NEW ZEALAND DEFENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 March 1939, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND DEFENCE

“SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE.’” OBSERVATIONS BY FINANCE MINISTER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Reference to the defence policy of the Government was made by the Minister of Finance, the Hon. W. Nash, when replying to the toast of Parliament at the dinner to Lord Nuffield in the Hotel St. George, Wellington, last night. Mr Nash said because of world crises New Zealand’s defence expenditure this year was four times what it was four years ago, and yet it- was comparatively not enough if the country was to do all the things that ought to be done. “I am no jingo,” Mi- Nash added. “I am sorry that circumstances are such that the evidence of the last three years suggests that something has to be done. I am satisfied that the present Government will do it.” The Minister went on to say that he thought Parliament was something that ought to be held in respect—something that the people ought to fight to hold. It was good that inside the English-speaking world there were forms of Government under which every man and woman could appeal to the people to send them to Parliament to make the laws. It was good, also, to belong to the British Commonwealth of Nations, because with all the mistakes that had been made in the past, there was another side in which there were credits that stood supreme right throughout history as a record for the benefit not only of the Englishspeaking world, but also of the world at large. If .we did talk of defence in lhe Commonwealth it was good to remember that our defence lay in London, not here; that if disaster came there we were lost. He did not say that idly. England was the safeguard for this little country.