“PLEDGING LIVES”

Taranaki Daily News, 5 September 1935, Page 5

“PLEDGING LIVES”

MR. LANG’S HOT PROTEST •‘RECALL OF MR. BRUCE” REFUSAL TO ENTER WAR WILL REPUDIATE PLEDGE By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 12.10 a.m. Sydney, Sept. 4. “Australia will never again offer her sons for slaughter in European wars,” declared Mr. J. T. Lang, Leader of the State Labour Party, when addressing an anti-war gathering at Sydney to-night. “At this very moment,” Mr. Lang continued, “Mr. S. M. Bruce at Geneva is pledging the lives of at least 100,000 of the flower of Australian manhood for a second world war. He will find Australians will repudiate that pledge. What is more, he will probably find himself recalled. The Labour movement in Australia will have nothing to do with the coming war which, like its predecessors, is purely a trade war—a war of plunder wherein Australia has nothing to gain and everything to lose.” During the past 10 years Britain had helped foreigners to steal Australian markets, continued Mr. Lang. Children born 21 years ago now had a say in the Government of the country, and he could not see them making the same mistake as their fathers made when 21 years ago they allowed Australia to become a belligerent in the World War. Mr. Lang demanded the recall of the cruiser Australia from the Mediterranean Fleet lest she be drawn into a conflict with Italy and so involve Australia against her will.