DEFENCE OF EMPIRE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 14, 17 January 1924, Page 7

DEFENCE OF EMPIRE

DISARMAMENT DANGERS

BRUCE ON NEED FOR SINGAPORE BASE.

(P.BUTER'S TELEGRAM.)

(Received 17th January, 10 a.m.)

LONDON, 16th January. Mr. Stanley Bruce, Prime Minister of. Australia, in a speech at a farewell dinner given by the Australian Natives' Association, contended that the peace of the world or the reduction of armaments was not promoted by Britain alone disarming. He emphasised tho necessity for a voice in the Empire's foreign policy, but declared that it was necessary also that the Dominions should shoulder the obligations entailed and contribute to the defence of the Empire. The time had arrived when they should determine whether they were going to draw closer the links banding the Empire together or whether the Empire should gradually break up into several independent nations. The Empire was a 3 essential to Britain as it was to the Dominions. The strength of the Dominions was too often forgotten in Britain. , For one great nation to strip itself of the powers of defence and the means for the enforcement of its will was only encouraging other Powers to increase their armaments. . -

POWERS IN THE PACIFIC

'We are running straight," he- said, "towards another, heavy blunder like the unreasoning reduction of the Air Force by the hesitancy we are showing in the establishment of the Singapore Naval Base. Tlie ration of 5-5-B, fixed by the Washington Conference is non-existent in the Pacific, where without the Singapore Rase, Britain would be unable "effectively to put a single capital ship. He decalred emphatically that unless the base was built in the Pacific, Britain must abdicate her position as a treat naval Power in the Pacific. He pointed out that American, Japanese, and British naval authorities held that the capital ship was still the determining factor in naval warfare. He contended that the maintenance of the world's peace depended on ihe construction of the Singapore Base. It would also aid materially in the eventual reduction of armaments the world over.

PREFERENCE PROPOSALS

Dealing with the economic troubles of Britain lis declared as a result of his recent tour that tho people of Britain had not realised the possibilities of the Empire. He stressed the necessity to stir their imagination and urged that tho resolutions of the Economic. Conference -should be carried out in their entirety on the ground of practical expediency, good sense, and Empire unity. Britain was not bound, but he was unable to believe that any Government-of any shade of political opinion would hesitate to enforce them.