Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1935. NAVIES IN THE PACIFIC.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 165, 26 April 1935, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1935. NAVIES IN THE PACIFIC.

The "Morning Post" but stated a truism when it said that the question of naval defence in the Pacific is of vital importance to Australia and New Zealand and also to the other British possessions in the area/Britain, Japan, and the United States are the ratifying signatories of the London Treaty of 1930, the latest of the attempts to commit to written form a compact governing the relative strength of fleets. France and Italy were also >n the group of conferring nations then, but their mutual antagonism kept them out of the compact and made it of very limited worth. Their failure to ratify reduced the treaty to a shadow of its intended purpose, and in anticipation of this failure, as well as 'in recognition of the disappointing limits within which the work of the conference was done, it was agreed to try again in 1935, hoping for better fortune. However, the situation has since changed for the worse. Japan has withdrawn from the League and is content to be a cipher m its Disarmament Conference, for reasons of national policy in the East and the Pacific. The United States, apprehensively aware of possible results of this Japanese attitude, is much less enthusiastic now for covenants of naval reduction. Britain, awaking to the futility of generous gestures of disarmament and finding herself at a consequent disadvantage in vital defensive power, is thinking out the problem again, under compulsion of circumstances. The three great Naval Powers of the world have different national ends to serve. It is unfortunately true and truly unfortunate. Japan is pressing for recognition of her national needs. They relate to foot-hold in the world, to food, to factories; her population cannot be agriculturally supported without access to additional regions, anc their maintenance by secondary industries means acquisition of more raw materials and more markets. lnis leads to a mercantile marine, supported by a navy, both adequate to pressing necessities; and to a policy of expansion embracing contacts with the Asian continent and a sure no d on tropical islands now virtually possessed under mandate. America, with ambitions of world trade and incidentally a nervousness about Japan's aims, remembers her two seaboards and their divisive effect on her naval facilities; therefore, a big navy" policy, adding to maritime prowess in communications and defence, has appealed as imperative. Britain, more than ever concerned, as an outcome of narrowly national policies elsewhere, about keeping the Umpire effectively intact by means ot patrolled sea-pathways joining all the units across far spaces, must needs be al t in the equipment three Powers apart.