DEFENCE NEEDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 December 1938, Page 8

DEFENCE NEEDS

NEW ZEALAND’S POLICY GRAVE RESPONSIBILITY. EFFECTS OF NEW ALLIANCE. The grave responsibility in assuring the country that all it had to fear was a mere raid, and that a defence force large enough to cope with a raid was quite adequate for the Dominion’s needs, was stressed by Mr H. E. Barrowclough, president of the Auckland district council of the New Zealand Defence League, in a statement. The present defence policy was summarised by the Minister of ftefence in his recent statement as follows: “We l think the force we are training in New Zealand is quite adequate. After all, it is a peacetime force, which could be rapidly expanded in the event of an emergency.”

SCOPE OF AN ATTACK. In his statement Mr Barrowclough said: “Mr Jones is reported as saying further that the Government was well posted with information and had a substantial basis for the view that the scope of attack on eithefc New Zealand or Australia could not be more than a raid? He said that this was the view of the Home authorities as recently as the last Imperial Conference, and it was the view of the Chief of Staff in New' Zealand today. “Much, how'ever, has happened since the last Imperial Conference,” Mr Barrowclough said. The latest cable news reveals that the text of the German-Italian-Japanese alliance has now been endorsed by all three of these Powers and only awaits signature. Here is a great and menacing military alliance. It was foreshadowed by the appearance of Japanese warships in Australasian waters during the recent European crisis. It is questionable whether the Home authorities could no.w be so confident that all we would have vo fear is a raid of the ‘tip and run’ variety.

OPINIONS IN AUSTRALIA. “Mr Jones, however, relies on the opinion of Major-General Duigan, the Chief of Staff in New Zealand, who is today of the same view. Is there any warrant for being so complacent and for accepting General Duigan’s view? Mr Jones says the Government ‘has substantial basis for ‘the view that the scope of attack on either New Zealand or Australia could not be more than a raid.’ Australia ana Australia’s military advisers do not today accept that view. There is substantial basis for the opinion that General Duigan’s views are not accepted by other senior officers of his staff. “It is conceded that the general may be in possession of secret information that is not and cannot be made available to others. But no secret and confidential information is necessary for the consideration of the general effect of the Gcrman-Italian-Japanese alliance. INDUCEMENT TO JAPAN. “If these three Powers should be at war with Great Britain and France the theatre of military operations would almost certainly be in Europe. It is difficult to see how Japanese troops could be sent to Europe; but it is not difficult to assume that the German General Staff might tell their Japanese allies that they could best assist by seizing and occupying those parts of the British Empire from which Great Britain draws her supplies. What more suitable objectives than Australia and New Zealand for Japanese offensive?

“If Australia were well armed, what an inducement Japan would have tc attack New Zealand—not a mere raid but an attack in some force with th( object of occupation for the duration Oi the war and afterward; perhaps foi ever.

"Our defence forces are not now designed to meet such an attack. Yet, if our territorial units were re-estab-lished as they existed immediately after the end of the last war, we should have such a defence force as would make an effective invasion by Japan almost an impossibility, at all events until she and her allies had secured a decisive victory in the main European theatre.”