The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1938 NEW ZEALAND’S DEFENCE RESPONSIBILITIES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21185, 4 November 1938, Page 8

The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1938 NEW ZEALAND’S DEFENCE RESPONSIBILITIES.

Although the call made by the Mayor of Timaru last night to tlie citizens to consider the advisability of forming a branch of the New Zealand Defence League in this district might have met with a more general response, the discussion will, of course, no doubt help to stimulate interest and arouse all sections of the community not only to a fuller sense of their responsibilities as free citizens but also to a deeper realisation of the perilous position in which democracy stands to-day. Unrest in Europe has convinced Great Britain of the necessity to arm extensively; and since New Zealand’s interests stand or fall with Great Britain’s continued existence as a first-class power, this country with the other Dominions, must be prepared to play its part in the protection of British interests. Moreover, the perils that confront the young and vigorous nations in the Pacific are such that if New Zealand and Australia are to avoid becoming theatres of war, the extent of their preparedness would need to be much greater than if only the provision of assistance to Homeland interests were contemplated. New Zealand, on her part, has become a nation and must face up to the full responsibilities of nationhood within the British Commonwealth: The change Is not, of course, wholly due to recent danger of aggression; there were powerful and warlike nations, ambitious for wider possessions, long before Adolf Hitler’s arrival. The first and most potent step in the transformation took place when Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand shook themselves free from the apron strings of London and gained complete sovereignty over their own territories. From that day onward, the British Commonwealth became instead of a group of colonies, a union of Sovereign States, each enjoying the same independence in home and foreign affairs as the Mother Country itself. As we said yesterday in discussing the changing policy of Australia’s defence planning, a period of happy security is ending in the Pacific, and there are new dangers in international relations that demand new and more expensive safeguards. Dangers grimmer than economic blizzards are now at hand; the very peace and security of the British Commonwealth are threatened; the long lines of communication between the Mother Country and the Overseas Dominions are in peril. To the problems of trade have now been added those of defence, and they are many and anxious. And to-day in every country under the Union Jack it is becoming more generally recognised that there is at present an urgent need to prepare defence because any one of the new States within the British Commonwealth of Nations may be ’called upon not only to assist in the defence of the Homeland and the Commonwealth as a whole, but also to defend its own shores. While it can be said without fear of contradiction that the totalitarian States of the world have much to answer for, but, as happens frequently in this strange world, as it certainly did when the Kaiser with one smashing blow on August 4, 1914, consolidated the British Empire, the actions of dictators have had some helpful effects, at least, in recent years. One of those is the new impulse to more intensive development and closer co-operation which has moved the people of the British Commonwealth of Nations in recent years, and in no sphere of relationship is co operation more urgent and more vital, and this involves New Zealand, than in co-ordination in providing adequate defence for every unit of the British Commonwealth.