BATTLE AGAINST TYRANNY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25134, 27 January 1943, Page 2

BATTLE AGAINST TYRANNY

ENGAGED IN COMMON CAUSE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Jan. 26.

“ Never did Australia and New Zealand realise their kinship and oneness as they do to-day," said the Prime Minister, Mr P. Fraser, at the Australia Day luncheon in Wellington of the A.I.F. Association to-day. Mr Fraser paid a high tribute to Australia’s war effort both in the world’s battlefields and in the field of war production. He referred appreciatively to the co-operation between Australia and New Zealand in the field of supply, and said it was a great privilege to take part in the celebration of the day on which a great nation was born, a nation destined to be one of the greatest on earth. General MacArthur, besides being a great general and tactician, had great taste in selecting the same day for his birthday, Mr Fraser continued, and he and Australia would be celebrating, not only their birthdays, but a great victory for Australia and for the whole Allied cause. “We are not alone in the Pacific," said Mr Fraser. “In addition to the great help given by Great Britain, we have the help also of that great nation of 130,000,000 people, the United States of America. The battle we are jointly fighting will only end when the tyranny of Japan and the tyranny Japan represents have been ended for all time. I look forward to Japan’s being rolled up just as Rommel is being rolled up, and to the day when the flags of Australia and New Zealand, with the flags of all the other Allied nations, will fly over Tokio, not as symbols of might, but of freedom for all nations. These tyrants must be taught that tyranny cannot succeed against free peoples.” After paying a tribute to the deeds of Australia in the last war, Mr Fraser expressed his admiration for the work of the Australian forces in this war. “If Britain had her greatest hour at Dunkirk,” he said, “Australia had hers when she accepted the loss of her forces in Malaya. The men who are in the hills and valleys of Timor are still carrying on guerrilla warfare and are maintaining the A.I.F. traditions.” One thing that had impressed him during his visit to Australia was that the Prime Minister, Mr Curtin, and General MacArthur at separate meetings he had with them had each expressed the utmost confidence in the other.