A BIG PROGRAMME.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 38, 24 November 1938, Page 5

A BIG PROGRAMME.

DEFENCE OF AUSTRALIA.

ESTIMATED COST £70,000,000.

RESIST LARGE-SCALE ATTACK

(United Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.25 a.m.)

SYDNEY, This Day

The Canberra correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald’’ says that the defence plans which the Federal Ministry now envisages will dwarf the three-year programme announced by Mr J. A. Lyons last April. The programme announced in April was estimated to cost £43,000,000. The programme that the Ministry now contemplates will cost £60.000,000 and possibly £70,000,000. Ministers are satisfied that the original programme must be greatly expanded because they are convinced that the whole basis of Australia’s preparations for an emergency arc changed.

In the past it has been assumed that Australia’s danger would lie in raids on the coasts and attacks on seaborne trade. Now it is- admitted that the possibility of invasion cannot be ignored? The defence expenditure in the future is therefore likely to he concentrated on the Army and Air Force, with the object of repulsing an attack on a large scale.

ALLEGED APPROACH TO AMERICA INCLUSION IN PACIFIC SYSTEM. NEW YORK, November 23. The Hearst newspapers, in a column called “Washington Merry-go-Round; Gossip from the* Capital,” state: “It is a deep secret of the State Department, but Australia has put out feelers toward tying up 'with the United States in a Pacific defence system. Behind the move is a growing fear among Australians that because of their leanings toward State Socialism, the pro-Nazi clique controlling the Chamberlain Government is prepared to sacrifice them in order to make a deal with Japan in China, just as the Czechs were sold down the river in order to woo Herr Hitler’s goodwill in Europe.” The entire item, which is made up of the same sort of reasoning, concludes: “In order to effect a new alignment with the United States, Australia would establish a line of air and naval Oases connecting with the defences of Hawaii, the Panama Canal and South America.”