BASTION OF EMPIRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 April 1942, Page 4

BASTION OF EMPIRE

AUSTRALIA CONFIDENT DECLARATION BY MR CURTIN. BROADCAST TO BRITISH PEOPLE. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.20 p.m.) RUGBY, April 28. The Australian Prime Minister, Mr J. Curtin, in a broadcast tonight to the British people, said: “Australia, like Britain after Dunkirk, finds she has insufficient planes and arms, but you did have the will to resist. It was the spirit of the people that freed Britain and it will be the spirit of the Australian people that will not only save Australia, but send us marching forward to victory. Dangerous days lie ahead of us, but under this great threat the Empire is more united than ever before. The people of Australia know that this is not a fight merely for Australia, nor any other section of the world, nor for the Empire, but for the world itself. The United Nations will hurl the Japanese back to their island home, turn Hitler’s, dream of world conquest into a nightmare of retribution and release the Italian peoples from their wouldbe Caesar. Faced with the threat of invasion, our armies are preparing to take the offensive. That is the Anzac spirit". As we see the situation, Australia is a great bastion of the Empire. From securely-held Australia, the strategy and forces essential to free the Pacific, to hold firmly the In.diari' Ocean, to liberate the enemyoccupied places threatening these oceans will go forward to the offensive. That purpose abides with us. It is a blow that will prove the turning point in the total conflict.”