Menzies’ Ringing Cry For Unity In Vital Year

Northern Advocate, 27 May 1941, Page 8

Menzies’ Ringing Cry For Unity In Vital Year

SYDNEY, May 26. “There is only one fight that maters today and I call on the whole of Australia to go through with it,” declared the Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies), in a rousing speech delivered in the Sydney'Town Hall tonight. The occasion was a welcome home by his fellow members of the Cabinet and citizens. Mr. Menzies described 1941 as “our year of fate.” He prayed God that we would get through this year safely. America had a long way to go before her war wheels would fully revolve and in the battle of 1941 Britishers must depend on their own strength and own resources and draw upon their courage and resolution. Spending' on non-essentials must cease. Every available penny must be devoted to building armoured vehicles, anti-tank guns, artillery and other weapons which would make not an heroic but a victorious army. He repeated what he said in the United States that there will be no compromise with the enemy.

Grave Times Ahead

The Empire would be confronted with all sorts of developments of the utmost gravity in the next six months .—in Turkey, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, Spain, Gibraltar and the Atlantic. We would not look in vain to the United States.

The hour had come for complete unity and co-operation among all men of all parties. He was not suggesting that the Labour Party should sink its identity and its ideals. What he urgently desired was that Parliament should become the instrument of war rather than the instrument of dissension. Mr. Menzies received rounds of applause which were repeated during his recital of his experiences in England, and also whenever he mentioned the name of Churchill.