IMPISH ATTACK

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 11, 14 January 1941, Page 6

IMPISH ATTACK

W. M. HUGHES

CRITICISM OF COLLEAGUES

LEADER'S REBUKE

(By Trans-Tasman Air Mall, from "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, January 11. William Morris Hughes, Australia's Prime Minister of the Great War and Minister for the Navy in the present Cabinet, is, at 76, the "bad boy" of Australian politics. He is repeatedly embarrassing the Gabinet and fellow-Ministers by outspoken criticism, and three recent utterances earned him glares and frowns when he attended a War Cabinet meeting this week. He did not ease the tension by appearing two hours late. But Mr. Hughes was unruffled. Indeed, he seemed to enjoy the hostility he had created, for he walked into the Cabinet room, adjusted his hearing aids, and threw out a challenging, "Well?" What was said behind the closed doors can only be surmised, but three hours later Mr. Hughes walked out smiling broadly. He always enjoys a fight and was unperturbed by the official rebuke' of the Prime Minister, Mr. Menzies. Mr. Hughes's first "indiscretion" was to release the news of the rescue of the raider survivors ahead of the Minister of Air, Mr. McEwen, who was preparing the release. Confusion followed among the Services Departments. Mr. Hughes next revived the shipbuilding question which Cabinet members are not yet ready to discuss. MELBOURNE ATTRACTIONS. His third impish act was a personal attack on Service Ministers who prefer to administer their Departments from Melbourne instead of the capital, Canberra, and Service chiefs who, accordi?ag to Mr. Hughes, "have their homes, friends, golf, and bridge partners in Melbourne—attractions which provide a forceful case why they cannot be moved .from there." Rebuking Mr. Hughes, Mr. Menzies said: "I have known War Cabinets called in Canberra in which one of the chiefs of staff for the sake of half an hour in the Cabinet room has had to absent himself for two days from his office in Melbourne. I am afraid that some jocular, remarks by my colleague have been taken seriously. Mr. Hughes would be the last to fail to recognise that the heads of the Services have all ; for many months past worked* for long hours and under immense pressure with very little time for either recreation or comfort. The same is true of Ministers. Perhaps I should point out that the Service Departments are in Melbourne with their staffs and records, and in those circumstances it would be impracticable for the bulk of the meetings of the War Cabinet to be held anywhere else than in Melbourne."