Untitled

Hokitika Guardian, 5 January 1925, Page 2

IVllat Australia’s share of the expenditure on the naval base at Singapore will be is a question which will have to he considered by the Federal Ministry in the near future in view of the decision of the British Government to proved with the construction of the base, says the Melbourne “Argus.” When the project was first contemplated by the Conservative Ministry in 1923 the Prime Minister (Mr Bruce), on behalf of the Commonwealth, assured Great Britain that Australia would lie ready to make a substantial contribution towards the expenditure then contemplated—£9,ooo.ooo. No specific figure was mentioned by Mr Bruce, but as New Zealand at about the same time offered £100,009 a year for a term of years to Great Britain. Australia, would have been almost Ixtiind to have contributed a larger sum had the work proceeded. Since

then the position lias, from the Australian point of view, altered materially. Disregarding the protests of Australia and Now Zealand, the MacDonald Labour Ministry resolved to abandon the Singapore base, its view being that this would lie a splendid “gesture of peace,” and that the chief nations of the world would realise that Great Britain was sincere in her advocacy of disarmament. The result of the abandonment was that the Commonwealth can afford to carry out her own naval programme, and at the same time contribute towards the eonstruetoon of the Singapore base in a scale commensurate with the benefit and protection she will receive through having a powerful British fleet based at Singapore.