NAVAL DEFENCE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 284, 27 August 1919, Page 8

NAVAL DEFENCE

» NEW ZEALAND'S SHARE CRUISERS FOR THE TRADE ' ROUTES SUGGESTIONS OF LORD JELLICOE Important references to the naval defence of the Pacific wero made by Admiral Lord Jellicoe at a New Zealand Club luncheon yesterday. The Admiral stated that one of the objects of his mission, as defined in the instructions handed to him before ho left London, wa3 to secure tho greatest possible co-operation and homogenity as between the different naval forces of the Empire. That was the, task in which he was engaged at the present time. New Zealand recognises, I believe, as much us any other part of the Empire, the absolute dependence of the Empire on sea power," said Lord Jellicoe. "Sea power has received many definitions, but I think tho best definition of all is that sea power means ability to use the, sea. That means in.the first place that you want to inculcate into the minds of your youth a sense of the sea. It means that wo have to have a mercantile marine that is able to make such uses of the sea as are necessary for the welfare and prosperity of the Empire. The mercantile marine plays a very. large part in the defence of the Empire in war. Hud it not been for the mercantile marine of Great Britain, the war would have been over probably in 1915, and I don't know what would have happened to New Zealand. The third attribute of sea power is, of course, ■ a supreme Navy. ; "For our , purposes naval supremacy is absolutely vital. Thero are other nations that aspire to have great navies, but sea power is not in any way as important to those nations as it is to us. Cut off our sea communications for two or three months, as the Germans hoped to'do, and we are done. Other nations have long seaboards. But the United States, for example, might be cut off from communications overseas without causing the slightest inconvenience to tho inside of any person belonging to the United States. There has been a tendency among various people sinco peace was proclaimed to think that there is no hurry about l»ing ready for tne nest war. People argue that the world is exhausted, and that it will be twenty, thirty, or fifty years, if ever, beforo there "is another war. Well, history does not show'that. History shows that.ono war ■breeds another. History also shows that if vou want to be at peace you must Iμ ready for war, and I strongly urge my fellow-countrymen not to bo penny wise and pound • foolieh. (Applause.) The cost of being ready, for war is ate eolutely infinitesimal as compared to the cost of even one month of war. I think wo shall bo very ill-advised if v/e start to cry that there ie no hurry, about getting tEo defences of the British Empire into proper order. "We have only to look round the world at tho present time to eee that the millennium is just about as far off as it over has been. The subject that has been occupying my. mind for the last five or six months has been the naval defence of the Pacific. 'Tho Pacific is an ocean which is growing in importance day by day as regards naval affairs. It is iui ocean which contains certain possibilities of future trouble. Wo all hopo that those possibilities will never matnro, but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that there are factors in the Pacifio which may give rise to future international complications. Wisp statesmen/ if these complications arise, may get over them. But in any case they will be very much-.helped in their task if those portions of the British Empire situated in tho Pacific have a strong right arm. (Applause.) 'Tor naval defence in the Pacific there are three separate forces required. The first is a striking force, tho second' is a forco for the protection of trade, and the third is a force for the protection of tho harbours of the British Empire in the Pacific. lam endeavouring to separate in iny mind those three subjeots, and in the proposals which I have placed before the Government of -Australia I have done so. The protection of trade is the subject in which' perhaps most people take the greatest interest. It is a matter that is'vital to the British Dominions in the Southern Pacific. The Dominions eaw for themBoive3 how inadequately it wa * carried out in tho early days of the recent wnr. Ever since- 1902 we had been gradually weakening our naval forces abroad. This movement -was forced, upon us by tho menace which was growing day by day nearer home. The result was that when the crash came tho forces out here were really inadequate to the protection of British trade. They were,. inadequate first by reason of the number of ships being inadequate, and secondly by reason of the fact that suoh ships as were out here were almost entirely engaged in. seeing to the safety of those magnificent troops which sprang, to the help of tho Empire in her hour of need." Admiral Jellicoe added that the experience of the wnr had shown, as the experience of other wars had shown, how difficult it was to hunt down qven a single enemy raider. The Emden was a light enemy cruiser commanded by n sportsman. This raider managed to do a great deal of damage to British shipping. She hau" several very narrow es.eapes. and finally came to grief owing to bad luck, with a little bad management as well. On one occasion the British cruiser Hampshire passed within. 10 miles of the Emden in the early morning, when a rain storm prevented the raider being sighted. The Moewe and the Wolf were other enemy raiders that managed to evade the British cruiseTs for a considerable time. Further back in history, tho Confederate raider Alabama'remained active for something like twenty-two months and did enormous damage to Union shipping, in spite of the efforts of superior forces to capture or destroy Imi\, The difficulty of dealing with raiders had been increasd by the fact that in modern war a close blockade of any po !, t or coast was rendered impossible ■by mines, submarines, mid destroyers. Tho number of warships required for the protection of trade routes under modern conditions, continued tho Admiral, was very much greater than it had ever been before. Nelson had called continually "for more frigates, and in the recent war the cry of every admiral had been for cruisers. The Empire needed moro cruisers. The number erf cruisers available for the defence of trade routes should bo baaed not on Hie number of similar ships at the dioposnl of a possible enemy, but upon the importance of tho work that had to be done- and the magnitude of the interests involved..The sole niothod of defending overseas commerce in time of war, to-day as in the past, was the convoy system, and the convoy system would have been adopted by Britain in the recent war muoh earlier than was actually the caso if the requisi's number of cruisers had been available. The Empire miust have adequate naval forces for the purposes he had indicated, and nobody should imagine that the necessary forces could be provided without pajing for them. "Everybody knows that tho Mother Country is very hard hit financially," said Lord,Jellieo», "but I feel no doubt —at least I hope 1 feel no doubt—that the Mother -Country will vise to the occivsion, and not allow our naval defence to go down. (Applause) .Tt will certainly help the Mother Country for the Dominions to shout aloud their intention that tho British -Nayy shall not gn down." Then would ba people who would talk of the epirit of militarism.' ' But the British Fleet was a defensvo forco, and it tiffd never been used aggressivly. Even the people who. professed tho mo3t fear of militarism ought not to object to the safeguarding of their own interests. Cooperation between the Mother Country \ and tlio Dominions was going to bo very j nerassury in tho future in matters of de- : feiico, and it was his earned hope that ■ the spirit whioh had led the Dominions \ to respond most gallantly and immedi- [ atoly to the call of the Mother Country ! when tho danger signal was raised iii ' 191!- would be continued in tho future 1 ayiitniiemonls for the defence of the Em- | pin. , . (Applause.) /