DOMINION MUST BE READY

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14091, 24 March 1939, Page 5

DOMINION MUST BE READY

SECOND EDITION

TO STAND ON OWN FEET IF WAR SHOULD COME. Electtic Telegraph—Press Association AUCKLAND, Last Night. “Everyone who reads the news today must have some misgivings about the future,” said the Prime Minister, lit. Hon. M. J. Savage, in referring to the possibility of New Zealand l.eing isolated and the need for building up local industry while addressing employees of the Otabuhu Railway Workshops. Many of his listeners could remember the friends that protected trade routes in 1914-18. le continued, and asked whether those friends would be with u s in Ihe days ahead if they were needed. New Zealand was the greatest exporter of primary produce to Great Britain in the world to-day and to make a transformation was going to cause an upset to some extent. NOT WAITING FOR DRUMS.

'We are not waiting tor the drums to beat to consider that aspect,"’ Mr Savage said. The Government had men two years ago measuring up the possible changes from where the country was then to where it might be in the event of a war. From the point of view of possible isolation a,lone, everyone must be struck by the great danger lurking just round the corner and everyone must be struck by the neec for New Zealand being able to stand on her own feet, consistent with buying as much as she should in an overseas market. Emphasising that he had ‘ nothing up his sleeve ’ when he referred to possible isolation, Mr Savage said that unless the country were used we had no moral or economic right* to it and certainly no military lorce to hold practically empty territory. This lid not mean that the Government would dump thousands of people into the Dominion. Its job was to develop industry and make place for the people before they came. MORE PEOPLE WANTED. “We want to build here a nation that will be a hard nut to crack/* be added. He was not suggesting that anyone should start buckling oil his armour to go to the North Pole or Timbuctoo or anywhere else, but he would like to see four men of our race and way of living v here there was one man to-day.