CIVIL WAR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21643, 13 May 1932, Page 6

CIVIL WAR

AUSTRALIA’S DANGER

BISHOP’S REMARKABLE WARNING,

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, May 5. A remarkable utterance by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dr Duhig, has attracted attention throughout Australia, when he asked the church to pray that such calamity and humiliation as civil war should never happen in “ this bright land of Australia.” , He made veiled to the New Guard and similar organisations that have been established in the various States under different names, but all with the one object—meeting the onslaught of disruptive forces which seem to be gaining in strength.' “The position in Australia to-day is far more serious than the majority of the people realise,” he said. “If tomorrow, or any day in the near future, you take up your morning newspaper, and find that a revolution has broken out in one of our chief cities, you need not be at all surprised. Who can deny that events are shaping towards a civil war, and if such a calamity comes it will be attributable directly to men entrusted with the Government of the people and the’welfare of the nation. “ Between the Commonwealth and one of the’States there is a conflict that never should have arisen, and which seriously threatened to end in the destruction of life and property. The law of reprisals, however, just in its findings, is not always wise in its execution. The peace of our country is worth more than millions of pounds. The existence of a civilian force, or guard, as they term it, in defence of the Commonwealth laws, is a direct challenge to other and sinister elements in the community to organise and assert themselves. ■ Australia has always found sufficient protection in its splendid and efficient police force and military without irresponsible private citizens making a pretence at maintaining the law. “ In the public life of our own country to-day there is such a dearth of_ farseeing and resourceful men that it is a question whether we are destroying more than we are building. Perhaps never before in the history of the British Empire have men a more favourable opportunity for nation-building than they have in Australia, yet look at the condition of the Commonwealth to-day?”