Evening Post. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1913. DEFENCE OF THE PACIFIC

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 29, 4 February 1913, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1913. DEFENCE OF THE PACIFIC

New Zealand's Minister of Defence has reached London and submitted to the inevitable interview. The primary object of Mr. Allen's visit is, as everybody knows, a financial one, but the Empire is more concerned with him as Minister of Defence than as Minister of Finance, and it is well from every point of view that the defence aspect • of his mission should be emphasised. Purely domestic questions naturally tend to ' monopolise public attention in a young country in which the problems of its own development are of absorbing interest and which Has hitherto been free to wrestle with them in complacent confidence in the power of the Mother Country to say "Hands off I" to any intending intruder. But tbe conviction is steadily growing in every thoughtful 'mind that this comfortable state of things cannot continue indefinitely ; that the end is indeed already in sight. Britain' has already lost the command of the Pacific. In 1905 she still had five battleships in the Pacific, but in reliance upon the treaty with Japan that was concluded in that year, ahd in order to meet the growing danger in the North Sea, the ocean with which Australia and New Zealand are particularly concerned Was stripped of all those battleships and has been without one ever since. If Germany were the only danger that could possibly threaten these countries, there would be no occasion for uneasiness.^ In that case the battles of .Australasia could be more effectively fought ia 1 the North Sea than anywhere else, and the policy of concentration ,would be an unmixed blessing. But Australia and New Zealand have their own special dangers which are of no direct concern to the people of the United Kingdom. Proof of the reality of those dangers is to be found in the restrictions On Asiatic immigration which are one of the fundamental points of Australasian policy. No Government in Australia or New Zealand could last a week after proposing to its Parliament the abolition of those necessary safeguards. But what is it that makes the laws that provide these safeguards anything better than waste paper? Their only ultimate (Sanction ia the naval and military strength of th© British Empire. A law without force behind it ia a law which can only last until it is seriously challenged. Tf Japan demanded the repeal of our Immigration Restriction Act, or China were to knock at the door of Australia's Northern Territory, how would the issue be determined? Not by the fact- that a certain law was on the Statute-Book or by the resolutions of a Government or a Labour Conference in favour of maintaining it, but by the power of the people to make good their wishes ac expressed in the law. The Red Conference, which objects to our youiig men being taught to defend their country, would rise as one man to protest against the possibility of yellow immigration. But how is the protest to tte of any more, efficacy than so much hot tut unless it has behind it the guna for which the revolutionaries profess so sublime' a contempt? And will they ask us to believe that the ingenuous proposal to make war impossible by declaring a gen> eral strike will suffice to put the soldiers of the Flowery Land or the sailors of the Mikado out of action? Australia, liko New Zealand, has her visionaries, but ths hard-headed common-sense of the Australian Labour Patty has realised that the beet lawe in the world will be of no avail without an army and a navy to back them. So far an an army is concerned, New Zealand is entitled to equal credit with Australia for her determination to supply what i« needed; but in the -matter of naval polky New Zealand still halts between, two opinions, and gets nothing done. We believe, however, that though Mr. Massey and his colleagues are taking a long time in making up their collective mind, they aro not merely shuffling and sparring for time. In his statement to his interviewer in London, Mr. Allen has expressed a general view of the position which may be taken to have the concurrence of his colleagues, and we shall be surprised if he does not evolve from hi& consultations with the Admiralty and the Imperial Defence Committee a practicable lino of policy along which New Zealand may take immediate action. What Mr. Allen ha* said has been hailed with satisfaction by the Pall Mall Gazette, and with a ludicrous show of consternation by the Opposition organ in Wellington. But the Minister has merely Tepeated without the slightest modification tho substance of what he said at thft valedictory bwiqutt given to him in t. Wellington Thwt ihfi full burden,- of »

Pacific fleet should be- borne by those living in or near the Pacific ; Jthat Canada,, Australia and India, and even South Africa and India, should take a share of it; that local navies for local purposes are useless; and that the fleet must be under one control— every one of these points was in the Minister's speech at the banquet. The only one that is open to the slightest doubt is, in our opinion, the sweeping disparagement of local navies, but we do not suppose that it is meant to be as bad as it looks, especially as Mr. ' Allen has repeated it after his consultations with tho defence authorities of the Commonwealth. A local navy that i s solely for local purposes is useless, because such a navy merely represents the second line of defence. The first line is a deep-sea fleet, in the formation of which tho States mentioned by Mr. Allen should Co-operate. If their several units cannot combine for this purpose, but can only hug their respective shores, the result will be valueless. But as a supplement to the first line a local flotilla will, of course, be a valuable part of the shore defences, and it is not to be supposed that Mr, Allen intended to deny this. It is the -Minister's reference to an expeditionary force that lias fluttered one of our contemporaries, but here, again, the Minister has merely repeated what he said at the banquet, and what he said there in the Premier's presence had, of course, the full approval of the Cabinet. Mr. Allen would not have frightened anybody if he had made it quite clear that the basis of an expeditionary force must necessarily be voluntary. If oven Germany does not apply the principle of compulsion to service beyond the Fatherland, New Zealand i& assuredly not going to attempt it. As in the ease of the South African War, thoso who care to go to the front will do so if they are otherwise suitable. Whoever prefers to stay at home and wax eloquent on claes-consciouences or issue tracts for the conversion of the opposing forces Trill still ba free to do so. '