GRIM BUSINESS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 83, 5 October 1942, Page 3

GRIM BUSINESS

AUSTRALIA'S TASK OF HOLDING ON

MR. CURTIN SPEAKS

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Rec. 2 p.m.) CANBERRA, Oct. 5. The Australian forces in New Guinea must continue to hold on for at least another six months, declared the Prime Minister, Mr. J. Curtin. Should events be favourable to the Allied cause in the South-west Pacific theatre, they could then look forward to an increase of strength which would enable the march to victory to be started. "Holding on will be a grim business," said bMr. Curtin. "It should be a silent business. All the theorising of- armchair strategists will not advance our men or throw the Japanese back one yard. "I am not going to make our fighting men in New Guinea mere suicide squads to satisfy thpse talkative armchair strategists." TRUST IN GENERALS. Mn Curtin said that the Australian Government had complete trust in General Mac Arthur and General Blarney. "He added: "It is the task of these commanders to hold on —a task all the more difficult because no fighting man likes being on the defensive." In the name of the fighting men Mr. Curtin asked that Australia's £100,000,000 Austerity Loan should be oversubscribed. The Australian Prime Minister, who made these statements in a national broadcast, was supported by the New Zealand Prime Minister, Mr. P. Fraser, the South African Prime Minister, General Smuts, and the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr.. Mackenzie King.