The Press WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1936. Defence Policy

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21967, 16 December 1936, Page 10

The Press WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1936. Defence Policy

The Hon. W. E. Barnard's assurance, in a speech in Palmerston North, that the Government is fully aware of the need for more vigorous measures of national defence and does not need to be instructed in its duty by defence leagues will be welcomed. But before outside organisations cease to agitate the defence question they are entitled to know in more detail what the Government proposes to do. There arc one or two passages in Mr Barnard's speech which will arouse justifiable misgivings. For instance, he gives it as his personal opinion that the Government should concentrate on home defence and that there should be no thought of sending an expeditionary force "to some "remote part of the world." It would be interesting to know whether this view is shared by the Government, for clearly it is a very dangerous and shortsighted view. Because of her isolation and her sparse population, New Zealand could not possibly repel an attack by a major power without assistance from other members of the British Commonwealth. Her first line of defence is, and must remain, the British Navy. But Mr Barnard is surely a little naive if he imagines that New Zealand can continue to rely on the protection of Great Britain and at the same time proclaim her intention not to assist Great Britain in the event of war. Countries desiring to retain the benefits of membership of the British Commonwealth must also be prepared to accept the responsibilities of membership. Mr Barnard also refers, and rightly, to the connexion between population and defence and says that if New Zealand wishes to maintain her selective immigration policy she must take steps to increase her population by migration from Great Britain. But when he adds that large-scale migration is much more likely to be undertaken by a Labour government than by a non-Labour government he is making a claim for which there is very little foundation. The present Government began its term of office by blowing hot over migration; it has ended by blowing cold. Recent statements by Mr Nash and the Prime Minister have indicated with depressing clearness that the Government has no intention of doing anything about migration in the measurable future. The truth seems to be that when any Labour government approaches this matter it has to contend with the traditional hostility of trade unions to migration on the grounds that it tends to lower wage standards and increase unemployment.