REALISTIC VIEW IN PACIFIC

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 136, 5 March 1941, Page 9

REALISTIC VIEW IN PACIFIC

Australian Pledge STATEMENT BY MR. MENZIES Defence Without Fear Or Suspicion (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 3. The Australian Prime Minister, Mr. Menzies, speaking at a luncheon in London, said that people in Japan were asking why Australia had sent a large force to Singapore to participate in making safe that key position of British power in the Far East, and his answer was that the most common precaution of the ordinary man was to lock up his door and insure against loss. “We in Australia,” he said, “are determined to do all we can not only to insure ourselves against loss, but also to make our contribution to insure the British Empire against loss. Australia has great primary responsibilities in the Pacific, on the shores of which it is set, and she has a primary liability and risk if anything goes wrong among the nations which border that ocean.

“I vyant to say something a little realistic and, I hope, sensible, about our attitude toward two great Powers which are quite plainly of predominate importance in the Pacific—Japan and the United States. “Nothing disturbs me more than to encounter that type of mind which appears to assume that, because we Australians and other British people are engaged in a deadly war, and a war which will not terminate except with victory, we should at the same time, because Japan has made an agreement of some kind with the Axis Powers, permit ourselves willy-nilly to drift into an'atmosphere with regard to Japan which is dubious and danger-' OUS.” Mr. Menzies added that there was no difficulty which could not be resolved between nations with the utmost frankness. Why should not Australia say to Japan that they knew Japan had her place in the world and that Japan knew Australia had hers ami discuss their mutual difficulties? , “Let Us Get Together.” “Instructions given to the Australian Minister at Tokio,” he said, "were, ‘Let us get together and discuss whatever problems exist. Let us get to understand each other.’ We aimed at getting nearer Japan, not sitting suspiciously in our corner. “Because we are realists we have pursued in Australia a policy of local defence which is directed at enabling us to resist with our own forces an attack by any aggressor. “There should be no pretence about International relations. I have no reason to believe that the Pacific Ocean cannot be made in fact and in substance pacific if all people who live on it will merely Ih> frank and sensible, and tolerate and understand each other.

“As to tlie United States, we appointed a man there who has done splendid work for friendship between our two countries. This is a contact that must, in the long run, he nor only good for a peaceful Pacific, but also a magnificent thing .for civilized people all over the world. “We shall do well in this Pacific, in which the primary interest, and primary responsibility of Australia resides, if we decide that none of the old cliches will control our action.

“We shall judge every case on ils merits. We shall approach every one of Our neighbour countries without suspicion and without fear. I am pledged to give a guarantee on behalf of Australia that fear and suspicion will never govern our foreign policy.”

GERMANS IN POLAND

LONDON, March 4.

The Munich newspaper, “Neueste Nachriehten” says that 9000 Germans left Warsaw for .“Incorporated Poland,” to avoid the possibility of conflict with the local Polish population. The Germans are taking over houses, shops and businesses whien formerly belonged to Poles.