DEFENCE & FREEDOM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 July 1938, Page 6

DEFENCE & FREEDOM

RETIREMENT OF THE FOUR COLONELS. MINISTER ASKED TO MAKE STATEMENT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A challenge to the Minister of Defence, the Hon F. Jones, to repeat publicly a statement he made to the Labour Conference last Easter to the effect that the land forces of New Zealand were adequate, was issued by Mr H. S. S. Kyle (Opposition, Riccarton) when speaking in the debate on the Address-in-Reply in the House of Representatives last night. Mr Kyle said that only recently the country had the spectacle of four colonels being “fired” from their positions in the military forces simply because they had been game enough to come out and issue a manifesto that did not agree with the policy of the Government. Mr W. J. Polson (Opposition, Stratford): “They soon learned about freedom.” Mr Kyle: “Freedom? Why, the member for Grey Lynn wanted to know whether they were going to be courtmartialled. During this debate we should have a clear-cut statement from the Minister of Defence setting out the attitude ,of the Government toward these four officers of the territorial forces. Everyone knows that our land forces at the present time are inadequate.”