BRAVO N.Z.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 59, 12 March 1943, Page 3

BRAVO N.Z.

LEADING THE WAY FIGHTING MEN ABROAD. New Zealand is sending a larger proportion of its forces abroad than any other Allied country. This statement is made upon the authority of The Times, London. In Australia 73 per cent, of Australia’s lighting men medically fit for frontline service have volunteered to serve in any part of the world. This, says The Times, editorially, reduces to its right perspective the controversy concerning Australia’s refusal to make the Militia liable for service within defined limits. “There seems some anxiety in Australia that the refusal of the Federal Government and Parliament to make the Militia liable for service in any part of the world may be misunderstood abroad and taken as a sign of the Comonwealth’s reluctance to pull its full weight in the common struggle,” says The Times in a leading article. “Certainly the recent proceedings culminating in a very small extension of the field in which the Militia can be called on to serve must have been puzzling to those unfamiliar with the history of the Australian Labour party and the feelings aroused by any suggestion of conscription, but the record of what Australia has done in this war is known well enough to prevent any hasty or ungenerous deductions. “Many will regret that tie Australian Prime Minister, Mr. Curtin, was unable to amend the Defence Act in the more thorough-going and logical way he first proposed, but even they will mot overlook the far more significant fact that Australia, although the one Dominion faced with the imminent danger of invasion, is sending a larger proportion of its forces abroad than any other Allied country except New Zealand.”