BAN ON DUTCH DESTROYER

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24900, 13 June 1946, Page 5

BAN ON DUTCH DESTROYER

AUSTRALIAN UNIONS’ ACTION LABOUR GOVERNMENT ATTACKED (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, June 12. “Inaction by the Labour Government on the Piet Hein incident has besmirched Australia’s reputation and has imperilled relations between Australia and Holland,” said the Federal Leader of the County Party (Mr A. W. Fadden) to-day. The Piet Hein v a damaged Dutch destroyer, has been refused repair service by unionists at Fremantle. Port Adelaide. Melbourne, and Sydney. Mr Fadden alleged that instead of corning out into the open against the Comrtiunist-controlled unions the Minister of the Navy (Mr N. J. O. Makin) had run for cover and the Prime Minister (Mr Chifley) had taken refuge in silence. Not one member of the Cabinet had the courage to risk incurring the displeasure of ‘‘the Australian adherents of the hammer and sickle” to save the country’s good name.

"We have the disgraceful spectacle of Dutch schoolboys helping to load the Tasman—a mercy ship carrying Dutch women and children evacuated from Japanese prison camps, and of women volunteering for work while hefty Australian waterside workers loaf round,’’ added Mr Fadden. “Until Mr Chifley and Mr Makin take positive action they are aiding and abetting the Communist disruptives who pre-arrange maritime hold-ups.” “Dutchmen fail to understand this treatment,” said Baron F. C. van Aers-

sen, the Netherlands Minister to Australia, commenting on the ban on the Piet Hein. “They will feel inclined to consider it an insult and detrimental to relations between the Netherlands and Australia. Dutchmen all over the world will 'be bewildered at the ban on Dutch merchant ships and relief goods which has culminated in the refusal to give assistance to the Dutch steamer Tasman and in the hold-up of a Dutch man-of-war.”