AN APPEAL TO THE DOMINIONS

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1443, 18 May 1912, Page 4

AN APPEAL TO THE DOMINIONS

It should not be necessary to call the attention of New Zealanders to the high importance to all the overseas Dominions of the statement on naval policy by _ Mr. Churchill which was summarised in yesterday s cable news. Until very recently, i indeed, despite the naval "scare" of 1909 which produced the ill-judged offer of a Dreadnought- to Britain, the mass of cable news and articles bearing on the Anglo-German situation was for most New Zealanders only a mass of "news." . Lately, however, the intensification of : the rivalry between the two Powers must have made increasing numbers of people here realise that the battle of armaments really concerns every part of tho Empire. Me. Churchill's speech ought to open all colonial eyes. Since he assumed control of the' Admiralty Me. Chuechill has infused new life into British naval policy. Beginning with a powerful and candid declaration of Britain's intention to maintain her supremacy in all circumstances, he has made many important changes in the fleet, all in the direction of producing greater strength and efficiency, and he has made it perfectly plain that when it is desirable to state facts frankly he will do so. He has lost no time in replying to the challenge of the new German Navy Bill, under which the hugely increased naval expenditure of Germany is to bo further increased. When bringing in his Estimates in March ho said that Britain would accelerate or slacken her laying-down of capital ships in harmony with Germany. If Germany built three new ships, Britain would build five, and so in proportion. The passage of tho new German Bill has necessitated an increase in the British Naval Estimates, and that increase Mn. Churchill declares, is proine to bo made.

Tho First Lord went on to make tho following striking statement:

It is essential that our fleets should bo concentrated in tho decisivo theatre of European waters, thus creating a new want and affording a new opportunity to overseas Dominions. We could, if' tho need arose, dispatch strong squadrons to aid such of tho Dominion* as might be menaced or attacked, but the main development in (ho next decade must bo the growth of an effective overseas naval force. Then we shall Ik able to make a true division of labour—the Motherland to maintain supremacy at the decisive point while the daughter States guard and patrol the rest of the Empire.

Until we have the full test'of Mr. (.'union ili/.-; speech, it would k' unsafe to take him as throwing over tin; old "unity'' jjolioy ("uiie niwiu, one navy," as Sir John Oolomh used to put it), or as declaring definitely lor local navies as against naval subsidies. But. it is quite obvious in any ease that the British Government has realised that tho tixM lim poirua tat i^cm

the overseas Dominions what British naval supremacy means, what it costs, niul how it must 'do maintained. The I'all Mnil <Jo.zct.tc, perhaps not greatly sharpening Mn. Ciiunciiirj/s point, declares tiiat, as Germany has made it impossible for the British fleet to patrol tho Empire, "therefore the Dominions must play their part quickly so that Britain may recover her former naval superiority." Mn. Ciiuiiciiim/f; statement is, we believe, the first direct reminder of duty that has been given to the Dominions by a head of the Admiralty. Mk. Ahohihaui HiiRD, writing in last month's Furlniohll[i Hcviuw, takes some space to show that "it has been the i'asnion in Downing Street and at the Admiralty and War Ofiiee to treat these growing countries [the Dominions] as spoilt children to whom the undiluted tnitn must seldom or never be told."

Wlion (ho asks) has the British Government suggested to tho oversea Dominions, enjoying tho fullest freedom compatible with Imperial unity, that tho greater part of tho vast burden of debt was incurred in largo part in securing thoso favoured lands in which Canadians, Australians, New Zcalanders, and South Africans live and prosper? When has tho British Government ever had tlio courage to remind these citizens of tlio Empire overseas of tho many years during which their territoiics were defended by tho British Army stationed, at least in part, within their borders, without payment in money or kind for the service rendered? ... It hns become a tradition in the United Kingdom to conceal the naked truth from theso younger pons of tho Empire, and oven to-day, when the British people are still bearing the burden of Umpire with little or 110 assistance, paying alike for tho British Navy, the British Army, the British diplomatic service, tho British consular servicc, and the Crown itself, statesmen of the United Kingdom in their dealings with the statesmen from the oversea Dominions treat tlicni as perfectly equal partners in tho British Empire, while failing to remind them that they do not to-day, and they never have realised, tho responsibilities' which partnership involves."

The writer goes on to mako some rather absurd references to New Zealand, which he seems to fancy ordered the offer of the Dreadnought and did so as part of "a splendid devotion to a sound political and strategical ideal." But in sharply and rather bitterly contrasting fat sluggishness of tho Dominions with the patient- unselfish bur-den-bearing of the Mother Country Mr. Eukd did no mare than he should have done, and displayed no feeling that is not shared by those normally-minded colonials who have really thought about tho matter. We have consistently done our best in advocacy of the substitution of silent work for loyal rhetoric, of Imperialism with its coat off for Imperialism in evening clothes at the banquet table; and this not only for purely Imperial reasons. Britain pays £l a head every year for the navy that keeps New Zealand free, and free from fear, free even from the thought of the possibility, of war. If we did out share—if we paid for the equality that has been claimed for us at the Imperial Conferenceit would cost us a million a year. It would be worth more than a million a year to have our Government (whatever Government it might be) forced into the mood of seriousness and sobriety that such an annual payment would necessitate. Our people would learn, many of them for the first time, that tho maintenance of the Empire's integrity costs money, and that it is treason to the Empire and a mortal sin against nationhood to shirk our obligations to the navy and to those who will come after us. It is bad enough to leavo Britain to bear our burdens; it is worse to neglect to train ourselves into good habits of 'national management; it is worst of all to act without any thought for the fact that present slackness aud selfishness may help to leave our children under other than British rule.