NATIONAL DEFENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 April 1941, Page 2

NATIONAL DEFENCE

GOVERNMENT APPROVES DEMONSTRATIONS WORK OF WOMEN AND GIRLS. PRAISED BY MR. SEMPLE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. An announcement that the Government and the War Cabinet had approved the holding of national defence demonstrations in the main centres of the Dominion shortly was made by the Minister of National Service, Mr. Semple, in addressing a general parade of 400 members of the Wellington Women’s War Service Auxiliary last evening.

The idea, Mr. Semple said, was to demonstrate to the people of the Dominion what was being done to prepare to defend the country if the necessity arose. The parades would include army, naval,' air force, St. John Ambulance. Red Cross, Home Guard, National Reserve, Women’s War Service and other detachments and military equipment, including 25-ton New Zea-land-made tanks. The first would be held in Wellington on April 19, when it was expected that over 10.000 would take part, and others would be held in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin, and possibly other centres later. "We are living in a restless and dangerous world,” said Mr Semple, “where changes are taking place so rapidly that we do not know when our turn may come. It would be worse than stupid if we did not make the necessaryarrangements to offer some resistance in case of invasion. . . . We are

threatened with invasion. It may or may not come. If it does come and we are not prepared then our country is gone and those liberties we cherish are gone. We want to show the people of this country that we are alert to the dangers that surround us, and that we are making necessary preparations to defend these islands.”

Mr. Semple congratulated the Women’s War Service Auxiliary on the work it was doing, and said he was thrilled with the number of girls who had paraded. Uniforms would be provided for the girls taking part in the parade. “The war news of the last week has been heartening," he said. “Mussolini the ally of Hitler, that gangster with a soul like a fiend from hell, is getting it in the neck I suppose if we could see him tonight he is sitting in a secluded corner with a wet towel round his head. England is not going to lose this war. If she does, civilisation is gone. We will have to endure hardships here. We will have to step on it. We have to answer the call.”

A programme of drill parades for the girls between now and April 19 was announced by Mr H. H. Sterling, liaison officer to the Minister. These will be held in the evenings before dark on the Basin Reserve.