SYMPATHY WITH AUSTRALIA

Evening Star, Issue 24482, 17 April 1943, Page 5

SYMPATHY WITH AUSTRALIA

RISK OF OVER-EMPHASIS \ LONDON, April 15. • " Warnings from Australia must not be underestimated. Japan, in spite of reverses, returns to the attack tuno after time with ant-like industry," states the ' Daily Mail ' in a leading article on the strategic situation in the Pacific. The paper adds: "People in Britain aie puzzled by the apparently conflicting statements which have come from Australia—especially since each announcement of imminent danger and menace has been followed by a new Allied success." "Australia will be "in peril so long as the Japanese hold the islands to the north," adds the paper. "To fight a holding campaign in the face of a potential invader while blows are being struck elsewhere is not an easy task. We can sympathise with Australia, for this is a role we ourselves have played. The Australians are right to put their case with persistence. Yet there is also some risk of over-emphasis—as was discovered by the hoy who cried ' Wolf I' so often that when the savage beast at length appeared no notice was taken of his cries for help." The ' Evening Standard ' welcomes the pending visit of the Australian Minister of External Affairs, Dr H. V. Evatt, who will go to London at the end of his present visit to the United States and Canada. " Keen-eyed and keen-minded, Dr Evatt revisits us at another dangerous moment, when the Japanese are massing powerful forces north of Australia," says the paper " We remember Dr Evatt's virile and disturbing presence among us last year. He did a grand job for us as well as for Australia. He destroyed the last vestiges of our complacency about the Japanese His return will be welcome."