EMPIRE DEFENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 February 1939, Page 8

EMPIRE DEFENCE

NEW ZEALAND WILL 00 ITS SHARE .

IN ANY CRISIS THAT MAY ARISE. MINISTER'S ASSURANCE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. An assurance that the Government realised its responsibilities, realised the position the world was in today, and knew that the Navy must keep the trade routes open, was given by the Minister of Defence, the Hon. F. Jones, when referring briefly to the Government’s defence programme at a meeting addressed by Earl Beatty, chairman of the London executive of the Navy League, in the concert chamber of the Wellington Town Hall last night. Earl Beatty, Mr Jones said, could go back to the Old Country with the message that New Zepland would do its share in any crisis that might arise. The Minister, on behalf of the Government, warmly welcomed Earl and Countess Beatty to New Zealand, and expressed the hope that they would come back again. “I have been interested in the remarks Earl Beatty has made while in New Zealand,” Mr Jones said. “During the last three years a great deal has been done in connection with the development of our naval forces. I can assure you,” he said to Earl Beatty, "that we are not finished yet. We realise that that development has to go on and we have just recently approved of a further programme in connection with the defence, forces of the Dominion. Naval defence takes its share in that programme. Mr Jones said that the Government trusted that another crisis never would arise, but it realised the importance .of the British Navy, and so far as New Zealand defence was concerned it would play its part. On rising to speak, Earl Beatty said he was much encouraged by what he had just heard from the Minister. "1 hope that nothing I say will offend you,” he said, "but brieve me when I say that anything that falls from my lips is in the sincere wish to help you in the great task that lies before you. I should like to congratulate the Government on what it has done recently in regard to the defence forces. I fully realise the Minister of Defence has a difficult task in front of him. "But with this congratulation" I should like to add the caution that t feel there is much more to be done, and done rapidly,” Earl Beatty said. "In these fast-moving days speed is the essence of everything, and I believe that it is the responsibility of Government in these unsettled times to see that security shall come first in its .programme.”