Coals of Fire on Head Of Mr. Calwell

Chronicle (Levin), 7 February 1949, Page 5

Coals of Fire on Head Of Mr. Calwell

Received Sunday, 7 p.m. SINGAPORE. Feb. 5. All Australians in West Borneo will be expelled from that State if the Indonesian woman, Mrs. Annie ^ O'Keefe, is expelled from Australia, declared the Sultan, Hamid II of Pontianak, according to a news bulletin issued hy the Netherlands Consulate git Singaporc. Sultan Hamid said he hoped other Indonesian States would follow his Oxample. While Singapore newspapers gave prominence to this latest threat, the British owned independent conservative newspaper . Free Press, flayed Mr. Galwell, terming him "boneheaded," "bungling" and a "misflt," The Free Press said: "Few men in public ofiice have ever difk charged their responsibilities in such a bungling fashion as Mr. Calwell. Seldom has a Government whose declared policy is to seek the friendship of its northern neighbours in Asia, allowed a misfxt Ministerial colleague to so slatternly jeopardise its aims. Australia, as the result of deportations, has come near forfeiting the sympathy she won in Asia during the Pacific war. Few public leaders in Singapore would deny there was justification for a White Australia policy on economic but not on racial grounds, and most would agree that a quota system w:ould soothe aggrieved Asian sentiment." " 1 f