POST-WAR PLAN

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24540, 24 March 1943, Page 4

POST-WAR PLAN

AUSTRALIA PREPARES SURVEY BY EXPERTS (Special Australian Correspondent) SYDNEY, March 23 Australia is preparing a blueprint of post-war national reconstruction. The primary objectives will be the immediate re-employment of service personnel and the conversion of national economy to a peacetime basis with a minimum of dislocation and hardship. However, the broader plans go beyond these minimum requirements and they will design a way of life and work to fit into the pattern of peace security envisaged in the Atlantic Charter. Vast fields of Australian resources and production, weighed against the post-war needs of the country and its people, are being explored by a team of experts under Dr. IT. C. Coombs, formerly Director of Rationing and now Director-General of Reconstruction. Advisory Bodies Under Dr. Coombs, who is 36 years of age, several advisory bodies will be created to investigate major fields of reconstruction. In the main, however, the services of existing Government departments will be employed to facilitate reconstruction processes. . The first of the new advisory bodies is the Rural Reconstruction Commission, its members representing leading authorities on the Commonwealth's rural problems. The commission will submit specific plans for the rehabilitation of all the primary industries, including the extension or rearrangement of production. It will take into consideration the markets which are likely to be available internally and externally in the post-war period. The commission has been asked specifically to make recommendations for the improvement of living conditions in rural areas. Housing, public works and expanded social service schemes will form parts of Australia's reconstruction plan and it is probable that new authorities will be set up to examine the problems offered in each of these divisions. Dependence on People "The task of my department," Dr. Coombs said, "is to provide plans for reconstruction based on the material provided by these commissions and all relevant authorities. When two sets of recommendations clash we will have the job of ironing them out and holding the balance. The success or failure of our schemes will depend upon the faith of tho people and the energy they devote in pushing reconstruction to the limit." Basically, Australia views the problem of reconstruction as one of finance. For this reason the Ministry of Reconstruction is allied to the Treasury and the portfolio held by the Federal Treasurer, which office is now held by Mr. Chifley. The Treasurer therefore will be faced with a dual responsibility of planning finance and reconstruction. One of the last bills of the present session of the Federal Parliament deals with a vital part of post-war reconstruction. It is the Repatriation Bill, which has already passed the House of Representatives and is now before the Senate, where an amendment is expected to be moved to ensure preference to returned soldiers in Government controlled employment. The expected amendment would undermine the Labour policy which gives preference to unionists in many Government contracts. The main opposition to it is that it would penalise workers who had been arbitrarily placed in reserved occupations and debarred from enlisting. FAMOUS SPEECH MR. CHURCHILL'S APPEAL (Special Australian Correspondent) SYDNEY, March 23 "Mr. Churchill uses a masterly brush on a broad canvas, and his great speech on post-war reconstruction lacked nothing in its range, its imagination and its public appeal when compared with any of his preceding and justlyfamous addresses on the progress of the war," says the Sydney Morning Herald j in an editorial to-day. This comment typifies the sober Australian reaction to Mr. Churchill's view of the world after the war, but many newspaper and radio commentators express disappointment with the lack of encouragment which the speech held for the peoples of the Pacific. "With the Japanese exploiting the oil of the Netherlands East Indies, the rubber and tin of Malaya, and the food resources of the Philippines and IndoChina, and with their hold on this new empire being steadily strengthened, tho possibility of Japan collapsing before Germany appears so fantastically remote as' not to be worth mentioning," declared one radio news analyst here. It is generally felt that Mr. Churchill's speech supports the view that the war will be long. Some commentators employ the speech to reiterate the old arguments for increased Allied strength in this theatre. The Sydney Daily Telegraph says: "The Japanese, securely in the arc of islands around Australia's north, have all the raw materials and food they need and their production is growing. That our margin of defence should correspondingly increase is only common sense. "To suggest that we would imperil the 'finish Hitler first' strategy if our supplies in this theatre were doubled, or trebled, is absurd. To suggest that Allied resources have been heavily strained to provide the handful of planes and the few ships already allocated to General Mac Arthur would be ridiculous. The Chinese, the Dutch, the Australians, and those Americans who realise how powerful the Japanese are will read Mr. Churchill's reassurances with some disappointment." RUSSIAN INTEREST MOVES BY ARMED FORCES LONDON, March 23 A Moscow message says the leading Russian newspapers to-day published almost verbatim the report of .Mr. Churchill's broadcast speech. The message adds that the idea of a four-year plan in traditional Britain arouses sympathetic interest, but, quite naturally, the Russian public is looking first and foremost for indications of what are likely to be the next moves by the British and American armed forces. NEW AXIS ORDER MEETING IN TOKIO (Reed. 10.15 p.m.) NEW YORK, March 2fl The Tokio oflioinl radio says tho Board of Information has announced that representatives of Japan, Germany and Italy, at a meeting in Tokio, reached a full agreement, on the building of a new world order and the prosecution of the war. The Doinei news agency said observers contrasted the close harmony of the Axis aims with the vagueness of the war aims and constant clashing of interests between Britain and America, representatives of which meet time and again, but have achieved nothing.