SINGAPORE BASE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 13 September 1924, Page 13

SINGAPORE BASE.

RELATION TO WASHINGTON RATIO.

LORD LINLITHGOW’S ADVOCACY,

LONDON, July r 29. Lord Linlithgow 7 , who was recently elected president of the Navy League, is showing himself energetic- in that capacity. He made a good speech■in - the. House of Lords the other, day when the subject of the Singapore - base" Was - discussed. In a letter to The Times he returns to the subject. “However formidable the auditory hazards between the Woolsack and the : Reporters’ Gallery in the Houserof Lords,” he writes, “this much at least" emerges from the discussion on the Singapore base on July 14. The Government, having jettisoned the scheme' for the extension of the base on the ground that by so doing ' they might improve their prospects in certain negotiations which ' they claimed they were contemplating, have now 7 admitted that they cannot..: tell us the nature of the treaty which . they seek to negotiate, nor when nego- 7 tiations are to commence, nor, indeed, with precisely what Powers it is that they seek to make an arrangement. ■ “It -is admitted both that the base is necessary if our modern capital ships . . are to be potentially effective in the Indian and Pacific. Oceans, - and that. Australia and New Zealand, the two . Dominions most closely affected, ardently desire that the work shall go forward. Nor is it denied that-at the Washington Conference it was generally recognised by the representatives - of all the Pow 7 ers concerned, that the work would be commenced forthwith. Indeed, the failure to construct the base has definitely destroyed the whole balance of relative naval strengths upon which the formula 5,5, 3, fdr capital ships was adopted, and % it is extremely doubtful whether the British naval experts could have accepted the Washington Treaty as it now stands had they not understood that Singapore was, at the earliest possible moment, to become an effective base for capital ships.

c 1 In the teeth of expert advice,' and in betrayal of our duty to the Dominions, the Government have chosen 'to sacrifice the very corner stone of British naval security in the Far East. Never has so essential jt measure of Imperial defence been abandoned -on grounds so insufficient,.”