SPIRITED REPLY
PACIFIC ISLANDS Mr. Hughes Hits Back At Chicago Newspaper Rec. 1 p.m. SYDNEY, this day. "The attack must emanate from Troglodytes who still remain in the Isolationist camp," declared the former Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. W. M. Hughes, in replying to the Chicago Tribune assertion that he was responsible for Japan getting into the Pacific Islands which she has developed as war bases. "The statement," Mr. Hughes declared, "is a string of blazing inaccuracies. The truth is that the Japanese annexed these islands when the 1914-18 war broke out, and forestalled an expeditionary force Australia had equipped, at the request of Britain, to take possession of them on behalf of Allied Powers. "The Japanese subsequently delivered to Britain what amounted to an ultimatum, in which they made it clear that unless their permanent possession of these islands was assured they would range themselves on the side of Germany. At that time I was not Prime Minister, and had never heard of Japan's demands." Mr. Hughes added that if President Wilson had opposed granting the Japanese a mandate over the islarms north of the equator they would never have got it. "For one thing I am responsible, and that is the grant to Australia of the mandates over New Guinea.and other islands south of the equator," said Mr. Hughes. "But for that the Japanese would long ago have overwhelmed Australia from bases only a few minutes away from our mainland." An earlier message quoted the Chicago Tribune as follows:— "Australians could not defend the Pacific Islands they demanded at the Paris peace conference. They could not defend their own continent when the. Japanese approached. Mr. Hughes, the then Australian Prime Minister, did not see ahead and President Wilson too feebly defended a principle which. might have saved Australia from its terrors, the British Empire from its losses and the Philippines from the invader." The Chicago Tribune asserted that Mr. Hughes insisted on a division of the Pacific Islands spoils so that Japan received all those islands north of the equator.
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Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 82, 7 April 1943, Page 3
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342SPIRITED REPLY Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 82, 7 April 1943, Page 3
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