NEW NAVAL BASES FOR FRANCE.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 19 June 1901, Page 4

NEW NAVAL BASES FOR FRANCE.

" Apart from Bizcrta and other Mediterranean stations which are intended to get the mastery over the Gibraltar and Malta route," says the engineer, " the French are creating three formidable bases on the Cape route to India and the extreme East. The. first of these is Dakar, in Senegal, for which a fresh grant of 10,550,000 f. has been made. Dakar is to be tho head-quarters of a ileet of cruisers which will sweep the Atlantic along the west coast of Africa, and it is also proposed to constitute a station at Port de France, in Martinique, so that the commerce destroyers wdl be able to patrol the ocean east and west, and extend their operations northward across the path of merchant vessels running between England and the "West Indies. The second basis is at Diego S-Uirez, in Madagascar, which commands the routes between tho Capo and India. The work of equipping this port is regarded as one of the most urgent and necessary, and the Chamber voted an additional grant of IC,OCO OOOf to allow of the construction of a dry dock. Diego-Saurez is becoming the most formidable naval station in the Indian Ocean, and is likely to be a perpetual menace to South Africa. Tho works at Saigon, for which a further grant of 8,000,000 f. has been voted are being carried out for the protection of the Indo-Chinese possession?, and affording a basis for the ships of war which will operate in the Chinese seas. It will thu* bo seen that France is creating a chain of stations with the object of closing in the western half of the Mediterranean, and neutralising the British possessions at Gibraltar and Malta.jand also commanding the routes round the Capo of Good Hope by the establishment of Btrongly fortified places at D*kar and Diego-Saurt-z whore commerce destroyers wilt be able to operate over a very wide range, and retreat into safe quarters when necessary. If tho French will continue to spend money ungrudgingly upon the execution of a policy which, so far as concerns the colonial stations, is intended primarily as means of attack, it behoves Great Britain to look moro closely to the defence of her colonies, and make further heavy sacrifices in order to avoid possiblo unpleasant surprises' ".