AUSTRALIAN REPLY
Mr. Savage’s Comment on Colonies Sydney, May 6. “Clearly Mr. Savage did not know what he was talking about,” declared Senator Sir George Pearce, Commonwealth Minister of External Affairs,
replying to the cabled comment by the New Zealand Prime Minister concerning the Empire’s administration of German colonies. Sir George added that as far as New Guinea was concerned, the Australian administration
had always received a first-class pass from the Mandates Commission, who were experts well qualified to judge. Mr. W. M. Hughes, recalling his Prime Ministership in 1919 when the mandate of New Guinea ’ was taken over, said that wonderful work had been done there since then. The white population had increased by 400 per cent., and the value of exports had increased by 500 per cent. In 1914 Germany had 200 soldiers there; Australia now had only one.
The only statement on the colonial issue made by Mr. Savage in his London interview ami cabled to New Zealand was made when he was asked whether he favoured the return of colonies to Germany. Mr. Savage said that the first thing to get peace was to do justice to all nations. “I am just a little afraid,” he added, "that the Empire is not using its territories as well as it could.”
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Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 189, 7 May 1937, Page 11
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214AUSTRALIAN REPLY Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 189, 7 May 1937, Page 11
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