BRITAIN’S NAVY

Hokitika Guardian, 26 April 1921, Page 4

BRITAIN’S NAVY

ONE-POWER STANDARD URGED. THE IMPORTANCE OF LOYALTY. Mr Alexander Boyle, ex-president of the Navy League, speaking at Christchurch at a social gathering of league members, said that a strong navy was more urgently needed to-day than ever. The great cost of tile war lmd been severely felt, and Britain had hoped that after the war the great expenditure on armaments would be curtailed, but other nations bad laid themselves out to spend what even to-day was regarded as an enormous sum.

“Wo feel that our position as a, nation depends on the navy” Air Boyle added. “I do not see how we can draw back from building in spite of expense—not only the British people, but every dependency. T am perfectly sure I there is onet thing to be done, and that is to build to the greatest extent that any other nation intends to build. During the last few weeks England has gono through and is now going through, a very tempestuous time, and if I were to believe that the crisis was caused by the true feeling of Britons I should he in a very much lower state of mind than I am io-dav. But I believe the cause of the trouble in England is not the cause of the unions of Britain, but is entirely brought about by outside causes. I believe that Britain at bottom is as sound to-day as ever slip was; and that the intrigue that is going on is due to Bolshevism, which has brought forward a number of people in England who have always been extremists to try and induce the same feeling of Bolshevism among the British labour unions.”

Two things had struck him in the evening paper that day, AIT Boyle added. One was the extraordinary building in America and Japan, and the other was the result of a British byelection in which a Conservative Unionist won by something like 14,000 out of 1(5,000 votes. If the result of the strike had been true unionism, there could never have been a better chance for unionism to show its power by winning the election. The result, to bis mind, proved that unionism was sound at bottom, and that the independent labourite who stood against the Conservative Unionists was one of the outcasts of unionism, and the outcasts of unionism had been one of the greatest causes of trouble in England. Mr Boyle added that the British people were dependent on the solidity of the nation and the solidity of the nation must be backed

by the unionism of the nation. Unless there was true British feeling among the working classes throughout the nation, there would he a poor chance of carrying on ; but be firmly believed that Britain from top to bottom was absolutely sound. Mr C. E. Bevan-Brown said that lie hoped better counsels would prevail in regard to the suicidal race between America and Japan in the building of warships. If not, there was a hard prospect before the British Empire, for whatever happened the British Fleet could not be allowed to take second pineP, It must Tie kept equal to the strongest power. But this meant that

New Zealand would no longer be able to “codgo” on the Mother Country. New Zealand would have to pay as much per head as the British working man was expected to pay. He had been reading an article in tho “Round Table” about tho necessity of maintaining a White Australia, and the writer, an Australian said Hint Great Britain, when she saw the point, would assist Australia in maintaining it. It was really maintained by force, and mainly by naval force, and >if there were no fleet to protect Australia, the coloured races would soon come in. Australia could not hope that Great Britain would police the Pacific unless Anstralai. as well as New Zealand, took up her due proportion of the burden. As regards voluntary contributions to naval objects and charitable gifts to the dependents of those who had fallen. New Zealand and Canterbury in particular, had nothing to lie ashamed of, and for that they owed much to Air Bovlo.