AUSTRALIA'S WAR EFFORT

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23315, 29 April 1941, Page 9

AUSTRALIA'S WAR EFFORT

Damaging Reports Sent Overseas PRIME MINISTER’S WARNING (Received April 29, 2 a.m.) (U.P.A.) CANBERRA, April 28. Cabinet Ministers continue to be concerned and annoyed at mischievous propaganda disseminated overseas about Australia’s war effort, alleged labour unrest and political disunity. The Acting-Prime Minister (Mr A. W. Fadden) reiterated to-night that there is not an atom of truth in any of these suggestions. He announced that firm steps had been taken to deal with reports sent outside Australia by irresponsible persons, and he repeated the assurance given to the British and American people that Australia stood four square behind the British Government. Mr Fadden said that highly coloured reports of possible political changes in Australia and untrue allegations of serious disagreements between the British and Australian Governments on the Greek campaign which had been sent abroad had threatened to have considerable influence on United States opinion. Cablegrams had been received from Mr R, G. Casey, the Australian Minister in Washington, expressing fear that this form of propaganda would give a fillip to isolationists, and in addition had caused some American newspapers to inquire whether there is any basis of truth in the stories cabled from Australia.

Cablegrams had also been received from the Australian Minister in Japan (Sir John Latham), complaining of damaging reports from Australia which had enabled the Japanese press to play them up with large headlines. Every responsible person in Australia, added Mr Fadden, would feel concerned regarding the reaction which would necessarily follow the publication overseas of certain comment on the war which had appeared in a section of the Sydney press recently—he exempted the “Sydney Morning Herald”—which in no sense reflected Australian opinion, and which would have a most prejudicial effect on the Empire’s war effort He was not worried in the least at what Berlin thought about Australia’s war effort, but he was gravely concerned at what the people of other parts of the British Empire and America thought. Accordingly, the Government was taking action against certain newspapers and persons responsible for the dissemination of false reports and speculation, with a view to preventing a repetition.

UNITY IN WAR EFFORT

AUSTRALIA’S PLEDGE

LABOUR LEADER DENIES RUMOURS

(U.P.A.) SYDNEY, April 28. In an outspoken statement yesterday, the Federal Labour Leader (Mr J. Curtin) assured the world that the Australian Labour movement was wholeheartedly behind the war effort. "To-day I have been advised in the most authoritative way that in Japan and the United States,, the controversy set going last week in Australia has been capitalised by the enemy to the fullest extent to the great detriment of our cause and even our security. “In the United States, what was published in Australia is causing speculation whether Australia is pulling out of the war. It was reprehensible that this should have happened. There never has been, nor should there be, any doubt about Australia. As the Leader of the Australian Labour Party. I say to Germany and Japan that Australia and her workers are united in their determination to give their all in a war that has been forced upon us. We are pledged to devote the entire resources of the nation to

this end, to bear willingly any burden imposed to preserve our security and to demonstrate to the Empire and her Allies that we shall not be found wanting in this crucial struggle for human liberty. ‘‘To the United States, I say that the Labour movement in Australia is unflinching and unyielding to the end. We have a common interest and a common fate in resisting aggression wherever it may come. The suggestion that Australia is pulling out of the war is utterly false. The workers here know too well what has happened to trade unionism ‘ and civil liberty in the land of dictatorships and more poignantly in the lands which the dictatorships have mastered. “Finally, I say to the world, friends or foes, that there is no political disunity in Australia regarding the prosecution of the war. We face it a united and determined people. In this country opinions are still free and criticism is not muzzled, but it would be absolutely false for foes to mistake liberty of speech here as a source of strength to themselves, and it is wrong for our friends to construe it as evidnece of doubt. On the contrary, the liberty we now practise, even while the war rages, is the surest guarantee of our undiminished determination to continue the war for the preservation of that liberty to a successful conclusion.” Threat by Vichy.—Vighy dispatches published in the German press state that British troops will be interned if they seek refuge in Syria.