DEFENCE & INSTRUCTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 August 1943, Page 3

DEFENCE & INSTRUCTION

POSITION IN DOMINION.

PLEDGE TO AMERICA

(By Telegraph—Press Association.! WELLINGTON, This Day

“The Opposition asks when the present defence construction programme will disappear, and when we can get on with the building of houses, but how can I or anyone else say?” said the Minister of Works, Mr Semple, when the Estimates were considered in the House of Representatives yesterday. “We are pledged to the American nation to do our maximum and best for her because she is defending this country and saving us from the enemy," he added.

The Minister said that when there had been reason to believe that defence construction was tapering off an S.O.S. had come from the American authorities for thousands of huts for the islands and more and more hospital accommodation in New Zealand for Americans who had fallen ill. One could walk through such hospitals and find 100 men suffering from sickness to one who was wounded. "We are not going to allow the American boys to suffer in the islands because wo have not risen to the need for more hospital beds in this country,” said Mr Semple. "Until the Japanese are driven out of the islands we do not know when construction work is going to end. It is all very well to criticise men who are under an obligation they intend to fulfil.”