DEFENCE MATERIALS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 May 1939, Page 5

DEFENCE MATERIALS

LONG DELAY ON ORDERS IN BRITAIN SOME PLACED NEARLY THREE YEARS AGO. HOPES OF GETTING SUPPLIES SOON. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 10. Orders for defence material, aggregating in value more than £1,000,000 and placed by the Government in the last three years, are unfulfilled. The Government’s efforts to bring stocks of defence requirements up to a new level were briefly explained today by the Minister of Defence, Mr Jones, when he discussed measures with the Canterbury Territorial Association. “These are not orders recently placed,” said the Minister. “Some were placed nearly three years ago. The hold-up in delivery is undoubtedly the result of the demands of Great Britain herself, but it is hoped, as the result of the holding of the Pacific Defence Conference in Wellington in April .that supplies will be made morereadily available to this country.”

, Under the programme previously adopted by the Government for the defence of the Dominion, orders were placed in Great Britain and Australia, and £440,000 worth had not yet been supplied. With the adoption last year of a new programme a further order, valued at £600,000 had been given to Great Britain, making a total value on order of more than £1,000.000. When visting Burnham today the Minister saw clearing operations being carried out on the site of the new ordnance store and central depot for the South Island.