The Times. SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1940. The Navy's Our Life

Manawatu Times, Volume 65, Issue 5, 6 January 1940, Page 6

The Times. SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1940. The Navy's Our Life

The arrival of a giant battleship, H.M.S. Ramillies, to our shores and the sight of hundreds of sailor-men of the Royal Navy touring our country, lias served to give a timely reminder of what the British Navy means to this Dominion. The Navy’s our life ns a nation —a truth that we have been rather apt to forget. The British Empire is a real monument to sea-power, created throughout and held by it for almost 200 years. The Empire’s heart, Britain, has been held inviolable from foreign foeman’s tread since William the Conqueror’s invasion, almost 900 years ago, solely by sea-power. So, too, for bur century has this country been British because of sea-power and it was that power which made us British in the first place. All that Britain has meant to the world, its progress and culture, has been made possible because of the Navy. Appreciation of such fundamentals was here more keenly felt almost thirty years ago than of recent times. Witness this colony’s gift of the dreadnought New Zealand some years prior to the 1914-18 war. Since 1918, but for the maintenance of two or three small vessels and a modest contribution to Singapore naval base, New Zealand has shown little practical appreciation of all the Navy means to us. In that we have been unfair to the Motherland, who has had to bear more than her fair share of the burden, and a vast burden that has been, but one absolutely vital to be borne by the Empire; otherwise there would have been no Empire remaining. During a major war, as we are now engaged in, the strength of the Navy is seen most clearly. Despite opposition of a powerful and deadly foe, our ships still sail to and fro, taking our exports and bringing our imports, enabling us to provide material and moral support by contingents of manpower for the Army and Air Force, both benefiting from the Navy’s effort. Nor has the modern development of air-power lessened the power of the Navy as some prophets had foretold. It remains still the supreme embodiment of mobile force and remains still the supreme link of Empire. By that we live.