DEFENCE POLICY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23002, 1 April 1938, Page 13

DEFENCE POLICY

Sir, —Your correspondent "Englishman" makes a valuable suggestion for the defence of the Dominion's coasts by the use of submarines in Monday's Herald. If it were known to an attacking enemy that submarines were patrolling our coasts and at any second might strike a stunning blow, it would act as a great deterrent, both politically and actually. The dread of the undersea danger must react on an enemy more than an aeroplane attack; the aeroplane can bo seen and provided for by anti-aircraft guns, but the submarine is an elusive myth and but small provision can be made to repel its deadly attack. The experience of the wholesale sinking of ships during the Great War proved tho danger of submarine attack. If the Government, in place of risking £5,000,000 in an iron smelting project, were to invest the money in submarine defence of our coasts, it would be a practical hint to our prospective enemies to keep off. Where the submarines are to be secured is the business of the Government, and that quickly. The danger of attack is already in evidence. The Government is fooling the Dominion with a lot of useless, oppressive and unnecessary legislation, while they have left our front door—the Pacific Ocean —wide open for any burglar to walk in unopposed and take all ho wants, which is our freedom and all else worth living for. Unless something practical in coast defence is put in hand at once we will be only a drag on Australia if war comes. ' Submarine.

Sir, —Like many other citizens, I am not at all disposed to condemn the present Government's defence policy off-hand, but 1 cannot help feeling uneasy about it. Jll the present disturbed state of the world, and especially of the Far East, our expenditure seems disproportionately small -when one considers what the Government is spending, and proposes to spend, on many other things which would go on to the scrap-heap if this country were attacked or blockaded by a foreign foe. In the second place, while we know that the Government is receiving plenty of the best expert advice from the Imperial Government and from its own naval, military and air officers, we do not know whether that advice is being carried out in its entirety, either as to total expenditure or as to the proportionate development of the three arms of the service. For example, the Minister of Defence has stated definitely that the Government will not reintroduce compulsory military training, but we. are not informed whether this decision has been made with the full approval of the experts or merely in pursuance of traditional Labour policy. The ordinary citizen does not expect for a mcment to be given details of the scheme of co-ordinated naval, nir and land defence which undoubtedly has been drawn up for New Zealand by high authorities in Britain and elsewhere who have been working on the problem; nor can he make useful conjectures about it, since the whole subject is a closed book to the layman and conditions are changing rapidly. What I write to suggest is that ns defence is properly a matter high above party politics the Government should, as a proof of good faith, take its Parliamentary opponents fully into its counsels and allow them a place in the organisation which it has built up to develop New Zealand's fighting forces. Ordinary men like myself would be much reassured if they knew that the Government was carrying out a policy which, in scale and nature, really satisfied both the Imperial authorities and fully-informed representatives of al) parties in the House. EI-Tehhitobul.