NAVAL SAFETY LIMIT.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1922, Page 6

NAVAL SAFETY LIMIT.

LORD JELLICOE’S VIEWS. “NOT ALTOGETHER HAPPY.” EFFICIENT PERSONNEL NEEDED. “I am not altogether happy about the future of the Empire’s Navy,” said the Governor-General, Lord Jellicoe, at a returned soldiers’ banquet at Ashburton. “We have seen by recent cablegrams that the Navy Estimates have been cut down, to what, in pre-war days, would have been a very low figure with the sovereign at its pre-war value. I know that we are right down to our safety limit. I know also that it is the case that money is very tight in the whole British Empire, and no doubt when things get a little easier we shall be prepared to go a little further in defence expenditure than we are doing now. When that time comes, I hope everybody will remember that you cannot improvise a navy; that is an impossibility. With good officers and noncommissioned officers to train the men, you can, to a certain extent, get a fine army together in a reasonably short period; but you can never do that with the navy. You cannot train your men as fast as you can build the ships in which they have to fight. As the prosperity and the safety of the Empire is bound to depend on sea communications as long as the Empire exists, it is a fact that one must look very seriously indeed at any proposal to weaken the naval forces.”

A similar note in respect to the army was struck by Colonel Young. In common with the navy, he said, the army was passing through a serious period of strength reduction. It would be noticed by the report of the Geddes Commission that a reduction of £20,000,000 in the army vote in Britain was recommended. In New Zealand, also, there was a reduction of £200.000 in the estimates for defence purposes. All realised that we were passing through a troublous period. but he hoped that when times were brighter, the returned men would back up serious endeavor to train and equip the younger generation for defence purposes. The years were coming when they would be back numbers, and it was “up to them” to see that the younger men were trained to carry on if the need arose. No one of them was anxious to see his son go through what they had gone through, but it was their place to see that if that eventuality occurred, they would be ready, trained and equipped for service.