The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1940. NAURU — UNDEFENDED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 309, 30 December 1940, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1940. NAURU — UNDEFENDED.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the irrovg that reeds resistance, For the future in (he distance, And the good that tee can do.

The bombardment of Nauru nnil| 1 lie subsequent statement by the Au-lrnlian Prime Minister provide! a perfect illu-trntion of the failure [ of Governments in this part of the world to renli-e fully that they are at war. There, on an isolated island, was an industrial plant, of great capital and productive value. Its (xi-lence and smooth functioning were of considerable direct importance! to the primary industries of J Australia and New Zealand, and of indirect importance to t lie United! Kingdom. Its rich deposits made Australian and New Zealand farms more fertile of products needed both by the United Kingdom and themselves to sustain their common war effort. If ever there was a port which an enemy might be expected to regard as a legitimate military objective, it was Nauru. Yet, sixteen months after the outbreak of war, it lay completely undefended, and when the enemy raider duly appeared it found it ridiculously easy, first to surprise an assembly of ships off the island and to sink five out of seven of them, and later to return and bombard the plant at point-blank range. But, says the Australian Prime Minister, Nauru was held under mandate of the League, could not be fortified, and should not have been attacked. Presumably, for consistency's sake, lie will now send a solemn protest to the League. If so, he will fii-st have to find whether it still lias a postal address.

It almost passes belief that the statement of the Australian Prime Minister should be made as an excuse for the defenceless state of the island. Implicit in it is the contention that when Germany went to war no change occurred in the position of tlio mandatory Powers, that they continued to lmvo their duties, but no more privileges than were granted them in the days when the Leggue Covenant was framed. The mandatories, or their citizens, could eontinuo to invest their money in the mandated tei*ritories, but —even in war-timo, when tliey were belligerent against Germany—they did not acquire «ven the right of preparing to defend their property. Such contentions at this time appear as the worst kind of nonsense. Are they considered applicable in the case of New Guinea, or Western Samoa? It is for the Governments of Australia and New Zealand to say. We are not to know what communications have passed between London, Canberra and Wellington on the subject, but if the Governments of the two Dominions have been over-borne by the academic arguments of some Foreign Office official, it will be high time now for them to insist—what they should long since have insisted upon—that Australians and New Zealanders live in the Pacific, and their Governments must be assumed to know, better than London, their own risks and their own needs. One urgent need is a squadron or more of long-range flying boats for aerial reconnaissance in the Pacific. Without such aid, the naval forces, numerically deficient, cannot be expected with confidence to catch any raider.