NAVY’S FIRST DUTY

Hokitika Guardian, 26 October 1920, Page 3

NAVY’S FIRST DUTY

LORD JELLIOOE*S ADDRESS. WELLINGTON, OcL.her 21. The importance of 'preserving the sea communications of the Empire was emphasised by Lord Jellieoe in the course of a speech at the Trafalgar Day celebrations in the Town Hall tonight. “I suppose that on this Teal alga: Day, being a sailor, I am expected to say something about the Navy,” he said. “But I cannot forget that besides being a sailor I hold an official position in New Zealand, which prevents me from opening my heart about naval matters as I was able to do twelve months ago in this hall, though there is no harm in one saying that the first and principal duty of the Navy is to keep control of the communications of the British Empire. Without the safety of thesev communications the British Empire miuSt soon cease to exist. In New Zealand, if your communications bv sea are cut you are endangered, >uu cannot send your produce f o, the markets of the world, and before long disaster would overtake this Dominion financially. It is, therefore, of the ver” first importance to New Zealand that the sea communications of the Empire should be safe. You may recollect, I dare say, in the early davs of the war, how the threat of Von Spec’s • loadron being abroad in the Pacific led to the temporary recall of the first contingent of that splendid force, the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. That •ms an instance of what danger to sea communications meant to the British Empire. It was the very threat (as it happened von. Spee was many hundreds of miles away) of his endangering sea communications that led to the recall of that Expeditionary Force. And again I would like to mention and draw your attention to the fact that the safety of sea communications is not more important than the use of those communications by the mercantile marine. The mercantile marine of the British Empire is just as important to the welfare of the Empire as is the British Navy and unless we keep the British mercantile marine at satisfactory strength we are unable to use these communications which the Navy is endeavouring to safeguard. At the present time we are two million tons short in the mercantile marine to what w© were before war, and you know quite well in New Zealand what that means to you. It has meant difficulty in getting away your frozen meat, it has meant (difficulty in getting yourselves away to the Mother Country, and therefore, it is just as important that the mercantile marine should: be maintained at its maximum strength a.B it is important that the Navy should be so maintained.