N.Z. DEFENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 162, 12 July 1939, Page 15

N.Z. DEFENCE.

GOD AND AMERICA. ATTITUDE OF PEOPLE. "We have a sons here which is called 'God Defen<l Xew Zealand.'" said Colonel H. E. in an address given at the Lyceum Club last evening. "The attitude here seems to be, however." he continued. "God and America defend Xew Zealand but do not ask the Xew Zealanders to do it. "Why," asked the speaker, "should America risk a single life or a single ship for a country which will not make any real effo/t to defend itself?" Colonel Barrowclough said that many people talked of the territorial units that were being formed in the Dominion, but he stressed the point that these units were being formed only on paper. Since last September the territorial units had been increased somewhat but the men had had no training worth speaking of. If Japan decided to invade the Dominion, he said, she could get here in twentyone days from the time she left there and the warning in this country would be, in consequence, very short. There would be no time to train the men who were to defend the country. One week in camp at Xarrow Neck was all the training that the thousand men who had responded to the Mayor's call, had received. Colonel Barrowclough said Japan could conduct hostile operations against New Zealand in three different ways— by sending a fleet, by sending small landing parties from ships and by occupying the country. She had the tonnage to brin<* here what men she wanted, she had 'about 4,000,000 soldiers to call upon and she had command of the Pacific in that nothing at Singapore could stop her fleet from passing. "o\ir defence scheme at present is that the army we going to throw in the path of the invader is a territorial army with the 'valuable but definitely second line defence of the national military reserve,'" continued Colonel Barrowclough. "It is not a fair thing to expect your city to be defended by the Territorial Army which consists for the most part of boys of 18 years. The people to defend this country, should^be men between the ages of 21 and 40.' Colonel Barrowclough added that it had been the experience of most in the last war that no matter how husky a boy of only 18 looked he was prone to break down under the strain of modern warfare.