WAR POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 93, 16 October 1940, Page 12

WAR POLICY

VOICE OF AUSTRALIA

EMPIRE CABINET SUGGESTION

SUPPORT IN SYDNEY

I (By Trans-Tasman Air Mail, from ! "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, October 5. Public men in this city are leading a demand that Australia, with other Dominions, should be represented on an Empire War Cabinet or Council in 'London which would decide war policy. The demand sprang principally from the Dakar incident and the announcement of Japan's pact with Germany and Italy. Mr. W. J. McKell, leader of the Labour Party in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, was. the first to voice a growing feeling that the Imperial War Cabinet of the 1914-18 war, the establishment of which the then Australian Prime Minister, Mr. W. M. Hughes, mainly influenced, should be now copied. "It is oUr duty to see," said Mr. McKell, "that Imperial war policy should be decided and carried out in a manner which will ensure that Australian soldiers shall not be used in halfhearted adventures. They must not be placed in a position of having to face up to enemies made stronger by blunders for which muddled thinking, vague policies, and half-hearted execution of those policies are responsible. Australia must have its say in the conduct of the war. It cannot do so by telephone or cable. The nation demands representation in an Empire war Cabinet or Council. Silence on certain aspects of the conduct of the war is no longer in the national interest. Plain speaking is essential." NEW LABOUR MEMBER'S SUPPORT. Dr. H. V. Evatt, K.C., who resigned from the High Court Bench and won the Barton (Sydney) seat for Labour at the recent Federal Election, said: "I agree with Mr. McKell that Australia should be consulted in the most intimate way about the conduct of the war, in which it wishes to play its part. Especially should she have a direct voice in deciding adventures likely to affect Australian troops. The trouble as I see it is that the Australian Government has not pressed sufficiently for direct representation in an Empire War Cabinet. Until Australia is able to get a place in the inner councils of Britain from which the war is being directed, its own contribution will lack, the necessary vigour and . direction. Australia will get that place only through earnest desite of its Government to share the responsibility of the conduct of the war with Britain." The Premier of New South Wales, Mr. Mair, recalled that he had suggested the formation of an Empire War Cabinet several months ago. "Recent events," he added, "have emphasised the need for a co-ordinating council. Results of the 1914-18 Imperial War Cabinet should be sufficient encouragement for the establishment of a similar body now." Professor F. A. Bland, professor of public administration at Sydney University, supported the plan, but emphasised that, if such an Empire Council was merely advisory, its members would be wasting their time. He made the point that Britain's vacillation in her dealings with Japan was due, at least partly, to Australian short-sighted and selfish policy, which, by emphasising Australia's own interests, had handicapped Britain's policy towards Japan. NO BASIS OF KNOWLEDGE. The Federal Attorney-General, Mr. Hughes, the only Government spokesman to comment on the issue, accused Professor Bland of "complete ignorance" in blaming Australia. "The professor does not understand what Australia's policy is," said Mr. Hughes. "He has not a rudimentary idea of what it ought to be, and he is ignorant of the views of the Australian Government as submitted to the British Government." The "Daily Telegraph" expresses the Australian people's anxiety to know what is happening in the Pacific, basing its editorial on the talks in Washington between the Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, the British Ambassador, Lord Lothian, and the Australian Minister, Mr. Casey. "A blanket of official silence," declares the "Telegraph," "is encouraging the fear that, in this hemisphere, where Australia is exposed to the maximum risks, she has the minimum say. People are1' beginning to ask whether Australian Pacific policy is being determined or dictated by Washington and London without consultation with Australia. The policy which, somewhere, somehow, is being worked out by someone may prove a good policy. But we have to be assured, as the people most concerned, that it will prove a good policy for us as well as for the others. The Australian . Government should allay public anxiety by stating, as frankly as it can, what it knows about the. genera] situation in the Pacific. The easy temptation to say nothing was fatal in Norway and in France. Particularly in the Pacific we should see clearly where we are going."