THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, JULY 9, 1936 NEW ZEALAND'S DEFENCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22466, 9 July 1936, Page 12

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, JULY 9, 1936 NEW ZEALAND'S DEFENCE

Britain's rearmament programme, again figuring largely in the day's news, is no doubt prompting thoughtful New Zealanders to ask what this Dominion is doing about defence. The same causes that have moved Britain to "look to her moat" apply equally to New Zealand. Disarmament has failed, the League has proved powerless to guarantee security, and three Great Powers, Germany, Italy and Japan, are actively pursuing expansionist policies. Britain has been forced to accept the logic of the situation and, having reluctantly taken an unwelcome decision, is organising her defences more thoroughly and on a greater scale than ever before in peacetime. Sir Thomas Inskip recently outlined the scope of these measures, which even include the preliminary organisation of industry and the food supply and distributive trades. Nor are signs wanting that the other Dominions are alive to the urgent nature of the need. Canada's expenditure this year, in spite of her sheltered position, politically and strategically, will total £16,000,000 — a record in time of peace. Australia's expenditure in the current half-year has been stated at £7,000,000, including aircraft, naval construction and coast defence. South Africa, like Canada, is concentrating on land and air forces and coast defence. Her five-year programme provides for 76 aircraft and 1000 pilots, with civil aircraft reserves, an anti-tank battalion, and heavy artillery and infantry forces. Even Mr. de Valera has been forced to consider the defence problems of the Irish Free State and their intimate relationship with Britain, which in this air age may have to base her Fleets on the Irish Sea.

New Zealand's part in all t.his precautionary activity still lacks definition in a concrete programme. Her general policy has, it is true, been satisfactorily stated by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence. Mr. Savage favours a "united course of action" agreed on in conference by the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Mr. Jones recognises the necessity of maintaining an adequate defence force, and speaks of co-operation with Britain in training air pilots. But, without waiting for an Imperial Conference—the time factor is important in the existing international crisis—Britain and the other Dominions are busy with positive measures of protection for their lands and their peoples. The New Zealand Government almost certainly possesses advice on the situation enabling it to set afoot its own programme. So far as local defence is concerned, it can be in no doubt as to its responsibility. The decision of the Imperial Conference of 1923, not since changed, was that each of the self-governing members of the Commonwealth would be primarily responsible for its own local defence. How is that personal obligation to its own people being discharged by the Government? Has it taken, or is it taking, account of the development of military weapons since the war, and of the recent deterioration of international relations? A writer in the Round Table asserts that "the British Navy is incapable of assuring security for all British interests. . . . The naval threat in the Mediterranean, the possible revival of Germany as a naval power, and the breakdown of the Washington system of balance in the Pacific, which replaced the Anglo-Japanese alliance, have rapidly heightened the significance of our comparative weakness in the Far East." Some New Zealanders are inclined to shrug off this menacing situation by saying that we can do nothing effective to combat it. That might have some weight if New Zealand were alone in the world. She belongs, however, to a collective system that has proved itself a powerful reality, the collective system based not on Geneva but on London. The Dominion has the British Empire behind her now and for as long as she stands behind the British Empire. Her local defences are reinforced by the Imperial system, and she should be able and ready to reinforce it. So the problem of local defence merges with and can hardly be distinguished from that of Imperial defence. The question of how best to discharge this dual yet single responsibility requires an immediate answer in concrete form. There are limits to what New Zealand can do, and obviously the money and manpower she can mobilise should be used to the best advantage. So far as New Zealand's Imperial obligations go, the average man is still thinking in terms of the old-style Expeditionary Force. If, as many experts assert, the post-war development of submarines and aircraft will in future make it impossible to send troopships to the ends of the earth, the Territorials' role may be confined to home defence. If that be the correct conclusion, then New Zealand will have to think of her Imperial contribution in different terms and be prepared to make it. The other Dominions seem to have made up their minds and are going ahead with their programmes. It is time New Zealand made a start.