BRITISH PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW- Is New Zealand Playing Its Part In Defence?

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 October 1948, Page 9

BRITISH PEOPLE WANT TO KNOWIs New Zealand Playing Its Part In Defence?

fey REECE SMITH, New Zealand '■ Kemsley Journalist. LONDON, September 26. The British Dominions, insistently claiming adult status ih the Empire, might Well strengthen these claims by putting a little Bore money and men in the pire defence pool; This is ah opinion hot tihkhbwh in the British services; Serving officers never, of entertain such political notions, so the Opinion shall be ascribed to high places. Men of this persuasion recognise that Britain, standing alone, is ho longer a Great Power. Forty million people, on an island as pint-, sized as New Zealand, do not rate beside Continental giants 140,000,000 strong. It is only as an Empire that the British people can play an effective part. Signs are to be seen, particularly ih Australia’s aircraft carriers, that this is coming to be actively acknowledged. Hitherto. Commonwealth Countries, and New Zealand is not the least] guilty, have been known to subscribe 1 enthusiastically to the principle of’ equal partnership, without putting 'more than a couple of bent halfpennies and a colour party in the war chest till the shooting starts. In modern warfare, that will be a little too late. Malaya a Case in Point . A case in point is Malaya. If the Commonwealth is an equal partnership, it semes natural that Pacific responsibilities should fall to Australia, and New Zealand. Yet when the recent trouble blew up in Malay the, Guards had to be sent out to quell it, at a time Britain needs all the soldiers she can muster at home. . f.. . Told that there would be difficulty, raising units ih Australia and New

Zealand for. the old business of curbing highrsplrited tribesmen, an officer so high that he leaves vapour trials when he walks said the respective Governments had had ample evidence passed on to them that the current fuss in Malaya and the East Indies is hot home grown. . . The t-etent translation of Comrade Muso from Moscow . to East Java Would seefn to bear this out. It Wa§ hardly ffir sighted of Austro lia and New Zealand to applaud the struggle against Communism in Europe, and to leave Britain to come all the way to cope with it oh their own doorstep. . . . , I was asked whether New Zealand was doing anything to match Britain s recently announced expansion and reequipment plan for the jet age. Had we, for instance, moved our Air Force on into the jet age? The Air Force has betn declared priority one in the defence structure, and it was chere it anywhere signs of our Governments awareness might be sought. , ~ r Twelve thousand miles out of touch. I could only say I understood some crews were to be provided for the Berlin air lift—only a transport exercise a t best—and that there was something afoot about a National Service Act. What it would do towards providing instantly available combat units, I Could not say. The new frigates, of Which I read later, would not have struck these men as a very mighty endeavour to rule the waVes. A Polite Hope They expressed a polite hope that 'were I more closely in touch I would have more to tell them, and refrained from reminding me that Britain is taking her defence steps while still maintaining a desperate export drive demanding all possible labour. Commonwealth equality and all, it looks as if it will be Englishmen who again take the first shock if war comes, and who again have to hold the line [While New Zealand, for one, gets its men together and trains them. And it also looks as though Russia, if she ever falls to thinking of war as an alternative to her much cheaper method of political infiltration, in casting about the Commonwealth to gauge the opposition will see many fine phrases and few trained fighting men.