TART REJOINDER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21601, 2 January 1945, Page 6

TART REJOINDER

AUSTRALIAN EFFORT CRITICISM BY TOURIST “TALK TO MACARTHUR" CANBERRA, Dec. 30. “Mr. Ward Johnson should have a talk with General MacArthur. He would then revise his opinion about Australia’s war effort.” said the Minister of Home Security, Mr. H. P. Lazzarini, yesterday. Mr. Lazzarini and the Minister of Munitions, Mr. N. J. O. Makin, were replying to a criticism by Mr. Ward Johnson. Republican member of the United States House of Representatives of what Australia was doing in the war. Mr. Ward Johnson visited Australia recently, as a member of the House of Representatives naval affairs committee.

“I feel sure our friends in America and throughout the world would sooner accept an assessment of Australia’s war effort from General MacArthur than the estimate of one who made a 25,000-mile tour of the Pacific, in a few clays, and returned home claiming to be a well-informed ority.” commented Mr. Makin. “General MacArthur, however, has a comprehensive and intimate knowledge ol what Australia has done and will conlinuo to clo to the utmost of hci ic--Unfortunately Australia has still creel far too frequently from hurried tourists who pass through the country in what is equivalent to a flying visit, and then elect to write volumes on Australia—a subject about which they know very little.”