MECHANISED BATTALION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 May 1939, Page 7

MECHANISED BATTALION

ORGANISATION OF PUBLIC WORKS MEN. MR SEMPLE ON DEFENCE MEASURES. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 18. An attack on war profiteers and defence leagues, which, he said, he considered to be the associates in war of ;he men who plundered the nation in 1914-18, a frank statement of his own attitude to war and his past attitude and an explanation of the efforts being made by the Government in preparation for the defence of New Zealand, were made by the Minister of Public Works, the Hon R. Semple tonight. Mr Semple spoke in support of Mr R. M. Macfarlane’s candidature for :he Christchurch South seat. “We are told that we are doing noth-, ing to defend New Zealand,” said Mr Semple. “I’m telling you that we are doing 100 per cent more than the other fellow thought of doing, and the work is there to be seen. We are building aerodromes in weeks and months; it would have taken them till the ‘crack of doom’ to build one. “These defence leagues that are developing,” said Mr Semple, “are composed of a gang of scaremongers. That is what I think of them. They want to create a psychology of fear. We want to build, in a quiet, reasonable and rational fashion, a defence system in this country to protect New Zealand from invasion if it comes.

“The Public Works Department, is composed of 23,000 hard-working men, and the latest construction machinery, and could be formed into a valuable part of a defence system. I am going out next week to organise these fellows into a mechanised battalion : to defend the country if the occasion warrants it,” announced Mr Semple,