Sir Robert Menzies

• Continues to build law practice.
• Robert Menzies delivers his first political speech. It is at Prahran Town Hall and his Uncle, Sydney Sampson, is present. Menzies tells W M Hughes many years later that, after the speech he asked his Uncle Sydney for his reaction:

"Crisp, polished and learned, he said, the speech would have made an excellent address to the High Court, but as a political effort it was abysmal. ... the politician must take care to speak simply, introduce a little humour and, above all, keep repeating, albeit with variations in his choice of words, a few uncomplicated ideas."
Dawes, in A W Martin, Robert Menzies: A Life. Vol 1 1894-1943, 1993 p 50.

• In his book  Afternoon Light Robert Menzies describes the British Commonwealth of Nations in 1926:

"By the time of the First World War, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand had been added to Canada as completely self-governing 'Dominions', as they were soon to be called. Each of them participated in the First World War with unstinted patriotism and sacrifice.
... These Dominions were to be 'within the British Empire', and were to constitute 'the British Commonwealth of Nations'.
So defined, this was the British Commonwealth at the time at which I became involved in politics. For many years after I went to Canberra, I could and did speak of it with emotion. For it was something in the blood; it connoted a common allegiance, and a great brotherhood."
Sir Robert Menzies, Afternoon Light, 1967 p 187.