EMPIRE DEFENCE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20096, 1 May 1935, Page 5

EMPIRE DEFENCE

STATEMENT BY MR FORBES CRITICISED By Telegraph—Press Association AUCKLAND. April 30. Astoris'unent at the statement attributed to Mr G. W. Forbes, in a cablegram from Ottawa, that he saw no necessity for a discussion on Empire defence, etc., was expressed by the Leader of the Labour Party, Mr M. J. Savage, in a statement to-day. No further evidence than this astounding statement was necessary, said Mr Savage, to prove how far the Prime Minister was out of touch with the thinking people of the Dominion. Mr Forbes had said there was no need for a discussion as to a policy which might menace the future of New Zealand people, might entail another sacrifice of our youth, and repeat and extend the holocaust of 1914-18, and the subsequent chaos, hardship, privation, and disorder. The irony and danger of the position was that Mr Forbes was on his way to London, where he would act on a committee which would discuss foreign policy, defence, peace and war. Mr Forbes would attend that Committee after stating that New Zealand only needed to be notified of what Britain proposed to do. “Our future,” said Mr Savage, “is bound up with the countries of the Briitsh Commonwealth. The Labour Party will strengthen the ties of the Nations of the Commonwealth. The Labour Party’s policy in the present state of world thought, is to take whatever steps are necessary to defend the Dominion and its democratic institutions, but this policy, to be successful, implies discussion, negotiation, and agreement, in which Parliamer 1 - as representative of the people, should have the determining voice. The future of the Dominion and the British Commonwealth is dependent on the will to peace. This will can be rendered wholly ineffective if unknown commitments, involving the lives of our people, are to be made exclusively at the will of men who may not, in any way, understand the objective and outlook of our people. Our youth should not be sacrificed for unknown causes, and unknown policies, and without reference to the representatives of the people.”