ISOLATION DANGER

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 153, 24 March 1939, Page 10

ISOLATION DANGER

Need For New Zealand To Stand On Own Feet BUILDING UP LOCAL jINDUSTRY By Telegraph—Press Association. AUCKLAND, March 23. “Everyone who reads the news today must have some misgivings about the future,” said the Prime Minister, Mr. Savage, in referring to the possibility of New Zealand being isolated and the need for building up local industry while addressing employees of the Otahuhu railway workshops. Many of his listeners could remember the friends that protected the trade routes in 1011-1918, he continued, and he asked whether those friends would be with us in the days ahead if they were needed.

New Zealand was the greatest exporter of primary produce to Great Britain in the world today, and to make a transformation was going to cause an upset to some extent. “We are not waiting for the drums Io beat to consider that aspect,” Mr. Savage said. The Government had men two years ago measuring up the possible changes from where the country was then to where it might be in the event of war. From the point of view of possible isolation alone, everyone must be struck iby the great danger lurking just round the corner and everyone must be struck by the need for New Zealand 1 being,able to stand on her own feet, consistent with buying as much as she ehould in the overseas market.

Emphasizing that lie had "nothing up his sleeve” when he referred to possible-isolation, Mr. Savage said that unless the country were used we had no moral or economic right to it, and certainly no military force to hold practically empty territory. This did not mean that the Government would dump thousands of people into the Dominion. Its job was to develop industry and make a place for people before they came. “We want to build here a nation that will be a bard nut to crack,” he added. He was not suggesting that anyone should start buckling on his armour to go to the North Pole or Tim-buctoo or anywhere else, but he would like to see four men of our own race and way of living where there was one man today.