AIR DEFENCE

Waikato Times, Volume 129, Issue 21590, 28 November 1941, Page 6

AIR DEFENCE

PROVISION OF BOMBERS POSSIBLE ATTACK FROM SEA (By Telegraph. r i <■« Assr.rlatlon) DUNEDIN, Thursday “Thanks to the understanding of the leaders of Great Britain, because they appreciate our problems, our request for bombers was agreed to, and if the war spreads to the Pacific we have an Air Force that will be able to give a very good account of itself against the kind of attack from the sea that our service chiefs envisage,” said the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser, in an address on New Zealand’s war effort to the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce today. The Prime Minister also said it was obvious from press reports that Britain was now able to reinforce her naval strength in the Pacific.

“We are handicapped,” Mr Fraser said, “by a lack of the basic industry of iron and steel. Efforts have been made to explore the possibilities of the steel industry here. If it were a period of lasting peace, there would not be the same justification for doing it, but the possibility of our being cut off, even from Australia, makes it necessary. We will develop the industry as much as we can, and in the meantime we will experiment with iron sand deposits.”