KENYA COLONY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22850, 4 October 1937, Page 12

KENYA COLONY

ITALY AS NEIGHBOUR BRITISH DEFENCE MEASURES [by telegraph—owx correspondent] CHRISTCHURCH, Saturday The turbulent current of politics in the last few years has brought parts of the British Empire which were once comparative backwaters into the main stream of international affairs. This may be said of Kenya Colony, in British East Africa, which was once a neighbour of the independent State of Abyssinia, but now borders on the Italian empire. Recent g.nd current extensions of the defence forces of the colony were mentioned in an interview by Mr. W. L. Wilkins, formerly of Christchurch. who has lived the greater part of 10 years in Nairobi, the capital. Though he did not draw any inferences, Mr. Wilkins said that Britain was spending about £300,000 on extending the Royal Air Force unit in Kenya. A new aerodrome was being built and eventually about 300 men would be stationed there.

Recently, he said, the Kenya Defence Force had been revived. This was a voluntary unit of Europeans. Its main purpose, he understood, was to train officers, who would be available for mobilising the defences of the colony in case of need.

In 10 rears Mr. Wilkins has seen the colony emerge from isolation. "We are not out of it at all now," he said, mentioning that Imperial Airways machines called regularly at Nairobi, carrying out a twice-weekly mail service. Nairobi itself, with a European population of about 6000. had made remarkable progress. Quite a number of Abyssinians had come over the border into the colony. No effort had been made by the Italian administration to reclaim them and at present it was not known what would be done with them. In the meantime the}' were being kept in camps. Sanctions had interfered with a considerable amount of the business done in Nairobi by Italians. At the beginning of the Abyssinian war, said Mr. Wilkins, for a time there were Italian agents in the colony buying mules -for transport work and other necessary supplies. Mr. Wilkins played football against a South African University team, which had as scrum half the wellknown Springbok, D. H. Craven. This was in 1933 and Craven was using his effective "dive" pass, though this was of no particular interest to Mr. Wilkins, who said that all South African scrum halves used the "dive" pass. "We were outclassed," he remarked. "Cravpn was the outstanding player." This visiting team was from the Stellenbosch University.