FRANK APPEAL TO AMERICA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25135, 28 January 1943, Page 5

FRANK APPEAL TO AMERICA

(N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) (Rec. 7 p.m.) SYDNEY, Jan. 27. “ Mr Curtin did not plead for special favours, but for a broader conception of the danger which threatens all the democracies. It was the Prime Minister’s frankest appeal for more American help in the war against the Japanese.” The Sydney Daily Telegraph this morning offers the above editorial comment on Mr Curtin’s Australia Day broadcast. The paper agrees with the clear United Nations’ strategy that Australia is not the best base for a direct attack against Japan, but says there is no doubt that if Australia goes the whole Pacific would bv* “ wide open ” to the Japanese and that America would then have to defend her western shores.

“ This is the point Mr Curtin tried to drive home in the bluntest words he has so far used in talking to our ally,” the Daily Telegraph adds. “ Greater American resistance in ships, men, and machines is therefore essential, not only for Australia’s sake but for the sake of the American people as well.” The views expressed by Mr Curtin on the conduct of the Pacific war fairly well reflect the opinions of the great bulk of Australians. Their hopes that a greater proportion of the United Nations’ strength may be allocated to this theatre has been raised by the persistent Washington reports that the important announcements to be made on the direction of global strategy will mean that more attention will be given to the war in the Pacific. A great champion for closer American attention to the struggle against Japan and for increased Allied striking power in the South Pacific has been

the military writer of the Christian Science Monitor, Mr Joseph Harsch. author of “Pattern of Conquest,” who has had wide experience of both the war in Europe and the war in the Pacific. Mr Harsch has recently pointed out to Americans the inadequacies of the Pacific War Council, which, he contends, was “ instituted by President Roosevelt as a superficial concession to Australia under extreme pressure.”

“It was never regarded as mofe than a sop in official American eyes, and a grudging sop at that,” Mr Harsch adds, “ and it has suffered the inevitable fate of mechanism formed in such circumstances —meetings become less frequent, and the President informs members of the broad outlines of decisions reached elsewhere.”

Emphasising the desirability of China and the South Pacific democracies (Australia and New Zealand) having a greater voice in the decisions of global strategy, Mr Harsch points out for the benefit of his American readers that the Pacific Council is not the deliberating or deciding body, but that it meets to learn the decisions reached by the American and British chiefs of staffs.