“LIMITED LIABILITY”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25142, 5 February 1943, Page 5

“LIMITED LIABILITY”

CRITICISM BY THE TIMES (Rec. 1.30 a.m.) LONDON, Feb. 3. “The unavoidable deduction from the essentiar clause of the Australia Militia Bill is that Mr Curtin has been obliged to capitulate to the isolationist sections of the Labour Party,” says The Times in an editorial. “The Bill defines the South-west Pacific in such narrow terms as to make it hard to understand why Mr Curtin thought it worth while to challenge the Labour isolationists and die-hard anti-con-scriptionists in order to obtain so little.

“It is hardly 100 much to say,” The Times adds, “that the Japanese, even if they are driven from the territory thus narrowly circumscribed, might remain scarcely less a menace to Australia and especially to her vital communication lines, than they are now. Among the United Nations the importance and urgency of the struggle in the South-west Pacific area is understood. Every effort will be made to roll back the Japanese and carry the fight nearer the vital sources of Japanesp strength, but as the mass of Australian opinion is evidently aware, it is hardly consistent with the recent appeals or with the dignity of the Australian nation to circumscribe self-defence with the doctrine of limited liability.”