AUSTRALIA AND NEW ORDER

Southland Times, Issue 24986, 24 February 1943, Page 5

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ORDER

Need For Larger Population

(Special Australia Correspondent, N.Z.P.A.)

(Rec. 7 p.m.) SYDNEY, February 23. “Australia must either double its population within the next 20 years or disappear.” This is the opinion of Mr R. G. Menzies, former Prime Minister and a member of the Australian War Council.

Post war problems are looming increasingly large in the public mind here and on Monday three prominent Australians made reference to some of them. Besides Mr Menzies, Australia’s Prime Minister in the last war, Mr W. M. Hughes, and a former Army Minister, Mr P. C. Spender, also touched on some aspects of the Commonwealth’s planning after the war. The development of manufacture as the only real hope of solving the vital population problem was urged by Mr Menzies, who said that Australia had resources crying aloud to be developed. “Secondary industries have proved Australia’s salvation in this war,” he added. “There are plenty of people who will come here from Britain once they are satisfied they will find life and a living, and the Commonwealth must create those conditions.”

The talk of “drift to the cities” meant nothing to him, declared Mr Menzies, unless it involved slum

aggravation. Thousands, had already come from rural industries, which had never paid adequately, and had discovered what it was to live in the comforts of a metro-

politan suburb on a decent wage. “If the new order is to be more than a mere election slogan Australia must have a post-war policy that will ensure employment for its people and for migrants,” said Mr Hughes, emphasizing the problems which might be created for this country by a peace treaty, in which unrestricted economic nationalism would undoubtedly be severely penalized. Post-war reconstruction would have to be adjusted to the terms of this peace treaty. New schemes for world distribution might mean that Australia would lose control of its

trade and might entail forfeiting the tariffs it now had. The new world peace would be likely to prohibit high tariffs against imports from signatory countries and would probably regulate them. PRICE OF PEACE “If people want peace they must be prepared to pay the price,” said Mr Hughes. “Britain after the war will be too poor to buy imported food. She has learned to grow her own food to an unexpected degree and will not need so much of Australia’s primary produce as in the past.” Mr Spender said that understanding and co-operation between the British Empire and the United States would have to be greatly strengthened after the war. He pointed out that America’s interest in the strategically situated British-owned islands of the Pacific would be permanent.