NAVAL DEFENCE PLANS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 28, 26 April 1927, Page 8

NAVAL DEFENCE PLANS

MR. iIOLLAND’S CRITICISM

‘WASTEFUL SINGAPORE SCHEME’ (.From Our Resident Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, To-day. Spirited opposition to the Prime Minister’s naval defence proposals was offered by Mr. H. E. Holland, who says it was a regrettable statement to be released on the eve of Anzac Day, when everyone desired to think of peace. The yearly payments for Singapore, since the contribution spread over seven or eight years, would, with interest, mean the equivalent of about £200,000 a year, with subsequent interest charges (says 5£ per cent) of £55,000. If, instead of the yearly payments coming out of loan moneys, they should be taken from the Consolidated Funds, the loss would have to be made up either by increased taxes and higher charges in connection with national services, or further wage reductions in the public service. Some of Britain’s most eminent naval authorities had long since expressed the opinion that Singapore would not prove an effective means of defence; in other words, the money spent thers would be wasted from a naval viewpoint. If the Singapore proposal, wsrs adopted it would mean that ths expenditure would amount to about a million and a-quarter for the present year, and the matter would not end there, for the tendency was always to pile armaments on armaments. While the money to be expended on Singapore would provide employment for Asiatic labour, our own unemployed were still to remain idle, or required to labour on necessary public works for wages they could not live upon.