WAR TRAINING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1940, Page 5

WAR TRAINING

NEED OF AN EXPEDITED EFFORT URGED BY MR COATES. OVERSEA SERVICE & HOME DEFENCE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “Nothing should stand in the way of the army having its head immediately, because today army headquarters should be supreme,” said the Rt Hon J. G. Coates, in the House of Representatives yesterday, when urging ’complete national unity and the building up of a large force of men for home defence as well as overseas service. The voluntary recruiting system had met requirements up to the present, said Mr Coates, but New Zealand had been caught napping because it should have, as soon as possible, the largest and best equipped force in this country to protect our own shores. Our front lines were overseas, but our reserves were here, and those reserves were the subsequent supply of our main expeditionary force. It was essential that the army should have full elbow room to go ahead with the vital work it had to do, Mr Coates added, and it should not be hindered by the interests of other departments, as sometimes happened with the building of huts and in other ways. The Prime Minister: “But the Health Department. for instance, must express an opinion on that.” “That was all right up to the present,” Mr Coates replied, “but in the future it will be so urgent that a great move must be made. The army must have full authority.” Mr Fraser: “It can go full steam ahead; anything that can be suggested will be done.”

Our objective at the moment. Mr Coates said, should be to get 50.000 or 60.000 men trained immediately. A register of all persons should be prepared straight away, because women could replace men in a good many occupations, and it was becoming increasingly important that the home defences should be put in order without delay.