Feeling the Crunch

The sense of crisis was staggering. The Australians had seen it coming--Singapore's fall and the inevitable sequel, the Japanese air attack on the Australian mainland (see p. 16). But it had happened dizzily fast. Seeing it coming and feeling the crunch of its presence were two different things. Sweat poured from the national pores; and beneath the sweat there was a sudden profound shift in the nation's war thinking, a lurching adjustment to the fact that the waking nightmare was no dream.

Ill with gastritis, Prime Minister John Curtin got up from a hospital bed to address a rally in Sydney. The cool, pedagogic Laborite, who has never been avid for public office, said quietly: "Our honeymoon is finished. ... A new way of life is forced upon us. ... The time for controversy has ended. ... I am not going to waste time arguing about past mistakes. ... I will order and direct. . . . There is only one shield against the spread of total war, that is total effort to end it. ... Brains and brawn are better than bets and beer."

In Australia bickering is as much of a national pastime as bets and beer. Since 1940 Australia has bickered about how, how much and where to help the Empire. Last week there was still bickering, but only about one thing: how to keep the Jap off the country's neck.

With invasion so close, a good many important people thought that every available defense force ought to be kept on the mainland, that men and material should even be snatched back from war fronts abroad. Quite different was the opinion of The Dutch East Indies' Lieut. Governor General Dr. Hubertus van Mook, who was in Sydney last week. Throw everything possible to Java, urged Hubertus van Mook, and Java can be saved from capture.

The boss of Australia's biggest newspaper chain, Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch, spoke of an Australian counteroffensive "that will surprise the Japanese." The War Cabinet conferred with Army & Navy chiefs; Parliament met in secret sessions, and the Prime Minister threatened to punish any member who blabbed. "I am a man or a mouse," said Mr. Curtin, "and if I'm a mouse they can throw me out of office."

While roundly slating the Motherland for its handling of the war, while turning ever more hopeful eyes to Washington, Australia has nevertheless bent her back to the Empire effort, making guns, mortars, howitzers, shells, planes, engines, parachutes, corvettes and destroyers in quantity surprising for a wool-growing country of 7,000,000. Yet, as always when the storm breaks at home, there was still more slack to be taken up, and Australia gave a mighty heave-ho:

P: A $113,000,000 war loan boomed toward total subscription a few days after it was opened.

P: Prices and wages were pegged; industrial profits were limited to 4%; trading in securities other than Government issues was stopped.

P: Married men up to 35, single men up to 45 were made subject to military call. Every other able-bodied person in Australia, including enemy aliens not interned, became subject to call for war work. Employes on war jobs were forbidden to quit or be absent from work without good reason.

P: Herdsmen started driving a million dairy cattle, followed by milk trucks, from the menaced east coast to scantier but safer pastures inland.

P: The manufacture of many luxuries (including bath heaters, fur coats, evening dresses, horse and dog racing equipment) was stopped. Makers of women's stockings were restricted to four colors: candlelight, brown derby, touch of mauve, first love.

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