URGENT APPEAL TO AUSTRALIA

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22769, 22 July 1939, Page 15

URGENT APPEAL TO AUSTRALIA

, National Register Dispute LABOUR ATTITUDE CONDEMNED Prime Minister Asks For Discipline (UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.) (Received July 21, 10.30 p.m.)i MELBOURNE, July 21. On the eve of his conference with the Federal Labour leader (Mr J. Curtin) on the trade unions’ opposition to the national register, the Prime Minister (Mr R. G. Menzies) addressed a luncheon after his arrival in Melbourne from Perth. “This country is in danger,” he declared, and appealed for a united national outlook. He criticised “persons of obscure mental processes who rise up and say, ‘This is Hitlerism,’ when a democratic Government: democratically elected takes steps to ensure that its decisions are carried out.” Mr Menzies was referring to Labour' disobedience of the national register measure, and the threat by key industries to dislocate Australian industry. ♦ . Mr Menzies added: “I appeal for discipline. I warn you that we cannot get the maximum national effort if some of us think our way of running the country is the only way, and that if the majority is against that way then the majority is wrong.” Union leaders are now asking for legislative assurance that the national register will not be used for conscription purposes. The executive of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, with 30,000 Australian members, has advised the rank and file not to sign the register.