Cabinet Crash

Perched on a plateau 2,000 ft. above sea level is Canberra (pronounced Can'b'rra), the inconvenient "garden city" capital of Australia, whose statesmen stay away from it as much as they can. The ministries relating to defense are at Melbourne on the seacoast, and the easygoing Cabinet likes to meet there or in Sydney, where it uses the air-conditioned offices of Amalgamated Wireless Co. (The Government offices are not air-conditioned). One morning last week Army Minister Brigadier Geoffrey Austin Street found in Melbourne that there was nothing for it but he must fly up to Canberra, taking Air Minister James V. Fairbairn, Vice President of the Executive Council Sir Henry Somer Gullett and Chief of the Australian General Staff Lieut. General Sir Cyril Brudenell Bingham White. The party was so large that the Air Minister could not take them in his favorite little Percival plane. Instead he ordered out a big Lockheed Hudson bomber of the Royal Australian Air Force.

Less than two hours later at Canberra Airport waiting civil servants saw the big plane lumbering in difficulties. Its pilot seemed to be getting ready to make a pancake landing on the side of a hill. Suddenly the machine came down in a spin, landed on its nose, burst into flames which sealed all its distinguished occupants in death.

Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies was overcome by emotion as he told the Australian Parliament the story. He paused at one point and covered his face with his hands. Politically, Mr. Menzies' loss of three senior Ministers from his Cabinet laid him wide open to strident Labor demands that the Australian general election, which the Government has tried to postpone on the plea of war emergency, be held in 1940 as it normally would be under the Constitution.

Labor contends that the Government coalition, mainly Conservative, would be sure to go down in defeat, and friends of Mr. Menzies have been anxious to avoid the test. In a speech which resounded throughout Australia before last week's accident, an Australian Labor leader key-noted:

"The Government must resign. The Australian crisis is urgent and the Government is only dragging us deeper into it. . . . Instead of defending Australian shores many Australian troops are stranded in the Middle East, with their lines of communication threatened. Others are stationed in England where there still exists an army of unemployed men who could easily be converted into soldiers. . . . All our industries should be nationalized and controlled by the Government. The Government complains of a shortage of skilled workers, while there are 160,000 registered unemployed. The wide powers given to Mr. Menzies, as Minister for Munitions, to marshal skilled labor into munition trades, was a fascist step."

The crucial question whether Australian Labor could now force a test at the polls and, if victorious, proceed to make the Commonwealth out-&-out Socialist was adjourned while obsequies of the senior Ministers and Chief of Staff were held, with new U. S. Minister to Australia Clarence Gauss in attendance. While the Prime Minister quietly took his political soundings, Major General John Northcott was promoted to act as new Chief of the Australian General Staff. The late Chief, Sir Brudenell White, was buried last week in a little brush cemetery a few miles from his ranch.

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