APPEAL FOR UNITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 July 1939, Page 7

APPEAL FOR UNITY

AUSTRALIA IN DANGER

FEDERAL PRIME MINISTER’S

DECLARATION.

NATIONAL REGISTER ISSUE

By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright MELBOURNE, July 21. On the eve of the conference wit h the Federal Labour leader, Mr Ourtin, regarding the dispute over the national register, the Prime Minister. Mr Menzies, addressed a Scots luncheon after his arrival in Melbourne from Perth, lie declared : “This country is in danger.” and appealed for a united national outlook.

He criticised "persons of obscure mental processes who rise up and say. ‘This is Hitlerism,' when a democrat Government, 'democratically elected, took steps to ensure its decisions being carried out. Mr Menzies was referring to the disobedience by Labour against the national register and the threat from key industries to dislocate Australian industry.

He added: “I appeal for discipline and warn you we cannot get the maximum national effort if some of us think our way of running the country is the only way and if the majority is against that way the majority is wrong." Union leaders are now asking for a legislative assurance that the national register will not be used for conscriptive purposes. The executive of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, with 30,000 Australian members, has advised the rank and file not to sign the register.