DEFENCE WEAKNESS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 156, 28 March 1939, Page 5

DEFENCE WEAKNESS

Vulnerability Of Electric Power Stations DANGER OF AIR RAIDS A weakness in the defence system of New Zealand resulting from the vulnerability to enemy air raids of the country’s hydro-electric plants is commented on editorially in the latest Issue of the “New Zealand Electrical Journal.’’

“The very fact that New Zealand has come to depend so utterly and finally upon electricity is something which must be considered very seriously in these days of alarm and international excursions,’’ says the journal. “Recently, Lieut.-Col. W. C. D. Veale, M.G., D.C.M., who is also a member of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, contributed a paper to the Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, on Air Raid Precautions. In his paper, Lieut.-Col. Veale set out very fully what one must expect in the event of an air raid, and the striking point about his paper was the certainty with which a military man seemed to regard the possibility of air raids in Australia, were hostilities to commence. “Can we in New Zealand, in regard to our hydro systems and our various sub-stations, standby plants, transmission lines, etc., take it for granted that if raiding cruisers and airraiding parties are possible in Australia, they will be impossble in New Zealand? ■ “We do not think that such an attitude is a safe one, and with an atmosphere pregnant with suspicion, anxiety, and with all the appearances of being on the threshold of something new and disastrous, it seems that the industry must in New Zealand take at least some heed of what has been done overseas, in order to protect this vital electricity service, even if it does not consider that these precautions should go as far as they have been pushed in other lands. “We believe that this matter is one of some urgency, for it may be found upon examination that the time element involved in even a small measure of protection to our generating stations etc., is much greater than was at first supposed. If protection is needed in New Zealand —and it seems that it is—it is a big job, and one which will take a great deal of time. “We suggest that this matter should be gone into, and at once. It is improbable that anybody iu New Zealand can say whether or not there is a danger, and if there were such persons, it is improbable that they could say to what extent that danger existed. With no part of the country, however, more than 70 miles from the coastline, it is improbable that our utter dependence on. electricity would be overlooked by any raider, and what have we iu New Zealand to stop the modern Jflane in its 14 or 15 minut.es' flight from the coast to bur innermost power stations? The technique of protection has already

been well-developed—engineering observers have been for years in Spain and in China, and it is on the experiences of these men that much of the protection now being effected in Great Britain and on the Continent is being built.”