Squandering Of Australian

Millions

IN the years immediately before World War 11, the External Affairs Depart ment of Australia cost, annually, a comparatively few thousand pounds.

Then Australia’s Dr. H. V. Evatt be came Minister for External Affairs, and set out to make himself a great inter national figure. He has been strutting upon the world stage, now, for more than three years, and scattering Australian Missions, and Consulates and Legations across four continents; and this is what the development of Dr. Evatt’s ego has cost the heavilv-burdened Australian taxpayers: 1944-45, £257,202; 1945-46, £600,500; 1946-47, £1,431,000; and it was formally announced in Canberra recently that this year the “Minister for Foreign Affairs’’ and his Department will cost £1,845,000.

Australia’s foreign trade has increased enormously in the last two years; but that is due directly to post-war economic con ditions in the world, and has nothing to do with Dr. Evatt. Australia has been noisily represented at every international conference in recent years; but the fact contributes nothing to Australian welfare and comfort, and it leaves the great majority of Australians cold and disin terested.

Mr. Tom Procter, Jr., proceeded to Madang, New Guinea, this month where he will fill a position in the WRC work shops.

Mrs. J. Peterson, of Lae, New Guinea, returned to the Territory on the “Malaita” on October 15. She was ill when she left Lae several months ago and has since spent six weeks in hospital in Sydney.

She has now recovered and will rejoin her husband who is manager of Burns Philp (New Guinea) Ltd., in Lae.

The French gunboat Dumont d’Urville, according to Noumea advices, was to have called soon at Dilli (Timor) to gather information as to the death of the lone French navigator Alain Gerbault, and to fulfil his request to transport his remains to Bora Bora.

Pastor Con Echermann, of the Queens land Lutheran Church, will leave for New Guinea shortly to join the mission staff on Rooke Island.