The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. THURSDAY, JANUARY 29th, 1925. SINGAPORE.

Hokitika Guardian, 29 January 1925, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. THURSDAY, JANUARY 29th, 1925. SINGAPORE.

The new Government at Home, remarks the Naval Journal, has come into power backet! with authority to carry out to the full such measures as may seem best to it for the wise and judicious government of the country. Holding the political principles that it does, its duty, doubtless, will be, apart from such constructive measures as it may think fit to formulate to conserve what is best in the existing order of things—to rectify a.s far as is possible what it may regard as the rash and

inconsiderate legislation of its predecessor—nml to do what it innv consider to have been left undone. Naturally such contrary action as is taken hv a new Government in those respects arises from divergence of political outloo];. hut it occasionally happens that it feels impelled, quite apart from Party considerations, not merely to satisfy a moral, hut; also a very real obligation resting upon it—one that rested equally upon, hut was disregarded by, its predecessor. Tt seems almost superfluous in this category, to quote the the case of Singapore, where the extension of a naval base would appear to he guaranteed hv an obligation so strong as to preclude the possibility of doubt or hesitation on the part of this or any other Government. What are the facts of the case? In 11)21, at the Imperial Conference of that year, the importance of developing the naval lia.se at Singapore had been recognised by the votes of the Imperial l’eprcsoiitative.s. the Naval Kxports of the Admiralty being absolutely unanimous on the point. It was then considered by the Committee on Imperial Defence, a body composed f representatives not only of the Xnvy. Army and Air Force hill, also of the Foreign Office and the India Office. The proposal was unanimously recommended by all concerned, f.aler it came before the Cabinet, where the then Foreign .Minister (the Marquess Corwin of Tvcdleston) warmly welcomed and insisted upon the neeossitv of its adoption. Then 'ante I lie Imperial Conference that met in l.endon for the best part of two months in the autumn of last year. There the question of a Singapore Base was the subject of an exhaustive discussion, Lord Beatty making a special statement to tbe representatives assembled. As a result a resolution was passed in favour of the construction of a base. Is it then to he wondered at that, in the lace of such a consensus of export opinion, the representatives of the Dominions should have returned to their homes confident in the belief that a naval base for die British Fleet, in other words, that a means of guaranteeing the mobility and effectiveness of the “Sure Shield" of the British Empire, without which lour Dominions in the outer seas lie at the mercy of an enemy, was about to ho finally mid irrevocably established. M ithout recapitulating all the arguments m favour of the establishment of a naval base at Singapore, which have been advanced so often in this Journal and elsewhere, and which would appear tc u; to he irrefutable, continues the paper, perhaps we may lie permitted, once again, to call attention to the fact, so often forgotten, that one of tlie legacies of the Great War has boon to shift tlie naval centre of gravity from the narrow seas bordering our shores to the outer oceans of the world. Prior to the yvar it was necessary to concentrate our'main fleets in British and European waters. The one potential enemy was, at that time, unmistakable. That menace has, happily, ceased to exist, and although the potential enemy is not so clearly defined. it is unquestionably the case'that there are countries whose fleets, as things are at present, could reduce our Dominions to impotence, and endanger to an alarming extent the safety of the sea routes on which our very existence, as an Empire, depends. Such a condition of things cannot ho allowed to continue. Our battleships of the greatest size and power must lie enabled to operate in any part of the yv<srh! whore tbe exigencies of war demand their presence. Communications must be maintained, and tlie ocean paths must remain open in all circumstances xvhether of peace or war. This can only he if yve have a lighting force, large enough and mobile enough, to defend them: and such fighting force can only exist and maintain its power to operate if bases of supply are secured to it in whatever waters of the world it may chance to he. If. unhappily, danger lies in the neighbourhood of t.-e great Domin-

ior-; of our Empire it is only by Singapore—the Western gateway from the Tmlian Ocean to the Pacific—that we can go to their assistante. This can be done if British battle-cruisers and cruisers have a base at which to refit and recondition without the necessity of going hack 6.000 miles to Malta. Without such base the distant British Dominions lie open to attack without the possibility of effective intervention bv the British Navy.