Mr Lake Says Front Line Is Vietnam

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31225, 24 November 1966, Page 18

Mr Lake Says Front Line Is Vietnam

“We believe that our front line is in Vietnam and we are prepared to make our stand there with our allies,” said the Minister of Finance (Mr Lake), National Party candidate for Fendalton, at an extremely noisy meeting at the Bryndwr Methodist Hall last evening. “We know that if we allow the tide of communism to sweep to the boundaries of Australia and New Zealand the massive populations communism will then control will be a real threat to us.” More than 120 attended.

“The National Party is internationally minded,” he said. “We believe in supporting the international trade and payments system. “We have joined the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (applause), we support the United Nations, and we have joined the Asian Development Bank. “Our opponents do not think this way,” said Mr Lake. “They say they will withdraw from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. They say this because they believe the Western system of trade and payments is bound to collapse. Because they fear this they want to try to isolate New Zealand economically from the rest of the free world.

“They are isolationist in their economic thinking,” he said. “London thinks our opposition is composed of economic backwoodsmen.

“The National Party believes that the achievements of past generations and of the present generation of New Zealanders can be preserved only if we attend properly to the security of the nation. We are too small to stand alone in the world.”

He said New Zealand’s only real security lay in meaningful collective security arrangements with other friendly countries in the Pacific. The

race between population increase and hunger had not yet been won, and although the National Government would try to help other people to win this race, he realised they might fail.