The West Australian
Saturday December 14, 1935

MR CURTIN RETURNS

REPRESENTATIVE WELCOME

Pleas for Australian Unity

The leader of the Opposition in the Federal Parliament (Mr. J. Curtin, M.H.R.) returned to Perth yesterday by the Great Western Express, for the first time since his election as the Leader of the Australian Parliamentary Labor Party in succession to Mr. J. H. Scullin.

He was welcomed at the station by many friends and party supporters, and at noon a civic reception was accorded him at the Perth City Council Chambers. All sections of the community and shades of political opinion were represented, a feature which Mr Curtin said would be practically impossible in any other State of the Commonwealth, and a large gathering testified to the high esteem in which he is held. Speakers were unamimous in their assertion that Mr Curtin had been and would remain a staunch and hard worker for Western Australia.

The Lord Mayor (Mr. J. J. Poynton) voiced a sentiment common to the gathering when he congratulated Mr. Curtin on his election to high office and the State on having one of its most outstanding citizens elected to such an office. In reply Mr. Curtin stressed the need for tolerance in political controversy, re-affirmed his faith in the principles of the Labour movement and in Australian unity, for the purpose of achieving a higher state of civilisation than was possible in the racially divided areas of the old world.