YEAR OF FATE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 May 1941, Page 5

YEAR OF FATE

MR MENZIES ON WAR DEMANDS I NEED OF AN INTENSIFIED EFFORT. I | | AMERICAN HELP NOT YET DECISIVE. i I ißy Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright! SYDNEY, May 27. j ■ "There is only one fight that matters today, and I call on the whole of Australia to go through with it.” declared the Prime Minister, Mr R. G. Menzies in a rousing speech delivered at the Sydney Town Hall last night. The occasion was a welcome home by his fellow-members of the Federal Cabinet and by the citizens. Mr Menzies described 1941 as "our year of fate." He said lie prayed to God that we might get through this year in safety. The Prime Minister warned the people of the Commonwealth that in the next six months American help could not be decisive in the Mediterranean. America had a long way to go before her war wheels would fully revolve and in the battle of 1941 Britons must depend on their own strength and their own resources and draw upon their own courage and resolution.

Spending on non-essentials must cease and every available penny be devoted to the building of armoured vehicles, anti-tank guns, artillery, and other weapons which would make not merely a heroic but a victorious army. Mr Menzies repeated what he had said in the United States—that there will be no compromise with the enemy. Thus the Empire would be confronted with all sorts of developments of the utmost gravity in the next six months in Turkey, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, Spam, Gibraltar, and also in the Atlantic.

"While wc would not look in vain to the United States,’’ he said, "the hour had struck for complete unity and co-operation among all men of all parties. He was not suggesting that the Labour Party should sink its identity or its ideals. What he urgently desired was that Parliament should become the instrument of war ratnei than the instrument of dissension.” Mr Menzies said he had come back completely convinced that the people of Australia must do more than they had ever done before. He expressed his "utter amazement” that the Labour members of the War. Council should still have no executive function. but should have to stand off and be critics of an effort to which ihej might easily be powerful contributors. Mr Menzies received rounds ol applause. which were repeated during his recital of his experiences in England and also whenever he mentioned the name of Mr Churchill. 'Die first meeting of the Federal Cabinet since Mr Menzies returned will be held at Canberra this afternoon, when the Prime Minister will outline his views of the action necessary for the more effective prosecution of the war. Mr J Curtin and Mr M. J. Forde, leaders of the Labour Party, commenting at Canberra on the result of the Boothby by-election, at which Labour was defeated, reiterated their opposition to a National Government. NATIONAL GOVERNMENT LABOUR PARTY REJECTS OFFER. CANBERRA. May 27. The Federal Labour caucus at a presessional meeting today rejected the further offer of the Prime Minister, Mr Menzies, to create a National Ministry embracing members of the Labour Party. The Federal Parliament will reopen tomorrow.