AUSTRALIAN MILITIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 56, 8 March 1943, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN MILITIA

"TRIBUNE" URGES USE

ABROAD

JBy Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.! CHICAGO, March 5. ■ The Chicago "Daily Tribune," in an editorial, states: "No doubt Mr. J. Curtin's gratitude to General MacArthur is sincere, but the General would be pleased if the Australian Government rewarded him by lifting the restrictions on the use of Australian troops against Japan. "It has been suggested that the Australians have adopted this policy because they wish to offend the Japanese as little as possible, but it is difficult to believe that Australians are so shortsighted. , "It must be obvious that only a :; Japanese defeat can remove the threat b against Australia. Australia would probably already be overrun save for theriAmerican planes, ships, and.men., Therefore, America has the right to expect that the Australians should place their entire resources unreservedly at General Mac Arthur's disposal. i "The Bismarck Sea victory has shown that America'; unlike Australia, has v no reason to fear invasion. We are independent of other nations for the. means to destroy an enemy expedition before it nears our coast.

"Though we are secure, we are sacrificing the lives of our young men to safeguard Australia. If we do not hesitate to send conscripts to defend Australia, the Australians ought to do as much to save themselves."

When the Australian Government introduced its Militia Bill into the House of Representatives at the end of January Mr. R. G. Menzies declared that it made sorry reading in the light of appeals to other countries for help. "To my mind it is strange to ask people of other countries to send their troops thousands of miles for us while we are solemnly to enact that the zone within which we will exercise compulsion includes New Guinea but excludes most of the! Solomons, includes Timor but excludes New Caledonia and New Zealand, goes half-way through Java and then stops, and excludes Singapore, Sumatra, Malaya, and Burma, all of which are highly relevant to Australian defence," he said. The Bill defines the limits as from the 110 th to the 159 th meridians, and up to the north as far as the Equator. Mr. Curtin said Australian forces would be available to fight wherever it was best for the common cause. Mr. Menzies had been head of a Government which had imposed limitations on the use of the militia, he declared, and the new. measure extended the limits far beyond those fixed by that Government.'