SUPPORT FOR NAVY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21861, 25 July 1934, Page 8

SUPPORT FOR NAVY

DUTY OF DOMINION UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' VIEWS [BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION! WELLINGTON, Tuesday "In the circumstances in which we Ere placed ourselves, I cannot understand any New Zealander who looks at the world with seeing eyes failing to recognise our debt to the British Navy, but from time to time, so far from this debt being recognised, hostility is Bhown by New Zealanders to any form of military or na/al effort," said Mr. J. B. Callan, K.C., in an address to the Wellington branch of the Navy League. The New Zealand Government had announced a slight increase in the expenditure for defence purposes, said Mr. Callan. A meeting of students of Victoria University College, representative gi various college societies, had condemned the Government, and it might be assumed they would be equailly hostile to the increased vote for air defences which was recently announced in England by Mr. Baldwin, and that they were opposed to the maintenance of a strong navy. "I think these particular students are quite wrong,'' said Mr. Callan, but they are intensely sincere. They are at the state in life when they are apt to be filled by generous emotions. It should never be forgotten that the students of to-day will in much less than ten years' time be the dominant force in the formation of public opinion. The surest way to avoid war is to remove occasions for ill-feeling and jealousy, and in a crowded world empty countries which do not support the proportion ot mankind that they ought to support are a perpetual cause of ill-feeling, ana must finally cause an explosion. "What we ought to do is first ot all increase our low birth-rate, and, second only, to that, encourage immigration, whatever discomfort this entails. In the meantime we should support the British Navy, because it is only » nder powerful protection that we shall be allowed to have any choice in the matter at all."