THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Thursday, January 23, 1947. DEFENCE COMMITMENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26367, 23 January 1947, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Thursday, January 23, 1947. DEFENCE COMMITMENTS

There have been several brief items of cable news recently which, considered in relation to one another, give the impression that a major change in British overseas defence policy is now in the process of being carried out. The full implications of this cannot yet be ascer* tained, but it would seem clear that in future the dominions will .have to bear a considerably greater share of Imperial responsibilities for defence than they have done in the past. That a change is necessary is obvious. It may be regrettable in that it must involve a change in the extent and nature of British influence throughout the world, but in .so far as it could be the commencement of a new policy in which a clearer moral leadership replaced the older tradition of demonstrations of power, it may also be welcomed. Great Britain’s foreign commitments are too heavy for a nation strained and impoverished by six years of war, and apart from purely military considerations, the maintenance of so much manpower in armies of occupation constitutes a severe handicap to the British drive for increased production, the success of which is vital to the country. For these reasons the complete or partial withdrawal of British troops from Japan, Germany, India, Greece, Austria and Italy is being contemplated or is actually in progress, and a withdrawal from Indonesia has already been carried out. Of particular importance to New Zealand is the report, which, however, still lacks full official confirmation, that the British brigade is to be withdrawn from Japan and is to be replaced by Australian troops. The Adjutant-General of the British Forces, Sir Richard O’Connor, is at present holding a conference with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Australia, and he will later visit Japan. In July, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field-Mar-shal Montgomery, will visit both Australia and New Zealand to discuss questions of defence. These matters are already long overdue for discussion in this country, and the impression persists that the New Zealand Government has not been as active in making preparations as it should have been. The handling of the New Zealand force for Japan and the reorganisation of the New Zealand permanent forces have not been such as to inspire confidence. Furthermore, the present draft in Japan is due for release at intervals during this year, and arrangements for their replacement do not yet seem to be far advanced. The Government has its obligations to discharge to the men now overseas, but more important, it has its obligations to the British Commonwealth as a whole, and to Australia in particular. If Great Britain withdraws from Japan part of the added burden must fall on New Zealand. So much is implicit under the Canberra Pact, but apart from that proclamation of nascent nationhood the fact of New Zealand’s vital interest in the Far East and in the South Pacific is inescapable, although both the public and the Government of New Zealand appear content to accept the fact without any attempt to realise its implications by action; The United States must be the dominating factor in the Pacific in the future, but American interests may not be identical with those of the Commonwealth members most concerned—Australia, Canada and New Zealand—and a vigorous policy must be formulated and implemented as soon as . possible in order to ensure that adequate recognition is secured for these interests.

AN ACT OF FAITH The criticism by a business man, which was published in the Daily Times last week, of the state of many business and commercial premises, both inside and out, has not wanted its supporters, nor have refutations been lacking. Those statements which have since appeared have not been sought out. They have been put forward by public-spirited citizens, including the First Citizen, 'Mr D. C. Cameron, who hav4 felt bound to support the suggestion that many Dunedin buildings are sadly in need of renovation. The difficulties are not inconsiderable. One of them, as has been pointed out, lias been controls upon the use of oil paints, which added to building controls generally have made it as impossible to paint some types of building as to renovate in other ways or to rebuild them. But the criticism remains, even when the answers to it have been assembled and weighed. As the city of Dunedin prepares to celebrate her centennial year she is looking her age. A venerable antiquity is, in its place, all very well. It is allowable to Bath, still living comfortably on her eighteenth century reputation. It is to Arrowtown or Naseby or other of the Central Otago towns from which the turbulent tide of the gold-mining era has receded, leaving them quiet and mellow.. It can be welcomed in London, in the precincts of Westminster, or at the *George Inn, across the river. But no Londoner would want his great, bustling city to become merely an antiquarian resort, and have the old, grey walls of Southwark reproduced in Oxford or New Bond streets. Neither must the people of Dunedin, reflecting now upon the honourable and striving past, of the late ’seventies and the ’eighties, when so many of the business buildings were erected, be content that they should to-day display their time-worn lineaments without alteration and a deft retouching. It is necessary to look ahead as. well as to glance backward. In 1861, T. B. Gillies, later a judge of the Supreme Court, considered it “ not too sanguine an expectation to look forward to the Province of Otago taking the position of the first Province in New Zealand.” His vision was brought to brief reality. In 1947, a faith in the city and Provincial District no less profound is required. The refurbishing of Dunedin, including the adoption of a modem transport system that would permit the muchneeded renovation of the streets, would be a necessary, and by no means merely a superficial, manifestation of the confidence and vigour with which the people of the south must face the future.