‘Young Men To War For Many Years’

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30858, 17 September 1965, Page 1

‘Young Men To War For Many Years’

it Zealand Press Association)

DUNEDIN, Sept. 16.

New Zealanders needed to become used to seeing their young men going overseas to virtual areas of war for many years, said the Minister of Defence (Mr Eyre) addressing the annual conference of the Navy League in Dunedin todav.

The days when war could be defined as black, and peace as white, had gone. “We are now’ in a grey era where it is almost impossible in many cases to distinguish between what passes for peace and a state of war,” he said.

“We must live in this era of challenge for a long time to come,” he. said. “There is no cheap way to avoid this.” There were obligations to fulfill in the Far East and they could not be dodged. The temptation to look foi easy answers to the defence question had to be resisted said Mr Eyre. There was nt cheap way to peace. There were some who saic that we should not send troops to places like South Vietnam that we would be doing fai better if we sent medica teams. On the surface, this was an attractive idea but il was not the answer, he said. “Put ourselves in the posi tion of the South Vietnamese for a moment. How woulc you like it if we were invad ed and our friends in other countries said, ‘No, we won’t send you troops to help you

fight the enemy, but we will send you doctors and nurses to bind up your wounds’.” ‘Constant Threat' New Zealand had to be prepared to brace itself for many years against the constant threat and challenge that (existed in the “near North.” j There was a tendency to ■ I think that South-east Asia ( was a long way away—“ That iwe are remote, that we are I snug in a warm little corner i of the South-west Pacific,” he said. “That is wrong. Our vital interests are in South-east Asia which is less than a day’s flight away by modern troop carrying aircraft. “Because we belong to arrangements of ‘collective security,’ we must help our allies to secure our front lines. “While we are playing our part and paying our way in this all-important matter of defence now, we must be prepared to do so in the future. But pulling our weight will

also mean digging in our pockets.”

New Zealand could make its most effective and economical contribution to her "collective defence” in separate elements—working in combination with the separate services of her allies, and not as a self-contained and self-sufficient task force. Such a small country lacked the resources to “go it alone” in defence. “We are members of the South-east Asia Treaty Organisation and A.N.Z.U.S. We didn’t join these because it was the fashionable thing to do, but because as a small nation we realised it was the only means of securing our defence.” Higher Bills

To ignore the threat was to invite national disaster. New Zealand would be faced with higher defence bills in the future, the Minister said. The amount voted for defence in the Budget was £4O million, compared with £36 million in the previous year. If the present world trend continued, the country should be prepared to pay still more. A fourth frigate for the Royal New Zealand Navy would probably be under construction within a year, he said.

H.M.N.Z.S. Waikato will constitute the third member of the frigate fleet. The two at present in operation are the Taranaki and Otago. Mr Eyre said a new frigate would cost .£8 million—almost £2 million more than the Waikato.

“We may look upon high defence bills as unpleasant. But in this case prevention is far and away better than disease,” Mr Eyre said.