NEW ZEALAND'S PART

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2485, 11 June 1915, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND'S PART

The speech of His Excellency the Governor on Wednesday evening came very opportunely. A good many people, and we must confess that we were amongst the number, were anxious to see the Dominion responding even more liberally than it has been doing to the call of the nation. _We have the men, the spirit [ to assist is strong, and the call has been loud and insistent—the call from the Dardanelles, from France, and from Flanders, where the deeds of our kindred have fired our imagination and stirred our souls to their deepest depths. There, has been increasing anxiety on the part of the best of the young men of the Dominion to share in the struggle and to assist those who are so gallantly bearing the brunt of the desperate fighting; and maybe also to avenge those who have laid down their lives in the battles for the overthrow of the armies of the Great Assassin. To those who have fretted under the ac ; tion of the Defence authorities in declining for the time being to further increase the main body of troops dispatched to the Dardanelles, His Excellency's frank spcech should prove of particular interest. It makes it quite clear that for the present at least we have reached tho limit of the rate at which we can send men to the front. The great obstacle for the moment is the scarcity in the markets of the world of rifles and equipment. With the improvement in the organisation for the manufacture of munitions of war in Britain, which is now well under way, we may expect that, ere long this obstacle will be removed; but in the meantime we must be content with the existing rate of reinforcements which we are able to maintain. It is fortunate that the Minister of Defence should have arranged prior to the war for tho equipment and dispatch of an Expeditionary Forcc in case of need; and fortunate also that on his way back from England in 1913 he was able to purchase a large number of rifles in Canada at a very special bargain price. The policy of Mr. Allen in Defencc matters prior to the war has been fully tested and its soundness thoroughly proved since hostilities commenced. The Dominion would have been greatly handicapped but for the steps taken by Llie present Minister of Defence shortly after ho bccamc the political head of the. Defcncc Department.