TRAGIC LESSON

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 35, 10 August 1936, Page 9

TRAGIC LESSON

UNREADINESS FOR WAR

NEW ZEALAND'S URGENT

NEED •

DANGER IN PACIFISM

(lly Telegraph,—l'rcss Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. The urgent need of measures of defence lor New Zealand, and as great a need to have a military policy untouched by pacifism and sentimentality were spoken of by Mr. Justice Northcroft on Saturday. Unpreparedness in 1914 did much to create the Great War, he said, and it undoubtedly lengthen-

Ed H and increased its losses.

Mr. Justice Northcroft was speaking to officers of the New Zealand Artillery who served in'the war at a gunners' dinner. He commanded a battery in the war.

"We were never professional soldiers, but were civilians who for a short spell became officers in a citizen army," said Mr. Justice Northcroft. "We cannot be accused of having any professional interest to advance war, even if it could be thought that we should wish to do so. On the contrary, we, with a bitter and tragic experience ot actual warfare, both on the field of battle and in the more bitter and tragic field of post-war conditions, have a special interest in making any sacrifice to avert war.

"Pacifism and shallow sentimentality have in the past played too great a part in the military policy of out British people. They created a condition of unpreparedness which in 1914 did much to create war and certainly to add to its duration and its losses. Today, with the world a cauldron of war poison, it is criminal to allow our absolute defencelessness to continue.

"Our legislators who have been since the war days immersed with difficult social and economic«problems may be forgiven for our present defenceless position. The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) has assured this country that the matter is receiving urgent consideration in collaboration with the Imperial authorities. The Rt Hon. J. G. Coates, for the Leader of the Opposition, has said that this was not a party matter, and has offered all possible assistance.

"That lead must be followed by all, and most of all by those of us who have been soldiers, who know the horrors of war, the need for preparation, and the futility of improvisation in the face of an enemy equipped with modern means of warfare, and who know from experience what is the fate of a country whose arms cannot defend it from invasion."