* It was scrap iron, not pig iron, that Menzies exported to Japan, as he archly put it in a radio broadcast on 10 April 1942: ‘My term of office was from April 1939 to August 1941. So, far from the Menzies Government being a “pig-iron-for-Japan Government” the records show that, during my term of office, no pig iron was exported from Australia to Japan, nor was any iron ore. In the whole of the two years the exports of steel to Japan from Australia did not reach fifty tons. It is true that over the same period there was an export of one hundred and seven thousand tons of scrap iron to Japan from Australia, while in half that period, namely the year 1939 alone, the United States of America exported to Japan two million tons of scrap iron and the like material. During my term of office Australia exported to Japan one hundred and ten million pounds’ weight of wool, valued at £8,000,000, and £1,700,000 worth of wheat. About these last two items I have heard no complaint, though it is obvious that the maintenance of any army depends upon food and clothing just as much as it does upon guns and ammunition.’