NEW ZEALAND’S DEFENCES
MR SAVAGE AND CONSCRIPTION REFERENCE IN HOUSE CF COMMONS Press Association— By lelegrapb -Copyright LONDON, June 21. (Deceived June 22, at 2 p.m.) In the House of Commons Lord Stanley (Dominions Secretary) told Mr Mander that he was placing in the library, when available, the full report of Mr Savage’s speech of June 2. Mr Mander: Will you convey to Cabinet Mr Savage’s idea that he would not begin the conscription ot flesh and blood? Lord Stanley: That raises another matter.
[ln reply to a deputation from the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Defence League at Wellington on June 2 urging upon the Government the need for maintaining adequate defence forces for the protection of New Zealand, the Prime Minister (Mr Savage) said that unless conditions were humane and decent they could not expect young men to enlist. _ The private employer had to take his responsibility as well as the State, and the young man who enlisted should be made to feel that he had some stake in the country and some prospects. “ I remember the time when wo had compulsion in New Zealand,” said Mr Savage, “ and we only carried the thing halfway. We conscripted men and we created a debt of £80,000.000. While men were dying other people were getting rich. That is not going to happen again while this Government is in power. There is more to be done than conscripting men, and no one
living to-day can say what will he necessary, when the nation is placed with its back to the wall, fighting for its life._ But, whatever is necessary when it comes to compulsion, we should not begin with human flesh and blood. We should see that the men who do the fighting are properly looked after while they are fighting and not called upon to pay debts and their children’s children to pay interest on the debts created for centuries to come.” The Government was just as anxious as anybody else to put the defences of New Zealand on a sound footing, and it was going to do moro than just talk about it.]
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Bibliographic details
Evening Star, Issue 22990, 22 June 1938, Page 12
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355NEW ZEALAND’S DEFENCES Evening Star, Issue 22990, 22 June 1938, Page 12
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