The Grey River Argus THURSDAY, May 19, 1938. MR. POLSON MIXES THE ISSUES.

Grey River Argus, 19 May 1938, Page 6

The Grey River Argus THURSDAY, May 19, 1938. MR. POLSON MIXES THE ISSUES.

The perception, from disclosures bv the Defence Minister, that the Government has excelled its predecessor in defence organisation, explains without doubt the at tempt made to discredit its work which Mr. W. J. Polson at Korito made in an address last evening. Hon. Mr. Jones had at Dargaville just previously revealed an allround expansion in Dominion defences, but without recounting all, that has been and is being done, because it is necessary to maintain secrecy in several respects. The aerial defence measures, recognised as meantime of first importance, are obviously a great advance on anything attempted or proposed by the Party for which Mr. Polson speaks when it was in office. If it conics down to tin tacks, the last Government in defence, as in so many other matters undid things they since blame this Government for not doing 'over again. What the last Government spent did not i give a return nearly so good as what this Government lays out But Mr. Polson ignores this aspect in the endeavour to make party capital, fastening instead on the speeches made ten thousand miles away by the High Commissioner, who, at Geneva, has questioned, not the defence, but the foreign policy of the present British Ministry. It is

strange that Mr. Polson also ignores the fact that there is now a great outcry in Britain against the Government, not merely on its foreign, but also its defence policy. Instead, however, of lending any weight thereto, the New Zealand Government is loyally co-operating in defence measures with the British Government, as Mr. Polson must admit, and as the facts quoted by the Defence Minister fully substantiate. _ Mr. Polson counts simply ion mixing issues to enable him to bamboozle the people. The basis of his case is nothing more substantial than the fiasco over imposing sanctions to prevent Italy’s annexation of Abyssinia. Because the Labour Party had stood for sanctions more effective in character, and the Government to-day is not in favour of condonation of that conquest, Mr. Polson asks people to doubt the sincerity of the Government in its defence policy. He must allow that the League, whence the sanctions policy emanated, has not itself recognised, or been asked to recognise the conquest, for the reason that so doing turns the whole League conception into a fiasco even more ludicions than the sanctions prov ed. If it is reasonable to say that Ministers are now insincere because they have hitherto been logical, why does Mr. Polson condone the somersault of the British Government in its attitude to Italy and to Abyssinia? His evident reason is only to make party capital. It appears from his remarks that, though now complacent over the conquest, Mr Polson reckoned formerly that New Zealanders should have been left liable tv conscription to prevent it, and yet blames the Labour Party to-day because it thought there then should have been no such liability. As a sample of Nationalist defence ideas, present Air Force development is discounted, and compulsory service in some other form is held up as the great desideratum. If so, why did his political friends take a. directly contrary course when in office? That is a question he refuses ’to face. As a counterblast to the Defence Minister, Mr. Polson’s allegation is a very damp squib. ’