PRIME MINISTER’S STATEMENT

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22506, 14 September 1938, Page 11

PRIME MINISTER’S STATEMENT

“INTENTION AND POLICY OF GOVERNMENT” ADVICE FROM BRITISH DEFENCE HEADS [THE PRESS Special Service-! WELLINGTON, September 13. “This appears to convey to the last letter the intention and policy of the Government,” said the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) when he had read the report by cablegram qf the speech of New Zealand’s representative at the League of Nations Assembly. Mr Jordan’s statement that an aggressor could not count on the neutrality “even of countries that appeared to be most remote” was not news to the Prime Minister.

“We have exchanged views with the British Government and with Mr Jordan from time to time,” he said, “and the British Government would know exactly what Mr Jordan was going to do before he said anything.” Referring to the suggestion that Mr Jordans statement was accepted as the first official affirmation of Empire unity in the event of war the Prime Minister remarked. “We have tried to make that clear right through. When I was in Britain talking to the heads of the services I told them then, in very unpolished language, that we could not do much on our own account if it came to a show-down; that we had to be part and parcel of a commonwealth scheme of defence before we could be taken serious notice of and that we should be able to defend New Zealand as a unit and as part of the British Empire. They gave us ad the information it was possible to give and we are working on lines similar to that to-day.” Commenting further on the cable message from Geneva the Prime Minister said: “Yes, I do feel satisfaction over this. It is splendid.”