PACIFIC PACT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27078, 12 May 1949, Page 6

PACIFIC PACT

SUGGESTION FAVOURED MR HOLLAND’S COMMENT ” PREPARE TO CONTRIBUTE ” PA WELLINGTON, May 11. Before making an appeal for military assistance from other nations, New Zealand should herself put her forces in such a condition that she could give her proportionate contribution to any pact. This view was expressed this afternoon by the Leader of the Opposition. Mr Holland, when commenting on the plea made by Mr H. E. Combs, the member for Onslow, and one of the New Zealand delegates to the meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, when addressing members of the United States Congress at the capital, Washington. Mr Combs spoke in favour of a Pacific defence arrangement similar to the Atlantic Pact.

Mr Holland emphasised that he himself was in favour of such a pact, but queried the advisability of New Zealand making a move until she had some contribution to offer. “I read Mr Combs’s plea with interest and no small amount of amusement,” he said. “ Mr Combs’s point is that when the security of the Pacific is being considered by American statesmen, he hopes they will not forget New Zealand. My amusement comes from the fact that Mr Combs’s own Government has done next to nothing about defence. It would appear logical that before we ask other people not to forget us and our security, we ought to be doing something ourselves to make a proportionate contribution to the common defence needs of the Pacific peoples. In the last 12 months, Mr Holland said, the people had been promised a statement from the Prime Minister about defence, but all that could be seen were the objections of certain militant union leaders who were more concerned to have New Zealand militarily weak and defenceless than they were to see provision made for some universal form of training. “My own view,” he saiQ, “is that we have no right to look to other people to defend us unless we are prepared to play our part and defend ourselves. It appears beyond doubt that no voluntary scheme will yield the results necessary and therefore some form of universal training, to be co-ordinated as part of an Empire defence scheme, seems to be an urgent necessity. I am in entire agreement if Mr Combs has urged upon the American Congressmen the need for a Pacific defence pact which, in my opinion, is a logical corallory to the Atlantic Treaty and is more necessary to-day than ever before because of the great deterioration in .the situation in China..”