“BRITAIN HAS NO ALLIES.”

Taranaki Daily News, 23 April 1921, Page 12

“BRITAIN HAS NO ALLIES.”

SOME STRAIGHT SPEAKING. "THE THE SOUTH.” Britain has no allies now. That sentence was repeated often by Mr. E. H. Davis at Auckland the other night, when he was telling members of the Victoria Cruising Club about the things that impressed him while away on his recent tour. In America he was astounded by the feeling shown against Britain. In France and Belgium he was oppressed by the lack of sincerity of all the friendly sentiments for Britain, and he said they impressed him as being merely political phrases. In Italy it was the same. They were all “’very nice and so forth.” and he did not wish to speak in any unfriendly spirit, but here as everywhere he found that something was lacking in the much-vaunted sentiments supposed to exist between “the Allies”.

"Our only security lies within ourselves,” he declared. "We have only one thing to thank, and that is our own British Empire. And our strength lies in two things—our Army and our Navy.” Speaking to the younger men. lie said: “Do not let false doctrines enter your hearts or your heads. The English are the super-men of the world. Emulate your fathers, the English, and you will not go far wrong. There is only one flag in the world to-day, and that is the Union Jack.” Continuing in the same strain, he again impressed upon the gathering that England to-day had no allies. “Make no mistake,” he insisted, "the point I want to make is this: There is'no country to-day that is an ally of England. She possesses only two allies;' they are her Army and her Navy. The fact of the matter is that all countries are jealous of Britain; jealous of her trade, and jealous because they ?ould not bo like her.”

Later on he came back to the same topic, and said that the people of England looked upon New Zealand as the one colony of the (Empire whose children were most like themselves. The New Zealanders when in England had impressed everybody by their behaviour, and to-day Britain truly looked upon this Dominion as “the Britain of the South.”

He had spoken with Lord Fisher, who was First Sea Lord, and this great man had told him that submarines and aircraft were the most adequate means of defence for the colonies.