EMPIRE DEFENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1938, Page 7

EMPIRE DEFENCE

ATTACK ON THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT Retiring Opposition Leader’s Charge DENIALS BY MINISTERS By Telegraph.—Press Association. —Copyright. (Received This Day, 10.20 a.m.) OTTAWA, July 5. Making his last appearance in the House of Commons as Opposition Leader, Mr R. B. Bennett brought a charge that Canada was “letting the Old Country down,” by an alleged refusal to permit the organisation of Royal Air Force depots in the Dominion. The Prime Minister, Mr W. L. Mackenzie King, denying the charge, declared that permission was never requested. It had been laid down years ago, he said, as a fundamental principle of the Canadian Government, that no military organisation would be permitted, unless it was owned, maintained, and controlled by Canada. ' The Minister of Defence, Mr lan Mackenzie, read a letter from the British. Air Commission, praising Canadian co-operation. Quoting: “Who lives if England dies,” Mr Bennett declared: “When Britain goes, we go. No worthy Canadian denies an old partner the right to establish a means for Canada to preserve her liberty. Yet the Government is willing to approve a British Columbia road to Alaska, thus establishing a military highway to the alien United States.” Parliament has prorogued, with an understanding that it will reassemble in the autumn, providing the reciprocity treaty with the United States is completed. The Conservative National conference vfill choose a leader at its opening on Tuesday, with a strong demand that Mr Bennett continue in that position.