[Editor: This article, written in response to John Curtin’s article “The task ahead” (27 December 1941), was published in The Spectator (London, England), 2 January 1942 (during the Second World War, 1939-1945).]
Danger-signals from Australia
It would be a grave mistake to let the provocative character of the Australian Prime Minister’s article in the Melbourne Herald divert our attention from the protest which he has made and was entitled to make.
Mr. Curtin’s main point was to reject the notion that the Pacific struggle can be treated as “a subordinate segment of the general conflict” — by which words he clearly meant that Australia had not had an adequate share in the direction of the war in a sphere where her vital interests are concerned. When he went on to say that “Australia looks to America, free from any pangs as to traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom … and will exert all energies towards shaping a plan, with the United States as the keystone,” he was using a form of words which has been severely criticised in his own country, but did not mean, as he has since explained, as much as it appeared to. But that is a question which can be left to Australians.
It is for us to attend to the real grievance which lies at the back of his words — that is, Mr. Churchill’s failure to find a means of associating the Dominions more closely with the Home Government in the direction of the war.
In a wise and discriminating letter to The Times Sir Keith Murdoch said that the effect of the exclusion of Australia from the war councils, and the absence of a constructive invitation from Whitehall to all Dominions to take part in united decisions, may be far-reaching. The Australians are able to take blows and stand reverses as well as we are — so long as they feel that they have had their share in shaping war-plans.
The Prime Minister has dismissed this all-important question too lightly. It is by his action alone that the perfect co-operation between Britain and Australia which both countries desire can be put on an unshakeable basis.
Source:
The Spectator (London, England), 2 January 1942, p. 1, column 1
Editor’s notes:
Churchill = Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British soldier, author, and politician; Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1940-1945, 1951-1955); he was born in Woodstock (Oxfordshire, England) in 1874, and died in London (England) in 1965
See: 1) “Winston Churchill: prime minister of United Kingdom”, Encyclopaedia Britannica
2) “Winston Churchill”, Wikipedia
direction = control, management; guidance, instruction
Dominion = (in the context of the British Empire) one of the British Dominions (Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa), being those countries of the British Empire which were self-governed
Home Government = in an historical Australian context, the British government
Keith Murdoch = Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch (1885-1952), journalist and newspaper proprietor; he was born in West Melbourne (Vic.) in 1885, and died in Langwarrin (Vic.) in 1952
See: 1) Geoffrey Serle, “Murdoch, Sir Keith Arthur (1885–1952)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Keith Murdoch”, Wikipedia
keystone = a wedge-shaped stone which is placed at the central/top position of an arch (being a key, or important, stone for holding the arch stones in place); an important, key, integral, or necessary, element, part, or piece, of a design, plan, policy, organisation, structure, or system; an element upon which other elements depend or rely upon (used in a similar manner as “cornerstone”)
Whitehall = a reference to the Civil Service of the United Kingdom, i.e. the British public service (Whitehall is a street in Westminster, London, England, which is the location of various government offices)
See: “Whitehall”, Wikipedia
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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