NEED FOR UNITY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20636, 16 August 1941, Page 9

NEED FOR UNITY

AUSTRALIAN POLITICS THE LESSON OF FRANCE SYDNEY, Aug. 12. The Minister of Commerce, Sir Earle Page, at the Farmers and Settlers’ Conference, said that national disunity in Australia now would mean national suicide. “With dark shadows moving dangerously across the Pacific, Australians are still living in a world of political unreality,” he said. “We have failed to take heed of the terrible lesson of the fall of France —that national disunity in the face of total war is national suicide.” Sir Earle said that people talked about an election, but that would be a fatal sign to the enemy of political disunity. “Surely there must be some means perhaps unconventional whereby the three great parties in Australia could get togetner and give tc the people what they are asking for —stable government and quick action,” he said. It was absurd, he added, that one half of Parliament, at the present vital juncture, should have practically no executive authority. The position appeared to him to be a frustration of democracy. Events in the Pacific might develop so quickly that they might outpace efforts to achieve political unity and a united front in Australia. They should follow the example of Britain: try to forget their ordinary party affiliations and see if they could not all line up in a 100 per cent national united war effort. “If we lose the war, Australians will lose everything,” Sir Earle Page added. “Winning the war must be our first consideration.”