EMPIRE NAVY.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 January 1917, Page 7

EMPIRE NAVY.

OR LOCAL FLEETS t MATTER FOR DECISION AT ~ i EARLY DATE.

Addressing the Insurance Institute of London, on November 28, on post-war problems, Sir Joseph Ward referred at some length to naval defence. After eulogising the magnificent .work done by the Navy since the war began, he proceeded:—"ln connection with the future of the British Navy after the war is over, we should have at an Imperial Conference an opportunity of hearing the views not only of the Lords of the Admiralty and other responsible men there, but we should have.unreservedly the views of men like Admiral Jellicoe and Admiral Beatty, especially upon one very important point. Arc we.in those distant and scattered countries (when this war has shown that concentration or the Navy has been invaluable in every way. to every part of the Empire) to have separate local navies, or are wc going to have a great Empire Navy, with suitable sections of its Fleet apportioned throughout the Empire in times of peace and in times of war wherever they may be required to be sent by the British Admiralty? "We have never up to now—and I speak with a full knowledge of what I am saying, because I expressed the same opinion publicly more than once when I was Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of New 'Zealand—we have never up to now had the view of the responsible men at the Adrairaltv or the active men at sea in control of the Navy made to the representatives of the overesa countries'as to What best suits the needs, the trials, the troubles and difficulties of the Empire upon this ; vital question of whether it should be Empire Navy. We want their advice; we are. prepared to listen to them.

I ''There was at least one country, Australia, that had in that respect done magnificently. But there was cot one of these countries that could, in his opinion, yet bear the burden of establishing an independent navy for itself that would be of any effective use. This war had already wrung from the enemy island possessions in the Pacific that they will never get back again. A suitable Navy in the Pacific would, with these added responsibilities, be more necessary after the war than ever before. If they did not go for one great Empire Navy, under/ the control of the Admiralty in times of war, then the very expansion of the Pacific and the needs of the Empire in the Pacific would call for tho establishment of a Pacific Navy, a Pacific Navy partly owned by tho British colonics immediately concerned and partly by the British Government. ' But they must not go back to tho old, unprepared condition of things that existed,, and be without a Navy in the Pacific. (Applause/. They should not have to rely upon the navy of any friendly "Power to do for them what they should do for themselves. And so this all-important question of Empire defence ought, and must, come np for consideration and solution after the war. (Appleutse).