EMPIRE WAR CABINET.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 62, Issue 89, 26 January 1942, Page 3

EMPIRE WAR CABINET.

DEMAND MADE BY AUSTRALIA.

MESSAGE TO MR CHURCHILL. PERTH, January 25. The Prime Minister (Mr J. Curtin) revealed that Australia had demanded the immediate establishment of an Imperial War Cabinet and a Pacific War Council, with full Australian representation on both. The demands were made in an urgent cable to Mr Churchill.

"Australia’s position in the higher strategic direction of the war is clear and decisive,” said Mr Curtin. “Our air, naval, and military forces have been engaged with the enemy in distant theatres, and have comported themselves with great gallantry and distinction. What they have done and are doing is evidence that Australia’s fighting calibre, tested on a field, should be available also in the highest councils for the strategic disposition of the tptal forces to which Australia has been so considerable a contributor. “The Pacific struggle obviously calls for proper machinery for the mobilisation of the forces resisting the enemy. I know the dangers facing us have increased as tlie demands upon us have become greater, and that the obligations devolving upon our people are now immeasurably greater. I also know that because of these needs it has now become imperative that 9,000,000 Britishers in the Pacific should have a direct say in the direction of the total resistance which the democracies must invoke.”