Sir ROBERT MENZIES (KOOYONG, VICTORIA) (Prime Minister) - I hope to be able, within the next couple of days, to give more details of this matter. The position is that a Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference has been convened in London, as honorable members know, to last from 8th July to 15th July. It will become necessary for me to leave London immediately thereafter in order to be back in Australia for the normal preliminary discussions on the Budget, and therefore whatever else I may do I must do ahead of 8th July. I propose within a very limited period of time, because it is to be a very hurried journey, first of all to pay a short visit to Israel, which I have not visited since 1941 and which I have been under some pressure to visit, and thereafter to go to the United

States of America to have interviews with the President and members of his Administration. I propose then to go to London for the conference and thence return to Australia. My journey will involve a total absence of perhaps four weeks, and I am looking forward to a visit to Israel as the first of these calls.