DEFENCE DEBATE

Evening Star, Issue 23324, 21 July 1939, Page 13

DEFENCE DEBATE

Dominion Liable to Major

Invasion

Colonel Hargest Challenges Country's Readiness DUEL WITH MINISTER -Defence was again the outstanding feature of the Address-iu-Eeply debate in the House of Eeprcsentatives yesterday. It was the natural sequence to the comprehensive survey by the Minister of Defence the previous evening. Colonel Hargest devoted the whole length of his speech to this subject, his views being regarded as representative of Nationalist opinion, compulsory. service being again stressed. Mr Coates, as a former ' Prime Minister who could recall Imperial Conference discussions, endorsed the remarks of Colonel Hargest, making the new point that with the critical international situation, and the necessity for prompt preparation, his party would not stop to argue over compulsion or voluntaryism, but would help to make the forces efficient and well manned, not;stopping, he suggested, at 16,000 maximum. ' - ;

NO TIME TO ARGUE MUST GET BEHIND GOVERNMENT THE POSITION DANGEROUS [Thom Our Parliamentary Reporter.) * WELLINGTON, July 2Q. ’ The Government was urged by the Right Hon. J. G. Coates (National member for Kaipara) not to stop at recruiting 16,000 men,. but to go to 30,000. He considered the situation so urgent that, despite a difference of opinion regarding the scheme of training;' he and "his colleagues would not, - he said, stop to argue-but would do their best to make recruiting a success, . ■ The question of defence, Mr Coates continued, came first on the - Opposition amendment, because they were dissatisfied with the rate of progress. . The fact that the United Kingdom was ■ spending £700,000,000 a■' year on i defence must convey some indication of how serious was the position and how - important was our own duty to prepare. It was not a case of being a. , scaremonger, but of realising inescapably that Britain had reached a point in *ita history when it might have to call on its citizens to defend their Commonwealth. Our part was to train our men, and women, too. They could not afford to argue, and they would get behind the Government, for speed m .preparation was essential. As for the suggestion that the Dominion was / immune from attack, nobody could say that a hostile nation would not attempt to block supplies of food to the United Kingdom. He did not think New Zealand would be shut off under 'such circumstances, for they could recall what happened in the last .war when the British Navy gave protection in.waters infested with submarines and we never lost a single transport. The Prjme Minister, added Mr Coates, had declared that if the United Kingdom was in trouble, we were also on trouble. Ho knew the prime Minister would not make such a statement unless he knew the position was dangerous, so we had to move quickly, for nothing was worse than to have untrained men handling equipment. At the 1926 Imperial Conference the United Kingdom looked upon her own. defence as coming first, next it considered the sea routes, then the dominions, and finally its allies. So, concluded Mr Coates, the best thing we could do was to remember that we were on oar own resources, and to'the extent that we could train our men and women wo ought to bo up and doing. The ■ country was entitled to be taken into the confidence of the Government in regard to the conclusions of the Defence Conference. Mr O’Brien (Government): Spill secret information? “ He knows I do not mean that,” retorted Mr Coates. “ We are simply told the Government is acting on expert advice.” A STERN CRITIC. • Colonel Hargest (National member for Awarua) devoted the whole of a lengthy, speech to critical examination of the Government’s attitude as disclosed by the Minister of Defence and Labour speakers. Mr Jones made frequent explanatory interjections as his critic proceeded. Colonel Hargest suggested that the Minister simply endeavoured to persuade people that he could make a good force by spending-money—£4 millions on the Air Force and a similar sura on the Navy. The Minister: And getting something for it. Colonel Hargest said the Minister talked of 30 bombers. His opinion was that, while they might be effective in New. Zealand, if they had to go out - and meet a force of CO bombers from overseas that would be the end of them. Mr Fraser: Obtained on _the advice of the best, experts the British Government could provide. • Colonel Hargest approved the calling of the;. Defence Conference, but was i sorry the Minister had not produced its report, or if this could not be done completely that the report of General jfaekesy on the land forces, a purely New Zealand matter, should be given to the House. He would ask the Minister whether his own staff officers were in agreement with his policy. The Minister: Yes. Colonel Hargett: Do they think the voluntary system of training is wrong? The Minister: They have never ex- , pressed any opinion on it. Colonel Hargest went on to say that the Opposition had not approved the • voluntary system because they believed compulsion to be the only democratic way of carrying out a military scheme; Compulsion.’ he agreed, was not discussed : n Hie last e’eetion bv the party gencral'v. but be did from Ids own platform. He recalled that the Minister

of Defence was at Bluff when the crisis was at its height. .Was he concerned then with the defence of the country? “ No,” continued the speaker, “ he was out opening a post office residence.” Mr Fraser: The position was being watched every minute. Colonel Hargest would like to know if the Minister was the gentleman responsible for destroying three or four regiments, reducing them from a battalion with its-colours and colonels? The Minister: They were ’ virtually destroyed. .Colonel Hargest: In the South Island we had three or four mounted regiments. ’■ V The Minister: And' how, many in them ? Colonel Hargest wont on to’say that there were also four infantry battalions with a fine war record and real traditions, but the Minister reduced them to two. Ho left the Canterbury Regiment as a fortress battalion, and made a composite regiment of the rest. The Minister; .They had no one to train. . ’ Colonel Hargest accused the Minister of smashing the training system* for. officers.’and non-commissioned men in the secondary’ schools;’ The Minister Jasta.year regarded. 9,000 Territorials as adequate, and now said they were insufficient. - The Minister: For an extended force iii an emergency. , . Colonel Hargest replied that there was a crisis last September, but nine weeks later the Minister said the forces in training were quite adequate. The Minister: For peace time strength. That was reviewed later. Colonel Hargest declared that if the Minister found the forces in a deplorable state, they were not much better now with only 898 officers ?and 11,070 men. A few years ago we had a compulsory system which compelled men to become efficient soldiers. There were 22,483 efficient soldiers. Turning to the Air Force, Colonel Hargest applauded the Minister for being. able to. get a supply of bombers at a critical time. The 3(5 would be a big improvement over the machines in Canterbury, which dropped all over the place. Ho had spoken of the slowness of the machines. It would bo criminal folly to send them up at maximum flying speed of 120 miles an hour against modern bombers. The Minister: Where will the modern aircraft conic from? Colonel Hargest: From overseas, and if they come, which I hope will never happen, they will be escorted by powerful cruisers. Their machines will be able to fly at 200 to 300 miles an hour. It would he criminal to send our men out in old machines. The Minister: I never suggested that. - * Colonel Hargest demanded to know how many machines . were available, what was the reserve bomb supply, how many anti-aircraft guns the Dominion possessed. “ Are we able,” he asked, “ to put up an effective resistance to the weakest Powers?’,’ The .Minister: When wo got our bombers, yes! BE PROUD OF OUR MEN. Mr Lyon said that at present we .were developing a recruiting campaign, and one of the difficulties was that wo tended to look on the soldier ns something incidental, and disregard his great value to the community. Wo were not getting enough men between the ages of 23 and 35, and ho appealed to the women of the country “to give some help in getting your fellows into uniform.” He would appeal to the women as well as the men. He would also appeal to the mayors of the various centres and those who were so anxious to assist the soldiers in wartime to do something for the Territorials in the way of providing recreation and social facilities, and building up a social spirit among the officers and men of the Territorial forces. The job was to awaken the consciousness of the people to the fact that the soldier was a person on whom we might have to depend, and that he was doing a worthwhile job. , SUBJECT TO INVASION. Colonel Hargest said it was a curious thing in the present debate that, although ho had nut taken part in it so fur, there had been scarcely a single member on the Government honchos who had spoken who had not attacked him. For instance, he said, during the member for Waitemata’s speech, the member for Roskill had frequently interjected, “ what would the colonel do about it?” “ I would do niv duty,” said Colonel HargeSt, “ and that duty during the war took me overseas with some 100.000 others.”

“ I do not set myself up as a military expert,” he added, “but I have always been a student of military matters. I have never mentioned my own military experiences during the war. and I have never tried to make capital out of them.”.

Was Mr Lyon, he asked, statisfiod with the present state of New Zealand’s military forces,- and was the government justified in contending that New Zeaaind. m the event of Due outbreak of a major war, would not be subjected to anything more than a raid? He then quoted the opinion of the Australian General Staff, which seemed to be convinced that in the event of the outbreak of such hostilities, Australia would be subjected to a major invasion. The Australians, said Colonel Hargest, viewed the matter very seriously, and were taking steps to deal with it accordingly. The Minister of Defence, he said, on the previous' evening had given a very comprehensive survey of what had been done in relation to defence, and for that he was exceedingly grateful, but the whole of bis argument was unsound, because it was based on the supposition that an adequate force could bo built by writing a cheque. He continued that members on the Opposition side of the House had done a great deal to assist the Government's recruiting campaign, and ho did not think the Government members were justified in imputing that the Opposition were attempting to damage the Government’s efforts in securing recruits because they favoured the compulsory system. He criticised the Government’s scheme of calling on older men to take part in defence services,, contending that this was merely playing to the gallery. What was wanted, he said, was young men who could be turned into efficient soldiers. In 1927-28 there were 22,483 men. To-day the Minister had 11,000, 'and half of them did not attend parades. Mr Jones: I say the men of to-day are better trained.

Colonel Hargcst: And I say they aro not as well trained as they were under compulsion. Colonel Hargost said the Minister might have perfectly satisfactory answers to his questions, but he had not given them. He had talked glibly about expenditure, hut made no information available which the people of New Zealand were entitled to have. f Dealing with local defence schemes, Colonel Harpest asked what system was to be adopted in_ the event of mobilisation. The Minister should let the people know how good or how bad the.defence position was in his eyes. The" Opposition was not alone in advocating universal military training. The last conference of the British Labour Party had voted) six to one to support conscription; almost every Farmers’ Union and R.S.A, meeting was urging the desirability of universal military training. If the Dominion had a force of 50,000 men any enemy would pause before coming to New Zealand, provided those men were armed. SHOULD HONOUR OBLIGATIONS. Mr Hultquist said ho believed that compulsory training was unnecessary, but ho considered that when a man volunteered lie should be compelled to honour his obligations. Many men believed that they were being called upon to fight a Capitalist war, and for that reason held hack, and said “ Lot the Capitalists fight their own battles.”