The Auckland STar: WITH WHICH ABB INCORPORATED the turning News, Morning News, The Echn and The Sun SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1940. ARSENAL OF PACIFIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 17, 20 January 1940, Page 8

The Auckland STar: WITH WHICH ABB INCORPORATED the turning News, Morning News, The Echn and The Sun

SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1940. ARSENAL OF PACIFIC.

For the cause that lacks assistancc f For the wrong that veeds resistance, Fcr the future in the distance, And the good that tee can do. >

Drilling; with (lie progress of the manufacture of munitions in Australia, the lion. K. G. Casey, as Minister of Supply, said last October that the Commonwealth was becoming an "Umpire arsenal." Those who had given only cursory attention to the great preparations for war that. Australia was then making, and had been making t'nr the past three years, might, have thought this statement, to be a political exaggeration. The announcement that Hie resources of the Commonwealth have been expanded to such an extent that Great- Britain has become a customer seems to show that Mr. Casey spoke no more than the sober truth. Britain's latest order is for £2,750,000 worth of munitions; but this is not the first order. When Mr. Casey was in London in November as representative of the Commonwealth at- the Empire Conference, he secured an order for what the cables described as "many millions of pounds." Australia's determination to increase the strength of her armed forces is well enough knoVn. 1 The magnitude and variety of her manufacture of munitions,, though no less vital, is less obvious and lience less commonly recognised. In 1037 the Commonwealth built the first tank and adapted trench mortars to modern designs. Depth charges have been made for both tho New Zealand and Australian naval squadrons, while one of the most important advances has been the manufacture of shells for the Sin guns of the cruisers Canberra and Australia. One Melbourne factory was designed for the manufacture of rifle and pistol ammunition; another, also in Melbourne, produces such explosives as cordite, nitrotoluenc, guncotton and fulminate of mercury. Near it is -an ordnance factory for the manufacture of artillery equipment and other types of munitions made from iron, steel and wood. It also makes 3in anti-aircraft-guns, and every class of shot and shell up to Sin. The larger type of bombs are also being made. These are only some of the munition-making activities of the Commonwealth. They extend also to the manufacture of gas masks, while chemical defence is ,said to bo well abreast of modern methods. Moreover, this is just a beginning. Australian munition manufacture is scarcely well into its stride; but yiough has been done to show that when Australia's industry is fully co-ordinated for war purposes the Commonwealth will bo perhaps more than the arsenal of the Pacific alone. An important point in this connection is that just as air training can, for geographical reasons, be safely carried out in Canada, so, for the same reason, can munition making be pushed ahead in the Commonwealth. Xo less than the comprehensive air plan, is Australia's manufacture of the "sinews of war" part of a carefully laid Empire scheme. In a very real sense, as the New Zealand Defence Minister has testified, it is part of the defence of this Dominion.