NAVAL POLICY.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 March 1921, Page 4

NAVAL POLICY.

(An Exchange)

The “Memorandum on Naval Policy” prepared by the Executive Committee of the Navy League in London, published in another column to-day, is of great importance and significance. It is a courageous and timely recognition on the part of an organisation which in the past has made the strengthening of the Navy its especial mission, that the circumstances of the Empire no longer call for a policy of naval expansion. The proposal for an international conference of the naval Powers is a sane and timely one, and has, at the present time, we should say, a better prospect of success than at any time since the Armistice. As all the world knows, there are now only three great navies left in the world, those belonging to Britain, America, and Japan respectively. Britain, so far as official policy has been disclosed in words and in deeds, lias no desire to enter into competition in naval armaments with her neighbours. She has not laid down a single ship since the Armistice, and we have it on the authority of Mr Walter Long, First Lord of the Admiralty, that Britain lias abandoned the idea ol a tliroe-Power standard—even of a twoPowered standard—and now aims at a navy no more than equal in strength to that of any other single great Power. The President-elect of the 1 nited States, Mr Warren Harding, in a retent message to the New York - "World” which has been forcefully and consistently advocating a naval agreement between Britain and America, said:—

World disarmament is only one important phase in the attainment of actual peace towards which we are all working. The nations which have the largest armaments must take the lead. It has never been niy thought that the United States, a nation unwarlike in times of peace, should enter into any race in the matter of naval armaments. My spoken opinion lias been lor a navy ample to protect our growing merchant marine and able to assure a dependable defence to our shores. It should never act as a threat at world peace. With the conscience of the world awakened against war, and the growing desire ol each nation to do its part, there is reasonable assn ranee that the time is not far distant when omisidcrations ol right rather than might will prevail, and when disarmament will not be a dream but will become an actuality.

The Japanese Ambassador in London, speaking a couple of months ago, gave an assurance that bis nation “stood ready to effect a reduction in her armaments in agreement with other Powers, not only in the interests of the people of the world, but in the interests and tor the welfare ol the Japanese nation itself.” The disposil ion towards a mutual agreement, on the part of.the throe Powers most vitally interested is thus established, and it only remains for one of them to make the necessary overtures to the others, or prelerahly, as the Navy League’s executive suggests, for Britain and America to convene an international conference on the subject. So far as Britain is concerned the ease against a policy ol competitive armament was very well put in a recent article in the London "Spectator” :

If we enter into another competition we shall he building against America or against Japan, and the world would know that we could not conceivably he building against anybody else. Let us think, again, what this would mean. It would mean that we should he basing our policy upon the possibility ol "nr with America. But such a possibility ought utterly to he ruled out. We should not he building to Help America against Japan because America can very well look after herself. Neither America nor Japan is at present building against us. They are building against one another. The only other possibility worth glancing at is that we might, think of helping Japan against America. But this is, if possible, an even more odious idea than that of a direct light between ourselves and America. It would certainly bring about the break-up of the British Em-

in re. This puts the matter very plainly and concisely, and presents what we aie convinced is t.he eommonsen.se of the situation. It is not a matter of Britain discarding her defences as a matter ol altruism, hut of attempting to create a situation in which those defences need not he maintained on so costly a scale as has hitherto been deemed necessary. As we have said, the present time is most opportune for such an attempt, and now that so powerful and influential an organisation as the Navy League has thrown its weight into the scale in favour of mutual agreement to limit armaments wo are sanguine of fhe outcome.