GENERAL’S COMMENT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 26 June 1943, Page 4

GENERAL’S COMMENT

THE TIME FACTOR In a broadcast appeal for for the Third Liberty Loan, LieutenantGeneral E. Puttick. C. 8., D. 5.0., General Officer Commanding the New Zealand Military Forces, said that home defence mobilisation against invasion thrust an enormous economic strain on any country, and there was, therefore, a prime necessity to reduce this strain at the earliest moment the strategical situation permitted. There had been - a steady improvement in the strategical, situation, and in step with it the Army had, from the middle of 1942, released men both temporarily and permanently to industry. The Army’s mobilised strength for home defence had shown a steady decrease from the peak figures of the first half of 1942. It had passed from an almost completely non-mobilised basis in 1941 to approximately full and drastic mobilisation in early 1942, and since then had been steadily moving toward its former state of non-mobilisa-tion. The reverse process toward fuff mobilisation would, of course, be necessary if the strategical situation deteriorated to a marked degree. Just as expansion of the Army took time, so did the opposite process, and time was required to complete all the -administrative w'ork involved, he said. To travel too fast at this stage was to invite disorganisation, bad selection of retained personnel, inefficiency and waste of valuable assets.