ADULT STATUS IN COMMONWEALTH CARRIES RESPONSIBILITIES WE MUST BE READY TO SHOULDER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 11, 22 October 1948, Page 5

ADULT STATUS IN COMMONWEALTH CARRIES RESPONSIBILITIES WE MUST BE READY TO SHOULDER

N.Z. And Empire Defence

(By Reece Smith, New Zealand Kemsley Journalist). London, Sept. 26.

The British Dominions, insistently claiming adult status in the Empire, might well strengthen these claims by putting a little more money and men in the Empire defence pool. This is an opinion not unknown in the British services. Serving officers never, of course, entertain no such political notions. So the opinion shall be ascribed to high places.

Men of this persuasion recognise that Britain, standing alone, is no ..longer a great power. Forty million people, on an island as pint sized as New Zealand, do not rate beside -continental giants 140,000,000 strong. It -is only as an Empire that the British people can play an effective part. Signs are to be seen, particularly in Australia’s aircraft carriers, that this is coming to be actively acknowledged. Hitherto Commonwealth countries, and New Zealand is not the least guilty, have been known to subscribe enthusiastically to the principle 'of equal partnership, without putting more than a couple of bent halfpennies and a colour party in the war chest till the shooting starts. In modern warfare, that -will be a little too late.

A case in point is Malaya. If the Commonwealth is an equal partnership, it seems natural that Pacific responsibilities should fall to Australia and New Zealand. Yet when the recent trouble blew up in. Malaya the Guards had to be sent out to quell it, at a time Britain needs all the soldiers she can muster at home. Told that there would be difficulty raising units in Australia and Hew Zealand for the old business of curbing high spirited tribesmen, an officer so high he leaves vapour trails when he walks said the respective governments had had ample evidence passed on to them that the current fuss in Malaya and the East Indies is not home grown.

The recent translation- of' Comrade Muso from Moscow to East Java would seem to bear this out.

It was hardly far sighted of Australia and New Zealand to applaud the struggle against Communism in Europe, and to leave Britain to

come all the way to cope with it on their own doorstep.

I was asked whether New Zealand was doing anything to match Britain’s recently announced expansion and re-equipment plan for the services. Had we, for instance, moved our air force on into the jet age? The air force has been declared priority one in the .defence structure, and it was there if anywhere signs, of our government’s awareness might be sought.

Twelve thousand miles out of touch, I could only say I understood some crews were to be provided for the Berlin air lift—only a transport exercise at best—and that there was something afoot about a National Service Act. What it would do towards providing instantly available combat units, I could not say. The new frigates, of which I read later, would not have struck these men as a very mighty endeavour to rule the waves.

They expressed a polite hope that were I more closely in touch I would have more to tell them, and refrained from reminding me that Britain is taking her defefifce steps while still maintaining a desperate export drive demanding all possible labour.

Commonwealth equality and all, it looks as if it will be Englishmen who again take the first shock if war comes, and who again have to hold the line while New Zealand, for one, gets its men together and trains them.

And it also looks as though Russia, if she ever falls to thinking of war as an alternative to her much cheaper method of political infiltration, in casting about the Commonwealth to gauge the opposition will see many fine phrases and few trained fighting men.