The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1912. THE NAVY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIII, Issue 11, 10 May 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1912. THE NAVY.

A well-known writer and authority on naval matters, Mr Archibald Hurd, contributes to the “Fortnightly Review” a striking article on Germany’s naval expansion and what it means to the British Empire.- He points out that the German programme has had the inevitable effect of causing all the other naval nations, large and small, to expand their schemes. And the United Kingdom feels the cumulative effect of all this activity. He criticises the Government for not telling the whole truth to the representatives of the oversea Dominions -at the Imperial Conference of 1909. The Admiralty then held that “as a problem of naval strategy it would be found that the greatest output of strength for a given expenditure is obtained by the maintenance of a single navy, with: the concomitant unity of training and unity of command.” Mr Hurd again draws public attention to the fact that the people of the oversea Dominions allow the people of the United Kingdom to pay practically unaided for the maintenance and defence of the Imperial, system. Dealing with the Australian naval unit, he says:— “At the end of this year or the beginning of next, the fleet unit will leave for Australian waters, and the Australian Government receives as a free gift the dockyard at Sydney, with all its valuable equipment, upon which the British taxpayers have spent millions sterling. The Australian people are thus establishing a ‘baby navy’ of their own in close association with the British Fleet. It does not represent as high a form of Imperial endeavour as has commended itself to the people of New Zealand; it contains within it seeds which may bear sour fruit in the future; it can be of no appreciable war value for many years; but it constitutes a relief to the British taxpayer in that he will henceforth be relieved from the cost and responsibility of the local defence of these waters.” Mr Hurd hopes that the Australian Government “will agree that the battle-cruiser Australia, instead of being permanently stationed in Australian waters, shall return to Europe, there to strengthen the metropolitan fleets upon which the main defence of the British Empire depends to-day, and will continue to depend so long as the silent war of armaments continues to bo waged in European waters.” Finally he urges that Canada and South Africa should also •supply direct assistance to the British Navy.