THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1908. THE NAVY AND THE COLONIES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3036, 5 November 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1908. THE NAVY AND THE COLONIES.

Mr Archibald S. Hurd contributes to the "Fortnightly Review" an article concerning the present strength of the British Navy, under the title of "The Colonies and our Challenged Sea Supremacy." He objects strongly to the colonies maintaining small colonial fleets of their own, and recommends that all parts of.the Empire should co-operate to maintain an Imperial navy. He says that in the near future the cost of the British navy must rise to £40,000,000 if the two-Power standard is to be maintained, and under a scheme of Imperial co-operation the burden might be distributed thus:—United Kingdom, £35,000,000; Canada, £1,500,000; South Africa, £1,000,000; Commonwealth, £1,500,000; New Zealand, £250,000; India, £500,000; Crown colonies, £250,000; total, £40,000,000. Such a plan of co-oper-ation would safeguard the two-Power standard for a hundred years, would effect a union of purpose between the Mother Country and the oversea dominions, would enable the Admiralty to place half a dozen battle-

ships at any desirable moment once more at Hongkong, and thus assuage all possible cause of anxiety ip the Commonwealth, and would give I each section of the Empire an interest in the fleet as the emblem of unity of a sea-divided Empire. A navy on this basis would be the subject of an Imperial contract for a fixed term of years, and through the reconstructed Committee of Imperial Defence each portion of the Empire would have a channel for making its voice heard, while every colony would have the right of entry for its sons into the force as officers or as men.