AUSTRALIA'S NAVY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 130, 2 June 1923, Page 7

AUSTRALIA'S NAVY.

NEED FOR A DEFINITE POLICY. THE BASES OF JAPAN. (Received 10 a.m.) MELBOURNE, this day. A meeting of the Navy League ' speakers stressed that if Japan fortified Marshal and Caroline Islands her naval bases would be 2000 miles nearer Australia than at present. Speakers urged the need for a definite Australian naval policy. Prominence was given to the fact that Britain was .no longer the first sea power, having fallen below the United States. Some of the speakers contended that it was unsafe for any single nation at x the present time to disarm, and Australia's defence policy must be part of the Empire policy.—(A. and N.Z. Cable.) The questions of the naval defence of the Empire, and of local units or contributions from the Dominions, will be discussed at the Imperial Congress. On a strict § population basis the | 15.000.000 of the four great Dominions j iof the Empire would have to annually j j contribute £17.000,000 to England's 42,000,000 people £33,000.000 towards [ the maintenance of a British Common- ] wealth navy on an expenditure of j £50.000.000 annually. New Zealand s | contribution to the "pool would be about £1.250.000. The very mention of a fleet for the British Commonwealth at once suggests a complex problem, the solving of which is for the Empire s statesmen and naval advisers. AustraI lia and New Zealand demonstrated the ' great efficacy of their locally-controlled i naval units "in the Pacific and the North i Sea in the greatest war in history. The I German Pacific possessions, because ot j the naval units of these two Dominions, fell like ripe fruit into the lap of the British Empire. The undoubted success which attended the activities of the Australasian and New Zealand naval units is to be. apparently, held up by the Admiralty to the statesmen of the forthcoming Imperial Conference as the best prac- ■' tical argument that could be adduced 1 1 of the expediency of a fleet contributed in part by the great Dominions of the Empire. . The late Louis Botha, when Prime Minister of United South Africa, said that his campaign in German Southwest Africa would have been rendered less difficult if South Africa had possessed a locally-controlled navy such as Australia, and his argument also applied, he said, to the operations in German South-East Africa. Canada, like South Africa, felt the [ need of a locally-controlled navy dur- • ; ing the war, and although the Naval "! Service of Canada was established by )' the Naval Service Act of 1910. a keen I division of opinion amongst politicians j retarded the formation of a Canadian navy. Hence, when Sir Robert Borden favoured a British Commonwealth navy. to which Canada was to contribute on a population basis, he was met with a storm of criticism. one argument paraded being that such action would incense the L".S.A. The U.S.A.. however, has undergone ' a change of opinion since then owing 1 to the Isdeltv with which Eneland has ' kept the pact made at the Washington I : Conference in 1022 to scrap 12 capital - ships (battleships or battle-cruisers) m 1 addition to eight recently sold for - breaking up. and the maintenance ot only 15 in full commission, as compared with 38 before the war. As a result of the treaty tho ' personnel of the British fleet has been reduced by O0 000 men. and 10.000 men have been discharged from the docks, but still the British taxpayers have to pay fc £55.000.000 per annum for the upkeep - of the navy. 3 Under the Washington pact no rur--5 ther capital ships must be constructed by England until 1031. The proposed British" Commonwealth naval "pool, therefore, cannot include the construction of new capital ships (approximate cost of latest design £2.500.000) tor the Dominions, hut is obviously designed as a financial expedient to reduce the naval burden of the British taxt P a T er -