusation in the foreword to R.G. Menzies: A Portrait, Sir John Bunting, Allen and Unwin Australia, 1988.

...A Prime Minister with strong views, a dominant personality with the drive to push through his own policies naturally has his detractors, and there were those at that time who thought [Menzies] was too dominant and too pro-British. ‘British to the bootstraps’, as he once said. They misunderstood him. He was British to the bootstraps in that his roots were in the tradition of the British parliamentary system and British law, and to some extent British customs, but he was above all things an Australia patriot. Under his Government, Australia emerged from the era of pastoralism and the dominance of primary production into the diversified economy of today. The discovery and extraction of minerals and oil began, and with it a change, not just in the country’s economy but also in Australia's standing and importance in the world, and particularly its relations with its immediate neighbours. It was in large measure Menzies's vision and drive that brought this about.

When Menzies spoke of himself as British he was placing himself in a cultural and social framework. Cultures just don't materialise from nothing. There are always cultural antecedents - healthy continuities if the culture is to remain healthy. If there is no continuity there is chaos and the necessity to regenerate either from conquest or barbarism. Being Australian in this culturally continuous sense is an autonomous ontological modification of Britishness. (See my comment.)

Menzies answered the accusation in a recorded interview with David McNicoll, 3 April 1974, four years before his death (Luck's a Fortune, David McNicoll, Wildcat press, 1979). It is obvious from the interview that he was not well. His dialogue with McNicoll is sharp and impatient in parts, which makes a contrast with the delightfully warm and conversational letters to his daughter in Letters to My Daughter, Robert Menzies, Letters, 1955 - 1975, edited by Heather Henderson (Menzies' daughter), Murdoch Books, 2011. It also makes for raw honesty. Here is what he said to McNicoll when discussing the growing animosity among some politicians towards Britain.

...I'm troubled. I think the feeling about Great Britain in Australia is immeasurably weaker than it was ten years ago... And this upsets me because, you know in reality - your stupid colleagues on the press, these rather vulgarian fellows who think they're Republicans, and so on - they scoff and say - oh he's more British than the British. You would almost think I was born somewhere else other than in Australia. If ever there was a dinkum Australian, it's myself. Born and bred in this country. Wouldn't have devoted all my life to its service if I hadn't felt that way.

And yet anybody who has been engaged in public affairs in Australia knows perfectly well that all the good things in our political life derive from Westminister. Every one of them. Our system of voting, our responsible government. Our rule of law. Our common law. All these things come from there. It seems to me to be monstrous that you should deny the ancestry of your ideas while claiming the ideas are good. And it's pathetic but unfortunately I'm one of the old boys now and the opposition in Canberra - they break my heart.

I can imagine how they broke the great man's heart. Imagine how he would have felt had he seen the chaos and decay that prevail today in Australian politics.

Comment: gerard@gerardcharleswilson.com