“BACK THE ATTACK”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 October 1943, Page 4

“BACK THE ATTACK”

BIG AUSTRALIAN LIBERTY LOAN LAUNCHED BY FEDERAL PREMIER. RAPID EXPANSION OF WAR COSTS. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.50 a.m.) S' DNEY, This Day. Launching the Fourth Libert/ Loan, campaign in Sydney, the Prime Minister (Mr. J. Curtin) said the sum of £225,000,000 being sought by the Government was needed to back the attack against Japan. This reversed the Australian loan slogan from “Lend to Defend,” to “Back the Attack.” Mr. Curtin added that war expenditure in the current six months would be greater than Australia’s total expenditure in the four years and three months of the last war. Australia’s national income in 1942-43 was £1,223,00,000 and £562,000,000 had gone to defence. This was an average of £819,000 each day. During August this year, expenditure had risen to over £47,000,000—£1,526,000 a day. In the Pacific theatre, said Mr. Curtin, the Japanese were being driven back towards Tokio. Places the enemy had captured and used as bases to launch acts of destruction against Australia were now being converted into bases from which the Allied forces would launch attacks on the Japanese. Australians must regard the Fourth Liberty Loan as a thanksgiving loan. They must give thanks because their capital cities had not suffered the fate of Rotterdam and Coventry.