DOMINION TROOPS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 124, 26 April 1941, Page 8

DOMINION TROOPS

PARTICIPATION IN GREECE. GOVERNAIENT’S AG R EEAIENT. WELLINGTON, April 2G. A statement that the New Zealand Government fully accepted its share of the responsibility for tho decision to send New Zealand troops to Greece has been made by the Prune Alinister (lit. Hon. P. Fraser). He added that the Government had been fully consulted on the proposed operation. It was essential to go to tho aid ol Greece, and any decision to the contrary would have involved eternal dishonour.

“(Ju the evidence of the preparation of our enemy, Germany, tu attack Greece, it was essential tnat we should come to her aid,” said Air Fraser in the course of his statement. “1 wish to make it plain that the New Zealand Government had been fully consulted with reference to the dispatch of New Zealand troops to Greece, and that we fully accepted our share of the responsibility for the decision that was taken. The whole matter was laid Irefore us in the fullest detail by tho Rritish Government, with the views of | British Alinisters (including Air Eden, | who was in the Middle East at the time), and the British Chiefs of Staff. ' “After tlie most anxious coiisiderai tion we concurred with the unanimous iview of the British Government and their military advisers, including our own commander (Alajor-Gcneral B. C. .Freyberg) that the operations should he undertaken. This conclusion was arrived at unanimously by all the mein-' bers of flic War Cabinet and all the members of the ordinary Cabinet and was approved as the only possible course in the difficult circumstances by the Lender of tho Opposition, who was specially consulted on Lho matter by myself.

“I wish to take this opportunity of assuring the people that the enterprise was not lightly undertaken by the British Government or lightly concurred in by the New Zealand Government. 1 know that if we had to face the same situation again we would certainly come to the same decision. 1 have no doubt at all that the people of New Zealand will fully appreciate the situation, and that they will agree that we took the only course open to us and that any. decision to the contrary would, have involved eternal dishonour.”