LATE NEWS ‘NEW ZEALAND WELL EQUIPPED WITH WORDS’

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 April 1948, Page 5

LATE NEWS ‘NEW ZEALAND WELL EQUIPPED WITH WORDS’

(P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. “The Minister of Defence (Mr Jones) has said ‘the need for an efficient defence force and organisation is clear.’ I say that if New Zealand was able to defend herself with words then we would be about as well equipped as any other country in the world.” In this comment the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Holland) summed up his views on the defence policy announced by the Government. “Mr Jones’s statement is just about the weakest thing one could imagine,” Mr Holland continued. “It is colourless and indefinite, and entirely inadequate as a statement of policy. It provides no indication whatever as to how the proposed territorial force is to be recruited or when recruiting is to begin; whether the service is to be compulsory or on a train-as-you-please basis, and no information is given as to the terms of service or anything else. It is just a vague conglomeration of words. The Air Force “The position is more satisfactory as far as the Air Force is concerned. Here, at least, the Minister .is definite that a territorial air force is to be organised on a voluntary basis with evening and week-end training, and also an annual camp period. “Apparently the new Air Force is to be trained in obsolete equipment for the next four years. Surely,” continued Mr Holland, “one of the main lessons of the war was that modern equipment is essential in modern times if #ny force is to be effective. I should have thought that one of the first principles of co-ord-ination in defence would be a peace-, time adaptation of the war-time Empire air training scheme, with the difference that in peace-time the most modern aircraft and equipment could be brought to the trainees, instead cf sending the trainees to the equipment, as was done during the war. To train men in out-ofrdate aircraft seems most unsatisfactory.” Question of Compulsion Mr Holland said the Minister and the Government had made up their minds —and if they had not done so, it was time they did—whether New Zealand was to have a compulsory training scheme or not. Mr Holland concluded by pointing out that for New Zealand to carry a more adequate share of Empire defence would be a practical and worthwhile means of aid to Britain, as well as “doing our plain duty.”