HOT CRITICISM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 October 1942, Page 4

HOT CRITICISM

OF AUSTRALIAN ATTITUDE TO WAR

SPORT AND AUSTERITY APPEALS

CONTRAST DRAWN WITH CHINA

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 1.0 p.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Criticism of the public “attitude of unreality” towards the war has b.een made in Australia. It was a disgrace, after Mr Curtin’s austerity appeal, to see 74,000 people at the Randwick races on Saturday, said Arthur Medley, the international cricketer. :he money spent at Randwick would have bought fifty planes. Organised sport in war time should be confined to schoolboys, declared Mr Mailey. The nation should forget every game which took manpower and money from the war effort. Sport, however, should be encouraged among the troops and every available ground should he turned over to the fighting services. A bombing raid or two on the Australian capitals might be a lesson, said Mv H. J. Timperley, adviser for the Chinese National Government’s Board of Information. Comparing the Australians’ attitude to the war with the stubborn heroism of the Chinese, .Mr Timperley. who is himself an Australian, said that when he heard his well-fed countrymen complaining of a shortage of luxuries he thought of the millions in China living on the verge of starvation. Debates whether victory suits should have waistcoats made him remember that millions in China had scarcely a rag to their backs. “Our responsibility as Australians if to try to live up to the Chinese example of bravery and endurance, which has never been excelled in human history,” declared Mr Timperley.