NEW GUINEA MANDATE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23108, 6 February 1937, Page 14

NEW GUINEA MANDATE

AUSTRALIA'S ATTITUDE OPPORTUNITY FOR MR LYONS .SYDNEY, Feb. 5. (Received Feb,. 5, at 11.30 p.m.) The Herald, ,in a leader, says: " The coming Imperial Conference or discussions outsjde it should provide opportunities for Mr Lyons if the Governments mind is made up to convey that hi no circumstances will Australia consider surrender of the mandate in Drew Guinea to Germany, especially to a Germany which made a treaty with Japan, of which the full ttirms have not been disclosed. Germany has possibly done us service by raising this question because the i recent official disposition in Canberra towards ' cocking a snook' at tlj.e Mother Country —in the assertion iof some local right to deny when it suits us the principle of Imperial co-operation—may now become moire subdued. When the subject of discussion is immigration we try to avoid it; if it be the investment of British capital there is a curious eagerness to prefer American; the British air mail scheme met with official opposition here as sturdy as it was stupid for ever two years. Tshe slogan ' Tuning In With Britain' petered out when we had converted our London loans and secured our meat export concessions. The German demand for New Guinea may set it a-flutter again at Canberra."