Extracts SYDNEY, 16 February 1941 [evening] [1]

The rapid deterioration of affairs in the Far East during the last
few days has created a situation which Mr. Fadden and Mr. Curtin
have declared in a joint statement to be grave. [2] The meetings
of the War Cabinet and War Council lent to the statement a
significance which profoundly affected the Australian people. They
are seriously disturbed, and they may even be, as the New York
Herald-Tribune suggests, a little 'nervy'.

But this, if it exists at all, will pass, for although the
situation is grave, I see nothing in it which need alarm or even
seriously disturb a resolute people.

Whether the deterioration in the relations between Britain and
Japan will lead to war, we don't know, but we welcome the
assurance of Admiral Nomura [3] in his address to President
Roosevelt that he is resolved to do all possible to bring about a
better understanding between Japan and America. We earnestly hope
that his mission may be crowned with success; but whether he
succeeds or fails, the war will still go on.

That is the position which must be faced. Whatever happens in the
Far East, the war will still go on, and Australia will be in it
fighting for her life, fighting with the rest of the Empire
against Germany. If Germany is defeated nothing else matters, for
the other partners to the Axis will either collapse or hasten to
make peace. If Germany wins, then the dark cloud in the Far East,
little bigger than a man's hand today, will cover the whole
heavens.

We must look at the picture in proper perspective. No one realises
more clearly than I do all the implications of the situation in
the Far East, but there is nothing new in it; it has existed since
the outbreak of war, it was there before war broke out, it has
been like a smouldering fire, now dying down, now flaring up and
threatening to burst into fierce flame. Whether the situation in
the Far East leads to war depends largely on what happens in
Europe and upon the attitude of America.

[matter omitted]

It is against this background that we must view the situation in
the Far East-for Australia not far, but indeed close to her own
doors.

I have said that this situation is not new; its menace has been
latent. Ever since the outbreak of war the attitude of Japan has
given Britain cause for concern. The assurances of peaceful
intentions her statesmen gave the world were hardly convincing.

If the smouldering fire has not burst into fierce flame, it is
because Britain is still unconquered and has shown that she can
strike swift and smashing blows, and because the American fleet is
in the Pacific. If Britain had been defeated, America would have
had to divide her naval forces in order to protect her Atlantic
coast. What will be the outcome of the coming struggle in the
Balkans no man can say. What America will do we do not know, but
unless Britain suffers a major defeat the situation in the Far
East, although grave, need not unduly disturb us.

In any case, my friends, after all, what has happened that should
disturb us? The war has raged for sixteen months, nation after
nation has been crushed, but nothing has happened to us; life with
us still flows smoothly on its normal way. We are at war, but we
have done no fighting. The British Navy and our own have kept the
enemy from our shores. Our young men have gone across the seas to
fight for us and have smitten the enemy hip and thigh. The people
of Britain, only 20 miles from the enemy, have endured the most
savage attacks without flinching. To them the war has been a
fearful and terrifying reality, but to us it has been just
something we read about in the papers or hear over the air.

For sixteen months we have been sitting at our ease in perfect
safety, spectators, while others have been fighting and dying that
we might live safe and free. Now the tide of war threatens to come
to us in this sheltered land. It may never come, but if it does,
well we must show the world that we too can fight in a fashion not
unworthy of the glorious example set by our British kinsmen. [4]