Government to Adopt Pacific and Mackesy Recommendations

Northern Advocate, 5 June 1939, Page 6

Government to Adopt Pacific and Mackesy Recommendations

[Per Press Association. Copyright! DUNEDIN, This Day. WHE DETERMINATION OF THE GOVERNMENT TO PUT INTO EFFECT * AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE RECENT PACIFIC DEFENCE CONFERENCE, AND OF MAJOR-GENERAL P. J. MACKESY, WHO REPORTED ON NEW ZEALAND’S DEFENCE FORCES, WAS EMPHASISED BY THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE, THE HON. F. JONES, IN AN INTERVIEW. He said the decision to raise the establishment of the land forces to 15,000 had already been made, and within the next week or two further steps would be taken. Mr Jones said that Major-General Mackesy’s report was particularly valuable, and although he was not able to divulge the recommendations, they would be of great assistance to the Government in taking the right steps to make New Zealand as well defended as possible in the event of war. Mr Jones said the Defence Conference had given the Government an idea of the part this country could be expected to play in the Pacific if war broke out. Major-General Mackesy, in making his report, had been concerned with the question of bringing the land forces of the Dominion to the highest state of efficiency in relation to that duty. It was thus ensured that there would be the absolute maximum of co-ordination.

Responding unanimously to an appeal made in an address by the Minister of Public Works, the Hon. R. Semple, on Saturday, 200 men at the Aniseed camp, on the South Island Main Trunk Railway, pledged themselves fully to support the Government’s defence policy, and offered to enrol for home defence. A committee v/as formed to conduct recruiting.

Great enthusiasm is being shown by the men who heard Mr Semple’s address, in which he urged them not only to enlist themselves, but also to rally ether Public Works employees to the

country’s service. Mr Semple said that the men offering their services to the Government would not be sent overseas, but would bo trained for home defence.

There was no compulsion about the defence system which the Government was undertaking, Mr Semple added. Mr Semple’s Hope.

However, every man was expected to volunteer for home service. He hoped to be able to say in three months’ time that the men on public works were not only builders of the nation, but that they wore prepared also to defend what they had built. Mr Semple said he had no intention of creating a scare, or magnifying the seriousness of the international situation, but it should be patent to everyone who did any thinking at all that New Zealand was no longer outside the danger zone of war, and must be prepared to defend herself. Mr Semple added that he would be the proudest man in the world if the 23,000 men now engaged in his department throughout New Zealand would set an example to the other men of the Dominion and throw their weight behind the Government in its appeal.