2 N.Z.E.F. ASSN’S DEFENCE POLICY NOT COMMUNISTIC

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 16, 25 July 1949, Page 5

2 N.Z.E.F. ASSN’S DEFENCE POLICY NOT COMMUNISTIC

“It is to be deplored that attempts have been made to discredit the Association’s Defence Policy by implying that it is influenced —-nay dominated—by Communist sympathy,” declares Mr Kenneth Melvin, Dominion president of the 2 N.Z.E.F. Association in the address he will deliver to the annual conference of the Association at Wellington tomorrow. The 2 N.Z.E.F. Association consists of some 13,000 returned men of World War 11, Kiwis who have demonstrated their loyalties in the final test of citizenship—overseas military service in the Army, Navy, Air Force or Merchant Navy, Mr Mel Vin points out. No member can hold executive office in the Association without sighing each year an affirmation of loyalty to the British Commonwealth.

Such policies as Kiwi opinion formulate through the annual conference are therefore the unconstrained expressions of men whose fundamental loy- . alties are beyond question. A “Wretched Libel” “The 2 N.Z.E.F. Association stands for the liberal tradition which holds that democracy lies in the peaceful processes of debate, respect for law and gradual reform. We have no lot or part with any political creed which forswears these things,” Mr Melvin says.

“To suggest that our Kiwi organisation is allied in any way with Communism is a wretched libel on men who have fought to preserve our free institutions and who desire only that they should continue to function freely and without coercion.

“Criticism is not Communism. Is our right to criticise now to be removed by, the miserable method of misrepresentation? The Communists are opposing conscription. We have no objection to the principle of conscription because we recognise that democracy cannot be entirely voluntary. The Communists are opposed to national defence against Soviet Russia. We recognise Soviet Russia as the only power whose persistent intransigence threatens our way of life.

“Selective Service” Idea “Last year’s annual conference rejected conscription in peace-time but in the event of war favoured the introduction of compulsory national selective service so designed as to recruit the entire resources of the country, manpower, materials and money. The Dominion Executive has adhered strictly to this policy in the 12 months since that decision was made. “In recent articles and editorials in ‘Kiwi’ we have tried to state the case as we see it—that compulsory military training of 18 year olds is not a real defence plan; that 150 years of peacetime conscription in Europe has not stopped a single war; that emphasis in any defence plan for New Zealand should be upon air power.

“In rejecting half measures we ask for whole measures framed about the newer concepts of warfare, particularly on peace through air power. If this be disloyalty, let our detractors make the most of it.