FEAT OF ORGANISATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 105, 30 October 1942, Page 4

FEAT OF ORGANISATION

WHAT AUSTRALIANS HAVE DONE

(By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright.^ (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, October 29. / Australia has become sharply, conscious of some America*! cen,-.; | sure of her war effort. . ! The evidence which may he ad-, duced to support the criticism ap- \ pears a distortion rather than * \ representation of the truth. An incident in which a srciall group' of Australian waterside workers, who were unloading vital war cargo ceased work because it rained too hard/leaving the unloading to be done by American servicemen, has been magnified out of all proportion. REINFORCEMENT POSITION. The division of the Australian* Army into the volunteer A.I.F. .(enlist-' ed for service anywhere in the world), land the Militia' (conscripted for service within Australian territories), is * in no degree affecting Australia's power to provide reinforcements ' wherever they are-most needed, but the topic is being fermented till it may be swollen to the size of a major political issue. -In a population of some 7,000;000 people, Australia has 1,600,000 engaged in the war industries or the armed 'forces. By the end of the present year* according to the Army Minister, "Aus^ tralia will have achieved a mobilisa-^ tion of labour as complete as anywhere in the world."' x .

For a country with such a small population to manufacture in increas--ing quantities all the essentials of war—ships, aeroplanes, guns, tanks, , and munitions—is a feat of industrial organisation which defies minor criticism.

In proportion to that effort, Aus* tralia's labour troubles have been small—and minor incidents have been increasingly resented by the great body of Australians. " .