DOMINION NAVIES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 15, 18 January 1924, Page 7

DOMINION NAVIES

GONE BACK SINCE WAR

PRESENT POLICY SUICIDAL

i'CRABBING" SINGAPORE BASE.

(UHITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPYRIGHT.) (ABSrKAUAN-NEW ZKALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION,) LONDON, 17tU January. Rear-Admiral Sir Edmund Grant, lecturing at tiie United Service Institution on the overseas naval forces, said that generally all the Dominion navies had gone backward since the war, even Newfoundland ceasing to have a naval reserve. The amounts paid per capita for the Navy v;ere : Australia, 9s 3d, New Zealand 4s 6d, Soutli Africa lid, Canada Is 2d, Britain 27s sd. t ' j Lord Kitchener had laid it down/that ,no British Dominion could be attacked while Britain held command of tho seas, but Australia was really ;i group of islands, all towns being- on the seaboard. Owing to the differences, in the railway gauge everything had 'to be brought to the towns by the sea; Thus sha depended on the command of the seas for her existence. Sir Edmund urged tho need for propaganda in the Dominions in order to bring home the need for a strong navy for tho protection of Empire tradu. He also urged a general Imperial policy to define, tho minimum naval requirements for the Empire agreed to by all political parties. The present system would bo suicidal. If the Dominion navies grew and included capital ships.they would form up. integral part of the one-power standard agreed to at Washington. In that case the British Navy would be actually below the dno-power standard. » Admiral Sturdee had said that tho fact that the Dominions thought of starting navies, and then had dropped the idea, depressed him. They did this for purely local reasons. It was' tho same in Britain. The only mention of the Navy during the General Election was When some politician' tried to "crab" the Singapore base. This was tho link between ourselves and New Zealand and Australia, and that was' the only point that tho politicians had tried to scrap.