AUSTRALIA AND THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 104, 27 January 1943, Page 4

AUSTRALIA AND THE WAR

Mr. Fraser’s Tribute CO-OPERATION WITH NEW ZEALAND

“Never did Australia and New Zealand realize iheir kinship and oneness as they do today,” said the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, speaking at the Australian Day luncheon of the Wellington A.I.F. Association yesterday. Mr. Fraser paid high tribute to Australia’s war effort, both on the battlefields and in the field of war production, and referred appreciatively to the co-ojieration between Australia and New Zealand in the field of supply. Mr. Fraser said that it was a privilege to take part, in the celebration of the day on which a great nation was born, a nation, destined to be one of the greatest, on earth. General MacArthur, besides being a great general and tactician, had had the great taste to select the same day for his birthday, and lie find Australia would be celebrating not only their birthdays but a great victory for Australia and for the whole Allied cause.

“We are not alone in the Pacific,” said Mr. Fraser. “In addition to the great help given by Great Britain, we have the help also of that great nation of 130,000,000 people, the United States. The battle we are jointly fighting will only end when the tyranny of Japan, and the tyranny which Japan represents, is ended for all time. I look forward to Japan being rolled up just as Rommel is being rolled up, and to the day when the flags of Australia and New Zealand, with the flags of all the other nations, will fly over Tokio, not as symbols of might but of freedom for all nations. These tyrants must be taught that tyranny cannot succeed against free peoples.” After paying tribute to the deeds of Australia in the last war, Mr. Fraser expressed his admiration for the work the Australian forces had done in this war. “If Britain had her greatest hour at Dunkirk,” he said, "then Australia had hers when she accepted the loss of her forces in Malaya.” . The men who, in the hills and valleys of Timor, were still carrying on guerrilla warfare were maintaining the tradition of the A.1.F.. . One thing which impressed him during his visit to Australia was that Mr. Curtin and General MacArthur ,at separate meetings he had with them, had each expressed the utmost confidence in the other.