NO DISUNITY IN AUSTRALIA

Southland Times, Issue 24421, 29 April 1941, Page 6

NO DISUNITY IN AUSTRALIA

LABOUR BEHIND WAR EFFORT

WORKERS’ DETERMINATION

(Rec. 6.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, April 28.

In an outspoken statement today Mr J. Curtin, the Federal Labour leader, assured the world that the Australian Labour movement was wholeheartedly behind the war effort.

“Today I have been advised in the most authoritative way that in Japan and the United States a controversy set going last week in Australia has been capitalized by the enemy to the fullest extent to the great detriment of our cause, and even our security,” said Mr Curtin. “In the United States what was published in Australia is causing speculation whether Australia is pulling out of the war. It was reprehensible that this should have happened. “There has never been, nor should be, any doubt about Australia. As leader of the Australian Labour Party I say to Germany and Japan that Australia and its workers are united in their determination to give their all in the war forced upon us. We are pledged to devote the entire resources of the nation to this end, to bear willingly any burden imposed, to preserve our security and to demonstrate to the Empire and its Allies that we shall not be found wanting in this crucial struggle for human liberty. To the United States I say the Labour movement in Australia is unflinching and unyielding to the end. We have a common interest and a common fate in resisting aggression wherever it may come. FALSE SUGGESTION “The suggestion that Australia is pulling out of the war is utterly false. The workers here know too well what happened to trades unionism and civil liberty in the lands with dictatorships and more poignantly in the lands which the dictatorships mastered. Finally I say to the world, friends or foes, that there is no political disunity in Australia regarding the prosecution of the war. We face it a united and determined people. In this country opinions are still free and criticism is not muzzled, but it would be absolutely false for foes to mistake liberty of speech here as a source of strength to themselves, and it would be wrong for our friends to construe it as evidence of doubt. On the contrary, the liberty we now practice, even while the war rages, is the surest guarantee of our undiminished determination to continue the war for the preservation of that liberty to a successful conclusion.” “If I find any whispers in this country I will hit them as hard and as bitterly as the law will allow, without respect to persons,” declared the Minister of the Army, Mr P. C. Spender, in an address when opening the new military hospital costing almost £1.000.000 at Concord suburb.

Mr Spender trenchantly condemned defeatists whose voices had been frequently heard recently. He could only describe them as a “company of fainthearts and feeble-guts” who ran whining for cover when the Empire suffered reverses overseas. He appealed for national unity and expressed the hope that Labour would take _ its courage in both hands and come into an all-party government. DECISION TO FORM NEW PARTY Federal and State members of the United Australia Party and the Country Party in Queensland have decided to unite and form a new party to be known as the Country National Party. The move was made without the knowledge of the party organizations. The acting Prime Minister (Mr A. W. Fadden) who presided* at a meeting of members, said later that he hoped the step would be the forerunner of similar moves in other spheres leading to the formation of a national Government. The Melbourne correspondent of The Daily Telegraph says that Labour collaboration in a national Government or even in the War Council with executive powers is unlikely. Federal Labour leaders are understood to hold the view that no change should be made in the existing Federal structure in a time of crisis. Labour spokesmen challenge suggestions that there has , been muddling in the Commonwealth’s war effort. They claim that the Advisory War Council has worked most successfully and should carry on in its present form.