Royalist’s Recall In Suez Crisis

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31206, 2 November 1966, Page 1

Royalist’s Recall In Suez Crisis

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, November 1. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Kirk) said tonight that the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) had “pretended” on Monday night that Labour’s promise to replace New Zealand’s artillery battery in Vietnam was unprecedented.

“He knows very well it is not unprecedented,” said Mr Kirk. “He himself was Deputy Prime Minister when a British fleet, which included H.M.N.Z.S. Royalist, was sent to Egypt at the time of the Suez crisis.

“Although she was part of the fleet and had twice as many guns and four times as many men aboard as we now have in Vietnam, Mr Holyoake’s Government ordered the Royalist to be withdrawn. “She was committed—she was withdrawn.

“Was this welching on the Mother Country—Britain? “A government has the right to make whatever decision it must in such matters,” said Mr Kirk. “But let me tell Mr Holyoake, as a close associate and successor of the men who walked out of the New Zealand War Cabinet when we and Britain had our backs to the wall in a real war, and when all our resources were committed—not just 150 men—that he should be the very last one to talk about welching.”