The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 1906. COLONIAL NAVAL DEFENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 196, 17 August 1906, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 1906. COLONIAL NAVAL DEFENCE.

a . For the cause that lacks assistance. For the wrong that needs resistance. For the future in the distance. And the good that we can do.

The Committee of Imperial Defence has done a signal service for the colonies by framing a report on colonial naval and military policy. . This document was prepared by the British committee in co-operation with Captain Cresvrell, the able and enthusiastic naval director for the Commonwealth, aud Colonel Bridges, representing the military element in Australian defence; aDd though a portion of tee report dealing with coastal defence is still reserved, aJI its essential features are now made' public. Much the most important; point is the emphatic declaration in favour of an Imperial as distinct from an Australian navy. Captain Creswell has always been an ardent advocate of a locallyowned, and even a locally-constructed navy; and it was believed in certain quarters in Australia that ho had been ablo to induce the Imperial authorities to accept his views. But the language of the report on this subject«is throughout clear and unmistakable. The military forces of Australia must be "reorganised, and its chief harbours must be adequately fortified, Eut in the last resort the only reliable defence for Australia is the Imperial Navy; and. the request for a locally-owned fleet is, according to the report, 'based on imperfect conceptions of the requirements of naval strategy of the present day, and the proper application of a naval force. , '

The general arguments employed to support this conclusion have been rendered familiar to the reading public of late years by the "writing's of naval experts of all countries, and by the course of contemporary naval history. The only sure defence for Australia, as for the Empire at large, is England's naval supremacj r ; and that can be maintained , only by securing , for her fleets absolute preponderance in fighting strength wherever and -whenever the decisive struggle has to be fought out. Pitched battles between concentrated bodies of warships must therefore bo the real test of the Empire's ability to hold its own against the world; and the strength of small local squadrons, or the prospects of avoiding local attacks by raiders are factors that will not enter into the main problem. As tho report of the Imperial Defence Committee rather bluntly pute it: "raids on distant portions of the Empire can only be of secondary importance"; though it advises the colonies to guard against such assaults by the organisation of efficient military forces, and tho construction of fortified strongholds at fixed points on the coast. But so long as England retains control of the seas, no hostile power could detach a force sufficiently large to do much harm, to the colonies; .while if England's sea power is once broksn, the fate of the Empire is irrevocably sealed. The British cruisers will protect our trade routes, the British fleets wiU seek out and,engage the enemy wherever he is to be found; and it is only by strengthening the striking power of the navy as a whole, and ignoring purely local considerations, that sound principles of strategy can be followed, and the vitally important objects of a policy of Imperial Defence can be secured. These views, as we have said, are held by the great majority of naval experts; and they appear to us to be thoroughly justified by what is generally known of the theory and practise of modern warfare. At the same time it must be ad-, mitted that there 'is something to 'be said for Captain CresweU's scheme of an Australian navy; and the case in its favour has been recently stated with great clearness and emphasis by Admiral Penrose Fitzgerald. This distinguished officer has been strongly impressed with the necessity for studying colonial feeling on such points, and the advisability of promoting the grovrth of local patriotism in England's oversea dependencies. He considers that England has no right to demand naval the .colonies, and that the objection held by colonists to larger payments on account of Imperial defence is due'mot to mean-

n«fc or lack of patriotism, but to the conviction they are not properly represented In the council of the Empire, they have no. voice in. the distribution of" its naval forces, and no direct means of securing the protection of their own shores. The colonies have to thank ■ Admiral Fitzgerald, for his generous defence of them against the attacks of many short-sighted critics at Home; for the records of the last great war show plainly enough, that the colonies are ready and willing to fight for the Flag when the call comes. The example of Canada, perhaps the most intensely Imperialistic of all British colonies, -shows that the refusal to pay a naval subsidy does not indicate any lack of genuine The events of the South African war, says Admiral Fitzgerald, may be taken to prove that if the colonies had navies of, their .own they would be prepared to allow the Imperial authorities to utilise them wherever they thought fit in time of wax. For all these reasons Admiral Fitzgerald holds that the Home Government at the next Colonial Conference should remit absolutely and unconditionally the payment of all naval subsidies from the colonies, as being unpopular and insignificant in amount; and also because, being a form of taxation without representation they bear a sinister likeness to the policy which lost us our North American colonies in the eighteenth century.

It once occur to our readera that whatever be the value of Admiral Fitzgerald's arguments in other respects, he has entirely ignored the immensely important question of expense. However small and inefficient a colonial fleet might be, it would involve a very heavy outlay; an d assuredly no substitute for even the small Pacific Squadron that now guards our shores could be provided without an expenditure beside which the, present naval subsidy would be a mere trifle. The Australasian colonies pay altogether less than a quarter of a million a year toward the support pf the British navy; whereas a single first-class cruiser costs at least threequarters of a million, and a battleship at least a million sterling. We have surely seen and beard enough of the grievous burdeu of excessive military and naval expenditure elsewhere; and we may be well content with the absolute security that we now «njoy on exceedingly economical terms under the protection of England's dominant naval power. Nor does the evidence that could be quoted from Australian newspapers and the speeches of Australian public men encourage the hope that if Australia had a navy of her own, she would be prepared to see it withdrawn from her own shores to be employed wherever the directors of the Empire's naval policy might see fit to use it. It is true that there is a strong feeling in Australia to-day in favour of a purely colonial navy. But though Captain Creswell and Dr. Fitchett and a few of the leaders of the movement de&ire chiefly to foster Imperial patriotism in the colonies, the support they have- received comes mostly from those who fear that Australia's coasts may be left defenceless in war time through the withdrawal of the Pacific Squadron to serve • the general purposes of British naval strategy elsewhere. Even Admiral Fitzgerald admits that it is necessary hat in war time the local interests of the colonies should be subservient to the naval policy of the Empire; and we fancy that if this principle is oncu accepted as immutable, tho Australians will rot trouble much further about a colonial navy. And we do nut think that there is much chance that the fundamental principles of naval strategy will ever be ignored by England in arranging her plans for the defence of the Empire. Sir John Coulomb, replying to Admiral Ptzgerald, has recently pointed out that the adequate naval defence of the Empire must be based upon the following assumptions:— (1{ Centralised command and management of the navy; (2) one great fleet homogeneous in the constitution and classification o^all its parts; (3) absolute freedom from any restriction, local or sentimental, in the use and application of all the elements of sea power by the central authority responsible to the Empire for its , maritime security. Accepting these principles, we can see no need for an Australian navy; ignoring them, we cannot conceive that any Australian navy could possibly be strong enough to protect the colonies. The only logical and possible conclusion, therefore, appears to be that which is contained in the report just drawn up by the Committee of Imperial Defence