NO MEN FOR AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 73, 27 March 1942, Page 5

NO MEN FOR AUSTRALIA

CANADIAN DECISION

OTTAWA, March 25. The Prime Minister, Mr. Mackenzie King, told the House of Commons today that the Government had decided against sending a Canadian expeditionary force to Australia. British and Canadian strategists, he said, had taken the view that Canadians should serve where they could do their best to defeat the enemy. He said that the Japanese menace against the Canadian shores was more distant in miles than the Nazi menace, and it should be kept in its proper perspective.

The Prime Minister announced the formation of two additional active army divisions, bringing the total number of Canadian divisions to eight, and also further marked increases in the air force and other fighting units. He explained that these measures had been taken because the war situation had further deteriorated, particularly in the Far East.

Mr. King explained that Canada had asked for representation on a Pacific War Council in Washington but did not press this matter at the present because other circumstances rendered Canada's representation in London more urgent.

Mr. King refuted rumours" that' the Government expected an early termination of the war. "Britain," he said, "has been forced to fight on many widely-separated fronts,, and consequently the forces of the' vast Empire are <> thinning everywhere. Never was the situation of the free countries more serious than now, and it would be almost a miracle if the war ended soon."

He said he had no doubt that the United Nations would ultimately triumph, but it would be a vastly different world compared with the past arid even compared with the present.