DEFENCE PREPARATION.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 May 1939, Page 6

DEFENCE PREPARATION.

QPIIE response to the Prime Minister’s recent defence appeal is described as very good and no doubt enrolments would already have been much more numerous but for the fact that the number of men to be called upon meantime to undergo actual training is comparalively small. There does not seem to be much doubt that lhe Regular and Territorial establishments and lheir reserves will soon be fully manned, and "with training proceeding in these conditions it will not be long before a fairly strong force will be available in Ih.e event of an emergency.

The position as to the national military reserve, particularly in the ease of men above the age of 35, is still a little nebulous, but in the extent to which organisation likely to be of service can be built up men in that category no doubt will enrol in good numbers. Some construct ion and other units could be manned quite as effectively by the older men as by their juniors. •

It rests, of course, with lhe Government to follow up the general appeal mack* by the Prime Minister with whatever more detailed lead mav be deemed necessary and advisable. The report of Major-General P. J. Mackesy, one of the representatives of the British Government on the recent Pacific Defence Conference, on the land forces of New Zealand, has been received and no doubt will influence in an important degree the measures of defence preparation to be undertaken. The scope of these measures must be determined to a great extent by the amount of military material which can be obtained, but the ruling aim most certainly should be to achieve the highest degree of defensive preparation that existing resources of all kinds, human and material, will permit.