THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY. AUGUST 5, 1909. SIR JOSEPH AND HIS DREADNOUGHT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9560, 5 August 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY. AUGUST 5, 1909. SIR JOSEPH AND HIS DREADNOUGHT.

It is generous to give a costly gift, or to offer genuinely to do so, but it is something worse than bad taste to insist upon the acceptation of a gift when the subject of it has na real desirj to accept it. Sir Joseph Ward, our absent Premier, has received mora than one bint in connection with the Dreadnought offer. " said to be spontaneously made by the people of New Zealand, that the money would be better spent on i. other forms of defenca than a ; Dreadnought, but "0, nerer shall our glory fade" that would not do r at all! Lord Charles Beresford, that great /sailor, and eminent authority on naval matters —well, let us say, at any rate, that he knows a little more about the Navy qaeation than Sir Joseph Ward, emphasised very pointedly a shore time ago that the money woußT' be better sp?nt in building cruisers to protect New Zealand's trade than in forcing a D Dreadnought upon the British Ad-. miralty. There is any amount of " money at Home with which to build Dreadnoughts, but the question of naval defence for the Australasian Dominions requires looking to. "The Times" has given Sir Joseph Ward a further hint. A cable published in Tuesday's issur contained tne intel ligence that "The Times" stated that . "one of the first questions for the | ires3nt Defence Conference is how oest to utilise the offers of New Zealand and Australia. The accep'ancs of Dreadnoughts for European service can only be regarded as a special measure for a special emer gency, and as a rr.atter quite distinct from the progressive naval policy which the conference must strive to evolve. 'The Times' suggests that the funds voted by New Zealand and Australia would be more profitably applied to cruisers, which would be fitted for service on the Australian station, and which would be better qualified for the Dominion's immediate requirements than battleships. The growing Local Australian flotilla would benefit from joint training with a British squadron, and the Imperial cruiser squadron would ex- < tend its opeiations from Simon's 1 Town (the Cape Colony naval station) j to Sydney, and from Auckland to ( Vancouver. This would show the flag s where at j resent it is little east), < would ensure the donors seeing their f own gifts, and would encourage j popular interest in naval affairs. It 0 would also do much to facilitate and r to establish a single standard * throughout the Empire's fleets, and £ would bring home to beholders the actual meaning of naval power." n When Sir Joseph Ward's attention j t<

was drawn to the article in "Ihe ( Times," of which apparently he is not a reader, he expressed the beliet that the New Zealand Government would not favour it. The Dominion would moat prefer to adhere to its own proposal. Sir Joseph Ward speaks for the Dominion, but he quite forgot to consult it when he offered a Dreadnought, or two, to the Home Government. He did not even consult his fellow members in the House! It is true, however, that he sent a strictly confidential telegram to every newspaper editor in ihe country, and that he frightened "seven bells," as the phrase goes, out of all the most I nervous journalists in the Dominion. It was understood, sub rosa, that a terrible crisis was about to arrive, but, well, no matter—our Premier is in London; our Dreadnought has been, figuratively speaking, hung about the neck of the British Government, and our House nf Parliament is closed in order that nothing whatever shall be done in the absence of our great Premier. Though New Zealand has not got a navy, though its Premier knows rothing whatever (comparatively speaking) of naval defence questions, the people of this country must realise with some degree of gra'.ification--in-these days of Dreadnoughts—that thay are at least subject to such discipline as might be expected at the hands of a naval martinet.