South Yorkshire Times – Saturday 28 March 1942

Australia

The queer squabble over the appointment of Mr. Casey to Cairo is symptomatic of the strain which adversity has put upon the relations between Australia and the Motherland. Australian leadership has not reacted well to the new crisis.

Mr. Curtin is no Smuts. He looks increasingly to the United States and though some of his earlier reflections on the old country have been recanted they have probably not been repented.

We doubt if the imperial connection has a devoted friend in Mr. Curtin. Austraiia’s destiny is staked on the issue of this war, and the course of the war in the Pacific will depend largely on the skill and toughness of Australia’s resistance.

The political orientation of Australia if not decided by the war, can be left until the war is decided. Australia’s peril to-day has many contributory causes, and Australia is not entirely blameless.

The policy restricting white immigration in the face of the yellow peril takes high rank among the blunders which have paved the way to Japanese conquest. But that subject, too, can be relegated for discussion at a more convenient date.