Make NG Australia’s Seventh

State Demand By Territory’s RSL President

Prom a Special Correspondent MADANG, April 30.

A DEMAND that New Guinea shall be removed from United Nations Con trol and given completely into the care of Australia, whose soldiers fought and died for the freedom of the great island, was made in Madang, NG, in a public address, on Anzac Day, by Mr.

Georare Whittaker, nresident of the P-NG Branch of the RSSAILA, (A similar demand was made in Australia by the Federal President of the RSSAILA after he returned from a tour of P-NG.) Mr. Whittaker unveiled and dedicated a war memorial to the men and women who served the Empire in World Wars I and 11.

Mr. Whittaker said they remembered in reverence the Australian soldiers who died in New Guinea—“some on this very spot on which we stand today to com memorate this 36th Anzac Day—for this is also the 7th anniversary of the re capture of Madang by the Australians.

“I visualise the ceremonies that at this moment are taking place beside the graves of the fallen, at Bomana, Lae and Bitapaka, and I wonder what the dead m those cemeteries would say to us if they could but speak. I think they would say:— “ ‘We thought we died fighting a war to end all wars so that you who remain would be spared the horrors of war; but we now find that this is not so. There fore be well prepared to repel the enemy who now looms on our horizon once again.

“ ‘We fought for this country on two occasions in your own generation; our blood flowed here, on this very soil. This country is yours—take it and hold it.’

“Let us remember that, on two occasions, our soldiers and some of the natives for whom we are respons ible, fought and died in repelling the enemy on this very soil—even where we now stand. We were then led to believe that the Mandate over this Territory would cease, and that the country would be annexed to our home-land, Australia, and would become part of our country and play its part in the development of the British Commonwealth of Nations.

“We find today that this is not so. We should be letting our fallen comrades die for nothing if we did not take some action to have the Territory for which they died annexed to Australia.

“It is the intention of the members of the RSL in New Guinea and in Australia to press for annexation so that we may be joined with Papua to become a new State of Australia, to be governed by us; in the same manner as any other State., “Without this, this country cannot prosper—not while our Government is at: the beck and call of other nations, some: of which took no part in conquering the: common enemy.”