SINGAPORE BASE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 25 May 1927, Page 5

SINGAPORE BASE.

MR COATES’ POLICY CRITICISED. STATEMENT BY MR H. E. HOLLAND. (BY TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION.) GREYMOUTH, May 24. Speaking at Cobden to-night, Mr H. E. Holland, leader of the Opposition, said Mr Coates had taken almost a month to reply to his statement in respect to the Singapore base proposal issued on April 26. In that reply Mr Coates completely ignored his contention that the Singapore proposal was in itself a direct violation of the spirit which led to the Washington Conference decisions pointing in the direction of disarmament. The Prime Minister had also ignored the fact that, when they talked of Singaoore they had Japan (their Teeent ally in the World War) in mind as the potential enemy. The building of the Singapore base would stand for a challenge to Japan and would provide her militarists with an incentive to. build a rival base in the Pacific. Quite recently Japan had suffered great physical * and economic disasters, and the pronouncements of her public, men did not indicate designs on territories in the Pacific area. Mr Coates now said the immediate requirement was the naval base at Singapore. This could only mean , that in his opinion Japan had immediate designs on British possessions in the Pacific. Why did Mr Coates think so? The public were entitled to know the reasons which had led the Government to change its view in respect to Japan. If during the war any Labour Party member ever suggested that Japan had designs on British territory he would have gone to prison for at least a year. In his plea for the retention of and the extension of armaments, Mr Coates had .substantially re-echoed the sentiments of the Prussian militarists of the pro-war period, and no doubt the militarists of Japan, when they took up the challenge and started to make a- faster pace in the race for armarpents, would employ similar language to that of Mr Coates and would talk about the need for maintaining intact the Japanese Empire, even though there should be no menace whatever to it.

Mr. Coates relied on Mr. Baldwin’s statement that there; could bo no more valuable contribution 'to the- defence of the Empire as a whole than assistance towards the Singapore base, but he forgot that far more able Prime Ministers than Mir Baldwin 'had turned the project- completely down. He also forgo-t that eminent naval authorities, including the late Admiral Percy Scott, had declared that as a means of defence the Singapore _base would be valueless. Everybody knew that the war of the future would be fought from the air and the ffiboratory, but Mr Coates had been quite silent a,s to this phase of the Question. In arguing that a vote of £1,000.000 for Singapore would only amount to a yearly increase in expenditure of Jd per head of the (population, Mir Coates had definitely committed himself to the promise that the money would come out of the- Consolidated Fund and not be borrowed. The Prime Minister had pointed to the fact of last financial year’s surplus to prove it would not he necessary to borrow, and that the revenue would furnish the contribution, but with characteristic carelessness Mr Coates had passed bv the f act that the half million surplus last year was an accident. His own Minister of Finance had already explained that he could not have got that surplus if it had not been for the trouble in Britain. Because the coal owners locked out the British, miners, foreign goods came to New Zealand, and British and foreign goods had to pay a higher duty. Consequently the cost of living went up. possibly to the extent of a million pounds. Comseq.uenFy. also, the Minister of Customs collected £594.000 more than he would have, done if the goods coming in had been British, and so the Minister of Finance had -a surplus of £587,000 instead of a possible deficit of £7OOO. nut MV -Coates could hardly rclv on the British coal owners to .give him another lock-cut this year, and if the volume of imports should -again fall and there were no surplus, what would he the Minister’s position? Would he honour Tiis word that the money foi Singapore would not he borrowed ? While thev had the Government anil o”’nein'’’ that without bpr-oving they could raise £1,000.000 for “thii« dangerous and war-provoking project” (which would probably be obsolete lon® before

.ts con struct ion was completed), . they also- had the Minister of Education, intimating that education expenditure must be limited because the Government could not find the money, continued Mr Holland. The Minister of Health was proclaiming that for the - J same reason the work of the dental clinics nMJSt be curtailed. The Minister of Pensions cou'd not provide for invalidity pensions, or the necessary increases in widows’ and miners’ phythsis pensions. The Minister of Finance could -not make available the rural credits the farmers were clamour-’ ing for, and the Postmaster-General could not provide either rural deliveries or country telephone services except at rates greatly in excess of those paid in the cities. ■ - Mr Coates had openly confessed that the releasing of his announcement' regarding the Singapore contribution on the eve of Anac Day was an armsv meats -gesture, and there would be many outside the ranks of labour who would regret both the fact and the confession. Mr Coates seemed to think die best return they could make to the men who died on Gallipoli would be to lead in the new race for iurmarnents. The Labour movement thought the. .* better way would lie to honour the assurance given to those who lived as well as those who died that the war was to end war. and to do this by giving a- lead in laying permanently the. foundations of world peace. Finally, said Mr Holland. Mr Coates* next statement gained neither, ini impressiveness nor in- dignity in. its concluding flippancy.