TRIBUTES PAID IN AUSTRALIA

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26395, 13 April 1951, Page 7

TRIBUTES PAID IN AUSTRALIA

REFERENCES BY PARTY LEADERS

(Rec. 9.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, April 12. An audience of 3500 at Hobart cheered last night when the Prime Minister (Mr Menzies) mentioned General MacArthur.

Mr Menzies was talking about the need for stronger defences when an interjector called: “Did you know that General MacArthur has been sacked?” Mr Menzies said: “Do you hail that with joy or sorrow? I reserve a special slab of contempt for people who, when a man falls from high office and circumstances change, forget there was a day when everyone in Australia said, ‘Thank God for General MacArthur'.’’ The Labour Leader (Mr J. B. Chifley), speaking at Adelaide, said: “I want to pay a tribute to General MacArthur. for he was a great organiser and always kept promises he made to the Australian Labour Government durmg th° war. I violently disagree with General MacArthur's publiclyexpressed views, which are so much at variance with those of the Western Powers, on continuing the war into Chinn and Manchuria. His dismissal was inevitable.”

In Svdney, the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition (Dr. H. V. Evatt) said he thought the Un ted Nations did not intend that its forces were to occupy the whole of North Korea to the Manchurian border. “I think tha: is the cause of the crisis between General MacArthur and Mr Truman,” he added. “Whatever the outcome of this dispute, I again want to pav a tribute to General MacArthur, who did so mu h for Australia during the days when we were in deadly peril from the Japanese.”