AUSTRALIA’S STAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 May 1942, Page 2

AUSTRALIA’S STAND

WITH EMPIRE & ALLIES ADDRESS BY ARMY MINISTER. GRATITUDE FOR AID GIVEN. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 9.40 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. In an Empire Day address to the Royal Empire Society, the Minister for the Army, Mr F. M. Forde, paid a tribute to the United States for her aid in the war, and said Australia, with her 3,000,000 square miles of. territory and 7,000,000 British lives to protect, could not hope to hold this country against the avalanche of men and equipment that could be landed on Australian soil if it were not for the generous assistance given by Britain and now by the great American democracy. Mr Forde said he was convinced that the British Prime Minister and Government were most anxious to help Australia, the loss of which would be a staggering blow to the Empire. Australia’s interests were indissolubly bound up,with the interests of the British Empire and other Democracies. Australia was irrevocably committed to stand or fall with the Allies, so there must be no half measures about Australia’s contribution to the war effort. BRITISH LABOUR ASSURANCE OF MAXIMUM ASSISTANCE. (Received This Day, 9.40 a.m.) LONDON, May 25. A resolution by the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, referring to the international situation, stated: “This conference reaffirms its comradeship with the peoples of Australia and New Zealand, now facing with proud confidence a threat of Japanese invasion, and affirms the conviction that all Great Britain can do in men and arms to assist them will be done.”