N.Z. PLAYS CREDITABLE PART IN THE STAND-ON-YOUR-OWN-FEET CAMPAIGN

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 37, 24 February 1939, Unnumbered Page

N.Z. PLAYS CREDITABLE PART IN THE STAND-ON-YOUR-OWN-FEET CAMPAIGN

K _ What The Dominions Are Doing To Hold British Empire Intact she

® Because the sun never sets on the Empire’s 13,500,000 square miles, and because the old catchword, "If dear old England is threatened the Empire-will be there," is so popular, beer-mug_poli-ticians, in truly illogical British style, assume that all is well with the Old Country. ® No one has seriously considered whether, in the event of swift and sudden

war, the Dominions would find it possible to go to the rescue of the land that every one sentimentally calls Home. ® Fast bombing planes have made a thousand miles iook like ag hundred-yards Yash. Before troops from "wustralia and New Zealand could be dispatched, the big cities of Britain could be razed, ® Retaliation by Dominions’ troops-no matter how eager they might be for the fray-must be futile once the initial damage has been done. HAT has New Zealand done toward ' the realisation of a properly defended Empire? And Australia? And South Africa? And Canada? The ‘figures, many of them supplied by the British newsmagazine, ‘‘Cavaleade,’’ are surprising, and this little Dominion of ours emerges very creditably from the survey.

NEW ZEALAND WAS QUICK TO REALISE THE VALUE OF SINGAPORE, BULWARK AGAINST POSSIBLE JAPAN. ESE TERRITORIAL AMBITIONS. TWENTY MILLIONS HAVE. BEEN LAVISHED ON THIS LITTLE ISLAND. WITH ITS MASKED 18-IN. GUNS, HUGE GRAVING DOCKS AND LAND- AND SEA-DROMES, . SINGAPORE REPRESENTS AN INSURANCE AGAINST THE TYPE OF ATTACK ‘THAT MENACED AUSTRALIA. AND NEW ZEALAND-BOUND SHIP. PING IN THE GREAT WAR.

But Singapore and Malta and Aden and Gibraltar and Suez are not in themselves a perfect Empire defence system. To forge the ideal chain which would girdle the world and convince any enemy that trying to buck Great Britain would never be worth while, all the resources of the 500,000,000 subjects of our Empire must be fully utilised. 300 Fighting Planes [ETS ‘look at each Dominion in detail. When New Zealand’s Labour Government came into power defences were almost nonexistent. But placid, mildmannered Fred Jones, Minister of Defence, has changed all that. In 1986 the New Zealand Air Force was little more than just an idea on paper. From 130 men in that year the force has grown to 1100 to-day and rapid expansion will continue. %

Five twin-engined Airspeed-Ox. fords have been ordered and several of them have already arrived, Three-quarters of a _ million have been spent on the purchase of thirty Vickers Wellingtons, and these are to be flown to the Dominion in the near future. Two hundred and fifty planes of less power and various makes have been ordered for delivery within a few months, , So, with the planes already in use, New Zealand should have an air power of approximately three hundred fighting planes by 1940. Bought From U.S.A, VEN Australia, with its defence policy being directed by air-minded, fuzzy-haired Joe Lyons, isn’t doing better than that: The Commonwealth Goyernment has recently ordered

from the United States 50 longdistance Lockheed-Hudson planes, and arrangements have been made for the manufacture of another hundred Americandesigned planes in the Commonwealth. AUSTRALIA CHOSE. AMERICAN PLANES ONLY AFTER NEGOTIATIONS HAD FAILED WITH BRITISH MANUFACTURERS. TO REMEDY THIS POSITION A BRITISH AIR MISSION IS DUE IN AUSTRALIA ANY DAY.

Canada’s air force is comparatively small at the moment, but Premier Mackenzie King has ordered eighty new fighting planes with a hundred more to be added in the nebulous future. South Africa’s globe-trotting Minister of Defence, Oswald Pirow, said recently: "We’re after all the planes BHngland can supply us with." His remark is crypticdoes Pirow mean Africa will pay for the planes, or England? Present South African Air Force consists of four squadrons of thirteen planes and a reserve of twenty-four machines. Newest plan is to convert civil aircraft into muiti-engined bombers. Pitiful is the size of the air force that might be called upon to defend Mr. de Valera and the other people of Eire. Lately it consisted of two fighting pianes, now believed to have heen increased to three, So much for the fighting forces of the air. "Soin The Army" ONE of the Dominions has followed Britain’s lead in instituting attractive-almost glamorous-pubilicity stunts to stimulate recruiting. But New Zealand again shows signs of

leading her sister Dominions. Most recent scheme is the formation of Highland regiments which should give an impetus to recruiting and successfully augment New Zealand’s dangerously small army. DEFENCE MINISTER JONES HOPES TO BRING THE ARMY NEAR THE 10,000 MARK.

THIRTY-FIVE BREN GUNS HAVE BEEN ORDERED AND COASTAL DEFENCES ARE BEING MODERNISED AND Ex. TENDED. CHIEF DIFFICULTY iS THAT, WITH HER OWN HUGE ARAMAMENT SCHEME, BRITAIN CAN’T KEEP PACE WITH THE DEFENCE ORDERS WE ARE PLACING WITH HER. Australia is divided on the question of a standing army, many of the politicians, including Prime Minister Lyons, preferring men and planes in the sky to men and guns on the ground. Canada has no proper standing army but can call on a militia of ee a ee ee ee ee ee te ee ee

about 46,000 troops. But the past has shown that such a force, no matter how willing, cannot be properly trained and put into the field under six months. And a willing spirit is not going to count for much in the next war-if any. Hire is more army-minded than air-minded. It has an army of 80,000 troops, of which 12,000 are regulars. £3 000,000 N the matter of a navy New Zealand’s progress is less spectacular, although the present four ships, two cruisers and two sloops sent out by the British Admiralty, are more up to date and powerful than any of the ships that have previously defended our rugged coastline. { Said Mr. Jones to the "Record": New: Zealand's total defence budget has increased from a _ million pounds in 1935 to three million today. A great deal has been done (Turn to Page 2.)

HOTSHOTS Hot Shots to-day appear on Page Two.

N.Z.'s CREDITABLE PART -cont. from Page 1.

but the Government fully realises that a great deal more has yet to be done-and quickly, too. To guard its 8000-mile coastline, Australia at present has four cruisers, four destroyers, a seaplane carrier, a single-screw motorboat and one or two miscellaneous eraft. The cruisers are obsolete, . the aircraft carrier is being exchanged for two sloops formerly in the British Navy. LYONS PLANS TO BUILD TWO MORE 7000-T O N GRUISERS, TWO DESTROYERS, TWELVE FAST MOTORTORPEDO BOATS. ESTIMATED COST: £20,548,000. Canada maintains a very small fleet off British Columbia, but Mackenzie King has lately announced an addition of four new minesweepers to the Dominion’s meagre navy of six destroyers, three mineSweepers, a motor vessel, a depot ship and a training schooner. (Australia has three ships more.) £63,000,000 'HE first really important step. in bulding a concrete Empire defence was taken by Australia when her Defence Minister Street announced a £43,000,000 defence programme, later increased to £63,000,000. This means that within a few months the Ausiralian taxpayer will be paying almost as much as the British taxpayer for defence. Darwin, isolated town of fewer than two thousand whites, nineteen hundred miles from SingaPore, and overlooking the entrance from the Pacific to the Indian Oceans, is regarded as Australia’s key point of defence. While the heads at Canberra discuss’ whether to honeycomb the Jand round Darwin with underground hangars and _ strongly in€rease coastal defences, this sunbaked little town is only in telephonic touch with the outer world

for twelve hours a day. But maybe something will be done about that some day. Canada would naturally look to her powerful neighbour for help if she were attacked. Said American minded Mackenzie King lately: "While naturally we are glad to know that we can count on this additional safeguard in any great emergency, to suggest that we depend upon it entirely and do absolutely nothing for ourseives is simply to be lacking in self-respect as a nation; .it is simply sponging." Canada spends about 15/9 a head on her armed forces-Britain spends at least £7/15/-. ‘But to be of any real assistance to Britain in a major war Canada would have to build a chain of aerodromes on the Atlantic seaboard, create an air force of giant, longdistance bombers and transport planes capable of spanning the ocean at a moment’s notice. But the boot is now on the other foot. | os

Canadians talk blithely of Britain’s long-distance air force, which could as easily come to the defence of Canada! Nazis: Keep Out! SOUTHWARDS, guarding the second string of Britain’s sea routes, is the harbour of Capetown. "Here a ten-million scheme is being pushed ahead with all speed in keeping with Capetown’s position as one of the most strategie points in the world. An enormous new basin is being scooped out by Dutch dredges, a.graving dock and a new railway depot are being built. OSTENSIBLY FOR CIVIL AND PEACETIME USE, THE NEW HARBOUR IS ALSO DESIGNED TO ACCOMMODATE FIGHTING —

SHIPS SHOULD OCCASION ARISE. INFERENCE IS, OF COURSE, THAT, CAPETOWN MAY ONE DAY HAVE TO REPLACE SUEZ; ALSO, GOOD NAVAL ACCOMMODATION AT CAPETOWN MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA TO DEFEND HER COASTS AGAINST ANY CONTEMPLATED NAZI OCCUPATION OF AN EX-GERMAN COLONY, SUCH AS TOGOLAND. Guarding the routes to India, Australia and New Zealand are Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Suez, Aden. MHeavily-fortified Gibraltar is now regarded by experts as the only absolutely tenable positionand that depending to a certain extent on our good relations with whatever Spanish Government is in power. ND what of Suez? Control of the canal, while

it does not rest entirely wit Britain, is vital to the defenc of the Empire, and the presen position in Palestine bodes n good for the future of th canal, Aithough Britain maintains strong land and sea and air forces in Egypt, ready at a moment’s notice to fly to the protection of the canal, what might happen in Arabia in the event of a European war is unpredictable, Unless Palestine remain: strongly pro-British the Iraq-Haif: dil pipeline-which is vital to thi maintenance of an Eastern Med: terranean fighting navy-cannot bi adequately guarded. So far as India is concerneé there is no doubt that in the even of a world war involving th Mother Country, hundreds o thousands of wildly loyal Indian: would fiock to the colours. Bu India has her own internal prob lems which prohibit sending to many troops westwards. The Bri tish raj cannot, at the moment afford to be weakened. a 7

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FRANK GOLDBERG Hails a Brave New World.-‘Record" heading last week. But, we think, certain hotel employees won’t be there! ADIO quip from 2ZB: Vicar: I prayed for you. last night. She: You needn’t have. My mame’s in the phone book. "FRANCO’S policy," declares the London "Times" in a weighty pronouncement on the Spanish Civil War, "is ‘Spain for the Spaniards’." With just a teeny, weeny bit for the Moors? HE Wellington Zoo has received @ request from England for an infertile emu-egg. The fact that the inquirer is a small boy seems to disprove the theory that the egg is intended for use in a by-election. HE Wellington City Council aims to reduce street neises in the eapital city. It’s to be hoped tomeats and homing revellers will be the first to be dealt with: INAL arrangements for a sur-: vey of children’s feet have been made by the New. Zealand Footwear Manufacturers’ Association. There will, of course, be a certain amount of preliminary spadework to be done. AUSE for celebration. Miner digging at Waipori, Otago, unearthed 24 hottles of beermostly filled-which had been buried for between 50 and 60 years, THE motion picture industry is said to have its ups and downs. So have theatre patrons in the seats at the end'of the aisle at five past eight. 4