Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 1942 MR. CURTIN WILL NOT ASK FOR MORE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 11 August 1942, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 1942 MR. CURTIN WILL NOT ASK FOR MORE

SINCE tile "New York World Tele-1 gram” “lifted the lid,” the burning; question of priority rating of General MacArthur’s command has fairly sizzled in the United States and in; Australia. Although it has aroused) some pointed criticism the disclosure j of the American paper that the South-West Pacific Command must! take at least second place to the; European theatre in United Nations’ grand strategy will create a healthier j atmosphere and give a perspective! to Allied plans which the public j lately have been unable to glimpse. * It can be seen that, while not neglecting the main theatres, the plans i now have a strong set in one direc-j lion: Hitler’s Europe and the Middle j East. In essence it comes back to i what we stressed yesterday: that i framers of United Nations’ strategy have at last begun to concentrate strength instead of scattering it and! priorities are being weighted to lit in with this central decision. Such a change, especially amongst us living within the orbit of Japan, may seem unwelcome until we getj accustomed to it. There may be even accusations that the Pacific is being neglected; already we find assertions that Australia has been relegated to

a backwater of war activity, a I charge as unjust as if is untrue, j Perhaps through ignorance—maybe 1 m a friendly attempt to break the I news gradually to Australia—the ! 8.8. C. in an overseas broadcast tried to discredit the "World-Tele-gram's” revelations and editorial comment about the priority rating of war fronts. Mr Curtin, Commonwealth Prime Minister, knew better and he has now put the cards on the table. This is his declaration: Australia will not ask for more war equipment at the expense of China, Russia and the Middle East. Australia shares in common with other Allied nations a shortage uf tanks, aeroplanes and ships. We can’t expect to be placed in a special sanctuary while those associated with us arc having their territories ravaged. The same Prime Minister who a few months ago called loudly J'or defensive aid from Britain and the United States now warns his countrymen about being “squealers.” Australia was one of the bastions from which an offensive would eventually be launched. . . . Allocations to the South-West Pacific theatre of war were not as large as originally planned and he accepted full responsibility for that. Some equipment had not arrived because of shipping losses and other equipment had been diverted to places where it was more urgently needed. This timely statement should do much to forestall recriminatory allegations about Australia and New Zealand being left in the lurch. Mr Curtin knows the background of United Nations’ grand strategy and when he talks of the enemy “having stolen a march on us” it is the swift German penetration to North Caucasus oilfields and towards Caspian shores to which he is alluding. The absolute necessity of sustaining Russia—propping her up if need be—is not lost on him, for it is one of the central tasks confronting United Nations. Mr Curtin also knows it is misleading to apply the term “offensive” except in a very limited sense to the Solomon Islands action. It is a precautionary counter-stroke and everybody hopes it will extend a; far as clearing the Japanese out of the New Guinea corner and Pius roll back the invasion threat to Australia and New Zealand. Could it achieve such signal success it would still not be the big counter-offensive which everybody wants to see launched one day from the Australian springboard on a scale complementary to offensive thrusts in Europe. There are other salutary reminders that this day is further off than we thought five weeks ago when Hitler’s Russian offensive was gathering way. In a backs-to-the-wall strain Mr Curtin warns us that the struggle is likely to be long and bloody. Reviewing the first eight months of United States 1 participation in the war the American Office of War Information says it is certain that we are not going to win without heavy losses in men. Mr P. C. Spender, member of the Australian War Advisory Council, comes along to explode a belief in which we have taken refuge for nearly three years: The last people we ought to fool are ourselves. Time is not with us; it is the most powerful ally of our enemies and the longer our enemies are given to digest their foully-won gains, the more difficult it will be to compel them to disgorge and greater will become the might of their blows against

We are coming down once more to stern realities. Where are those fair prospects in which we were basking only a few quiescent months ago? When Rommel drove us out of Libya a British newspaper reminded us that the honeymoon was over, in the course of two months the whole outlook of 1 the war has changed. For this Hitler is responsible. He has been almost as good as his vow, for unless something unexpected happens von Bock’s armies will, as instructed by the Fuhrer, be installed in Caucasus oilfields and on Caspian shores well before the winter. Speed of transition of fortunes is paralleled only by that of the German advance. Victory has been pushed further into the future. It will not come till it has been earned and we now have to accept the fact that the price will be heavy. If we were to go on dispersing our strength instead of concentrating it quickly on the vitals of the Axis juggernaut we could lose the war or at least fail to win it.