EXECUTIVE HEADS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 143, 18 June 1940, Page 11

EXECUTIVE HEADS.

Different from England,

CHOICE CRITICISED.

AUSTRALIA'S WAR EFFORT. MR. MENZIES' WORRIES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, June 12. With the appointment of Sir Keith Murdoch, head of the Melbourne "Herald" chain of newspapers and allied enterprises, as Director-General of Information, the Prime Minister, Mr. Menzies, has now put three well known business men into key positions to organise Australia's war effort. The other two are Sir Ernest Fisk, head of the Amalgamated Wireless, who is in charge of the economic side of Cabinet activities, and Mr. Escington Lewis, head of the B.H.P. and associated companies, who has been appointed Director-General of the new Department of Munitions, of which Mr. Menzies is Minister. In view of the fact that Mr. Lewis obviously cannot carry out his duties without having dealings with the network of heavy industries which the B.H.P. controls, his new appointment is criticised in some quarters. The reason for the appointment, of course, is that Mr. Essington Lewis should be the best qualified man in Australia for the job. At any rate Mr. Menzies has given him every chance to show if he can reproduce in the sphere of munitions the remarkable production record of his company. Mr. Lewis is subject only to general direction by the War Cabinet and by Mr. Menzies as Minister for Munitions. He has been given complete power of delegating authority and to make purchases direct without calling for tenders, and will have access to the War Cabinet in the same way as the chiefs of staff. He will control all ordnance, small arms, explosives, ammunition and gas masks and will have a supervisory jurisdiction over aircraft supply. What this really means is that Mf. Menzies has tacitly admitted that allegations of bungling under the Ministerial direction of Sir Frederick Stewart have been justified for it appears that the wide powers given to Mr. Lewis, and the assumption by Mr. Menzies of the portfolio of munitions, will leave Sir Frederick with very little to look atfer except uniforms and boots. Negotiations with Sir Keith Murdoch had been going on for some tiriie, but the announcement of his appointment came just after a final blunder by the Ministry of' Information, which has been under the direction of Sir Henry Gullett. The circumstances were as follow: After the leader of the Federal non-Communist Labour party, Mr. Beaslev, had been first refused and then granted permission to inspect Government ammunition annexes. Mr. Beasley visited several of them, and as a result of what he saw reported that things were in an even worse state than he had alleged, giving examples to illustrate his allegations. The same night the newspapers received an order from the censorship prohibiting them from reporting Mr. Beasley's discoveries. The Sydney "Daily Telegraph," which has been leading the campaign for the reorganisation of munitions and information and the dumping of Messrs Cameron and Thorby. Country party Ministers, to assist the formation of a National Government, pointed out that it was a gross misuse of the censorship to hide alleged inefficiencies from the public, and that it was only the restoration of certain rights of criticism in France and the exercise of the right of criticism in England that had enabled a cleaning up of bungling and inefficiency in those countries. The result of this protest was an urgent telegram from censorship headquarters in Melbourne countermanding the local censor's order.

Sir Keith Murdoch to a much lesser degree is in the same position from a public point, of view as Mr. Essington Lewis. The two appointments have certainly not made it any easier for the political Labour party to persuade the trade unions that support it that it should join a National Government. In England not only Labour members of Parliament, but trade union leaders outside Parliament, have been {riven key administrative positions by Mr. Churchill as some sort of compensation for the surrender by the workers of the concessions which they have won by long years of struggle. In Australia, Labour sees industrial kings instead put in corresponding positions, and, in addition, as has been frequently pointed out to Mr. Menzies, he cannot expect the trade unions to come into his Government as long as he allows Mr. Cameron and Mr. Thorby to stump the country attacking their leaders.

Mention above of Sir Ernest Fisk reminds one that in a luncheon talk this week he publicly referred to a silly rumour which has been going around for a long time—that he had been interned. He remarked jocularly that he had just been allowed out to address them. Mr. Joseph Hamlet, the man who financed and vainly endeavoured to get the Railway Departments to adopt the Boock break of gauge railway device, told Sir Ernest later that a man had repeated to him in front of the post office the rumour about Sir Ernest. Mr. Hamlet said he immediately hit the man as hard as he could in the face and went for a policeman, | but when he got back the man had disappeared.

Mr. Menzies apparently felt it necessary to come to Sydney last Friday and. when announcing the reorganisation of munitions and information, defended himself against demands by various mushroom organisations for a National Government. He said it was utterly false that he himself was the stumbling block, and argued that there could be no National Government until Labour clarified its policy on the sending of troops abroad and on con.pulsory military training. He complained somewhat weakly that he worked 15 hours a day, seven days a week, and spent half of his time "warding off blows around me." "This sniping is being done by people who profess to be my friends and supporters of the Government," he said. 'T will be kicked out at the finish, but I want to gat as much work as possible done before then/'

A.C.T.U. leaders are now discussing! with Mr. Menzies the formation of a I Trades Union Panel to co-operate in the speed-up - of munitions production, but so far not very much progress has been made. A Labour party conference will be held in the next few days to recon- ■ eider Labour's war policy. At first the party was completely against the sending of troops overseas (this is still the ' policy of Mr. Lang's non-Communist i Labour party j, bat since then the Federal 1 Labour leader, Mr. Curtin, has announced j that Labour would maintain the troops * already sent abroad.