TRIBUTE TO AUSTRALIA

Grey River Argus, 27 January 1943, Page 4

TRIBUTE TO AUSTRALIA

By N.Z. Prime Minister

P.A. WELLINGTON, Jan. 26. “Never did Australia and New Zealand realize their kinship and oneness as they do to-day,” said the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, at the Australia Day luncheon of the Wellington A.I.F. Association to-day. Mr Fraser paid a high tribute to Australia’s war effort both on the world’s battlefields and in the field of war oroduction. He referred appreciatively to the co-operation between Australia and New Zealand in the field of supply. He said that it was a great privilege to take part in the celebration of the day on which a great nation was born, a nation destined to be one the greatest on earth. General MacArthur, besides being a great general and tactician. had great taste to ■ select the same day for his birthday, and lie and Australia would be celebrating not only their birthdays, but a great victory for Australia and for the whole Al--I'ed cause.

“We are not alone in the Pacific,” said Mr Fraser. “In addition to the great help given by Great Britain, wo have the heln also of that great nation of 130 million people of the United States/ Tim battle we are jointly fighting will only end when the tyranny of Japan and the tyranny Japan represents are ended for ail time. I look forward to Japan, being rolled up just as Rommel is being rolled up, and to the day when the flags of Australia and New Zealand, with the flavs of all of the other nations will fly over Tokio, not as symbols of might, but of freedom for all nations. These tyrants must he taught that tyranny cannot succeed against free peoples.” After pay ng a tribute to the deeds of Australia in the last war, Mr Fraser expressed his admiration of the work Australian forces in this war. “If Britain had her greatest hour at Dunkirk.” he said. “Australia had lier’s when she accepted the loss of her forces in Malaya. The men who are n the h’lls of Timor, still carrying on' guerrilla warfare, are maintaining the ,A.I.F. traditons. One thing that impressed him durin- his v'sit to Australia, he said, was that Mr Curtin and General MacArthur, at separate meetings which he had with them, had each expressed the utmost confidence in the other.