FRENCH TEST

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31003, 8 March 1966, Page 16

FRENCH TEST

C.N.D. Urges Protest “We are put on the alert by the suggestion in the news that France might retaliate in some way because of New Zealand opposition to an Hbomb testing in the Pacific,” says the secretary of the Christchurch branch of the New Zealand Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (Mrs R. Plumridge) in a statement yesterday. "France should be reminded that to appropriate thousands of square miles of ocean to her own purposes is illegal,” says Mrs Plumridge. “Further, as a signatory to the Partial Test-Ban Treaty, and as the nearest member of the United Nations to the testing site with a, strong voice not possessed by the smaller islands. New Zealand would be shrinking from her international obligations if she failed to protest. “We assure the Prime Minister that we are behind the stand he has taken, that we are convinced most New Zealanders feel likewise and will not be deterred should the French take any action that affects our pockets. No economic or diplomatic damage is anywhere near as serious as the threat to human life posed by the H-bomb, the effects of which are uncertain, and the use of which in actual war could end civilisation.”