DEFENCE MEASURES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 303, 20 November 1934, Page 7

DEFENCE MEASURES

1 VERY IMPORTANT CONFERENCE

TO IMPROVE CO-ORDINATION

(By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.)

WELLINGTON, Nov. 20

Sir Maurice Hankey, Secretary of the Committee on Imperial Defence, and Senator Sir Georgs Pearce, Commonwealth Minister of External Affairs, will arrive here on the IVanganella on Wednesday to attend a conference on defence questions of the greatest importance as a means of further co-ordinating the defence measures in New Zealand and Australia with the Imperial plans. New Zealand will be represented by Hon. J. G. Cobbe (Minister of Defence), Rear-Admiral Burges-Watson (chief of the New Zealand, naval station), Major-General Sinclair Burgess (General Officer Commanding the New Zealand Military Forces). The present Commonwealth Defence Minister is Hon. Archdale Parkhill, but Senator Pearce held the position when the conference was being planned. He is accompanied by Mr A. E. Leighton (Commonwealth Controller-General of Munitions) and Mr F. Sheddon (Secretary to the Commonwealth Defence Committee). As an outcome of the conference it is expected to establish a closer liaison regarding naval, military, and aviation matters between the Commonwealth and New Zealand, co-ordinating with the Imperial authorities. This movement has been greatly forwarded in recent years by Australian and New Zealand naval visits and the conducting of combined gunnery, torpedo, and other squadron exercises • annually, ■while this year has seen the resumption of the training of New Zealand cadets for the Staff Corps or the New Zealand Artillery at the Royal Military College of Australia. The Dominion is also substantially dependent on the Commonwealth for heavy munitions, which are manufactured there. Last year a large quantity of New Zealand artillery ammunition was reconditioned and filled with high explosives at the Commonwealth munitions factory. The.conference, while concerned over common problems of defence and shipping protection from military air raids, will also endeavour to further the plans for Empire co-operation and the utilisation of the full resources of all Empire countries in defensive measures.