FIFTY THOUSAND MEN?

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2478, 3 June 1915, Page 6

FIFTY THOUSAND MEN?

STATEMENT BY DEFENCE MINISTER. Some remarks on the suggestion that New Zealand ought to increase her Expeditionary Force to a strength of 50,000 men were made to a Dominion reporter yesterday by the Defence Minister (the Hon. J. Allen). . . "All I have to say about it is this," said Mr. Allen, "that, the public must exercise due caution in taking tho advice of anyone not so closely in contact with the position of affairs as the Minister of Defence, the Defence Department. and the Cabinet. Any attempt to force the hands of the Government at this time upon this question without adequate knowledge of. tho position is in my opinion very unwise. I have been in closg contact with tho Xnipsrial Authorities, and have from time to time urged them to let us know whether tlioy want more men or whether they want anything other than men. Indeed, we have every now and then suggested additional things we thought we might do, as for instance, to supply men for the manufacture of munitions of war, which seemed to me to be a most urgent need at Home, more urgent even than men for the fightmg line, but we were informed that they did not require us to send them. As far as I know, there is no demand from the Imperial Authorities that wo should increase our main body, any further than by tho two battalions, which increase we voluntarily suggested to them. Wliafc the Imperial Authorities do. want, and what Lord Kitchener lias impressed upon us from the beginning, is a constant steady supply of reinforcements to make up the wastage that may take place in tho main body. These reinforcements are sufficient in number not only to keep the main body up to its full strength, but, we iiop'e, to increase its strength gradually 'That is the groat scrvice New Zealand can render to tho Empire now— never to let her foree fall below strength, but rather to increase it. "Now people are suggesting—l can feel the cry coming—that wo should take every man who volunteers into camp straight away. How impossible that is may be realised when 1 toll you t.jint, wn have "WO men in romfi Ui-dn,v, with only a small staff to train them,

In fact, wo could not train them now if we had not taken the officers and non-commissioned officers in beforehand, and given them preliminary training to qualify them to assist in the training of the rank and file. If wo were to establish other camps into which men on the waiting list might he, taken it would lead inevitably to inefficiency iu training. It would make demands on the Defence Department that tho Department could not meet, either in respect to staff or anything else, and it would servo no good purpose from our point of view. It would encourage men to give up thoir work, and wo want them to stay at their work, because service to the Empire to-day is not only service at the front, but service in the ordinary industries of tho country to keep them going." Mr. Allen indicated that there were other reasons, which he could not diseuss, against sending away immediately a large number of men. "To encourage this idea that we can do an unlimited amount," bo concluded, "is not in the interests of New Zealand or tho Empire."